She's So Dead To Us

by Kieran Scott

  “Hey, David,” I said.

  His eyebrows rose. “Yeah?”

  “The answer to your question is yes,” I said.

  His grin lit the entire room. He took a sliding, sideways step toward me. “Yeah?”

  I grinned back. “Yeah.”

  David slipped one arm around my back. “Cool.”

  Then he leaned in and kissed me, his lips warm and soft, his eyelashes tickling my cheek. When he pulled away, I smiled. There may not have been fireworks, but it was nice. Part of me had to wonder if Jake had seen that, too, but I forced myself not to look over at him. From now on, I only had eyes for David Drake. I was a Norm, I was going to date a Norm, and I was going to forget all about the lame-ass Cresties and their evil pranks.

  “Come on,” David said, taking my hand. “Let’s catch up with them before Logan eats his dad’s car.”

  I laughed as he held the door open for me and I slipped out into the cool night. At that moment, there was no doubt in my mind that I had just made the right decision.

  ally

  Twenty-three down . . . formerly trendy berry. Formerly trendy berry ending with an i. What kind of berry ended with an i? Why could I not get this?

  “Done!”

  Annie smacked the “ring for service” bell atop the CVS counter and threw her hands up.

  “You are not done.” I lifted my head. My neck hurt from straining over Ultimate Crosswords for the past half hour. Annie turned her book around and showed me her puzzle. Every single box was filled in. I looked down at my pathetic excuse for a crossword board. It was maybe half done. If I was being nice to myself.

  “What’s twenty-three down?” I whined.

  She looked over her board. “Acai! That’s the easiest one.”

  “I suck at this,” I said, throwing my pencil down. Why had I even spent a dollar ninety-nine (minus discount) of my hard-earned money on that crappy book if she was going to beat me every time we challenged? I checked my watch and sighed. Ten minutes and I would be able to clock out. “Why is this place so dead?”

  “Football game,” Annie said, jumping up and coming down with her butt on the counter. She swung her legs over, grabbed a Reese’s from the display underneath, and tore it open. “This side of town goes dead on game night. Now, if you were working at the Apothecary,” she said, putting on a snotty tone and lifting her nose, “you’d be seriously busy.”

  The Apothecary was an old-school pharmacy and makeup outlet on the Crestie side of town. I used to accompany my mother there once a week to pick up “essentials” like La Mer skin cream, Estée Lauder eye gel, and cooling pedicure socks shipped in from Italy. None of which could be afforded now. I wondered what my former friends would think if they saw the current state of my mom’s makeup bag. These days it was Avon and Olay all the way.

  “Right. Norms play football, Cresties play soccer,” I said, rolling my eyes. I walked around the counter and joined her, eyeing the candy selection. “Speaking of Cresties, you’ll never believe what happened this morning.”

  “Wait!” Annie ran around the counter again, shoving an entire peanut butter cup in her mouth, and extracted her notebook from her bag. She poised her pencil over it and looked up at me like an expectant cub reporter out of a Superman cartoon. “Okay, go!”

  I casually picked up a tube of Mentos and put it down. “When I went outside for my morning bike ride, the lawn jockey was gone.”

  “Really?” she said, in a leading way that made my heart pound. She bent and scribbled vehemently in her book.

  “What’re you writing?” I asked, standing on my toes to try to see. She shielded the page with her hand like a little kid who didn’t want her test paper copied.

  “Just that maybe Jake Graydon is human after all,” she said.

  I blushed and looked away, setting about reorganizing the battery carousel, which did not need reorganizing. I had figured it was him. Of course it was him. But it was nice to have someone else confirm the suspicion.

  “So, you and David,” Annie said behind me. “That’s . . . interesting.”

  My stomach flipped, and I swallowed back a wave of unpleasantness. “Why?” I asked, lifting a shoulder. When I turned around, I looked her right in the eye, but it took some effort. “I like David. He’s sweet.” I paused, searching for the right thing to say. “David is . . . good for me, you know? I think it’s gonna be good.”

  Was I trying to convince her or me?

