“Gosh, she really knows how to work you, Peter!”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s always like that. She pulls the strings and you just . . .” I dangle my arms and head like a marionette doll.
Peter frowns. “That was mean.”
“Well, I feel mean right now. So watch out.”
“You’re not mean, though. Not usually.”
“Why can’t you just tell me? You know I won’t tell anyone. I really want to understand it, Peter.”
“Because it’s not for me to say. Don’t try to make me tell you, because I can’t.”
“She’s just doing this to manipulate you. It’s what she does.” I hear the jealousy in my voice, and I hate it, I hate it. This isn’t me.
He sighs. “Nothing’s happening with us. She just needs a friend.”
“She has a lot of friends.”
“She needs an old friend.”
I shake my head. He doesn’t get it. Girls understand each other in a way boys never will. It’s how I know this is all just another one of her games. Showing up at my house today was just another way for her to exert dominance over me.
Then Peter says, “Speaking of old friends, I didn’t realize you and McClaren were so buddy-buddy.”
I flush. “I told you we were pen pals.”
Raising his eyebrows, he says, “You’re pen pals but he doesn’t know we’re together?”
“It never came up!” Wait a minute—I’m the one who’s supposed to be mad at him right now, not the other way around. Somehow this whole conversation has flipped around, and now I’m the one flailing.
“So that day you went to the Model UN thing a few months ago, I asked you if you saw McClaren and you said no. But then today he brought up Model UN, and you clearly did see him there. Did you not?”
I swallow. “When did you turn into a prosecutor? Sheesh. I saw him there but we didn’t even talk; I just handed him a note—”
“A note? You gave him a note?”
“It wasn’t from me—it was from a different country, for Model UN.” Peter opens his mouth to ask another question, and I quickly add, “I just didn’t mention it because nothing came of it.”
Incredulous, he says, “So you want me to be honest with you, but you don’t want to be honest with me?”
“It wasn’t like that!” I cry out. What is even happening here? How did our fight get so big so fast?
Neither of us says anything for a moment. Then, quietly, he asks, “Do you want to break up?”
Break up? “No.” All of a sudden I feel shaky, like I could cry. “Do you?”
“No!”
“You asked me first!”
“So that’s it. Neither of us wants to break up, so we just move on.” Peter sinks down on a chair at the kitchen table and rests his head on it.
I sit across from him. He feels so far away from me. My hand is itching to reach out and touch his hair, smooth it out, to make this fight be over and in our rearview.
He lifts his head; his eyes are sad and enormous. “Can we hug now?”
Shakily I nod, and we both get up and I wrap my arms around his middle. He holds me tight against him. His voice is muffled against my shoulder as he says, “Can we never fight again?”
I laugh a shaky kind of laugh, shaky and relieved. “Yes, please.”
And then he’s kissing me; his mouth is urgent against mine, like he’s searching for some sort of reassurance, some kind of promise only I can give. In answer I kiss him back—yes, I promise, promise, promise, let’s never fight again. I start to lose my balance, and his arm locks around me tight, and he kisses me until I am breathless.
37
ON THE PHONE THAT NIGHT, Chris says, “Spill it. Who do you have?”
“I’m not telling.” I’ve made this mistake in the past, telling Chris too much, only to have her tag her way to victory.
“Come on! I’ll help you if you help me. I want my wish!” Chris’s strength in this game is how bad she wants it, but it’s also her weakness. You have to play Assassins in a cool, measured way, not go too hot too fast. I say this as someone who’s observed all the nuances but has never personally won, of course.
“You might have my name. Besides, I want to win too.”
“Let’s just help each other out on this first round of hits,” Chris wheedles. “I don’t have your name, I swear.”
“Swear on your blankie that you won’t let your mom throw away.”
“I swear on my blankie Fredrick and I double swear on my new leather jacket that cost more money than my damn car. Do you have my name?”
“No.”
“Swear on your ugly beret collection.”
I make an indignant sound. “I swear on my charming and jaunty beret collection! So who do you have then?”
“Trevor.”
“I’ve got John McClaren.”
