Devon Delaney Should Totally Know Better

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “Ha-ha,” I say, rolling my eyes, even though it makes me happy that she noticed. I have a boyfriend who wants to kiss me in the halls at school! A very cute, very smart, very amazing boyfriend who wants to kiss me, me, me. And not Barelli.

  I can’t believe I was ever worried about him asking me to the dance! I mean, hello. He’s like obviously totally in love with me. And Bailey and her long hair and alabaster skin can do nothing to sway him! Actually I think alabaster skin means pale or something. And Bailey is always quite tan. No matter! I’m going to the dance with Luke! Yay!

  “Luke and I were just talking about the dance,” I say, giving Lexi a look.

  “Ooh!” she says, “So he finally—uh, so you guys are going?”

  “Yeah,” Luke says.

  “You’ll have to ride over with me and Jared.” Lexi claps her hands. “And we’ll have an after party at my house, of course, and maybe even a pre-party.” She frowns. “Of course, I’ll have to think up a theme.” She looks off into space thoughtfully. A theme? Hmm. I hope she doesn’t expect me to dress up for the theme or anything. I need a dress for the dance, not for Lexi’s pre-parties and after parties and all her in-between parties. Plus, I’m going to have a hard enough time convincing my parents that I’m allowed to go to the dance at all, much less all these other parties. I haven’t even told them about Bailey’s party yet.

  “Hey, guys,” Kim says as she slides down the hall. “Luke, Lexi.” She looks at me. “Devi.” Kim likes to call me Devi with this little snort at the end, like it’s not quite my name. She thinks it’s super funny to mock it.

  “Oh, hi, Kim,” Lexi says. “Love your top. I think it’s great that someone with such skinny legs isn’t afraid to go for vertical stripes.” She smiles, and Kim gives her a thin smile back.

  “Thanks,” she says. “I actually got it the other night when I was shopping for something new to wear to Bailey’s party.” She looks me up and down. “You guys are still going, right?”

  “Yes,” Luke says, a little too fast for my liking. Why’s he so anxious to get to Bailey’s party? I wonder if he bought her a present yet. Hopefully something generic, like a gift card. Or a gag gift, like the time my dad got an ant farm from my Uncle Thomas.

  “Of course you’re going to be there, Luke,” Kim says. “Bailey told me how well you used to get along with her family.” Luke gets a little half smile on his face, like he’s remembering Bailey’s family fondly. Figures. My family doesn’t even know he exists. Well, they do. Just not as my boyfriend.

  “We’re definitely going to be there,” Lexi says. “We’re so excited, we wouldn’t miss it for the world. And my mom’s going to pick up Greg, so you’ll get to meet him.”

  A flicker of uncertainty passes over Kim’s face for a second, but she recovers quickly. I shoot Lexi a look, but she just smiles and says, “Right, Devi?”

  “Right.” She must have talked to her friend Ryan! Yay! Now all I have to do is get through this dumb party, show off Ryan/Greg for a couple of hours, and everything will be fine.

  chapter six

  My mom picks me up after mock trial that day, so that we can go shopping for my new cell phone. My idea, not hers. I figured if my parents were having some kind of weird meltdown where they thought me getting a cell phone was okay, then I needed to capitalize on it before they changed their minds. So I insisted we go ASAP.

  “How was mock trial?” she asks, as I vault myself into the minivan.

  “It was good,” I lie. Mock trial was definitely not good. Lexi skipped so she could go and hang out with Jared, and I had to be in a group with Kim, Bailey, Luke, and Kim’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Matt Connors. The whole thing was extremely annoying, since Bailey kept touching Luke’s arm every single time she thought he said something funny. And then when my mom pulled up, I had to leave them in the lobby, ALONE. TOGETHER. And Luke couldn’t even walk me out or hold my hand or kiss me goodbye, because, hello, what if my mom saw?

  To add insult to injury, all during science today Mel planned out her radio show, which is going to be an advice and gossip show! Where people call in and ask her advice! Hello! Advice and gossip is totally up my alley. I mean, I’m a master at getting out of tricky situations. Her class advisor said she could find a partner to do it with her, but I just don’t have the time with mock trial.

