Suddenly the charm bracelet around Alicia’s wrist felt extra heavy.
After jiggling the silver doorknob to make sure it was locked, she jiggled it again. Then once more, just in case.
“What are you doing here?” She hurried toward him.
“You make the lunchtime announcements, right?”
Alicia grin-shrugged, as if her job as school reporter were no big deal, even though it totally was.
Josh lifted himself up to sit on the wood console. He swung his legs playfully, showing off a pair of lime green flip-flops with mini Polo logos stamped on the rubber beneath his feet. “Well, I wanted to say hey, so I stopped by. I gave the janitor a twenty to let me in.”
Alicia blushed again, thinking of the three messages he had sent her—or rather, the three messages she’d ignored—since the welcome-back breakfast. But what was she supposed to do? Explain the boyfast? How could she? That was against boyfast rules. Besides, it was complicated. And kind of embarrassing. “Oops, sorry. My battery is dead.”
Just then, her phone vibrated inside her bag. Once … twice … three times … four times … five times … Ugh! Did it always ring this much????
Alicia blushed for the third time. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Josh lowered the brim on his cap, lifted his distressed brown leather messenger bag, and hooked it over his slightly defined shoulder. A heap of brightly colored envelopes and glitter-covered cards spilled out.
“What are those?” Alicia felt her upper lip curl in disgust.
“Just a few welcome cards from the girls in our grade.” Josh scooped up the pile and stuffed them back in his bag. “Oh, and a few from the seventh-graders too, I guess.”
Judging from the heap of girly stationery, it might as well have been Valentine’s Day, and Josh the only boy in town.
Alicia’s heart was thumping, her ears were ringing, and her forehead was starting to dampen. Massie was right! The boys were the new alphas. The Pretty Committee was out.
And that made her out.
She fanned her face, then sniffed her Angel-scented wrists to keep from passing out. How could she possibly look Josh in the eye knowing she had expired like fat-free yogurt? Faded like tan lines? Dried up like year-old mascara? Who would hire her to be a TV journalist now? Anchorwomen were smart celebrities. And her celebrity status was waning. At this point she could be a career blogger at best.
“Well, I’ll see you around,” Josh mumbled, reaching for the door like someone hoping to be stopped.
Alicia knew she had to do something. For her love life. Her social life. And her career.
The red digital clock said 12:11:36. Which meant she had exactly three minutes and twenty-four … twenty-three … twenty-two … twenty-one … seconds before her broadcast to make things right.
“Wait!” She turned all the switches and pressed every button she could find. Suddenly staticky white noise filled the booth. Between that and the soundproof walls, no one would hear what she was about to say.
Josh dropped his bag and covered his ears. She motioned for him to come closer. He did, trying his hardest to stay mad. But, like most boys, he was powerless in the presence of Alicia’s exotic beauty.
“Listen I know you like to gossip as much as I do but what i’m about to tell you is classified,” she hurried. “’Kay?”
She held out her pinky.
“What’s the finger for?” He smiled with amusement.
“You have to pinky-swear not to tell anyone.”
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes as if the soccer team were watching, then offered up his baby finger. “I swear.”
They shook.
“Okay.” Alicia inhaled deeply, silently cursing Massie for making her choose between her best friends and the most ah-dorable Ralph Lauren–wearing, gossip-loving hawttie she’d ever met.
“Here’s the deal. The Pretty Committee is now the New Pretty Committee becuase we are on a boy fast. We aren’t allowed to hang out with boys any more because boys make girls do stupid things and we don’t want to act stupid any more. So I’m not allowed to talk to you and if I do I’ll get thrown out of the NPC for good. So what do I do?” Alicia searched Josh’s eyes for a reaction, but they were shaded by his Yankees cap. “Say something!”
He snickered.
“You think I’m lame, don’t you?” Alicia wished she could take it all back. “You think I should stand up for what I want and not agree to such a lame pact, don’t you? You think I should—”
“I don’t think anything.” He lifted his bag again. Alicia fought the urge to throw herself on top of him and beg him not to walk out on her.
