They all giggled and shrieked with excitement. I don’t know how long they stood there laughing before Mrs. Barzetti started grabbing them by the shoulders and yanking them out of there. It felt like hours.
And then the whole school had to sit through a dumb-ass assembly on bullying.
At the time, I assumed that the assembly would backfire and make everyone mad at us, since we were the reason they’d had to sit through all that garbage. But weirdly, it didn’t work out that way. Instead, Lindsey actually got a bad reputation for a while, and not like the cool bad girl but just like everyone thought she was an asshole. And of course she was suspended.
But she didn’t try to get revenge for any of that. She apologized, which I’m sure she was forced to do, but she cried when she did it and seemed like she actually did feel terrible.
So I guess in a way we forgave her. But it didn’t mean we had to like her.
“Have we really known each other that long?” I asked now, mimicking Lindsey’s saccharine sweetness. “I don’t know, I guess you could be right.”
“You know what,” Max said, “I think we have some more chairs in the garage.”
“No, no.” Lindsey waved him off. “We’re fine. I can sit wherever.”
“I can share with Josh,” Vanessa said, and she went and climbed into his lap. Jasmine did likewise with Gavin.
Max got up and gestured for Lindsey to take his chair. “Here, take this one, and I’ll just go grab a blanket to sit on.”
She put up a ritual protest, but Max said he wanted to head inside anyway to get some hot drinks started. Lindsey followed him inside, tra-la-la-ing about her angelic desire to help him with that.
As soon as they were gone, Vanessa slid out of her chair and walked over to Juanita. She dropped down onto the cold concrete and sat cross-legged as she leaned forward, resting one hand on the edge of Juanita’s chair.
“You know,” Vanessa said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I just wanted to talk to you for a sec, because I’m feeling a teensy bit concerned.”
Juanita looked at her.
“I’m not saying Lindsey is totally into Max,” Vanessa said. “I mean, I don’t know for sure. But she definitely thinks he’s cute, and I know you heard her say that in econ.” She pulled a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear and twirled it around one finger.
Juanita wrinkled her brow, managing to convey a combination of bewilderment, disgust, and not giving a damn.
“Of course I know you have a good heart,” Vanessa went on, “and you would never step in there when Lindsey has already said that. But I wouldn’t want anyone else to get the wrong impression.”
Juanita kept staring at her.
“I mean,” Vanessa clarified, “you came over here in the middle of the night. And after what happened the last time? Some people might think you’re up to no good.”
Juanita threw up her hands. “You came over here in the middle of the night!”
Vanessa recoiled. “With a whole group of friends, including my boyfriend!”
“I came here with a whole group of friends!” Juanita said.
And Jasmine piped in, from her perch on Gavin’s lap, “Yeah, you came here with our boyfriends.”
Gavin guffawed. “Oh, so that’s why you decided to ditch the movie and come over here, huh?” he asked Jasmine. At least someone was enjoying this.
Juanita scooted over to the edge of her chair and leaned way forward, right into Vanessa’s face. “What am I supposed to say to you right now?” she demanded.
“Ah, how about, ‘I won’t stab my friend in the back’? Is that so hard?”
“My friend ? My friend ?”
Vanessa stood up. “Well, if that’s the way you’re going to be about it . . .” She brushed off her hands and flipped her dark hair over her shoulder. “I knew I shouldn’t have bothered, but it doesn’t even matter.” She looked past Juanita, toward the house. “They’re in there together right now. And Lindsey’s so pretty, and so sweet. I’m sure he’s asking her out right now.”
“Or,” Jasmine added, “she’s asking him to the Sadie Hawkins dance at this very moment. And obviously he’ll say yes.”
The Sadie Hawkins dance. Of course.
I couldn’t let this happen. Not before Clara got her chance.
I started sitting up straighter, pulling Clara with me.
“No,” Clara whispered. “Drop it.”
“I need to go inside,” I said. “Right now.” I started scooting us over toward one side of the chairs.
