The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney

by Lauren Barnholdt

  Lexi and I walk into the hair salon, and the smell of chemicals and shampoo hits my nose. I inhale. I’m actually starting to like the smell of hair salons. It reminds me of being pretty, of getting ready to go places.

  “I have an appointment at four,” Lexi tells the receptionist, who starts flipping through the appointment book in front of her.

  “It’ll be just a second,” she says.

  Lexi turns to me. “Anyway, Jared says not to worry about Matt, that that’s kind of what he does with girls.” She pulls a mirror out of her purse and starts smoothing her hair. Which makes no sense, since she’s about to get it done. Why would she be fixing her hair before she’s about to get it cut? Isn’t that like trying to feel better before you go to the doctor’s? And isn’t it easier for them to work on your hair if it’s a big mess? I mean, they’re going to wash it for her. That’s why there’s all those horrible shots of celebrities in those celeb magazines—the paparazzi catch them when they’re looking horrible and on their way to the salon.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, not sure I’m liking the fact that Jared and Lexi talked for so long. What’s up with that? And how could he have been talking to her while he was supposed to be making up a test?

  “He said Matt is a great friend, but that he tends to move from girl to girl.” She snaps her compact shut and slides it back into her purse. “And he told me not to feel bad.”

  “I think he’s right,” I say. “You shouldn’t worry about it. You’re way too good for that.”

  I spend the next hour leafing through Seventeen magazine while Lexi gets her hair done. It takes longer than I thought, and I’m starting to get a little anxious. There’s no way my mom’s going to believe that it took this long to make up a test. Maybe I can tell her it was a really long test. With lots of essays.

  When Lexi finally emerges from the chair, she does a little twirl. “We’re twins!” she says, smiling. Lexi and I now have the same haircut and highlights.

  “Great!” I say brightly, hustling Lexi out of the salon. “Now let’s call your mom so she can come get us.”

  “Don’t you want to shop some more?” Lexi stops in front of a store to admire her reflection in the windows. “I need to show off my new haircut.” She pouts her lips at herself and then smiles.

  “I’d like to,” I say “But technically I’m grounded, remember?”

  “Oh.” She looks disappointed. “Right.”

  “So come on,” I say, walking quickly toward the other side of the mall, where Lexi’s mom always picks us up. “Let’s go.” I wonder how I’m going to sneak my sweater into the house. Put it in my backpack, I guess. I’m so preoccupied with making sure I don’t get caught that it takes me a second to realize that Lexi is no longer walking with me. I turn around, and she’s a few feet behind, stopped in her tracks.

  “Come on,” I say. What is the deal? I thought Lexi had mentioned something about running track at her old school. She’ll never make the team here if that’s her normal pace. “What are you looking at?” Lexi’s staring straight ahead, and when I follow her gaze, I realize why she stopped. Because coming up the escalator is Matt O’Connor. And he’s holding Kim’s hand.

  “I can’t believe she would do that!” Lexi rages. We’re in Lexi’s mom’s car on the way home, and although Lexi was quiet while we waited outside the mall for our ride, once she buckled her seat belt, she started becoming more vocal.

  “So this was your boyfriend?” Lexi’s mom asks, sounding confused. She slows down at a yellow light. I’m never going to get home on time if Lexi’s mom keeps driving like this. She’s about as fast as a dial-up connection.

  “Not exactly,” Lexi says. “But we were moving in that direction. He kissed me by the buses.”

  Mrs. Cortland nods, and once again I marvel at how different she is from my own mom. Lexi basically tells her she was making out with a guy who wasn’t even her boyfriend and her mom accepts this as being normal. I’m working on a project with a boy in my own home, with my little sister two feet away, and my mom acts like I’m two steps away from becoming a teen parent. “Well,” Lexi’s mom says, “it sounds like you need to win him back.”

  “Win him back?” Lexi asks, frowning.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Cortland says. “You have a new haircut now, which is a great first step.” She looks at the bag from bebe that’s on the front seat next to Lexi. “And you bought new clothes?”

