girl stuff.

by Lisi Harrison

  After a quick proofread, Ruthie uploaded the assignment to the TAG website, feeling just as confused as that poor werefox. She, the author, was responsible for getting Foxie out of that pickle, but if Ruthie knew how to do that, she wouldn’t be dealing with the same conundrum in her own life.

  “Hey.” Her mother smiled softly as she pushed open the door of Ruthie’s bedroom. Her contacts were out; her glasses and sweatpants were on. It was Ruthie’s favorite look. It meant Dr. Fran wasn’t on call. She was home for the night.

  “Let’s sit,” she said, gesturing to the bed.

  Ruthie slumped down beside her.

  “How’s everything going?” Fran asked, the two lines between her eyebrows deep with concern.

  “Fine. Why?”

  “I read the latest chapter of ‘Foxie the Werefox’ on the parent portal and—”

  “Already? I just posted it.”

  Fran placed her hand on Ruthie’s knee the way she did when a sick toddler was afraid. No wonder parents raved about her bedside manner on Yelp. Heat spilled from her touch; empathy radiated from her hazel eyes. Your pain was her pain. She was all in. “I’m worried about Foxie. She seems . . . conflicted.”

  Ruthie sighed, relieved this wasn’t about her. “She is conflicted.”

  “About what?”

  Ruthie looked through her mother’s glasses and deep into her eyes. Really? You can’t figure it out? “Either her brain is happy, or her heart is happy. They’re never both happy at the same time.”

  Fran laughed weakly.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You just described the struggle of a working mother.”

  “I did? How?”

  “If I’m with my patients, I can’t be with you. If I’m with you, I can’t help my patients. Being with one means disappointing the other. It’s a very hard balance to strike.”

  “How do you deal with it?”

  “I do the best I can when I’m at work and the best I can when I’m with you and Dad.”

  “But if you had to choose one, which would it be?”

  “I’d choose my heart. I’d choose you.”

  “So you think Foxie should drink the elixir and become human again?”

  “That depends,” Fran said. “Is Foxie having a hard time adjusting to her new . . . uh, hunting lifestyle?”

  “Adjusting?”

  “Yes. It’s a big change from her old life. Maybe it’s overwhelming her. In which case, she should be patient. She’ll get used to it in time.”

  “She doesn’t have time. That’s the problem. Her friends aren’t nocturnal. They’re on a totally different schedule. She’ll never see them, and they’ll move on without her.”

  “Well, maybe Foxie will make new friends. Werefox friends, like her.”

  “She doesn’t want werefox friends. She wants her regular friends.”

  “More than she wants to hunt and chase squirrels?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Foxie should drink the elixir.”

  “She should?”

  “Absolutely. Why keep her in a situation she can’t handle?”

  Ruthie felt a pinch of defensiveness on Foxie’s behalf. Of course she could handle it. She just missed her friends.

  “I’m no writer,” Fran continued, “but I do know there’s a difference between what a character wants and what a character needs. For example, Foxie may want to stay a werefox because it’s exciting, but she may need to be with her friends because they make her happy. Get it?”

  “Got it!” Ruthie gave her mom a giant hug that knocked them flat onto the bed. Without knowing it, Fran had revealed the code to Ruthie’s personal escape room.

  Now all she had to do was activate it, open the door, and leave.

  chapter twelve.

  IT HAD BEEN six days since Drew sat beside Fonda at the movie theater and promised she’d get over Will. And she tried. She really did. Did she still look for him before school, in the halls, during lunch, after school, and when she walked home with Fonda and Ruthie? Yes. She was still human. But when Drew spotted Will, she didn’t say hello, didn’t wave, didn’t even smile. It was progress. It also felt like getting donkey-kicked in the chest.

  “Maybe that guy Henry had something to do with it,” Drew said as the girls began drifting off to sleep. She was hosting their Friday-night sleepover, which, she decided, entitled her to one minor slip-up.

  “Something to do with what?” Fonda asked, flipping her pillow to the cold side.

  “Why Will was so strange. I mean, you saw the way Henry looked at Will when I mentioned we’d met at camp. Like it was weird that we already knew each other.”

  “Who is Henry?” Ruthie mumbled, sounding a little offended. “Why don’t I know about him?”

  “Henry is Will’s friend,” Drew said, feeling a little offended herself. She explained all of this weeks ago. “Anyway, maybe Henry is mad that Will didn’t tell him he knew me—”

  “Why would he be mad about that?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  “Hmmm,” Ruthie said. Moments later, the sound of their collective breathing took over, which was not ideal. If they fell asleep without solving this, it would be morning the next time they spoke. Drew would no longer be hosting their sleepover, and her slip-up opportunity would be over.

  “I was thinking of skating at the school tomorrow. If he’s there playing Zombie, do you think I should say hi or ignore him?”

  No one answered.

  “I mean, I don’t want him to think I’m still into him. I’m not. But at the same time—”

  “Dude!” Fonda snapped.

  Drew smiled. Finally, some enthusiasm. “I’m onto something, right?”

