“Did you say something?” She puts a couple of Pop Tarts into the toaster and turns on the radio that’s screwed in below one of the cabinets. I can’t get over how cool that is. My parents will never have something so awesome—in their kitchen, no less. “You like new wave?” She spins the dial to KROQ, and I breathe a sigh of relief as “Burning Down the House” pulsates through the air. Judging by the way those Pop Tarts are starting to smoke, this song just might prove to be prophetic. If she’s going to ignore me all night, at least we’ll have good music. And strangely enough, this song reminds me of Joel and our first date. I wish we were together right now. As ridiculously clichéd as it sounds, I can’t stand being away from him. We fell asleep on the phone last night, and it felt like heaven to wake up to the sound of his breathing.
If I had it to do all over, I don’t think I’d spend the night. I’m even starting to think Stacey and I shouldn’t be friends. After Joel made that comment about her stealing those earrings, it made me rethink my stance on this “friendship.” If Jennifer had entertained petty crime, I would have lost all respect for her, but when Stacey did it, I thought she was that much cooler for filling her purse with stolen goods. Maybe Jen is right. Maybe I have been drinking the Kool-Aid—at least where Stacey is concerned.
“I’m going upstairs to change.” Stacey bolts out of the room, and I follow right behind her. As nice as her house is, it’s equally as creepy with all its tall, dark, and not-so-handsome windows that span floor-to-ceiling. I’m not used to gargantuan houses. They’re eerie. I feel as if Jason is lurking around every corner, and I’m about to star in my own version of Friday the 13th.
Hey—don’t all teenage horror flicks start out this way? Two girls having a sleepover—no adults—and hello? It’s freaking Halloween! Shit. We are so doomed.
Stacey surprisingly holds open the door to her bedroom for me, and it shuts behind me on a spring. I’ve never seen that before, an automatic closing door to your own room. Huh… But honestly, with my family, I can totally see the appeal.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask, taking it all in. Surprisingly, she has a somewhat normal bedroom, even a somewhat normal size. It’s almost twice as big as my room, and my room is literally as big as a thumbtack, so there’s that. Her walls are painted yellow and brown with cream-colored curtains frilling around the window. A bevy of posters lines her wall neat in rows. They’re the giant oversized ones from the poster store at the mall, not the free pullouts from Tiger Beat that I’ve ever seen in anyone’s bedroom. Yet, another telltale sign I’m not in San Ramos anymore. Three of the posters are of Matt Dillon, and I almost fall over in shock over this. Clearly, Michelle’s I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass-if-you-dare-drool-over-Matt-Dillon rule only applies to the plebes of society, e.g., the San Ramos girls—specifically me. I’ve never felt so bullied in my life. The other three posters are a hodgepodge—one of Wonder Woman, one of Garfield, and a movie poster from Sixteen Candles that I would kill to have.
There’s a TV on her dresser, and she has one of those clear phones with the neon inner workings that I’m dying to unwrap tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow...
My insides tingle at the things Joel and I are going to do. I have thirty-five dollars left to my name, but I’m hoping we can get a hotel room. The excitement bubbles through me at a frenetic pace, and it’s almost impossible to contain. As annoyed as I am with Stacey, I have the sudden urge to divulge my entire coital agenda.
“So things are getting serious between Joel and me.” I shrug it off as I pet the larger than life Raggedy Ann doll sitting on her bed. I bet I’ve bored Stacey to tears as a friend because I never talk about guys or sex. Maybe if I loosen up a little she’ll do the same.
I bop my hand over an entire row of Cabbage Patch dolls. For someone as tough as Stacey, she sure loves her babies. Jen has a Cabbage Patch doll, but both Heather and I were never lucky enough to score them. Jennifer’s mom actually fought someone over the toy during Black Friday one year. She achieved celebrity status overnight when the scuffle aired on the eleven o’clock news—on channel seven, no less. She made the newspaper the next day and everything.
“Like how serious?” She pops out of her closet with her bra on, and I’m stunned to see her dark nipples peering through the mesh lace. Suffice it to say, she’s feeling pretty comfortable around me.
