When she had realized she had forgiven him, she was pleased. She thought maybe she could stop faking and start up for real. Wouldn’t it be the best thing for everyone? Except for Parker, but even that would make it better for Abbie since, while she had forgiven Toby, she was just as mad at Parker as before. Perhaps more. He, after all, had stopped trying to win her back. How could he give up on her so easily?
Anyway, she had thought she would forgive Toby and make him her boyfriend for real. In every sense of the word. So she had decided to cook him dinner on a night Maggie would be out and she let him into her bedroom to “hang a picture” and then she had made it clear she wanted to kiss him. He leaned in, so did she, and then the next thing she knew, a wave of panic swept over her. Maybe she should describe it as a wave of disgust.
However she labeled the feeling, one thing was clear: she wasn’t attracted to Toby anymore, and while she didn’t mind being his friend, in fact, she would like it, she just couldn’t envision herself as anything more. Maybe she had finally gotten over the whole thing? But then she thought of Parker, and she realized she definitely wasn’t over everything.
So she still needed to go on with her plan, but she might need to adjust it some in order to make it fair to the person who she now thought of as innocent or at least more innocent than she had previously thought.
She considered talking to Maggie as she always did in times of doubt and trouble, but Maggie had been acting weird lately. She had been gone a lot and when she was there she avoided looking Abbie in the eyes. Abbie figured it was because she was so against the plan now, and so if she talked to Maggie about changing the plan, then Maggie might be on her side and things could get back to the way they used to be. However, Abbie didn’t want to abandon the plan, as Maggie would want her to do. She only wanted to change it so that it wasn’t meant to hurt or teach Toby a lesson. Abbie just did not think Maggie would understand anymore, and she could not risk Maggie getting it in her head to try and change Abbie’s mind about the whole thing. Because it was going to take a lot more than what had already been done to make Abbie feel even with Parker.
“Abbie?” Maggie called out tentatively from the living room right after Abbie had laid down to try and take a nap.
“Yeah?” she yelled out groggily to her friend who took it as an invitation to enter.
“Are you sleeping?”
“Trying to.”
“Sorry.” Maggie didn’t sound like her confident self. Normally she would have barged in, told Abbie she had something to say and that Abbie didn’t need to be asleep in the middle of the day anyway, jump on the bed and then start a long talk. So this timid version was not one Abbie recognized.
“It’s okay? Is something wrong?”
“Yep. No. Um. Can we talk?”
“Always,” Abbie told her best friend, surprised it needed to be said. Maggie came over and sat down on Abbie’s bed.
“I can’t tell you what I want to talk about.” That wasn’t how Abbie expected this conversation to go, though admittedly she had no idea what to expect.
“Ok. Then how can we talk?”
“We can’t. At least not yet. But I want you to know that everything I do or am going to do in the future is what I think is best for you. It just might seem a little high handed. Don’t hate me, though.”
Maggie looked at Abbie for half a second before lowering her eyes, and Abbie didn’t really want to agree to this statement without knowing more details, but she knew from experience that there was no way to talk Maggie into talking about something she didn’t want to or didn’t think she could speak about so there was no point in trying and anyway, she couldn’t imagine anything that would make her hate her anyway.
“Of course I won’t,” she told her friend, forehead scrunched up in confusion. Maggie smiled, though, so apparently that was all she expected in way of a response.
“Good,” Maggie said and then jumped onto the bed beside Abbie.
“Now get up. We have a party to plan and you shouldn’t be sleeping in the middle of the day anyway.”
Abbie groaned, but she got up, and if she couldn’t help grinning at Maggie’s partial return to her normal self, then who could blame her.
“Planning Jo’s bon voyage party is the best way I know to pass the day. I can sleep anytime. Let’s get out the notebooks!”
