Thirteen (18 page)

“Will you come over? I need you to come over.”

“I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”

I brought her a raspberry mocha from Starbucks—tricky to keep from spilling while on my bike, but that's the kind of stud I am—and I listened as she went over it again and again: how stunned she was, how shattered, how broken-hearted. How she hadn't seen it coming. How she would never fall in love again, never ever ever.

Dinah came over, too. She rubbed Cinnamon's back and said, “Maybe he'll realize he made a mistake.”

Cinnamon gazed at Dinah with overly shiny eyes. Her lashes were damp with tears. “Do you think?” She turned to me. “People don't always mean it when they break up, do they? People get back together all the time!”

“Um…” I said. I wasn't sure how smart it was, encouraging this line of thought.

“Maybe he'll realize he had a temporary burst of insanity,” Dinah said.

“Or maybe he won't,” I said.

Cinnamon made a sound of indignation.

“I don't think you should falsely get your hopes up, that's all,” I said.

“Not falsely,” Cinnamon argued.

“Not falsely,” Dinah agreed.

I gave Dinah a hard look, and she lifted her shoulders, like,
What am I supposed to do? This is our friend. She's hurting.

“I just think…” I started.

“Yes, Miss I'm-in-a-Perfect-Relationship?” Cinnamon said.

I bristled. This wasn't about me. She shouldn't make it about me. But for her sake, I squashed my irritation.

“I just think you've got to believe a person when he says something,” I said. I told them the whole story of last night and how Lars got too busy on the computer to come over. I offered it as a gift, to prove that my relationship with Lars
wasn't
perfect.

“But he said he'd make it up to me, so what was I supposed to do?” I finished. “I could harp on him and make him feel bad, or I could believe him and be like, ‘Okay'.”

Dinah seemed puzzled. “What does that have to do with Cinnamon and Bryce?”

“Are you saying I
harped
on him?” Cinnamon demanded. “And that's why he broke up with me?”

“What? No! I never—”

She tilted her head. “And Lars didn't get sucked into the Internet, or whatever he told you. He was hanging with Bryce. Bryce told me.”

“Oh,” I said. My heart did a flippy thing. “So…they both got sucked into the Internet. They were probably playing computer games.”

“Nose-Ring Girl was there, too,” Cinnamon said. Her expression had a burning quality to it. “And her friend. Stephanie. They dropped by in Nose-Ring Girl's MINI Cooper, Bryce said.”

I tried to process this. Nose-Ring Girl? MINI Cooper? I'd seen her in it one day as she pulled into the high school parking lot, and it was blue and white, cute as a button. How was I supposed to compete with that?

“Bryce told you about his night and broke up with you, all in the same conversation?” Dinah asked.

Cinnamon raised her eyebrows. “Apparently so.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. Lars had lied to me. He lied to me because he'd rather hang out with Nose-Ring Girl than me.
You're sweet,
he'd said.
You're the best.

“Oh, Winnie,” Dinah said, reaching over to rub
my
back.

Cinnamon went from looking as if she'd won something to looking as if she'd lost it right back again.

“Who knows?” she said dismally. “Maybe they'll both change their minds.”

 

On Monday, Dinah and I protected Cinnamon from the evil Bryce, and Cinnamon and Dinah protected me from the evil Lars. Except he
wasn't
evil. He was Lars. And when he finally caught me on the quad without my bodyguards, he said, “Hey, babe. I looked for you after lunch. Where were you?”

I shrugged.

“I saved you this,” he said, pulling a cookie wrapped in a napkin out of his jacket pocket.

“Gee, thanks,” I said. He considered a cafeteria cookie some great gift?

“Aren't you going to take it? It's peanut butter. Your favorite.”

“Peanut butter's not my favorite. Chocolate chip is.”

“Second favorite, then.” He tried to get me to make eye contact. “Winnie? You okay?”

I shrugged again.

“Win-nie,” he cajoled. He tickled my ribs, slipping his hand inside my jacket and finding my most tender spot.

I pushed him away, but despite myself, I smiled. If only he weren't so cute! It would be a whole lot easier to stay mad at him if he weren't so cute.

He saw his advantage and ran with it, ducking in to steal a kiss. “Are we getting hot chocolate today?” he asked. Sometimes we walked to 7-Eleven after school and got hot chocolate from the machine. In warmer weather, Slurpees.

