Pretty Crooked (10 page)

Tre flicked his chin at me in greeting. Then he went back to typing intently, smiling or frowning occasionally to himself. From his profile I could see his jaw muscles rippling as he worked. I peeked over and glimpsed an email with the subject line “Sunday NFL Spread.”

Somewhere between Drew Miller’s attempt at a rap about the upcoming bonfire and Missy Crosby’s ten-minute diatribe on the Ethics Club’s latest accomplishments, Ms. Davenport leaned over from the end of our aisle to swat her hand at Tre’s Droid.

“I hope you’re not doing what I think you’re doing,” she hissed, holding out her palm for him to hand it over. “Didn’t I warn you about texting during assembly last week?”

Tre’s face went slack and I immediately felt the weight of the situation. Whatever was on his phone was clearly not for teacherly consumption. Ms. Davenport was ready to throw down some private-school discipline, and unlike Aidan, Tre probably wasn’t going to slip under the radar. Word of his criminal past had spread, and he’d already been in detention at least once, I heard, for talking back to a teacher. Now he was about to get busted for running a gambling ring during assembly and I couldn’t let that happen.

“It’s actually my fault,” I interjected. “I was thinking about joining next week’s Ethics Club discussion and I didn’t understand what Missy was talking about when she referred to ‘moral absolutism,’ so I asked him to look it up for me.”

Ms. Davenport turned to me, hazel eyes set in anger behind her spectacles and her thin lips knitted into a tight line. So far I’d been a model homeroom student, and I’d given her no trouble. Plus, I was Glitterati, and that was a whole other layer of protection. “Well, Willa, as you know, we have a no-phone policy, so you should be looking up words on your own time.”

“I forgot. I’m sorry.” I looked up at her with a repentant expression, and she settled back into her seat. I wasn’t sure if she entirely bought my story, but then another kid was talking loudly behind us and her attention shifted to shushing him. Tre flashed me a look of gratitude and I smiled to myself, relieved that my
on-the-spot thinking got him out of a jam.

“You really saved my ass,” Tre said, when assembly was over and we were filing out of the auditorium with everyone else. “If she’d caught me, I probably would’ve been suspended. I owe you big-time.”

“No big deal,” I murmured shyly.

“It is to me,” he said, holding the door open for me. “Which way you going?”

“The library. I have a free period.”

“I’m going that way, too.” We climbed the stairs together. Two freshman girls in leather jackets and four-hundred-dollar jeans—I knew because Nikki and I had just bought ourselves a pair (my last big purchase, I swore to myself)—squeezed past us on the stairwell, tossing their hair and looking around to see who was watching them.

Tre nudged me. “Think they ever get whiplash?”

I laughed and the girls turned around to glare at us.

“You just don’t see that kind of thing in Detroit,” he said.

“What’s Detroit like?” I asked.

Out loud, it sounded like a lame white-girl question. He gave me a look to see if I was making fun, but then I guess he could tell I was genuinely curious, because he answered it. “I don’t know.... Just real. I wish I could go back.”

“Do you have a lot of friends there?”

“Yeah, and a girl. Don’t know if that will last, though.”

I looked up at him as we made our way down the hall, our feet squeaking on the freshly waxed floor. I wondered if what Kellie had said about him was true. In a nosy moment, I’d Googled him, but there was nothing online, just a Facebook page that seemed barely used. According to Kellie’s “sources,” the crimes he’d committed should make him a social leper, but I couldn’t imagine what they could possibly be. Maybe it was just the gambling thing that had gotten him into trouble at his old school. My instincts told me that whatever it was, he probably hadn’t hurt anyone. Even just standing next to him outside the library I could feel how protective and gentle his body language was—and, I knew, without really knowing why, that I felt safe with him.

“Is this girl giving you trouble, T?” Aidan was behind us, with a hand on each of our shoulders. He flicked his hair out of his eyes so that they blazed, all green intensity. Looking at him this close made me dizzy.

“She’s all right,” Tre said.

“Because if she is, I can take care of it, man.”

I felt my balance falter.
Feet, floor. Floor, feet
. “I should probably get to my locker. I forgot something.”

