Before I Fall (21 page)

At least the hour and a half I spent with Ms. Winters has sobered me up. The last bell has just rung, and all around me students are sweeping out of classrooms, making way more noise than is necessary—shrieking, laughing, slamming lockers, dropping binders, shoving one another—a jittery, mindless, restless noise unique to Friday afternoons. I’m feeling good, and powerful, and I’m thinking,
I have to find Lindsay
. She won’t believe it. She’ll die laughing. Then she’ll put her arm around my shoulder and say, “You’re a rock star, Samantha Kingston,” and everything will be fine. I’m keeping an eye out for Anna Cartullo, too—while I was sitting in Ms. Winters’s office it occurred to me that we never switched shoes again. I’m still wearing her monster black boots.

I swing out of Main. The cold makes my eyes sting, and a sharp pain shoots up my chest. February really is the worst
month. A half dozen buses are idling in a line next to the cafeteria, engines choking and coughing, letting up a thick black wall of exhaust. Through the dirt-filmed windows the pale faces of a handful of underclassmen—all slouched in their seats, hoping not to be seen—are featureless and interchangeable. I start cutting across the faculty lot toward Senior Alley, but I’m only halfway there when I see a big-ass silver Range Rover—its walls thudding with the bass of “No More Drama”—tear out of the alley and start gunning it toward Upper Lot. I stop, all of the good buzzy feeling draining out of me quickly and at once. Of course, I didn’t really expect Lindsay to be waiting for me, but deep down I guess I was hoping for it. Then it hits me: I have no ride, nowhere to go. The last place I want to be is at home. Even though I’m freezing, I feel prickles of heat rising up from my fingers, crawling up my spine.

It’s the weirdest thing. I’m popular—really popular—but I don’t have that many friends. What’s even weirder is that it’s the first time I’ve noticed.

“Sam!”

I turn around and see Tara Flute, Bethany Harps, and Courtney Walker coming toward me. They always travel in a pack, and even though we’re kinda-friends with all of them, Lindsay calls them the Pugs: pretty from far away, ugly up close.

“What are you doing?” Tara always has a perma-smile, like she’s constantly auditioning for an ad for Crest toothpaste, and
she turns it on me now. “It’s, like, a thousand degrees below zero.”

I toss my hair over one shoulder, trying to look nonchalant. The last thing I need is for the Pugs to know I’ve been ditched. “I had to tell Lindsay something.” I gesture vaguely in the direction of Senior Alley. “She and the girls had to jet out without me—some community-service thing they do once a month. Lame.”

“So lame,” Bethany says, nodding vigorously. As far as I can tell, her only role in life is to agree with whatever has just been said.

“Come with us.” Tara slips her arm in mine and squeezes. “We’re headed to La Villa to shop. Then we thought we’d hit up Kent’s party. Sound good?”

I briefly run through my other options: home is obviously out. I won’t be welcome at Ally’s. Lindsay has made that clear. Then there’s Rob’s…sitting on the couch while he plays Guitar Hero, making out a little bit, pretending not to notice when he tears another bra because he can’t figure out the clasp. Making conversation and waving while his parents pack up the car for the weekend. Pizza and lukewarm beer from the garage stash as soon as they’re gone. Then more making out. No, thank you.

I scan the parking lot once more, looking for Anna. I feel kind of bad about taking off with her boots—but then again, it’s not exactly like
she’s
made an effort to find
me
. Besides,
Lindsay always said a new pair of shoes could change your life. And if I was ever in need of a serious life change—or afterlife change, whatever—it’s now.

“Sounds perfect,” I say, and if possible Tara’s smile gets a little wider, teeth so white they look like bone.

As we leave school I tell the Pugs—I can’t help but think of them that way—about my trip to the office, and how Ms. Winters has been getting her freak on with Mr. Otto, and how I got off without a detention, because I promised her I would destroy a camera-phone pic of one of her love sessions in Otto’s office (fabricated, obviously—there’s no way I’d ever hang on to evidence of their coupling, much less in high-digital format). Tara is gasping she’s laughing so hard, and Courtney’s looking at me like I’ve just cured cancer or developed a pill that makes you grow a cup size, and Bethany covers her mouth and says, “Holy mother of Lord Cocoa Puffs.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it’s definitely the most original thing I’ve ever heard her say. It all makes me feel good and confident again, and I remind myself that this is my day: I can do whatever I want.

