Thirteen Plus One (8 page)

So I called him on it, and we broke up.

And in the aftermath, Sandra helped me realize that being broken up
wasn’t
what I wanted. What I wanted was just ... to like him, and have him like me back, and have fun together and be normal together. And not feel nervous about telling him what was on my mind.

Yet what had happened after we got back together? I’d been strong, outspoken Winnie for a second, maybe. But look at me now: I’d totally reverted to wimpy Winnie.
Ugh
.

“Stop the car!” I barked.

Sandra looked sideways at me.

“Okay, don’t
stop
the car,” I amended. “But would you turn around? Please? And take me to Lars’s house for one incredibly quick second?”

“Winnie. Mom’s probably got dinner ready. She’s probably wondering where we are.”

“Just for a microsecond. I
swear.”

She sighed, then eased up on the accelerator. She pulled into a driveway and turned around.

“Thank you thank you
thank
you,” I gushed.

“You better remember this when I need one of your kidneys,” she growled.

At Lars’s house, I lobbed pebbles at the window of his upstairs bedroom, something I’d always wanted to do. It was such a “romantic comedy” moment, not that we were in a romantic comedy.

But if we were in a romantic comedy, the guy would—suddenly appear!
Yes!
There he was, my beautiful sweet Lars, obviously surprised to see me. I gestured for him to come down, and he nodded and disappeared from view.

As I waited, my stomach filled with butterflies. But when Lars slipped through the front door and came over to me, I didn’t hesitate. A single moment of fear could do me in. I knew that.

I grabbed his shoulders, rose to my toes, and kissed him. I was light-headed when I finally pulled away. As for Lars, he looked dazed ... but in a good way.

Sandra honked. “Marla!” she bellowed through the open window. “Get a move on!”

“Marla?” Lars said, confused.

I touched my nose to his. Then I covered his ears with my hands so I wouldn’t burst his eardrums.

“Keep your pants on, Fanny!” I hollered.

Lars drew his eyebrows together. He was so adorable.

“Gotta go,” I told him. “But we have
got
to figure out a way to hang out this weekend, okay? Maybe Sunday brunch?”

He nodded. “And afterward we could go on a bike ride or something. Um, spend the whole day together.”

“That would be
awesome,”
I said happily. I kissed him one more time, not afraid at all.

I Stand Corrected

O
N APRIL FIFTEENTH, Sandra got her acceptance letter to

Middlebury, which was her top choice college. On April sixteenth, Dinah got suspended from Westminster.

Dinah.

Suspended.

The rumors flying through the junior high halls blew my news about Sandra right out of the water.

“Did you hear about Dinah?” Louise said, running up to me between third and fourth periods.

“Oh
. My
God
,
”
Malena said to Gail, the two of them miraculously materializing by my locker before Louise could elaborate.

“I know,” Gail replied. “I mean, we all knew she had issues.” She arched her eyebrows. “But a klepto?”

A klepto? My jaw dropped, and Malena smirked. I’d given them just the reaction they’d hoped for.

“Worst thing?” Malena said, supposedly to Gail but really to me. “From all reports, she didn’t even steal good stuff.”
Snicker snicker.
“All she stole were more of those crap kitty-cat shirts she wears.”

“I know,” Gail said. “If she’s going to steal, she should at least steal Gucci.”

“Pathetic,” Malena said.

I banged shut my locker.
“No,”
I said, facing them dead on. “What’s pathetic is having a pretend conversation just so I’ll listen in. If you’re so desperate for attention, go make an appointment with the counselor.”

Gail and Malena eyed me with twin sets of narrow eyes. Then Gail altered her features to convey fake sympathy at having to be the one to clue me in.

“Um, y-y-yeah,” Gail said. “Only, like, the counselor’s totally booked? She’s too busy telling Dinah’s father what a
klepto
his daughter is.”

She and Malena flounced off, peals of laughter trailing behind them like sick moths. I turned to Louise.

“What’s going on?” I said. “Dinah doesn’t
steal.”

Louise fidgeted, which was out of character, as Louise was a gossip and loved a good scandal. On the other hand, she
did
go to elementary school with me and Dinah. The three of us had known each other forever.

