Twleve Steps

by Veronica Bartles

  “I don’t need a play-by-play of your entire night, lover boy. I only need to know the least crowded time for a Saturday night at Burger Barn.”

  “I don’t know. Right before closing, I guess. About ten-thirty, maybe?”

  “Okay, tomorrow night, I’m taking Laina out for a girls’ night. At about ten-thirty, we’ll stop by for a snack. It has to look totally random, so you’d better be working and not conveniently on break when we show up. Got it?”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “Then you talk to her. You’re working the register, right? So take your time filling our order. You have Laina as a captive audience for as long as you can stretch it out. It shouldn’t be that hard. Figure out what you want to say, and find a way to say it without looking like a complete idiot.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Shane?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Lose the girlfriend.”

  “Right.”

  I hang up and study the script for tomorrow night’s adventure. Chatting with Shane while he’s supposed to be working could totally count as the last item on my list, when we’re supposed to “harass the employees of local businesses.” Now, I just have to fill the rest of our “crime spree” with innocent mischief.

  By the time Laina appears to tell me that dinner’s ready, I’ve slapped together an English paper that should earn me at least a B-minus, and I have the perfect plan for our girls’ night out. And I don’t even have to feel guilty about manipulating Laina this time. She would totally thank me if she knew what I’m doing for her.

  “So what are we doing?” Laina asks as I dig through her closet, searching for an appropriate outfit.

  I hand her the script of random gibberish that I composed last night. As if I’m going to tell her the real plan.

  “Why can’t I wear this?” she asks. “If we don’t care what anyone else thinks about us tonight, why does it even matter what I wear?”

  “Because there’s no way you can really feel good about the way you look if you’re hiding behind those gross clothes.”

  There’s no way Laina’s going to meet Shane looking like she picked her outfit from her clothing drive’s reject pile. I’m constantly buying things that actually fit her body, but whatever she can’t return gets shoved to the back of her closet, price tags still attached. It’s like she’s afraid to be noticed. I’ve blamed Kendra’s toxic comments for whittling away at Laina’s self-image, but maybe the “Anthony Matthews incident” has something to do with it. I have to find out what happened.

  “Here.” I toss Laina a black leather miniskirt and a red V-neck sweater that hugs her curves perfectly. “Put these on.”

  She yanks off her t-shirt and throws it into a pile of dirty clothes next to her bed, then slips the sweater over her head and pulls it over her perfectly flat stomach. But she kicks the miniskirt across the room to another, larger, pile of dirty clothes in the corner. “There’s no way I’m wearing that,” she says. “Even if it wasn’t freezing outside, you have a better chance of convincing birds to fly north for the winter than you’ll ever have of convincing me to wear that thing. I don’t know what possessed you to buy it in the first place.”

  I sigh. “Fine. But will you at least wear these instead?” I hold up a pair of black skinny jeans and the cute, black ballet flats that I found on sale last weekend.

  She nods and slips them on quickly, and I retrieve the miniskirt to hang back in her closet. This was the best fifty bucks I ever spent. All I have to do is pull it out of the closet, and Laina doesn’t even fight me on the “second choice” outfit I select for her.

  ***

  First up for our night of crime, we have to “Rob the mall.”

  Rob works at the information desk on Saturday nights, and I thought we could stop by to get in some flirting practice and a quick ego boost.

  The look on Laina’s face, when I toss her a black ski mask and tell her to drive to the mall for the first phase of our night, is totally priceless. She holds the mask between her thumb and forefinger and shoots me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look.

  “Are you ready?” I open the passenger door and climb into her car. It’s too bad I completely bombed my driving test. Tonight would be more fun if I could kidnap her and drag her along, without the need to convince her to go along with my plan. But Mom won’t let me try for my license again until I pass driver’s ed.

  Laina stands on the sidewalk, arms folded and keys firmly clenched in her fist. I open the door again and shake my head at her. “Will you relax? I’m not about to get us arrested or anything. Besides, do you really think I’d let you wear that mask after all the time I spent on your hair and makeup? Please.”

  She shakes her head, and then nods and gets into the car. “Where are we really going?” she asks as she starts the engine.

  Once I finally convince her that we are actually going to the mall, where she won’t have to do anything even the tiniest bit illegal, she eases her car into gear, and we drive across town. She peppers me with questions, trying to make me spill the real details of my plan, but I’m the queen of evasion.

  She should know I’d never let my secrets slip.

  When we walk into the mall and I head straight to the information booth, her eyes widen and she pulls me back outside. “I knew you couldn’t go a whole night without flirting with boys.” She laughs. “But can we make this a short stop? Rob’s kind of arrogant. I can only take so much of him before I want to tear my own hair out.”

  “What? Rob’s a sweetheart. I think you’re confusing him with Josh.” I grin at her, and when she finally relents, I saunter over to the information booth and flash my most brilliant smile, with Laina following right on my heels.

  Rob grins and leans across the desk. He’s practically drooling already, and I haven’t even said a word. This is too easy.

  “What can I do for you lovely ladies tonight?” Rob asks.

  “We need some information. This is the place for it, correct?” I point to the giant “Information” sign hanging above his head.

