Brunettes Strike Back

by Kieran Scott

  That night I got a little taste of what college might be like. Not the classes or the campus, but the getting ready in one tiny room with female roommates. Tara was off meeting with Coach Holmes before dinner, but Whitney had joined us, claiming that Chandra, Autumn and Felice were taking up too much space in their room. Now, instead, she was encroaching on our meager mirror—and with Mindy, Phoebe, Whitney and I all dressing and doing our hair at the same time, it was total chaos. Between the curling iron, the hair dryer and the flurry of clothes and shoes, it was like backstage at NYC Fashion Week. Only far less fabulous.

  “Oops! Sorry!” Mindy said as she spritzed perfume right in my eye.

  I gasped, inhaling a cloud of perfume. The ensuing coughing fit threw me back a few blind steps and I stumbled over Phoebe’s pink leather sandals.

  “Oof!” she said as I crushed her foot under mine.

  “Sorry!” I cried. I waved a hand in front of my face to clear the smog of products. “I think I need to take a breather,” I told them, blinking rapidly and smacking my tongue against the roof of my mouth in an attempt to lose the sour perfume taste. I staggered away from the mirror and toward the bed, where I sat and took a nice, long breath.

  “You okay?” Whitney asked, fluffing her hair as she followed after me. She leaned in toward the mirror over the dresser and blinked her eyes a few times, checking her makeup.

  “Fine,” I lied.

  Time to get a grip. I was a klutz on a good day, but when the butterflies in my stomach started doing double backflips, it totally threw me off balance. First of all, I was nervous about my date with Daniel. This could finally be the night he asked me to be his girlfriend. If so, I wanted everything to go perfectly, and those are usually the times that nothing goes perfectly. So, yeah, there was that overwhelming überfear. But I was even more nervous about bailing out on dinner with the squad. What if they flipped out on me?

  Yeah. Some “what if.” The question was actually how big the flip-out would be.

  I smoothed the skirt of my dark blue and white Hawaiian print mini dress and glanced at the phone, willing it to ring. I had left Jordan a message over an hour ago and she had yet to call me back. Something was definitely going on with her and I wanted to talk to her about it. But I also needed her advice and a serious pep talk about tonight. After all, she was the one who had convinced me that the Daniel date was a good idea. Why wasn’t she calling me back?

  Okay, all you have to do is tell Whitney or Mindy what’s going on, I told myself, taking another deep breath. They’re your friends. They’ll make an excuse for you. I was sure that at least these two would understand.

  I stood up again just as Phoebe emerged from the “primping area.” She looked cute and casual in a light pink top, khaki shorts and strappy pink sandals. I still hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about whatever had been bothering her that afternoon, but she seemed to be feeling better, so I assumed that chatting with Tara had done the trick. Either way, I didn’t want to bring it up with Mindy and Whitney around, just in case she wanted to talk alone.

  “So, Annisa, what’s up with the dress?” Whitney asked. She finished inspecting her face and grabbed her bag. “I mean, you look hot. Too hot for dinner with the squad.”

  Nice! A perfect opening!

  “You’re not ditching to have dinner with your parents, are you?” Phoebe put in. “’Cause you’re really supposed to have meals with the squad.”

  Huh. Maybe this was going to be harder than I thought.

  “Actually, I—”

  There was a knock at the door and I flinched. Could Daniel be here already? But when I opened the door, it wasn’t my crush that was standing there looking nervous enough to faint. It was Bethany.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, grabbing my arm and yanking me into the hall.

  “Okay, ow,” I said, rubbing my shoulder. “I might need that tomorrow.”

  “Cry me a river. I got real problems,” Bethany said shortly. She was shifting her weight from leg to leg like she had to pee. I had never seen her look so kinetic.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Bethany looked over her shoulder, glanced at the still-closed door and leaned toward me to whisper, “I think I got a date.”

  “What?” I squealed.

  “Shhh!” she said, widening her eyes in a menacing way.

