“It’s t-too violent,” Prairie said. “What’s the third choice?”
“Armageddon,” Hugh said.
Prairie’s eyes lit up. “That’s my favorite movie.”
Destruction of the world isn’t violent?
Kevin said, “Here, I’ll put it in.” He got up, causing me to slide into the sinkhole he’d vacated. As Kevin switched on the VCR and stuck in the tape, Hugh asked, “How much is the pizza?” He dug in his pants pocket for his wallet.
“Forget it,” Kevin said. “My treat.”
“Really?” Hugh poked his glasses up his nose. “Gee, thanks.”
“No problem,” Kevin said. He grabbed the remote control and pressed Start.
Hugh asked, “What’d you do, rob a bank?” He cracked himself up.
Kevin didn’t answer. The FBI warning scrolled onto the TV screen as the hairs on my neck stood at attention.
Kevin plopped down beside me again and fast-forwarded through the previews. When the movie credits appeared, Kevin got up and switched off the lights. On the other side of me, Prairie snuggled close to Hugh.
Kevin’s leg landed right next to mine. He took a deep breath. My breath was stuck somewhere between my lungs and lips. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Hugh’s arm slide around Prairie’s shoulders. He leaned over and kissed her.
Kevin said in my ear, “I just got pepperoni.”
I jumped a mile. The reflection from the TV flickered over Kevin’s face. His adorable, smiling face. I smiled back. “Great,” I said. “I’m starving.” And to prove it, my stomach rumbled.
“Me, too.” Kevin stretched his arms over his head. One of them cruised across my shoulders.
My bones went brittle. Don’t ask me why; I’d been waiting for this moment all my life. Not that Kevin could feel my bones under all my layers of blubber, but I tried to relax. When I’m nervous though, my impulses take over. I blurted, “So, is this Mrs. Jonas’s treat or Ms. Milner’s?”
Kevin’s arm dropped back behind me. “What do you mean by that?” he said.
“Nothing,” I answered quickly. Oh, God. Did I really say that?
Suddenly the overhead light flashed on. Kevin faced me. “Did you just accuse me of stealing the money?”
“No.” I looked aghast. “Kevin, no. Of course not.” I gulped. “But, uh… did you?”
“Jenny!” Prairie barked at me.
“What?” I turned to her. “I didn’t say he did. I’m just asking.”
Kevin folded his arms. “Do you think I did?”
My eyes met his. His very intense eyes, holding mine in a vise grip. “No.” I hope not, I managed to keep to myself. “I just…” My mouth tasted like bee vomit. Involuntarily, my fingers traced across the links of my necklace. “It’s just that right after the money got stolen, you gave me these presents. I mean, it was pure coincidence. First Mrs. Jonas’s money and the earrings. Then Ms. Milner’s money and the necklace. Weird.” I laughed. It sounded strangled, which it was.
All the warmth in Kevin’s eyes faded away. My life went with it. An explosion from the TV rocked the living room. Kevin raised his arm to flick off the TV with the remote control. Just then the doorbell buzzed.
Beside me, Prairie said, “Jenny, how could you?”
“I—”
The whooshing of the door cut me off. Kevin snarled at the pizza guy, “You must have the wrong house.” He shut the door in his face. Then he turned to us and said, “The party’s over.”
Chapter 22
Dear Fat Fink Forget About Food You Stupid Idiot Diary,
He hates me, he hates me, he hates me. I’m gonna eat some worms.
I threw my food diary across the bedroom, where it landed with a splat over my fat white jeans. I let out a wail that could be heard in Vail.
Good thing Mom, Dad, and Vanessa weren’t back from family fun night. They weren’t here to see me stumble home alone in the dark and almost bust my bed frame when I flung myself on it so hard.
Even if Kevin would’ve walked me home, the look on his face after I accused him of stealing the money was enough to make me flee for my life. With one stupid remark, I’d managed to destroy any future we might’ve had together.
When the tears started, they wouldn’t stop. I’d never felt so miserable in my life. All my diet days added together couldn’t come close to the feeling of emptiness I had inside me right now. My one chance at love, flushed down the toilet.