“Tara?” I squinch forward. Tara’s car is a tiny two-door Civic, and Bethany and I are crushed in the backseat. “Can we stop at my house for a second before we hit the mall?”

“Sure.” There’s her smile again, reflected in the rearview like a piece of sky. “Need to drop something?”

“Need to
get
something,” I correct her, shooting her my biggest smile back.

It’s almost three o’clock, so I figure my mom should be back from yoga, and sure enough her car is in the driveway when we pull up to the house. Tara starts to pull in behind the Accord, but I tap her shoulder and gesture for her to keep going. She inches her car along the road until we’re hidden behind a cluster of evergreens my mom had the landscaper plant years ago, after she discovered that our then-neighbor, Mr. Horferly, liked to take midnight strolls on his property totally in the buff. This is pretty much the answer to every problem you encounter in suburbia: plant a tree, and hope you don’t see anyone’s privates.

I hop out of the car and loop around the side of the house, praying my mom isn’t looking out one of the windows in the den or my dad’s study. I’m banking on the fact that she’s in the bathroom, taking one of her infamously long showers before going to pick up Izzy at gymnastics. Sure enough, when I slide my key in the back door and slip into the kitchen, I hear the patter of water upstairs and a few high, warbling notes: my mom is singing. I hesitate for a split second, long enough to place the tune—Frank Sinatra, “New York, New York”—and say a prayer of thanks that the Pugs aren’t witness to my mom’s impromptu performance. Then I tiptoe into the mudroom, where, as usual, my mom has deposited her enormous purse. It is sagging on its side. Several coins and a roll of breath mints
have spilled out onto the washing machine, and a corner of her green Ralph Lauren wallet is just peeking out from under the thick leather loop of a shoulder strap. I remove the wallet carefully, listening, all the while, to the rhythm of the water upstairs, ready to cut and run if it stops flowing. My mom’s wallet is a mess, too, crammed with photos—Izzy, me, me and Izzy, Pickle wearing a Santa’s costume—receipts, business cards. And credit cards.

Especially credit cards.

I fish out the Amex carefully. My parents only use it for major purchases so there’s no way my mom will notice it’s missing. My palms are prickly with sweat and my heart is beating so hard it’s painful. I carefully close up the wallet and slip it back into the purse, making sure it’s in the exact same position as before.

Above me, there’s a final rush of water, a screeching sound as the pipes shudder dry, and then silence. My mom’s Sinatra rendition drops off. Shower over. For a second I’m so terrified I can’t get my feet to move. She’ll hear me. She’ll catch me. She’ll see me with the Amex in hand. Then the phone starts ringing, and I hear her footsteps heading out of the bathroom, crossing the hallway, hear her singsonging, “Coming, coming.”

In that second I’m gone, slipping out of the mudroom, crossing the kitchen, out the back door—and running, running, running around the side of the house, the frost-coated grass biting my calves, trying to keep from laughing, clutching the
cold plastic Amex so hard that when I open my palm later, I see it’s left a mark.

Normally at the mall I have a very strict spending limit: twice a year my parents give me five hundred dollars for new clothes, and on top of that I can spend whatever I make babysitting for Izzy or doing other servant-type things my parents ask me to do, like wrap presents for our neighbors at Christmastime or rake the leaves in November or help my dad unclog the storm drains. I know five hundred dollars sounds like a lot, but you have to keep in mind that Ally’s Burberry galoshes cost almost that—and she wears those in the rain.
On her feet.
So I’ve never been that big into shopping. It’s just not that fun, particularly when you’re best friends with Ally Endless-Limit-Credit-Card Harris and Lindsay My-Stepdad-Tries-to-Buy-My-Affection Edgecombe.

Today, that problem is solved.

First stop is Bebe, where I pick up a gorgeous spaghetti-strap dress that’s so tight I have to suck all the way in just to squeeze into it. Even then Tara has to duck into the dressing room and help me zip up the last half inch. I kind of like how Anna’s boots look with the dress, actually, sexy and tough, like I’m a video-game assassin or an action hero. I make
Charlie’s Angels
poses at the mirror for a bit, shaping my fingers into a gun, pointing at my reflection, and mouthing,
Sorry
. Pulling the trigger, and imagining an explosion.