“I get it.”
“You do?” she asked as the red digital numbers on the clock informed her she had forty-five seconds to wrap this up.
“Yeah.” He stuffed his hands in his faded pockets and leaned against the console. “My friends told me I couldn’t talk to anyone in the Pretty Committee because you were a bunch of stalkers and spies.”
Alicia gasped. “Puh-lease! If you found out there was a hidden camera in one of our classrooms, wouldn’t you watch it too?”
“Denied. Hypothetical. Leading the witness.”
Alicia’s stomach flipped. Her crush had just busted out courtroom drama lingo. Could he be any more perfect? She wished she had captured that moment on her iPhone so she could send it to her lawyer dad. If she had, he would have sent back his blessing in the form of a big blank check for the wedding.
“Sustained.” She giggled. “So did you tell them you’d never talk to me again?”
“No. I said, too bad.”
Alicia’s heart beat out the Morse code for I ah-dore him. “Then what?”
“Nothing.” Josh grinned, revealing his ah-dorable fang. “We’re guys. It was over in two seconds.”
“Well, it’s so nawt like that for me.”
“Here, maybe this will help.” He lifted a pink New York Yankees cap out of his bag, removed her knit hat, and placed it on her head. It was such a cute gesture she didn’t bother thinking about how goofy she must have looked in pink, or how the polyester blend might suffocate her hair shafts. The only thought running through her mind was, Awwwwwww.
“Think of Jeter when you wear it.”
Alicia nodded like someone who knew who Jeter was.
“The guy is a real team player, but at the same time, he’s not afraid to be the best. And to be the best, sometimes you have to quiet the voices in your head and do what’s right for you.” Shyly, he stuffed his hands back in his pockets. “My soccer coach told me that.”
“Thanks.” She giggled.
Josh Hotz made her feel better than a fresh blowout.
“Ehmagawd, I’m thirty seconds late! Hand me that yellow folder. The one on the top of the stack.” Alicia quickly adjusted the knobs and dials and slipped on the big headphones.
Josh did what he was told, then leaned against the gray-carpeted wall and admired her while she got to work.
“Good morning, BOCD, and welcome to the first day of school. It’s Tuesday, September eighth, and here are your daily announcements. Boys, your locker rooms are the ones with the big sign that says BOYS on the door. So no more barging into the girls’ locker rooms and pretending it was an accident.” Laughter erupted from the New Green Café. “The Tomahawks’ soccer meeting will be held in room sub-C5 at four this afternoon, and this year’s captain is Derek Harrington.” Alicia felt a pang of sympathy for Massie, who had to sit there and listen to everyone applaud ex-Derrington. “And this year’s captain for the Sirens is Kristen Gregory!” More applause. “Auditions for this year’s Christmas show, The Wizard of Claus, will be held next Monday, so drama mamas, start practicing your audition songs. And for those of you sharing lockers, Principal Burns and Dean Don apologize for the inconvenience and promise it will be taken care of by tomorrow. This has been Alicia Rivera for BOCD news. I heart you.”
Josh burst into a round of applause. “You’re a
natural.”
Alicia grinned on the outside, and her heart leapt on the inside. Could he be any more ah-dorable? More than anything she wanted to share every detail of their secret rendezvous with the NPC. But the boyfast ruled that out. And if you couldn’t brag about your crush to your friends, what was the point of having a crush?
Or friends?
“What’s this?” Josh asked, leafing through a red folder he had plucked out of the plastic hanging file sorter on the wall.
“It’s confidential.” Alicia snatched it away before he could read another word. “It’s got Principal Burns’s announcements in it.”
“Killer! Hand it over. Let’s read it!”
“We can’t.” Alicia held it behind her back.
“Why not?” Josh tried to grab it. “Don’t you want the gossip?”
Alicia giggled. His hunger for gossip was charming, and no doubt one of his best qualities. But they were in the newsroom. And here, gossip was known as a leak. And leaks were unethical in a big way.
