"I don't know why I bothered," he said slowly. "As I recall, you were not so good."
Kai felt everything inside her shrink back like her insides had been doused with cold water. He hadn't just said that. There was no way he had just said that. Her hand tightened around the Snapple bottle, and she had a sudden vision of herself hurling it directly at his head.
Luckily for him, the phone rang.
Kai turned to answer it. She was going to kill him. She would kill him in his sleep. Or at the very least, shave his greasy head.
"Hello?" she snapped into the phone.
"Uh . . . Kai?"
"Yeah, who's this?" Kai asked, clomping out of the room. She wanted to get as far away from Andres as possible.
"It's Eric Travers," the voice on the other end replied.
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"Oh . . . hey," Kai said. Eric had never called her before. She was surprised he even had her number. A little warning bell went off in her heart. Mandy.
"Is everything okay?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah, everything's fine," Eric said brightly. Kai relaxed and walked out to the front lawn with the phone. "I'm just calling about Mandy's birthday. . . ."
"I don't think we should all have to sign something that says we're going to stay virgins forever," Melissa said on Monday afternoon. "It's going to be a personal decision for everyone, right? Some of us will want to wait until we're in love, some of us will want to wait until we're a certain age. ... I mean, we didn't join this club to give up our free will."
"Yeah. I think it should say something about promising to make good, healthy choices," Liana put in.
"This isn't the Good Healthy Choices Club," Debbie shot back. "What's the point of calling it a V Club if virginity isn't in the honor statement?"
Kai watched as Liana narrowed her eyes at Debbie from across the circle of desks. "Why are you even here?"
Murmuring and chatter erupted across the classroom, and Kai stuck her fingers into her mouth and whistled to shut them all up. She glanced at Mandy, expecting her to say something, but Mandy was staring into space, just as she had been ever since Madame Kopec left the room with the ballots five minutes ago. They were supposed to be figuring
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out their honor code while Kopec, the impartial adviser, counted their votes, but so far all they'd done was argue.
"Okay, I have to agree with Debbie on this one. If you don't want to make a commitment to virginity, then you probably shouldn't be in this club," Kai said, ignoring the hot feeling in her stomach. Debbie smiled triumphantly and Mandy let out an audible sigh that sounded somewhat like a scoff.
"So . . . what? We're saying we're gonna stay virgins until when? Marriage?" Becca Rabinowitz asked, pulling a dubious face.
"Why not?" Riley said, eliciting a few giggles.
"How about through high school?" Kai suggested. "It's not like the club rules can bind us after graduation, right? So we'll just say through high school--for as long as we're members of the club."
Melissa and Liana exchanged a look. "That seems fair," Liana said. Melissa doodled something in her notebook, looking deflated. Kai wondered if Melissa was in the same position as she was--if maybe she too was lying about her virgin status and was trying to create herself a loophole.
"So, wait. You're not gonna have sex until you're married?" Marni asked, turning toward Riley.
"Nope," Riley said, lifting his shoulders.
"Not even if you fall totally and completely in love?" Melissa asked.
"If I fall totally and completely in love, then hopefully I'll marry that person," Riley said matter-of-factly.
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"Damn," Liana said under her breath. "That's gonna take some willpower."
"How long are you going to wait?" Debbie asked Liana.
"Not that it's any of your business," Liana said. "But I think that if I love someone and really trust them, I'll know it's right."
"Not necessarily," Kai said without even thinking about it. All eyes turned to her. "What? It happens all the time. You think you know someone and you trust them and all that, so in the moment it all feels right, but then later it turns out that person was really just a good actor."
"Why would you say that?" Mandy asked, coming to life for the first time. "You make it sound like all guys will say anything to get you into bed."
"Well. . . not Riley," Eva piped up, then turned beet red.
"Thank you," Riley said.
"Okay, but are you saying Riley is the one and only exception to the rule?" Mandy demanded.