She jumped up from the bed and to her desk where the girls had a large notebook with all their party planning info from food to guest lists to music all the way up to clean up the next day, there was no detail left unplanned. Nothing was going to go wrong on Friday night. They wouldn’t allow it. The reason for celebrating was just too good.
Technically, Jo had already moved out. She had been staying with her boyfriend since the announcement that she was moving, and she came when Maggie and Abbie weren’t home in order to pack up the remaining belongings. But Friday was the day she would officially be gone, her name off the lease with no responsibility to help pay the bills and no right to suddenly appear in the house like an unexpected rain cloud at a beach wedding. So Friday was when they were really going to be celebrating, and Abbie planned on not being able to remember anything except the joy of being Jo-less come Saturday.
Friday finally came, and it was more memorable than Abbie would have liked.
She had just placed the finishing touches on her Dorothy costume when Maggie walked in dressed in full on Glinda. When the girls had discussed costumes, Abbie had expected a spirited debate over which girl got to be Dorothy, but Maggie happily conceded saying she much preferred Glinda anyway.
“I can’t believe you didn’t come as a Munchkin,” Abbie remarked. “You would have been adorable.”
Maggie waved her wand over her friend’s head as she told her, “I had to pick a magical character because tonight I’m going to make all of your dreams come true.”
“Really? That sounds exciting. How exactly are you going to do that?”
“Haven’t you ever seen the movie? I’m going to send you on the path towards the wizard. Only eventually, you’ll realize that only you can make your dreams come true for real.”
Abbie rolled her eyes.
“That sounds not at all helpful. You definitely should’ve been a munchkin.”
“Just follow the yellow brick road.”
“Stop that!” Abbie laughed as she went to put the finishing touches to the living room where Maggie skipped behind her singing.
“Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road.”
Abbie perched the door open, and she looked down the path of the driveway that was spray painted to look like a yellow brick road. And at the end of it was Toby, dressed as the scarecrow, who had arrived early.
“Look, Maggie!” Abbie giggled. “You sent me right to Toby.” Maggie stopped singing as she looked down the driveway and she mumbled something under her breath, but Abbie wasn’t paying any attention.
“Hey, Toby,” she greeted him, and he raised his hand in acknowledgment.
“Hello, Abbie. Or Dorothy,” he replied.
“Abbie’s fine. I’ll forget to answer if you call me Dorothy.” She gave him a hug, something they had started doing early that week as a compromise to their weird standoffish behavior, and led him inside.
“Where’s Parker?” Abbie tried to ask nonchalantly. The day before, Toby had told Abbie that he and Parker had a heart to heart talk, and Parker had apologized. He wanted them to be friends again, and Parker had told Toby that he wasn’t going to try to win over the girl Toby was so clearly meant to be with. Abbie had blushed at this, but then again, so had Toby to an extent.
And with Parker’s blessing on their relationship, Abbie realized there was no longer any point in keeping up this façade. It was never really a good idea anyway. She was going to break up with Toby, but nothing bad could come between her and her celebration of no longer living with Jo. So dissolving their relationship could wait.
But that wasn’t the only thing Tob
y had told Abbie.
“I asked him to come to the party. If that’s all right with you. He wanted to apologize to you, and I miss hanging out with him. Is that okay?”
What could she say? She had been saying how over him she was for weeks now, it would look awkward not to say yes now. And if she secretly missed him and wanted to see him, nobody needed to know that but her.
So now she was glancing anxiously down the street, looking for his car and wondering why he had not ridden with Toby.
“He had to work,” Toby told her snapping her back from her reverie. “He’ll be here later.”
Soon, the party was going in full force. Abbie had been drinking pretty heavily, but not heavily enough to be unaware of her surroundings. Which is how she noticed Parker standing by the wall talking to Maggie. He had a red solo cup in his hand, and he was smiling down at her friend and she was laughing up at him.
Her heart started beating more than she cared to admit, but she swallowed and counted to ten to get it steady again before she allowed herself to walk over to them.