  “Bethany! That’s great!” I whispered. “Who is he? Where’d you meet him? What’s he like?” The look on her face was so blank that for a second the ground tilted beneath me. Suddenly I realized that I had never heard Bethany even talk about boys or crushes before. “Or . . . she?” I said, my throat dry with embarrassment. “Sorry, is it a she?”

  “No! It’s a he,” she replied. “Not that I wouldn’t kill to see the look on my parents’ faces if I came home with a girl, but unfortunately, I’m hetero.”

  “Okay, so what’s he like?” I asked.

  “Gorgeous,” she said, groaning like gorgeous was a horrifying skin disease. She leaned back against the wall and whacked her head against it. “Too gorgeous. He might be the devil, actually. Only the devil could be that good-looking.”

  “Wow. You’ve got it bad,” I said, grinning.

  “That’s why you have to come with me,” she said, her eyes pleading. Bethany. Pleading. Who knew it was possible?

  “Come with you? When?”

  “Tonight. Now,” she said. “Did I not mention that?”

  My heart twisted inside my chest. “Bethany! Come on! Not now! I can’t. I’m going out with Daniel,” I whispered.

  She leveled me with a stare. “I believe it’s called a double date. At least I think that’s what I’ve heard.”

  “But tonight might be the night he . . . you know,” I said through my teeth.

  Bethany narrowed her eyes and stood up defiantly. “Annisa Louise Gobrowski—”

  “My middle name is not Louise.”

  “So what? You need to remember that your Mr. Perfectly Boring wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me,” she said. “I cannot do this alone.”

  “Why not?” I asked, throwing my hands up.

  “Because!” she replied. She looked at the floor and screwed her mouth up to the side. “Because this is my first date,” she said quietly. “I need backup or I will screw this up.”

  I blinked. That may have been the most blatantly self-doubting thing I had ever heard Bethany say.

  “Come on, Annisa, you owe me.”

  I looked into her brown eyes and felt myself cave. It wasn’t often that Bethany looked vulnerable, so when she did, I’ll admit it, I was moved. Besides, I did not want to be the subject of another sucks-to-be-us.com editorial, thank you very much. The Devil Wears Pleats, which she had written after I had ditched her to participate in the prank war, did not do much for my ego.

  “All right, fine,” I said finally. “Double date it is.”

  “Yes,” Bethany said. “You won’t regret it.”

  “What’s this guy’s name, anyway?” I asked.

  “Chuck,” she said.

  “Chuck?”

  “Chuck,” she replied. “Got a problem?”

  “No. Of course not,” I replied.

  But I would in a second. I still had to break the news of my date—my double date—to the squad. I knocked on the door and Whitney instantly whipped it open.

  “You don’t really think we’re going to let you skip dinner, do you?” she said.

  My heart dropped. “What do you have, bionic hearing?” Mindy and Phoebe were hanging back by the primping area, looking concerned. Clearly Whitney had shared everything she had overheard with them. Yippee.

  Whitney looked at Bethany. “Can you excuse us for a second?”

  “Sure,” Bethany said. But she walked inside anyway.

  Whitney sighed in an exasperated way and was about to close the door to give me my proverbial lumps when Daniel appeared in the doorway.

  “Hey,” Daniel said with that mind-blow
ing smile. He was wearing a soft-looking gray V-neck sweater and jeans. Yum.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  “You ready to—”

  “Annisa? We really need to talk,” Whitney said.

  She didn’t give me much time to answer. Instead she tugged me away from the door by my wrist and the heavy thing almost slammed in Daniel’s face. He caught it just in time and came in. I saw him greeting Bethany as I was basically tossed into the primping area.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Phoebe asked me under her breath. “You cannot miss dinner with the squad to go out with Daniel and Bethany and some dude named Chuck.”

  Wow. Whitney got every detail.

  “What’s the big deal?” I asked.

  “The big deal is, Tara will kill you and serve you up for breakfast,” Whitney said.

  “Annisa, come on,” Mindy said calmly. “We’re here for nationals. You have to make the squad your number-one priority right now.”

  “But it’s just dinner,” I told them. “One meal.”