  “The only thing you’re onto is my last nerve.”

  “Mean,” Ruthie said sleepily.

  “No, Ruthie, mean is letting our friend torture herself over some guy who isn’t worth it.”

  “What if he is worth it and he’s just being . . . weird?” Drew asked.

  “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

  “I am believing him,” Drew said, thinking back to her five reasons. “I’m believing he’s fun.”

  “But he hasn’t been fun. He’s been weird. You said so yourself.”

  “I didn’t mean he is weird. I meant he was acting weird. There’s a difference.”

  Fonda lay back down and covered her head with her pillow. “I give up. I’m going to bed.”

  Drew lay there staring at the ceiling for so long the glow-in-the-dark stickers she, Ruthie, and Fonda had stuck there when they were eight began to lose their glow. There was more to her story with Will. Drew knew it the way she knew that with practice, she could keep up with Doug at the skate park or that she wanted to be a nurse one day. There was a quiet, confident hum inside her that just knew.

  What she didn’t know was why her friends kept doubting her. Why they couldn’t trust her enough to know it too.

  * * *

  ♥

  “Are you okay?” Drew asked Fonda the following morning as they said their goodbyes on the front porch. The sky was filled with dolphin-colored clouds. The air, with awkwardness.

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I dunno,” Drew said, because she didn’t. All she did know was that Fonda’s brown eyes were distant as she twisted her friendship bracelets around her wrist. “You’re both leaving. Usually we go to a movie or bike into town or—”

  “I have homework,” Ruthie said. “I’m building 3-D models of the diatomic molecules, so it won’t actually feel like work, but still. There are seven of them, so it’s a lot.”

  “And I have that Obstacles Facing Feminists lecture with my mom.”

  Drew sighed. It felt like she was get
ting ignored by Will all over again. Only this wasn’t Will; it was her best friends. Sure, every now and then one of them had a Saturday obligation, but both? Never.

  “Bummer,” Drew mumbled.

  Fonda shrugged. “I guess.”

  I guess? How could going to a lecture not be a bummer when they could be at the bead store making necklaces or sipping hot chocolate while deciding which famous people the coffee shop customers resembled? Instead they were parting ways.

  Again.

  * * *

  ♥

  “Flip up!” Doug shouted, thirty minutes later. His light brown hair had been moussed into a “natural” mess, and he was wearing new board shorts, no shirt. Drew didn’t bother telling him Winfrey wasn’t home, that Joan had taken her girls to the university for the Feminist Fall Lecture Series. If he knew, he’d head to the beach, leaving Drew to spend Saturday alone. And today, not even her favorite medical diagnosis show on Netflix could cheer her up. She needed companionship and a skateboard, stat.

  “I am flipping up.”

  “You’re not! You’re flipping down.”

  “Lies!” Drew told him. “Watch!” She pressed the ball of her back foot against the tail of her board, dragged the toe of her front foot and jumped. Then she fell on her butt and kicked her board toward Ruthie’s driveway. She groaned. She’d locked that trick months ago. What was happening?

  “That’s not a flip up,” Doug said, “It’s a flip out. What’s going on with you?”

  When Drew didn’t answer, he tossed a pebble at her shoe. When she didn’t answer again, he tossed a handful.

  “What the heck?”

  Lying down beside her, Doug folded his hands under his head like he was on a chaise, not a cul-de-sac of despair. “Come on, tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Why you’ve been moping around all morning.” The hair on his arms was golden, same as the stubble on his chin. “Is it girl stuff or boy stuff?”

  “Girl stuff.”

  His cheeks flushed pink. “Oh. Then talk to Mom.”

  “Not that kind of girl stuff.” Drew giggled. “It’s girl stuff about boy stuff.”

  “In that case, shoot.” Doug sat up and rubbed his hands together.

  First, Drew told him about Will and the five reasons why she cared, then braced herself for the part of the story that made her chest tighten. “Then, when I saw him at school, he acted like we’d never met.”

  “Was he with his buddies?”

  “One.”

  “And you?”

  “Just Fonda.”

  Doug jumped to his feet. “That explains it.”

  “You think he has an issue with Fonda?”

  “No.” He pulled Drew up to stand. “It doesn’t matter who you were with. The point is you weren’t alone, which explains why he was acting cool.”

  “He wasn’t acting cool, Doug. He was acting uncool.”

  “I meant cool like cold, not cool like me.” He winked. “There’s a difference.”

  “Winking is not cool.”

  “Said the girl hanging out with her brother on a Saturday afternoon.”

  Drew swatted him on the arm.

  “When I left St. Andrew’s and went to public, I was a mess too. It takes time to figure everything out.”

  “Great. So what have you figured out?” Drew asked, aware of the impatience in her own voice. “Besides the fact that I’m a mess.”

  “I figured out that . . .” Doug drummed his thighs to heighten the anticipation.

  Drew swatted him again. “Just tell me!”

  “Will isn’t weird; he’s shy. Bam!” Doug jumped back like he always did when he dropped some truth. As if giving it room to land.

