Perfect You (2 page)

"Homework," I reminded him again.

"Just for a few minutes? You can even pull the car around while I do it. Okay?"

A chance to drive wasn't something I would pass up, and Dad knew it. I'd gotten my license when I turned sixteen, but Mom refused to let me drive unless she or Dad were in the car until I was seventeen because Todd had driven our car into the garage door two weeks after he'd gotten his license.

And because I'd failed my driving test the first time I took it. But driving over all those cones could have happened to anyone, really.

I went and got the car, then drove over to the parking lot by Sports Shack. Dad was standing by the exit to the parking lot, trying to talk to everyone who came out. I drove around the mall twice, enjoying the feel of being in the car by myself, and when I got back, Dad was talking to an older guy in a Sports Shack uniform, holding his hands out like he did whenever he was sorry about something, and all the employees were standing by the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, watching.

Great. As if the bee costume wasn't enough of an embarrassment. I drove to an unlit portion of the parking lot and waited, hoping no one could see the car. Or me.

"Wow, was that guy uptight," Dad said when he finally got to the car. "I explained that I worked in the mall too, but he didn't care. Hey how come you parked way out here? And how come you're sitting all hunched over? Are you sick?"

"Just tired," I said, and was careful to keep my head down as we drove away.

The house smelled like pancakes when we got home, and Mom was on the phone with Grandma. I could tell because she kept rubbing her fingers down the space between her eyebrows like she had a headache.

"No, things are fine," she said, and waved at me, then blew Dad a kiss. "Look, can I call you tomorrow? Great. No, really, please forget what I said before. We'll get by."

She hung up and blew out a frustrated breath. "I think I might have burned some of the pancakes. Sorry." She looked at Dad. "You know how my mother is."

Dad went over and gave her a big hug, lifting her up off the ground. She laughed, and on that almost happy note, I left before she could ask him how sales were. Or before she could really start talking about Grandma.

Todd took me to school in the morning because Dad had spent all night working on a Perfect You project and wanted to catch a few hours of sleep before the mall opened.

"Project?" I said. "What kind of project?"

"I don't know, Kate," Todd said, frowning at the dashboard and tapping the gas gauge with one finger. "I was kind of asleep when he told me. It's inhuman to be up this early, you know."

"You think? I only have to do it five days a week."

"Yeah, but you're in high school. I'm not, and I didn't sign up to be your chauffeur. I mean, it's bad enough that now I have to get up before ten so I can be at the stupid mall when it opens."

"Oh, poor freeloading baby who has to get up and work for a few hours. Maybe if you didn't stay up all night talking on the phone you'd be more rested."

"You want to walk to school?"

"Please. Mom would kill you."

Todd grunted, because we both knew I was right, and then slammed on the brakes as the light up ahead turned red. While we waited for it to change, he ran his fingers through his hair, grinning when he noticed a girl in the car next to us watching him.

Aside from having the same hair color, a dark reddish-blond, Todd and I don't look very much alike. This is because I'm average-looking and he's so good-looking that girls in cars next to us at traffic lights see him and give him their phone numbers. He gets more calls in a day (and at night) than I get . . . well, ever.

When we stopped at the next light, the girl in the car next to us asked Todd if he wanted to get coffee.

"I don't have a lot of time later today, but how about now, before work?" she said.

I snorted, thinking about Todd's definition of work.

Todd elbowed me and said, "I'd love to." Then he drove to school like he was in a race.

"Great, now I'm here early," I said as he dropped me off. "What am I supposed to do before first period starts?"

"I don't care what you do as long as you get out of the car."

"You suck."

"I'll be sure to think about that when I'm drinking coffee with . . . um . . ."

"Sarah." "I knew that. Anyway, I'll be sure to worry about it while I'm with her and you're stuck in school."

I slammed the car door as hard as I could when I got out, but he didn't even notice.

Figured.

I went to the library and finished the English reading I hadn't done last night, and then went to first period.

Jennifer M., who sat across from me, grabbed my arm as soon as I. sat down. "I'm freaking out!"

