Feet rustle underneath the boys’ table. Another boy laughs so hard, he almost chokes.
Danielle stiffens. A party at Andrew’s? After homecoming? Why hasn’t he said anything to her?
“Shut up, Chuck,” Andrew hisses.
Chuck groans. “Um, yeah. Like I was saying, Abby’s so hot. Right, Andrew?”
Danielle can’t breathe.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chuck stands up, gleeful, and points at Andrew. “Liar! You told me you jerked off to her the other night!”
Andrew whips a pizza crust at Chuck. The other boys howl.
Hope stands up so fast, her soda splashes onto her plate. “Let’s go.” But Danielle is paralyzed with embarrassment. “Danielle, come on!” Hope pulls her out from behind the table and pushes her to the door. “You’re an ass, Andrew,” she says on their way out.
Hope is booking it down the street away from the pizza shop as fast as she can, dragging Danielle along with her. But Danielle doesn’t want to go. She wants to give Andrew a chance to explain himself. She tries to pull her hand free.
“Hope …”
“What happened to you, Danielle? Have you forgotten how to stand up for yourself?”
Hope has tears in her eyes when she says it. And, for Danielle, that hurts worse than anything else.
Andrew comes outside and jogs up to them. “Hey. Don’t be mad, okay?”
Hope opens her mouth to go off on him again, but this time, Danielle steps in front of her. She chokes back her tears and says, “‘Don’t be mad’? Are you kidding? You’re having a party after homecoming and you didn’t invite me?”
“It’s not even a party, Danielle! It’s just a couple people talking about stopping by. I don’t want anyone to come over. If my parents find out, they’ll kill me. But Chuck is … Look, I didn’t think you’d want to come. I didn’t want to put you in that position to spend a night with Chuck. Not with all the crap he’s been saying about you.”
“Hmm. How thoughtful.” Danielle crosses her arms. “Hey, just wondering, but did you stick up for me? Like, once?”
Andrew looks at his shoes. “I care about my friends, okay? I care about their opinions.”
“So do I. That’s why I’ve spent the whole week defending you to Hope. Telling her that you’re a good guy, even though you’ve barely done anything to make me feel better.”
Andrew holds up his hands. “You can’t blame me for not knowing what to say. I don’t know what you’re going through.”
It’s probably true. But for as long as she’s known him, Andrew has had a chip on his shoulder. He’s always afraid that he doesn’t measure up to Chuck and the rest of his friends. Football stuff, his clothes, his body.
He could have understood, if he’d tried. If he’d dug deep.
“I’ve gone out of my way to make you feel good about yourself. When have you done that for me?” A warmness is spreading through her body, limbering her up. “And this is how you break up with me? By humiliating me in front of your friends?”
Andrew finally looks at her. He mumbles, “I didn’t break up with you.”
It takes a second for his words to sink in.
Andrew still wants to be with her?
She searches his face for a glimmer of someone who remembers who she had been before Monday. The boy who had been proud to be with her, who had pursued her for weeks at camp. How could so much change in a week? Danielle hasn’t only lost her sense of self, but she’s lost her sense of Andrew, too.
She sees traces of sadness in the corners of his eyes and the edges of his mouth. This is Andrew’s Game Face, she realizes. A mask to hide the embarrassment of how he’s acted and the way he’s treated her. It is a tiny glimpse that, underneath it all, he’s sorry for how he’s acted.
It is of some comfort to her.
But not much.
Because Danielle’s Game Face is off. She’s brave enough to lay herself bare, to put it all out there for him to see. The pretty and the ugly and the everything. She wants Andrew to do the same for her. To be real with her for once. To admit that, yeah, it sucks to have his girlfriend on the list. It’s embarrassing. But he shouldn’t let his friends treat her this way. He should stand up for her. To admit that his Game Face has been an act of cowardice, not strength.
“Go back to your friends,” she says. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Danielle is surprised. Genuinely. At herself, for being the one to end it, and at Andrew, for walking away so fast.
t is Bridget’s idea to rake the yard after dinner. She tells her family she wants to do it for the money, but that’s a lie. She does it because she barely broke a sweat playing badminton in gym.
