Back home, I preheated the oven, which I’d never done on my own before. But I’d baked cookies with Dad so many times, and I knew the steps by heart. Measure each ingredient, mix them up, spoon the batter into baby fist-sized balls, and place them on a cookie sheet. A half hour later, I pulled the second tray of perfectly golden-brown cookies out of the oven. I barely let them cool before wrapping them in tinfoil and setting off again, this time to Monroe’s house.
While the cookies had been baking, I’d prepared a speech in my head about how I hoped the cookies would prove how sorry I was. I raised my hand and rang the doorbell: ding DONG ding. It stopped, and there wasn’t a sound from the other side of the door. Seconds ticked by. Then minutes. I wondered if Monroe and the It Girls had spied me coming up the walkway through the peephole, and were pretending not to be home. My palms had started to sweat and the package of cookies felt slippery in my hands. I seriously considered turning around and heading home myself. But I knew I had nothing left to lose. I raised my hand and rang the bell again.
Ding DONG ding. For a couple seconds, more silence. Then there was a shout from inside: “Yeah, I heard you. I’m coming.” A moment later, the door swung open. Monroe stood on the other side of the threshold. Her eyes were as cold as a lake iced over, and they narrowed in on me in a death stare. I thought of an expression Lia used to say: If looks could kill . . . In that moment, if they could, I’d be a goner.
“What are you doing here?” Monroe asked.
“I . . . uh . . . ,” I stammered. My carefully prepared words had flown out of my head. “I brought cookies.”
“You brought cookies?” she asked, like it was the most absurd thing she’d ever heard.
“Yeah,” I said, as I felt my cheeks flush with fresh embarrassment.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because, uh, everyone likes cookies. I knew you guys were meeting and I thought that—”
“You thought you could get me to forget how you lied,” Monroe supplied. When she put it that way, it did seem pretty absurd. “But you can’t. I won’t. The other girls won’t, either. And besides that, we canceled today’s meeting. You should offer your little treats to your other club.”
“I’m not in that club anymore,” I said. “Listen, I know I messed things up with you. I messed things up with everyone. But I still want to . . . I still want to make things right with you.”
Monroe made a move like she was about to close the door. “Please just—” I started.
“MONROE BETH REESER!” a voice boomed from behind her. A man strode into the foyer. He was tall, at least twice my height, in a navy suit, white shirt, and a loosened red tie. When I pitched my head back to look up at him, I saw he had the same dark brown hair as Monroe (though the sides of his hair were brushed through with gray), and the same eyes, which he had focused on her in the same death stare she’d been giving me.
“Dad?” Monroe said in a voice so meek it was hard to believe it was actually coming from her.
Mr. Reeser waved a piece of paper at his daughter. I could tell it had once been folded up into a tiny square, because there were creases crisscrossing it. “Bernadette found this in your jeans pocket when she was doing laundry,” he said. “I guess you need to find better hiding places.”
Monroe dropped her head.
“Didn’t I ask you about this?” he said, glancing at the solid gold watch on his wrist. “About ten minutes ago? Didn’t I?” It seemed like another rhetorical question. But when Monroe didn’t reply, Mr. Reeser repeated, his voice even louder: “DIDN’T I?”
“You did,” Monroe admitted, softly.
“Lying to me is unacceptable, Monroe,” he said. “UNACCEPTABLE!” My body shook with the volume of his voice. Monroe’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail and I could see the tips of her ears were bright as beets. Her cheeks matched, and her eyes were round and shiny.
“I think I should go,” I said.
“That’s a good idea,” Mr. Reeser said. “And feel free to spread the word to the rest of Monroe’s friends that she’s not allowed to invite anyone else over until further notice.”
“I didn’t invite her over,” Monroe said. “She’s not even my friend.”
“Is she not your friend in the same way you didn’t get your Spanish test back yet—your failing Spanish test?”
“It was a quiz,” Monroe said.
“Quiz, test, it makes no difference.”
“It does make a difference,” Monroe insisted. “A quiz counts for way less than a test does.”
“School is your job, Monroe. I expect you to come back with grades that reflect how you take your job seriously. Just like I take my job seriously.” Mr. Reeser lifted a meaty hand, gesturing to the columns on the porch that stretched above us, and looked straight at me. “You can tell I take my job seriously, can’t you?”
“Yes?” I said, saying the word like I meant it as a question.
“You hear that, Monroe?” Mr. Reeser asked. “Your friend said yes. I work hard, and that affords my family certain rewards. Which means you get to live in this house, and go on nice vacations, and buy all the clothes you want. I suspect you wouldn’t like it one bit if I decided to take things at the office a little bit less seriously. Now would you?”
Monroe gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
“You’re just like your mother,” he continued. “She works when she feels like it. She’s a wife and a mother when she feels like it. It’s very disappointing. Now here you are, picking and choosing when to honor your obligations. I’m afraid that you’re well on your way to turning into another disappointment.”
That word got to me: “disappointment.” I was a disappointment to my dad, and she was a disappointment to hers. Of all things to have in common.
