Spiral (25 page)

“Hey!” Cherie sings when I finally step outside, forty-five minutes later, just to be sure. “Look, I made you lunch!”

She stands over the patio table in a yellow bikini top and a skirt-looking thing wrapped around her hips. My eyes dart from the curved lines of her bikini top to the eclectic spread of food to which she gestures. From celery and hummus to something that looks like grilled tofu, the table is a vegan’s heaven.

“Nice,” I force myself to say. “I didn’t realize you cook.”

She beams shyly as she arranges a plate of food for me. “I love to cook. It’s how I got started with
Choc it Up
, actually. My mom and I used to take all these cooking classes together, and I would hold cooking parties with my friends as playdates. One of my friends’ dads happened to be a casting agent, and he thought I’d make the perfect host for their show.”

She hands me my plate, adding, “The rest is history.”

I think of her taking mother-daughter classes with her mom and feel a little cold inside. It reminds me of my dad for some reason, and I begin to visualize how we used to play football in the backyard of my old house.

“Cool,” is all I can say in response as I pretend to be invested in eating. Her food is actually not so bad, and I start to take bigger bites. Pleased with my contentment, she rattles on some more about how she got started with the Kidz Channel and all the fascinating places around the world she got to visit to investigate chocolate.

“…but I think it’s time I step away from it for a little while,” she concludes after a good ten minute monologue about the acting business.

“Think you’ll ever act again?” I ask finally.

It takes her a moment, but she eventually nods and looks up at the sky wistfully. “I’d like to think that they wanted me to, so maybe one day.”

“You don’t have to just do what they wanted you to do. You wouldn’t be dishonoring them or anything,” I say.

She lowers her gaze to me and squints. “Where do you want to go to college?”

I cock my head. “Huh?” That question came out of nowhere.

“Where are you planning to go to school?” she presses.

I shrug, my ever-ready answers flying off my tongue before I even think about them. “South Carolina, University of Miami, if I’m lucky.”

“Why those schools?” she presses.

I’m so perplexed by her sudden topic shift. “Good football schools.”

She nods pensively. “Who taught you to play football?”

I stare at her, feeling instantly exposed as I prevent the word “dad” from escaping my mouth. I sit back in my chair at the table and watch a smile slowly spread across her face. She has a really funny way of telling me to follow my own advice.

“Touché,” I murmur.

“Truth or dare.”

I look up and see Cherie bobbing around me inside of Brenton’s blue inner tube, her smile twinkling with mischief. The sun makes her tanned, wet skin glisten and her blond hair glow like a halo. Her sunglasses cover her eyes, and I can’t tell if she is luring me into a trap or truly still a little girl at heart.

I shake my head and lean back in my floating chair. “No way. I’m not playing truth or dare with you.”

“Come on, Jack, don’t be such a lame-o,” she pushes. “Please?”

“What are you, twelve?” I reply.

“Truth or dare, Jack! Come on!”

“Fine. Truth.” I don’t trust her enough to say dare, but I brace myself for what will probably be a question that is too personal.

“Oooh, truth, huh?” she says with a giggle. “Okay. Hmm. Let me think…”

“You wanted to play this stupid game but you don’t know what to ask?” I scold playfully. “Disgraceful.”

“Well, I was expecting you to say dare, so now I have to think about a question.”

“Well, we all know thinking is hard for you. This may take a while,” I joke.

“Shut up!” she laughs through her dramatic gasp and splashes me. “Okay, hold on, I got it. Truth: How many girlfriends have you had?”

I don’t know why I’m embarrassed to say it, but heat creeps across my face when I reply, “Three.” Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe she’ll think I’m a loser to have not had more than three girlfriends.

“What were their names?” she asks quickly, but I wag my finger at her.

“Nope, you only get to ask one question at a time,” I tease. Besides, it’s my turn to ask a question, and now of course I have to know how many boyfriends she’s had. “Truth or dare?”