She touched my arm. My chest felt fluttery.

“They found all sorts of stuff in her locker,” she said. “Not crap. Not Gucci, either. But not kitty-cat shirts.”

“So? People
do
keep stuff in their lockers. That’s what lockers are for.”

“It was makeup, mainly.”

“And again ... so? Dinah wears makeup.”
Sometimes,
I added silently.

“But this was
lots
of makeup, still in its packaging. Bobbi Brown, MAC, Stila. A supercute bottle of Gwen Stefani perfume called Lil’ Angel, which is, um, kind of ironic.”

I was having trouble breathing. There were too many people in the hall, and too many of them were looking at me, no doubt thinking all sorts of shocked and gleeful thoughts about how Dinah—
my
best friend—was a makeup hoarder and a shoplifter.

Only, she
wasn’t.
I knew my Dinah, and she wasn’t either of those things.

“Louise,” I said. “Dinah
does
have money. Her dad’s not crazy rich, but Dinah has her own credit card that she’s authorized to sign for. Why would she steal makeup when she could just buy it?”

“I think it was more like—”

“No,”
I interrupted. “So Dinah has a lot of unopened makeup; that doesn’t make her a thief. Did anyone come right out and say, ‘Hey, Dinah, what’s up with this?”’

Louise tried to speak. Once more I rode over her.

“Maybe she bought them to give as birthday presents. Or maybe she wants a fresh image. Or maybe she was attacked by a very forceful Sephora salesclerk. You know how hard it is for her to say no!” I set my shoulders. “But if Dinah said the makeup is
hers,
it’s hers. Case closed.”

Louise nodded. She waited to make sure I was done. And then she said, “Except ... she didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“When Ms. Perkins called her into her office, Dinah had a breakdown and confessed.”

“Confessed
what
?”

“That the makeup was stolen. Winnie, Dinah admitted flat out that she didn’t pay for any of it.”

My brain operated in slow gear. “But ... I mean ...”

The bell rang.

I’ve got to go to class,” Louise said with unsettling gentleness. ”I just thought you should know.”

 

Speculation about Dinah ran rampant. Most theories were outlandish: that her father was so furious he was shipping her off to military school. That, in fact, she was already gone. Or that she’d been checked in to Georgia Regional Mental Hospital because she thought she was a vampire, and that’s what the makeup was for—so she could disguise her paleness in the light of day. Or, according to Lucy, a girl in my algebra class, the real issue was Dinah’s bulimia. Only, make that Dinah’s
nonexistent
bulimia.

“A) Dinah’s not bulimic,” I said flatly. “And B) Just say she was. She’s bulimic ... and so she steals makeup?”

Lucy pulled her algebra book, a binder, and a purple jeweled pen from her messenger bag. She arranged them fastidiously on her desk. “It’s a
control issue,”
she said. She laid a second pen by the first, lining them up so they were parallel. “Instead of food, she gorges on product.”

I’d never bonded with Lucy. Now I knew why.

Yet some of the stories possessed just enough of a
maybe
to worry me. I gnawed at the skin around my thumbnail until a whole chunk peeled free. It was gross.

And, making everything infinitely worse, I couldn’t find Dinah
all day
, or get her to answer any of my texts. Maybe she’d lost her cell phone privileges? I called her landline the minute I got home, and my muscles loosened when she finally picked up.

“Winnie, I’m such a bad friend,” she said. Her voice was thick from crying.

“No, you’re not,” I said. Although what did I know?

“I am,” she insisted. “I’m a horrible, horrible friend!”

“Oh,
Dinah,”
I said. Off the record, I was gratified at her willingness to admit she’d done me wrong by not coming to me earlier.
Way
earlier. But this wasn’t about me. This was about her. Anyway, the best way for her to stop being a horrible friend was to simply come clean.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened,” I suggested.

“What
happened
is that I got Mary
suspended
! ” Her voice ratcheted to a new level of frenzy. “Now
she’s
suspended instead of
me!”

“I’m sorry ... huh?”

“I’m suspended, too, but only for one day, and I get to make up any work I miss. But Mary’s suspended for a whole week,
and
it goes on her permanent record!”

