The Accidental Bad Girl

by Maxine Kaplan

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Simone turned and went to class, with me still staring after her.

  At lunch I decided to do an experiment. I got a salad from the cafeteria and sat down to eat it in front of her locker. A few minutes later, the door to the hallway opened and Simone stepped through. She stopped when she saw me. I didn’t know her face well enough to read what she was thinking, but after a second she smiled briefly and sat next to me, pulling a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of her locker.

  “I usually eat lunch alone,” she told me. “I like having time to myself.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I can go?”

  “No, I don’t mind.” She put down her sandwich and looked me straight in the eyes. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed in my lack of, well, girl talk. It’s not my forte.”

  I recalled Audrey’s glib jabs about Ellie’s party, her fake compassion and tears. I shuddered. “Good,” I said quietly.

  A rubber band snapped into the locker dangerously close to my head, glinting. I picked it up and saw that it had been decorated with red and silver twist ties, braided sort of like a lanyard. I looked in the direction it had come from and saw a corner of hallway occupied by Gilly and his friends. I picked it up and smiled in spite of myself.

  Simone was looking over her shoulder with disgust on her face. But when she saw me holding the rubber band, she chortled, “Oh, come on. Not really?”

  I dropped it. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She looked behind her again, shaking her head at Gilly. “Colin Creevey over there actually, finally made a move? Like . . . a moderately successful move? That’s sort of astounding.”

  Unaccountably blushing, I shook my head. “What do you mean, ‘finally’?”

  “You’re kidding, right? No adolescent boy who acts like he hates a pretty girl as much as he did last year isn’t totally nursing, like, an everlasting gobstopper of a boner for her.”

  Gilly was watching us, an agitated look now on his face. Simone bared her teeth at him and hissed like a cat. He scowled and looked away. Simone turned back to me.

  “You’re healing fast,” she observed. “I’d offer to help you with makeup, but I think you’re actually kind of rocking the look.”

  I laughed.

  “So, Kitty texted,” she went on. “Said you stopped by the Fish Hook.”

  I stiffened and looked at her closely. She was looking back at me, just as closely. There was a staring contest that I lost.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on, then?” she asked mildly.

  I looked around at the still-crowded hallway. “Not here.”

  She finished her sandwich and fished The Great Gatsby, our English class book, out of her backpack. “Meet me after school then. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  At three o’clock, Simone led us out the back door of Howell and down a few blocks, eventually stopping at a gargantuan, immaculate, vintage bronze Cadillac.

  I gaped at her. “This is your car?”

  She shrugged nonchalantly but ran her fingers lovingly over the hood as she unlocked the door.

  “I inherited it,” she said, once we were both in the car. “Well, my great-uncle Myron died, and no one wanted it, so I appropriated it.”

  “No one wanted this?” I asked, sinking into the velvety upholstery.

  “It was a junker sitting in an unused corner of a field in Woodstock,” she said. “I spent some time up there a couple of years ago. Fixed it up.”

  My face grew warm as I realized she was talking about her mysterious disappearance in tenth grade. But she didn’t seem embarrassed as she pulled out, cool and in control, switching gears with a deft hand.

  “So. Talk.”

  And, with an ease that I couldn’t remember feeling in years, I talked to a girl. I didn’t worry about how I was sounding or coming off. I just told her a true story, and she listened.

  Simone parked in front of my house. “You realize that sounds like bullshit, don’t you?” She pressed a button, and I heard my door unlock.

  I was aghast. “It’s the truth, I swear.”

  “Come on, Kendall. I’ve been going to Howell for as long as you have.” She nodded toward my house and, in shock, I opened the car door and stepped out.

  I started to say, “Simone, I promise—” when she cut me off with a sharp, “Oh please, Ken. You’re never going to convince me that Michael Gilbert was of any use to anyone.” She raised an eyebrow at me, smiled, and shut the door.