“Excuse me, Mr. Reeser?” I said. “It wasn’t Monroe’s fault.”
I could feel Monroe’s icy eyes on me. I knew she was worried that I was about to make everything worse.
“What wasn’t her fault?”
“The Spanish quiz,” I said. “You see, I just moved here this summer, and it’s only my second week of school. Mr. Dibble asked her to show me around.”
“He’s the principal,” Monroe told him.
Mr. Reeser nodded. “Go on.”
“Mr. Dibble made her show me around, and that took up a lot of time. But we started Spanish at my old school, so I came here to help her, as a thank-you.” I glanced over at Monroe. She was looking at her dad, not me, and I turned back to him, too. “And also to give her these cookies as a thank-you,” I added. “I won’t take up so much of her time again. I swear.”
Mr. Reeser stared at me without speaking for what felt like a year. Then he pressed Monroe’s quiz into my hand. “You have your work cut out for you,” he said, and he turned to walk back inside.
Monroe and I stood on the porch, regarding each other awkwardly. “I’ll really leave now,” I said. “I promise that I won’t ever bother you again. I guess that’s the kindest thing I can do for you.”
“No!” she said quickly, and I looked up at her. Her eyes had lost their icy glare, and there was a pleading look to them. “You heard him. You have to teach me Spanish.” She paused. “Please.”
I nodded. Monroe sat down, right there on the porch, and I sat beside her. I still had her red-marked Spanish quiz in my hands, and I put it on the stone step between us. “So I think you’re having trouble with your conjugations,” I started.
Monroe gave me a look like, duh. I went on explaining how conjugating verbs works. “You know, if Rivera explained things to me like that, I wouldn’t have failed,” Monroe said. She shook her head. “And if Bernadette didn’t suck up to my father so much, it wouldn’t have mattered in the first place. I bet she couldn’t wait till he got home from his business trip, so she could show him the test.”
“Quiz,” I reminded her.
“Whatever.” She nodded at the package in my hands. “So what kind of cookies are those an
yway?”
“Chocolate chip.”
“Can I have one?”
“Of course. I brought them for you.” She took the cookies from me and peeled back the tinfoil. When she took a bite, she closed her eyes in culinary satisfaction. “That’s delicious,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Haley used to make these cookies she called ‘kitchen sink cookies,’ where she threw everything you could imagine into the batter—chocolate chips, butterscotch, marshmallows, you name it, she added it. But I’ve always liked plain cookies best.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Even though I like toppings on my pizza.”
“Mushrooms,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“Aren’t you going to have a cookie?” she asked.
I took one and ate it slowly. My stomach still felt a bit jumpy. I knew it didn’t mean we were friends again, just because I’d helped her with Spanish verbs. But something had shifted between us. There was no doubt about that.
Monroe chewed and swallowed, and reached for a second cookie. “Thanks for these,” she said. “And thanks for, you know, helping me. Not just for actually explaining it to me, but for what you said to my dad. That was cool. So—thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She laughed to herself and shook her head. “You just can’t help trying to be nice to people, can you?”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It is when you lie.”
“I just lied to your dad,” I reminded her.
“It wasn’t really a lie. You already promised to help me with Spanish.” I nodded. “Besides, it was for a good cause,” she added.
“I honestly thought it was a good cause when I lied to you about the patch,” I said. “I was trying to be kind to everyone.”
“I get that,” she said. “It’s just that people who lie to me—it really drives me crazy. My mom, well. The truth is, my dad was right about what he said.”
“He wasn’t right about everything,” I told her. “You’re not like that. You’re really loyal to your friends. And what I did—I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
“So if you had to do it again, would you give Lucy back the patch?”
“No,” I admitted. “Because I wouldn’t want to hurt her, either. She’s never done anything to hurt me.”
“She’s so weird, though.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, because the truth was we were all pretty weird, in our own ways. And Lucy wearing weird clothes seemed like just about the best kind of weird a person could be. Besides, now that I’d gotten to know Lucy, her clothes didn’t even seem all that weird to me anymore.
“I thought it was a white lie,” I said. “Like how you said I should tell Lucy I had a stomachache when really we went to the movies.” I saw Monroe’s mouth twist slightly, remembering. “That’s why I pretended I’d given back the patch,” I continued. “But I should’ve told you the truth. And except for the almost lie I just told your dad, I’m going to tell the truth from now on. That’s why I brought the cookies. I thought if you liked them, maybe you’d let me explain.”
“And give you a second chance at being an It Girl?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “But even if it was too late, I still wanted to make up with you.”
“Would you help me with Spanish again? Like before the next quiz, so I’ll get a grade my dad finds acceptable?”
“Of course,” I told her.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Monroe said. “I’ll give you a second chance. But not a third one. And you’ve got to agree to some things, too.”
“I still don’t want to give Lucy the patch back. She worked hard on it. To give it back would be really unkind.”
“I understand.”
“You do?”
