This Is Me From Now On

by Barbara Dee

“Yeah,” I said, biting my lip. “Except maybe they’re not anymore.”

  “Don’t be deranged, Evie. Of course they are; you three have been best friends forever, right? And forever means forever, like that hideous card said. So just because you’re friends with me now—”

  “Whoa, stop,” I interrupted. “This is not about you, okay?”

  “It’s not? I thought they had a problem with me.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I admitted. “But it’s more like they had a problem with me.”

  “Why? What did you do?”

  “I’m not even sure.” I sighed. “I guess you could say I wouldn’t obey their rules.”

  It was funny. Because when I said that, I guess I was expecting Francesca to say something like, Oh, you hate rules too, now. You’re just like me!

  But that’s not what she said. She said, “Well, figure it out, Evie. Talk to them, ask them on your date, and also ask some b-o-y-s, please! Now I’d better go, or else Beebee will be furious.” Then she blew me a kiss, buttoned her zebra jacket, and ran out of the building in Samantha’s cowboy boots.

  That day I walked home by myself, which was something I hadn’t done in a long, long time. I thought about inviting Nisha and Lily—I really did—but I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d had a real, no-fighting, face-to-face-to-face conversation. So I couldn’t imagine calling them and being all, Hey, what’s up, and oh, by the way, ZANE ASKED ME OUT and would you like to come? I could already hear Nisha’s response: Zane who? I thought you didn’t even like him. Or: Oh, so now we’re on speaking terms? Because your mom says you need some date-buddies? Or: Sorry, Evie, but Lily and I are working on our Attic Project. Have a nice night. And of course Lily would be all sweet and sympathetic, but in the end she’d just go off with Nisha, the way she always did.

  I needed to face reality: Things were bad with my best friends. Really bad. Dangerously bad. And if I didn’t fix it all soon, our friendship might be permanently wrecked. But inviting them on my Zane-date was not going to solve anything. In fact, even talking to them about it would probably just make things worse.

  But if not them, who should I ask? I couldn’t invite Kayla because … well, I was pretty sure you didn’t invite ex-girlfriends along on a date. And if Kayla was out, that meant so was Gaby. I thought about Katie Finberg; she was a little bit perfect-perfect, but she was basically a decent person. And Brendan Meyers would probably be okay, as long as he wore deodorant and didn’t spit. I told myself that five people (me, Zane, Francesca, Katie Finberg, and spitty Brendan) had to count as a big enough date for Mom. Because five was a definite group, right? Even without Nisha and Lily.

  As soon as I got home I grabbed a glass of ice cubes and went upstairs to my computer. No excuses, I lectured myself: You’ve focused on Espee for two days straight and you’ve just planned Friday night, so now you’re going to sit down and do some serious earthquake research! And I actually did spend about twenty minutes Googling tremors and aftershocks and the Richter scale.

  But then somehow my brain just kind of wandered off. And before I realized exactly what I was doing, I was Googling Zane Gerety. All that came up was a dorky article in the Blanton Register about I Scream. But there was a super-cute photo of him behind the counter, which I stared at for a ridiculously long time.

  Then I Googled Stephanie Pierce. Espee had signed a bunch of petitions for some candidate I’d never heard of. Also, according to the Register, she was the star pitcher on a women’s softball team called the Blanton Bliss (I know, I know: dumb name). At the end of the article was a photo of her hugging a giant trophy, and grinning ear-to-ear, as if she were about eight years old. It was a very nice picture, I thought, even though I couldn’t imagine that grinning person wearing a sarong. But today she wore Theo’s locket, so who could tell what else she’d do, if she actually had the chance? And of course now she would have the chance, thanks to her two fairy godmothers. I grinned back at her, because it felt as if we shared a secret.

  The last name I Googled was Theo Rafferty. Not surprisingly, I guess, Theo had his own artist’s website, with lots of complicated pages to navigate: New Works. Gallery Showings. Home Studio. Reviews. I poked around for a bit, peeking at his giant, abstract canvases, which looked exactly like Mom’s veggie stir-fries, if you want my honest opinion.

