“Oh, he likes you. No worries there, luv.”
Now Bitsy was being too nice. It worried me.
“Really?” Pammy said. Her hopefulness was excruciating “Has he … has he said something to you?”
Bitsy laughed. “Not just to me. To anyone who’ll listen.”
“Bitsy …” Sukie said.
Pammy started hyperventilating. “Oh my god, oh my god. You have to tell me!”
“Well, you do know he drives by your house practically every night, right?” Bitsy said. “Sometimes he parks at the corner and just moons up at the house.”
“He does?”
“He says you leave your curtains open, you sly dog. He says it’s quite the peep show.”
“He says—what?”
“Says you’ve got quite good form, really. The whole innocent school girl act, prancing before the mirror in matching bra and panties …”
Pammy’s confusion made her stupid. “What? I don’t … I swear, I never—”
“Look, pet, I think it’s brilliant,” Bitsy soothed. “Give him a taste and make him beg for more. Him and all the other blokes he’s told.”
“He’s lying,” Pammy whispered. “I don’t leave my curtains open, I swear.”
Feet slapped the floor. “Ladies, ladies,” a male voice said. Kyle. “Your presence is required. We’re starting a game of butt quarters.”
“Butt quarters, ooo goody,” Bitsy said. “Sukie, Pammy? You in?”
Pammy sniffled. “I … I need to go to the bathroom,” she said. She fled the room.
“Good grief,” Kyle said, clearly confused. “Was she crying?”
“Here, Kyle,” Bitsy said. “Have some chips.” The bag rattled. Kyle crunched.
“Did Ryan really say all that?” Sukie asked in an undertone.
“She really should be more careful,” Bitsy replied.
“For Christ’s sake, these chips are stale,” Kyle complained. “That is the last time I buy organic, the environment be damned.”
“Abso-bloody-lutely,” Bitsy said. “Preservatives or die.”
Kyle strode past the island to the pantry, and my blood froze. He stood within feet of my hiding spot. “There must be a bag of Tostitos stashed around here somewhere.”
My heart whammed. I trained my gaze on the floor—not on his khakis, not on his pale feet—and prayed he would find the chips and leave. Please, please, please, I prayed.
“Ta-da,” he called.
I screwed my eyes shut.
He headed for the living room. “Shall we, then? Butt quarters awaits.”
“I better check on Pammy,” Sukie said.
“Suit yourself,” said Bitsy. “Kyle—hold up!”
The kitchen emptied, except for me. I crawled out from behind the island. Leftover adrenaline pumped through my veins. I felt thick, like I needed fresh air.
I looked into the living room. Bitsy had draped herself over the arm of a sofa, and she laughed as Kyle held up a quarter and wiggled his fanny.
“Demonstration, anyone?” he drawled.
Pammy was nowhere to be seen.
The next morning, I called Phil and told him to meet me at Memorial Park. He showed up with a ratty blanket, two king-sized Cokes, and a milk-carton box of Whoppers, my favorite candy. Obviously I’d sounded more depressed than I’d intended.
“Hey,” he said, putting down the food and spreading out the blanket. As usual, the air smelled foul, because sewage run-off had contaminated the bordering creek. But the park itself was lush and green and nearly always deserted.
Phil patted the spot beside him. “Take a load off.”
I sat down and accepted one of the Cokes. The rattle told me he’d gotten extra ice, just the way I liked it. “What’s better than roses on a piano?” I asked.
“Exsqueeze me?” Phil said.
“Tulips on my organ,” I said. “Hysterical, huh?”
Phil wasn’t there yet.
“Tulips on my organ,” I said again. “Two lips on my—”
He winked and pointed his finger at me. “Clever girl. You make that up yourself?”
“Parker Rylant told it at the party last night, one of many blow-job jokes. You should have been there.”
“Wasn’t invited,” Phil said.
“L’Kardos got steamed, because he said he didn’t want Keisha to hear that kind of crap. He said it was sexist and offensive.”
“And right he was,” Phil said.
“Absolutely,” I said. I sucked on my straw, remembering Keisha’s expression when I’d laughed, before I realized the joke was in bad taste.