The repetitive work soothes her anxiety. Raking up the leaves with spindly metal fingers, tying up the garbage bag and dragging it across the lawn to the front curb. She moves as quick as she can, to keep her heart up, to keep burning calories.
Bridget hears a window open. She looks up to the second floor and sees Lisa sticking her head out.
Lisa calls down, “Need help?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Bridget leans against the rake. She feels a little dizzy.
“It’s fine! I’m not doing anything.”
Don’t let her help.
You’ll have less to do.
Fewer calories to burn.
“I’m not splitting the money,” Bridget says curtly.
But Lisa has already closed the window. And a few minutes later, she’s outside, next to her with another rake.
Bridget hates Lisa sometimes.
Bridget stays near the garage and she tells Lisa to rake near the fence. Even though there’s an entire yard between them, Lisa keeps trying to make small talk.
“I heard there’s a party at Margo’s house tonight.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Aren’t you going?”
Bridget’s friends are going. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? Is it because of the whole ‘Vote Queen Jennifer’ thing? Personally, I’m voting for Margo, even though, you know … people are saying she’s the one who made the list.”
Bridget had heard that. She tried to think about Margo, and what connections there were between the two of them, why Margo might have chosen her as the prettiest junior. The only thing she could come up with was that they’d both once kissed Bry Tate. “I don’t think Margo did it.”
Lisa shrugs. “It makes sense to me. If I made the list, I’d put myself on it. Why not?”
The girls finish raking the yard and head inside. Mrs. Honeycutt inspects their job from the kitchen window after dinner. Along with what Bridget is paid, Mrs. Honeycutt gives both girls extra money to get the ingredients to make ice cream sundaes.
“I’m not in the mood for ice cream,” Bridget says to her mother.
“You’re not in the mood for anything edible,” Lisa pouts. She drags her finger into a dish of mashed potatoes, a portion that Bridget passed on during dinner, that has yet to be put back into the fridge.
Bridget wants to kill her sister. Instead, she thanks her mother and takes the car keys.
“What flavor should we get?” Lisa pulls open one of the glass doors in the freezer aisle. Cold pours out in a cloud.
“I don’t care, Lisa.”
“How about mint chocolate chip?”
Bridget shakes her head. “That won’t make a good sundae. Just go vanilla.” The word rolls around and coats her mouth with an imagined sweetness.
“But vanilla is boring,” Lisa says.
Bridget wraps her arms around herself to keep warm. “If you don’t like my suggestions, then why are you asking me?”
“Geez. Sorry.”
While Lisa debates flavors, Bridget gets the rest of the supplies — sprinkles, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and a jar of red cherries suspended in syrup. She is glad the ingredients are tucked inside boxes, sealed in jars. She meets Lisa back at the registers. She picked vanilla
after all.
“Crap,” Lisa says. “We forgot the bananas.”
Bridget puts things on the conveyor belt while Lisa runs off. The cashier is an older lady in a store apron. She doesn’t even look at Bridget while she scans the items. Beep … beep … beep.
As the trail of items rolls away on the supermarket conveyor belt, Bridget avoids eye contact with the multitudes of perfect women gazing at her from behind their glossy covers, ten or so beautiful specimens preserved and protected by metal magazine racks. Their smiles appear friendly enough, but Bridget knows it’s a trap. Look too long and she’ll start comparing the shade of her teeth, the circumference of her upper arms. Scan the bolded headlines and face a list of all the things wrong with her. It is a full-on assault, a gorgeous Greek chorus pleading, begging her to pay for their secrets.
The bag boy is maybe a few years older than she is, though Bridget hasn’t given him a good enough look to tell for sure. Just a quick nod to indicate she prefers paper over plastic.
That’s when she notices him staring.
She feels the bag boy’s eyes slicing her up into parts, like the meat man in the bloody apron at the back of the supermarket. A pair of boobs, a hunk of ass, strips of thighs. The last thing he notices is Bridget’s face.
The magazine models smile on approvingly, unblinking witnesses.