Clara groaned. I tried to pull us over farther, but she resisted. “Hailey . . .”
“What are you going to do?” Vanessa asked me. “Juanita’s a big girl. She can fight her own battles. As she’s proven time and time again.”
Clara and I twisted toward her so smoothly, I couldn’t tell who started the motion. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I demanded. “And what makes you think it’s Juanita—”
“Hailey!” Clara said sharply. “Didn’t you have some kind of needing-to-go-inside emergency?”
After a moment I said, “Right,” and we scooted ourselves off the chairs together—slowly, awkwardly, but without any major mishaps—and hurried into the house.
The sliding glass doors opened into the living room, which was filled with leather sofas and dark wood furniture. To the right was the open kitchen. Even as we stepped into the house, I could hear Lindsey saying from the kitchen, “Yeah, but have you been up to Devil’s Ridge yet? You have to take the back trail at sunrise. It’s unmarked but it’s awesome. I can totally take you up there whenever you want.”
Oh my God. She was going to Ironwoman her way into his heart.
I pulled Clara into the kitchen, where Max and Lindsey stood behind the large center island. Nine matching glass coffee mugs were lined up in front of them, along the edge of the island.
Max faced the island, arranging the cups so all the handles faced him—a touch of OCD, perhaps?—but he smiled down at Lindsey as he worked.
They both looked our way as we came in. Lindsey quickly returned her gaze to Max and sidled a little closer.
He didn’t appear to notice. “Hey, Clara, Hailey,” he said. “We were just getting some hot cocoa ready. Anything else I can get you?”
“Maybe we could help you,” I said. “I’m sure you could use some extra hands to help carry it outside.”
“Hailey,” Clara barked at me, “the bathroom. Didn’t we need a bathroom?”
“Oh, no,” I said, attempting a breezy voice, “it turns out we don’t. It turns out we’re totally available to help with the hot cocoa.” My eyes were on Lindsey as I said this, and my hands were smoothing the tips of my hair into sharp pink missiles, pointed directly at her.
“I don’t know, Hailey. I’ve got a pretty bad headache,” Clara said—a lie she’d used so many times before, half our school must have suspected she had a brain tumor. “I think I may need to go home and get to bed.”
Max looked disappointed. “Oh, don’t do that. Our meteor-spotting contest has hardly gotten started. Hey, you know, we’ve got some Tylenol, and I think some Advil right here in the kitchen cabinet.” He went over to a cabinet behind him and started moving things around. He shook a bottle. “Yep, lots of both, and some Excedrin.”
“Max!” Lindsey said. “Listen to you, being so sweet and accommodating. But you know, even though I totally wish they could stay, we should be careful not to push these poor girls too hard. We wouldn’t want to undermine their health, keeping them up so much later than they’re used to, even if they are good sports about it.”
This was complete and utter BS. First off, how would Lindsey even know when we normally went to bed? And second, even if we did stay up later than normal, it wouldn’t do us any more harm than it would do anyone else.
I remembered how, back in that sixth-grade bathroom, I’d made plans to kick Lindsey’s ass. And I still hadn’t gotten around to that. Maybe today was the day.<
br />
Of course, we weren’t even the real targets of Lindsey’s underhanded bitchiness. She was trying to get rid of us because she knew that Juanita was our ride, and if we left, Juanita would have to leave too. In Lindsey’s mind, Juanita was the only possible threat.
Max looked quickly over at Clara, with an expression of surprise and concern. With the cabinet door still open, he turned in our direction. “Oh, ah—I—”
He seemed all confused about what to do or what to say. Maybe he’d actually noticed that Lindsey’s supposed niceness was really a cover for being a full-on bitch? Or maybe he was at least trying to figure out whether that was the case? Well, I certainly hoped so. It’s really annoying when guys are too moronic to notice that sort of thing.
Lindsey laughed and moved closer. “It’s okay, Max! You’re new here. Nobody expects you to know the twins as well as we do. And you are being so sweet to them. I have to tell you, I am totally impressed.”
