“Why wouldn’t she be?” Jonah asked. “She’s her friend.”
“I mean protective against me,” I clarified.
“Yeah, well. Then it makes even more sense.”
“Jonah!” I said. I couldn’t believe he’d just sided with her. “Could you be a little more harsh?”
He had the decency to finally pull his eyes away from the TV and look at me. “Sorry, Mick. But don’t you think that Eve probably told Marla everything that’s happened between you two?”
“I know she did,” I said. “I ran into Marla tonight. Alone.”
“What happened?”
“She confronted me about Eve. She said just because she wasn’t around didn’t mean that she and Eve aren’t good friends, and that Eve has had an unnecessarily hard time since she moved here because of me. She said that.”
“Well, it’s probably true,” he said.
“Thanks for the reassurance.”
“Sorry, but seriously—if Marla had done what you did to Eve, how would you treat her right now?”
Instead of answering, I stared back at the TV. I wasn’t ready to admit he was right.
“Marla is probably the perfect person for her to talk to,” he continued. “Eve is still somewhat new here, and if one of her new friends did her wrong, she might feel safer talking to an old friend who is totally outside the situation.”
How was it possible that he could know so much about girls? I couldn’t believe it. But it depressed me knowing how right he was—and how lonely Eve must be feeling. I wanted to be there for her, but I was the one who caused the whole mess in the first place.
“She still hasn’t said anything to you about me?” I asked.
“I really haven’t seen much of her all week. She’s been hanging out with Marla and working on that science project.”
“Protective, good friend Marla,” I said. I wasn’t being snarky. I was starting to think. It was possible that Marla was Eve’s good friend because she was there for her—even when she was in a different town. Maybe I could learn a lesson from her.
I shivered at the thought.
“Look,” Jonah said as the voting lines opened up for the show. He grabbed his phone and started texting in. “Marla’s only here a couple more days. Try to play nice with her a little longer. You might actually see that she’s not that bad. Who knows,” he said, hitting SEND on his phone. “You might even like her.”
I walked home across our yards to find Mom sitting at the kitchen table looking through magazines.
“Hey,” she said, looking up at me. “How are things at the Goldmans’?”
“Good,” I said, sitting down across from her.
She studied a page and said, “What do you think of this?” She turned the magazine to face me. The image was of a woman with a sort of bowl cut, but longer, to her shoulders.
“Meh,” I said. “Not so much.”
“Yeah,” she said, turning the magazine back. “Me neither. So—dance on Friday, right?” She looked up at me, her eyes grinning.
“Yep,” I said. “Going with Kyle.”
“Ah, Kyle,” she said. “Jonah’s friend, right?” I nodded.
“How are you doing your hair?” she asked, an important question for sure.
“Giancarlo suggested a blowout,” I said. “But a proper one this time. Not just straightening with a flatiron like last time.”
“That was not your best look,” Mom said, a true statement if there ever was one. “Maybe something pulled back but loose? A few pieces hanging down the side?”
“Yeah,” I said, liking the idea. “I’ll keep looking at styles in my magazines.”
“Such a good client. I taught you well.” She reached across the table and patted my hand. “So. Kyle, huh? He’s pretty handsome.”
“Mom . . . ,” I said, trying not to smile. I knew he was good-looking, but . . . “You think he is?”
“Sure,” she said, resting her chin on her hand. “Great head of hair like your father.”
I put my hands on my face, feeling them turn hot. I’d never talked about boys with my mom before. “I guess,” I said, wondering what it would feel like to kiss him, then turning even redder than before. “I’m heading up to my room,” I told Mom before she started telling me about the first boy she kissed. Ack overload.
CHAPTER 12
“Is he looking?” Kristen asked Lizbeth.
She sat at our lunch table with her body angled toward Tobias’s table, but her face turned away. She looked outstanding today in a fitted white tee with a large, black sequined heart covering the front, and her hair was loose and wild with a few thin braids hidden beneath the curls.
“He’s not looking at you,” Lizbeth said. “But other people are because you’re acting weird.”
“I’m not acting weird,” Kristen said. “I’m acting like a person who doesn’t care but happens to look amazing.”
“You do look really nice today,” I said.
“And you smell,” Kyle said, his nose wrinkled. I poked his arm with my elbow. “I mean, nice. You smell really nice.”
She was wearing a lot of perfume.
Kristen glared at Kyle, and I thought she might lose it. Instead she flipped her hair over her shoulder and stood up. “I’m going to get some Jell-O. Anybody want anything?” We all said no, and she walked off—headed to the lunch line, but making a big loop toward Tobias’s table, walking right past him, her head held high. He glanced at her, watched her for a moment, then went back to talking to Matthew.
“That is not a good sign,” Jonah said as we all watched her continue to the lunch line. I noticed her fists were clenched by her side.
Lizbeth looked over to the boys’ table and said to me, “So, about the dance . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Matthew asked me to go. Last night,” she said, beaming.
“Lizbeth! That’s awesome!”
“Yeah, way to go, Lizbeth,” Eve said from the other side of Jonah.