Phil stretched out and propped his head on one elbow. “Tell me more.”
“They were like princesses,” I said. “Fairies. And everywhere they went, they sprinkled their magic fairy dust and made everyone adore them.”
“And ‘they’ would be … ?”
“Who do you think? Keisha and Bitsy and Mary Bryan.” I reached for the Whoppers. “Bitsy told Ryan Overturf she’d have to slap his ass if he didn’t give her a foot rub, and Brad, Bitsy’s boyfriend, just laughed like Haha, that Bitsy, such a joker. And then Ryan was rubbing his thumb up and down Bitsy’s instep, and Bitsy was purring and arching her back, and the whole time Brad was turning redder and redder. So finally Bitsy said, ‘Be a doll and get me another mojito, will you, Brad?’ And Brad snapped out of it and said, ‘Sure, Babe. Anything you want. Ryan, need another Coors, man?’”
“That’s so lame,” Phil said.
“I know.”
“Don’t they know that friends shouldn’t let friends drink bad beer?”
I shoved him. “Anyway, they were total goddesses, and I was a floundering blob of patheticness.”
“You’re not a floundering blob of patheticness.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You only are when you say you are, so stop saying it.”
“Whatever.” I paused, remembering Nate Solomon’s complete obliviousness to my very existence. Except my crush on Nate was one thing I would never bring up in front of Phil. So I told him about my inglorious retreat instead.
“I hid behind the island in Kyle’s kitchen, because everyone I tried to talk to ran screaming for the hills,” I said. “Now am I a floundering blob of patheticness?”
“Ouch,” Phil said. He looked startled. “Did anyone see you?”
“No.”
“Well, thank god.”
“You think?”
He plucked a piece of grass. He threw it over the edge of the blanket. Then he circled back to the embarrassment at hand and said, “You hid behind the island? Why didn’t you—I don’t know—camp out in the bathroom or something? Or better yet, why didn’t you just leave?”
“And how would have I done that? Bitsy was the one driving, remember?” I fiddled with the Whoppers carton, opening and closing the top like a fish mouth. Inside, the malted milk balls gleamed. “Ohhh, and get this. Bitsy came in while I was hiding there, and I about had a heart attack.”
I told him what happened, how she blasted Pammy Varlotta, and he winced at all the right places.
“It was horrible,” I finished. “Even when it comes to cut-downs, Bitsy’s a notch above.”
“And this is a good thing?” Phil asked.
“You say it like it’s not.”
“Well, is it?”
I put down the Whoppers. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to explain this. “Listen. If Pammy had wanted to insult someone, what would she say?”
“I have no idea.”
“She’d say something ridiculous, like, ‘Ew, where’d you get your shoes—Kmart?’”
Phil waited.
“But Bitsy’s more … subtle.” I saw what flickered in his eyes, and I said, “All right, so maybe not subtle. More like sophisticated. Smart. I don’t know.”
“Cruel?” Phil suggested.
“Maybe. I never said she wasn’t.” I squirmed. “Jesus, will you stop looking at me like that?”
“I ju
st don’t get why you’d want to be friends with her, then.”
“Hey, better her than Pammy Varlotta.”
He arched his eyebrows. I glared.
“You are really annoying me,” I said.
“What? I didn’t even—”
“Anyway, Rae says we have no choice. She says we have to like them, it’s like witchcraft or something. And you yourself said you wouldn’t throw Bitsy out of bed, now didn’t you?” I jabbed my finger at him. “Ha. Ha!”
“Rae, as in Alicia’s sister Rae? She said it’s witchcraft?”
“You act like it’s so bad, to want to be popular. ‘Ooo, she wants to be popular. Ooo, she’s so shallow.’ But—”
“Hold on. Who said anything about—”
“—but everyone wants to be popular, whether they admit it or not. And fine. I do, too. So hate me, all right?” He protested, but I railroaded over him. “But it’s more than that. Because Sukie Karing is popular. Pammy Varlotta, believe it or not, is popular.”
“And your point would be?”