Wow. There were so many layers of nauseating to that, I felt like applauding.
Max shook his head, frowning at her, then looked back over at us. I couldn’t blame him for not knowing what to say. I wouldn’t have known either. I mean, she was making us out to be so pitiable, but the way she was doing it, how could you even call her on that crap?
“C—C—Cl—” He exhaled loudly, a frustrated sound, then started again. “Cl—”
“Not that you’re doing it just to impress me, of course,” Lindsey said, and giggled, interrupting him again as she let her fingertips brush lightly against his arm.
He pulled his arm away. “I d—d—d—don’t th—th—th . . .”
He turned away from her and slammed his hand against the countertop.
Lindsey retreated a step back from him. She somehow frowned and smiled at the same time. “Max,” she said, with a bewildered-sounding laugh, “are you all right?”
He was silent, leaning over the countertop, his back to all of us. Clara had her back to me too, and I wished I could read both of their thoughts.
From the other end of the living room, Max’s mom trilled, “Is everything all right in here? I see you’re making hot cocoa. How about some marshmallows?”
Max spun to look at her. He scowled and shook his head.
“Max?” Lindsey asked. “Is something the matter?”
He met Lindsey’s eyes, and he looked furious, exactly like he’d looked back at the Sandwich Shack when he’d dropped those doughnuts and walked out.
And then his mother declared brightly, “We’re all getting tired. It’s so late! I know I can barely think straight, or keep my eyes open. It must be getting to all of us.”
Max shook his head at her. “Mmmm . . . Mm—Mom!”
“Maybe we all need some rest,” his mother said.
Max shook his head again. “Ssshh . . . Shhh . . .” He stopped talking and squeezed his eyes shut. His whole face had gone red.
Lindsey stared at him, then looked slowly at his mother, at Clara, and at me, before starting toward the sliding glass doors. “Gosh,” she said loudly to no one in particular, “look at the time. It sure is getting late, and I’m pretty sure it’s time for us all to get the hell out of here.”
15
Clara
“Clara! Hailey! My girls!” cried Amber as we walked into English class on Monday morning. She leaned against the empty teacher’s desk near the front of the room. “You’re coming to my Halloween party this weekend, right? Oh my God, you have to. You two always have the best costumes.”
“Of course we’ll be there,” I said. “We haven’t missed one of your parties since the first grade.”
The door opened behind us, and a jolt of adrenaline hit me as I turned to see who was coming in. But it wasn’t Max. I forced myself to breathe.
“Well, not one of my Halloween parties, I guess,” Amber said. “You have missed a bunch of my walkathons and charity book sales. But never mind.” She waved her hand in front of her face, dismissing the complaint. “Did you know we raised more than eight hundred dollars at the last book sale? I thought that was pretty awesome.”
“That’s great,” I said as I tried to remember what she’d been raising the money for. Amber had a lot of different causes. I suspected that she was always mentally tallying her list of “Things That Make Me a Good Person,” and there was a strong chance that “Being BFFs with Clara and Hailey” fell under that heading.
“Anyway,” Amber went on, “I’m so excited to see what you’re going to wear on Saturday night. You won’t tell us what it is, will you?”
I shook my head, trying to force a mysterious smile. My gaze darted again to the door, but it was closed. Still, I knew Max had to come in soon. I’d been anticipating this moment all weekend, and the hard knot in the pit of my stomach was starting to feel like an ulcer.
We had left his house at the same time Lindsey and her gang had, and he hadn’t even come out of his room to say good-bye, though his mother had apologized profusely, going on and on about how tired we all must be. I had no idea whether he was angry, humiliated, or what.
I needed to see his face, his expression. I needed to know if he was okay. And whether he blamed me for what had happened.
From her desk Kim commented, “The one thing we know for sure is that it will be something where Clara’s good and Hailey’s evil. Like when they did angel and devil, or Batman and Catwoman. They’re always so much better than my costumes. Amber, remember how last year my costume was so bad you almost kicked me out of your party?”