She senses that I want to ask the same question, and she avoids giving me the satisfaction like the plague. “Dare,” she whispers through a wince, as if I’m about to say something really awful, like tell her to run around the pool naked. Not that it’s a bad idea or anything.

I squint at her and at this game she’s playing with me; not the truth or dare one, the one where she’s asking questions she wouldn’t want to answer herself. I’ll make her regret it.

“I dare you to call Danika and tell her she’s fired. Right now. And you have to hang up immediately.”

Cherie’s jaw drops. “No, I can’t!”

“You have to; it’s the rules.”

“Jack – no! She’ll believe me!”

I harrumph, “Good, you don’t need that bitch around anyway.”

Now she is horrified. “Don’t call her that, Jack!”

“What? She is.” I can’t even believe I would have to defend the word. Cherie tilts her head and gives me a look only my mom would give me: the “
don’t be a jerk
” look. I roll my eyes and look away.

“This game is no fun,” I mutter.

“Well, if you’re going to pout about it like a baby,” she sighs and swims to the edge of the pool. I watch her pick up her phone.

“You’re doing it?!” I feel my eyes nearly bug out of my head. Cherie shakes her head at me, and it’s her turn to roll her eyes while she puts the phone to her ear.

I can barely hold back the laughter as she says in her flawless actress voice, “Danika? Hi, what’re you doing? Oh, that’s nice. I know, right? So, um, listen: we have to talk. I – I just don’t think this is working out anymore. Yeah, I’m sorry; I have to let you go. Don’t take it personally or anything, okay? Okay? I gotta go, but I’ll call you and we’ll do lunch laters. Okay? Don’t cry, please? It’s not you, it’s me. Okay? Love ya!”

She hangs up and turns a frown toward me that says, “
See? I’ll do your dares, but I won’t like it, and you’re gonna pay.”

But I’m too busy celebrating the prank to be worried about the retribution. I pump a fist in the air victoriously and cry out, “Yes!”

“You’re a Neanderthal,” she grumbles, texting rapidly, probably a quick apology or something. “Your turn: truth or dare?”

I know better than to ask for a dare after making her do that. “Truth.”

“Truth? Okay, truth: Did you and Katrina break up because she wouldn’t have sex with you?”

The question spins my head. “Whoa, what?” It got really personal all of a sudden.

She sets her devil’s eyes on me and smiles sadistically. “Did you break up with Katrina because she was a prude?”

I suddenly can’t see straight, so I sit up and take off my sunglasses. “Katrina? How do you even know about Katrina?” I ask, rubbing the shock out of my eyes.

She shrugs and her mouth twists with a coy smirk. “I know things.”

The twins. That sounds like a Chloe and Claudia rumor if I ever heard one. My face burns a little more now, and I’m not sure if it’s from sunburn or how exposed I feel. It doesn’t matter that her idea of me is completely inaccurate, I don’t like the mere fact that she knows the name of someone I dated weeks before I even met her. What else have those girls told her about me – and why are they even having these kinds of conversations about me?

“Stupid twins,” I mutter absently.

“So it’s true?” she demands, squinting at me as if the thought is vile and inhuman. “Did you really break up with a girl over that?”

“No, of course not!” I groan. “Sex had nothing to do with it. Chloe was really nasty to her whenever she would come around. Katrina started to get paranoid that Chloe liked me and was trying to break us up. I just couldn’t take the drama anymore. She didn’t trust me, and then one night she accused me of cheating on her with Chloe because I didn’t answer her phone call.”

I lie back down. “So we broke up.”

Cherie floats closer. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Cheat on her with Chloe, duh!”

I cast her a dirty look. She knows something, but I don’t know how much. “Chloe’s my stepsister.”

“So?”

“So there’s no way I’d do something like that,” I say firmly.

Cherie’s eyes glisten with mischief when she knows more than she’s letting on, and right now her eyes are shining. “But Chloe would.”

I roll my eyes. “You sound just like Katrina.”