“Come on, lemme take a peek. I swear I won’t tell anyone.” He wiggled his pinky in her face.
She giggled again. He was more irresistible than crème brûlée fro-yo.
“Fine.” She turned her back. “But I’ll read it.”
“Yes!” Josh punched the perfume-soaked air. “What does it say?”
“Ehmagawd.” She scanned the ivory OCD letterhead, her left brow arched in disbelief as the alarming news whizzed by. “Due to the dangerously high capacity …” and “… quaint overflow building …” and “… located in the back parking lot …”
“Ehmagawd.” Alicia slowly lowered the paper. “This is more shocking than the skull ’n’ crossbones clothing trend.”
“What?” Josh reached for the announcement, but she whipped it away.
“Tomorrow at lunch they’re gonna announce that everyone at tables one through ten will be transferred to an overflow facility until BO can find a way to make more space.”
“What kind of facility?” Josh air-quoted “facility.” Awwwww. Luv him!
“Doesn’t say,” she answered.
“But you’re at table eighteen and we’re at three.” His warm brown eyes cooled with fear. “We’ll be separated.”
Alicia paused. Maybe that would be a good thing. If she didn’t see Josh during the day, Massie would never find out they were talking. … But not seeing him every day would mean … well, not seeing him every day. And how depressing would that be?
“I have an idea.” He pulled off his baseball hat and ran his hand through his thick dark hair.
Alicia had no idea what she adored more, his devious mind or the wavy hair that protected it.
“Tell me.” She bobbed up and down on her Matador red toes.
“Swear on the Yankees you won’t tell anyone.” He held out his hat.
“The Yankees?” she screeched. “Who cares about—”
“Just swear!”
Alicia took off her cap and clinked it against his as if they were champagne flutes. “I swear,” she said with a playful eye-roll.
“On what?”
She rolled her eyes again. “The Yankees.”
“Good.” Josh replaced his hat. “I’ll e-mail the plan tonight.”
“You mean you don’t—”
“I will.” He flicked the brim of her cap, then, without another word, opened the door and slipped out.
Alicia kept smiling at him even though he was gone.
Once the coast was clear, she jammed the pink hat to the bottom of her motorcycle bag until it was buried under more makeup than Paula Abdul. Then she turned off the lights and inhaled the darkness, willing her thumping heart to mellow. Something was making it beat furiously. But what?
The thrill of Josh?
Or the fear of Massie?
It was impossible to tell.
Love and terror felt exactly the same.
BOCD
HEALTH CLASS
Tuesday, September 8th
1:07 P.M.
A pamphlet called The Complete Guide to Menstruation whizzed by Claire’s head. “Okay, health class with boys should be illegal.”
“Fear not.” Layne placed her hands on her hips like a brave superhero. “I’m protesting after school.”
Giggles erupted from the back of the classroom, where a group of eight students were ransacking the shelves, searching for dirty reference books. Only five others were in their seats, but no one dared make eye contact. Simply being there, surrounded by posters of teens with sexually transmitted diseases, as well as ceramic uteruses, was awkward enough. Actually acknowledging one another heightened the embarrassment factor to an unmanageable degree.
Layne checked all three of the multicolored Swatch watches on her arm. “Where’s our teacher? Day one and she’s already late. We should get our money back.”
“I hear ya,” Claire said to the nude male and female mannequins by the blackboard that posed in a proud-to-be-naked sort of way.
Layne unhooked a turquoise mesh sack from the back of her wooden chair and fished around inside. “I wish Dempsey Solomon was back.” She pulled out a tin of citrus sour Altoids and popped an orange candy in her mouth. “You want?”
Claire shook her head no. Tart anything reminded her of the ex-gifts ex-Cam used to give her. And her taste buds weren’t over him yet.
“Dempsey got me into these.” Layne shook the tin. “They’re curiously sour.”
“Where is he?”
“On an eco-adventure tour in Bali with his parents. He’ll be back Friday. I can’t wait. He’s like the only cool guy I know.”