“I don't know, are we?” I said. “Or do you have other plans, like maybe getting sucked into the Internet again?”

Did I imagine it, or did he look nervous?

He did. He glanced away and folded his fingers over the cookie, which by now was probably crumbled.

Do it
, I told myself.
Confront him about Nose-Ring Girl. If you don't, you're a total wimp and should be lashed with a whip.

“If you want hot chocolate, then I'm taking you out for hot chocolate,” he said. “My treat.”

“Ooo, big spender,” I said. Hot chocolate from 7-Eleven was ninety-nine cents a cup.

“Anything for my girl,” he said. He smiled, crookedly at first, and then with more confidence. He lashed me with the ol' Lars charm.

 

When I got home, full of hot chocolate but lacking a spine, I tried to figure out, again, why it was so hard to stand up for myself when it came to Lars. Was it because I liked him so much? Didn't want to lose him? Didn't want to be the girl who was dumped, like Cinnamon?

I found Ty in the basement making trophies out of duct tape. He had a whole collection; he'd gone duct tape crazy after the taping-up-his-pants incident last year. He'd made himself a duct tape vest and a duct tape ball cap, both of which he occasionally wore to school.
More power to him
, I'd finally decided.

“So how are things with Lexie?” I asked. I wanted to hear some good news in the realm of girl-boy relationships. More than that, I just wanted some sweet, innocent Ty love. Maybe that would make me feel less tainted. “Do you still like her?”

“Yes, I am in love with her, and she is in love with me,” Ty said, intent on his trophy. He ripped off a piece of hot pink tape and wrapped it around the base. “But I do not like her friend.”

“You mean Claire?”

“No, I like Claire. Who I don't like is her new friend, Breezie.”

“Breezie? That's a cute name.” I tried it out in my head:
Breezie Perry
. “Why don't you like Breezie?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“She has a stench.”

I giggled. “A
stench
?”

“It follows her around. Wherever she goes, there it is.”

“Ty, be nice. Anyway, like you're really one to talk.” Just this morning, as we were getting ready for school, he'd called me over and asked me to smell the air near his bottom.

“No way,” I'd said. “Did you stink?”

“I don't know if I stank!” he protested. “That's why I need you to smell!”

“I don't mind my own stench,” he said now. “Just Breezie's.”

Well. This conversation wasn't giving me the warm fuzzies I'd hoped for. And “Breezie,” come to think of it, was a terrible name for a girl with a stench problem. I officially crossed “Breezie” off my name list, since everyone had stenches once in a while.

“So how's Joseph doing?” I said, changing the subject. “Is he one of the Bad Scary Dry Cleaners?”

“No,” Ty said. “Will you tear off a piece of black for me?”

I tore off a strip and stuck it to his arm. He pulled it free and placed it where it belonged.

“Another, please?”

I tore. I became his duct tape helper person. “Why isn't Joseph a Bad Scary Dry Cleaner? I thought you liked him.”

“I do like him. He's just absent all the time.”

I got a bad feeling. “What do you mean? Is he in the hospital? He hasn't dropped out of school, has he?”

“I don't know.” He held out his hand. “Duct tape, please.”

“But…that's awful!” I said. Chatting with Ty wasn't cheering me up one bit. “Joseph shouldn't be absent all the time. It's nearly Christmas! And Bryce shouldn't have broken up with Cinnamon! Christmas is supposed to be a happy time, not a time filled with sadness!”

Ty regarded me quizzically. “Duct tape, please?”

“Here,” I said, doing several quick rips. “The rest you'll have to do yourself. I've got to go.”

“Why?”

I pushed myself up from the carpet. My hair swished against my back; that's how long it had grown. The goal of cutting it for Locks of Love had floated around in my mind ever since June, popping up every so often and then submerging. But
could-have-would-have-should have
's got you only so far.

“There's something I need to do,” I said.

 

“You're sure about this?” the stylist said, her scissors poised over my head. A chunk of my hair draped over the fingers of her other hand, the requisite ten inches dangling down. Once she cut it, I'd go from being a long-haired girl to a short-haired girl. No more ponytails. No more messy French twists.

“I'm sure,” I said.

