“A riot?” I teased him.
“Yes! And she’s who she is, you know.”
“Yeah.”
It was quiet for a second.
“How did you know that you liked her?” I asked.
He chewed on his lip for a minute before saying, “I guess I just did.”
“Hmm.”
“Feels kinda odd talking about it,” he said quietly.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “You were just so eager to talk about it and … love earlier.”
“True,” he said, then laughed. “I don’t know. Just feels weird right now.”
“Okay…” We stared at each other on the screen until we cracked up. “You know what’s really weird?”
“Please tell me. I can’t stand any type of suspense,” Charlie said.
“Dad had lyrics from a U2 song engraved on their wedding bands.”
“That man and his eighties tunes. Gotta love it.”
And we talked on and on like that until he fell asleep in front of the computer. I couldn’t help but stay awake. As far as I was concerned, it was the last night when Charlie was mine.
* * *
Now, I don’t want to freak anyone out, but the next day at school I had a pretty big surprise. And that surprise was a big old nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing strange or embarrassing or emoji-creating happened! I went to class, I did my art, I blessed the stars in the sky for Mr. Murray’s health, and I waited for a note from Charlie to arrive in my locker. When it did, it was brief. Well, after the daily food rundown, of course. He hadn’t told her yet. It made me wish I hadn’t made plans to hang out with my mom. Then at least I could have had a little more Charlie time. Part of me had felt guilty for not telling him last night that I had been with her and was planning on meeting up again. I guess the other part of me knew that I needed to make sure things were good before telling anyone. This had to be perfect. My future was kind of riding on it.
* * *
“There you go,” my mom said as she handed me the glass of milk, just like the day before.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Wanna play some cards, then watch a little TV before you go?”
“Yeah, that sounds great,” I told her.
“I always watch Wheel of Fortune. Every day,” she said. “Never missed one.”
“Really? What about yesterday?”
“Oh, I looked before I got you—it was a rerun.”
“Phew!” I feigned relief.
She got out the UNO deck and we played until Wheel of Fortune came on. Once it was done she reached for her pack of cigarettes.
“Oops,” she said, realizing what she was doing. “I’m a creature of routine. Guess I need to change it up if you’re going to be around more often.”
“Guess so,” I said. “Hope it’s not a big deal!”
“Me, too,” she said, her fingers twitching with the unlit cigarette between them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NOTABLE NOTES
The next day I was almost mauled on the way to school by a beast called Charlie.
“I told her!” he squeaked, then coughed and forced his voice down an octave. “I told her.”
“Holy moly,” I said. My first instinct was to feel around for a stupidpower, but then I remembered I didn’t need to. “So you are … coupled?”
“Well,” he began, “I may have told her very late last night. Over messenger. And I fell asleep.”
“How could you fall asleep?!”
“Stress coma!” he said, like that was the natural thing to do.
“What do you have to be stressed about?”
“She could say that I’m just too darn handsome to date. Or, you know, that she thinks I’m awful,” he said, a trace of self-doubt twinging his voice.
“Oh, hush. You’re wonderful,” I said, then felt heat rise to my cheeks. “Anyway, remember me when you’re off in Coupleville with all the other couples playing couples tennis or whatever you do.”
“What are you talking about? Nothing’s going to change,” he said, shocked.
“You’ve seen Dad and Ms. Watson, right?” I said. I could feel myself getting upset, but even though I knew I wasn’t going to have a power surge, I wanted to get out of there. “I’m going to swing past the art room before homeroom, okay?” I said and went in the opposite direction before he could answer. “Let me know when to say proper congratulations!” I called over my shoulder. Then I wiped a stupid tear off of my stupid cheek.
After every class that day I checked my locker, waiting for The Note from Charlie, but class after class it didn’t show.
At the end of the day it finally appeared. I unfolded it quickly. “Haven’t seen her yet—finally got put in boys’ health class. Boo. Boys are gross,” it said. I wrote Charlie a quick note telling him to text me when he could and that I had to do stuff after school. “Stuff” equaled seeing my mom again. I went over to his locker and unlocked it. Might as well get a piece of gum while I was there. As usual, a few things spilled out onto the floor, so I leaned over, set both notes on the ground, and tried to sweep the other debris back into its home. Within our mess, I noticed our notes from the day before.
“Well, well, Veronica McGowan. Looks like someone has been passing notes in school.”
For farts’ sake.
Above me stood Mr. Stephens, happy as a clam. (I’ll never understand that saying. Are clams naturally happy? Do people think their shells are smiling? If anything, I’d say they look indecisive. “Indecisive as a clam” should be the saying.)
“Let’s go!” he sang as he snatched the notes up from the pile of rubble that had escaped Charlie’s locker.
“Those are just pieces of paper,” I said as I closed the locker.
“These are notes.”
“If they are notes, who cares? It’s not like I was passing them during class.”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” he said proudly. “Principal’s office. Now.”
He walked behind me the whole way and told the receptionist of my horrible crimes. He then turned over the notes, including the old ones and one on purple paper, which I hadn’t seen.