I didn’t speak.

“See? I
am
a bad friend! A horrible, horrible friend!”

I still didn’t speak. I felt cold inside.

“Winnie, say something,” she begged. “Mary already hates me. Now you’re starting to worry me, too!”

“Yes, but you see, I thought you already
were
worried about me,” I said, pinching off the words. “I thought you meant a bad friend to
me,
because you didn’t come to me with your shoplifting problem, which I didn’t even know you had.”

Dinah fell silent. Then she started crying again. I could hear the muffled sounds of it, and I couldn’t bear it.

“So
Mary’s
behind all this?” I asked. “Mary Woods?”

“Well, yeah, it’s her makeup—didn’t you know?”

Irritation resurfaced. “How would I? You sure didn’t tell me!”

“Don’t be mean to me,” she whispered.

I tried to smush my anger back. I did. Or at least to redirect it at Mary, with her crafty fox-face.
Cute shirt, Winnie! Cinnamon,
love
your nails. Dinah ... don’t tell.

“Was she blackmailing you?” I asked.

“What?
No.”

“But you said it was her makeup. Hers, as in she owned it? Or hers as in she
stole
it?”

Dinah didn’t answer.

“Why did she put it in your locker?” I demanded. “Did she do it without your knowing it? Omigod, did she set you up on purpose?”

“Winnie ...”

“So Mary Woods is a shoplifter,” I pronounced. “What a loser.”

“She has a problem,” Dinah said faintly.

“Omigod, are you defending her? ” I should have stopped there, but I didn’t. “Are you a shoplifter, too?”

“Winnie!”

Hey, can’t blame me for asking, I thought. Since there’s so much else you haven’t told me.

“You’re making me feel worse instead of better,” Dinah said. “I’m not a shoplifter, and I would
think
you would know that.”

“I would think I would, too,” I shot back.

“Mary has a
problem,”
she repeated, and now her words came out forcefully. “Shoplifting is an ad
dic
tion, and it’s really hard for her, and it’s not your place to judge her.”

“Dinah—”

“And I let her keep her stuff in my locker because ... well, I don’t
know
why.” She sniffled. “And I promised I wouldn’t tell, but I broke under pressure! I
broke,
all right? Are you happy?! ”

I wasn’t. I’d started off mad, and I still was. But now a thread of fear moved through me. She was being ... so not
Dinah.

“Okay, um ... wow,” I said at last. I sounded flat. “That really sucks. I’m so sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” The fight had gone out of her, and if I sounded flat, she sounded ... well, a step below that, even. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ll, um, talk to you later.”

She hung up.

She didn’t come to school the next day, since she was serving her suspension. I still couldn’t believe it.
Dinah.

“Well, maybe that’s why,” Louise said at lunch.

“Maybe what’s why?” Cinnamon said.

“Why Dinah did it. Maybe she wanted to prove there’s more to her than people think.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“Is it?” Louise said, taking a bite of her sandwich. She was sitting with Cinnamon and me, and I think she liked being a member of our group, even though it was only for today. “Maybe she was sick of always being the good girl.”

“But she
is
a good girl,” I said.
“That’s who she is
. Weird Mary just corrupted her.”

“Personally, I think people are making too big a deal out of it,” Louise said. “What she did wasn’t even all that bad.”

“Are you kidding me?” I said. “She’s a shoplifter!”

Other kids glanced over. I blushed, realizing I was being a little loud.

“I’m talking about Dinah,” Louise said. She regarded me quizzically. “Dinah didn’t shoplift.”

“Yeah, well, she was an accomplice!” I was aware that I couldn’t have it both ways:
Dinah is bad
right up there next to
Dinah is my sweet, innocent Dinah.
My emotions were all tangled up, though. I’d
known
Mary was bad news. I’d written myself that note on my iPhone application: FIND OUT WHAT’S UP WITH MARY WOODS!

But then I’d ignored it. I’d made progress on my To-Do-Before-High-School list—
whoopee
—but I’d let the Mary Woods issue slide.

Was it too late? Should I add “Kick Mary Woods’s Butt” to my To-Do-Before-High-School list, or would that be cheating?