Through my sobbing I heard someone enter the house. Yes, I thought. Good. An ax murderer. Counting the footsteps in the hall—four, five, six—I quickly axed the ax murder scene. Blood makes me queasy.
A soft knock sounded on my door. “Jenny?” Mom whispered softly. “Are you home?”
I yanked my comforter up to my chin. A streak of light shone through a crack in the door and I shut my eyes. From the hallway, Mom said, “She’s here. Thank God. She’s asleep.”
I wish. And thank God for what? I’ll be here the rest of my life, I thought. I’m never getting up. How can I ever show my face in public? Even Prairie had pierced my heart with a look that killed. And after Kevin tells everyone what a snake I am…
Why did I have to ask him? Why did I have to know?
“Jenny?” Another sliver of light cut across my bed. I clutched my covers tighter. The light expanded before a body bounced on the bed. “How’d it go, Jen? I know you’re not asleep.” Vanessa shook my arm.
“Go away,” I snarled.
She climbed over my lifeless carcass. “Tell me everything that happened,” she said to my half-covered face.
“Nothing happened,” I grumbled.
“Did he kiss you good night?”
No, he kissed me good-bye, I answered to myself. Throwing her off me, I rolled over and muttered, “Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?” Can’t you see I’m trying to die?
“Come on, Jenny. Tell me.”
“Go away, Van.” My voice cracked. “Leave me alone.”
She sank down beside me and rested her head next to mine. “What happened, Jenny? Are you okay?”
No. And I’m never going to be okay. To Van, I said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Jen—”
“Just go!” I shouted at her.
“All right.” She bounced up. “God.” She padded to the door. “Excuse me for caring.” The door slammed.
Sunday morning I was awakened by an earthquake. When my eyes flew open, I realized the only thing shaking was my bedroom door. “Jenny, are you deaf?” Dad bashed it again. “I’ve been calling you for ten minutes.” The door creaked.
“Don’t come in!” I cried. “I’m naked.” Covering my head with my pillow, I added a muffled, “And deaf, too.”
“You have a phone call,” he said.
There was no one in the whole wide world I wanted to talk to. Lifting the corner of the pillowcase, I murmured, “Who is it?”
“One of your many admirers.”
That didn’t even warrant a reply.
Dad strolled into my room, carting the laundry basket.
“Did I say ‘Enter’?” I threw off the pillow.
He said, “You know, if you’d fold your clothes and put them away, it’d save me a couple of loads of laundry a week.” He tossed my white jeans and a pair of underwear into the basket.
That got me up. “I’ll do that,” I said. “Just go.”
He sighed and headed for the door. “The phone?”
“I’m coming,” I snarled. Geez, he sounded more like a mother every day. Maybe it wasn’t healthy for a dad to play Mr. Mom. Too much gender bending.
I threw on my robe and padded down the hall. A knot of fear clenched my stomach. What if it was Kevin? Then a surge of hope loosened the knots. What if he was calling to apologize? What if everything was back to normal? What if last night never happened?
My hand felt sweaty as I lifted the receiver. “Hello?” I said in a shaky voice.
“Solano.”
My hop
e crashed through the floorboards. “Yeah. Hi, Max.”
“Today. Two o’clock. Peacemobile.”
I exhaled wearily. “I don’t know—”
“Be there.” The phone buzzed in my ear.
Hey, who was the leader of the Snob Squad, anyway? Right, Jenny, I answered myself. I couldn’t even take charge of my own life.
“Good morning, sweetheart.” Mom came in from the living room. She kissed me on the cheek.
What was her problem?
“How was your date?” she asked.
“Short,” I said.
“Oh?” She cocked her head. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
Like what? I thought. You gave birth to a loser? “No,” I answered.
Dad moseyed in from the hallway. Setting the laundry basket on the basement landing, he refilled his coffee cup and said, “I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which the rest of us finished three hours ago.”