  I watched her speed down the street, a gasp of incredulous laughter exploding from my chest.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Simone and I started drinking coffee together in the morning and eating lunch together every afternoon. It was as simple as that. There was no flattery involved, there were no insinuations, no probing questions, no gossip. I got the feeling Simone wouldn’t have known how to do that even if she wanted to. We talked about Jane Austen and Supernatural. I told her about applying to YATS, and she told me about the soldering iron she had bought over the summer to experiment with making jewelry out of scrap metal from her dad’s industrial plumbing company. Just like that, we were friends.

  I didn’t know it could be easy. And I knew with a lot of girls, including me a year ago, it wouldn’t be. I tried to push that thought down.

  I spent the week trying to track down Ellie’s summer activities. According to her parents (I called pretending to be in the admissions office at Brown University, their alma mater), she had spent the summer taking tickets at the Film Forum, a fancy repertory and independent movie theater in the Village. I got my Facebook account restored and checked her photos: no cinder-block rooms or green Priuses. Just BMWs in the Hamptons and shots of her and Audrey on the beach.

  I stalked her in the halls and snuck glances into the lockers and backpacks of everyone on Trev’s list, but I didn’t find anything. I watched everyone who had ever held a grudge against me, but no one was acting stranger than anyone else.

  Ellie was still my most likely suspect. But I had nothing to go on and no way to get at her.

  By Friday afternoon, I was near despair. I was never going to find Mason’s stolen stash. I could kiss YATS good-bye.

  And then Ellie finally did something out of the ordinary.

  I was in the library, desperately doing math homework in case I had to argue my way back into YATS after experiencing total disgrace, when Ellie and Pete walked in together.

  Ellie didn’t like Pete.

  They started walking in my direction. I grabbed my books and hid behind the stacks with the dictionaries.

  They stopped on the other side of the shelves. “This is not my problem, Pete,” said Ellie, in a low voice. “If Grant wants her at this party so badly, he’s going to have to convince her to go himself, because I’m not doing it.”

  “You guys are both such hypocrites,” hissed Pete. “You’ve done ecstasy, and Audrey doesn’t refuse to hang out with you.” My head shot up. I pressed my ear against the stacks.

  “No, I haven’t done ecstasy, I did ecstasy: singular, one time, once,” Ellie answered harshly. “And I didn’t expect Audrey to hold my hand while I did it. Just because I’m more considerate of Audrey’s feelings than her boyfriend is doesn’t make me a hypocrite, and it certainly doesn’t make Audrey one. It just makes Grant an asshole.”

  I snorted and then clapped my hands over my mouth, but they didn’t hear me.

  “Ellie, come on. You know Audrey will go to the party if you ask her to go with you.”

  “You’re wrong.” Ellie sounded tired. “I can’t get her to do anything. And I don’t have any particular reason to want her to go to a party so that Grant can show her off while rolling, so he’s just going to have to deal with it himself.” She paused. “Let go of my arm, Pete.”

  “Look, the address is 179 Cranberry Street. It’s tonight. A whole bunch of us will be rolling. You should come. And bring Audrey.”

  “Where did you even
get it from? I thought the guy at the Fish Hook was dry all summer.”

  “He was. He just re-upped, like, last week. We’re getting it at the party. Think about it, OK? Everyone is going, plus lots of NYU and Columbia kids. It’s the first big party of the year. I know Audrey doesn’t like it when Grant rolls, but do you really want to miss out on all the gossip of the first party of the year? You know you girls love to be at the center of the gossip.”

  “Fine. I’ll think about it. Now, let go of me.”

  Several hours later, I found myself in front of a brownstone while Simone rearranged my hair, combing the strands back and forth with her sharp, immaculately clean nails.

  I slapped her hands away. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  She looked at me as if I were a child. “Just a crisscross part. Because I thought it would look nice. Do friends not do that?”

  I sighed. “Sorry for snapping,” I said. “I haven’t been to a party for a while.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  “No,” I scoffed. “I’ve been to a million parties.”

  “That is true,” she said. “What was the last one you went to without Audrey?” She took her hands away and smoothed the complicated cowl-neck on her black angora minidress.

