by Piper Banks
“Sounds great. You don’t have to paint?”
“No, I can take an afternoon off. We need to catch up,” Charlie said, bumping me with one shoulder. “Only don’t tell Finn, okay?”
“Why not?” I asked, surprised.
“Because he’ll insist on coming, too. And he’ll spend the entire time cracking wise. Or, even worse, talking about his dimbo girlfriend,” Charlie said darkly.
I had the definite feeling that Charlie hadn’t fully exorcised her feelings for Finn through her unrequited-love-inspired paintings.
“Is dimbo even a word?”
“I don’t know. If it’s not, it should be. Dumb plus bimbo equals dimbo,” Charlie said.
I thought this was a bit unfair. Phoebe was indisputably an air-head, but she really wasn’t a bimbo. But I knew this wasn’t a line of argument that Charlie would be open to.
“Gotcha. After school, at Grounded, no Finn,” I said. “I’ll just have to let Nora know I can’t give her a ride home from school today.”
“You can bring her along if you want,” Charlie offered.
I considered this, but shook my head. I liked Nora and had enjoyed the time we’d been spending together, but, even so, I really wanted to spend some time alone with Charlie, so we could catch up.
“No, that’s okay. Let’s just keep it to the two of us. We haven’t hung out on our own in ages,” I said.
“Cool beans,” Charlie said.
But that afternoon, moments after Charlie and I had settled in at our favorite table at Grounded, coffees in hand, the bell that hung on the glass front door of the coffee shop tinkled. I glanced up and saw Nora coming in. When she spotted us, she smiled and headed over to our table.
“Hey,” Nora said. “I saw your car parked out in front, so I thought I’d come in and find you.” She looked uncertainly from me to Charlie. “Unless I’m interrupting?”
I couldn’t help thinking, Yeah, you sort of are, but I didn’t want to hurt Nora’s feelings. After all, she had no idea that Charlie and I had planned on having a catch-up session. I hadn’t gone into detail when I told her I couldn’t give her a ride home after school.
I shook my head and smiled. “Not at all.”
“Take a seat,” Charlie said.
“Great! I’ll just go grab a coffee first,” Nora said.
While she was at the counter, ordering her drink, I turned to Charlie. “Do you mind if she hangs out with us?” I asked, taking care to keep my voice low.
“No, it’s fine,” Charlie said, shaking her head. “She seems nice.”
“She is,” I said.
“Besides, it’s not like we could tell her to go away, like we could with Finn,” Charlie said with a grin. “I once told him that he was the poster boy for jerks everywhere, and he actually thought I was complimenting him.”
“Who?” Nora asked, returning to the table with her latte just in time to hear Charlie’s last words.
“Who else? Finn,” Charlie said.
Nora sat down and blew on her coffee before taking a sip. “He’s so funny.”
Charlie shot her a dark look. “He certainly thinks he is.”
Nora looked startled at the venom in Charlie’s tone. I could tell she was worried she’d said something wrong.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “Charlie and Finn have a love-hate relationship.”
“Miranda!” Charlie said.
“Okay. They have a hate-hate relationship,” I said, biting my lip in order to keep from smiling. I shot Nora a look, remembering that she’d guessed the real nature of Charlie’s feelings for Finn. “Did I tell you guys what Finn did to Hannah’s Web site?”
Nora had already heard the details of Finn’s sabotage, but as Charlie hadn’t, I filled her in.
“What an idiot,” Charlie said, clearly referring to Finn and not Hannah. “What did Finn have to say about it?”
“He just laughed about it. He thought it was hilarious,” I said.
“Has she fixed it?”
“Not yet. Finn changed all of the passwords on her Web site- hosting software, and now claims that he can’t remember what he changed them to, so she can’t get access to the account,” I said. “Hannah’s furious. She said she’s going to blackball Finn from all Orange Cove High functions.”
“Does Finn know that?” Nora asked, looking concerned.