“Let’s team up to take them out,” Chris suggests. “Our alliance can last as long as this first round, and then it’s every girl for herself.”
Hmm. Is she for real or is this all strategy? “What if you’re lying just to smoke me out?”
“I swore on Fredrick!”
I hesitate and then say, “Text me a picture of the name slip and then I’ll believe you.”
“Fine! Then text me yours.”
“Fine. Bye.”
“Wait. Tell me the truth. Does my hair look like shit? It doesn’t, right? Gen’s just a heinous troll. Right?”
I hesitate the tiniest of beats. “Right.”
Chris and I are slumped down in her car. We are one neighborhood over from mine; it’s the neighborhood Trevor will drive through to shortcut to school for track practice. We’re parked in some random person’s driveway. She says, “Tell me what you’re going to wish for if you win.” The way she says it, I know she doesn’t think I’m going to win.
I thought about the wish all last night when I was trying to fall asleep. “There’s a craft expo in North Carolina in June. I could get Peter to drive me. There’s no way he’d take me otherwise. We could take his mom’s van, so there’s plenty of room for all the supplies and things that I’ll buy.”
“A craft expo?” Chris is giving me a look like I’m a cockroach that flew into her car. “You would waste a wish on a craft expo?”
“I was just getting warmed up with that idea,” I lie. “Anyway, if you’re so smart, what would you wish for if you were me?”
“I would make it so that Peter never talks to Gen again. I mean, right? I’m an evil genius, am I not?”
“Evil, yes; genius, hardly.” Chris gives me a shove, and I giggle. We’re both shoving each other when Chris stops short and says, “Two fifty-five. It’s go time.” Chris unlocks the doors and gets out and hides behind an oak tree in the yard.
My adrenaline is pumping as I hop out of Chris’s car, grab Kitty’s bike out of her trunk, and push it a few houses. Then I set it on the ground and drape myself over it in a dramatic heap. Then I pull out the bottle of fake blood I bought for this very purpose and squirt some on my jeans—old jeans I’ve been planning on giving to Goodwill. As soon as I see Trevor’s car approaching, I start to pretend sob. From behind the tree Chris whispers, “Tone it down a little!” I immediately stop sobbing and start moaning.
Trevor’s car pulls up beside me. He rolls down the window. “Lara Jean? Are you okay?”
I whimper. “No . . . I think I might have sprained my ankle. It really hurts. Can you give me a ride home?” I’m willing myself to tear up, but it’s harder to cry on cue than I would have thought. I try to think about sad things—the Titanic, old people with Alzheimer’s, Jamie Fox-Pickle dying—but I can’t focus.
Trevor regards me suspiciously. “Why are you riding your bike in this neighborhood?”
Oh no, I’m losing him! I start talking fast but not too fast. “It’s not my bike; it’s my little sister’s. She’s friends with Sara Healey. You know, Dan Healey’s little sister? They live over
there.” I point to their house. “I was bringing it to her—oh my God, Trevor. Do you not believe me? Are you seriously not going to give me a ride?”
Trevor looks around. “Do you swear this isn’t a trick?”
Gotcha! “Yes! I swear I don’t have your name, okay? Please just help me up. It really hurts.”
“First show me your ankle.”
“Trevor! You can’t see a sprained ankle!” I whimper and make a show of trying to stand up, and Trevor finally turns the car off and gets out. He stoops down and pulls me to my feet and I try to make my body heavy. “Be gentle,” I tell him. “See? I told you I didn’t have your name.”
Trevor pulls me up by my armpits, and over his shoulder Chris creeps up behind him like a ninja. She dives forward, both hands out, and claps them on his back hard. “I got you!” she screams.
Trevor shrieks and drops me, and I narrowly escape falling for real. “Damn it!” he yells.
Gleefully Chris says, “You’re done, sucker!” She and I high-five and hug.
“Can you guys not celebrate in front of me?” he mutters.
Chris holds her hand out. “Now gimme gimme gimme.”
Sighing, Trevor shakes his head and says, “I can’t believe I fell for that, Lara Jean.”
I pat him on the back. “Sorry, Trevor.”