“He is?” Claire asked, picturing the blond, green-eyed chubby gamer who worked the lighting board for the Young Actors’ Program (YAP) at the community playhouse. “Isn’t he the one who presses dollar bills in his textbooks to make them vending-machine ready?”
“Yeah.” Layne beamed. “Isn’t that so smart of him?”
“The one Massie calls—”
“Humpty Dempsey?” Layne rolled her eyes. “Yeah. But trust me, he’s cool. You should go for him. It might take you mind off Ca—”
“I told you already, I’m on a boyfast.” Claire blurted, grateful for the excuse.
“Your loss.” Layne shrugged.
“Why don’t you go for him?”
“Onstage romances are cursed. We decided to keep our relationship professional, except at birthday parties and dances. It’s for the bes—”
“Ew!” yelped Krista Bassett, the pale blond who insisted her green contacts were natural. “This one’s called Safe Sex and it actually shows you how to put on a condom.” She whipped it at the guys, who jumped back, as if touching the pamphlet, even by accident, made them condom users.
Krista and her thick headband-wearing friends squealed in delight.
Claire slid her desk an inch closer to Layne’s, then muttered, “Massie was so right. Girls do act lame around boys.” She sighed. “My year is going to be so much better now that I’m on a boyfast. In my last class, I didn’t think about Cam for four whole minutes.”
“Wow, impressive.” Layne pulled a pink Hello Kitty pen out of her right hair puff and began drawing a daisy-shaped ring on her index finger.
“And I would have lasted to at least five if my French teacher hadn’t mentioned the color noir.”
Layne giggled. “What does the word for black have to do with anything?”
“Cam’s cologne is Drakkar Noir.”
“Ahhhh.” Layne returned to her finger art. “I’m sure it will get easier.”
Claire gripped her new charm bracelet. “Hope so.”
“Check this out!” called a curly-haired guy in camo cargos and a navy hoodie. He held open the gray metal door of the Hygiene Closet.
Krista and the Hairbands raced over to see what was inside.
A burst of male laughter erupted as Cargo Pants paraded around the room on his tiptoes. “Do you like my new jewels?” he asked in falsetto, while lov
ingly caressing the tampons that dangled from his ears. “Daddy brought them back from Pair-eeee.”
“Ewwwwww.” Krista and her crew covered their eyes in shame. “That’s soooo gross!”
Layne stuffed the pen back in her hair puff. “They’re acting like they’ve never seen a T before, even though Krista got her period at the sixth-grade carnival.” She lowered her face into her hands and shook her head back and forth in an I’m-so-over-this-place sort of way. “The classrooms are overcrowded, locker rooms are being raided, and the quality of our education is going to suffer big-time.”
Just then, a tiny travel-size sample of Secret deodorant flew across the room and nailed the naked female mannequin’s left boob. Everyone cracked up.
“Take your seats please!” shouted a big-breasted pregnant woman dressed in tight white Hudson jeans, a gold chain-link belt, and a white V-neck stretch T-shirt that strained to cover her many humps and bumps. If it hadn’t been for the dark brown roots and the overprocessed strawberry-blond Shakira curls, she could have passed for a heaping dollop of Cool Whip.
“I’m Gina James.” Her round butt bounced and shook as she hammered her name on the blackboard with a pink piece of chalk.
The boys raced for desks at the front of the room.
“But you can call me Gina.”
“Va,” snickered a boy in a green army cap.
“That’s Jeeeena.” She turned around and smile-blinded the first row with her bleached veneers. “Not Jy-nah.”
The boys burst out laughing.
Layne and Claire exchanged an eye-roll.
“It’s going to take a lot more to embarrass me than that.” She leaned against the front of her desk and crossed her ankles. “And probably very little to embarrass you.” She grinned. “So watch it, or I’ll have you stand next to Adam and Eve and make you name their body parts.”
Army Cap slid down the back of his seat.
“Since it’s a mixed-gender class this year, I thought it might make sense to teach you what happens when a man and a woman—” She was interrupted by a round of embarrassed giggles.
Bratfest at Tiffany's Page 4