“Like he’d care,” Charlie said, rolling her eyes. “Although maybe it’ll finally motivate him to start studying, so he doesn’t fail out of Geek High and end up at Orange Cove High.”
“Doubtful,” I said.
“Seriously. This is Finn we’re talking about,” Charlie agreed.
“I have a friend like Finn back in Boston,” Nora said. “He jokes around constantly. And he’s really funny, but sometimes it can be irritating. You know, if you’re trying to have a serious conversation about something.”
“Exactly,” Charlie said, pointing a finger in Nora’s direction. “That’s it exactly. I know Finn can be funny, but sometimes you want to discuss something other than what superpowers would be passed on if Spider-Man and Wonder Woman had a baby together.”
“Especially since Spider-Man and Wonder Woman aren’t even from the same comic book series,” I said. I knew this only because I’d been present at the discussion, during which Finn—after lengthy deliberation—decided that for the purposes of a hypothetical question, it was okay that the two superheroes came from different fictional worlds. Charlie had finally threatened to stick chewed gum into his laptop if he didn’t shut up about it.
Charlie shot me a death-ray look. Nora caught it, and hurried to change the subject.
“So, Charlie, Miranda tells me that you’re a really amazing artist,” Nora said.
“You said that I’m amazing?” Charlie asked me, her expression instantly softening.
I nodded. “Because it’s true. You should see her work sometime, Nora. Charlie has an art studio in her house.”
“I’d love to,” Nora said.
“Do you like art?” Charlie asked.
“Absolutely,” Nora said enthusiastically. “I used to go to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston all the time.”
Nora’s answer took me by complete surprise. She’d never mentioned to me that she was interested in art.
Is she just pretending to be interested so Charlie will like her? I wondered. Maybe. But it didn’t really matter. Didn’t everyone feign interest in things they weren’t really into from time to time? I knew Nora was shy and still trying to fit in at Geek High. It wasn’t surprising that she’d make an extra effort to get along with Charlie or Finn.
But the thing was, I wasn’t all that interested in art. And Charlie knew that. So I couldn’t even pretend to be interested, as Nora asked Charlie about the local museums, and Charlie enthusiastically told her about a show she’d been to over the summer at the Norton Museum of Art in downtown West Palm Beach. Instead, I drank my coffee and people watched as students from both Geek High and Orange Cove High trailed in and out of Grounded, and tried to focus on how it was a good thing that Nora and Charlie were getting along so well. After four years of listening to Charlie and Finn bicker about everything from the free market to which was the best flavor of SpaghettiOs, I knew all too well how hard life could be when your friends didn’t get along.
After we’d been at Grounded for about an hour, and I was reaching my limit on how much longer I could listen to Charlie enthuse about Picasso’s Blue Period, the bell on Grounded’s front door jingled. I looked up in time to see a very glum-looking Finn arrive.
“Oh, no,” Charlie groaned, catching sight of Finn at the same time I did.
But I was glad to see Finn, if for no other reason than to break up the monotony of the art talk.
“Hey,” I called out to him. “Over here.”
“Miranda,” Charlie hissed.
“What? Like he’s not going to see us sitting here?” I said.
Nora craned her head around to see who we were talking abo
ut. “Finn looks sad,” she commented.
She was right. Finn did look sad. His shoulders were slumped and his hands were stuffed into his pockets. Even his Mohawk was drooping.
“Hi,” he said dully, as he collapsed into the empty chair at our table.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Finn shrugged. “I guess,” he said.
Charlie and I exchanged a look. A Finn who didn’t bounce around like Tigger jacked up on caffeine, while wisecracking non-stop, was a Finn to be concerned about.
“Did something happen?” Charlie asked in a much nicer tone than she normally used with Finn.
Finn shrugged again, but then he heaved out a great sigh and said, “Phoebe broke up with me.”
I stole another look at Charlie to see how she was absorbing this information, but this time, she didn’t meet my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Finn,” I said sympathetically.
“Yeah, that’s too bad,” Charlie said, somehow managing to sound like she meant it.
