After a while, Peyton stopped the movie so we could take a bathroom break. I used the bathroom off of the kitchen, and she ran upstairs. I heard her talking to someone when I came out, so I walked into the hall to see what was going on. Devon, India, her cousin, and two other girls were standing there. Meanwhile, I was wearing my puppy pajamas, and they all were dressed like they were on the way to a club.
"Hey, Landry," Devon said. "I met the hottest guy tonight. You guys should have come with us."
Peyton exchanged a look with me. Her mom came downstairs. Mrs. Urich didn't kick them out, but she didn't look thrilled to have them over either.
"Oh guys, this is Liv, and that's Kendall," India said as she helped herself to some popcorn.
Liv had dark hair with thick red highlights, and she wore leather pants. Kendall had light-brown curly hair, and she was wearing a pink angora sweater that showed part of her stomach. Liv was sitting next to me, and I felt about two years old and completely flat chested. Peyton asked if anybody wanted something to drink, and they all wanted a diet soda. I offered to help since I didn't want to be alone with them. Sure, I was friends with both Devon and India, but Devon and India didn't even look like themselves. They both had on a lot of smoky eye shadow, and India was wearing a pair of knee-high boots. Peyton grabbed my arm when we got into the kitchen.
"I can't believe they came over," she said. "I feel so stupid in my pajamas. I mean, my sweatshirt has a hole in it."
"At least you don't have a puppy wearing a sleep mask on your pants," I said.
I was about to ask when she thought they were going to leave when Kendall came into the kitchen to ask where the bathroom was. Peyton pointed to the door and went to hand the sodas out. I opened a bag of tortilla chips and tried to look busy so I wouldn't have to go back out.
"Um, Landry?" Kendall poked her head out of the bathroom door. "Do you have any maxi pads or anything? I just got my period."
My mom never let me leave home without packing an emergency menstrual kit. I told Kendall I'd be right back and went upstairs.
"Kendall?" I said, knocking on the door. "I've got…the stuff you needed."
She opened the door, and I gave her one of my overnight pads, which was more like a diaper than a normal pad.
"Thanks. I feel so dumb, 'cause I got it on my jeans. Does it show?" she asked, turning around.
"Um, a little. Do you have a jacket or something you could put on?"
She had left her jacket at Liv's house, so I offered to let her tie my basketball sweatshirt around her waist. I was so excited that a high school girl was talking to me that I didn't even think about what my shirt was going to cover. Oh well. It wasn't as if that team had won a championship in forever anyway.
"Thanks a ton, Landry. I appreciate this. Write down your address for me so I can drop off your shirt," she said.
I took a memo pad off the Urich's fridge and wrote down my address and e-mail just in case, by some crazy chance, she decided I was her soul sister and would take me around the high school, introducing me to people.
"Wait, Landry Albright," she said staring at the paper. "Are you friends with Vladi Yagudin?"
I nodded. Oh no, she was probably going to tell me that she was his girlfriend and that they laughed about me all the time. I imagined her saying, "Oh, he calls you that 'little girl stalker' who can't stop e-mailing him. How funny that I ran into you. Gee, you're even younger and more of a loser than he described."
But she didn't. Instead, she said she was his best friend Steve's sister.
"Vladi talks about you all the time," she said. "So you go to Hillcrest with India?"
I nodded.I wanted to ask her what Vladi said about me and to find out if he had been talking about me recently or in the past, but I didn't want to look desperate. Besides, she might tell Vladi that the "weirdo in the puppy pajamas" wanted to know every word he ever spoke about her.
"Do you know my uncle, Pavel Ivanov? He works at Hillcrest," she said.
"Oh yeah. He's a super nice guy," I said. "He got my bracelet out of the bathroom vent." Oh, kill me now. Why did I just tell her that? She laughed, but not in a condescending way. Well, I guess having an accident on your jeans was nothing to brag about either.
Liv came into the kitchen and said that they had to get going. "Devon has a curfew," she said, rolling her eyes.
"Okay. Hey, thanks for everything, Landry. I'll tell Vladi I ran into you," Kendall said. "You should e-mail him or something. He's, like, crazy about you."
Crazy about me? Vladi was crazy about me? Had she meant before he broke up with me or after? Wait, she had said, "like, crazy," and not just, "crazy about you." What did that mean? Did that mean he was almost crazy about me? Where's a translator when I needed one? I told Peyton what Kendall had said as soon as they left.
"Wow," she said. "Maybe he still likes you."
"He probably said it a long time ago, but what do you think she meant when she said, 'like, crazy?'" I asked. "Because crazy could be a bad thing, too. When my mom says my dad is driving her crazy, it's never a good thing."
"I think she meant it in the good way. Unless he's mentally unbalanced or something," she said. "This gives you the perfect excuse to e-mail him. You can say you ran into Steve's sister, and you wanted to say, 'hey.'"
She pointed out Thalia would be so jealous that we met Steve's sister. Thalia decided she was in love with Steve when she met him after a basketball game. I was pretty sure Steve, who was old enough to drive, wouldn't have been interested in an eighth-grader, seeing as Vladi said his friends thought I was too young. And Thalia, as much as I liked her, appeared about eleven on a good day. Of course, I'd have never told Thalia that and hurt her feelings.
