Sealed with a Diss

by Lisi Harrison

  A noisy jackhammer, obviously blasting its way through concrete, bleated through the room before Griffin could answer.

  “Dang that wave pool,” snapped Dr. Loni. “I don’t see why they have to work on it during school hours! Those machines sound so hateful.” Once the short bursts stopped, he cleared his throat, then adjusted his tone. “Continue.”

  “Maybe the way I dress is a mask.” Griffin tugged the bottom of his monster T-shirt. “You know, a way for me to hide my true self from the world so I can’t get hurt.”

  “Awwwww,” cooed the girls.

  “Breakthrough!” shouted Dr. Loni.

  The boys clapped supportively.

  “I can’t believe they’re not laughing at him!” Dylan blurted.

  “Why would they?” Kristen rushed to Griffin’s defense.

  “Well, it’s just that he sounds so… sensitive.”

  “Sensitive is nice,” Claire mumbled to her puffy red cuticles, even though she also thought the absence of heckling was odd for a group of boys.

  “He sounds perfect to me,” Massie insisted, clearly hoping Dylan’s comment wouldn’t change Kristen’s mind, since she was the only was who was certain about her HART.

  “Don’t worry.” Kristen leaned across Claire, placing a reassuring hand on her arm. “I’m all over him like tears on tissue.”

  “Thank gawd.” Massie tapped a note into her PalmPilot.

  “Congratulations, Griffin. How about you pass the Bear to Mr. Plovert.”

  The camera wobbled again. It finally stopped moving and focused on Chris’s YOU LOOKED BETTER ON MYSPACE tee.

  Dylan unwrapped a sour-apple-flavored Blow Pop and stuck it in her mouth. “Do you think he’ll talk about me again?”

  No one bothered to answer.

  “The four chambers in my heart are dedicated to my white beagle, Wingman; soccer; Kemp’s Playboy subscription; and—”

  “Ew,” Dylan practically spat while the boys laughed.

  “And my fourth chamber is for girls who don’t ask me what’s wrong all the time.”

  The boys whooped and applauded in agreement.

  “It’s so true,” bellowed a crackly voice from across the room. “Why do they do that?”

  “It’s like they think we’re thinking something when we’re not,” Plovert continued. “When I’m quiet, it’s ’cause I’m relaxed. I’m not thinking anything. But when they’re quiet, they’re really thinking things.”

  “True again!” the crackly voice chimed in again. “It’s like the opposite. Girls think we’re thinking things when we’re not, and we think they’re not thinking things when they are.”

  “It’s all about open communication,” Dr. Loni interjected.

  “I also like cool girls,” Plovert added.

  “Hey.” Kemp punched Chris on the arm. “I was going to say that. You copied!”

  “Define cool,” said Dr. Loni, ignoring the interruption.

  “Girls who act like guys but look like girls. You know—they eat in public and laugh at dirty jokes instead of acting all grossed out by them.”

  “That’s five chambers, Mr. Plovert, I only asked for four.”

  “Ha!” Kemp punched Plovert again.

  “Yay!” Dylan waved her Blow Pop like a lasso. “Yay. Yay! Double yay!”

  “They can’t be serious.” Alicia shook her head in disbelief. “Anyway, how do you know they’re even talking about you?”

  “Because I’m the only girl at OCD who’s ever eaten in front of them.”

  Alicia lifted her “point” finger.

  “So.” Massie taped the PalmPilot stylus against her knee. “Which guy are you gonna pick?”

  “I can’t decide.” Dylan knocked the green Blow Pop against her teeth while giving it some thought. “They’re both HARTs.”

  Alicia rolled her big brown eyes.

  “I liked her first.” Plovert smacked his desk. “I did!” Kemp smacked his.

  “Gentlemen, it’s time to translate your rage into words.” Dr. Loni’s voice was soothing. “You can have feelings for the same girl. It’s very common. In fact, it can bring you closer if you let it. We’ll be focusing on that next week.”

  “J’adore Dr. Loni!” Dylan blew the screen a kiss. “He’s pretty much saying I should invite them both. And he’s right. Two dates is so much more suitable than one! It’s suitable times two. Su-two-ble! Ehmagawd, wait until Skye and the wannabes hear about this!”

  “What famous couple will you dress up as?” Kristen asked.

