Bad Girls in Love (8 page)

“I've never seen an R-rated film,” Casey said. “My parents won't let me.”

“I bet they read you
Grimm's Fairy Tales
, though, didn't they?” Cassie argued. “Really grim, those old Grimm brothers, like when they make Snow White's wicked stepmother put on iron shoes—they've been heated in the fire, too, red-hot iron shoes. And make her dance, at their wedding, isn't it?”

“How would I know that?” Tan demanded. “I just know that the prince falls in love with a dead girl. What's that called, Margalo?”

“Necrophilia,” Margalo said.

“Yeah,” Tan said. “Yuck.”

“She's not really dead,” Casey pointed out.

“He
doesn't know that,” Tan argued. “All he cares about is she's beautiful. I
ask
you.”

Cassie completed her argument, “They make her dance until she falls down dead.”

“They should at least let me watch
Like Water for Chocolate
on video.”

“We never watch if it's R for violence,” Margalo told the group.

“But you don't even watch the news,” Tan said.

“Not the six o'clock,” Margalo said. “Not when the little kids are around.”

“I don't blame your parents,” Frannie said. “Mostly, the news
scares
me.”

In life as in tennis, Mikey kept her focus. “Just because everybody says it's only looks that gets boys, that doesn't make it true,” she pointed out. “Have any of you asked
them
about it?”

They howled in protest, and laughed at her naïveté, and called loudly over one another's voices, imagining how such conversations might go, which created another round of rowdy laughter from their table, causing more attention to be temporarily paid to it. Mr. Schramm took a couple of steps toward them, then caught Margalo's eye. He smiled, the mischievous smile that always lifted Margalo's spirits. She smiled back. He turned away then, and she wondered why, until she saw him shake his head at Mrs. Sanabria who now stood behind the table where Louis Caselli and his friends sat, a standing warning to the boys that whatever they were thinking of starting had better get itself forgotten.

Once her friends had finished making fun of her, Mikey persisted, “We should ask Ronnie. That's a good . . .” With Mikey, thinking was doing, so she got up to go over to the table where Ronnie Caselli sat among some of the most popular preppies and jockettes, with the other seats occupied by half the boys' basketball team. In Ronnie's whole huge family there was only one girl near her age, her cousin Sophie, a tenth grader—who was, in fact, the person who'd introduced Ronnie to her boyfriend, Doug. Most Casellis were male,
which meant—as Ronnie often told them, to justify her popularity with boys, and apologize for it, and boast, too—she understood boys and knew how to get along with them.

While Mikey was gone, Frannie raised a question. “Doesn't there have to be more than just one thing boys like about girls? There is for girls, and boys can't be that different from us, can they? It's not only the good-looking boys who have girlfriends. And besides, nobody has just one reason for doing something. I think there's a lot the same about boys and girls—there has to be, we're all just human beings.”

“You believe that?” Cassie asked, doubting. “Do you listen to the way they talk? And do you see the kinds of things they do? And call it fun?”

“Some of them care about other things than looks,” Frannie maintained. “Probably a lot of them, if we knew.”

“Like intelligence,” Casey said. “Being interesting to talk to.”

“Who do you think you're kidding?” Cassie laughed.

“Or athletic ability, because then you can understand how they feel about sports,” Tan said.

Casey tried again. “In
Rebecca
everybody falls in love with her—even though she's horrible, she's really a horrible person—because she has the
je ne sais quoi.”

“What's that?” Mikey demanded, sitting down again.

Casey hesitated, trying to translate.
“It,”
she tried. “You know.”

“You mean she slept with them? You mean sex? Can't you speak English?” Mikey demanded.

“I'm sorry,” Casey said. “I didn't mean—it's just a French
phrase for—Margalo?” Her eyes filmed with tears. “I read it,” she apologized.

“You read too much,” Mikey told her. “When you read too much, people look more complicated than they really are. You and Margalo, you both do that.”

“Margalo understands people,” Casey said, her voice only a little quivery.

“Margalo doesn't know anything about this,” Mikey maintained.

Tan disagreed. “She's got brothers, so she knows more than you. Or me.”

Mikey said, “Brothers isn't what I meant. I meant
this.”
Words having failed her, she jabbed her finger at the place in the cafeteria where Shawn Macavity was moving over to the seat Ronnie was vacating, then jammed the finger into the center of her own chest.
“You
probably think it has to do with earth science,” she told Margalo.

In fact, that wasn't what Margalo thought, but she defended the position anyway to see if she could. “Well, it
is
biology. Reproduction. Natural selection and survival of the fittest, and that's Darwin. Breeding for selected characteristics.” Groans and laughing protests greeted her argument.

So she continued. “We're animals, after all.”

“They're the ones who are animals,” Ronnie said, sitting down. “Take it from someone who lives with them. Luckily”—she smiled smugly—”I'm an animal lover.”

Cassie pointed out to Ronnie, “They're only animals if you
use your looks as bait. I mean, have you seen the way Heather Mac is dressing this week? It's as if—like all of her sweaters got shrunk. At least you don't dress like that,” she told Ronnie. “Although, with a bod like yours, you could probably dress the way I do and still get noticed.”

“You
get noticed,” Ronnie argued.

“For myself, who I am,” Cassie said. “Or my artwork,” she added. “But not for my good looks.”

“Nobody
could look good in what you wear,” Ronnie said.

“My prune costume, you mean?” Cassie laughed, pulling her black sweatshirt out from her torso to show it off. “It keeps me out of trouble—which is more than those turtle-necks and khakis do for you with the famous Doug, if what I've heard is true.”

“And
I
hear Jace doesn't dare try anything with you.”