“Did she tell you why?” Nora asked.
Our combined sympathy seemed to have a positive effect on Finn. He perked up a bit, straightening his shoulders and leaning back in his chair. He stretched his long legs out in front of him—which meant Charlie had to move to make room for him—but amazingly, she did so without yelling at him.
“She claims it’s because I spend too much time playing video games. But that can’t be it, can it? I think your stepsister might have had something to do with it, Miranda,” Finn said.
“Hannah? Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know for sure. It’s just a feeling I have. Maybe Hannah told Phoebe that if she didn’t dump me, she’d spread a rumor about her around school. Girls are evil that way,” Finn said darkly.
“Not all girls,” Charlie said.
I shook my head. “No way. Hannah wouldn’t do that.”
“How can you be so sure? She was pretty nasty to me on the phone the other day,” Finn said. “She said I have no moral center. Can you believe that? Me! I mean, I almost only play Neutral-Good aligned Dungeons & Dragons characters.” Finn tapped his fingers together. “Well, unless I’m playing a wizard above the tenth level. But that only makes sense. What’s the point of being good if you’re wielding that much power?”
Ignoring his Dungeons & Dragons tangent, I decided to point out the obvious. “Hannah’s mad at you because you screwed up her Web site. But I know Hannah. She wouldn’t have threatened to spread a mean rumor about Phoebe just to get back at you.”
At least, I hope she wouldn’t, I thought, remembering just how angry Hannah had been at Finn.
“Maybe I should get Hannah to set me up with one of her hottie friends,” Finn mused.
Charlie flinched, but Finn didn’t notice.
I stared at him. “Please tell me you’re not serious,” I said.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked.
“Did you forget the entire conversation we just had two seconds ago about Hannah being so mad at you, you think she’d sabotage your relationship with Phoebe?” I asked.
“I see your point,” Finn said. “But if Hannah’s really the professional matchmaker she claims to be, she shouldn’t let that stand in her way of setting me up.”
“Didn’t you and Phoebe just break up, like, five minutes ago?” Charlie said. She crossed her arms and looked at Finn with a bit more than her usual severity.
“So?” Finn asked.
“You need to mourn the relationship,” Nora suggested. “Take some time to reflect on what went wrong, so you don’t repeat the same mistakes in the future.”
“Nah,” Finn said. “I just need a new honey. That’s the best cure. And it would be the perfect revenge on Phoebe for dumping me, so, you know, bonus.”
I glanced at my watch. “I should get going. My article is due tomorrow, and I want to reread it before I hand it in.” I glanced at Nora. “Do you want a ride home?”
“Or I can drop you off, if you want to stay a little longer,” Charlie suggested. “You said you wanted to hear more about the Rothko exhibit.”
“Oh, yawn,” Finn said. “Can’t we talk about something that doesn’t make me want to pass out with boredom?”
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to hear about it,” Charlie said.
“Nah, that’s okay. I’ll stick around so I can mock you,” Finn said.
“Bye, everyone,” I said.
On my way out, I glanced back at the table. Nora, Charlie, and Finn were all in animated conversation. And even though it had been my choice to leave, and even though I really did want to reread my article, I couldn’t help feeling a little left out.
Chapter Fourteen
When I arrived back at the beach house, Avery’s car was parked in the driveway. My heart sank. Avery was the last person I wanted to see right now.
As I shut the front door behind me, I could hear voices in the kitchen.
“Hi, I’m home,” I called out.
Willow appeared, wriggling with happiness. She stuck her long nose in my hand in greeting, and I patted her head.
“Hi, girl,” I said. I bent down to give her a hug.
Willow followed me as I headed toward the kitchen. As much as I’d like to avoid Avery, I was hungry and wanted a snack. Besides, the beach house was my home now. I have every right to be here, I reminded myself. I wasn’t going to skulk off to my room to hide from Avery. So what if she was mean? Sticks and stones, and all of that.
