by Nina Beck
“OK, we need a research party,” I say, addressing the entire room. “I need a list of food, pronto, that would head up the twenty-five worst of Mrs. Hotra’s deadly sins of food.”
“I can do that,” Samantha says, raising her hand. “I can Google like mad.”
“That’s true.” Allison nods. “She’s practically obsessive-compulsive when it comes to Googling.”
“What?” Samantha says, turning in her seat toward Allie. “That’s slander!”
“Um…remember Thomas?”
Samantha doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t have to. Blood must’ve been in a mad rush to get to her cheeks because her face is flooded bright red.
“Who was Thomas?” I ask.
Samantha sends Allie a pleading look. But since I am the only one who asked, it is clear everyone else has heard this story already. I am still out of the loop on some old business, it seems. Would I ever catch up?
“Thomas was this guy who Samantha met at last year’s end-of-the-year trip. She was totally into him and he was totally into her” (insert gag sound from Samantha) “and he gave her his e-mail address. And Samantha Googled him and found his MySpace page and basically MySpace-stalked him through a fake profile she created.”
“So? That sounds reasonable.”
“Thank you, Riley!” Samantha yells.
Allie nods, “Yeah, totally—who hasn’t MySpace-stalked someone? But have you ever stalked the people who leave comments on your space only to find out that one is your crush’s ex-girlfriend?”
I nod. Totally did that.
“Well, have you ever Googled her only to find out she was, like, some model and then decided that if the guy liked someone like that, he couldn’t ever like you?”
I look over at Samantha, whose eyes are down—she is concentrating on her lap. “Look, I know it sounds crazy. I just couldn’t understand why…”
“Maybe he was sick of pretty, thin girls…” Allie says, snickering.
“Shut up, Allie.”
I laugh. Old news. Same news. But no, I never thought that. I guess I take it for granted that guys like me. Guys love a girl with big…well, we’ve been here before. But I guess I can see what Sam was worried about. It’s hard not to compare yourself to those around you. Even at fat school, it’s like, who is the fattest among the fat girls? Who has the most fashion sense? The scale might be slightly skewed, but the game is still the same. We are all still making the comparisons.
“I once pretended to be someone else on IM and started talking to a boyfriend to see if he would be open to cheating on me.”
Allie looks over, but Samantha is the one who asks, “Was he?”
“Of course. I was talking like such a ho.”
“Did you dump him?”
“In the end, I couldn’t…I mean, I couldn’t really blame him for dumping me so he could have me, now could I? Sure, he was a dick for potentially cheating on me, but he was going to do so to be with…me.”
“That’s screwed up, Riley.”
“Can I blame a man for wanting me? In any incarnation? No…he shouldn’t be punished for being too weak to withstand my power!” I say standing in the middle of the room with my hands above my head—power pose. I am like a chubbedout superheroine.
“Riley,” Allie asks, turning off David Bowie for a minute.
“What’s up?” I say, plopping down on the bed next to her.
“Why are you leaving?”
“Because if I don’t, D is going to find out I lied to him,” I say, getting up and giving her one of those “are you silly?” looks. But Sam is looking at me the same way Allie is, and I feel like my answer wasn’t good enough, so I plop down on the floor, my back against the bed frame, so I can look at both of them.
“I’m not sure you should be doing this for a guy you can’t even be honest with,” says Sam.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, let’s look at this analytically,” she says. “How good of friends can you be if you can’t even tell him where you are? What are you getting out of this so-called friendship?”
“Well, he’s my best friend,” I say, kicking my feet out from under me as I begin to lose feeling in my toes.
“Yeah, but you wanted more than that.” Sam cuts me off when I’m about to argue. “Not now, of course, but before. If he really loved you like you say he does,” she goes on, “he’ll understand and you don’t need to go through all of this.”
Sam and Allie look at me all expectantly.
I look at them and then away again. “What if I was only friends with him because I wanted him to love me? What kind of friend can I possibly be? What if I don’t really love him? I can’t imagine what it would be like not loving him. He’s my best friend. No, no—I mean it. My dad forgot my birthday.”
Allie gasps.
“And I thought maybe he was playing around, like it was coming later, or there was a surprise or something. And so I didn’t say anything, I just waited and waited. And it never came. He just forgot.”
“That’s horrible,” Sam says.
“I mean, whatever.” I shrug.
“No, that’s horrible. You must have felt horrible,” she says.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I did.”
“But,” I continue, “D called me later that night after I had seen him at school and I guess I sounded miserable, because he told me to get dressed right away, and he came and picked me up. I snuck out of the house and he took me out, and we spent all night out having fun and it was the most amazing night of my life.”
“And?”
“And nothing. He made me feel like it didn’t matter that my dad forgot my birthday,” I say. “He always does stuff like that. He doesn’t love me, but he loves me. And I can’t let him find out that I lied to him about this…ever. I mean, I must love him enough to want to keep him from finding out that I lied…”
There are a few minutes of silence before Samantha says, “You have to tell Eric the whole truth about the plan.” (I nod.) “And about D. Just be honest with him, Riley. He’ll understand. He’ll want to.”