  “Yeah,” Lexi says. “Devi and I bought matching sweaters.”

  Mrs. Cortland frowns again, but recovers quickly. “You can get him back, Lexi. You’re beautiful.”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” Lexi says, looking doubtful. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Of course it is,” Mrs. Cortland persists.

  “He kind of moves from girl to girl,” Lexi explains.

  “Did Kim know that you like him?” Mrs. Cortland asks, ignoring Lexi’s last remark. The light turns green, and she takes her time before pushing the gas pedal and going through it. I squirm in the backseat.

  “Of course she knew!” Lexi says. “Everyone knew!” They did?

  “She sounds like she’s not a very nice friend,” Lexi’s mom says.

  “She definitely isn’t,” Lexi says.

  “Hey,” I say. “I thought Kim liked Luke, anyway. What’s she doing going after Matt?”

  “I should have known it was coming,” Lexi moans. “Jared said Kim only goes after guys she thinks other people like. It’s like she has to prove that she’s better than them.”

  “So she only went after Luke because she thought he liked me?”

  “Jared says that’s what she does!” Lexi throws her hands up in the air. “It’s so diabolical.” She turns around and looks at me. “That’s the word Jared used to describe it. Diabolical. And you know that it must be true if Jared is calling her that. Since they’re friends and all.”

  Apparently Lexi and Jared had quite the chat, complete with big words and everything. This is troubling, but I don’t have too much time to dwell on it, because Mrs. Cortland is pulling into my driveway. I quickly unzip my backpack and shove the bag from bebe into it. Lexi’s mom is watching me in the rearview mirror. She probably thinks I stole it.

  “Your parents are home, right, Devon?” she asks. Her brows knit in concern. I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

  “My mom’s home, yeah,” I say. “I’ll see you in school tomorrow, Lexi.” I reach over the seat and squeeze her shoulder reassuringly. “And we’ll figure out what to do about this.”

  “Bye,” Lexi says forlornly. “Don’t forget to wear your sweater and belt tomorrow.”

  I jump out of the car and race toward the house. I’m half-expecting my mom to be waiting at the door, her hands on her hips and some kind of note in her hand from the school that says: DEVON DID NOT HAVE TO STAY AFTER TODAY. IF SHE TOLD YOU THAT SHE DID, IT’S BECAUSE SHE WAS LYING SO SHE COULD GO SHOPPING AT THE MALL WITH LEXI CORTLAND.

  But when I get in the house, my mom’s at the kitchen table, working on her laptop, and all she says is, “Hi, honey. How did your test go?”

  I collapse into the kitchen chair. “Fine,” I say. But later, as I’m taking my new clothes out of my bookbag, I don’t feel fine at all.

  chapter ten

  The next morning before homeroom, I wait for Mel at her locker again. I have no idea why she wasn’t in school yesterday. I couldn’t call her last night because I’m grounded from the phone, and I couldn’t IM her because I’m grounded from the computer.

  When I see her coming down the hall, her blue backpack bouncing on her shoulder, I feel an immediate sense of relief.

  “Hey,” she says when she sees me.

  “Hey,” I say, not sure how I’m supposed to act. I mean, the last time we talked, Mel hung up on me.

  “Are you still mad at me?” I ask her.

  “That depends on what you mean by mad,” she says. She twirls the dial on her locker and starts exchanging the books in her bag for the o
nes she needs for her morning classes.

  “By mad, I mean are you speaking to me, are you upset with me, are you going to ignore me?”

  “I’m obviously speaking to you. We’re speaking right now.” She continues taking out her books and doesn’t look at me.

  “Okaaay” I say. “Um, here’s the notebook back.” I hold our notebook out to her. I spent all last night writing in it, a long note about how much I missed her, and how even though I knew we hadn’t been hanging out much lately, she was still my best friend. She takes the notebook and drops it into her bag wordlessly. Okaaay. “So, um, where were you yesterday?” I try.

  “Like you care,” she snorts.