  “God, Annisa! It’s three days away from your boyfriend,” Phoebe hissed. “Can’t you put the brakes on your love life for three damn days?”

  Was she kidding? Whose love life was she talking about? Because mine never seemed to get out of the slow lane. “How am I supposed to put the brakes on my love life when I haven’t even hit the gas?” I whispered.

  They glanced at one another and Mindy shrugged. Phoebe rolled her eyes and Whitney looked away. It was like they just didn’t know what to do with me. Well, neither did I at this point. I mean, I did see their side. I did. It was only three days and unity was important to the squad. Logically, it made sense.

  But try telling that to my heart. All my heart wanted was to be with Daniel. To give him a chance to finally come through. To go to bed tonight knowing I was his girlfriend. What if I went out there and blew him off and he kicked me to the curb? Or worse, what if he went back to Sage? Did I really want to ruin my potential first relationship for one meal with the squad? If I were sick, I wouldn’t have to go down there and no one would think the worse of me, right? Well, I was sick. Heartsick. How’s that for an excuse?

  I took a deep breath and looked at Whitney. She was staring me down, just waiting for me to do the right thing. My conscience wanted to side with her. After all, I was used to toeing the line, being the good girl, doing as I was told. It went against my very nature to do otherwise.

  He’ll understand, the angel on my shoulder said. If there’s anyone who knows about following the rules, it’s Daniel.

  Except for the fact that he had broken a few big fat ones when he had skipped school to come down here. For me.

  Still, I was about give in to second nature and tell my teammates I would get rid of Daniel and Bethany (how, I had no idea), when my eyes fell on the box of Herbal Essences hair dye that was still sitting on the counter. Only now the kit had been opened and all the little pieces—the bottles and plastic gloves and instructions—had been laid out in a row. Like it was ready to go. Like it was a foregone conclusion that when we got back from dinner, we were dyeing my hair. Up until now, Phoebe’s shower towel had been balled up on top of it, hiding it. But now I realized Tara must have prepped it before she left for her meeting.

  I could just imagine her smug face as she unpacked the box. My fingers clenched into angry fists. Tara Timothy was not the boss of me!

  “You know what, you guys? This is my life,” I snapped, grabbing my purse. “I’m sick of everyone on this squad telling me what to do and who to talk to and how to do my hair.”

  Becca and Gia and Jordan would never stand for this. They would never stick around and be treated this way.

  “Annisa,” Mindy said. “You know we just—”

  “Care about the team,” I finished for her. “Too bad that’s all you seem to care about.”

  “You know that’s not true,” Whitney said.

  I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to be mad at Mindy and Whitney. They were my best friends on the squad. But right then it felt as if they had aligned themselves with the enemy.

  “Tara is going to burst a blood vessel when you don’t show,” Phoebe told me. “What are we supposed to tell her?”

  “Tell her whatever you want. Tell her I’m out with Daniel. Tell all of them for all I care,” I said. “And while you’re at it, you can tell them what they can do with their box of hair dye.”

  I turned around, grabbed Daniel’s hand and whisked him out into the hallway. Bethany followed gleefully and let the door slam behind her. Suddenly I felt free and strong and like myself again. If I wasn’t going to stand up for me, no one would.

  “Everything okay?” Daniel asked.

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” I told him. It’s just one meal, I told myself. One little meal.

  “Is it true? Is Tara Timothy really going to have an aneurysm when you don’t show?” Bethany asked.

  I felt a pang of guilt and fear as the elevator doors slid open in front of us. “Probably.”

  Bethany rubbed her hands together as she stepped into the elevator. “This day just keeps getting better.”

  13

  “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been this mad!” I said, my foot bouncing up and down under the tablecloth. We were sitting at an outdoor table at a tiny restaurant overlooking the crashing surf. There were white twinkle lights, a jazz band playing on a small stage, and a light breeze making the flames on the votive candles dance. It probably would have been very romantic if I hadn’t been going berserk. “I thought they were my friends! What kind of friends tell you who to hang out with and what to do and when to dye your hair?”

