Bad Girls in Love (17 page)

After a little silence, “Maybe you have to be a girl,” he said.

“I'm tired of this conversation,” Mikey said. “I'm hanging up.”

“I had an idea about your Chez ME cookies,” he said quickly. “Listen to this,” and now his voice got all enthusiastic. “I was thinking about how you might expand your business. Of course, you'd have to figure out packaging—”

This was actually interesting. “How would I find the time for a business?”

“School doesn't take that much, does it? Except sports, but—someone as smart as you, and Margalo, too—the thing is,” he told her, “you'd have to upgrade some of your ingredients. Like the quality of the chocolate chips.”

“What do you know about chocolate chips?”

“You can find all kinds of stuff on the Internet. Or, I was thinking, if you got your cookies into some regular commercial outlet—”

Mikey could see what he meant, but she didn't want to hear anything more from him until she had figured out what she thought for herself. “I've gotta go,” she said.

“No, but listen,” he said. His voice had gotten a little higher, as he hurried to tell her all of his ideas, and not so smooth. She almost recognized him now. “I've been thinking about it.”

“So it seems.”

And then, as if he was a car whose brakes had been jammed on by its driver, his words slowed down and his voice deepened again, and he said, “Not seems,
is,”
with a smile in his voice as if that was some joke.

Mikey hung up.

She checked the spaghetti sauce, stirring it a little, thinking about stores where she might sell her cookies, and how she would get deliveries made. Then she went into her bathroom and dumped the laundry hamper out onto the floor, sorting her dirty clothes into lights and darks. What was wrong with her chocolate chips, anyway? Nothing, that was what. She didn't know about a couple of the new tops, so she had to find the little tag, hidden along a seam, to read the directions. She'd never had anything labeled Delicate before. She'd have to ask Margalo exactly what delicate meant, for doing laundry. Because she might just get rid of these delicate tops if they were going to be all that much trouble to clean.

She was jamming clothes into the washing machine in the utility room behind the kitchen, imagining how impressed Shawn would be if there was a newspaper article about Chez ME cookies and her business, when the phone rang.

Again.

“Hello,” she said, irritated.

“Is Mikey there?”

This voice she knew. Her knees buckled a little with surprise. She dropped down onto the desk chair, holding the phone to her ear with both hands.

“Shawn? It's me.”

She heard noises behind his voice, as if he was at a party.

“Where are you?” she asked him.

“I told you, the Mall.”

“Who's with you?” she asked.

“Just some people. Listen, Mikey, I want to ask you. I mean, you're the one who'd know, I figure. Do you think Margalo would go to the dance with me?”

“Why?”
Ask Margalo to the dance?

“If I asked her.”

“Margalo?”
Why Margalo?

“What do you think she'd say?”

He was distracted by a voice from behind him asking him something, which gave Mikey a little time. She worked it out like a math problem: Margalo did not have a crush on Shawn. In fact, sometimes Mikey suspected that Margalo didn't even like him. Also, Margalo had never said anything that indicated
that she might want to go to the dance at all. So if Shawn asked her, she'd say no.

“No,” Mikey said.

“What?” he asked. “I couldn't hear you.”

“No,” Mikey said again. “Margalo wouldn't go to the dance with you.”

“I don't believe you,” Shawn said. “She's been working with me, you know, in rehearsals.”

What?
Margalo hadn't told her that.

She said, “You asked me what I think, and I told you.”

“Well, I guess I have to take your word for it,” he said. “Since you two are best friends. Is she going with someone else?” he asked, and then started to cough, a dry, choky cough, as if he was having trouble catching his breath.

“You OK?” she asked, and waited. When he'd stopped coughing and said, “Fine now,” she asked him, “You don't already have a date? Because you could take me. As a friend,” she said.

“Well, I don't know how good of a friend you are when you tell me not to ask Margalo but say
you'll
go with me.”

“Is that a no?” Mikey demanded.

“Yes.”

“Yes a no? Or plain yes?”

“Don't be any weirder than you can help,” he advised her, and hung up.

So it was probably a no.

Well,
sewage
—but it wasn't as if she was surprised he
turned her down. It wasn't as if just because Margalo wouldn't go with him, he'd want to take Mikey. It wasn't as if she didn't know that. She knew it, she just didn't plan to lose out for lack of trying. Win or lose, lack of trying wasn't the way she liked to do things.

Before she had to think too hard about this last phone call and whether she should be proud (because Shawn had asked her advice) or angry (at Margalo, for getting him) or embarrassed (about being turned down), Mikey punched speed dial 1 and asked for Aurora. “When Margalo gets home, tell her she has to call me. It's really important,” she told Margalo's mother.

“You always say things are really important,” Aurora pointed out.

“I won't talk long,” Mikey promised. “When's she coming home?”

“By nine. It's a school night,” Aurora reminded her. “I'll tell her, Mikey.”

“Good,” Mikey said.

“We aim to please.” Aurora sounded like she wanted to laugh. “Later, Mikey,” and she hung up. That was where Margalo probably got all of her jokes from, her mother, who couldn't even get off the phone like a normal mother.

Mikey could imagine how relieved Margalo would be to hear that Mikey had saved her from going to the dance. She thought Margalo might have some interesting things to say about why Shawn would want to ask her. She was glad she
was going to play three hours of tennis, drills and then some games, so she could concentrate on something besides Shawn Macavity. Sometimes it was no fun at all to think about him. And it would definitely be no fun waiting around at home for Margalo to call so Mikey could get Margalo's opinion about the call from Shawn.