  “I do!” I say. “I waited for you all morning. I had this whole thing planned with balloons and everything.” She looks at me skeptically. Crap. I should have done the BFF locker today, but I wasn’t sure if Mel was going to be in school. And yesterday it was a big pain because I had to lug the stuff around with me all day, and some of the signs got ripped, and the balloons got wrecked.

  “If you care so much, why didn’t you call me last night to see where I was?”

  “Because I’m grounded from the phone. And the computer. And going out.”

  Mel frowns. “How come?”

  “It’s such a mess,” I say. “My mom came home the other night when I was supposed to be babysitting Katie and Luke was over. She flipped out and grounded me from everything. Which is ridiculous, because it wasn’t even my fault. I had no idea he was going to come over.” Suddenly I realize how much I’ve missed Mel. I don’t have to talk in my Devi voice when I’m around Mel. I don’t have to pretend to be a certain way, or to think about what lie I’ve told before I say anything. I can just be myself. “Mel, I really miss you,” I say. “And I’m so sorry if I’ve been neglecting our friendship lately.” I feel my voice catch, and suddenly my stomach drops.

  This is the part where Mel’s supposed to understand, wrap her arms around me in a huge hug, and then we walk off down the hall together, whispering and catching up. That’s what happens in movies, anyway. And then the credits will come—that’s how the movie ends, before anything bad can happen again, the one perfect moment that convinces the audience that everything is okay and is going to stay that way.

  Instead, Mel slams her locker door shut and turns to look at me. “How come you never told me the real reason you went to stay with your grandma this summer?”

  My heart stops. My face gets hot, and my head feels like it’s spinning. “What?” I say.

  “The real reason you went away for the summer,” Mel says, and crosses her arms in front of her.

  “What do you mean?” I croak.

  “Just what I said.” She looks at me, her blue eyes serious. “How come you never told me you went away because your parents were thinking about getting a divorce?”

  “They weren’t thinking about getting a divorce,” I say. I don’t know why I say that. It’s a lie, and I can tell Mel knows it. But it’s my first instinct. Oh. My. God. Have I become such a horrible person that my first instinct is to lie?

  “Devon, please,” she says. “My mom ran into your grandmother at the outlet malls and she told her all about it.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks again.

  “I don’t know,” I say. It’s not like she would have judged me or taken pity on me. She would have listened to me. Because she’s a good friend. Unlike me, who’s been horrible to her lately.

  “Does Lexi know?” Mel demands.

  “About my parents?”

  “Yeah.”

  I don’t say anything. Because Lexi does know.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Mel says. Suddenly I’m scared. I start to realize that Mel is really, really angry at me. So angry that she might end our friendship. I take a deep breath.

  “Mel, it wasn’t like that,” I say, trying to make sure my voice stays calm. “It wasn’t like I told Lexi and didn’t tell you. It was just easier to tell her.”

  “Because you trust her more,” Mel says quietly.

  “No!” I say. “Because I wasn’t really friends with her, not the way I am with you.” I shake my head vehemently. “Because she didn’t really know me, and I didn’t think I was ever going to see her again.”

  “And not because you guys are better friends?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “Absolutely not.”

  Mel bites her lip, and for a second I think I may have won her over. But then Lexi picks that moment to come over and say good morning.

  “Devi!” she squeals, coming up behind me and throwing her arms around me. “I feel so much better than yesterday!” I turn around. She’s wearing the same sweater and belt as I am, and our hair is cut and colored the same way. “Hi, Mel!” Lexi says. “Are you okay? You weren’t in school yesterday.” Mel looks wordlessly between me and Lexi, then turns on her heel and walks away.

  “You were wrong,” Jared says, shrugging his shoulders. “Just admit it.” He’s turned around in his seat before the bell rings in English and he’s giving me a headache. Of all the times I wished that Jared Bentley would turn around and start talking to me in English, would acknowledge my presence, even, this is never the way I imagined it.

  “I wasn’t wrong,” I say, sighing. Which is true. I wasn’t wrong about Lexi liking guys who play hard to get. Because I never thought it in the first place. Just because I knowingly gave Jared wrong information doesn’t mean that I was wrong.