  “Uh-huh,” she said skeptically, shoving her pencil and notebook back in her bag. She extracted a dollar and rang up her peanut butter cups. “Just remember that when you’re breaking his heart in a few weeks.”

  “Annie! I’m not gonna break his heart,” I said, my own chest constricting.

  “We’ll see.”

  Before I could protest further, the door chime sounded and my mom walked in. She looked beautiful. Her hair was done up all fancy, and she was wearing more makeup than I’d seen her wear in months. Her eyes and her smile were both bright—genuine. Not forced or strained or tired. It was a nice change, even if I wasn’t so psyched about the reason behind it.

  Lately my mom and Mrs. Moore had been talking on the phone a lot—even though none of the other Crestie moms had stopped by or called since we’d been back—and every time my mom hung up with Mrs. Moore she’d ask me how Shannen was doing, like she was hoping all four of us could get together or something. I’d always say “fine” and then change the subject or have to run to the bathroom or something, all so that I wouldn’t have to explain to my mom that her one friend’s daughter had no interest in hanging out with me anymore. It had just started getting old when Mrs. Moore had floated the idea of my mother going out on a blind date with this widower from the crest named Gray Nathanson. Ever since then, Mom had been more about preparing for Gray than badgering me about Shannen. Tonight was the big night. Up until now, I had somehow avoided thinking about it.

  “Hey, hon!” my mother sang, her voice quavering with excitement. She executed a turn, the skirt of her black cotton dress twirling. “How do I look?”

  “Amazing,” I replied truthfully.

  Annie whistled. “Smokin’.”

  “Why, thank you, Annie,” my mom said, giving a slight bow.

  The two of them had met a few days earlier when my mom had come to visit me at work. Annie had been jamming down the keys on her computer and muttering under her breath, recording a rather heinous encounter with Chloe at the latest meeting of the Acorn, for which Annie wrote and Chloe edited. Apparently Chloe’s perfectionist nature did not gel with Annie’s freewheeling style, and everything Chloe said was a criticism. Annie, it seemed, was not good at taking criticism. When she’d finished venting, she’d slammed the laptop closed with a bang, looked up at my mom, and smiled beatifically, as if everything were completely normal. Back home that night, when I’d asked what my mom had thought of Annie, she had said my new friend was “intriguing.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

  “I just wanted to stop by to make sure you’re all set for dinner,” my mom said. “You can nuke that pasta from last night, or there’s some chicken in the freezer.”

  “Okay. I’ll be fine,” I told her, a lump forming in my throat. I knew what I was supposed to say, I just hadn’t realized it was going to be so hard to say it. “Have fun, Mom,” I managed to get out.

  “Thanks, hon,” she said, her smile widening. “We’ll see how it goes.”

  Then she gave me a quick peck on the forehead and turned to wave at Annie. Instead she found a pack of mints hurtling toward her. My mother lifted her hand and snatched it out of the air. And people wonder where I get my athleticism and dexterity.

  “What’s this?” my mother asked.

  “Just in case,” Annie said with a wink. “They’re on me.”

  “Thanks.” Mom blushed, pocketed the mints, and walked out.

  “Gross!” I said. I picked up my Ultimate Crosswords book and whipped it at her. Annie easily dodged out
of the way.

  “What? I just wanted her to be prepared!” Annie protested.

  “That’s it, I’m clocking out.”

  “But you have five more minutes!” Annie whined.

  “They can dock me!”

  My hands were shaking as I shed my blue-and-red CVS-issue polo, changed into a T-shirt, and typed my code into the computer in the break room. I couldn’t believe my mom was going on a date. That she might even be kissing some random guy at the end of the night. The very thought made me gag, and my eyes stung with tears. My parents weren’t even divorced yet. Not that it mattered. They would have been if my mom’s lawyers had been able to track him down before our money ran out and she couldn’t pay them anymore. Where was he? Unlike most of my friends’ parents, my mom and dad had always been totally into each other. Kissing and hugging and holding hands. Going out on “dates” even though they’d been married almost twenty years. Couldn’t he, I don’t know, sense that the love of his life was moving on? Or had he never really cared about us at all? Because if he had, how could he just forget about us? Just leave without a single call or an e-mail or anything?