  “Of course.” He stands up and straightens his tie, and then he looks at Laina. “I’m the man with all the answers. I’m always happy to help you, Alaina.” He glances at me. “And your little sister, right?”

  Seriously? I know we don’t exactly hang out together, but I’ve spent enough time with Laina and Jarod and his friends that you’d think he could at least remember my name.

  I flash my sexiest smile, the one that never fails to get a reaction from boys, and lean on the desk. “Really? All the answers?” I arch one eyebrow. “I’ll bet we can stump you.”

  “I’ll take that bet.” He grins at Laina. “If you can ask even one question that I don’t know the answer to, I’ll leave your diary alone for a week. But if you can’t, you owe me lunch.”

  Laina’s eyes light up. She’s always afraid guys are trying to steal her super-secret diary, so his terms must be too good to pass up. “It’s a deal.”

  And just like that, I’m officially not even a part of this conversation anymore. Laina throws random questions at him, one after another. “Who invented the zipper?” “What classic author used to write under the pen name Peter Jackson?” “What’s the atomic weight of …” I don’t know. Some random element that I’ve never even heard of.

  Rob sounds like a robot with a Wikipedia-like answer for every single question. He could totally be making it all up, but Laina seems to be satisfied, so I guess he knows what he’s talking about.

  I try to force my way back into the conversation, but Rob only answers my questions with short, one or two-word responses before returning his full attention to Laina. When his boss comes stomping over and orders us to leave so that Rob can get back to work, it’s not exactly a devastating blow.

  There aren’t any long lines of people waiting for answers to pressing mall questions, and any other time, I probably would have argued our right to hang out wherever we wanted to, but I’m beyond ready to l
eave.

  Phase one of our “crime spree” is a bust.

  “I hate being your little sister,” I say as we walk away.

  “What? Why?”

  I roll my eyes. “Do you always have to be the center of attention?”

  “But you’re the one Rob was being nice to. He made fun of every single thing I said.”

  We reach the car, and I yank open the door, but I don’t get in. I spin around to face her. “How can you not know that Rob was trying to flirt with you?” I totally deserve a medal for the way I manage to keep my voice calm, even though Miss Perfect is so freaking annoying.

  “What? No. That’s not flirting. That’s insulting my intelligence. He’s been trying to prove that he’s smarter than me ever since I kicked his butt in the sixth grade spelling bee.”

  Total face palm moment.

  “Laina, he’s trying to show off. Yeah, he’s not very good at the whole flirting thing, but in his own socially awkward way, Rob’s trying to get your attention. He totally wants you.”

  “Yeah, right,” she scoffs. “Every boy in school is secretly in love with me and they’re all way too shy to say anything to me directly, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whatever. Forgive me if I have a hard time believing that one, but I’ve noticed that all of these ‘terminally shy’ boys never have the slightest bit of trouble when they want to ask you out. Or anyone else. You seriously want me to believe that all of these confident, cocky, and even flat-out arrogant boys suddenly lose their cool and can’t express their true feelings when I’m around, because they’re too into me? How does that make sense?”

  I laugh. “Do you even know how intimidating you are? Sometimes, I’m even afraid to talk to you, and I’m not in love with you.”

  Laina shoves me into the car. Then, she walks around to the driver’s side and climbs in herself. “I know you’re trying to cheer me up and all, but cut the crap, okay? Enough with the cheesy pep talk. You can only stretch the truth so far before it completely breaks down on you.” She starts the car. “You said that we had three phases to complete tonight. That was phase one, right? So what’s phase two?”

  I push Rob out of my mind and turn my focus back to the night’s plan. After all, if this works, by the time we go home tonight, Laina and Shane will be together and maybe Jarod will finally be ready to move on.

  I so don’t need Rob.

  “We’re going drinking and driving,” I say. “Let’s go get some beer.”

  Laina pulls out of the parking lot and drives past three liquor stores and directly to the grocery store down the street. “I assume you’re talking about root beer, correct?” she says, as she pulls into a parking space.

  “Of course. Let’s get high on life, big sister!”

  “Um, I think alcohol is technically a depressant. So you don’t actually get high on beer.”

  I giggle. “Laina, you think too much. Come on. Let’s go get our beer and show the world that the Andersen sisters know how to party right on a Saturday night.” I hop out of the car and do a perfect cartwheel in the parking lot. Then, I jump up and run for the door. “Race you!”

  Laina opts for diet ginger ale, because she doesn’t really like root beer, and “ale is just as appropriate as beer for drinking and driving.” By the time we pay for our sodas, we’re laughing so hard that I swear the cashier thinks we’re already drunk.

  When we walk back to the parking lot, Laina turns to say something to me, and she walks straight into Dave, who is trying to get past us into the store. He grabs her arm to steady her. “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, we’re a little bit drunk.” Laina giggles. “Or, at least, we’re getting there.”

  Dave raises one eyebrow. “Alaina Andersen is drunk? How did that happen?”

  I roll my eyes. No matter how much I hate living in Laina’s perfect shadow, I can’t let a stupid misunderstanding ruin her pristine reputation. “Not really. It’s a sister thing.”