THE PLAN
D is planning on driving upstate with Marley on Saturday. Which means that I have to be back in Manhattan by Saturday morning at the latest.
My dad and Elizabitch are going to the Hamptons for the weekend. They are leaving on Friday night. Since my dad is a creature of habit, I assume that they will leave at the same time they’ve left for the past six months: seven P.M.
I would flip the call-forwarding at the house at 7:05 P.M., and then stage the eat-in, which would give me (and Samantha—it was her idea for the eat-in, she says, and so she has to be included. Plus it would only be her first demerit ever) my third demerit and automatic suspension.
A call home would be forwarded to my cell phone, which Samantha and Allie would be handling. I would get kicked out, make the ten P.M. train back to the city, and arrive with enough time to call and reroute D.
“What are you going to tell your dad?” Sam asks as we hunker down in Allie’s room.
“If he even notices? Um, I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“They are going to notice when you’re home a week earlier than they expected,” Sam points out.
“I always have the option of going on the Mexico trip, and then I’ll be getting home at the same time that I’d be getting home from New Horizons, and they may never know.”
Allie just shakes her head while Sam looks dubious.
“I’ll figure that part out when it comes to it,” I say.
Eric had text-messaged me that the food was on its way so we go downstairs to the back door just as he is pulling in.
“Hey,” he says, smiling at me. He nods and waves at Allie and Sam, who are both smirking at us. They each take a bag and then Sam says loudly, “Let’s let them alone for a couple of minutes so Riley can talk to Eric. Riley, don’t forget we have workshop in twenty minutes.”
Workshop, oh yeah—how to cook without fat. Swe
et.
“Thanks, yeah.”
They leave us alone.
“Do you have something you need to tell me?” Eric asks, looking at me questioningly. I kick my toe at an imaginary pebble. I am conscious of all things. How close he is standing. How close he isn’t standing. How my thigh muscles feel (as I kick said imaginary pebble). How cold the wind is (and I wonder if I have hard nipples). And of course—how much there was not being said.
“Yeah, um. Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I kind of didn’t tell you the whole story behind what’s going on,” I say, shuffling my feet. I’m wearing these really cute ballerina slippers in red plaid. I’ve noticed that I stopped wearing heels. But it has nothing to do with Eric, really.
“What’s the whole story?”
“I’m trying to get kicked out,” I tell him, “of New Horizons.”
“Were you going to tell me or would I have just found all this out after you had already left?” He’s really calm, but I can tell he’s upset.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Why? Why do this?”
“I—I have to go home. I don’t fit in here. I need to go home,” I say, floundering. I don’t want to tell him about D. I don’t want him to think it’s not because I don’t like him, or that I like D more. It’s like apples and oranges. Or Twinkies and Ho Hos. Or rather, Oreos or cheesecake from Junior’s in Brooklyn?
The door opens behind us and I see Eric’s face as he looks over his shoulder before I turn around. Jenny is standing behind us.
“Eric?” she asks.
Eric sighs. I get pissed off.
“What do you want?” I snap, spinning toward her.
She ignores me and keeps her eyes on Eric. “Eric, I know what she asked you to do. She’s going to get you into trouble.”
“Jenny…” he says.
“No, she’s not worth it,” Jenny says. “Look, I know, I know we made some mistakes.”
“Holy crap!” I say. “Are you kidding me? Can you get lost? You can try and get him back later tonight—after I’m gone.”
“Gone?” she asks.
“Riley—” Eric starts.
“Yes, I’ll be gone tonight. OK? You can retract your claws and stop. I’d be gone sooner, but eight is the earliest I could manage. Does that fit into your schedule?”
She gives me a look that I can’t read, or perhaps I’m not trying because I’m still concentrating on Eric, whose look I can read and it isn’t pretty.
“Eric…” I say.
“No, forget it. You girls are crazy. I’m out,” he says, getting back into the minivan, slamming the door shut, and driving off.
“You shouldn’t get him involved,” she says. “You’ll get him in trouble with his mother.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “I think you should mind your own business.”
“He is my business.”
I roll my eyes and walk back into the building, letting the door slam behind me as I walk slowly up the stairs.
ON TIME IS LATE, LATE IS UNACCEPTABLE
THEBIGUN17: What?
RILEDUP: ??? What’s your problem? My life is falling apart, please don’t bail on me too?!
THEBIGUN17: :/ How is your life falling apart—you seem to have a handle on everything and everyone.
RILEDUP: I screwed up.
THEBIGUN17: The great Riley screwed up?
RILEDUP: Yeah…I mean, with this guy. The one I’ve been telling you about.
THEBIGUN17:…
RILEDUP: I like him.
THEBIGUN17: You just decided?
RILEDUP: Not just.
THEBIGUN17: Tell him.
RILEDUP: How?
THEBIGUN17: Call him. Tell him. He’ll forgive you.
RILEDUP: Promise?
THEBIGUN17: Ha. Yeah, I promise.
The timing of all of this has to be perfect.