My eyes flickered up to the kitchen clock. Holy moly, it was almost noon. Usually I slept late on weekends, but not past Xena: Warrior Princess. Today I just wanted to go back to bed, for like forever.
“Something happened last night during Jenny’s date,” Mom said to Dad. They exchanged knowing glances, although I wasn’t sure what they knew.
Dad said, “Did he put the moves on you?”
“Robert!” Mom whapped him. To me, she said, “Did he?”
“Don’t I wish,” I mumbled.
Dad said, “He loves her, he loves her, he loves her.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
I looked at him funny. He was definitely losing it. In a sigh, I said, “Where’s Vanessa?”
“At orchestra rehearsal,” Mom said. “For the Young Performers concert tomorrow night. Which reminds me, you’ll need to find a nice outfit to wear. Preferably something hanging in your closet, as opposed to on the floor. If you need anything washed, you’d better get it downstairs.”
I tuned Mom out around the word tomorrow. For me, there was no tomorrow. I did feel bad about the way I’d snapped at Vanessa last night and wanted to apologize. Especially since it might be my last act on Earth.
Mom stopped me on the way back to my room. “Jenny,” she said, “does this have anything to do with that stolen money? Were you right? Did Kevin steal it to buy you those presents?”
All I could do was shake my head. I didn’t even finish the shake before it struck me. “How’d you know about that?”
Mom looked at Dad. Neither one answered.
“I’ll kill her!” I cried. Clenching both fists, I screamed at the ceiling, “Vanessa, you snoop!” I charged down the hall and into her room. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Something personal, something to trash. Vanessa had been in my room. She’d been reading my food diary. Even worse, she’d shared it with Mom and Dad.
The first thing I stumbled into was her music stand. As it toppled over, pages of sheet music fluttered to the floor. Without thinking, I grabbed one up and ripped it in half.
“Jenny!” Mom yanked at my hand. “What are you doing?”
“She invaded my privacy,” I said. “I’m going to kill her.” In a twisting motion, I wrenched away from Mom. As I started to tear the next sheet of music, tears pooled in my eyes. How could she? My own sister. And she had the gall to make me feel guilty about not trusting her last night. Ooh!
“Jenny, stop it!” Hands grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. “Vanessa wasn’t in your room. I was. I read your diary.”
Through heavy tears, I blinked up. My fuzzy vision cleared. I had to blink again. I couldn’t believe it. “Dad?”
Chapter 23
Dad held up both hands. “I confess,” he said. “I know I shouldn’t have, but your notebook was sitting there on your pillow. It looked like a school report or something. I just went in to change your sheets because I forgot to tell you girls that I was moving the wash day for sheets and towels from Tuesday to Friday.”
An echo sounded in my head. He loves her, he loves her—oh, my God. He’d read that far?
My eyes blinked over to Mom. She smiled meekly and said, “Your father told me about it last night. If I’d known, I never would’ve let you go out with that boy.” She shot eye daggers at Dad.
He sniped at her, “I told you I was sorry. I thought it was Jenny’s business, not ours.”
Mom huffed. She said to me, “I agree it was wrong of your father to read your diary, but really, Jenny. Some of the stuff in there is serious. Is it true, about the stolen money?”
I blinked back to Dad. “You read my diary?”
“I didn’t know. Okay, I figured it out and probably should’ve stopped. But then I got to the part about the money and…” He shrugged.
“You read my diary,” I said again. “You broke into my room and read my diary.”
“I didn’t break in.” He widened his eyes at me. “It was time to change the bedding and—”
I stiff-armed my way between them.
“Jenny, your father wasn’t invading your privacy. He—we—would never do that.”
At Vanessa’s door I stopped and spun. “As of this moment, you are no longer my parents. I divorce you.” With that, I slammed the door in their faces.
All the way to Max’s house, I fumed. How could they? How could he? And how could she support him? They always taught us to respect each other’s privacy. We weren’t even allowed to enter each other’s rooms without knocking; without verbal permission. When did the rules change? When did my privacy become less important than theirs?
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I’d never forgive him. Never. The three-mile walk to Max’s was a blur. I was so angry and hurt and hollow. Losing Kevin wasn’t enough; now I’d lost my family.