  Laina holds up the plastic bag with our sodas inside. “See?” she giggles. “We’re getting ready to go drinking and driving now.” And then she explains our girls’ night crime spree to him.

  Dave’s eyes widen, and he smiles. He drapes an arm around her shoulders and leans in to whisper, “Can I come too? I haven’t been drinking and driving in almost a week.”

  “Sorry. No boys allowed.” I grab Laina’s arm and steer her toward the car before Dave can start drooling. He’s never even looked twice at her before, so why is he suddenly acting like I don’t even exist? I’m so not in the mood for a repeat of what happened at the mall.

  Laina giggles. “Why not? The more the merrier, right? Besides, you made me suffer through that whole thing with Rob.” She twists out of my grasp and grins at Dave, handing him her bottle of ginger ale.

  Dave takes a swig of the soda and follows us across the parking lot. I climb into Laina’s car and shake my head. “I already told you, this is a sister thing. We don’t have room for you.”

  Laina hops into the driver’s seat and rolls down her window to wave at Dave. “Catch us if you can,” she yells, before pulling out of the parking lot.

  We have a little over two hours to kill before I’m supposed to deliver Laina to Shane at the Burger Barn, and randomly driving around town gets boring really fast. I’d expected to take a lot more time working on phase one, and I didn’t even think to build in a backup plan. So as irritating as he can be at times, I’m not terribly annoyed when Dave decides to crash our narrative.

  At least it adds something to the monotony of drinking and driving.

  “Oh look.” I point at Dave’s headlights in the rearview mirror. “We’re leading a high speed chase through the crowded city streets.”

  Laina smirks. “I don’t know if twenty-five miles an hour when we’re the only two cars on the road really qualifies.”

  “What are you talking about? I saw three other cars less than two minutes ago, which is probably more traffic than this street usually sees on a Saturday night, and twenty-five miles an hour is like light speed to a turtle.”

  “Well, in that case, we need a good chase scene soundtrack.” She turns the radio to the only good, non-country station in town and cranks the volume up as high as it will go, which isn’t really very high because her ancient car still has the original, crappy 1970s stereo system, eight-track player and all, but we sing along anyway.

  I manage to drag out phase two of our plan by repeatedly guzzling my soda and then insisting that we need to stop at another grocery store for more beer. Dave is right behind us every single time we stop, and by the third “beer run,” I nearly forget that Dave wasn’t supposed to be part of our adventure.

  When ten o’clock finally rolls around, I declare the drinking and driving portion of our evening officially finished. We pull back into the parking lot of the first grocery store, and Dave announces that we need a reward for successfully pulling off our crime without getting caught. He runs in and returns a moment later with three giant candy bars.

  “You guys are nuts.” He tears open his candy bar and takes a humongous bite, and then he grins through a mouthful of chocolate before tossing one of the candy bars to each of us. Laina fumbles and drops hers, but I snatch mine out of the air, ripping it open and taking a huge bite all in one smooth move. I smile as if it’s no big deal, even though I could never do it again if I practiced for a million years.

  Dave grins. “That’s impressive.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s me. Impressive.”

  “You got that right.” He takes a step closer, and his eyes glint in the moonlight.

  Yeah, I’ve still got it.

  “What’s next?” Laina asks. “On to phase three?”

  “Phase three?” Dave asks. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, our night is only beginning,” I say. “Laina’s little miss innocent act is the perfect cover. No one ever suspects that the Andersen sisters are such dangerous criminals.”

  Dave
takes another huge bite of his candy bar. “It’s always the quiet ones that you have to worry about.”

  “Oh, yeah. Don’t let these pretty faces fool you. We’re trouble.” I glance at my watch. “It’s ten-fifteen now. We’d better get moving, or we’re totally going to miss our chance to pull off phase three before curfew.”

  Laina giggles. “Do criminal masterminds worry about curfew? That kind of ruins our dangerous image, don’t you think, Dave?”

  He inhales sharply, nearly choking on a mouthful of chocolate. “Ten-fifteen?” He tosses the rest of his candy bar into the trash can next to the supermarket door, hugs Laina and smiles sheepishly at me. “I’ve gotta go. I was supposed to pick Heather up from work at nine, and she’s gonna kill me.” He races off. “I’ll see you later. If I’m still alive!”

  “I thought Dave and Heather broke up last month,” Laina says.

  “I didn’t even know they were together.” I swallow the last, unappetizing bite of my candy bar. I don’t care who he dates. I’m glad he has a girlfriend. This night is about one thing, and one thing only: getting Laina and Shane together so I can have Jarod. And maybe Dave should pay more attention to his girlfriend and quit following me around like a little, lost puppy.

  “Come on,” I say. “On to phase three!”

  ***

  Shane looks up from the register as we walk into the Burger Barn, and his eyes widen when he sees Laina. For once, I’m glad she’s so incredibly clueless, because it’s beyond obvious that Shane’s been waiting for us. If he was a dog, he’d be wagging his tail and jumping up on her right now. I catch his eye and shake my head slightly. He blushes and grabs a rag to wipe at the counter. This “random” meeting is totally not going to work if lover boy lets Laina know we planned it.