“How did you get him to ask you?” I said with an eye on Kristen, who was paying for her Jell-O and glancing-but-not-really at Tobias.
“I didn’t do anything,” Lizbeth said. “I knew he’d ask when he was ready. Last night he just called me up and asked.” She shrugged like this was the most normal thing in the world.
“A phone call and everything,” I said. “Impressive.”
“I’m really happy for you,” Eve said.
“Yeah, me too,” I added. “So this means we can still all go together, right?” I looked around the table at Kyle, Lizbeth, Jonah, and Eve. Eve kept her eyes down on her sack lunch. I had no idea if it was on purpose, or my own paranoia.
Kristen came back and sat down with a satisfied grin. “Did you see that? He was totally checking me out. I could feel it. Kristen: one. Tobias: loser.”
Lizbeth shook her head at her friend while Kristen ignored her. I guess sometimes it was better to believe your own hype.
“We were just talking about the dance on Friday,” I said. “About us all going together, like we talked about.”
Kristen and Lizbeth exchanged looks.
“Well . . . ,” Kristen began.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s just that,” Lizbeth said, “Matthew is taking me to dinner before the dance.”
“And once Tobias asks me, like he should have all along, I’m telling him we’re going with them.”
“Uh, you are?” Lizbeth asked.
“What about the rest of us?” I asked. “Don’t you think it’ll be more fun to go as a group?”
“We’ll all meet up here at school,” Lizbeth said. She gave me a quick nod of reassurance, knowing that I was nervous about kissing Kyle.
“Why don’t you guys all go together?
” Kristen said, indicating Eve, Jonah, me, and Kyle.
No one said anything. I wasn’t even sure Kyle wanted to go as a group, Eve hated me, and Jonah was oblivious.
“Maybe,” I said, trying to think of something to say. “Just depends.”
“On what?” Kristen asked.
“Marla,” Jonah spoke up. “She’s not sure if she’s going.”
“Why?” I asked. “Are you doing something with her family that night?”
I leaned forward around Jonah to look at Eve’s face. She looked uncomfortable, not looking up at any of us. Jonah reached over and put his hand on her back.
“No, it’s just that she doesn’t know anyone here,” she said. “I don’t want her to feel out of place.”
“Of course not,” Lizbeth said. “She’s your friend—you don’t want her to be uncomfortable. She’s more important than a dance.”
“I know,” Eve said. “I just don’t want anyone relying on me to make some group thing for the dance. Everyone should do their own thing.”
“Which means,” Kyle said playfully to me, “you might just be stuck with me.” The way he looked at me carefully made me think that he really wasn’t being playful—he was being honest.
“I’m not stuck,” I said, trying to match his tone. “I’m glad!” Because I was—I really was. I was just nervous. Stupid kissing.
“I just want to make sure you’re not trying to ditch me,” he said.
“As long as you can still make it to level four of Combat Zone, you’re okay with me,” I said.
“Oh, sure,” he said. “Love me for my video game skills only.”
Okay, I fully blushed at the word love, even though I knew he didn’t really mean love love. Instead of responding I decided to drop the whole thing.
“Eve, you okay?” Lizbeth asked. Eve rested her head in her hand, elbow on the table. She hadn’t been eating her lunch.
“Yeah, you seem a little out of it,” Kristen said.
She looked up at the group—not at me. “There is something else.”
Did Marla tell her she shouldn’t be friends with me? I felt a mild panic thinking Eve was about to confront me in front of everyone.
“It’s just that,” Eve began, “it’s that science project I told you all about. The invention one? It’s killing me.”
“What have you come up with so far?” Jonah asked, and I was a little surprised he didn’t know already. I guess he really hadn’t seen much of her this week.
“A couple of lame ones,” she said. “I tried to do a thing on global warming but I got all confused with carbon dioxide stuff. And then I thought about doing an experiment on peer pressure and behavioral changes but realized that has nothing to do with science.”
“It sounds really interesting, though,” Lizbeth said.
“Yeah,” I added. I guess I wanted Eve to know I was listening and interested, too. (Well, I was!)
“It was Marla’s idea,” she said. “She’s trying really hard to help me, but she’s just not very good with the science part of the science project.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Lizbeth asked. “Help you brainstorm ideas or something?”
“Or maybe you can talk to Ms. Howard and let her know you have a guest in town,” Kristen suggested. “Maybe she’ll let you turn it in after Marla leaves.”
“Doubtful,” Eve said.
I didn’t like knowing Marla was getting in the way of Eve’s grades. I tried to think of some way I could help her short of doing her science project for her. Or politely suggesting Marla leave town early.
Oh, I’m kidding! Relax.
“I have this one idea but it’s not very good,” she said. “For a pencil with a sharpener attached. You know, like how you can add an extra eraser to the tops of pencils? But this would be a removable sharpener.”
“That’s a great idea,” Lizbeth said. “I have a million dull pencils.”
“Yeah, sounds like you’re onto something,” Kristen said.