  Then I noticed a link called At Home with the Artist. That looked a little more interesting, so I clicked on it.

  And found myself staring at photos. Of Theo with his dog.

  And Theo with his baby.

  And Theo with his wife.

  chapter 19

  Evie? What are you doing here?” Francesca asked, frowning. “I told you before, Aunt Beebee—”

  “I know,” I said through my teeth. “But this is a major emergency.”

  “What happened?”

  “Where’s your aunt?”

  “In the living room. What does that—”

  “He’s married.”

  “Who is?”

  “Who do you think? Theo!”

  “He is? How do you even—”

  “Frankie?” someone called from inside. “Is someone at the door?”

  “Just Evie,” she answered brightly. She yanked me inside to the living room, where Aunt Yellowteeth was sipping tea. “She came over about that project we’re doing. Apparently it’s hit a snag.”

  If I hadn’t been totally freaking out right then, I’d have laughed. Hit a snag? Where did she even get these expressions?

  “What a shame,” Aunt Yellowteeth commented. “But you know, girls, that’s life for you. One snag after another.” She smiled at us, showing off her huge yellow teeth. Then she put down her teacup. “Well, I suppose this is my cue to shove off. Tell Sammy to ring me tonight, all right, Frankie dear?” She gave Francesca a quick hug, waved at me, and left.

  “He’s married?” Francesca asked as soon as the door clicked shut. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! I read it on his website, like, three minutes ago.”

  She scrunched her forehead.. “Funny that he posts it on his website, but he doesn’t even bother wearing a ring.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to get papier-mâché all over it.” I sank onto the sofa. “Omigod, what have I done?”

  “You haven’t done anything, Evie.”

  “How can you say that? Espee thinks he’s in love with her because of the locket, which was my stupid idea. This whole thing is all my stupid fault!”

  Francesca sat down on the sofa and patted my knee. “Don’t be so negative. Theo and Espee are just soulmates, like Cathy and Heathcliff. Sometimes people are just meant to be together.”

  “And no one else matters?” I demanded. “Theo has a life! A wife and a baby. And a dog named Ozzie!”

  “Calm down. You’re going a tad berserk. Anyway, true love is bigger than dogs named Ozzie.”

  “Oh, really? Really? Is that how you felt when your mom ran off to Paris?”

  Francesca blinked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Did you feel like her true love was bigger than your family?”

  Now her eyes blazed. “You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” She shook her head and stared at the coffee-colored carpet. Then she looked right at me and said, “My mother is an extremely passionate person. She left Daddy because he didn’t understand her.”

  “Oh. Well, sorry.”

  “Okay. But you shouldn’t just mention her like that.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “Okay! Never mind.”

  We sat there for a minute not saying anything. Finally I took a long, wobbly breath. “Anyway, what I really mean is, we need to think about the whole picture here. We were planning on stealing a sarong for Espee, and Theo has a family. It’s just wrong, Francesca. We have to break them up!”

  “Evie, you know what your problem is?”

  “I don’t have a problem.”

  “Yes, you do: You have
n’t read Wuthering Heights. I truly do not understand how you can spend one more day without reading that book.”

  I stared at her. Was this girl deaf? Not-psychic-but-psychotic? “Francesca,” I said, my voice coming out squawky, “this isn’t Wuthering Heights, okay? This is Blanton. And we can’t go around ruining someone’s life just for fun. Ruining the lives of four people!”

  “Four?”

  I held up four fingers, like this was Sesame Street. “Espee, Theo. Wife, baby. And I’m leaving out the dog.”

  “Oh, of course,” Francesca said distractedly. “Anyway, Evie, it wasn’t for fun. It was only to help them.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could get a word out she said, “Well, sure. We’ll break them up. If you absolutely insist.”

  “I do!”

  “But how?” She scowled. Then her face lit up. “Wait, I have a fantastic idea. We could send Theo an ice cream cake with a message like, ‘It’s All Over, Boyfriend, Go Home to Ozzie.’”