“What if I had had your name?” he asks me. “What would you have done then?”
Huh. I never thought of that. I shoot Chris an accusing glare. “Wait a minute! What if he had had my name?”
“That was a chance we were willing to take,” she says smoothly. “So Trev, what was your wish going to be?”
“You don’t have to say if you don’t want,” I tell him.
“I was gonna wish for tickets to a UVA football game. McClaren’s dad has season tickets! Damn you, Chris.”
I feel bad. “Maybe he’ll take you anyway. You should ask. . . .”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet and hands her a small piece of folded cardboard. Before Chris opens it, I quickly say, “Don’t forget, if it’s my name, you can’t tag me. This is a demilitarized zone right here.”
Chris nods, opens the cardboard, and then grins.
I can’t resist. “Is it me?”
Chris stuffs it in her pocket.
“If it’s me, you can’t take me out!” I start to back away from her. “We agreed to be allies this first round, and you haven’t helped me with mine yet.”
“I know, I know. But I don’t have your name.”
I’m not entirely convinced. This is how she beat me another time we played. She can’t be trusted, not in this game. I should have remembered that. It’s why I always lose; I don’t look down the line far enough.
“Lara Jean! I just told you, I don’t have your name!”
I shake my head. “Just get in the car, Chris. I’ll ride Kitty’s bike home.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. I’m playing to win this time.”
Chris shrugs. “Have it your way. I’m not helping you with your kill, then, if you don’t trust me.”
“Fine by me,” I say, and swing my leg over Kitty’s bike.
38
PETER AND I ARE ONLY talking on the phone and at school until one of us gets tagged out. It won’t be me. I’ve been super careful. I drive myself to and from school. I look around before I jump out of my car and run like the wind to our front door. I’ve enlisted Kitty as my scout—she always gets out of the car or the house first and makes sure the coast is clear for me. I’ve already promised her that whatever I wish for if I win, she’ll get a piece of.
But so far I’ve only been playing defense. I haven’t tried to tag out John McClaren yet. It’s not because I’m afraid—not of the game, anyway. I just don’t know what I’m going to say to him. I’m embarrassed. Maybe I wouldn’t even need to say anything; maybe I’m being presumptuous even thinking he might be interested in me.
After lunch, Chris comes flying down the hall and skids to a stop when she sees me and Lucas on the floor at our lockers. Today we’re sharing a grape Popsicle. Chris sinks down to the floor. “I’m out,” she says.
I gasp. “Who got you?”
“John freaking McClaren!” She snatches the Popsicle out of Lucas’s hands and finishes it in a gulp.
“Rude,” Lucas says.
“Tell us everything,” I urge.
“John tailed me on the way to school this morning. I stopped to get gas and he jumped out of the car as soon as my back was turned. I didn’t even know he was following me!”
“Wait, how did he know you were going to stop for gas?” Lucas asks. He knows all about the game, which will hopefully come in handy if it comes down to Genevieve and me, seeing as how he lives in her neighborhood.
“He siphoned gas out of my tank!”
“Whoa,” I breathe. It warms my heart that John is taking it so seriously. I’d worried people wouldn’t, but it seems like they are. I wonder what John’s wish is? It must be something good to go to all this trouble.
“That’s legit,” Lucas says with a nod.
“I almost can’t be mad because it’s so hard-core.” She blows her hair out of her face. “I’m just so pissed I can’t make Gen give me our grandma’s car.”
Lucas’s eyes bulge. “That’s what you were going to wish for? A car?”
“That car holds a lot of sentimental value for me,” Chris says. “Our grandma used to take me to the beauty parlor with her in it on Sunday afternoons. By all rights it should be mine. Gen’s poisoned Granny’s mind against me!”
“What kind of car is it?” Lucas asks.
“It’s an old Jaguar.”
“What color?” he wants to know.
“Black.”
If I didn’t know Chris better, I would think that was a tear forming in her eye. I put my arm around her. “Want me to buy you another Popsicle?”
Chris shakes her head. “I’ve got to wear a crop top tonight. I can’t have a gut.”
