I fluttered one hand in his direction. " I wasn't implying there was a hurry, or you wouldn't get it done, or anything. I know you're really responsible. I was just. . . you know . . . shooting the breeze."
"Oh." He nodded. "I don't know. Maybe I'll go sometime after wrestling practice."
"You mean today? Today after wrestling practice?" Instead of looking at me, his glance darted around me as though he wanted to sprint down the hallway. "Uh, maybe."
He took a step forward, but I scooted over so I still stood in front of him. I couldn't let him get away now, because there was no way I could corner him some other time today to find out the necessary information.
"Bloomingdale's said they'd give us thirty percent off. And of course Wal-Mart always has a good selection. I'm not sure where I'll go. How about you? Do you know where you'll go shopping yet?"
Wesley's eyes took on a look of panic. He was probably imagining me chasing him down the hallway throwing more questions at him. He took a small step sideways. "I don't know. I'll probably check the ads first."
Still no good. Kelly would no doubt insist I keep pestering him until I found out more details. By the end of the day, he would either think I was in love with him or psychotic.
Wesley took another step to try to get around me, but I reached out and grabbed hold of his wrist. "Wesley, can you do both of us a favor?"
The look of panic grew. "What?"
"Can you please just ask Kelly out so I don't have to follow you around all day like some stalker, trying to find out where you'll be and when you'll be there? I'm too busy to do it, and besides, I can't think of a reasonable excuse for the two of us to bump into you in the boys' underwear section of Bloomingdale's anyway. So I'm just not going to try. Okay?"
He relaxed, but not much. "Okay." I let go of his wrist. "Great. I'm glad we've had this little talk." Then I turned around and walked to the cafeteria.
When I got to our table, Kelly, Aleeta, and Brianna all looked up at me.
"How did it go?" Aleeta asked.
"Good." I put my tray on the table and sat down.
"So did you find out where he's going shopping?" Kelly asked.
"Oh, well, not really." But he probably wouldn't issue a restraining order against me, so it was still good. I opened my milk carton and inserted the straw. "I'll keep working on it though."
I fully planned never to go out of my way to speak to Wesley again, but what Kelly didn't know wouldn't hurt her.
I spent Friday night and a good part of Saturday misting shoppers with the latest pop-star perfume. (Like any of us know what celebrities actually smell like anyway. Which just goes to show you another harsh truth about shoppers—they're gullible.) Then I walked around the mall buying stuff for my St. Matthew's girls. As irony would have it, I almost bumped into Wesley. I saw him heading to the electronics section at Sears and nearly had to dive through a vacuum cleaner display in order to get away from him.
I mean, after our talk I didn't want him to think I was following him around anyway.
Late Saturday night Kelly called me, sounding both happy and hesitant. "Wesley asked me to the winter dance."
I put the phone between my chin and my shoulder so I could wrap one of the outfits I'd bought that day. "That's great!"
"Did you really threaten to stalk him if he didn't?"
"What? No, I just suggested he ask you out, you know, so I didn't have to make up excuses for the two of you to run into each other."
Kelly let out a disgruntled sigh. "When you said you were a lousy matchmaker, I didn't know you meant it so literally. I mean, now I don't know if he really likes me or whether he's just afraid of you."
I folded a piece of wrapping paper around the box. "He likes you. Colton told me so."
"Colton?" Her voice rose in distress. "Colton knows I like Wesley? How many people did you tell?"
"Just Colton. Stop worrying. You'll have a great time at the winter dance."
She let out another sigh, this time resigned. "Since Wesley asked me Saturday morning, I felt obligated to spy on Bryant for you."
"You didn't have to do that," I said. "Remember, I called a truce with Bryant."
"Thanks for telling me that now. I spent an hour and a half sitting in my car down the street from Bryant's house. Luckily, I brought my cell phone with me so I could talk to Aleeta. Most of the conversation was about how paranoid you are."
"Thanks," I said.