  Dylan glanced up at the black ceiling. “I know.” Her soft red curls bounced as she lowered her head. “I’ll be Demi Moore, Plovert can be Bruce Willis, and Kemp can be Ashton. You know, ’cause they all get along.”

  “Love that.” Massie nodded approvingly at her PalmPilot. “So Kristen and Dylan have chosen.” She smiled with some degree of relief. “We’re making progress.”

  “When someone asks Dylan where Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah are, she can say she ate them,” Alicia offered.

  “Ehmagawd, Leesh.” Dylan yanked the Blow Pop from her mouth. “If jealous was a number, you’d be infinity.”

  “And if conceited were bricks, you’d be the Great Wall of China.” Alicia stuck out her tongue, a childish gesture that made them all crack up.

  On screen, the bear was passed again. It stopped on the sleeve of a worn leather jacket.

  Claire’s stomach contracted. She would have known that sleeve anywhere. It was cold to the touch and smelled like sushi and Drakkar Noir.

  “My four chambers are for rock music, my family, soccer, and—” She closed her eyes. Held her breath. And vowed never to do anything immoral again if he would just say…

  “Claire.”

  She exhaled. She had been wrong about Nikki the camp tramp. From this moment on she would never doubt Cam—

  “Liar!” Derrington fake-sneezed.

  “What?” Claire gasped at the screen. “No. He. Is. Not!”

  Several hands gently touched her back and rubbed it as if she were in labor.

  “Liar,” sneezed another boy.

  “Liar!” sneezed another, until the whole class sounded like the nurse’s waiting room on exam day.

  “Calm down,” insisted Dr. Loni, pronouncing the lin calm. “Why the accusations?”

  “Maybe he should get a fifth chamber—for Nikki,” said someone who sounded like Josh.

  Claire covered her mouth to contain the heartbreak-barf. She hated Cam for making her look like such a fool. Hated him for having a mysterious summer girlfriend. And hated that she couldn’t talk to him about it, because her source happened to be a secret camera in a bomb shelter.

  “There’s nothing going on with Nikki,” Cam insisted, but like the boys, Claire had a hard time believing him. Was it the way he said “Nikki” that made her doubt him, soft and kind, as if he respected her? Or was it simply her name? Nikki. The way the two k’s stood side by side, like tall, thin BFFs, snickering and conspiring to steal her boyfriend.

  “For weeks now you’ve been saying there’s nothing going on with her,” sighed Dr. Loni. “But then why does she send you gummy worms and cinnamon hearts? One of you is in denial? Which one is it? You or her?”

  Claire couldn’t believe it. Even Dr. Loni thought Cam was lying. How could she have been stupid enough to fall for his nice-guy act? Massie had once said that when a guy gave a girl a lot of gifts, he was hiding something. And Claire had shrugged it off, assuming she was jealous. Yeah, right—like Massie would ever be jealous of her. She should have known.

  “Are you going to be honest with Claire and break up with her before camp?” Derrington asked.

  “Stop!” Claire shouted at the screen. “I can’t take it anymore!” Tears flooded her eyes faster than size zeros disappeared at a sample sale. She lowered her head into her hands and rocked back and forth.

  “If you’re so into honesty,” Cam’s tone hardened, “why don’t you tell Massie the thing you don’t lik
e about her?”

  Everyone gasped.

  Massie stared at the monitor, grabbing clumps of pink faux fur from her seat cover. Her face was completely void of emotion.

  “E-nuff!” Dr. Loni stomped his foot. “You’re using each other’s feelings as ammunition, and I won’t have that. I want you both here after school journaling about your rage.” He yanked the Share Bear from Cam and handed it to Josh Hotz.

  “Hey, we’re both wearing the same Polo button-down!” Alicia air-clapped. “I heart that.”

  “My chambers are for the New York Yankees, Ralph Lau-ren, soccer, and, unlike Kemp and Plovert, I like girls who act like girls, not dudes.”

  Alicia turned to Massie. “Done, done, and done. Sign me up.”

  “He makes his sister clean his room.” Kristen sounded outraged. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Why?” Alicia applied a coat of Hard Candy Lip Sorbet, as if Josh were on his way over. “I love when people do my chores.”