The stylist looked at Mom for permission, as if Mom were the ultimate authority. It was irritating, because it was
my
hair. Sheesh.

“It's up to Winnie,” Mom said.

“
Yes
,” I said. “I'm sure. I've been sure for six months.”

“You've been growing your hair out for six months?” Mom said. “And this was why?” She looked surprised and proud.

Warmth spread through me. Lars might be shocked—he might not even like it—but did I care?

“Well, I think it's wonderful what you're doing, and it sure will make a difference in someone's life,” the stylist said. She closed the blades of her scissors and claimed the first ten-inch chunk. “It's hard to feel good about yourself when you don't feel pretty. We all know it's the inside that counts—but the outside matters, too, doesn't it?”

“So true,” Mom said, who'd been complaining more and more about feeling fat.

“Will it be turned into a wig in time for Christmas?” I asked. My chest was tight with the scariness of seeing my hair go away, but I was breathing. I was okay.

“I don't know, hon,” the stylist said. She kept clipping. “But one day soon some lucky little girl is going to receive it, and it's sure to be her best present ever.”

T
Y
LOVED
HIS CHRISTMAS LIZARD.
Loved it, loved it, loved it. He named it Sneaky Bob Lizard, and he took it everywhere with him: to the dinner table, to the bathtub (Sneaky Bob didn't get in, but he kept watch from the counter), to bed. It made me happy.

On the morning of our first day back to school after break, Ty and Sneaky Bob joined me in my bathroom so we could chat as I got ready. Ty sat on the closed toilet; Sneaky Bob sat on Ty. Sneaky Bob's yellow eyes watched my every move.

“She is giving herself her beauty treatment,” Ty told Sneaky Bob as I stroked on a smidgen of the cool pink eye shadow Sandra had given me for Christmas. She'd given me a whole goodie bag of Sephora stuff, all different brands. I especially liked the “Bad Gal” mascara with its super-fat wand.

“Now she's making herself smell good,” he said as I spritzed the air with vanilla perfume and walked through it.

“Something your owner should look into,” I told Sneaky Bob.

“Okey-doke,” Ty said, hopping off the toilet. I aimed the perfume bottle at him, but he said he could do it himself.

Ah, well
, I thought.
A hint of vanilla never hurt a boy
. He spritzed a second time and whizzed Sneaky Bob through the mist.
Or a lizard
.

“Hey, Winnie,” Ty said. “How many frogs would fit in lizard's stomach?”

“Hmm. A real lizard, or Sneaky Bob?”

“Sneaky Bob
is
real,” Ty said.

“Well, yeah. I was talking size, though. Sneaky Bob's bigger than most lizards.”

“How many frogs would fit in Sneaky Bob's stomach. That's what I need to know.”

I imagined frogs the size of fists. I chunked them mentally into Sneaky Bob's belly. “Three,” I said.

“And how many bugs can one frog eat?”

“Hmm. Fifteen?”

“So what is fifteen plus fifteen plus fifteen?”

“You figure it out.” He was smart. He just didn't always know it.

“Forty-five,” he said, pleased. “That means Sneaky Bob can eat forty-five bugs.” He patted Sneaky Bob's head. “Good Sneaky Bob.”

I put on the dangly blue and green earrings that were my present from Lars and swished my head to feel their weight. They were beautiful. At first I worried they'd look freakish with my short hair—I was accustomed to dangly earrings with long hair—but Cinnamon and Dinah had assured me that they actually looked better with my chin-length bob. More dramatic. More sophisticated.

“What do you think?” I said, turning to Ty for his approval.

“Pretty,” he said. He tilted his face, offering up his cheek. “Kiss?”

I gave him a smooch—was there ever a sweeter brother than Ty?—and bestowed an additional smooch on Sneaky Bob.

“Gotta go, dudes,” I told the two of them. “Don't eat too many flies.”

 

Cinnamon and Dinah had a theory: Lars was the perfect boyfriend when we were alone; it was only when Nose-Ring Girl was around that he forgot how to treat me right. I hated to admit it, but it was maybe kind of true.

My goal on this first day back was to help Lars set a new pattern. New year, new pattern—it was fully within the realm of possibility.