Of course, I hadn’t forgotten anything, and Kellie was waiting for me in the library, but I wasn’t prepared to deal with Aidan just then. I felt like when I saw him I needed to be prepared, armed with attitude. And a fresh coat of lip gloss.

If he noticed me trying to get away, he didn’t seem to take the hint.

“Hey, so I saw you at that party the other night, Colorado.” He was close behind me down the hall.

“Kellie’s? It was cool,” I said. I neglected to ask him why, if he saw me, he didn’t come over. Because no way I trusted myself to say something like that in a normal tone of voice. I’d be all warbly.

He caught up to me. “So you’ve been indoctrinated, huh? You’re one of us.”

“Am I going to grow extra appendages or something? ’Cause if so, then I might not want to be in this club.” I looked at my watch. Time had a way of stopping when I was with him, and I was afraid I might really slip into another dimension or something. Then again, did I actually care that much about being late for a free period?

He took my wrist in his hand and looked at my watch himself.

“Plenty of time,” he said, dropping my wrist, which was now burning from his touch. “I’m just glad to see you’re getting in the spirit of things. I thought you were going to be salty all year.”

“Me? Salty? And that makes you…”

“… That makes me sweet.” He had a cute little gap in his teeth that I’d never noticed before.

“Sweet, huh.”

“Yeah, together we’d be like a chocolate-covered pretzel or one of those French caramels with fleur de sel.”

Together
. And his French accent was perfect.
Oh man. I’m a goner
.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those caramels. They sound fancy.”

“I’ll have to bring you some one of these days. What’s this?” he asked, reaching in to touch my necklace.

I could smell his soap—it was musky with a little touch of herbal sweetness, like lavender or rosemary. A natural, clean scent that could potentially drive me crazy.

Don’t breathe
, I told myself.
Nothing
to smell here
.

“It was my mom’s. Actually my grandmother’s,” I managed. “Kind of a good-luck charm.”

“Very nice,” he said softly, then moved his hand to rest it on my locker. “I was just thinking about going to Scottsdale for First Friday. There’s some bands and stuff—it’s usually pretty cool. So if you haven’t been—”

No, this can’t be happening. I can’t. I must not. Resist.
Resist
.

I grabbed my locker door to shake his hand off. “I’ve got plans,” I said.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, grinning. This guy wouldn’t know rejection if it crushed his fingers in the doorjamb. “I see how you’re playing. You’re new so you’re keeping your options open. That’s cool, Colorado.”

As he walked away, I wiped away the beads of sweat that had collected around my hairline. There was nothing cool about it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“YOU GUYS, I think the waiter is kind of cute,” Nikki whispered conspiratorially, spearing a cherry tomato.

This was a break from our Thursday shopping, an afternoon snack at the Nordstrom Café. We were seated at a booth for six, our shopping bags taking up two of the seats. I’d bought a cute knit dress and a pair of ankle boots that I was thinking of wearing to the bonfire the next night. (So much for swearing off shopping—it was impossible with these girls!)

“Are we talking about the same guy?” Kellie dropped her fork, put her palms on the table, and gave Nikki a
no you didn’t
head swivel. “The one with the rabid facial hair crawling over his chin?”

Nikki shrugged. “What? He has nice eyes.”

Kellie shook her head in a definitive no, then turned her attention to me. “Is that the shirt you got last week?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down. It was a knit top with ruching. “It’s supercomfy.”

“
Loves
it. She’s really turning into a VP girl, isn’t she?” Kellie said to the others, her voice ringing approval.

A VP girl. I beamed with pride, like I was accepting an award. “Thanks, guys. I couldn’t have done it without you. The last few weeks have been awesome.”

It was true. They’d been so fun and welcoming. Having all of these brand-new clothes that Kellie helped me pick out had changed not just the way I looked but the way I felt. I could walk the halls of VP like I owned the place. And the transformation had been so fast, hadn’t it? It was like my whole life had been leading up to this. Maybe all along I’d been a Glitterati girl waiting to happen. It was like it was meant to be, me coming here to Paradise Valley. Destiny, almost.

I sat back, basking in the glow of the compliment. I’d arrived. Kellie said so.