"No. Of course not," Kai said, taken aback by the fire in Mandy's eyes. "It's not like I was talking about you and Eric--"
More giggling. Mandy flushed.
"Then who were you talking about?"
"Nobody, specifically! I just . . ." She paused, trying to get her thoughts in order. "It's just, okay, fine, let's take you and Eric as an example."
Mandy crossed her arms over her chest and sank down further in her seat, her skin growing more and more blotchy.
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"Just an example!" Kai said. "We're all in high school. Odds are we're not gonna end up spending the rest of our lives with the people we're with now, so odds are you and Eric are going to break up one day. If you guys have sex, that's just gonna make the breakup that much harder. So why not protect yourself from that?"
The room fell silent as everyone took this in. Mandy refused to look at Kai, and Kai knew she had made a misstep in using Mandy and Eric as her hypothetical couple. But Mandy had been jumping all over her and when that happened, Kai tended to speak before she thought.
"You know what I'm wondering?" Mandy said suddenly, breaking the silence and causing a couple of people to actually jump. She glared at Kai. "How, exactly, do you know so much?"
At that moment the classroom door opened. Kai was saved by Madame Kopec's announcement. "I have the results of the election!"
Mandy's heart pounded erratically as Madame Kopec walked to the center of the room. Between the public discussion of her relationship with Eric, her ire toward Kai, and the election, she felt like she was about to shake apart. She took a deep breath and tried to chill, but she couldn't help wondering if something was actually wrong with her heart. She'd been nervous and upset before, but she'd never felt like this. What if she was really sick or something? Could anything else possibly go wrong in her life?
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"Hey, may the best woman win," Kai whispered, her tone placating. She looked at Mandy expectantly, so Mandy nodded and smiled a tight smile. But Kai's little statement grated on her nerves. She was too confident. Like she just knew she was going to win.
Mandy felt like she was actually having a heart attack. She waited for that sharp pain in her arm that you always heard about.
"Congratulations to the first V Club president. . ."
Mandy Walters, Mandy Walters, Mandy Walters -- "Kai Parker!"
Everyone around Kai congratulated her, but Mandy couldn't even bring herself to turn her head. She didn't think she could take Kai's elated expression. Instead she got to see Debbie's piteous one. When Kopec dismissed the group a few minutes later, Mandy jumped out of her chair.
Kai was making some presidential-sounding statement about how they would figure out the honor code at the next full meeting, which gave Mandy plenty of time to make her escape.
Her legs were shaking as she made it into the hallway, and her vision was blurring over. She suddenly felt heady and weak, but she kept walking. She didn't pause when she heard her friends calling her name from behind, but at the end of the hall her mind swam and a flash of heat ran up her spine into her head. Mandy stopped and leaned against the cool wall, hoping it would keep her from falling.
She knew she really should eat something. But how
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was she supposed to do that when her stomach was in constant upheaval? She'd barely been able to choke down a few saltines that morning.
"Hey! Wait up!" Debbie called af
ter her.
Leave me alone, Mandy warned through the fog in her mind. Leave me alone.
"Hey . . ." Debbie paused in front of Mandy and made a sympathetic face. "Sorry. I voted for you."
"Thanks a lot," Kai joked, joining them.
"Kopec said it was really close," Eva said, biting her bottom lip and glancing from Mandy to Kai and back again.
"No hard feelings, right?" Kai said with a grin. So condescending.
"Of course not," Mandy said, her mind clearing, the heat dissipating. She stood up straight and focused her eyes on Kai's giddy face. "I mean, you exemplify everything a person could want in a Virginity Club president, don't you?"
Kai's mouth dropped open for a split second, and then she rearranged her face before anyone else could notice. But for Mandy, the damage was done.
"Okay, what the heck is going on with you two?" Debbie asked, hands on hips.
Mandy glared triumphantly at Kai as she stepped past her. "Excuse me," she said. "I have to get to practice."
She sauntered off down the hall, head held high, just hoping that the fogginess didn't return. Fainting in the middle of the hallway would really mar her glorious exit.