  “Where are we going?” Katie asks as my mom pulls out of the school.

  “Oh,” I say, looking into the backseat. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I’m here!” Katie says, giving me a big grin.

  “Great,” I say. Katie tends to throw tantrums in stores. She starts out strong, but then gets very cranky the longer we end up staying there. If she does something to ruin my chance of finally getting a cell, I’m going to be very mad.

  “So, anyway,” I say to my mom. “I wanted to ask you about a couple of things.”

  “Okay,” my mom says. She looks pretty today. She’s wearing a rose colored, button up sweater over a white T-shirt, and it brings out her eyes.

  “Well,” I say, “Lexi and Mel are going to this dance next weekend, and I was wondering if I could go, too.” None of this is a lie. Lexi is going to the dance, and I’m pretty sure Mel will be going, too, even if she just comes along with us. And I didn’t exactly say I would be going with them, although of course I will be. There will just be some boys there as well. But my mom doesn’t need to know every single person that I’m going to be hanging out with, does she? She lets me go lots of places where she doesn’t know every single person that’s going to be there. Like school, for example.

  “Sure,” my mom says. “Do you need a dress?”

  Wow. That was easy. “Yes,” I tell her. “Not too fancy . . . but not too unfancy, either. It’s a semi-formal.”

  Katie leans her head through the space between the front seats. “Fancy, fancy, fancyyy,” she sings.

  “What’s that on your head?” I ask.

  “Swimming cap. I’m going to be an Olympic swimmer.”

  “Oh, how fun,” I tell her. I reach into my bag, pull out a piece of gum, and pop it into my mouth. “Too bad you’re scared of the water.”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Yes, you are. Remember when you signed up for swimming lessons and you couldn’t even stick your face in the water or take off your water wings?”

  “Devon,” she tells me seriously. “All Olympic athletes have to work hard to achieve their goals.”

  “Katherine Delaney,” my mom says. “Sit back in your seat right now.”

  Katie obeys.

  “So anyway,” I say. “Not too fancy, but something a little fancy.” Maybe with sparkles. Or a long, flowing train. Hmm. In lavender. Or pink. Pastels, definitely.

  “Okay,” my mom says, turning the minivan onto the highway. “This weekend we’ll head down to Morty’s.”

  “Oh, um, well, actually, I was hoping I could go shopping with Lexi for my dress.” Morty’s is a department store in the mall, which isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just not what I’m looking for.

  “You don’t want to go shopping with me?” My mom looks hurt.

  “No, I do,” I say, deciding it’s time to change the subject. “But that was the other thing I was going to ask you about. This weekend my, uh, friend Bailey Barelli is going to be having some people over, so I was wondering if I could go over, too. We’ll probably work on mock trial.”

  “But you hate Bailey Barelli,” Katie says from the backseat. She’s moving all around back there, and her knees keep kicking the back of my seat.

  “No, I don’t,” I say, shooting Katie a look. “We’re in mock trial together,” I explain to my mom, as if that makes us BFF.

  “No, you think she’s going to steal your boyfriennnd.” Katie sings the word ‘boyfriend’ like she’s Avril Lavigne.

  “Yeah, right,” I say, hoping I sound light and airy. “If I even had a
boyfriend.”

  “Yes, you do have a boy friennnd,” Katie says. “Luke and Devon, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Devon with a baby carriage!” Katie collapses into giggles, but my mom doesn’t think it’s so funny. She has a stricken look on her face as she pulls off at our exit.

  “Devon, is that true?”

  “No!” I say, but she raises her eyebrows. Outside, the houses on the street go flying by, and suddenly, I feel hot. I reach over and turn down the stream of warm air my mom has pumping into the car, and crack my window just a little bit.

  “He kissed her,” Katie reports. “I saw them one time.” She wrinkles her nose. “It was very gross.”

  “Devon, I’ve told you it’s perfectly fine for you to have an interest in boys,” my mom says. “And I would hope that if Luke was your boyfriend, you wouldn’t lie about it.”

  “Okay,” I say, “but he’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Good, because you are much too young to have a boyfriend!” my mom exclaims.