Mr. Stephens scanned the open notes. “Looks like you need to call in Betsy Monroe and Charles Weathers, too. They seem to be her accomplices.”
“We’ll let their—” the receptionist started, but Mr. Stephens interrupted.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do it.” He barged behind the desk and went to the corner where the morning announcement station was set up. He flicked on the power switch and talked into the receiver. “Betsy Monroe and Charles Weathers, please report to the principal’s office. Now.” His eyes twinkled as he looked at me.
“We’ll take it from here, Mr. Stephens,” the annoyed receptionist told him.
“How’s that sense of humor holding up?” he asked me as he walked out the door.
The receptionist took the handful of notes into the back offices. A few minutes later, Charlie and Betsy arrived within seconds of each other.
“What’s going on?” Charlie asked.
“Stephens found our notes,” I grumbled. “Decided to make a federal case out of it.”
“He’s the worst,” Charlie groaned.
“Are you okay, Betsy?” I asked. She was white as a ghost.
“I’m fine,” she said, but she didn’t look at either of us.
“It’s okay, we won’t get in that much trouble,” Charlie reassured her. Then he leaned over and whispered to me, “I hope.”
“Vice Principal Andrews will see you now,” the receptionist said when he returned.
“Vice Principal?!” Charlie whispered again to me. “We are in big trouble if we have to talk to her!”
“Sit, kids,” Miss Andrews said with a small smile. She was the nicest of the office staff, for sure, but it seemed like overkill for such a small offense.
“Normally the guidance counselor would handle this, but since Ms. Watson is set to be your stepmother so
on, Veronica, it poses a conflict of interest and I had to step in.”
I looked at the clock on the wall to my right. I needed to motor. I was already late to meet Mom.
“Late for something?” Miss Andrews asked.
“Uh, no,” I said meekly.
“Well, being as I don’t really care about this note stuff, you all can go. And here. Finish it up outside of school, please?” She handed us each a few of the confiscated notes. We all shoved them into our bags and pockets as quickly as possible.
The three of us looked at each other excitedly. We hustled towards the door before she could change her mind.
“No more notes in class,” she warned.
“Aye-aye, Captain!” Charlie saluted her.
“Thank you!” I said.
Betsy gave her a meaningful head nod.
“Oh, see you on Saturday,” Vice Principal Andrews said after us. “Event of the season!”
* * *
Seconds later we burst out the front entrance like we had escaped hard prison time. Everyone else had gone home, and the front of the school was completely abandoned.
“I can’t even believe that!” Charlie said, bewildered.
“I know!” I agreed.
“VP definitely became slightly cool,” Betsy observed.
My revelry stopped immediately. In the drop-off circle in front of the school there was an SUV with a black-haired woman leaning against it and smoking a cigarette.
“Crud.”
“Veri?” Charlie asked as my mom waved to me.
“I was worried about you!” she called out between drags on her cigarette. “You weren’t at our meeting spot at the meeting time!”
“Is that…” Charlie squinted, obviously trying to figure out if it was my mom.
“It’s her,” I confirmed.
Betsy stepped in front of me. “What do you want?” she called out.
Mom cackled. “Who’s this? I like her.”
“It’s okay,” I told them, and moved out from behind Betsy.
“No! It’s definitely not!” Charlie protested.
“I saw her the past few days. We hung out. It’s fine. She’s fine.”
“Veri!”
“We’re trying to fix things. Okay? I’m going to go with her.”
“Not alone you aren’t,” Betsy snorted.
“Seriously, it’s fine. I’ve been alone with her a couple times already.” I started walking toward my mom, but Betsy and Charlie followed me all the way to the car.
“Hi, Charlie,” Mom said.
“Hi?” Charlie said suspiciously.
“I’m Veronica’s mom.” She offered her hand to Betsy, who barely grabbed her fingertips.
“Betsy.”
“Ready to go?” Mom asked me.
“Yes,” Betsy and Charlie said in unison.
“Bye, friends, see you later,” I told them through gritted teeth. They did not need to come with us.
“Yep, we’ll see you in the car, and then wherever you are going, and then safely back home,” Betsy answered.
“Well then,” Mom said, giving me the eye, “let’s go.”
* * *
“Aren’t we going to your place?” I asked as we drove in the opposite direction.
“I’m thinking we might go somewhere with a little more space since there are so many of us. If we are going to wreck our schedule, we might as well enjoy it,” Mom said, turning on the blinker to head over the bridge leading past the oil refinery and toward the national forest.
“If she whacks us in the woods, I’m gonna be so mad,” Betsy whispered to me.
Much to my surprise (and secret relief), Mom quickly flipped on her turn signal again and pulled into the gravel parking lot of Dairy Dee-light, the ice cream shop.
“I had a major ice cream craving,” she told us. “Let’s get our sugar on!”
“This is bribery,” Charlie told me as we waited in line. “Very good, effective bribery, but bribery nonetheless.”
As we got out of the car, I nudged Charlie. “So?” I asked quietly.
“We haven’t gotten a chance to talk yet,” he whispered back as we got in line.