“I did kick you out,” Amber corrected her. “You came in your real soccer uniform. That’s not a costume.”
“No, that was the year before. Last year I wore an old prom dress with fake blood on it, and you said it was okay.”
“Oh yeah. Well, you should try to do better this year,” Amber told her. “And no repeats!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kim said. “I just wish I had a twin. Then I could come up with some great costume ideas too.”
Hailey snorted. We headed for our desks, with Amber following behind.
“Don’t be silly,” Amber said, her voice pitched a little too high. “Clara and Hailey just happen to think of fantastic costumes every year because they have a talent for it. The fact that they’re twins has absolutely nothing to do with it.”
The thing about Amber is, she clearly has excellent intentions, but she terrifies me with her transparency. You know how some people have such pale skin that you can sort of look right through it, to the veins and blue tinge and changing colors underneath? And you realize that what you’re seeing is the same thing that’s going on behind everyone else’s exterior too, but the only difference is that with these really pale people, you can see it.
With Amber it’s not her skin that’s transparent; it’s her voice and her manner and her facial expressions. She is supersweet and loves us ever so much, but somehow you can see the strain that lies beneath it, the eagerness to be good, to be the kind of person who would be friends with us. And it always makes me wonder if she’s showing us, without meaning to, what lurks beneath everyone else’s skin.
Amber frowned at me. “Clara,” she said with loud concern, “what’s wrong?”
“Oh.” I realized I had been scowling. “Um, nothing.” I glanced at her as I settled into my seat. “I mean, I was just thinking that it sounds like our costumes are getting too predictable. But maybe this time we’ll have a little surprise.”
While we arranged our bags and got out our notebooks, the door opened, and I almost jumped at the sound; but a couple of guys who weren’t Max walked into the room and went quietly to their seats. As the door started to swing shut behind them, a large hand caught it, and Max walked in.
I froze, torn between Idiot-Girl’s desire to stare at him and the Cynic’s need to duck under the desk and hide.
If he hated me, I wouldn’t blame him.
All weekend my brain had been buzzing like a beehive in summer. Despite what I’d told Hai
ley and Juanita—and what I’d consciously, firmly told myself, too—the truth was that when Max and I had been talking at his house on Friday night, I’d felt such an electric surge of excitement, of connecting with him, that I’d half-hoped, half-imagined, even half-believed that maybe, just maybe, he might feel some hint of that charge on his end too. And yet, wasn’t that just insane? Was I turning delusional, like my sister? Did I not understand what I was and how impossible my hopes were?
And then there had been the whole disaster in the kitchen. There he’d been, flirting with Lindsey, the second-prettiest girl in the school (after Juanita), and then something had happened and he’d turned into a quivering wreck. He’d stuttered worse than anyone I’d ever heard, right in front of Lindsey, who up until that moment had been throwing herself at him.
And maybe it had happened because of me. Because I’d been throwing myself at him too, after flirting with him at school and practically inviting myself over to his house. And then I’d put him in the awkward position of dealing with me in Lindsey’s presence, when I wouldn’t seem to take no for an answer.
And yet.
What if I hadn’t imagined that connection?
What if he didn’t hate me at all?
Standing in the classroom doorway now, Max met my eyes. Apparently Idiot-Girl had won, and I’d gone ahead with the staring.
For the longest time he seemed to have no expression at all. My heart beat wildly as I looked at him, waiting for something—a sign, a frown, a scowl, anything at all—that would let me know how he was, and where I stood. The seconds dragged on.
He hated me. Of course he did.
But then something twitched at the corners of his lips. And at the corners of his eyes. It was small; it was tentative; but maybe, just maybe, it was a hint of a smile.
And cautiously, slowly, as I filled with just the littlest bit of hope, I let my own lips curl upward too.
And there it was. The sparkle in his eyes. It still wasn’t a full smile, but a quarter of a smile. Then a third of a smile. Three eighths of a smile. He held my gaze for a second, maybe two, and then he looked down, away from me, a hint of color rising up in his cheeks.
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