How exactly I was going to do this, I hadn't figured out. Basically the plan was to get to him first, before Nose-Ring Girl appeared on the scene, and just exist as my cool, laidback self. I'd have on the earrings he gave me, which would remind him of our fabulous “just us” time over break, and I wouldn't let myself get cowed if Nose-Ring Girl did show up. I'd take Lars's hand. I'd be confident. If I felt like snuggling against him, well, then I would. Why not?

Flanked by Cinnamon and Dinah, I went to see Lars before first period. This was ballsy of us, as it meant hunting him down in the Boys' School, which was the old-school name for the building on campus where the high school guys had homeroom. At eight-ten, they'd join the girls for their actual classes, but during homeroom, it was testosterone city.

Cinnamon was nervous as we opened the heavy door and stepped into the first floor hall.

“What if we see Bryce?” she said.

“Then we'll glare at him like the snake he is,” I said. Cinnamon had gone ahead and given Bryce the Abercrombie sweater—bad move—but it hadn't softened his heart. Louise later told us that she'd seen Bryce wearing it at the mall, the day before New Year's Eve. He'd been with Stephanie, Nose-Ring Girl's crony.
Hiss
.

“I don't want to see him,” Cinnamon said. “I'm not ready.”

“His locker's at the other end of the hall from Lars's,” I reminded her. I clutched her arm. “Look—there he is!”

“Who? Bryce?” she said, hyperventilating.

“Lars,” I said. “Doesn't he look adorable?” He was wearing his new “Life Is Good” shirt, which I'd decided in the end was a better present for him than for Dinah and Cinnamon. I'd felt a teensy bit guilty, like I was selling out by putting him ahead of them, but that wasn't it at all. He was hard to buy for, and a “Life Is Good” shirt was quirky and just the right amount of intimate without going overboard. Dinah and Cinnamon were easy to buy for. Plus, it wasn't like they knew I'd switched their gift idea over to Lars. All they knew was that I'd given them lovely almond-scented shampoo and conditioner from The Body Shop. They were most appreciative.

“Aww!” Dinah said. “That color looks awesome on him.”

It did, it did. The shirt I'd selected was forest green, soft and faded, with a smiley stick figure guy on skis, since Lars loved to ski.

My heart rate quickened. “Lars!” I said when we were within feet of him. “Hey!”

He turned from his locker, and his face lit up. “Winnie! Nice earrings.”

“Nice shirt,” I retorted. He pulled me close, circling his arm around my waist.

He said “hey” to Cinnamon and Dinah, and he wasn't weird toward Cinnamon, which was good. He didn't mention Bryce. Neither did she. The four of us groaned about school being back in session and the prospect of getting our finals back, and the whole time, his arm stayed around me.

And then it left. His arm. He pulled away from me, and my throat closed. Nose-Ring Girl was heading our way.

“Doesn't she know this is the Boys' School?” Dinah whispered in my ear. “What is she doing here?”

Apparently, the same thing we were: visiting Lars. She gave him a teasing smile, a stupid, tenth-grade,
I'm so cool
smile, and I tried to keep my expression impassive. But nervousness made my armpits suddenly damp.

“Hey, mister,” she said to Lars. She said not one word to me or Cinnamon or Dinah. She didn't even comment on my hair, although she had to have noticed. (Lars, for the record, had tousled my newly short hair two days after I got it cut and said I looked terrific. “But you'd look terrific no matter what,” he'd said.)

“Hi, Brianna,” I said, just to prove I could. Yes, her name was Brianna. Now
that
was a bad name. A conceited, self-centered, boyfriend-stealing name. I'd continue to call her Nose-Ring Girl, thanks very much.

“Hi,” she said with no eye contact. She bumped Lars's hip. “Great party Friday, huh?”

Party? What party?
“I thought you went out with the guys on Friday,” I said.

“Um, I did,” he said, looking uncomfortable.

“Yeah, to Stephanie's party,” Nose-Ring Girl said. “Her parents were out of town. We did Jell-O shooters.”

“What's a Jell-O shooter?” Dinah asked.

Nose-Ring Girl glanced at her. She laughed.

The warning bell rang, and Lars raked his hand through his hair. “You better go,” he said to me. “You've got to make it all the way over to the junior high building.”

Nose-Ring Girl laughed again, with a snortish sound mixed in.