“Really serious.” Finally, I have her attention.
She ducks back into the closet as I run my finger over the pink Le Clic camera displayed on her desk as if it were art. I’ve wanted one forever, and now I’m kicking myself for not asking for one for my birthday. But I know that a personal line and a phone are already pushing it. I glance over to Stacey’s bed where her Walkman sits on her pillow. It’s the expensive one from Sony with the yellow casing, and a jolt runs through me when I spot it.
“Crap,” I hiss. I’ve never seen one this close-up before. I pull it to me and rub my thumb over the smooth thick plastic. It feels rubbery, warmer than the metal no-name brand I have.
Stacey pops out of the closet again.
“Hey!” she barks. “You’re not planning on stealing that, are you?” Her eyes grow wild for a second. “Freaking A,” she hisses under her breath, and my face catches fire from both embarrassment and fury.
“No.” I thump it back on her bed, pissed. “You’re kidding, right?” Because if she’s not, she’s on her own. I’ll walk home if I have to, alone, in the dark, on Halloween, on crutches, no less. I guess I can try to call Joel, but he’s probably not even home yet. It makes me sick that I left him at a party with his ex, Nurse Ratchet, hanging all over him.
“Why would I be kidding?” She rakes a comb through her hair, and her blonde mane bushes out twice its size as if she were electrocuted. “All you San Ramos kids steal shit. It’s like a well-known fact.” She says it so plain and nonchalant I don’t even think she realizes how insulting she’s being.
“If I recall, you’re the one who swept up half of the jewelry section at Judy’s.” Judy’s is one of my all-time favorite stores next to Contempo. It was like watching her slit the throat of one of my siblings.
“You’re such a wuss.” She rifles through her desk drawer for a moment. “Here.” Stacey tosses me pair of earrings still on the cardboard sleeve—silver with pink gems glued in the center, and my blood runs cold. I commented on them yesterday and said they were my favorite, and now here they are, warming in my hand. I let them slip to her mattress right next to her expensive Walkman. I don’t get it. Stacey can afford everything she offered herself a five-finger discount to. It’s demented.
Stacey hops onto her bed and pulls on a pair of aqua leg warmers. “A couple of friends are coming over for while. You think we should bake cookies?”
“Yes.” Cookies. Now that’s something I can get behind. If anything can see me through until tomorrow morning, it’s some warm, gooey carbs melting in my stomach. “That sounds perfect.”
I follow Stacey to the expansive kitchen once again with its overgrown stainless appliances like the ones you see in restaurants. She pulls out all the ingredients and a pack of chocolate chips with the recipe on the back. It doesn’t take long for me to realize I’m the only one doing anything, but at this point in the nightmare I don’t really mind. I like baking, and she’s blaring KROQ, so I get to listen to all my favorite songs. The Boomtown Rats belt out “I Don’t Like Mondays” just as I set the first batch into the oven.
“So who’s coming over?” I make sure to have eye contact with her because I’ve noticed otherwise she’ll ignore me. Maybe she has a hearing problem.
“Just a few people.” She shrugs, thumbing through a magazine, and I note it’s the October issue of Teen.
“I love that magazine. In fact, I submitted an essay for one of their contests. If I’m really lucky, I might get published.”
“You write?” Her eyes drift slowly to mine. “I’m a writer, too—mostly dark poetry and shit. I don’t show it to anybody.”
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“I don’t either. I’d die if anyone I knew actually read my stuff, but I figure I want to be an author someday, so this magazine thing might not be a bad deal after all.” I never did let Joel lay his eyes on my essay before I sent it in. The thought of him seeing something so intimate as my writing makes me feel ten times more naked than actually taking off my clothes. It’s like exposing the fabric of my soul, something so personal and potentially embarrassing in this case that I would never dare have shown him, even if he begged.
There’s a knock at the door, and Stacey races out of the room as if the kitchen were on fire. I see a couple of girls from the team coming in, and for a minute I’m hopeful Fatima and Trina will pop up, too, but they don’t. Instead, Michelle and Kelly walk in with the tiny crowd. Crap. Something tells me this nightmare is about to get a little scarier than I thought.