“Thanks, guys,” Eve said. “I’m still not sure about it. I have to sketch something out to show how it’ll work. It just doesn’t feel very inspiring.”
“If there’s anything we can do,” I said, “let us know.”
She didn’t look at me when she said, “Thanks.”
During the rest of lunch, I thought about my idea of getting Marla out of Eve’s hair so she could concentrate on her project. Marla wasn’t the only one who was protective of Eve. I was, too, and I could show her just how protective I could be.
As we left lunch, I thought of how I could talk to Eve again in English—maybe I could come up with an idea for her project during class.
“Mind if I walk with you?” Kyle asked as we headed out of the caf.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, happy to be with him a bit longer. I wondered if he was going to hold my hand.
“I’m just wondering,” he began.
“See you later, Mickey!” Lizbeth and Kristen called as they headed away from us down the hall.
“Bye, guys!” I called back.
“Just wondering,” Kyle started again, “why you’re, like, pushing this group thing for the dance.”
“I, um, thought you wanted to go with everyone?”
“I want to go with you,” he said. “The group thing was your idea. You still want to go with me, right?”
“Of course!” I said. “Yes, I do.”
“Because if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”
“Kyle, I promise I want to go. With you,” I said. I wanted to add, Please, please don’t be mad or think I don’t like you! Everything was so complicated right now, but the one thing I knew was that I liked Kyle—a lot.
He nodded, then reached out and took my hand. “So we’re cool?”
Warmth rushed through my body as he laced his fingers through mine. “Yeah,” I said. “We’re cool.”
CHAPTER 13
Thanks to all the anxiety I felt about Eve and the kiss and Kyle asking me if I really wanted to go with him solo to the dance, the salon was the big, bright spot in my life. I was so glad it was finally my day to shadow Giancarlo so I could fill him in on all the drama. Yes, I had the whole Kyle kiss thing on my mind, but my biggest concern at the moment was Eve.
When I walked into the salon, Giancarlo was posing for a picture with what looked like a client he had just styled.
“Now if you want my autograph that’ll cost you,” he told the woman after Megan took the picture with a camera phone. “Just teasing! Tell all your beautiful lady friends about me—if they haven’t already heard, that is.”
The woman—she looked to be in her fifties with short, golden-blond hair—giggled and said, “Now don’t forget us little people on your rise to the top.”
“Darling, I’d never,” he said, waving his hand at her. “Wait, what’s your name again?”
They both broke into laughter as she said good-bye and headed home.
“Wow,” I said as I walked over. “What’s that all about?”
Megan rolled her eyes and said, “Aftershocks of Berkshires Beauty.”
“Don’t roll your eyes,” Giancarlo told her. “We’re just having fun.”
“Uh-huh,” Megan said, but she smiled back at him.
Before I could really get started working, Giancarlo called me over to his station.
“Come here, girl,” he said. I walked over and he said, “You’re mine today.”
“To be your assistant?” I asked.
“Yep—if you’re up for it,” he said.
“Yes, of course!” I said. “Mom told me the other night.”
“Have a seat, then,” he said, gesturing to the stool he had set up next to his station. “You can hand me the foils.”
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Once I was settled, he didn’t waste any time diving right into the important stuff.
“How are things with Kyle?” he asked.
“Good,” I said, smiling. “He asked me to the dance.”
“Good for you!” Giancarlo said. “Good for him. So I guess he’s your boyfriend then, huh?”
I nodded. He was, and I was happy. I thought of what he said to me in the hall after lunch and how nervous I was about being alone with him.
“What’s that look for?” he asked.
I looked at the woman in his chair, her face buried under a shiny dome of foil.
“She’s not listening,” Giancarlo said. “Are you, Francine?”
“Can’t hear a thing,” she replied.
Giancarlo said, “See?”
I knew the way things went in hair salons—you were practically expected to lay your problems out on your stylist—or in my case, the stylist I was shadowing.
Still, I lowered my voice so the whole salon wouldn’t hear me. “I really like Kyle,” I said. “But I’m just a little nervous about the kissing thing.” Believe me, Giancarlo was the only adult in the universe I’d dare mention this to, but maybe he had some advice on how to avoid humiliating myself.
“Sweetheart, you listen to me,” he began, and I leaned in closely. “Do not let that boy do anything until you’re ready. Some boys have this expectation that just because they take a girl to the movies or a dance or whatever that they’re owed something in return. Do not believe that. You don’t have to do one single thing except say thank you and good night. You hear me?”
“Giancarlo,” I said, more embarrassed than ever. “That’s not what I’m talking about.” I knew I didn’t have to kiss him if I didn’t want to—but I wanted to. The problem was knowing when and how.
“Just tell me you hear me,” he said.
“Fine,” I said. “I hear you.” And I would never be asking Giancarlo for kissing advice again!
“Now,” he said, satisfied. “Got a dress picked out yet?”
“No,” I said. “My friends and I are going to the mall after school tomorrow.”
“For a dance on Friday?” he asked. “That doesn’t give you a lot of time.”
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