I felt helpless. I wanted to give Lars a quick kiss, to claim him as mine, but there was just too much in the air.

“Call me?” I said.

“You bet,” he said.

“Promise?”

Nose-Ring Girl rolled her eyes.

“I said I would,” Lars said.

I felt like an idiot.

“Come on, Winnie,” Dinah said. “Let's go.”

I had to fight not to look back over my shoulder.

 

The next day I skipped lunch, heading instead to the collection of Dumpsters behind the cafeteria. No one was supposed to go back there. It was smelly and shadowy and littered with cigarette butts, which you never never
never
saw on the rest of Westminster's campus. Where the Dumpsters lived was the dark underbelly of the school—and leaning against the back wall of the cafeteria, one foot propped on the bricks, was Amanda.

I'd heard she'd started hanging out back here. I hadn't believed it. Or maybe I had, because I'd wandered back here to find her, hadn't I?

“Um…hi,” I said.

If Amanda was surprised, she didn't show it. She was still doing the heavy-eyeliner thing, and she'd dyed her lovely Alice in Wonderland hair a flat, matte black. Her mode of being was to remain unimpressed at all times, a posture she pulled off admirably.

“Hey,” she said, neither friendly nor unfriendly. She had an inked in drawing of a rose on her wrist, I noticed. The petals, like her hair, were black.

Are you happy?
I suddenly wanted to ask. But I didn't. Even
I
wasn't that idiotic.

Her buddy, Aubrey, regarded me with the same impassive expression as Amanda. Aubrey had joined the Amanda-Gail-Malena crowd around the end of last semester, but now it seemed as if Amanda and Aubrey had split off and formed their own Goth duo.

“Um, can I ask you a question?” I said.

“I guess,” Amanda said.

I wanted to ask her alone, without Aubrey watching me like a lizard. (Only not a nice lizard, like Sneaky Bob.) But apparently that wasn't going to happen.

“Did you go to Stephanie's party on Saturday?”

She nodded, slowly. “I was there.”

“She told her mom she was spending the night with me,” Aubrey said. She sniggered. “Which was true. We just didn't watch
The Sound of Music
like we said we did.”

A twisty smile cracked Amanda's expression, and I thought without meaning to of Mrs. Wilson and her cashmere sweater sets.

Would I lie to Mom one day? Would there ever be a situation when I'd need to? Even if I did need to, I didn't know that I'd be able to pull it off. My gut hurt just thinking about it.

Then again, I sometimes lied to Mom about wearing my bike helmet. And my homework. And whose granola bar wrapper was crumpled plain as day on the floor by the sofa.

Well. Not
important
stuff, though.

“Um…was Lars there?” I asked. “At Stephanie's party?”

Amanda nodded again. “Brianna was hanging all over him, as usual. She's so trashy.”

My heart sank. I was also engulfed with shame, as if it were my fault, which was so wrong and false that I hated myself for it.

“Did he…seem to like it?” I asked. “I mean, not
like
it, but, you know, encourage it. Encourage
her
.” My cheeks burned. “Not tell her ‘no'.”

Aubrey was amused, which killed me. I hated Aubrey. Bad Aubrey.
Stupid, lizard-eyed, above-it-all Aubrey, who had split ends and didn't even know it.

Amanda shot Aubrey a look, and for that split second I had the sense that the Amanda I once knew still existed, even if she was buried beneath hair dye and black eyeliner. Amanda's look said
stop it
, and Aubrey did.

“He didn't tell her ‘no',” Amanda told me. “But he didn't reciprocate.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Guys are like that. They don't know
how
to say no.” She hitched up one shoulder. “That doesn't mean he isn't into you.”

“I know,” I said. But I also knew that being “into me” wasn't enough. Which sucked, because now I could no longer pretend it was.

 

“Winnie,” Ty said, poking my shoulder repeatedly. “Winnie!”

“
What
, Ty?” I was slumped next to him on the couch, my eyes tracking Timmy Turner as he battled a squadron of what appeared to be roaches. Ty sat criss-cross-applesauce on top of a pile of throw pillows, Sneaky Bob in his lap. I knew he thought I was being a poop, but I was there beside him, wasn't I? I'd told him I'd watch TV with him, and I, for one, was true to my word. Did he expect me to hold a conversation with him, too?