We sat down at the computer in her kitchen, and I decided to send Vladi an e-mail card. That way all I'd have to write was his name. It was the perfect way to send an e-mail without actually having to write anything. Peyton thought I was being a chicken, but she helped me pick out an e-card to send him. I decided on one with a basketball player on it. Sure, I had never heard of the guy, but there were twenty greetings with his face on them, so I figured he must have been a pretty good player. I clicked on the "notify me" box to let me know when he opened the card. Then I'd know when he read, it and I could see how long it would take for him to write back.
Later, when we were finishing up the movie, Peyton asked what I thought of India's new friends.
"Well, that Kendall girl seemed okay, but Liv and Valine were kind of…intimidating, I guess. They look like they should be in college or something."
"Valine used to be so quiet, but she's totally different now," she said, pulling her blanket up to her chin. "We used to go to the same horseback riding camp every summer, but she gave me a look like I was crazy when I asked if she still liked horses."
"Maybe something happens to you the summer before high school," I said. "My cousin Lucy used to play games with me right before she started high school. Then she started acting like she was too cool to even talk to me at my grandma's house."
"Maybe it's something in the water."
"Or something in the mascara. I can't believe that Liv girl could blink with all that junk on her lashes," I said.
"I didn't say anything to her, but I think she was in my gymnastics class when I was in fourth grade," she said. "Anyway, don't you go and get all weird on me, too."
"Trust me, not a problem," I said. "Do you think everybody in high school dresses like that? I mean, are we going to be total outcasts if we don't?"
"I don't know, but my mom would kill me if I tried to leave the house like that. We should go to the mall sometime and pay attention to what people are wearing. Although I have no idea what stores we'd go to," she said.
The next morning Peyton's mom said she'd drop me off at home. I washed my hair in the bathroom that was her older sister Lacey's room. Lacey was away at school, but most of her stuff was there. There were pictures of her with the swim team and pictures of h
er with her boyfriend at some school dances. Lacey's hair was up and spiral-curled in all of the dance pictures. I wondered if hairstyles like those were required for dances or something. How did everybody seem to know all this? Was there a handbook and somebody forgot to give it to me? With my luck, they handed it out at the beginning of homeroom, and I missed out on it because I was late, as usual.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After school, it was pouring outside. There was nothing good on TV, so I went to read in my room. I was supposed to be reading Lord of the Flies but instead was looking at an article on room makeovers. Maybe it was time I did something with my room. It looked like a teenager and a little kid shared it. Part of the room had stuffed animals, and the other part was makeup, books, and magazines. I decided to take down the poster of the cartoon ballerina kitty, but I left the one of the kitty in the basketball uniform on the wall.
I packed away most of my stuffed animals — but not my blue mouse — and then took the boxes into the basement only to bring them back up an hour later. My room was just blah and empty without them. Besides, it wasn't as if I had people clamoring to come over, and Ashanti still had a lot of toys and cute stuff in her room. She had a deck of kitty cards that we played with in her room. I even bought a deck of the puppy cards so we could play war with both decks. Our longest game lasted until two in the morning. And we both had mini gumball machines. There was only one kind of gum that fit in the thing and I practically had to eat the whole container to get one decent-sized piece of gum, but it was cute.
I wished I had a room like the one in the magazine, though. Everything in the magazine room was orange-and-white, which was funny, since I had an orange-y-peach room for a few days a couple of months before. I didn't like it at the time, but seeing how amazing this room was, I almost wished I had kept it. Of course, the room in the magazine also had a matching orange laptop, a white-and-orange glass table, an orange love seat made up of little connecting circle pillows, an orange TV set, and a huge orange-and-white loft bed just for hanging out. I'd probably have to spend a lot to get that look. The only orange things I owned were the cap from an orange highlighter I lost, a stuffed tiger, and an orange-juice-flavored lip balm. Not exactly enough stuff to decorate with.
It would just be nice if my room had some kind of theme. Devon's room looked like her personality with all her books and music posters. Peyton's room was pink and girly, so it didn't look like her, but it was big and she had cool furniture. She even had a daybed/couch thing for sleepovers.
My furniture was from my mom's old bedroom set. The dresser and armoire were all mirrors, so I could always see my reflection whether I wanted to or not. It was kind of cool, but it wasn't like I got to pick it out myself. If I could pick out my own stuff then I'd want my room to look like the orange-and-white room in the magazine or the lavender-and-baby-blue room I saw in Young and Fun. That used to be my ideal bedroom, but I didn't have a built-in bookcase, a big walk-in closet, or a sitting room. What I had was a small square-shaped room with a closet I could technically walk into, but that was all it had going for it unless you were into the string lights I had around my nightstand.
I had painted my room the same color as the Young and Fun room, but it didn't look like that room at all. It was kind of like when I went to get my hair cut like Savannah on As the Days Roll On. It wasn't as if I expected to walk out of the salon looking like her twin, but I thought I'd look something like her. No, I didn't have her amazing cheekbones or her dark-brown cat eyes, but I thought I'd look a little bit like her.