For a minute Cassie glared at Ronnie, then she shrugged. “I guess I'm the new breed, and you're not. Lucky for Doug, isn't it? He's got it easy.”

Ronnie snorted, to mean
Ha!
and to say,
You think you're so smart
. She didn't glare; she smiled in a kindly fashion, as if Cassie were her idiot little sister. “Do you really think it's any easier for them than us? If you do, you've got a lot to learn, Cassie Davis.” With that line she rose and left their table.

“I plan to be a slow learner,” Cassie called after her, then turned to the people remaining at the table. “Things I don't want to get As in, at fourteen. Number one, sex,” she said,
counting on her fingers. “You've got the right idea, Casey, falling in love with Maximilian de Winter.”

“I'm not in love with him,” Casey protested.

“Who?” Tan asked.

“It's that book,” Frannie explained.
“Rebecca.”

“I might have guessed,” Mikey said.

“I know the difference between stories and reality,” Casey told Cassie.

“But what stories?” Margalo asked. “And whose reality? I mean, I know some people whose reality is pretty delusional,” she said. “Ms. Barcley,” she named one.

This reminded Mikey, “And I have to go there this weekend. To my mother's,” she told the group. “She went back to her maiden name.”

“We all know that,” Cassie said. “And none of us care. Why should she take her husband's name in the first place, and especially, why should she keep it when they're not even married anymore?”

That subject didn't get discussed, however, because Tan asked, “Has anyone else been asked to this party at Darlene's? Tonight.”

“Rhonda's having one too,” Frannie said, “and she's got Shawn Macavity coming to it so I expect everybody else will want to. Does Darlene know?” she asked Tan.

“Probably by now she does. Do you think she'll cancel? Maybe not,” Tan decided. “I'll still go.”

“You're going to Heather McGinty's tomorrow, aren't you?” Cassie asked Frannie, who nodded.

“Me too, oh good,” Casey said. “Shawn's going to be there.”

Mikey's alarm grew.

“Shawn's going to Rhonda's tonight? And Heather's tomorrow? I wonder if I can get my mom to bring me home Saturday afternoon in time to go to Heather's.”

“Were you invited?” Margalo hadn't been.

“Of course not,” Mikey said. “She'd never. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't go.”

“You'd crash it?” Cassie asked, and when Mikey nodded all she said was, “Cool.”

“Shawn's probably why all the parties are happening,” Frannie said.

“Well, dunhh,” they told her.

“Because he doesn't have a date for the dance,” Frannie continued.

“I bet I could
make
Rhonda ask me to her party,” Mikey said. “And put off going to Mom's until tomorrow morning.” She thought about this. “Or Margalo could. Could you, Margalo? Will you? Figure out how to make Rhonda ask me?”

Margalo was gathering her books because the bell was about to ring. The lunch duty faculty had already left the room, and many of the students had too.

“Will you?” Mikey demanded. “Are you paying attention?”

No, Margalo wasn't, but now she started to. She thought about Mikey's request. She thought about how much Rhonda would hate having Mikey at her party, and considered ways for Mikey to get there. If, for example, Mikey just went up to Rhonda and asked, “What time should I tell my dad the party will be over?” Probably Rhonda would answer the question before she understood the implications, and that would be as good as an invitation.

It might be fun, getting Mikey to Rhonda's party.

But—”It's too late this time,” Margalo realized. “Because you know how your mother is about changing her plans.”

“Inflexible,” Mikey agreed. “I know what you mean. It makes her really hard to deal with,” Mikey acknowledged, then demanded, “What are you all laughing at?”

A
ll that week Mikey had tried to get Shawn's phone number. What was wrong with calling him up, anyway? If she was the boy, and he was the girl he (really she) wanted for a girlfriend, it would be a perfectly OK thing for him (really her) to call her (meaning Shawn).

For the first couple of days she'd tried just asking him. “Hey, you know? I don't know your phone number,” she said in the hall between classes, and “That's right,” he said. Next time she was more direct. “What's your phone number?” He didn't answer, just went on talking to whoever he was talking to at lunch, some preppy in a little short skirt and a little short sweater. He ignored Mikey.

Or at least he
tried
to ignore her. “Yeah, but what is it?” Mikey asked. She figured out later that maybe she should have waited until he was alone; but since he was never alone, what was the point?

“Why do you want my number?” he asked.

“If I want to call you up. So what is it?”

“Umm,” he said. And then, “It's unlisted.” And then, “My parents don't want me giving it out.” Until finally she figured out that he didn't want to tell her.

And
that
was sort of embarrassing. But she refused to be discouraged. He just needed to get to know her better.

And she finally did find out his phone number. There weren't that many Macavitys in the phone book, so what she did was: Call each one until some man said, “Shawn's out. Who's this?”

Mikey hung up. Fast.

It was almost a relief to be at her mother's for the weekend. It was a breathing space, like the changeover time in a tennis match, when you can sit down and gather your resources, think, get back in gear so when you return to the court you can blast through whatever defenses the opposition tries against you. Mikey was ready for a little time-out, to focus her mind and formulate a game plan. Despite her mother's hot news item, that was what Mikey did.

As soon as she got home on Sunday afternoon, Mikey planned to telephone Shawn. But her father wanted to talk. Luckily, he didn't want to tell her much about the two dates he'd gone out on that weekend—to a movie on Friday evening (“Do you realize that according to Hollywood, I should be dating someone
your
age?”) and out to dinner on Saturday (“A bistro-style place, not as upmarket as the ones
your mother's dates take you to”)—with two women he'd asked out but probably wouldn't see again. “I don't know, there just wasn't anything going on between us, you know?” He didn't expect Mikey to know and didn't pay attention when she nodded her head, Yes, she did know.