"Well, sorry, but I was afraid one of the neighbors would see me parked out there and call the police. I made Aleeta check on the Internet to see if spying on someone was an arrestable offense. She never found out for sure, so I'm still half-expecting a police officer to show up on my doorstep."
I pressed a piece of tape against the wrapping paper. "Sitting for long periods in your car can't be against the law. People do it every day during rush-hour traffic."
"There wasn't any traffic. Just me, a couple joggers, and Bryant's dad painting the trim on their house."
The tape dispenser squealed as I pulled off another piece of tape. "Bryant's dad was painting the trim on his house?"
"Yeah. Not something you'd generally do when you have houseguests. I hate to say this, but maybe you were right about Bryant lying to Brianna."
Neither Kelly nor I spoke for a moment. Finally I said, "Maybe his dad wanted the house to look nice for company."
"Right. And maybe he's the type that isn't embarrassed to have guests see him splattered with paint. It is possible. Maybe that dinner they had with Bryant's aunt was the really casual type you can wear your painting clothes to."
"Did you see anyone besides Bryant's dad?" I asked. "Bryant or the aunt?"
"I never saw an aunt, but Bryant pulled out of his garage at six and drove off."
I held the tape limply in my hands. "He drove off?"
"Yes. I'm not exactly sure what he wore, since I had to duck under my dashboard as he drove past, but it looked like that green cardigan Brianna bought him for his birthday. I think he was dressed up."
I didn't want to hear this. Not now. I had the irrational urge to tell Kelly to stop it, to tell her she wasn't being fair. Instead, I let out a slow breath. I'd just go through this conversation logically, without bias in one direction or the other. It would all make sense if I found out the details. "Did you follow him to see where he went?"
"No."
"Well, why not?"
"Because I'm a teenage girl, Charlotte, not an undercover agent. I figured Bryant would notice me trailing him around town if I drove off after him."
I fingered a piece of tape, not paying attention to where I put it on the wrapping paper. "It doesn't necessarily mean he lied to Brianna. Maybe his mom sent him to the store for something for dinner, or he went to the airport to pick his aunt up, or something."
"You don't get dressed up to go to the store or the airport," Kelly said.
"There might still be a logical explanation. We shouldn't jump to conclusions."
A pause filled the line, then Kelly's voice sounding crisper. "Who is this, and can I please speak to Charlotte?"
"Very funny. I know it's not like me to give Bryant the benefit of the doubt, but I'm trying to have a better attitude about him." I folded the wrapping paper over the top of the box and added the last piece of tape. "Which at this moment is taking a lot of effort."
"So we don't tell Brianna anything about Bryant?"
I stared at the package and thought of Brianna, then Bryant, then Colton. "We don't have anything concrete to tell her. It's all just suspicions. We'd be spreading rumors if we said anything now."
"Okay." Kelly let out a relieved sigh. "But that means my part of the bargain is done, and you're still in charge of decorations, right?"
"Right." I wasn't likely to forget about that. Half my fingers were nicked from where pinecones had pricked me while I glued them into centerpieces.
It was just one more reason, and suddenly I could think of many, to never try to find ou
t if your best friend's boyfriend is cheating on her.
The next week at school I spent a lot of time watching Colton, thinking of Colton, and finding reasons to talk to Colton. I talked with him about every detail of the service project and dance. No member of NHS had ever put as much effort into consulting with their president over upcoming events as I did. And he seemed to enjoy talking to me. He smiled when he saw me—a sly sort of smile, like he knew why I was suddenly so conscientious. He asked how my sisters were. He asked what my plans for Christmas were. He never, however, asked me out.
I wondered how serious he was with Olivia, and if he would look at her the same way he looked at me at Candice's party.
Thursday morning at breakfast I grumbled to my family that I had yet to receive any snowflakes from the seniors who said they'd make them for me, and I was bound to be up half the night cutting them out.
Dad spread butter on his bagel. "You don't need snowflakes for your dance. Just tell everyone it's a California winter, so you're decorating with tourists."