I sighed. This was one of the many reasons I had stopped hanging out with the Jennifers. They were all constantly freaking out about something. "What's wrong?"

"The PSATs. I'm taking them again, I think, but what if I do worse than last time?"

"You'll do fine," I said, and Jennifer T. leaned toward us and said, "See, I told you."

That made the third Jennifer, Jennifer S., look nervous. Jennifer M. was Jennifer S.'s best friend, or at least she had been in the fall. Now she was spending a lot of time with Jennifer T.

I looked down at my desk and wondered if I could get away with putting my head down and taking a nap.

"What about you, Will?" Jennifer M. said, letting go of my arm in order to grab his. He sat across from her too, one desk in front of me. "Oh, wait, you did really good, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but I was just trying to keep up with certain people." Will looked back at me and grinned.

"Kate, I thought you said you just did okay," Jennifer M. said.

"I did," I said through clenched teeth. "Will's trying to be funny. Laugh so he'll shut up." Jennifer M. said, "Kate, you're funny," in the same tone of voice she always used whenever she didn't understand why I'd said something, and then started talking to Jennifer T. as Jennifer S. watched, still looking nervous.

Will looked at them for a second and then turned back around again, whispering, "Kate, don't be like that. You know I only did so well because I yearn--see, SAT word--to follow you to college and steal your heart."

"Uh-huh. Too bad for you I don't plan on attending clown college."

He grinned. "Only you would ignore the incredibly sweet thing I just said."

"Only you would describe one of your asinine comments as incredibly sweet."

"Asinine? Now there's an SAT word. In fact--"

"Mr. Miller, do you mind?" Our teacher, Mr. Clark, had come in, reeking of cigarettes like always.

"Nope," Will said, and then shook his head in apology when Mr. Clark glared at him.

"Don't worry," I whispered as Will turned back around. "You can always look up what asinine means in the dictionary. It'll be easy to find because your picture will be next to the definition." And then I grinned, because I'd gotten the last word in, and that hadn't happened in our last three conversations.

I knew it was pathetic to be happy about something like that. And to actually keep track of who got the last word in. But hey, I had to take what I could get.

Especially because when I went to lunch, I saw Anna. Since lunch periods at Jackson High are only twenty minutes long, I always get in line for soup or salad. It's the busiest line, and the slowest, and by the time I get my cup of lukewarm soup and pay for it, I have just enough time to drink it before I go to class.

Today the line moved a little faster than usual, though, and by the time I paid there was enough time to grab a seat and eat my soup before the bell rang.

That's when I saw her. Anna was a cheerleader now, even though she'd always made fun of them before, and cheerleaders ate during first lunch block when there was a basketball game. I'd seen her a few times before, always surrounded by her new friends, always sitting right next to Diane.

Today, Anna was sitting with Tara.

Tara was a senior, and she was so popular that she could do anything. She ate when she wanted, went to classes when she wanted, and when she got a bad dye job and her hair turned orange, a bunch of girls dyed their hair orange too. If an actual world leader had that much power, we'd all be living under one big dictatorship. Scary thought.

I watched Anna laugh, grinning the way she did when she was happy but embarrassed.

The last time she'd smiled at me like that was last year, when she was complaining about her eleventh birthday party and I'd reminded her it was ancient history and that she'd just gotten a solo in choir.

Last year, Anna would have been sitting with me, and we'd have been talking about whoever was in her seat now.

The bell rang, and I chugged my soup. It was lukewarm and salty, and as I threw the cup away I saw Tara and Anna get up. They hugged, and I saw Anna smile for real, radiant and wide, as Diane caught her eye.

Anna used to smile like that at me.

Anna had treated me like crap and I knew it, but I couldn't bring myself to hate her. In fact, looking at Diane, I wished I were her so much I felt sick with it.

I walked by them both on my way out of the cafeteria. Diane didn't even see me, but Anna did. She saw me, and something flashed across her eyes, something that looked like sadness. I stopped, hoping she'd smile at me, but she turned away.

Just like she had the day I finally realized we weren't friends anymore.