“Sort of,” Monroe said. “Enough so that you don’t have to give it back. But you do have to promise not to ever stitch it onto your backpack. You wouldn’t want to have that patch permanently on your bag anyway. Right?”
“Right,” I said.
“So it’s settled. I’ll tell the other girls that you’re in the club.”
“You mean I’m not on trial anymore?” I asked. “I’m really in?”
“We’re supposed to vote,” Monroe said. “But I’m the president, so in the end what I say goes. I’ll call them tonight, and you can sit with us tomorrow. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I mean, great—that’s really great.”
We said good-bye, and I started home. I walked slowly, taking the long way through the park, since I had so much to think about. Like how I was relieved that Monroe had stopped being mad, and how I was happy to be an It Girl. But also that I was a little bit sad. It was weird to be sad about not being in the Kindness Club. What had changed? I wasn’t quite sure. But I almost wished we hadn’t started a club together, so we didn’t have to end it.
But at least we’d probably get a good grade out of it, which was the point, and a pretty good bright side.
I turned the corner on to Parrott Drive. There was my house, second one from the end of the block. And there, in the driveway, were two police cars. I broke into a run.
CHAPTER 21
Something must’ve been really, horribly wrong. I took off down the block faster than I’d ever run in my life. When I banged through the front door, my breath was caught in my throat and my heart was pounding in my chest. “Mom!” I screamed. “MOM!”
An unfamiliar man’s voice came from the living room: “She’s here.”
Mom ran out. She said my name, “Chloe,” so soft like it was part of her breath. She pulled me toward her and clutched me tight. I had to push her away a little, because I couldn’t really breathe.
“Give her some air,” another voice said, a woman’s this time. When Mom released me, there were two officers standing in the front hall with us. Mom was crying. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, something I’d never seen her do. She used to hate when I did that, when I was little. She always said, “That’s what tissues are for, sweetheart.”
“Where have you been?” Mom asked. Her eyes were glowing with anger, and when I glanced over at the police officers, they were looking at me sternly, too. I realized when the officer had said “she’s here,” he hadn’t been talking to me about Mom; he’d been talking to Mom about me.
There was a beep of a walkie-talkie, and the woman officer lifted it to her mouth and said, “The subject is home. We’re coming back in.”
“Oh my God, Mom,” I said. “I forgot to call you.”
“You sure did.” Her voice had taken on a low tone I’d never heard before. “I was in a meeting with Regan, and I called Mrs. Wallace as soon as I realized you hadn’t called. She came over here, and didn’t find you. So I called school. I called your friends. Lucy said you’d gone home upset.”
“Did you call Monroe’s? I was there for a while.”
“There was no answer at Monroe’s house, or on her cell. I raced home.”
“You left work early?”
“What do you expect me to do when you’re missing?” Mom asked rhetorically. “The kitchen was a mess.”
“I was going to clean it up.”
“I worried someone had burst in here and taken you. I’ve just been here, waiting and imagining every awful thing that could possibly have happened to you.” Her voice cracked, and that brought tears back to my own eyes. I wiped my own nose with my hand.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said. I turned to the officers. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to them.
“I trust you won’t forget to call your mother again,” the man said.
“I won’t,” I said, sniffling. “Not ever. I promise.”
“Call your father,” Mom told me. “He’s been worried sick.”
“Is he home?”
She shook her head. “Call his cell.”
“I guess he’s not that worried then,” I said, more
to myself than to Mom.
“What?” she asked.
“I just mean, if he’s on his cell then he’s out somewhere, probably with Gloria—I mean, probably with his friends.”
“He’s been driving all over town looking for you,” Mom said. “Go to your room and call him. I’ll be up when . . . I’ll be up when I can breathe again.”
I went upstairs and dialed Dad’s number. He answered with an anxious, “Any word?”
“Dad,” I said. “It’s me.”
There was a choking sound, and silence for a couple seconds. Then Dad said, “Chloe. My God. Where have you been?”
“I was at my friend Monroe’s,” I said. “I swear I’ll never go anywhere without calling you or Mom ever again.”
“You bet you won’t,” Dad said.
“Did you have to leave work, too?”
“I left as soon as your mom called,” he said. “I have two patients who have to wait another day, in pain, for their root canals.”
“When you see them tomorrow will you tell them I said sorry?”
“I will,” Dad said. “And when I see you tomorrow, we’ll discuss your punishment.”
“I didn’t mean to do it,” I said.
“I know,” he told me.
The line clicked. “Jim?” Mom said.
“Hi, Emily,” Dad said.
“Chloe, say good-bye to your father and do your homework,” Mom told me.
“’Bye, Dad,” I said.
I hung up and pulled my math and English notebooks out of my backpack and sat at my desk. But knowing you scared your parents so much that they cried doesn’t exactly put you in the mood to do any work. After a while I stood up and lifted Captain Carrot out of his cage. I sat on the floor and held him close as I imagined Mom imagining all the awful things that could have happened. My tears fell on his soft head.
Eventually, Mom knocked on the door, and peeked her head in. “All right,” she said. “I think I’m ready to talk now.”
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