I started reading compatibility horoscopes online and wondering what Vladi's sign was. Would it be weird to ask him? He might think I just wanted to know when his birthday was, or he might realize what a weirdo I was that I wanted to see if we were "meant to be" according to the stars. I noticed that I had a new message and clicked the mailbox.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Sweatshirt
Hi Landry,
Thanks again for letting me borrow your shirt. I can drop it off at your house this week if you want or if you're free we could meet up at the mall or something. Let me know if you want to hang out.
Kendall
A high school girl was asking if I wanted to hang out with her? Um, yeah! I wondered if she meant we'd be hanging out with some of her friends, because I'd probably do something stupid in front of them because I can't be normal for even two seconds. But maybe it would just be the two of us, and she'd teach me makeup tricks, help me pick out clothes, help me fit in at the high school next year, and be the big sister I never had. And maybe eating chocolate fudge brownies prevents hurricanes. I decided to write back right away in case somebody else asked her to do something or she came to her senses.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Re: Sweatshirt
Hey Kendall,
How are you? I'd be happy to meet with you. Just let me know where we should-
What was that? Was I from the Victorian era or something? It sounded like my great-great-grandmother wrote that. Okay, trying it again.
Hey Kendall,
What's up? I'm free this week if you want to get together. Just let me know where you want to meet.
See ya,
Landry
I thought about giving her my phone number, but I didn't want to look desperate and clingy — even if I was. I waited online for half an hour to see if she wrote back, but my mom bumped me off when she had to use the computer.
"Can't you use your phone to send that e-mail?" I asked.
"I can't type well on that tiny screen," she said. "Did you finish your homework?"
I made a face. What was the point of homework anyway? To give me something to do so I didn't run off and join a gang? It wasn't like I learned that much from it. I did math homework every night, and I still didn't get anything we had done all year. Homework in high school was something I needed to ask Kendall about. We heard the classes there were harder, and there was a lot more public speaking where they had students memorize speeches. High school sounded overwhelming, yet everybody seemed to get through it. Maybe there was a secret handbook I missed with advice on how to deal with it all.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kendall wrote back asking if I wanted to meet Tuesday at the mall. I never went out on Tuesday nights with friends. My mom didn't care if I went to Ashanti's or Peyton's on a school night, but would she let me meet somebody at the mall? I waited until mom was busy and then told her I needed to pick up my shirt from a girl who was going to give me some advice on high school. Then I threw in that she was friends with India and Devon and that I had hung out with her last weekend.
"She can come over here," Mom said, totally missing the point.
"Well, she's going to be at the mall anyway, so this way I could just meet her there. I won't be out late or anything."
Mom asked if she was going to help me pick out classes. I nodded. Well, I was sure school would come up at some point.
"Just out of curiosity…are we still going to be living here next year, or are you still thinking about taking another job?" I asked.
Mom shook her head. "No, I think staying where we are right now is what's best."
I sighed with happiness that I didn't have to start all over again in a new town. Finally, I could feel settled. Well, as settled as I could feel with the whole idea of high school breathing down my neck.
"I'm so glad we're staying, but it would help if I could meet with this Kendall girl to talk about next year."
Mom agreed to drive me, but I think it was partly just to get me out of the room and off the computer.
****
On Tuesday, all I could think about was what I was going to wear that night. I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard, so I decided jeans would be safe, but which ones? I made the decision to wear my Franciszka T ones — my good ones — after I saw Yas
min wearing the matching jacket while she was pretending to be "cold" again in class.
Mom dropped me off, and I was supposed to meet Kendall in front of the bookstore, but she wasn't there. Great. She wasn't coming. I wasn't worth her time and…
"Hey Landry! I stopped to get some gum. Want some?" Kendall came running up. She handed me a shopping bag that had my sweatshirt inside. "I double-washed it since it was, you know, covering my butt. Do you want to head up to the food court? I'm dying for some frozen yogurt."
I followed her up to the food court, hoping and wishing that somebody I knew would see me with a cool high school girl. The only person I saw was Mrs. Kharazzi, who was going down the escalator while we were going up.
"Landry!" she called. "See you in school tomorrow, dear."
I waved to her.
"Who's that?" Kendall asked. "A teacher or something?"
I realized it probably wasn't cool to acknowledge someone who worked at school while out at the mall, but Mrs. Kharazzi was the best. I told Kendall she had entered a story of mine in a writing contest the previous semester and that she was a great teacher.
"That's cool. Hey, I need some makeup. What brand do you wear?" she asked.
"Um, Little Rose, mostly," I said.
"I wear that sometimes. We gotta check out the April M counter, too. I love those glosses."
I followed her to the Little Rose section, and she started testing bronzers on her hand. Across the aisle I saw the new Little Rose ad with Talisa's big brown eyes made up in shades of lavender with dark liner and tons of mascara. Normally Talisa's makeup was pretty natural because she was so exotic-looking, but she was gorgeous with made-up eyes. I wanted that look — even though my coloring couldn't have been further from hers. There was another ad of her with nude brown lips and one with red. I pointed it out to Kendall.
Best Friends...Forever? Page 15