  “Why do I feel like I should be insulted by that?”

  “You shouldn’t. I just imagine that to be a very specific dynamic.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, flashing back to St. Patrick’s Day two years ago, when Audrey insisted on both of us wearing these huge foam leprechaun hats all night.

  “We totally should have brought Nerf guns,” Audrey had whispered to me giddily, laughing eyes scanning the rowdy crowd. “We could have filled them with Lucky Charms.”

  “Wouldn’t whiskey be more appropriate?” I had asked.

  She grinned wickedly. “Exactly. Idiot boys would be lining up to try to get totaled with us, and we’d dash their dreams.”

  “She was fun, you know,” I said suddenly. I glanced over at Simone. “Audrey, I mean.”

  “She looks fun,” she said smoothly. Simone looked over at me, and her face softened. “‘Audrey fun’ isn’t the only way, you know.”

  I relaxed a little and managed to smile. “Oh, teach me, Master Simone.”

  Simone stuck her tongue out at me in a rare moment of pure, unconsidered silliness. “I am the master,” she said, laughing. “You are about to get a unique glimpse into the famed Simone Moody party maneuver. I ninja myself into places: No one’s ever there to see me enter or leave.”

  I must have had a look on my face, because she added, “I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I like being this way. I observe, I partake when I want, and I’m out when I want.” She looked at me, hard. “Don’t feel bad for me. I decide. It’s all about me.”

  “Should I stand far away from you?”

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed me by the elbow, hurrying us up the stairs. “Come on, Ken.”

  Jerry opened the door.

  “Hi,” I said, taking a surprised step back. But Jerry looked pleased to see me and stepped to the side, motioning us in with a gallant hand gesture.

  “Hey, welcome, glad you came,” Jerry said gruffly, closing the door. “Who’s your friend?”

  Simone put her hand out, curled like a cat’s paw. “Simone Moody,” she purred. Jerry took her hand with a grin.

  I inwardly rolled my eyes. “Simone, this is Jerry. I know him from, um, from . . .”

  But Simone wasn’t listening to me. She produced a shiny brass Zippo from out of nowhere and lit Jerry’s cigarette for him, checking out his ass while he bent over the flame.

  I outwardly rolled my eyes. “Where are the drinks?”

  Jerry pointed me toward the back of the room, and I pushed my way through to the kitchen. When I finally got there, some tall blond kid was blocking all the booze.

  “Excuse me,” I said impatiently. “Other people want to drink. Very badly.”

  The checked fabric of his shirt shifted as the boy stood up straighter. “What can I get you?” he asked, and I recognized the voice.

  I groaned. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  Mason turned around, grinning.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “It’s my party. Want a whiskey sour?”

  He busied himself with a Solo cup and a whiskey bottle, while I stared. “This is your house?” I asked.

  “Well. No. It’s my father’s,” he answered, dropping a maraschino cherry into the cup. “It’s one of my father’s houses. I’m borrowing it. Here you go.”

  I wasn’t going to drink anything he gave me, but, hoping to end this interaction, I took it. He caught my arm. An involuntary tickle rippled up my spine, and I pulled out of his grasp.

  He put his hands up. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to offend.”

  I wished fervently that I was already drunk enough to vomit all over him.

  I gave him my brightest, sweetest smile. “No worries.” Then I thrust my arm upward, and my drink dripped down his face, staining his blond hair a brownish pink.

  I stood there, frozen, waiting to see what he would do, anticipating that moment when he would clap his hands, turn stony, and move in for the kill. Get scary.

  Instead, he stood there calmly, catching errant drops with his tongue. He pushed his hair to the side and squeegeed it into the sink. “Nice aim,” he commented pleasantly, as if commending a good spike in a volleyball game. He wiped his lips, sending alcoholic droplets playfully in my direction.

  I recoiled and backed away, colliding with a hard body and bony hand that yanked me backward by the elbow; Jo reared up in my face.