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"All the art supplies go up top," Eva told Riley, proud of her composure under this extreme stress--this extreme stress being defined as her and Riley being alone in an exceedingly cramped space. It was after six, the sun had gone down, and they were reorganizing the day-care supply closet, trying to get things ready for the week ahead.
Riley climbed onto the stepladder and reached up to shove a plastic box full of crayon pieces onto the top shelf. His Ben Jerry's T-shirt rode up, exposing the tiniest sliver of bare skin, and Eva blushed. Then she blushed even harder recalling her own bared midriff on Friday night, why she'd bared it, and the disappointment the whole debacle had led to.
"So, what the heck happened after the V Club meeting yesterday?" Riley asked, returning to the floor. "You guys looked like you were having some kind of summit talks in the hallway."
"Failed summit talks," Eva said, turning away to organize the glue shelf. "Mandy and Kai are not getting along right now."
"Extracurricular politics are never pretty," Riley joked.
"They've just been competing for a lot of stuff lately," Eva said with a one-shouldered shrug. "I think it's getting to them."
"Competition can be messy among friends," Riley said, more seriously this time. Eva could tell he had sensed her tension and was adjusting his response accordingly. Eva felt herself beginning to smile.
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Stop it, she told herself, grabbing up a bunch of scissors and depositing them in their tin can. He was doing the tonsil tango with Debbie on Friday. You're not allowed to feel anything here.
Just like that, the sight of him and Debbie walking upstairs at Devon's returned to her mind. Eva sat down hard on a box of paper towels, irritated with herself.
"Hey! What's up?" Riley asked. He pulled over the stepstool and sat down next to her.
"Yeah, I'm just... I feel like everything's falling apart," she told him. "My friends mean everything and . . ."
"And what?" Riley asked, leaning his forearms on his thighs and tilting his head to see her better.
"I just feel like we're all about to implode. . . . Mandy and Kai and . . . and me and Debbie ..."
"What's going on with you and Debbie?" Riley asked.
Eva closed her eyes. She'd said too much. How could she have let herself say that? We're competing too, she thought. For you. Only she doesn't know it, and I always feel like I'm this close to barfing whenever I'm around either one of you.
"Nothing," she said finally, hating herself for her fear of talking, of opening up, of telling anyone anything ever. Her shoulders slumped and she clasped her hands together between her knees.
Then it happened. Riley put his arm around her. Eva stopped breathing. He put his arm around her and squeezed. She could smell the musky-sweet scent of the soap he used mixing together with the tangy art-supply smells. Eva suddenly
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knew that whenever she sniffed a crayon for the rest of her life, she would remember this moment.
"It'll be okay," Riley said. "All friends go through crap like this, but you guys really care about each other, so you'll figure it out"
"I know," Eva managed to say. She took a chance and looked up at him. Riley's face was just inches away from hers. She could see every line in his lips, every tiny freckle on his skin. He gazed back at her and his eyes looked somehow heavy.
A chill ran through Eva as realization washed over her. Omigod! Is he going to kiss me!?
She stood up, kicking over a stack of toilet paper rolls in the process. "Damn," she said. Her face burned as she dropped to the floor to retrieve a roll that had tumbled under the shelving. It came back covered in dust and grime.
"Guess we haven't had a good cleaning in a while," Riley said, standing up and shoving his hands into his back pockets:
He took the roll from her and tossed it toward the garbage can in the day-care room. It hit the rim and bounced right off.
"That was embarrassing," he said.
Please, Eva thought. This boy had no idea what the word meant. How could she have thought he wanted to kiss her? Her! He'd recently locked lips with Debbie Patel!
"What are you thinking right now?" Riley asked.
"I was just wondering if you and Debbie made out on Friday night," Eva heard herself say.
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Oh my God. I can't believe I just said that.
She stared straight ahead at a row of bottles of Elmer's glue. Time stopped. She held her breath.
"What? No!" Riley said. "Why? Did she tell you we did?"