"Find the people who said they'd help and remind them," Mom said. "You need to study for your midterms, not make decorations."
Julianne spooned cereal into her mouth. "I'll help you make snowflakes. What color do you want them to be?"
"White," I said, and figured that anyone who had to ask was not going to be a lot of help.
After breakfast I rounded up every pair of scissors in the house, took them to school, and had Brianna hand them out. I figured people would actually make snowflakes if she asked, since she's Miss Socialite and has no visible chips on her shoulders. And of course, everyone made them for her. What started as a bit of surreptitious snipping turned into a fad by second period, and then a political statement at lunchtime. Half the senior class cut up old homework assignments and made them into snowflakes. I had unknowingly touched a nerve, a massive longing of the student body to purge their notebooks and cut holes into the things our teachers had forced us to study.
Brianna gave me so many snowflakes, I couldn't fit any more of them on my locker shelf. I had to stack the rest in Ms. Ellis's science classroom.
I didn't bring them home with me. What was the point when I'd just have to haul them back to school on Friday to decorate the gymnasium?
This turned out to be a good thing, since at dinnertime Julianne and Evelynn dumped an armful of paper snowflakes on the table.
"We didn't want you to have to cut them all by yourself," Evelynn told me.
"I made the pink ones," Julianne added, "because I wanted them to be snowflakes you see during the sunset."
Mom laughed. "I didn't have time to make you any snowflakes, but I didn't want you to miss studying, so I called a friend of mine who works at Party City and asked if they could donate anything. I've got a box of streamers in my car."
Dad sifted through the paper, moving it off the table and onto the countertop. "I'm surrounded by flakes."
I picked up a few that had fluttered onto the ground and put them on the counter. "No, you're surrounded by very nice people."
I stayed after school on Friday taping enough snowflakes onto the gymnasium wall and ceiling to qualify them for blizzard status. While I did this, Wesley and Harris lugged in artificial trees, a glow-in-the-dark Frosty the Snowman, and a small herd of light-up reindeer that I'd liberated from my front yard. I stretched the streamers from the middle of the ceiling to the side of the wall, and then let their ends dangle down behind the refreshment tables. I hoped to create a focal point so the eye would be drawn to the food, but when I was done, it just looked like I'd forgotten to decorate the rest of the ceiling.
So then I added more streamers, which connected from the ceiling to the opposite side of the room, where the deejay would be. We still had a ton of streamers left, so I added some more for balance, until Wesley looked at me and said, "I thought it was a winter theme. Why are you making the room look like some sort of huge Maypole?"
My mom makes decorating look so easy.
I went back to taping snowflakes on the wall. After putting up approximately two million, my arms ached, and then I ran out of tape. I still had snowflakes left over, and it was a shame to throw them away, since I'd insisted people make them for me. Plus, I had the irrational fear that everyone was going to walk around the gym looking for the snowflakes they made, and they'd be all ticked off if they found them in the garbage can. I laid the last few dozen across the tablecloth on the refreshment table.
After a quick dinner at home, I went to the bakery to pick up the cookies. Preeth was in charge of the drinks, which I was glad of while I was lugging boxes of cookies into the gymnasium—because I couldn't have carried them and gallons of hot spiced apple cider—but which I became less glad of when I saw her. She'd brought glass pitchers instead of insulated thermoses.
"You were supposed to heat up the cider at your house and bring it to school in the thermoses," I said as I brought in the last batch of cookies.
She shrugged and heaved a gallon jug of cider onto the table. "I decided it would be easier to use the microwaves in the school kitchen."
I picked up a gallon of cider, walked to the cafeteria, and tried the kitchen doors even though I knew they were locked. Ms. Ellis had told us during the first planning meeting that the school was very particular about who they let have access to the kitchen. Only the cafeteria ladies held the keys, and rumor was, you had to fight them gladiator-style in order to be considered a worthy key recipient.