  “What the hell was that?” she asked sharply, looking from me to Mason and looming over everything like an Amazon: tall, jacked, and buzzing for a fight. With her burning eyes and thick curtain of dark hair, it was like being interrogated by Wonder Woman.

  “Relax, Jo,” said Mason, voice rasping over a chuckle. I narrowed my eyes at him, annoyed—I didn’t know whether he was laughing out of awkwardness or actual amusement, but either way I didn’t think getting antagonized by my former assailant was funny. He ignored me and continued to grin, wiping his face with a paper towel as he said, “We’re just being silly.”

  She took a step and turned to him with an affronted look. I tried to step away, but she maintained an iron grip on my arm, giving me a front seat view of her enraged face. She was really pretty, I realized. I mean, I found her so frightening that I hadn’t considered her that way before, but all of those strangely narrow features, combined with that hair and pale, papery skin, fell together in an unsettlingly beautiful way. Like a Digger wasp: When its stinger is out, it’s easy to forget that its iridescent blue wings are gorgeous.

  “You’re just being silly,” she repeated in a low voice, dripping with venom. “You’re being silly with the girl who, weeks ago, was an ant you asked me to drown.”

  “Jo,” he said firmly, his face hardening.

  She cut him off, shaking her head in disgust. “Enjoy playtime with Princess Peach, you hypocrite. I hope your new agenda works out for you. Because I’m done.”

  With a hard glance at me, Jo stomped out of the kitchen.

  Mason stared after her, his face blank. Eventually, he sighed and shook his head. After taking a sip of his own drink, he seemed to remember I was there and refocused on me. “Do you want to get some air?” he asked, moving closer to me, watching me intently. “Come get some air with me. Let’s talk.”

  What I wanted was to do the opposite of whatever Mason asked me to do.

  He stepped even closer. “Come on, Kendall,” he said softly. “I didn’t want someone to steal my property, you know. I wish I didn’t need your help. I’d like to let you out of this if I can.”

  His voice was dripping with melted butter. I looked into his cool blue eyes and knew it was a probably a trick, maybe even a trap, but I couldn’t be sure—at least not sure enough to know that there wasn’t
a chance to wheedle my way out of this.

  And I couldn’t stop that pancakes-with-syrup tone from seeping into my shoulders, relaxing the muscles there.

  And so, almost involuntarily, as if that arctic gaze of his was pulling puppet strings, I gulped, nodded, and followed him out into the mild, still-summery night.

  There were two or three smokers hanging out on the stoop, farther down on the steps. We sat.

  “So,” he asked, “you having fun yet?”

  He sounded chummy—intimate and apparently genuinely curious. I stared at him, emotional whiplash raising my body temperature. “I’m not here for fun,” I hissed. “I’m not having fun, Mason.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You’re on the case, huh?”

  “Go fuck yourself. I don’t have a choice.”

  Again, he chuckled. We sat for a moment in silence. The strangeness of the moment was not lost on me: It was like the Big Bad Wolf slinking back to Grandmother’s house looking for a belly rub and Little Red Riding Hood just giving it up.

  I snuck a look at Mason and found he was staring back at me. He seemed content to sit in silence and watch me hate him. And, I had to admit, there was a pleasure in being able to openly loathe someone. I was used to having to hide my hate, be nice.

  Someone tumbled out of the doorway behind me, and Mason’s face went strange.

  “What is it?” I said, turning around to see Grant, rosy-cheeked and laughing with Pete. He looked around and noticed Mason.

  An odd sort of shadow flickered over Grant—nothing anyone who didn’t know him would notice, probably. He didn’t ever stop smiling. But for a moment, it was like someone hit pause on every muscle in his face. He didn’t take his eyes off of Mason.

  “Hey, man,” he said. “Great party.”

  Mason nodded, toasting him with his drink, but didn’t answer.

  Grant came down the stairs. “So, when did you get back into town?”

  Mason continued drinking, past the point where it was time to answer. Grant swung one foot down a step, still graceful even when drunk and rejected. That’s when he noticed me.