  I took my anger out on the back door, shoving it open with a bang. The delivery area where trucks pulled in and out all day, unloading supplies to CVS and the stores in the strip mall—Stanzione’s Pizza, Dunkin’ Donuts, Hill Deli, and the dry cleaner—was deserted. A slight mist fell, tickling my skin, cooling it. My bike was locked up to a water drain next to the Dumpster, and it took me longer than usual to work the combination. When the chain finally fell free, I straddled my bike and rode toward the crest. This time I knew where I was going, and this time I had a clear agenda. I probably should have been heading over to David’s house—dropping in on the guy I had just last night decided to focus on with all my energy—but that wasn’t where I wanted to be. Not right now. Not in this mood. I had some stuff to work out, and sitting on a couch watching some lame DVD while awkwardly holding hands with my new BF was not going to cut it.

  And besides, I wanted to know for sure. Had Jake taken the lawn jockey? Was Annie right? Had he suddenly become human on the very night I’d started going out with someone else?

  I took the Harvest Lane hill at a sprint and arrived at my old house soaked with sweat and rain, my chest heaving up and down. I paused as I approached the front door. The lawn jockey was standing just off to the right of the bottom step. As if he’d never left.

  Even though my finger was shaking, I managed to press the bell purposefully. Then I held my breath. A tall, wiry kid who was not Jake answered the door.

  “Hey.” He looked confused.

  “Hey,” I said. “Is Jake here?”

  “Yeah. Hang on.” He half closed the door. “Jake! Some girl!”

  I heard the barreling feet on the stairs. The stairs down which I used to fly in my sleeping bag, pretending it was a bobsled course in the Olympics. Jake’s feet were on my stairs. So bizarre. He slapped his brother on the back of the head as he arrived, then blushed when he saw it was me.

  “Oh,” he said. “Hey.”

  “Nice lawn jockey,” I said. “New?”

  He blushed so fast I thought his face might pop. “Sort of.”

  “I owe you a game,” I said, peeling off my hoodie and tossing it over my shoulder. I tried not to care that my gray T-shirt was sticking to my skin at the base of my neck, under my arms, and at the center of my stomach.

  He looked up at the sky. The misting had changed into steady drizzle. “It’s raining.”

  “Oh, so you’re a wuss,” I said.

  He gave me a look, then disappeared. Seconds later he was back, basketball in hand. He threw it at my chest. Hard. “Let’s do this.”

  jake

  “Did I mention I’ve never lost on this court?” Ally taunted, a smile on her dripping-wet face. Her hair clung to her forehead and neck, but she made no move to fix it. She stood up straight and held her arms out, palms up, the ball on her right hand. “I own this place.” I could not believe she was going out with David Drake. How did a dorkus like David Drake get to go out with someone this cool?

  “Yeah. You may have said that once or twice,” I replied.

  When we’d first come around the side of the house to the full-size, outdoor basketball court, I’d actually thought Ally might cry. The sign on the state-of-the-art scoreboard above the three-bench bleachers still read RYAN ARENA. Jonah and I had always thought Ryan was some dude. Apparently not. According to Ally, her dad had this court built for her on her twelfth birthday. And since then, she had dominated on it. Right up until a year and a half ago, when she’d moved out and I’d moved in.

  “You ready?” she asked. “Because if you need to take a minute . . .”

  “Bring it,” I replied.

  Ally’s grin widened. She palmed the wet ball in her left hand, faked right, and went left. My feet slipped on the wet asphalt, and I went down. She got around me easily, considering I was on the ground, and hit a textbook layup. I pushed myself to my feet, cursing under my breath. There was a nice, wide scrape on my knee.

  “That’s fourteen to twelve,” she said cockily, holding the ball in one palm. “You sure you want to keep this up? Cuz you’re about to lose to a gi-irl !” she sang.