“Hey, Parker,” she whispered and she was pretty sure he couldn’t have heard her, but somehow he did.
“Hi, Abs. Nice costume,” he told her.
“I’m Dorothy,” she told him even though it was clear, “and we finally got rid of the bitch that used to live here. Just like Dorothy got rid of that bitch in the movie.” She told him this as if it was a conspiracy that the government might want to cover up, but he just listened patiently as if it was new information.
“I heard something about that,” he finally replied. “Where is Toby?”
“Not sure,” she said. “He disappeared. Why aren’t you in a costume?”
“I didn’t have time to get one because of work. I didn’t think I was going to be able to come at all.”
“I’m glad you did, though,” Maggie told him, and when he smiled at her in gratitude, Abbie felt weird things in the pit of her stomach. Maggie should not be on such good terms with him.
“I’m glad you could come too,” Abbie said in order to make herself even with Maggie, but she felt like she had said it too late.
“Thanks, Abbie. That means a lot.”
There, Abbie thought. What she said meant a lot to Parker. Haha, Maggie. Only she wasn’t sure why she needed to one up Maggie.
She walked away when the silence between the three became too awkward, and Tyler, who was fully up-to-date on all of the emotional goings on in her life and who had no sympathy for her at all, came over to find her.
“You see,” he offered with no segue, “that is why you should have listened to me and stuck with the good doctor. I don’t care how fake all of this is, your feelings for him aren’t.” And she couldn’t deny that he was right. She was still going to pretend that she could, though.
Maggie and Parker, the only sober ones at the event, stood together most of the night and talked. Abbie, who was definitely not sober, was still highly aware of this. She hung onto Toby in a petulant attempt to act uninterested in the other pair, but she was pretty sure no one was buying it. At the very least, Parker and Maggie didn’t seem to care.
The party ended sometime the next day and the last guest was gone by that Saturday night. Parker and Toby were going to stay to help clean up, but Maggie and Abbie had no intention of doing any cleaning after their wild night, where, they were happy to note, the police were only called once. They had hired a cleaning company to come in on Monday, and so there was really no need. So the boys left.
Abbie trudged towards her bedroom, but Maggie stopped her.
“Abbie,” she said, “I know this isn’t a good time, but can I ask you something before you go to bed?”
“Of course,” Abbie replied out of habit.
“What is your plan now? With Toby and Parker, I mean? Are you still doing it?”
Abbie was nervous. How should she answer that?
“I’m over it,” she decided to say, ashamed about the fact that she in fact was not over it. “I think what they did was bad, but I can kind of see why they did it, and so I’m forgiving them. And I like Toby a lot. He’s great,” he was the type of person she would love to be friends with but nothing more, she finished in her head, but was not yet ready to admit out loud. She purposely avoided any mention of Parker. She definitely could not admit her feelings for him. She was just going to have to get over them.
“And what about Parker?”
Shit, Abbie thought. Now what did she say? And why was Maggie asking? “I’m completely over him,” Abbie lied through her teeth, but she didn’t feel bad. She was going to make those words true somehow.
“Good,” Maggie said and blushed.
Abbie almost let it go, and if Maggie hadn’t blushed, then Abbie might have been able to go to bed and forget everything that had just happened. But that blush had to have meant something…
“Why?” she asked, afraid she would not like the answer.
“Oh. No...nothing,” Maggie stumbled, and Abbie knew it meant something big.
“What?”
“I just had a thought, but I won’t say it,” Maggie said cryptically. “I’ll just forget I even thought it.”
“Margaret, what are you thinking?”
Maggie sighed. “It’s just that I spent a lot of time with Parker tonight, and I really had a good time. I think he likes me. And, since you’re over him, I was going to ask you if it was all right for me to go out with him, but I realized that was dumb. I shouldn’t have even thought it.”