  “Fine.” Kristen slid off her chair. “Alicia, Dylan, and I have chosen our dates. Now can we puh-lease get back to class?” Alicia and Dylan stood.

  “Go ’head,” Massie said softly. “I’m gonna stay and watch a little more.”

  “Me too.” Claire sighed, her heart broken into way more than four chambers.

  THE BLOCK ESTATE

  GUESTHOUSE

  Monday, April 26th

  5:08 P.M.

  The low, steady hum of wheels rolling over the Lyonses’ hardwood hallway floors rumbled like an earthquake. The sound got louder and louder, then stopped, right outside Claire’s bedroom.

  She had no fear. Her heart didn’t race. And she had no desire to ask who—or what—was there. All Claire felt was numb. Whatever it was couldn’t possibly fix her broken heart. And it certainly couldn’t make her feel worse than she already did. Cam was a liar, Nikki was a boy-snatcher, and she seemed to be the fool. And until that changed, it didn’t matter what was waiting for her on the other side of the door.

  “Open up.” Layne jiggled the bronze knob. “I can help.”

  Claire pulled her baby-blue comforter over her head and curled into the fetal position. She could see the outline of glittery stars through the blanket and wondered how the sappy design had ever made her happy, since, these days, happy was a concept more foreign to her than the Harajuku girls.

  After some mild scraping and slight tinkering, the lock clicked and Todd, Claire’s orange-haired younger brother, burst in, dragging a large, gray wheeled suitcase. “Where do you want it?” he asked Layne, who breezed in behind him and tossed her black straw cowboy hat on Claire’s lemon-yellow CD locker.

  Layne rolled down the turtleneck on her red wool poncho and surveyed the room. “There.” She pointed to the brushed metal desk, stacked with binders, textbooks, and long thin pens that looked like yellow tulips.

  Todd dragged the suitcase across the white throw rugs, leaving a wake of soiled sheepskin behind him. Once his mission was complete, he held out his hand and wiggled his fingers.

  Layne slapped him with a half-eaten York Peppermint Patty.

  “That’s it?” he squealed. “That’s my tip?”

  “No, that’s a treat.” She lowered her face to meet his. “Your tip is: Join a sports team. Your arms are quite underdeveloped for a boy your age.” Layne squeezed his thin, freckly bicep. “Now git!” She clapped twice and Todd scurried away.

  “Nice pants, circus freak!” he shouted at the black-and-white polka-dot leggings Layne had tucked into fire-enginered Converse high-tops.

  “How do you do that?” Claire asked, her face the only thing that wasn’t covered in blankets. “He never listens to me.”

  “I make things happen.” Layne tapped her suitcase with pride. “Now get out of bed and come sit by the computer.”

  “What? Why? What are you doing here?”

  “Claire, face it, okay? You’ve got hotline potential.” Layne twirled the small gold dials on her luggage lock and yanked it open. “I sensed sadness in your font when we texted after school. So I came right over. I’m going up north to drama camp in a few weeks, and I need to know that you’ll be okay without me.”

  The word camp conjured up another forklift-size heap of sadness behind Claire’s belly button. Was Cam really planning to dump her for Nikki this summer?

  “Now get out of bed and c’mere.” Layne reached into her suitcase and pulled out a six-pack of Red Bull, a medium-size gold box of Godiva chocolates, a bag of pretzel rods, five Slim Jims, three loose slabs of watermelon-flavored Trident, and two large bottles of Smart Water. “We may be here all night, so I brought provisions.”

  Claire sat up. “How did you ride your bike with that thing?”

  “I didn’t.” Layne unzipped the bag. “When I asked my mom for a ride to the Block estate, Chris offered to drive me.”

  “Really?” Claire asked, wondering if his recent encounter with Massie had anything to do with that.

  “Swear.” Layne crossed her heart. “Now come!”

  Claire slipped into her pink Steve Madden slippers and shuffled toward her desk. “Wait. What do you mean we may be here all—”

  “Let me start with a few questions.” Layne pulled a mini mirrored clipboard out of her oatmeal-colored canvas Sunshine Tours bag. “How did you find out about Nikki?”

  Sweat beaded across Claire’s forehead. How could she have been so stupid? When she’d texted Layne about Cam and Nikki, she’d forgotten Layne wasn’t supposed to know about ESP.