  “Shy?”

  “Yes, shy. Shy and nervous. Guys are terrified of embarrassing themselves in front of girls. And they’re even more terrified of embarrassing themselves in front of their buddies.”

  “Why?” Drew asked, wondering how one could possibly be embarrassed around their friends. Fonda and Ruthie made her feel better when she did something goofy, not worse. Well, they used to, at least.

  “Guys live to torture each other.”

  “So what am I supposed to do, torture him?”

  Doug laughed. “No, the opposite. Find him when he’s alone, and see if he’s nicer. If he is, don’t play games. Be nice back. He needs to know he can trust you. That you won’t try to embarrass him. Do that, and you’ll be playing Zombie in no time.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Who wouldn’t want to shove you off a skateboard?” he teased.

  Drew didn’t bother asking what to do if he didn’t treat her better, because this plan was going to work. It had to work. Where there’s a Will, there’s a way.

  chapter thirteen.

  FOOTBALL.

  The word was rarely, if ever, spoken by a Miller woman. But with the high school homecoming dance less than a week away, it was all Winfrey and Amelia could talk about. Instead of surfing and playing volleyball, like they usually did on Sundays, they, along with three friends, had transformed the living room into a day spa. To them, “scoring big” meant turning heads on the dance floor after the big game, which they clearly believed would be easier if their pores weren’t clogged.

  And then there was Fonda. Making popcorn in the kitchen, one kernel at a time, so she could spy on them without appearing to be, well, spying on them. Was it immoral? Probably. But after her failed attempt at forming an influential group, getting left off the Avas’ party list, and having a stage-five awkward sleepover with her so-called nesties, Fonda wasn’t interested in moral. She was interested in saving her sinking friend-ships.

  How had everything gone so sideways? When she made her vision board, everything seemed so possible. Probable, even. She could practically feel her flat-ironed hair blowing in the breeze as she, Drew, and Ruthie sauntered onto campus, laughing, while the Avas looked on with envy. How can we be part of their fearless, fashionable, fun-loving group? their slack jaws would seem to say.

  Not only had that not happened, but there she was, yet again, watching her sisters live the life she wanted while hers continued to fall apart. Like the un-popped kernels at the bottom of her bowl, Fonda was there but unwanted. And on top of that, the two people who always treated her like a be-long were acting all so-long.

  Was there a little self-pity going on here? No, there was a lot. Because come on, the sleepover at Drew’s was tense because:

  Fonda lost patience with Drew because she was still hung up on a guy who blew her off.

  Ruthie heavy-sighed whenever Drew and Fonda shared a story from one of their classes.

  Drew changed the subject when Ruthie recited a limerick her friend Sage wrote about the periodic table.

  Fonda was happy that Drew changed the subject, because she was kind of jealous that Ruthie had made a new friend too.

  Everyone went their separate ways on Saturday, which NEVER happened.

  Basically, the next-door besties were acting more like next-door foes, and the idea of changing their name from nesties to noes felt even worse than it sounded.

  Fonda would have been lying if she’d said the idea of giving up and moving to Myanmar to build houses for Habitat for Humanity didn’t cross her mind. But one of yesterday’s speakers at the Feminist Fall Lecture Series talked about the importance of women lifting each other up so they could reach their goals. And that lifted Fonda up. Not enough to keep self-pity at bay, but certainly enough to keep her from moving to Myanmar. Maybe they were going through rough waters, but she was going to right their sinking friend-ship and put the nesties back on course. And if that required a little eavesdropping to find out how the popular girls kept their friend-ships afloat, so be it.

  “What’s our answer
to last year’s sneaker pact?” asked Winfrey as she blew on her drying white polish.

  “Um, what’s the question?” muttered her friend Jaymee, the clay on her face mask dried and cracking.

  Fonda smiled to herself. Lately, Winfrey had been saying things like What’s our answer to backpacks? or What’s our answer to beef? It was her fancy new way of pointing out that a tired old trend needed updating and that she was the person for the job. Basically, it was her “answer” to the normal way of asking, How can I stand out? And everyone found it super confusing.

  “The question is, we all wore sneakers to the dance last year, and we need to come up with something better.”

  That’s not a question, Fonda thought. But Winfrey’s friends didn’t fixate on semantics. Ruthie, on the other hand, would have placed a citizen’s arrest.

  “Anything but heels.” Amelia padded over to the hair-staining station to contemplate the colors. “Like I always say—”

  “Cute can be comfortable, and comfortable is cute,” everyone said together.

  Fonda typed GET A PERSONAL SLOGAN in the Notes app on her phone.

  “What about sandals?” said Cami, peeling a crooked false eyelash off her lid.

  “Ehhh!” Winfrey said, impersonating an elimination buzzer. “Too daytime.”

  “Flip-flops?” Priya tried.

  “Too July.”

  “Rain boots?” Jaymee said.

  “NF!” Winfrey and Amelia called. It stood for not funny. They shouted it whenever someone told a bad joke.