  “Yes, you were,” Jared says. His rolls his blue eyes. “She likes me better when I’m nice to her. In fact, she admitted that at first she thought I was kind of a jerk.” He smiles smugly.

  “When did she say that?”

  “Last night on IM,” he says. Great. Apparently Lexi and Jared are like BFFs now. Which means it’s only a matter of time before he (a) asks her out or (b) she lets it slip that she knows we’re going out. Or used to go out. Whatever it is we’re doing. “So you were wrong,” Jared says again.

  “Whatever, fine, I was wrong,” I say miserably. Kim comes into the room wearing a light blue sweat suit that probably cost more than my parents’ car. She sits down next to me and flips her hair back.

  “Can you believe that thing with Kim and Matt?” Jared asks, lowering his voice. Jared, I’ve noticed, has become quite the gossip.

  “Yeah, totally ridiculous,” I say.

  “I expected it from him, but her? That’s so diabolical.” I think Jared needs to work on his vocabulary. One should only use the word “diabolical” so many times before moving on to something else. “Calculating”? “Manipulative”? Both are acceptable choices.

  At lunch I push a glop of chocolate pudding around my plate forlornly. Mel’s sitting at our old table, the one we always used to sit at together until I had to start sitting with the A-list. I thought maybe at lunch I’d have a chance to smooth things over, but she doesn’t even look at me.

  “Hey,” Luke says, sitting down next to me.

  “Hi,” I say. His chair is so close that our legs are almost touching. Not bare legs or anything, since obviously we’re wearing pants, but still.

  “So are you in a ton of trouble? I tried calling you yesterday, but your mom said you couldn’t come to the phone.” That was nice of her. To not tell people I was grounded, I mean.

  “I’m grounded,” I admit.

  “That sucks,” he says. “I’m really sorry. I feel like it was my fault. I shouldn’t have shown up at your house like that.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I say. “I should have called my mom to let her know you had come over.” God, his leg is really close to mine. If I move even a millimeter, we’re probably going to be touching. I concentrate on keeping my leg perfectly still. Not that it would be horrible if our legs were touching or anything. I mean, people touch legs all the time. Right? Like in crowds and stuff. Or at sporting events. Plus we’ve already held hands. Leg touching is definitely a s
tep down from that.

  “I thought you were mad at me,” he says, sounding relieved. “I tried to talk to you yesterday after social studies, but you took off pretty quickly.”

  “I was in a rush,” I say lamely. I see Kim at the other end of the table, sitting next to Matt and sending me a death glare. What is her problem? Is it not enough that she has Matt and probably any other guys she might want? She has to stop every guy from hooking up with anyone besides her?

  “You know, I tried to talk to your mom,” he says. “I told her it was my fault, that I just showed up and you had no idea.”

  “You did?” How sweet.

  “Yeah,” he says. His leg shifts slightly. WE ARE TOUCHING LEGS. Our legs are touching. Ohmigod, ohmigod. I wonder if I should move it away. But then what if he thinks I don’t want to be near him? But what if he’s not touching my leg on purpose, or he doesn’t realize what’s going on, and then he moves his leg, and it’s like he moved away first? And I’m the loser who wanted to touch legs with him while he didn’t? And how come every time he’s around, I end up worrying about STUFF LIKE THIS?

  “Thanks for trying,” I say La, la, la. Ignoring the fact that we’re touching legs.

  “So listen,” Luke says. He clears his throat. “About what we were talking about the other day.” He runs his fingers through his hair. His hair looks really cute today. Kind of spiky. Just enough gel so that it looks cute, but not greasy. I feel my face getting hot, and I quickly start flipping through the social studies notebook that’s sitting next to my lunch tray, like I’m looking for some really crucial fact I have written down that’s essential to our project.

  “Yeah?” I say.

  “So maybe this weekend after we finish our project, we can go to a movie or something. To celebrate.”

  I swallow. My first date, my first date, my first date.

  “You mean like a date?” I ask, to clarify. Or to torture myself.