Bridget acts aloof, pretending she doesn’t notice. But inside, she is sick over it. She doesn’t like the attention. She doesn’t want him to look at her. It makes her hands get clammy.
“Okay,” Lisa announces when she returns. “We’re set!”
It is as if Lisa can sense what is happening, because she peeks out coyly from behind her sister. It makes Bridget even more self-conscious. As soon as she gets her change, she heads for the doors and leaves Lisa to get the bags from the bag boy.
Bridget’s cheeks are still red when she reaches the car.
“That boy was totally checking you out,” Lisa says.
“No, he wasn’t.”
“He was.” Lisa looks glumly down into her bag of ice cream. “I wish someone would check me out.”
Bridget snaps. “Why do you keep saying this kind of stuff anyway? At the mall, and now, with this guy. It’s like all you do is fish for compliments. Which, by the way, is incredibly unattractive.”
Bridget sees Lisa’s bottom lip quiver, but she pretends not to. She gets in the car and slams the door hard. Lisa doesn’t get in the car right away. She just stands there, outside in the parking lot, her back pressed against the passenger window.
“Come on, Lisa! Your precious ice cream is melting!” Bridget screams.
Lisa finally gets in the car. Neither one talks on the ride home, but Bridget can sense it. Lisa. She’s going to say something. She’s going to call her out.
When Bridget gets close to the house, she dials one of her friends. With her cell pinned to her ear, she waves at Lisa to take the bags inside. She goes straight up to her room and pretends to consider going to the party at Margo’s house tonight. Really, though, she wants an excuse to get out of eating ice cream.
The conversation is wrapping up when she hears Lisa coming up the stairs.
Even though her friend hangs up, Bridget still holds the phone to her ear.
Lisa opens the door. She’s made an ice cream sundae. It’s big, with two spoons.
I’m on the phone, Bridget mouths.
Lisa sits down, her eyebrows furrowed.
Bridget keeps saying “mm-hmm” into the quiet phone. She watches Lisa set down the ice cream and walk over to the dress that’s hanging up on the back of her closet door.
Bridget does not want her sister to see the tag, the size. She says “bye” real fast and then snaps her phone closed. “I told you I don’t want any ice cream.”
“I know,” Lisa says calmly, as she lowers herself onto Bridget’s bed. “But I want you to eat this with me.”
Bridget can’t bear the pain on Lisa’s face. The begging. So she gets up and finds her book bag on the floor and starts rummaging through it. “Actually, I have homework to do. So —”
“Bridget. Just have a bite.”
“I’m serious, Lisa. Leave me alone.”
Lisa looks as if she might cry. Like she did when she was little and Bridget wouldn’t let her touch any of the furniture in the dollhouse. “You’re not eating. I know you’re not eating. Like this summer.”
Bridget sighs. “I want to look good in my homecoming dress, okay?”
“You still need to eat.” And then, with incredible disappointment, she adds, “You were doing so well when we came home from the beach, Bridge.”
Bridget hates that her sister knows. She hates that she isn’t better at hiding things. “I will eat, Lisa. I promise. After the dance.”
A tear runs down Lisa’s face. “I don’t believe you.”
Bridget starts to cry, too. “I’m telling you. After the homecoming dance, I’ll eat. I’ll be back to normal again. I swear. You know how you keep talking about the list, wanting to be on it someday? Well, just think about things from my perspective. It’s a lot of pressure.”
Lisa keeps crying. It’s like she hasn’t heard anything Bridget just said. “You make me feel bad about myself, you know that? Every time I eat, I feel bad about myself now. I never used to be like that.”
“Lisa …”
Lisa shakes her head. “If you don’t start eating, I’m going to tell Mom and Dad.”
Lisa wipes her face on her sleeve and walks out. She leaves the bowl of ice cream there to melt.
To Bridget, it’s the meanest thing Lisa could have done.
bby sits alone in her bedroom, looking at her reflection in the dim television screen like a dirty mirror. When the smell of food reaches her room, she heads downstairs. No one calls her for dinner.