Maggie’s face was flushed, and Abbie didn’t know what to say. How could Maggie do this? Abbie supposed she really hadn’t done anything yet. What could Abbie say, though? It wasn’t like she could admit to have any feelings for Parker, not even to Maggie would she admit that. She didn’t even want to admit them to herself. And seeing her best friend happy might be the best way to get Parker out of her brain.
“I think you should do whatever you want,” Abbie said, surprising herself. She expected Maggie to demure. To say she wouldn’t do anything to hurt Maggie.
“Thanks, Abbie!” Maggie said instead, throwing her arms around her friend. Abbie hugged her back halfheartedly.
“No problem,” she whispered doing her best not to cry.
“Goodnight, Dorothy,” Maggie finally said, and Abbie smiled.
“Goodnight, Glinda,” Abbie responded.
“And remember, all your dreams are going to come true,” Maggie reminded her.
“If I just follow the yellow brick road?”
“Exactly!”
Abbie wasn’t so sure anything good was going to happen to her anytime soon.
28
Toby woke up on Sunday afternoon with a raging headache and the thought it was still Saturday. Because at his age, there was no way he could’ve slept an entire day away.
He got up and went to get a cup of coffee, and he saw Parker sitting on the couch watching TV.
“You’re finally up?”
“Mmmhmm,” Toby mumbled and collapsed by his friend on the couch.
“So, I’ve got something that might help you out of your jam,” Parker said. Toby racked his brain. He wasn’t in any jams. Was he? Well, he was in one with Abbie. But Parker didn’t know anything about that, and Toby had found his own way out anyway. He was going to break up with her. He was pretty sure he was interested in Maggie – no, he was definitely sure. Now he wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do about that since she would be loyal to Abbie, but he would deal with that later. In the meantime, it was not fair to Abbie to keep leading her on.
“Your problem with Maggie?” What was Parker talking about? Had he said something to him about it last night or the night before he supposed?
“How you want to hang out with her more?” Parker continued when he realized Toby didn’t comprehend.
“Oh. Right,” Toby still wasn’t entirely sure what they were talking about, but he figured he’d catch up at some point.
“I know a w
ay we can all hang out again without it being weird,” Parker paused and then said, “I’m going to ask her out.”
Toby sat up straight. Had he heard right?
“No. That’s cool, man. You really shouldn’t ask someone out just for me.”
“Of course not, man,” Parker looked at Toby as if he was losing his mind. “I wouldn’t do that. I’m asking her out because I want to. We talked all night at the party while all the rest of you were getting hammered. I don’t know if she’ll say yes what with the whole Abbie thing. But I think she’s amazing. And I’m going to take my chances.”
Toby was pretty sure he was going to be sick.
Abbie looked good tonight, Toby couldn’t deny it. He was a lucky guy to be her date. However, Maggie looked beautiful, and he couldn’t help but be jealous of his friend. Worse. After everything that had already happened with Abbie, Toby couldn’t ask Parker to back off. And he was beginning to feel as if he was in the middle of a Shakespeare play. Wasn’t there one with magic spells that made everybody fall in love and be with the wrong people? He was pretty sure whatever that play was, he was living the real life version of it.
“What are you getting?” Abbie leaned into him, her side grazing his. They were on a double date – Parker and Maggie had insisted because they were nervous and because they wanted to make sure this was truly okay with everyone before they got too serious. As if, though, any of them could say that it wasn’t okay with them if they didn’t like it.
It was fun, Toby told himself, with a forced mental smile. At least, it could potentially become fun at some point in the future. Here he was with the girl that he had won hard and fair from his best friend. So he was happy. He had to be, and he would be. Mind over matter, after all.
“Not sure,” he told Abbie, trying not to notice Parker and Maggie whispering away behind their menus. What could they be whispering about? They practically just met. Surely it was too early to have secrets.
“What are you talking about over there?” Good. If Abbie asked it, he didn’t have to. That was much safer.
The Abbie Diaries: The Complete Series Page 16