Courtney nearly loses it when I hand over my credit card without even looking at the total. Not that I don’t catch a glimpse. It’s pretty hard to miss the big green
$302.10
flashing on the register, blinking up at me like it’s accusing me of something. My stomach gives a little hula performance as the saleswoman slides over the receipt for me to sign, but I guess all those years of forging my own doctor’s notes and tardy excuses pays off because I give a perfect, looping imitation of my mom’s script, and the saleswoman smiles and says, “Thank you, Ms. Kingston,” like
I’ve
just done
her
a favor. And just like that I walk out with the world’s most perfect black dress nestled in tissue paper at the bottom of a crisp white shopping bag.
Now
I understand why Ally and Lindsay love shopping. It’s much better when you can have whatever you want.

“You are so lucky your parents give you a credit card,” Courtney says, trotting after me as we leave the store. “I’ve been begging mine for years. They say I have to wait until I’m in college.”

“They didn’t exactly give it to me,” I say, raising one eyebrow at her. Her mouth falls open.

“No way.” Courtney shakes her head so fast her brown hair whips back and forth in a blur. “No way. You did not—are you saying you
stole
—?”

“Shhhh.” La Villa Mall is supposed to be Italian-themed, all big, marble fountains and flagstone walkways. The sound gets bounced and zipped and mixed around so it’s impossible to
make out what people are saying unless they’re standing right next to you, but still. No point in pushing it now that I’m on a roll. “I prefer to think of it as borrowing, anyway.”

“My parents would strangle me.” Courtney’s eyes are so wide I’m worried her eyeballs will pop out. “They would kill me until I was dead.”

“Totally,” Bethany says.

We hit the MAC store next, and I get a full-on makeover from a guy named Stanley who’s skinnier than I am, while the Pugs try on different shades of eyeliner and get yelled at for breaking into the unopened lip glosses. I buy everything Stanley uses on me: foundation, concealer, bronzing powder, eye shadow prep, three shades of eye shadow, two shades of eyeliner (one white for under the eye), mascara, lip liner, lip gloss, four different brushes, one eyelash curler. It’s so worth it. I leave looking like I’m a famous model, and I can feel people staring at me as we walk through La Villa. We pass a group of guys who must be in college at least, and one of them mutters, “Hot.” Tara and Courtney are flanking me and Bethany trails behind. I think:
This is how Lindsay must feel all the time.

Next is Neiman Marcus: a store I never go into unless Ally drags me, since everything costs a billion dollars. Courtney tries on weird old-lady hats, and Bethany takes pictures of her and threatens to post them online. I pick up this amazing forest green faux-fur shrug that makes me look like I should be
partying on a private jet somewhere, and a pair of silver-and-garnet chandelier earrings.

The only snag comes when the woman at the cashier—
Irma
, according to her name tag—asks to see my ID.

“ID?” I blink at her innocently. “I
so
never keep it on me. Last year my identity was stolen.”

She stares at me for a long time like she’s thinking about letting it slide, then pops her gum and gives me a tight smile. She pushes the shrug and the earrings back across the counter. “Sorry,
Ellen
. ID required for all purchases over two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“I prefer Ms. Kingston, actually.” I give her a tight smile right back. Bitch. That gum-popping trick?
Lindsay
invented it.

Then again, I’d be a bitch too if my parents had named me Irma.

Suddenly inspired, I root around in my purse until I fish out my membership card to Hilldebridge Swim and Tennis, my mom’s gym. I swear, security there is tighter than an airport—like obesity in America is somehow a terrorist plot, and the next big thing to go will be the nation’s elliptical machines—and the card features a tiny picture of me, a membership ID number, and my last name and initials: KINGSTON, S. E.

Irma screws up her face. “What does the
S
stand for?”

My mind does that thing where it hiccups and then goes totally blank. “Um—Severus.”

She stares at me. “Like in
Harry Potter
?”

“It’s German, actually.” I should
never
have offered to read those stupid books to Izzy. “You can see why I go by my middle name.”

Irma’s still hesitating, biting the corner of her lip. Tara’s standing right next to me, running her fingers over my Amex like some of the credit line will rub off on her. She leans forward and giggles.