I can't remember a time when I didn't know Anna, One of my first memories is building a tower of blocks with her in day care, holding one and waiting for her to tell me where to put it.

We did everything together. We both learned to swim in the same class at the community center. We both got bikes for our fifth birthdays, and learned to ride wobbling around the cul-de-sac at the end of her street. We both got our ears pierced when we were in fifth grade. We even bought our first bras together, although, to be totally honest, I didn't really need one at the time.

Up until the middle of ninth grade, Anna was about eighty pounds overweight, had braces, and wore glasses, the kind with heavy, thick lenses. People made fun of her but she never cared, would just look at me and roll her eyes. Anna always walked and talked and acted like she knew exactly who she was and no one could tell her otherwise. She was as brave as I wanted to be.

Then, last March, Sam bumped into Anna in the hallway after second period and said,

"Watch it, wide load."

Anna had liked Sam since middle school, and her crush only got worse during our first year of high school. She was crazy about him, and seeing her face after he said that made me want to cry.

She did cry, although not until she'd made it to the girls' room. I followed her and said everything would be okay as I handed her paper towels to use as tissues.

She made a face at me and said, "How can you say that?"

"Because it will be," I said.

And it was, because Sam came up to her at the end of the day and apologized for yelling.

"See?" I said after he'd left. "I told you he didn't mean it. You wanna come over for dinner after choir practice?"

She tugged the bottom of her shirt down over her stomach. "I'm fat, aren't I?"

"Anna!"

"Kate, I am."

"Come on, you look fine."

"Liar," she said, her voice curiously flat, and then the choir director came out and told us practice was starting and could we please hurry up and come inside?

At lunch the next day, Anna wanted to buy salad, not pizza.

"Why?" I said. "I mean, I can understand skipping sausage pizza, with those weird seed things in the meat. But this is pepperoni!"

"I want to eat better."

"I just said it isn't sausage."

She gave me a look.

"Okay, fine, we'll get salad. But Anna . . is this because of yesterday? Because Sam said he was sorry."

"He said he was sorry he yelled. He didn't say he didn't mean what he said, and I--I'm fat. I'm fat and wear glasses and I'm tired of it. I'm sick of being the ugly girl. I want to be pretty."

"But I know Sam didn't mean it," I said, stunned by how angry she'd sounded. Anna always seemed so sure of herself, so proud of who she was.

"Of course he did," she said, and stared at me so hard I had to look away.

For the rest of the school year we ate salads for lunch. Anna lost about twenty pounds.

We had a lot of fun shopping for new jeans for her to wear, and on the last day of school, I asked her if she wanted to join the community center and use the pool.

"I can't," she said.

"Come on, I hear Sam is lifeguarding."

"I can't, okay? I have to go to my stupid aunt's house in stupid Maine."

"What?"

"I know. What am I going to do in Maine all summer? I'll probably freeze to death my first day there."

"All summer?"

She nodded. "When are you leaving?"

She looked at the floor. "Don't be mad, Kate, but ... the day after tomorrow."

"The day after tomorrow?"

"I wanted to tell you before, but I was afraid you'd hate me because I'm going to be gone so long."

"Hate you?" I said, even though I sort of did because now I was going to be stuck in Jackson without her. "I'm going to miss you."

She knew what I was thinking because she said, "I'll call all the time and e-mail every day. You'll get sick of hearing from me, I swear."

I went with her and her mom to the airport, which was kind of scary because her mom cried a lot, and Anna called me from Maine that night. She said it was cold but pretty.

"Everything is really, really green," she said.

It was the only time she called. I called her once, about a week after she did, but all I had to talk about was Todd and how annoying he was, plus her aunt had to use the phone.

And then Mom freaked out when she got the bill.

I e-mailed her every day for a while but, again, I didn't have much to talk about, and whenever she wrote back she was always tired from doing stuff with her aunt and was never sure when she was coming home. I wondered why we didn't talk more, but Anna said she had to beg to use the computer, and her phone situation was like mine. It seemed like we were both having pretty boring summers, and I figured things would get back to normal as soon as she got home.