She’s too smart to be discouraged from pressing. “Well, you’re not denying it.”

I sigh, focusing on the cup holder of my floating chair and running my finger along its rim. “It was a stupid mistake. She’d had a few drinks at the rehearsal dinner, and we were all just hanging out, and she tried to kiss me. I stopped her right away.”

Cherie nods like she knows this already. But who would tell her? “And your girlfriend found out?”

“Well, yeah, because my friends are stupid and can’t keep their mouths shut,” I mutter bitterly. “It became the running joke, and my friend, Josh, let it slip in front of Katrina.”

“Why did you tell your friends at all? That seems kind of mean,” she chastises, and I shake my head in shame.

“I know, that was dumb, but I was freaked out. I didn’t know what to do – this girl just tried to make out with me, and she was 24 hours away from being my step-sister. They were moving into my house!” I look down and sigh. “I shouldn’t have said anything and shoulda just pretended it didn’t happen.”

“Chloe must have been mortified when you turned her down,” Cherie says, but her evil grin tells me she doesn’t feel so bad for Chloe.

I nod. “Of course she was, and she’s been a bitch to me ever since. Her and her little minion, Claudia. They made up all sorts of rumors about me at school, including that sex one, I guess.”

She pauses and mulls my words over in her mind. Finally, she asks, “And what about Katrina? Did you guys ever…you know?”

“That’s none of your business,” I say as I put my sunglasses back on, doing anything to avoid looking directly at her. “Your turn: truth or dare?”

“No – wait a minute! Did you and Katrina have sex?”

My ears are ringing with her questions and her prying. I want to run from them. I know I should bail on this game before the questions can get any deeper. I’m too proud to tap out that easy; I want her to walk away first.

Instead, I guide the floating chair around in a circle and call over my shoulder, “I already answered way more than one question. Now it’s your turn. Which will it be?”

Cherie grunts, “Ugh! We are so coming back to this Katrina stuff when it’s your turn!”

“Why do you care so much?” I ask, glancing back.

She shrugs. “Because you are clearly dodging the question! Whatever, you’re going to have to tell me eventually. I choose truth.”

“Okay, fine. Truth: have you had sex with anyone?” Once it’s out there, I can’t take the question back, but I wish I could because only an asshole asks a girl a question like that. I feel like I’m no better than Josh, and I wonder what possessed me to pry into her privacy like that.

Of course, the little kid in me cries,
She started it!
But I know that’s not how it works, and that girls aren’t supposed to kiss and tell, even though guys are allowed to talk about that stuff. I can already feel irritation rising inside at the thought of her having sex with some other guy, and the status of her virginity is probably one of those truths best left unsaid.

This whole time, as my mind spits scolding words at my impulsive jerk side, Cherie is silent. I look back, dreading her answer but hoping she answers all the same. Cherie watches the water rippling around us, and for the first time since I’ve known her, she looks too shy to speak. Her blushing cheeks and her reserved eyes dart between me and the water.

My inner-gentleman finally steps up to the plate. “Never mind, you don’t have to answer that.”

She looks relieved, and says, “Well, are you going to ask something else?”

I think and think, wondering,
What’s a nice, softball question I can lob at her to make up for my asinine question?
“Did you have any pets growing up?”

She cocks her head at me and sighs with frustration. “Seriously?”

“What? I want to know,” I reply, watching her shake her head at me.

“If that’s the kind of question you’re going to come up with, then I’d rather answer the other one,” she pouts.

I groan and rub my eyes. I can’t win with her; when I’m a jerk, she won’t answer. If I’m nice and ask an easy question, she still won’t answer.

Finally, I say, “Okay, fine. Truth: Why aren’t you getting any counseling about your parents’ deaths?”

Cherie is quiet for a moment, looking at me as though I’d stabbed her in the heart by bringing up this topic. I feel badly, sort of. She floats a few inches away from me before stopping and coming back. She refuses to run away from my questions, either.