Her family is already seated at the round table. The food has been divided and served onto plates, save for Abby’s steak, baked potato, and salad, which sit waiting for her on the counter. Abby begrudges the implication that she has shown up late, but serves herself without saying so.
Her parents unsheathe the newspaper from its blue plastic cocoon and divvy up the folds. Fern wedges her book open with a glass of milk and the pepper mill, and starts in on her steak. She is rereading the first book in the Blix Effect series in advance of the movie so every detail will be fresh in her mind. The book jacket is torn and weathered, almost every page dog-eared.
Abby takes her seat, squeezing past Fern’s chair without saying excuse me, and she goes without sour cream for her baked potato because she’d need to ask Fern to pass it. She hasn’t spoken to Fern, made eye contact with Fern, or even acknowledged Fern’s existence since she told on her for forging her mother’s signature on her progress report.
Despite the cold shoulder, anger simmers like a hot little coal inside Abby, and it shows no sign of dying out.
A radio on the kitchen counter is tuned to a news station at a low volume, making it seem as if there’s a fifth guest invited to lead them in conversation. On most nights, the three other people look up from their reading and offer opinions on international conflicts or financial markets or scientific advancements. Never Abby. To her, the voice is white noise, like the cars pulling into driveways next door, the airplane flying over the roof on the way to the city. She typically eats with her cell phone cradled in her lap, so it can buzz intermittently with messages from her friends.
Tonight, Abby actually tries to follow along the bits of conversation that are tossed like a ball over her head, a game of keep-away. She chimes in, not forming an opinion of her own, but instead agreeing with the things her dad or her mom says. Her parents seem pleasantly surprised each time Abby speaks up. Fern doesn’t say a word.
Abby waits until everyone finishes eating, and then politely volunteers to clean the table and do the dishes.
Her mom and dad frown across their dirty plates and rumpled papers.
“This is not going to change our
decision, Abby,” Mrs. Warner tells her.
“You lied to us, you lied to your teacher, and as a result, you won’t be going to the homecoming dance,” Mr. Warner says, peering over the top of his glasses.
Fern dabs at her mouth with a paper napkin and then lets the wad of thin paper drop onto her plate, where it blooms red with the juices from her steak.
“I know that,” Abby mumbles. She hates that she let herself be deluded by Lisa, who had run to her locker after school and pitched the idea that if maybe she went overboard on being well behaved, they’d ease up on her punishment.
The severity of everything finally comes crashing down around her. She will not wear her dream dress. She will not get to dance with an upperclassman. She will not go to the party at Andrew’s house. It is as if the night, an amazing memory that she could have looked back on forever, has already been ripped out of her diary.
And it is Fern’s fault.
“Fern,” Mr. Warner says. “When we talked with Mr. Timmet today, he told us that Abby has a test next week.”
“We’d like you to help her start preparing this weekend,” Mrs. Warner says.
Abby stands up and gathers the dishes, her heart lodged in her throat like a big, gristly piece of steak. It is humiliating to hear her family talking about her as if she isn’t right there. She wonders what kinds of things they say about her when she isn’t in the room. Things like “Poor, stupid Abby.” And “Why can’t Abby be more like you, Fern?”
“Actually, Mr. Timmet mentioned that to me himself after school today,” Fern says, leaning back in her chair so Abby can take her plate. “But I’m going to the Blix Effect movie tonight. And afterward, everyone’s going to the diner. So … I can’t.”
Mrs. Warner says, “Well, what about all day Saturday and Sunday?” And then, as Fern opens her mouth to respond, Mr. Warner adds, “What’s more important, Fern? Helping your sister or a movie?” Fern doesn’t answer, so he continues, “You’ll tutor Abby for at least two hours tomorrow afternoon, or else no Blix Effect.”
Abby picks up Fern’s glass, even though there is still milk left in it, causing Fern’s book to fall flat. “Why do you hang out in Mr. Timmet’s room every day, Fern?” she asks. “Do you have a crush on him?” Abby watches, pleased, as Fern turns purple. “He’s married, you know,” she continues. “His wife’s picture is on his desk. She’s totally hot.”