  Layne tapped her silver-lead, teeth-mark-covered pencil against the black pad on her clipboard. “Waiting.”

  “Um, I…” Claire pushed back her yellow velvet Pottery Barn curtains and looked out the window down at the Blocks’ kidney-shaped pool, which was shrouded in a baby-blue cover and coated with wet brown leaves. It was hard to imagine she’d be swimming in it in less than a month… and even harder to imagine staying afloat while Cam was at camp with—

  “Waiting!”

  “I read it in Cam’s journal,” Claire half-lied.

  “You read his journal?” Layne slammed her clipboard on the desk. “Claire, I think that’s illegal in this state!”

  “It’s not ill—”

  Layne popped open a can of Red Bull. “When you snoop, you’re bound to find something you don’t like. And when you do, you can’t confront the person, because you snooped. Do you think it’s easy hanging out with Meena knowing she swiped my Rodgers and Hammerstein lyrics book and blamed it on you?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry—I knew you were more the Andrew Lloyd Webber type, so I peeked at her journal and my suspicions were confirmed. And now I’m stuck in an anger cul-de-sac.”

  “Huh?”

  “An anger cul-de-sac,” Layne repeated, as if Claire were having trouble hearing the term, not understanding it. “All my rage can do is bike around in circles. It’s a dead end. Why? Because I can’t tell her I read her journal.”

  “You don’t think I know this?” Claire’s eyes filled with tears. She scurried toward the heap of T-shirt-covered throw pillows beneath her window and collapsed on them, face-down.

  Seconds later, Layne was whacking her butt with them. Claire lifted her tear-soaked face.

  “Want one?” Layne waved the Godiva box under Claire’s nose.

  “No thanks.” She sniffled.

  “Fine, then. Let’s review what we know.” Layne pulled Claire to her feet and dragged her toward the shiny silver desk. She reached for her mini mirrored clipboard and scanned the first page.

  “I told you.” Claire reluctantly rested her butt next to her Mac laptop. She could feel the cold hard slab of metal through her pink chenille robe. “He met Nikki at camp. She’ll be there this summer. She sends him gummy bears. And cinnamon hearts, and then”—she sighed—“he gives them to me.” Claire dabbed her leaking eyes with the sleeve of her robe. “All this time I thought he bought them and—”

  “Well, I have to
say I’m a little relieved.” aLayne spun in Claire’s white padded chair.

  “What?”

  “Claire, all this time Cam seemed soooo…” Layne’s narrow hazel eyes darted back and forth. “Perrrfect.”

  “He was,” Claire said to her slippers.

  “Yeah, but I mean perfect in that creepy way that serial killers are perfect.”

  “Huh?”

  Layne exhaled, as if being the only person on the planet who truly understood life was an exhausting burden. “You know how serial killers act all nice and polite as a cover-up? Well, before we found out about her, I thought Cam was nice and polite. But now that I know he’s not, I can stop thinking he’s a serial killer. Get it?”

  “I guess.” Claire felt the quake of an impending smile. Somehow Layne always managed to cheer her up. Even on hotline days.

  “May I?” Layne’s index finger hovered above the POWER button on Claire’s PowerBook.

  Claire nodded yes.

  While the computer whirred to life, Layne sucked back an entire Red Bull. She cracked her knuckles over the keyboard and went straight to Google.

  “Let’s find out who this mystery girl is, shall we?” She typed “Nikki” in the search bar.

  Claire wrapped her arms around Layne’s back. “You’re the best!” She squeezed. A little factual information would calm her nerves. Without it, Nikki might as well have been a post–nose-job Ashlee Simpson look-alike who knew the words to Cam’s favorite Strokes songs.

  “One million, nine hundred and forty thousand.”

  Claire leaned over her shoulder. “Huh?”

  “That’s how many matches I got when I Googled her name.” Layne clicked on the first one, called, “Next-Door Nikki.” A pair of boobs bigger than J.Lo’s butt filled the screen.

  “Ew!” they giggle-screamed.

  “Did you happen to get her last name?”

  “Nuh-uh.” Claire reached for a pretzel rod.

  “How about the name of the camp? Did you get that?”

  “It’s something like Full Moon or Bright Moon.” Claire rubbed her temples. “I can’t remember.”