I walked back to the gymnasium, hurrying so quickly the cider swished back and forth. "The kitchen is locked," I told Preeth.
She looked from me to the cider. "We can always serve it cold, then."
"We could if we had ice." I checked my watch. Six-fifty. "Where is Ms. Ellis?"
Preeth nodded toward the deejay. "She and her fiance are looking at the music selection."
Over by the deejay, a tall, thin man draped his arms around Ms. Ellis's shoulders. He whispered something into her ear, and she laughed. I doubted this was a good time to request that she run to the store and buy ice for us.
I glanced at my watch again, as though it might change its mind and give me a few more minutes. "Maybe we can catch someone who's on their way here and ask them to bring some."
While I grabbed my phone from my purse Harris wandered up to the table. He picked up a cookie and chomped on it while he looked around. "By the way, what's with all the streamers?"
"They're decorations."
"Oh." He tilted his head up, considering them. "It's sort of like being in a circus tent."
I shot him a dark look and punched in Brianna's number on my cell phone. He quickly added, "Not that a circus tent is a bad thing. I mean, no one pays all that much attention to the decorations anyway." His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the room. "And what are those pink blobs on the wall by the DJ ?"
"They're snowflakes my little sister made. She likes pink."
He nodded. "Oh. Well, we can just tell people those are the snowflakes tainted with industrial pollution." Harris picked up another cookie and popped it into his mouth, probably as an excuse to stop talking to me.
I turned away from him when Brianna picked up her phone with a "Hello?"
"Hi, Bri, can you do me a favor?" As I spoke, I ripped open a package of napkins and set them on the table.
"Sure. What do you need?"
"Ice for the cider. Can you stop by a convenience store and pick some up?"
"Oh." A pause. "Bryant and I aren't actually going to the dance."
Several napkins fluttered to the floor, and I bent down to pick them up. "What do you mean you're not going to the dance?"
"Bryant decided he wanted to go to a movie instead."
"A movie?" I stacked more napkins into a crooked paper tower. "You can go to a movie anytime. This is the Winter Wonderland dance. You made snowflakes for this."
"I know. He doesn't feel like dancing."
"Tell him we have both reindeer sugar cookies and dou
ble chocolate chip cookies." I'd ordered the reindeer cookies to match the theme, and the double chocolate chip because I was not about to watch Olivia and Colton dancing together unless I had chocolate. "Tell Bryant I'll save a chocolate chip one for him." I cast a glance at Harris. "Well, if you hurry anyway."
"Sorry, Charlotte, we're about to go into the theater. I have to hang up now. Bye."
I held the phone in my hand, completely forgetting about the ice. Bryant just decided he didn't want to go to the dance? Why? I could think of only one reason, and that was because he didn't want Olivia to see him with Brianna.
I hated having these suspicions, but they didn't seem to want to go away.
Next I called Kelly and Wesley. They didn't pick up. Aleeta was en route, but didn't have any money on her. It was nearly seven o'clock, and the deejay played the first song. People wandered into the gym in a steady stream, although none of them seemed to be dying of thirst just yet.
I dug through my purse for my car keys so I could get the ice, then looked up to see Colton and Olivia walking toward the refreshment table.
eleven
Olivia wore a silky red blouse and a pair of jeans, which even though they were made out of the same denim that mine had been constructed from looked ritzier. Maybe because she wore red high heels with them. Maybe because the expression on her face, the elevation of her chin, and the swing of her hips all made her look like a runway model coming down the catwalk.
Colton turned his attention to the spread of food. "Hi, guys. Got everything set up?"
"Just about," I said.
Olivia looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "You're in charge of refreshments? That's ironic."
As far as I knew, Olivia had no idea who I was, let alone whether I had any refreshment committee skills. I'd only seen her at the mall, and she hadn't seen me there at all.
I looked from her to Colton, and then back to her. "Oh? Why is that?"
She shrugged and a smile slid across her face. "Aren't you the one who had some refreshment problems at Candice's party?"