  “Are you serious?”

  “You’re right. Too many letters, and it would probably melt by the time we got to school. Well, we could always just send him another letter.”

  I snorted. “Quoting what? The Declaration of Independence?”

  “Hmm, that’s a little geeky, but coming from Espee, it could possibly work.”

  “I was joking, Francesca. Not quoting anything.”

  “You mean just make something up?”

  “NO!”

  “Yeah, too risky. We’d probably misspell something, and then he’d know it wasn’t from her. It was so much better just using what she wrote: ‘O my darling, how I wish I could look into your eyes and express my truest—’”

  “Gah. Please shut up.”

  “Sorry. But she’s such a gorgeous writer, don’t you think? Ooh, wait a sec—I just thought of something. Remember that hideous card Aunt Bitsy sent? ‘A family is forever’? We could slip it in his mailbox, as a subtle reminder.”

  “That’s completely stupid,” I announced. “The picture is all wrong, and what about your aunt’s note? And the P.S. from Quentin?”

  “I’ll rip off the front. It’ll just be like a postcard, like the kind dentists send when they want to remind you to keep an appointment. Only this will remind Theo about, you know—”

  “His family.” I thought about it quickly. It was an incredibly dumb idea, maybe the worst one Francesca had ever had. But it wasn’t as if I had a better one right then. And we had to do something, as fast as possible.

  “We’ll send the post card,” I muttered. “Until we think of something else.”

  “Oh, we will, Evie,” Francesca promised. “Don’t worry about that.”

  chapter 20

  On Friday we got to school early enough to sneak into the faculty mailroom before Theo had picked up his mail for the day. Francesca was in a great mood, as if overnight she’d convinced herself that breaking up Theo and Espee was just as helpful as getting them together. It didn’t even matter to her that Topaz had nibbled the top right-hand corner of the card so that it now looked as if it said A FAMILY IS FOREV. “Don’t worry, he’ll think it’s slang,” Francesca whispered as she stuffed the chewed-up card-half into Theo’s mailbox.

  All morning long I had a giant knot in my stomach. In Art I couldn’t even look at Theo. I just kept seeing him in all those smiling photos, and wondering how much longer everyone would be smiling. Finally, to distract myself, I painted a majillion rainbow sprinkles on my papier-mâché sundae and also forced myself to plan what I’d wear on my date that night.

  Right before lunch I ran into Zane in the hall. I’d been dreading his reaction when I told him about needing a group-date, so I blurted it all out, just to get it over with.

  “Whatever, Evie,” he said, shrugging. “This was your thing, anyway.”

  Which I totally didn’t understand. And which made me feel sort of weird, to tell you the truth.

  But at least he didn’t seem angry. And he didn’t even seem to care who was going with us, which was a relief. I decided to take this as a sign to grab a taco and sit myself at a sticky table with Katie and Brendan.

  “Hey,” I said super-casually, like I did this all the time. “What are you guys doing tonight?”

  “This night?” Brendan demanded. “You’re talking about today?”

  Brendan had a way of being specific and making sure everyone else was too. There was no point fighting him about it, so I just nodded.

  “What’s so special about tonight?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’m just going to a movie and I wondered if you wanted to come. Both you guys.” I smiled hopefully at Katie.

  She smiled back with major braces. “Which movie?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  Brendan grunted. “You’re asking us to a movie but you don’t even know which one?”

  “It’s not just up to me,” I said, feeling my cheeks start to burn. “Zane is going too.”

  “He is?” Katie squealed. “Is this like a date? Between you and Zane?”

  “Please keep it down,” I begged. I could see that Nisha and Lily were sitting two tables away, and their backs were very straight, as if they were paying close attention to something. This conversation, probably. Well, it wasn’t like I meant to keep it a secret from them. And to be honest, I had a giant urge right then to run over to their table and just invite them along. But of course that was impossible. Totally impossible.

  “Whoa, that’s awesome, Evie!” Katie was exclaiming. “Remember how bad you felt when Zane was going out with Kayla?”