“You mind if I crash this party?” Kelly asks a little too loud as if it were for my benefit.
“Get in here, girl!” Stacey pulls her into a nice deep hug, and that’s when I know I’m no longer spending the night. I have nothing opposed to them mending their friendship—heck, I’d like to mend a couple of friendships myself, but I wasn’t feeling too good about this whole thing to begin with, so I’ll take this as my cue. I’ll just tell Stacey I have cramps—that I might actually barf from the pain, and she’ll totally understand that I have to leave. Nobody wants a puker on their hands—especially not while they have the entire house to themselves.
“I’d better check on the cookies.” I might as well have said it to myself. Not one girl in the room even looked my way. It’s humiliating. It’s as if I was dragged here to be their scullery maid.
I make a beeline for the kitchen and pick up the phone, cordless, of course. Shit. How do you use this thing? The dial tone kicks in so I start pushing in Joel’s number. It rings four times. Crap. I guess he’s still not home. At least I know for a fact he’s not whooping it up with Kelly. I’m the lucky one who gets to bond with the slutty nurse.
I wait for the answering machine to beep before leaving a message. “Hi, Joel! It’s me, Mel. Anyway, I was hoping, if it’s not too much trouble, if you wouldn’t mind picking me up from Stacey’s. I’m sort of ready to leave, if you know what I mean.”
Kelly says something in the next room, and the living room explodes with laughter.
“On second thought, I might just call Jen. Never mind.”
I hang up and call my old best friend in a fit of desperation.
“I’ll be right there” is all she says and hangs up before I can say thank you. It feels as if a boulder has been lifted off my back. I’ve been meaning to apologize to Jen, and now I feel like kissing her feet the second she pulls up. If I can only get her to accept my relationship with Joel, things will actually be perfect for once.
Since my parents already think I’m spending the night somewhere, I’d love to go to her house and talk about things—specifically the things I plan on doing with Joel tomorrow. Maybe we can pick up Amy, and I can really pick her brain. A surge of excitement pulses through me at the sexually deviant thought—not that it was deviant, but the things I have planned for that boy…
“Suddenly Last Summer” hums through the kitchen as The Motels moan the words out, and I sway to the melody, thinking of Joel and the way we met last summer—and, hey, maybe this could be our song. Every couple needs a song. The thought of Joel and me as a couple sends a searing heat through me. For as much hell as this broken leg has put me through, I wouldn’t change that one fated misstep for the world.
The cookies start to burn, so I pull them out with a dishrag and spill them onto a plate. I enter the living room, balancing myself precariously on my crutches with the cookies in one wobbly hand.
Kelly spins into me. “Oh, look, everyone! It’s Mouse-akowski! Let me help you with those.” She knocks the plate into my face, and the cookies fly everywhere.
I’d ask why she did that, but I already know. She and Stacey have made nice, and now I’m primed for the kill. I don’t bother saying a word—just land the plate onto the coffee table and hobble for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going, dork?” Kelly plucks my crutches from me and pitches them out the front door like javelins.
Shit.
“Think you’re going to steal my boyfriend and get away with it?” Kelly pushes me back so hard I fall to the floor and slam my head against the cold marble.
“This isn’t funny.” I look to the other girls for help, but they’re all cowering by the fireplace. It takes all of my strength to get back up, and, for the first time, I bear weight on my left leg. It feels strange but fine, and I don’t even care if I have to re-break it to get the hell out of here. I’m not putting up with this bullshit.
“It’s a little funny.” Kelly wrinkles her nose. “You know what else I think is funny? That you, Mouse-akowski, believe that Joel Miller would ever be into you.”
I roll my eyes. “You just can’t handle the fact that he chose me over you. Get over yourself. You’re not that hot, Kelly. You’re just a demanding bitch who makes people believe it.” I push past her and make my way onto the porch.
“I’m not that hot? Excuse me?” Kelly steps in front of me before I can make it to the stairs. “Honey, that’s not what Joel says when we’re in bed.”