“So if you’re out, who does John have now?” Lucas asks.
“Kavinsky,” Chris says. “I haven’t been able to get him because he’s always with fucking Gen, and I thought for sure Gen had me.” She glances at me. “Sorry, LJ.”
Lucas and Chris are looking at me with pity eyes.
If Chris had Peter, and John took her out, that means John has Peter now. Which means either Peter or Genevieve has me. And since I have John, that means one of them has the other—which means they must be in an alliance. That means they’ve confided in each other, told each other who they have.
Swallowing, I say, “I knew from the start they were still friends. And, she’s going through a hard time, you know?”
“What’s she going through?” Chris asks, one eyebrow way high up.
“Peter said family stuff.” She looks blank. “So you haven’t heard anything?”
“I mean, she was acting kind of weird at Aunt Wendy’s birthday dinner last week. Like, more of a bitch than usual. She barely said a word all night to anybody.” She shrugs. “So something probably is up, but I don’t know what.” Chris blows her hair out of her face. “Damn it. I can’t believe I’m not getting that car.”
“I’ll take John McClaren out for you,” I vow. “Your death will not be in vain.”
She gives me side-eye. “If you’d have gotten him out sooner, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“He lives half an hour away! I don’t even know how to get to his house.”
“Whatever, I still partially blame you.” The bell rings and Chris stands up. “Later, chicas.” She heads off down the hall, in the opposite direction of her next class.
“She just called me chica,” Lucas says, frowning at me. “Did you tell her I’m gay?”
“No!”
“Okay, because I told you that in confidence. Remember?”
“Lucas, of course I remember!” Now I’m nervous—did I ever say anything to Chris? I’m almost one hundred pe
rcent sure not, but he has me doubting myself all of a sudden.
“Fine,” he says with a sigh. “It’s whatever.” He rises to his feet and offers his hand to help me up. He is ever the gentleman.
39
IT’S MY FIRST OFFICIAL FRIDAY night cocktail hour at Belleview and the night isn’t going . . . as well as I’d hoped. We’re already half an hour in and it’s just Stormy, Mr. Morales, Alicia, and Nelson, who has Alzheimer’s and whose nurse brought him in for a change of scenery. He is, however, wearing a dapper navy sport coat with copper buttons. Not that many people came when Margot was in charge, either—Mrs. Maguire was a regular, but she was moved to a different nursing home last month, and Mrs. Montero died over the holidays. But I made such a fuss to Janette about how I would breathe new life into cocktail hour, and now look at me. I feel a little olive pit of dread in the bottom of my stomach, because if Janette catches wind of how low the attendance is, she might cancel Friday night social after all, and I had the funnest idea for the next one—a USO party. If tonight’s a flop, there’s no way she’ll let me run it. Also, throwing a party and having four people show up, one of whom is dozing off, feels like a huge failure. Stormy either doesn’t notice or doesn’t mind; she just keeps singing and playing the piano. The show must go on, as they say.
I’m trying to keep busy, keep a smile on my face: Tra-la-la, everything is loverly. I’ve lined up the glassware in neat rows so it looks like a real bar and brought a bunch of things from home—our one good tablecloth (no gravy stains, freshly ironed), a little bud vase I put next to the plate of peanut butter cookies (at first I hesitated at peanut butter, what with allergies and all, but then I remembered that old people don’t have as many food allergies), Mommy and Daddy’s silver ice bucket with their monogram, a matching silver bowl with cut-up lemons and limes.
I’ve already gone around knocking on doors of some of the more active residents, but most weren’t home. I guess if you’re active, you’re not staying in your apartment on a Friday night.
I’m pouring salted peanuts into a heart-shaped crystal bowl (a contribution from Alicia, who brought it out of storage, along with her ice tongs) when John Ambrose McClaren walks into the room in a light blue Oxford shirt and navy sport coat, not dissimilar to Nelson’s! I nearly scream out loud. Clapping my hands to my mouth, I drop to the floor, behind the table. If he sees me, he might run off. I don’t know what he’s doing here, but this is my perfect chance to take him out. I crouch behind the table, running through options in my head.