  Brendan scowled. “Is this going to be girl-talk now? Because if it is—”

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. “So, anyway, can you both come?”

  “I can!” Katie said, grinning at me.

  “I guess I can,” Brendan admitted. “I mean, even if the movie sucks, it’s better than spending Friday night working on that stupid Attic Project.”

  Katie pretend-punched his arm. “Brendan hates our project, but I think it’s sort of cool. And romantic.”

  “Really?” I said, nibbling the cheese off my taco.

  “Oh, definitely. We’re doing a Mystery Box from the Civil War. There’s this soldier and his fiancée writing letters back and forth, and he’s describing the battlefields and she’s talking about the homefront.”

  “And also her undying love,” Brendan added. He put his hand on his heart and said in a cartoony, high-pitched voice, ‘O my darling, how I wish I could look into your eyes …’”

  My heart bounced. “What?”

  “… and express my truest feelings. But cruel fate has come between us—”

  “That was in your Mystery Box? ‘O my darling, how I wish—?’”

  “Why?” Brendan asked. “Is it from something?”

  I shook my head. Omigod, I screamed at myself. Espee’s computer! It wasn’t a love letter to Theo Rafferty. It was just a pseudo-document for the Attic Project! Which I completely misinterpreted. And which Francesca—

  “Okay, see you guys at the theater,” I mumbled. “Be there at seven.” Then I raced over to the frozen yogurt machine, where Francesca was fixing herself another giant bowlful of vanilla.

  “Come with me,” I hissed at her. “Emergency.”

  She put down her cardboard bowl and followed me into the hall. “What’s wrong now?”

  I repeated what I’d just heard. Word for word.

  Francesca blinked. “So Espee’s writing was a fake? Well, that’s … funny.”

  “You think it’s funny? It’s a disaster.”

  She patted my arm. “Deep breaths, Evie. How were you supposed to know Espee was writing fake history? And the letter we mailed didn’t even work, right? Remember how they acted afterward, in the parking lot? It was your genius locket idea that did the trick. Besides, we’re breaking them up now, aren’t we?”

  I stood there shaking my head. Was she only pretending not to
get it? Could she really not understand how awful this was?

  Because what if we couldn’t break them up? What if it was too late?

  What if the whole romance—beginning with the gorgeous words on Espee’s computer—was caused by my terrible, stupid, gigantic mistake?

  Right before Spush, Nisha and Lily walked over to my locker, where I was throwing random books into my backpack.

  “Okay, Evie, you want to talk about this?” Nisha asked.

  Yes. Desperately. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Because you’d just say everything was my own fault. And you’d be right.

  “Things are slightly complicated,” I mumbled.

  “And you also can’t talk about your date with Zane?”

  “We heard you in the lunchroom,” Lily said quietly. “So did everyone else.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said stupidly. “I wanted to tell you guys—”

  “But you were too busy sneaking around with Francesca,” Nisha said. Her eyes didn’t look angry. They looked disappointed. Hurt. “Evie, why?”

  “Please don’t ask,” I begged. “It’s just this … project we were doing.”

  “The Attic Project?” Lily asked.

  “No, a different one.”

  “Who’s it for?”

  “I can’t tell you.” The words came out of me like a sob. “I really want to, you can’t believe how much I want to. But please just let me get through this, okay?”

  Lily glanced at Nisha, who shrugged in disgust.

  “Whatever,” Nisha said finally. “You know what, Evie? It doesn’t even matter anymore.”

  Then my two best friends turned and walked away.

  chapter 21

  The whole rest of that day, I just kept thinking Zane, Zane, Zane. It was the only way I could deal with worrying about Theo and Espee, wondering if he’d even read the chewed-up card, or just tossed it in the trash like a piece of junk mail. But I did spot them huddling in front of the main office right before dismissal, and I heard her whisper-yell at him, “Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel about this!”—which might have meant he’d confessed about Ozzie and she was totally freaking out. The other thing I noticed was that Espee wasn’t wearing the locket—although for all I knew she had it hidden under her lumpy white turtleneck sweater.