*    *    *

Margalo's opinion was: “Why would you do something like that? What is the
matter
with you, Mikey?”

“Do you
want
to go to this scummy dance? What about
me?”

“Oh, never mind,” Margalo said, and hung up.

Mikey slammed the phone down and her father looked away from the television to ask her, “What dance?”

M
argalo had thought about it, and thought about it. And thought some more about it.

Finally she decided not to yell at Mikey, because what good would that do? When she got off the school bus that Monday morning, the last Monday before the dance, she had a plan, which did
not
include talking to Mikey about the incredibly loamy thing Mikey had done.

So Margalo got off the bus and met up with Mikey as usual. It was snowing lightly, not enough to close down schools, but there was always hope that it would start coming down more heavily and they would have one of those chaotic days with shortened classes. The morning news had predicted a tapering off by midmorning, but there
was
a faint chance.

Mikey was making a big deal of it. “Do you think school will close early? What about tomorrow?”

“In your dreams,” Margalo said. She hunched her shoulders against the cold and headed for the door.

“Not that I
want
to miss school,” Mikey told her. “Because how would I see Shawn?”

Margalo shrugged.

“What's wrong with you? You aren't mad at me, are you? I'm the one who should be mad at you,” Mikey pointed out.

They stepped inside, where immediately it was too hot.

“I'm not really mad,” Margalo said. “Only sort of.”

“You shouldn't be angry at all,” Mikey told her. “Unless—” and she stopped, wheeling around to stare right into Margalo's face, grabbing Margalo's coat and forcing Margalo to a halt. “He told me you've been rehearsing with just him. You didn't tell me that. You aren't in lurve with him too, are you?”

“With Shawn?” Margalo could have laughed. Her life would look a lot brighter, and there would be things she could do, if it was Shawn she had her hopeless crush on. But she didn't laugh; instead, she considered possible responses, ways to get even with Mikey, by pretending Shawn was chasing her, or telling Mikey her real opinion of Shawn. But in the end all Margalo said was the simple truth. “No.”

They started moving along again. “So you
can't
care about going to the dance with him,” Mikey pointed out.

“I
don't
care about going with
him,”
Margalo agreed. “But I'd have liked to go.”

“What are you talking about?” Mikey demanded. “You
don't mean that,” she decided, explaining to Margalo, “You're just saying that to try to make me feel bad. Well, I don't.”

Margalo had more important things to do than telling Mikey off. She had her own plans. Hurriedly she took off her coat.

“She got me a dress for the dance,” Mikey said. “It was our only break from packing. You're wearing your dog's throw-up sweater.”

“Yes.” Margalo hung her coat in the locker.

“To build confidence?”

“Because it looks good on me,” Margalo said. She picked out the books and papers she'd need for her morning classes.

“I was going to say that next.”

“I bet you were.”

“So what?” Mikey demanded.

They didn't say anything more on that subject, and eventually Margalo, now ready to leave, asked, “What were you packing?”

“Her apartment. So she can move. After she gets married. To Dallas.” Mikey was thumping books into her locker, thumping books down onto the floor, as she spoke. “This week.”

“This week?” Surprise kept Margalo where she was.

“Thursday.”

Margalo considered this. “Married or moving Thursday?”

“Married. She's moving over the weekend. Next weekend,
when the dance is. That's why I had to go there this one.”

“So the dress is for the wedding,” Margalo deduced.

Mikey shook her head. “Why would I want to go to the wedding where my mother marries someone besides my father? Someone old enough to be a grandfather.”

Margalo guessed, “She didn't ask you, did she?” What was
wrong
with Mikey's mother?

“So what?”

“That slime-ing stinks,” Margalo said. Not that she was surprised. “That stinks big time. Aurora should have custody of you, that's what I think.”

“You can keep that thought to yourself,” Mikey said. “I never saw a mother I wanted, including my own. That's not funny,” she told Margalo.

“I know,” Margalo said, but couldn't stop grinning. “It isn't a bit funny. But it's really funny anyway. Listen, I've gotta go talk to Hadrian—about the play. He's going to be stage manager and I have to tell him.”

“Hadrian? The stage manager? I didn't know there was a stage manager job open.”

“It's not anymore.” Margalo knew what Mikey was thinking, so she reminded her, “You have basketball practice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.”

“I can skip that.”

“Sometimes you have games.”

“Almost never. I could easily be stage manager.”

“We can argue about it later,” Margalo said, holding her
books close to her chest, sprinting away down the hall to talk to Hadrian before she got to work on the real business of her morning.

The real business was Shawn. If he still wanted to ask her to the dance. If he was going to, if Mikey hadn't entirely ruined her chances. She spoke briefly to Hadrian and then went to find Shawn outside his homeroom, at the center of a mass of both girls and boys. Margalo made her way through to him, saying, “Excuse me, excuse me,” and holding up the script of the play. “I need to talk with you,” she said to Shawn.

“Hey, Margalo, whazzup?” he asked, and smiled lazily, looking around him for confirmation of his unspoken statement:
Here comes another one
.

“It's about the play.” She waved the script in front of his eyes. “It'll only take—”

“Oh.” Did he look disappointed? Or was he acting? “OK.”