Thank God for the Snob Squad, I thought. At least my friends were true blue.
When I arrived at the Peacemobile, Max and Prairie were already there. “Hey,” I mumbled, hauling myself up into the minivan. I flopped onto the flowered sofa in my usual spot. “Don’t ask me for any money because I won’t be inheriting the family fortune. I just divorced my parents.”
Neither of them spoke. I glanced up. They both glared at me, with something like hatred in their eyes.
“What?” I said.
Max broke her glare and stared up over my head. “Where’s Lyd?” she said.
“How should I know?” I answered. “Probably at ballet. Probably her mother is picking her up and bringing her here because she has a mother she loves and trusts.”
They still didn’t ask. What did I have to do, slit my belly open and spill my guts all over the floor?
Prairie just sat and stared at me. She’s still mad about last night, I thought. Okay, it was my fault the date ended early. So report me to the date police.
The silence was staggering. I hated knowing Prairie was mad at me. Just as I opened my mouth to apologize for the hundredth time, the door to the Peacemobile slid open and Lydia climbed in. “What’s the emergency?” she said. Her eyes darted around. They stopped on me. A frown furrowed her brow. “Jenny, what’s wrong?”
Well, finally! Someone who cared. “My father’s been sneaking into my room and reading my diary,” I told her.
“You keep a diary?” Lydia asked. “Don’t you lock it?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, it’s my food diary. It didn’t come with a key.”
Lydia slid in beside me. “So, what’s to see in your food diary?”
“It’s more than that. I was writing a bunch of personal stuff, too.”
Behind her glasses, Lydia’s eyes magnified. “How personal?”
“Very personal.”
“Like how you accused Kevin of stealing Mrs. Jonas’s and Ms. Milner’s money?” Prairie piped up.
My face flared. “I never accused him,” I said. “I only mentioned that it was a coincidence about the money and my presents. And I mean, come on. He’s going to spend his own money on me? Where did he get that much money? It’s obvious he isn’t rich.”
“When was this?” Lydia twisted to face me.
I heaved a heavy sigh. “Last night.”
“At your date?”
“Yes!” I snapped at her.
Lydia’s jaw dropped.
“I only asked him if he did it. I never accused him.”
“Same difference,” Lydia said.
Oh, thanks a lot, I thought.
Max asked, “So, what did he say?”
I looked at her. “What would you say?”
She shrugged.
“Really, Max.” I shifted my weight to face her. “If I asked whether you took Mrs. Jonas’s and Ms. Milner’s money, what would you say?”
Her face darkened. “Do you think I did?”
I threw up my hands. “That’s just what Kevin said. Right before he threw me out of his house. And his life.” A lump lodged in my throat.
Suddenly it grew deathly quiet. Prairie and Max both had the same look of contempt on their faces that Kevin had carved forever in my memory. “What?” I barked at them.
Max’s eyes dropped and she slugged down a Coke. Prairie kept staring. To her I added, “Didn’t you for a minute suspect Hugh?”
“Hugh?” Her voice rose. “N-no way.”
Now I really felt like a dirtball. I’d managed to alienate everyone: my sister, my boyfriend, my friends. And I was still no closer to the truth.
My gaze flickered back to Max. I decided to risk it. What else did I have to lose? “So, Max, you never told us where you got the money for your shoes and the new CD player.”
Max said, “You never asked.”
I could scream. Maybe I did. Then I said, “Well, now I’m asking.”
She took another long swig of Coke. “My brother sold this guy a rebuilt Harley. A classic, the guy said. And since I helped rebuild the engine, I got half the money.”
“See?” I looked around. “All you have to do is tell the truth.” I sat back, arms folded, feeling satisfied. The satisfaction faded to guilt. How could I have suspected Max? And since I knew she was telling the truth, it meant Kevin… My arms dropped. My whole body sagged.
“Yeah, Jenny,” Prairie broke into my misery. “So why don’t you?”
A Snitch in the Snob Squad Page 11