“My point is that it’s not about being in the ‘in group,’ which is so stupid I can hardly believe I just said it.”
“Then what’s it about?”
I started to answer, then at the last instant decided maybe I didn’t want to. “I can’t explain.”
“Try.”
“No. It’s unexplainable.”
“You started it, so you have to finish it,” he said. “It’s the rule.”
I narrowed my eyes. He widened his, like, Hey, this one’s not my fault.
“Fine.” I lifted my chin defiantly. “It’s not about being popular. It’s about …”
“Spit it out.”
“Being one of them.”
“The Bitches.”
“That’s right. And maybe it’s not a good thing, but it’s what I want.” I re-grabbed the Whoppers and popped one into my mouth. It crunched in a really wrong way, and I tongued it back out. “Ew! Ew! What the fuck?”
The crushed Whopper, which should have been dense with malt, was practically hollow. First came a layer of chocolate, then a layer of pale brown malt, much thinner than it should have been, and then—
Bugs.
Nearly microscopic, except I could see them moving. I screeched and flapped my hand, and the malted milk ball went flying.
“Holy crap,” Phil said. “There were bugs in there. Did you see?”
“It was in my mouth!” I cried. “Of course I saw!”
Phil whistled. “Like maggots or something. Holy cannoli.”
I licked my arm to scrub my tongue. I took a sip of Coke, swished it furiously, and spit it out.
Phil shook the carton of Whoppers. “Are they all like that?”
“Throw them away,” I said. I pointed to the heavy-duty trash-can by the water fountain. “Throw them away now.”
He tipped the carton, and a glossy malted milk ball rolled into his palm. “Relax. I’m not going to eat it.” With his teeth, he split the Whopper open. He peered at the halves. He leaned closer, then made a strangled sound and flung them into the grass.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” I groaned.
“But don’t you want to know how they got in there?” Phil asked. He fingered another Whopper, rotating it to study the chocolate glaze. “I don’t see any burrow marks or anything.” He bit into it and spit the two pieces in his hand. “Hey, hey—we’ve got a winner!”
The malt core was intact, two pale brown moons. He tossed the halves into his mouth and chewed.
“Phil! Just because you didn’t see any bugs … just because …” I whacked him. “They could be dormant, you idiot!”
He shook another Whopper into his hand and split it open. He examined it. Threw it over his shoulder. “Bad,” he pronounced.
“Okay, whoa,” I said. “You are getting used to this way too quick.”
He checked the next Whopper. “Bad again. I swear, I don’t know how the little wormy things get in there.” He cracked open another. “Ooo, this one’s for you.”
I swatted his hand and sent the pieces flying.
“What did you do that for? That one was perfectly good!” he exclaimed.
“I thought I was telling you about my night from hell,” I said. “About how inadequate I felt.”
“You don’t feel inadequate around me, do you?” Another Whopper passed his test, and he gobbled it down.
I cradled my head in my hands, because no, I didn’t feel inadequate around him. What I couldn’t tell him was that no one would ever feel inadequate around him, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
He put his hand under my chin. He tilted my head. He looked at me in this serious way, and for a second it was really freaky, because the air pulsed between us and I thought, Shit, is he going to kiss me?
“Here,” he said, raising a halved malted milk ball to my mouth. “No bugs.”
Later I thought about how it was that Phil, like Camilla, wasn’t all ga-ga over the Bitches. He thought they were hot, sure, but he didn’t fall under their spell like the rest of us. Camilla, she was above it all. At least that was my take on it. But Phil was immune for a different reason: because he was pure. That was a funny word to use on a boy, but it fit. He was pure of heart.
On Monday, I avoided the Bitches as best I could. I picked different routes when I glimpsed any of them in the hall, and I stayed away from the bathrooms altogether. But I ran into Mary Bryan as I was heading for history, and for a moment we were face to face at the bottom of the stairwell.
“Jane,” she said.
My stomach dropped, and I pushed into the crowd. She called after me, but I pretended I didn’t hear.