  “Friendship is a boat that holds two in fair weather, one in foul,” Chuck said, his deep voice reverberating over the table.

  “Exactly!” I agreed, throwing my hand up.

  I wasn’t actually all that sure what he had said, but everything out of his mouth sounded wise. Chuck was a broad-shouldered, light-skinned African American guy of very few words. He had these piercing green eyes and he looked right through you whenever you spoke, like he was not only taking in every word, but analyzing them to the last syllable. Bethany couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

  “That’s kind of cynical, isn’t it?” Daniel asked, looking uncertain.

  “That’s why I like him,” Bethany said. If she got any closer, she was going to be resting her chin on his shoulder.

  “Can I take your drink order?” the waitress asked, appearing at the edge of the table.

  “I’d like a Coke, please,” I said.

  “Annisa, are you sure caffeine is the way to go right now?” Daniel asked, looking at my jittering leg.

  I actually glared at him. He raised his hands in defeat. “Get the lady a Coke!” he said. “I’ll stick with water, thanks.”

  As Bethany and Chuck placed their orders, I felt Daniel’s hand cover mine under the table, on top of my thigh. His skin was so warm, and his touch sent a pleasant tingle all through my body. I smiled and my leg calmed down considerably. He squeezed my fingers and I squeezed back.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” he said.

  I wanted to believe him. I did. But it didn’t feel that way. And besides, wasn’t this the person whose phone number was on Sage Barnard’s caller ID? Why should I trust him?

  Look, Annisa. You either believe him or you don’t, my shoulder angel said. Which is it gonna be?

  I let out a breath, expelling as much negativity as possible along with it. For now, I had to believe him. If I didn’t, then I was out to dinner with a liar, and did I really want a liar asking me to be his girlfriend?

  Could I possibly have been more confused?

  “I’m sorry,” I said finally, adding a self-deprecating smile. “I’ll calm down now.”

  “It’s okay. You’re upset,” Daniel said. “For the record, I like your hair the way it is.”

  I beamed. Okay. He got points for that one.

  “There’s
no truer beauty than that which God gave us,” Chuck said.

  Bethany reached up and self-consciously touched her own hair, which had been purple not all that long ago. I wasn’t even sure if that jet-black she was sporting was even close to her natural brown.

  “Thanks,” I told him. “So, this place is amazing, huh?” I said, taking in my surroundings for real. “How did you find it?”

  “I did some research in the hotel lobby,” Daniel said. “The concierge guy recommended it. He said his sister waitresses here.”

  “Cool,” I said, trying to relax my shoulders. I picked up the menu and glanced over the options. It was time for me to forget the squad drama. I could deal with them later. I was here now. With Daniel. I had to concentrate on putting my Sage-related fears aside and focus on him and our date.

  “So, Chuck, you work for ESPN?” Daniel asked.

  “For now,” Chuck said. “I’m saving money for this spring.”

  “What’s this spring?” Bethany asked.

  “I’m going on an art tour of Europe,” Chuck told her.

  “What do you do on an art tour?” Daniel asked.

  “See all the greats,” Chuck replied, taking a sip of his water. “I start art school in the fall.”

  I thought Bethany was going to swoon. “You’re an artist?”

  “I’m trying to be,” he said with a small smile.

  “What’s your medium?”

  “Metal, mostly. Modern sculpture,” he replied. “Though I’ve done a little inking as well.”

  “Oh, God. Like, comic book inking?” she asked.

  “My friend and I have our own book,” he replied. “Downer Boy.”

  “You have your own book?” Bethany practically fell off her chair.

  “I think it’s true love,” Daniel whispered to me.

  “Yeah, if there is such a thing,” I muttered. I guess I was feeling a little cynical myself.

  Daniel looked at me for a moment. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine,” I said. Actually, I was getting kind of antsy. Call me crazy, but as happy as I was that Bethany seemed to be smitten, it wasn’t easy watching it happen while I was wondering what was going on in my maybe-boyfriend’s head.