I need to buy my ticket home. I have to get “caught” with the food between the hours of seven and eight so I can catch the train before ten P.M. I would call the phone company and get the calls forwarded to my cell phone, which Samantha would be answering and pretending to be Elizabitch. (She is already hyperventilating about her “part” in my so-called crime, but every time I suggest that she try something else, she just snaps that she can handle it and she isn’t the Goody Two-shoes that everyone thinks she is. “Uh-huh,” says Allie, but another sharp look from Samantha shuts her up too.)
Samantha-cum-Elizabitch would tell Mrs. Hotra that I am a horrible child who needs to be disciplined at home. And she would have a ticket waiting for me. I would be driven to the train station after a teary-eyed good-bye, and I would arrive home, where I would sneak back into my apartment, meet up with D, and go on the trip to Mexico or…stay home…or…whatever. I would figure it out later.
Of course, there are some small gaps of logic in my very reasonable, very sneaky plan to save my social life from ultimate destruction.
“Why don’t you come back?” Allie asks.
“I don’t see how I can,” I say, sitting on the top of my bag, hoping to squish it down long enough to get it zippered, pulling the zipper around it tight.
“What about Eric?” Samantha asks.
I look at her. “I don’t know if Eric cares.”
“Riley.”
“I’m serious. You didn’t see how he was looking at me. He wanted nothing to do with me.”
“He was hurt,” she says, coming over and zipping the zipper up the last few inches for me.
“He was hurt? And that makes everything he said OK? I don’t think so,” I say. She’s about to respond but I cut her off. “Listen, I have enough to worry about—I don’t want to think about him right now too.”
“Fine,” she says, turning away.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” says Allie. She shrugs when we look at her. “I wanted to feel involved.”
When the packing is done, I stick the suitcase underneath my bed and look at my two friends. They look more than a little sad to see me going. It’s sweet. Kids do like getting attached. Eric.
“All right, then,” I start, “everything seems ready.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“What do we do now?”
“Well, where’s the food?”
“Under the bed,” Sam says, sitting on her bed and looking between her ankles at the boxes we’ve got stacked there.
“OK, suitcases are a check.”
“Right.”
“And now we just have to buy the ticket and then wait.”
“Right,” I say, pulling out my wallet and my pretty little credit card. I go online and type in the pertinent details but when I click SUBMIT, it bounces back with an error message. I try it again—same message. What is going on here?
“Riley, it says your card is declined,” Sam says, reading over my shoulder.
“What? What do you mean?” I say, looking at her.
“Declined. It says the card has been closed.”
I grab the card from her and look at the dates. The card hasn’t expired.
“Oh shit,” I say. “I’ve never had this happen before.”
“Huh?”
“I might’ve charged something kind of expensive…oh shit…they closed my account! Can they do that? Can they just close my account without telling me? Is that even legal?”
Samantha shrugs and Allie suggests quietly, “Well, if you went over your limit, I guess.”
“Limit? What’s a limit?” I scream, kicking the corner of my bed a few times. Now what? Now what? I can’t think, so I start pacing.
“I mean, why is it so important that you go home?” Sam speaks up. “Maybe this is a sign that you should stay here with us. It’s only another week anyway.”
I look over at her and she looks kind of hopeful. How can I tell her that she’s nothing like my friends, and not—technically—my type when it comes to friends or people that I hang out with. How can I
tell her that I’m not exactly sure now what I feel about D and that I need to get back there to see him face-to-face to figure it out or I’ll never know. I don’t know where to begin.
“Don’t say anything,” Samantha says, giving me a teary smile. “You just want to go home. It has nothing to do with us.”
“Right,” I lie.
“Right,” we all say at the same time, our voices hushed.
“You can use my card,” Samantha says, running to her desk and bringing back a small baggie that has a number of credit cards with her name on them. “My dad worries about me. He wants me to feel like I can come home anytime I want to.”
“Wow, nice dad.”
She shrugs and hands me a card.
“You won’t get in trouble for using this?” I ask, holding the card up, suddenly conscious, for the first time, that credit isn’t free. Even if it had always felt that way.
“Not at all. It’s a prefilled card, so there is no statement.”
Sweet.
There is a knock at the door and I shove the card in my back pocket as Samantha throws the other cards into the closet and Allie runs in a small circle screeching, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Someone’s at the door!”
“No shit, Sherlock. Open it.”
Allie opens the door and shrieks a little. The door pushes open—a hand on the knob revealing Mrs. Hotra and Jenny. Of course.
“Ms. Swain, can I see you in the hallway, please?”
I nod and give Samantha a look that says: Keep her quiet and calm her down. Or conversely, Help.
I’m out in the hallway with a smug-looking Jenny and Mrs. Hotra. Mrs. Hotra looks tired, perhaps tired of Jenny. I know I am. Rotten, no-good, completely infantile tattletale. I wish I could pull her hair out by the long blond ponytail.
“Ms. Swain, someone has suggested” (someone, whatever—it is completely obvious who the “someone” is) “that you have some material that is not allowed on campus in your possession.”
I look down at my hands and pat down my front, as if to say, No blacklisted items on my person, ma’am. I try to give her my best confused look. She just sighs again—why does everyone sigh like this around me? All I know is that I can’t get kicked out right now. If I get kicked out now, my parents will be called—and they’ll still receive the message. I’ll be in deep—