"No. She didn't. But . . ." Eva glanced over at Riley. He looked shocked and totally confused.
"Why would you think that?" he asked.
"Well . . . you guys . . . you know, you went upstairs," Eva said. It suddenly sounded like the stupidest thing in the world.
"So that means we made out}" Riley asked. Then he paused and looked out the closet door. His face suddenly changed. "Yeah, I guess I understand why you might think that, actually."
"But you didn't," Eva said.
"No. She was showing me where the bathroom was," Riley told her. He ran his hands over his blond hair and took a step closer to her. "I mean, I like Debbie," he said. "But just as a friend."
"Oh."
Eva's heart was doing cartwheels. It was running around in circles and jumping up and down with glee. It was hopping on roller coasters and screaming at the top of its lungs.
"So listen ... I wanted to ask you," Riley said, crouching to pick up some containers of glitter. He glanced up at her and Eva could swear there was a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. "Are you . . . doing anything this Friday night?"
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Eva's mouth went dry. This couldn't actually be happening. "Um . . . no," she said. Somewhere in the back of her mind was something she'd read once about being unavailable and coy. She ignored it. "Nothing."
"Do you think you'd want to hang out?" Riley asked. "With me?"
Yes! Yes! Yes! A million times yes!
"Sure," she said, scratching behind her ear. "I mean . . . yeah . . . that sounds . . . good. Hanging out."
Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! A million times shut up!
"Great," Riley said, smiling slowly. "Then we'll do that."
"Cool," Eva said.
And for once her inarticulate awkwardness didn't even faze her.
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Chapter 17
"Mine! Mine!" Mandy shouted as the volleyball careened in her direction. Kai watched as Mandy reached out her arms to bump it up, then pulled back at the last second.
What is she doing ? "No!" Kai shouted just as the ball slammed into the court, millimeters inside the line. Her heart fell as the Washington High Wolverines cheered and whooped on the other side of the net. The impossibly tall girl who had spiked the ball taunted Mandy and s
lapped hands with her friends.
"Walters! What're you doing to me?" Coach Davis called out.
"I thought it was out." Mandy hung her head and Kai's heart went out to her. That was the third bad call Mandy had made, and it was only the first game of the
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match. Everyone had bad games every so often, but this was one for the record books.
"Hey, you're fine," Kai said, slapping Mandy on the back. "You'll get back in there."
Mandy shot Kai an angry look. So much for that, Kai thought After what Mandy had said to her in the hall, Kai thought she was being a pretty big person trying to help her out.
The ball was served again, and once again it was coming right at Mandy. And once again Mandy was staring off into the distance. The ball was coming closer and closer. Look up, Mandy. Look! Up! But she was clearly off in her own world, and at the last second Kai dove in. She took the shot and the ball sailed over the net and bounced down between three diving Wolverines.
Kai cheered and slapped hands with her teammates, then Davis blew her whistle.
"Parker, get over here," Davis shouted, causing Kai's heart to plummet. She had a feeling Davis was going to scold her for moving out of position. But what was she supposed to do? Let Mandy lose them the match?
Kai glanced over at Mandy as she bent her ear toward Coach Davis.
"What the hell was that?" Davis asked under her breath. "That was Mandy's shot. Are you thinking she can't handle herself out there?"
"No, Coach," Kai told Davis quietly, her hands on her hips as she fought to control her breathing. "I just ... I thought I had the better shot."
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"I appreciate your diplomacy, Parker, but this is the state tournament," Coach said. "Get back out there."
Kai felt sick to her stomach, knowing what Coach was about to do. She looked at Mandy, trying to warn her with her eyes before Coach called in the sub, but Mandy was obstinately ignoring Kai's existence.
"Sub!" Davis called out. "Sheridan, you're in. Walters, you're out!"
Mandy glared accusingly at Kai as though somehow it was Kai's fault that she was being taken out. Unbelievable. Did Mandy really think she'd be so petty?