  “But you just said that I could tell you if I had one, and that I shouldn’t hide it from you!” Hmmm. Is my mom getting senile? She pulls into the parking lot of the cell phone store. I really hope this whole having a boyfriend thing doesn’t put her off getting me a phone. Seriously, could Katie’s timing be any worse? And when did she see us kiss, anyhow? Luke only kisses me sometimes, like when we’re saying goodbye to each other.

  “When did you see us kiss?” I whisper to Katie as we’re getting out of the car.

  “When Luke came over that one night, when you were supposed to be babysitting me,” Katie says. She’s talking about a night a couple of weeks ago, when Luke showed up at our house unannounced when my parents weren’t home. I got caught, of course, and got into tons of trouble. But that was way before Luke was even my boyfriend. And so we were certainly not kissing.

  “We didn’t kiss that night,” I say, slamming the car door.

  Katie shrugs and jumps down from the back of the van. Whatever.

  I link one arm through my mom’s, one arm through Katie’s, and start marching us toward the doors. “Now, time to get me a phone!”

  “I didn’t say it was okay for you to have a boyfriend,” my mom’s saying as I pull her along.

  “You didn’t?” I ask warily.

  “I said if you did, you shouldn’t lie about it.” She sighs and takes Katie’s hand as we walk into the store. “We’ll discuss this later.” I hope she means much later. As in never. And especially not with my dad around.

  Once we’re in the store, Katie heads for the phones that are on display, and picks up a black flip phone. She pushes the buttons and says, “Hello, White House? This is Katie Delaney, calling you about the Olympic rowing scandal.”

  I head toward the front of the store, where there’s a big sign that says JUST IN in light blue writing. On the table is a display of phones that have little keyboards and covers that slide up. They come in all different colors—red, orange, yellow, blue. I pick up the purple one and show it to my mom. “It’s this one!” I announce. “This is the one that I want!”

  My mom looks it over. “I don’t know, Devon,” she says. “This one looks a little flashy.”

  “It’s very teen friendly,” the clerk says, appearing from nowhere. His nametag says, “Jeffrey” and he has earrings all up his ear. How cool.

  “Perfect!” I say. I pick it up and look at it again. So cute! And with the slide out keyboard, I’ll be a texting machine. I run my hands over it and practice a little bit.

  “It’s perfect for texting,” Jeffrey says.

  “Thanks, Jeffrey,” I say. “That’s very helpful.”

  From behind me, I can hear Katie saying, “I’d like to speak with the head of the Olympic committee, please,” into the phone she’s holding.

  “I don’t think you really need to be texting,” my mom says, like it’s a bad word or something.

  “Oh, everyone texts these days,” Jeffrey says, waving his hand as if he’s brushing her comment off. He sounds cheerful. “Even my grandmother texts.”

  “Come on, Mom,” I say, “It’s not like I’m going to be texting in school or anything.” Well, not during class at least.

  She bites her lip. “I just don’t know if I like what’s happening here. First you have some kind of secret boyfriend, and now you’re getting a phone to text.” I want to tell her that at least my secret boyfriend is real and I just haven’t mentioned him, not like my former fake boyfriend and my current fake ex-boyfriend. Wow. I’m really confusing myself.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I say. “Secret, rumored, or otherwise.” Lie, lie, lie.

  Jeffrey looks from my mom to me and back. “So should I ring this up or . . . ?”

  “Yes,” I say, handing it to him. We both follow him to the register, navigating our way through the shiny cases of cell phones. This store is very cool. I might even like it better than the mall.

  “What about that one?” My mom points to a phone that’s sitting in the front case. It’s black and isn’t even a flip phone.

  “This one?” Even Jeffrey seems doubtful.

  “It’s cute,” my mom says.

  “Uh, no,” I say. “I want the purple one.” She’s lucky I’m not asking for an iPhone. Or one of those phones that doubles as a personal computer. All I want is a very standard purple phone with a slide out screen. Ooooh, and some sparkly jewels to decorate it with. I slide the package off the rack and place it on the counter.

  My mom looks down and sighs. “Wrap it up,” she tells Jeffrey.