“Correction—were in bed.” I grab ahold of the railing in the event she decides to send me flying just like those cookies. I lean in close to her twisted-up face, the damp night air already clinging to my clothes. “It’s me he’s bedding now.” Technically not true, but she doesn’t need to know that. “I can’t stand you, Kelly. I can’t stand your deep-fried perm, or your bright pink and blue eye shadow that spans over your evil face like a circus tent. I can’t stand how you have the best of the best all of the time and act like an ungrateful brat in return. You never deserved Joel! Hell, I did him a favor by getting in his way that day.”
A crisp, hard slap lands across my face, and a round of gasps echoes from behind. I glance over to see the Beaver Brigade all lined up, watching as their cowardly leader tries her best to eviscerate me.
“I bet it feels like a slap in your face each time he kisses me,” I hiss into her. “Trust me, he’s not thinking of you, honey. In fact, he’s thankful I’m nothing like you!”
Kelly folds her arms across her chest and blocks the stairwell with the length of her body, extending her foot to the railing in an effort to barricade my exit.
“Look, Melissa.” Her tone softens. “I wasn’t going to tell you this. Hell, I don’t even want to tell you this, but you’ve forced my hand—things have just gone too far.” I swallow hard because for one, she just said my proper name for the first time in the history of ever. “Joel is using you. He’s not into you whatsoever, and if you sleep with him, it’s going to be the biggest mistake of your life.” She says it sweetly like one friend to another, and for a second a silly part of me is inclined to believe her. And that second is over.
“Why in the hell would Joel need to use me? To get a discount at Mr. Fix It? Get real. There’s no reason on the planet for Joel Miller to use me.” I push her leg out of the way with such violent force I was hoping that it’d break in an act of serendipity.
“So you wouldn’t sue him.”
I stop cold. The night air ices my face as my body quickly goes numb.
“My father knows his family’s private attorney,” she continues. “Turns out—had you been smart, you could have scored the motherload. His mom was real open about it when I was over there. She explained to me that Joel had to be nice to you. He had to make you his girlfriend until this entire nightmare comes to an end, and when it does, he’s going to drop you like a bad habit.” My heart stops. “So when does that cast come off anyway? Because that’s when the nightmare ends, Melissa. And then, just like that, Joel Miller is mine again—back in my arms—back in my bed where he truly belongs—where he told me tonight, he truly wants to be.”
&n
bsp; Tears pool in my eyes, blurring the scenery around me. I wish I could disappear. I wish I could rewind time and never wander into that stupid parking lot.
“It’s not true.” It’s not. This is just Kelly reprising her role as my personal tormenter.
“It’s true.”
Joel and Jennifer pull up across the street at the very same time.
“Oh, look!” Kelly perks up, landing beside me. “There’s our favorite boyfriend now. Maybe we should like ask him to clarify a few things for us?”
My insides burn with the toxicity of her words. Her confidence reduces my heart to a stump. If she’s that sure he’ll admit to it, maybe it is true.
Joel bolts out of his seat, his truck still running in the street. I hobble my way down with Kelly faithfully by my side.
“What the hell?” He scoops my crutches off the lawn and helps place them under my arms. “What happened?” He looks to Kelly like he might kill her. “Why is she so upset?”
“Melissa!” Jennifer scurries across the street in her Garfield sleep shirt and fuzzy pink slippers. “Whisper to a Scream” belts from her speakers, and I bite my lip to keep from losing it. I love the Icicle Works, and I love this song, and now it will forever be entwined with the insanity of this moment. “Let go of her!” Jen demands. “She’s coming with me.”
I don’t say anything, just hike my crutches toward the street.
“What happened?” Joel riots at Kelly.
“I told her the truth,” she says innocently. Kelly appears next to me again, and I turn to Joel because this bullshit ends right fucking here. “I told her you were seeing her so that your family wouldn’t get sued.” Her lips twist with a nauseating self-satisfaction. But Joel’s features—they harden. Joel glares at Kelly as if his hands were trembling to meet with her neck.
“Is this true?” I push the words through that painful knot in my throat.
Joel is slow to meet my gaze, his eyes already pleading with me on some level.
“Oh my God.” I spin into Jennifer. “Get me out of here.”