“But you have literally all your classes together.” I didn’t understand.
“She was in the art room for a project almost all day. Didn’t you see her?”
“What does everyone want?” Mom asked as we moved quickly to the window.
“Uh, get me whatever. I’m going to the bathroom,” Betsy said, and buzzed around the corner.
“When nature calls,” Mom mused.
Once we had our sweet treats, we sat at one of the picnic tables next to the river.
I took a bite of my cherry-dipped cone and waited for someone else to start the conversation.
“So why now?” Charlie filled the void.
“‘Why now’ what?” Mom asked after a sip of milkshake.
Charlie dug through his sundae, separating the gumballs from the ice cream. “This sundae always seems brilliant until I go to eat it…,” he mumbled to himself.
“I think Charlie wants to know why you are here now. And wanting to talk to Veronica,” Betsy answered for him. She had come back from the bathroom and sat next to me. She was really going overboard with the protective thing.
“Because she’s my daughter,” Mom said defensively. “Besides, I don’t need to answer to any of you. It’s Veronica’s and my relationship. Not yours.” Mom’s own words made her realize something and her eyes went wide. “Oh, the other woman…”
I choked on a bit of ice cream coating.
“Umm!” I almost shouted, “Betsy is going to be the videographer at the wedding, aren’t you, Betsy?” It was the first thing I thought of. Not great, but it changed the course of the conversation.
“Yep,” she said. “You aren’t coming, are you?”
“That would be a really bad scene,” Charlie agreed.
“These two are your little bulldogs, aren’t they?” Mom said to me. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on crashing the party,” she told them, but then gave me a little wink.
* * *
“Well, that was bizarro,” Charlie said as we watched the SUV zip away from us.
“She’s not that bad, right?” I asked.
“She doesn’t seem that great either,” Betsy said.
“Other than the free ice cream.”
“I better go. I think the blue line leaves soon,” Betsy told us.
“You want me to walk you?” Charlie asked.
“That’s very thoughtful, Charlie, but … I’m kinda worried Veronica’s mom is gonna come back or something. Maybe you should go with her.”
“She won’t,” I said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Besides, it’s out of the way,” Betsy said. “Really, thank you, though. I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow.”
Before we could say anything else, she sprinted out of sight.
“So you two never talked about it?” I asked Charlie while we walked home.
“When could we?”
“True.”
“And it would be awkward to talk about it in front of you,” Charlie said, then quickly added, “in front of anyone. Actually.”
“Yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah.”
We said our good nights and I went home. That was a very normal day. Getting in trouble for normal things. Why did it feel kind of blah?
* * *
After I got ready for bed, I pulled out of my pocket the small pile of notes that Vice Principal Andrews had given back to us. Just by looking at the paper, I could tell that all of them were mine. Except for one, which was on purple paper. Not pastel purple paper, but purple, purple paper. The words were bleeding through the note. Written in black marker. Definitely not Charlie’s handwriting. This was a note from Betsy, and I was 800 percent sure it wasn’t for me.
The note was folded really tightly, with one of the edges jammed into one of the folds. It wouldn’t just “accidentally” open.
Believe me, I tried. I dropped it about twenty times and tapped it on the edge of my desk.
“Einstein!” I called. Moments later he raced up the stairs and joined me, toy in his mouth. “Can we switcheroo, bud?” I asked, offering him the note in exchange for the toy, which was shaped like a piece of bacon. “Just pull on it a little?”
He wasn’t going for it. He shook his toy wildly, showing off. I couldn’t resist and grabbed the end of the fuzzy pork. We played for a few minutes before he got bored of my short attention span. I couldn’t help but keep looking at the note.
“You could really help me out here,” I reminded him.
Einstein took his toy and bounded back downstairs. A dog with scruples. With a sigh, I chucked the note into my backpack and called it a night.
I didn’t sleep well, though. It was like the note was burning a hole through my bag and into my soul. What was it? Probably a love note. Oh, yuck. Is that why she didn’t want to hang around? Maybe I didn’t want to read that anyway. Either way, I couldn’t wait to get it out of my temptation zone.
CHAPTER NINE
THE BREAKER UPPERER
I woke up as a woman on a mission. A strange and unusual mission: to track Betsy down as soon as possible. As soon as I was dressed, I plowed down the stairs and stepped into a scene I was not familiar with: Ms. Watson was with Dad in the kitchen making breakfast.
“Kiddo!” Dad greeted me.
“Hey, you two,” I said, eyeing the happy duo.
“You are about to lose your mind,” Dad told me, a huge smile on his face. He filled a plate with pancakes and handed it to me.
“Oh, really?”
“Can I tell her?” Dad asked Ms. Watson.
“Sure,” she answered, then flipped a pancake right in the pan without using a spatula.
“Some high-up lady at school,” Dad whispered, using his thumb to point at Ms. Watson, “decided you get to have today off.”
“What?”
“Part of the wedding celebration!” Dad grinned at me expectantly.
I looked at Ms. Watson. This was very, very, very strange.
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