But the scene in the kitchen startled me so much, all thoughts of Avery’s hostilities disappeared.
For one thing, Avery and Hannah weren’t alone. There was a boy there with them. And he wasn’t at all the sort of guy they normally hung out with. He was very short and very thin, and had unfortunately bushy hair and long sideburns. He couldn’t have been older than fourteen.
He has to be a freshman, I thought. And I doubted Hannah had hung out with geeky freshman guys even when she was a freshman herself.
To make the situation even odder, the boy was perched on a stool in front of a white sheet that had been hung from the upper kitchen cupboards, creating a solid drape behind him. Avery had a camcorder set up on a tripod and pointed at him, and appeared to be filming him. Hannah stood to one side, a clipboard in hand and a Bluetooth in her ear. The boy looked absolutely miserable.
“What do you think your best features are?” Avery barked at the boy, who cringed and glanced around as though looking for an escape route.
“I’m not sure,” he finally said. “Maybe my hair?”
“I meant personality-wise. We’re going to do a complete makeover on you to solve your physical shortcomings. At least, to the best of our ability. We can’t do anything about your height,” Avery said. Then, as though realizing that this might be just a tad harsh, she added, “Don’t worry. Maybe you’ll have a growth spurt soon. Your dad’s not freakishly short, is he?”
“He’s pretty short,” the boy said miserably.
“Too bad,” Avery said. “Hannah, make a note about that. Likely to stay short.”
“Got it,” Hannah said, scribbling on her clipboard.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Hey, Miranda,” Hannah said. “Meet Match Made’s first official client—Leo Trachtenberg.”
“Wait. I’m your first client?” Leo asked worriedly. “You didn’t tell me that. I thought you had experience with this.”
“I do. I’ve set up tons of people,” Hannah assured him. “In fact, Miranda here is one of my success stories. I got her together with her boyfriend.”
“Why are you filming him?” I asked.
“Actually, you’re the one who gave me the idea,” Hannah said.
“I did?” I asked, confused.
“Don’t you remember? It was when you asked me if we were going to put up pictures of our clients on the Web site?” Hannah said.
“Yeah, but I thought you said”—I was about to repeat what Hannah had said, that s
he wasn’t running a dating service for the sort of losers who would post their pictures on a dating Web site, but then, glancing at Leo, decided to change tactics—“you didn’t want to do that.”
“That was before, when I was going to cater my matchmaking services to, ah”—this time Hannah looked at Leo, as though she, too, was worried about saying something in front of him that might hurt his feelings—“more discriminating clients,” she finished delicately.
“What she means is that the entire Orange Cove High School already knows I’m a loser who can’t get a date, so I don’t have a lot to lose,” Leo translated for me.
“You have to stop talking about yourself that way,” Hannah chided him. “Remember, the image you portray to the outside world is very important. If you start truly believing that you’re an attractive, successful, likeable guy, other people will start seeing you that way.”
Leo rolled his eyes. “Believing that I’m Brad Pitt isn’t going to magically turn me into Brad Pitt.”
“Maybe not. But you don’t have to be Brad Pitt to find love,” Hannah told him.
Hannah was actually making sense to me. I wondered if I should be worried.
“Were you finally able to fix your Web site?” I asked Hannah.
“No. But it actually turned out to be a good thing. People thought it was really funny, especially the part about being a loser at love and too ugly to find a date. Word got around, and we started to get some clients because of it,” Hannah said.
“People want to hire a matchmaking service that calls them ugly losers?” I asked.
Hannah shrugged. “I guess people found the honesty refreshing. Anyway, we decided that since a lot of our clients are, um,”—she gave Leo another furtive glance—“appearance challenged, we’d expand our services to offer them makeovers. You know, counsel them on how to look better, dress better, feel better about themselves. After we’re done with Leo’s intake video, Avery and I are going to take him to get his hair cut.”
“What? But I don’t want to get my hair cut. I like my hair like this,” Leo said. He covered his head with both hands, as though to ward off a surprise attack.