  I rolled my eyes, but inside my stomach was doing flips. This girl was definitely not like the others. There was no apology. No “Oh! You hurt yourself! Let’s get you cleaned up!” Nothing.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  She bounced the ball to me. The rain was coming harder now, and we were both soaked through. Her T-shirt clung to her in all the right places. I had to get back to the game before my body started thinking for me.

  “Twelve– fourteen,” I said.

  I dribbled from hand to hand. She bent at the waist, rocking back and forth on her hips, her eyes on mine. She had this look on her face like she knew she was going to win. Screw it. Basketball was not my game. There was a good chance I wasn’t going to get around her. Might as well go through. I barreled straight ahead, slamming her shoulder with mine. As she went sprawling I realized that might have been kind of unnecessary. I hesitated before tossing the ball up, which gave her just enough of a window to spring off the ground, go vertical, and slap the ball away. It bounced toward the edge of the court, and by the time I figured out what had happened, she was shooting a perfect arcing shot over my head. It fell through the net with a slosh, spraying water everywhere.

  “That’s game!” Ally shouted, raising her arms.

  I hung my head. Good thing it was raining. Otherwise Hammond or the Idiot Twins might have dropped by and witnessed this tragedy.

  “Nice one,” I said, reaching my hand out to her.

  She slapped it and sat down on the bottom bleacher. “Yeah. You too.”

  I sat down next to her. Too close. Our thighs and knees touched. She looked at our legs but didn’t move away. I was breathing kind of heavy from the game and wished I had a Gatorade or something so I’d have something to do with my hands.

  I looked over at her. She quickly looked away. We both laughed.

  “That was fun,” I said, leaning back. My shoulder pressed against hers. “We should do it again.”

  “And risk pissing off your friends?” she asked.

  My face turned hot. “Screw them.”

  She twisted slightly, leaning her hand into the bench. Which meant that her knee was pushing more solidly against mine. I cleared my throat.

  “What the hell did you do to Chloe, anyway?” I asked. I mean, the girl was obviously cool. I couldn’t believe she could have done anything that bad. Maybe if I could sort of ease her back into the group, we could hang out. “No one will tell me.”

  Ally’s face grew serious, and she sat up straight. Her leg was no longer touching mine. She looked down at her feet, which she kicked out in front of her. “I skipped out on her sweet sixteen.”

  “No way.” I laughed. “That’s the big drama?”

  “Yep.” She loo
ked away.

  “And the punishment for that is a lifetime ban?” I asked.

  “The funny thing is, I never even got an invitation,” she said. “Chloe claims she sent it, but if she did, I didn’t get it. So technically, there’s no reason for them to be mad.”

  “Girls,” I said—then hoped she wouldn’t take it to mean her.

  “Tell me about it,” she joked. “It’s more what my dad did, I think,” she said, swinging her legs back and forth. “When they look at me . . . all they see is him. He really did eff up. They have a right to be pissed at him. We all do.”

  I swallowed hard. We were getting into heavy territory. I’d never been good at heavy.

  Ally sighed and looked down at her hands, fidgeting with her fingers. “I guess we all just need to move on.”

  Then the weirdest thing happened. I had this sudden itch to hold her hand. My fingers actually twitched toward hers, but I held back. That would definitely be too weird. And definitely be sending a signal I did not want to send. So instead, I pressed my palm into my thigh and sighed. I waited. The rain got harder and louder for a second, and then, all of a sudden, stopped. Ally was done talking. Rain dripped from our hair and clothes. I had to clench my teeth to keep from shaking. Now that we’d stopped moving, I was getting cold.

  “So whose idea was it?” she asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “The lawn jockey.”

  I froze. Like I was really going to rat out Shannen. “Why do you want to know?”

  She stared at me for a long moment. “It was Shannen’s, wasn’t it? You can tell me. It’s not like I’m going to go fight her or something.”

  I didn’t answer, but my face must have said it all.

  “I knew it.” She pulled the fabric of her T-shirt away from her stomach and wrung it out. Skin. She was showing skin. And her stomach was seriously ripped. “It’s so insane. We used to be best friends.” She shook her head and looked out across the court with this sad look on her face. “I knew they were going to be pissed, but I never thought . . . I mean, I thought we’d all get over it.”