  On our way out the door, while I’m happily swinging my package (my new phone isn’t charged, which means I can’t use it right away, what’s up with that?), my mom says, “Devon, about Luke—”

  “Yes, Mr. President, I am on my way!” Katie says from behind us. I turn around to see her still holding the sample phone she was using in the store.

  “Katie!” my mom yells. “You stole that phone!”

  “No, I didn’t,” Katie says, sounding haughty. “It is a sample. A free sample for the customers!”

  “Oh, God,” I say. “You’re lucky you didn’t set off the alarm going out of the store with that thing.”

  Katie’s eyes widen in horror.

  “Come on,” my mom says, taking Katie’s hand. “We have to bring this back.”

  “I’ll wait here,” I say, opening the car door. I want to play with my new phone, even if it’s not working just yet.

  “Don’t think I forgot about Luke,” my mom says. “And we will be talking about it later.” Great.

  But by the time Saturday rolls around, my mom still hasn’t brought up the Luke situation. I am not fooled by this, though. She is probably discussing it with my dad, and they are just waiting for the perfect time to bombard me with it.

  But whatevs. Honestly, I have bigger problems. Like the fact that Lexi and her mom are supposed to be picking me up so we can go to Bailey’s party, and they are twenty minutes late. Twenty minutes is way beyond being fashionably late, and besides, I don’t want to be late. Not at all. Twenty minutes late is twenty minutes that Luke is probably there, hanging out with Bailey. Twenty minutes that they could be starting up a game of spin the bottle. Twenty minutes that they could be deciding how bad they want to get back together.

  You’d think that he would have wanted to drive over to the party with me, his girlfriend, but nooo. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I can get my dad to drive me.” Even when I pointed out that it was no big deal, that Lexi’s mom would be happy to pick him up, he still didn’t get it. He said that his mom would take him and Jared, and they would just meet us there.

  The other reason I’m freaking out? Lexi and her mom were supposed to be picking up Greg/Ryan before they came to get me. I wanted to go for the ride, and have Lexi’s mom pick up Greg AFTER she picked me up—I figured that way, I’d be able to get to know him in the car a little bit, in case anyone
asked us any hard questions. But nooo. Lexi’s mom said that was too inconvenient for her. I know I should be thankful that her mom is even picking him up at all, since he lives over an hour away. But it’s not like she has anything better to do. And besides, Mrs. Cortland totally hates me. She thinks I’m not good enough for Lexi to hang out with. She’s never come out and said this, but I can tell by the way she looks at me. And my outfits.

  Although I can’t imagine she’ll be too upset when she sees me today. I look fab, if I do say so myself. I’m wearing a DKNY crimson sweater over skinny jeans I borrowed from Lexi. I also borrowed (without her knowledge, but it still counts as borrowing, because I’m totally going to give them back) my mom’s black boots from her closet. I look very grown-up. And yeah, the sweater is last season (back when my parents were feeling guilty about sending me to my grandma’s for the summer and so they were giving me whatever I wanted), but it’s not like anyone’s going to notice.

  I check the clock over the living room couch and look out the window again. Where are they? They better hurry up. My mom’s in the kitchen working on her computer, and if she comes out here and sees me wearing her boots, I’ll be in trouble. Plus I don’t have any other shoes that go with this outfit. Obviously the best thing to do would be to put the boots on when I got into the car, but since Ryan/Greg is going to be there, this isn’t really an option. Too embarrassing.

  I’m just about to call Lexi on my cell to see what’s taking so long, when Mrs. Cortland’s Hummer pulls into the driveway. Score! I’ve never ridden in the Hummer before.

  I hop (well, okay, fine, sort of stumble and slide— these boots are too tight) out of the house and down the steps without saying goodbye to my mom. Oopsies. I open the back passenger side door, and get ready to haul myself into the car. But there’s already someone there. A guy. Ryan/Greg, I suppose.

  “Oh,” I say. “Sorry, I’ll go around.”

  “No problem, babe,” he says. And then he jumps out of the car, walks around to the other side, and opens the door for me. I’m a little startled. Is he for real? “Babe”? Opening car doors for me? But what can I do? I follow him around to the other side of the car, and hop in.