But as I chewed on my wild-mushroom pizza with truffle oil, a vaguely uneasy feeling crept in. This was the sixth time I’d gone shopping with the girls in as many weeks. The pizza alone cost twenty-nine dollars for a measly few slices. None of my friends seemed to be the slightest bit worried about their own expenditures—their black AmEx card bills were always paid, by magic or by little elves or, more likely, by their loaded parents. But I was starting to wonder how long I’d be able to keep it up—at this pace, the safe would be empty by spring break. And by then, a whole new set of trends would be upon us.

Oh well. I’d just have to worry about it when the
time came. Carpe diem and all that. For now, it was about having fun with the girls. Which included a few more stores after this and then a trip to Cherise’s to listen to music and model our new stuff.

“So for tomorrow, I think we need to get—oh, hang on.” Kellie reached into her pocket for her phone, her eyes widening with delight as she studied the screen.

“Is that Donovan again? Can you tell him you’re spending time with your friends, please, and that your friends are going to disown you if he keeps texting you and interrupting?” Cherise said.

“No, no, no. It’s the Buzz,” she replied with amusement, a smile cratering her face. “Somebody just posted a new pic of that girl Alicia.”

“Ooh, let me see.” Nikki grabbed the phone out of her hands giddily. “Oh my God, look at her dye job! I’m sorry but Mexicans should not be blond. And what is she wearing? Is that from Forever 21? Another skanky wardrobe choice for the Busteds.”

Cherise and I locked eyes across the table, distress and anxiety pinging between us in invisible rays.

The Busteds
. They were using the name on the blog, which could only mean that they were still reading the blog. Maybe writing on the blog, too. Possibly they’d even made up the name in the first place.

I wanted to throw up my last bite of pizza.

Nikki typed into the phone, her perfect teeth bared like a wild dog’s.

“What are you writing? I’m logged in under my account.” Kellie craned over to see. “I want to make sure it’s good.”

Nikki tossed her glossy amber curtain of hair. “Who cares? It’s anonymous.”

My stomach turned even more. Anonymous. Well, they’d certainly fooled
me
.

Mary and Sierra had been right, and like an idiot I had defended these people. These people who were supposed to be my friends. How could they? I felt betrayed by them, as if they had deliberately tried to hide this.

But had they? Maybe the fault was mine. They were who they were and I had just refused to see it. Clearly, my character judgment was way off.

I dropped my pizza and grabbed the edge of the table—dizzy suddenly in realizing that nothing was what I thought it was. I had just
thanked
them.

No, I’d gotten it really wrong.

They were bullies, plain and simple.

“Are you okay, Willa?” Kellie asked, frowning at me.

I could barely look at them, I was so angry. What gave them the right to post these things? Who the hell did they think they were?

“She looks like she’s having a menstrual moment,” Nikki said, laughing loudly at her own joke. “How do you spell ‘gonorrhea’?”

I looked at Cherise, pleading. On her side of the booth she seemed like she was gearing up to say something.
Maybe tell them what she really thought. Good. I was ready to back her up.

We made eye contact again before she opened her mouth to speak, and she gave me a look like,
I got this
.

“Nikki, do you really need to do that?” she asked. “I mean, what’s the point?”

Nikki sat up straighter on the banquette. “The point is it’s hilarious. Why don’t you chill out, Cherise?”

“They’ve had a hard enough time already. I mean, everyone is repeating this stuff in the hallway.” Cherise looked back to me for support and I nodded.

“That’s not our problem,” Kellie said. “We’re making
observations
. It’s just our opinion. No one has to agree with us.”

I had to jump in. “But why the negativity? What did they ever do to you?”

“They bug me,” Kellie said plainly, and a chill ran over my skin. I felt like I was seeing a whole new side of her coming out. “Their presence bugs me.”

“Maybe you need to ask yourself why that is,” Cherise said. Her tone was calm and even, like she’d thought this through.

“Whatever, Cherise,” Kellie snapped. “Spare me the condescending new agey lectures.”

Cherise shrugged, obviously trying to resist her own anger. “I’m just saying, it’s kind of juvenile. I think we’re all better than that.”

Kellie glared at her venomously. “Then maybe you
shouldn’t lump us all in together. Maybe there is no ‘we’ here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cherise asked.