At noon I bought a Nutrigrain bar from the vending machine and snuck to the library. I took the long way past the basement art rooms, because hardly anyone except the art kids went down there. A group of them leaned against the wall by the Ceramics Studio. One of them was Raven Holtzclaw-Fontaine, from Kyle’s party. I could tell she didn’t have the vaguest clue who I was.
In the library, I chose the farthest back carrel. I slit open my bar and got out my book. Ramona was cross because she had to clean up her room, and Beezus was cross because her mother wouldn’t let her spend the night at Mary Jane’s. Even Picky-picky, the cat, was cross. Cross, cross, cross.
“God, you are so predictable,” Alicia said, clomping across the floor. She dragged over a chair from the next carrel. “And thanks for returning all my calls. Really, it meant a lot to me.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was busy.”
“Yeah, right. Doing what, hiding beneath your covers? I’ve seen you today, running around like a scared chicken.” She tilted her head. “Guess they didn’t pick you, huh?”
“Guess not.”
“You must have really bombed at the party.”
“Guess so.” In my mind, I saw Bitsy’s expression when she dropped me off. How her eyes hadn’t even registered me.
Alicia blinked. For a moment she seemed uncertain, and then she reclaimed her usual brusqueness. “Well, it’s their loss,” she said. “Let them have their freaky black magic—we’re better off without it.” She spotted my paperback and grabbed it by its spine, losing my place. “Ramona books again? Jesus, Jane. When are you going to grow up?”
She meant it as a tease, as in You’re so dumb, but I love you anyway. I snatched back my book.
“Hey,” she said. “Just because they didn’t pick you doesn’t mean you can take it out on me.”
“Are you done yet? I need to eat my lunch.”
She glanced at my untouched Nutrigrain bar. “Yeah, because you’re starving, I can tell.” But she stood up. “Not to, like, mess up your whole self pity thing, but are you still going to come to cheerleading tryouts this afternoon?”
I sighed. “Yes. I’ll be there.”
She gnawed on her thumbnail. “I’m not going to make the squad. I don’t even know why I’m bothering. But at least we can be losers toget
her.”
I felt really, really tired. “You never know,” I said. “Maybe there’ll be a miracle.”
Sadly, Alicia sucked. I wasn’t saying that to be mean. But she just wasn’t cheerleader material.
Her voice screeched when she yelled, “Go, Devils!” And during a complicated knee-slap-clap combination, her tongue snuck into position under her lower lip. And her final cheer didn’t end with a split. It ended with a squat. And no matter what the group leaders had said, it wasn’t okay. Of the sixty-five girls who tried out—over half the girls in our freshman class—only Alicia and Tina Burston failed to do a split. And Tina Burston had a broken leg. She auditioned without her crutches, which was actually pretty impressive. She’d painted her cast green and white.
“I sucked,” Alicia muttered as everyone exited the gym. “Don’t bother lying, because I know I did.”
“Results will be posted tomorrow!” called one of the group leaders through cupped hands. “But remember, you’re all winners! Way to go!”
“Yeah, right,” Alicia said. “Five of us will be winners, and the rest will be big, fat losers.” She pushed through one of the heavy double doors. She didn’t hold it open for me, and it caught me on the forearm. I jogged to catch up.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she demanded without turning around. “Aren’t you going to tell me how terrible I was?”
“You weren’t terrible,” I said. I struggled for something positive. “Your outfit rocked. You really stood out.”
She snorted.
“It did. And you can wear the board shorts at the pool this summer. They’d look great with, like, a white tankini.”
“Is that my sympathy prize? ‘You didn’t make the squad, but at least you can wear your board shorts again’?”
“Come on. You don’t know you won’t make the squad.”
Alicia strode to the bottom of the concrete stairs that led to the gym. Saabs and BMWs lined the campus drive, and car doors slammed as girls climbed into their rides. Alicia wrapped her arms around her ribs.
“What about when I squatted at the end of ‘Pump It Up’?” she asked. “Was it totally obvious I didn’t do a split?” Her gaze slid sideways to gauge my reaction, and my heart went out to her.
“It looked fine,” I lied. “It looked totally natural.”