Beyond Clueless (5 page)

Kirby snorted, and Derek returned fire at Jimmy—my cue to seek cover on the floor. Pretty soon Kirby, Derek, and Jimmy were in a full battle, with Jimmy screaming, “It was a
compliment
!” Meanwhile, I was lying on the floor near Oliver, giggling.

“Prince Charming’s not even a real role,” I muttered to Oliver. He sent some popcorn their way, then held out a protective arm over me as the other three suddenly joined forces and started pelting us mercilessly.

We were laughing pretty hard, but when we finally caught our breath, Jimmy said, “No, seriously—why don’t we all audition, too?”

Kirby pulled a sour face. “Uh, maybe because we have better things to do than schlep down to a Catholic girls’ school in Grantville? They’ll probably throw holy water on us to see if we melt.” He turned to me to add, “No offense.”

I threw up my hands and shrugged to show that no offense was taken.

But Jimmy had a look. I knew that look. It’s somewhere between crazed and crazy. When Jimmy gets an idea, no matter how harebrained, he gets very attached to it. “Marty, that’s a perfect way for us to spend more time together!”

“Jimmy, sweetie, didn’t we try something similar in fifth grade?” I raised my eyebrows as high as they would go, hoping he would read my thoughts. And my thoughts at the moment were: THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. DO NOT CONTINUE THIS LINE OF REASONING.

After a truly disastrous foray into theater in fifth grade
(an audition for
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
—trust me, you don’t want to hear about it), Jimmy had stayed far away from any of the drama stuff I did. I mean, other than seeing me perform, of course. But at the moment it seemed he was ignoring both the past as well as my elevated eyebrows.

“Oh, fifth grade, schmifth grade,” he replied, waving my objection away. “This is a genius idea! This way you’ll have company, too!”

He turned to Derek. So, you know when hostages are forced to say stuff on camera, and it’s super-obvious from their faces that they’re being forced to say it? That was Derek’s face at the moment.

“Sure! Sounds fun!” Derek finally said.

Oliver grinned. “Yeah, why not? Let’s do it! I mean, it could be fun!”

Aww, these guys were so nice! I didn’t know what to say. We all looked at Kirby.

“Well, you ladies do what you want,” Kirby said, shaking his head. “But I’m not going to join your merry band in Nunville. No way, José.”

T
he Tudor-style house was pretty impressive, with neatly trimmed topiary bushes lining the walkway up to the front door.

Ding-dong!

Click-click
.

Creeeak
.

“Hi, my name is Martha Sullivan. I, uh, go to school with Xiang. Um, I think she’s expecting me?”

The gray-haired Chinese man just looked at me, completely expressionless.

Tick
.

Tock
.

Tick
.

Tock
.

Xiang suddenly materialized, squeezed past her father, grabbed my hand, and pulled me away from the front door and down to my dad’s idling car. She looked amazing, with her hair down and wearing a sky-blue dress with a Peter Pan collar—I realized that I hadn’t seen anyone from Oaks wearing anything except the school uniform or our gym clothes. I suddenly felt self-conscious about my boring red T-shirt and jeans. Why did I still dress like Dora the Explorer? I
was almost fifteen, ferchrissake. That needed to change, and today was the perfect day to start.

“I’m so completely mortified. My dad is so weird,” she murmured.

“I know exactly how you feel,” I said, pointing to my waiting father—eyes closed, air-drumming the steering wheel to God-knows-which rock anthem. Xiang looked a little shocked.

I knocked on the windshield to bring Pops out of his reverie, then plopped myself into the passenger seat. Xiang slid into the back, extending her hand between me and my dad. He was busy doing some sort of head-banging thing, with no apparent sense of personal dignity or shame.

“Hello, Mr. Sullivan. My name is Xiang,” she said in a bright, high voice, smiling a flight-attendant smile. She really laid it on thick for adults, apparently.

Dad tried to shake her hand, but he used his left hand and ended up grasping her fingers instead. Yeah: awkward. I started thinking maybe this was all a mistake. I mean, there was a definite risk that Xiang would never speak to me again after meeting my dorky dad. He finally released her hand and turned down the music (Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as it turned out—no further comment necessary).

“Nice meeting you,” he said. “It’s great to see that our Marty is making friends at her new school.” I glared at him, using my (unfortunately feeble) psychic powers to try to shut him up. God, could he be more lame? I wanted to send Xiang some sort of physical signal, to make it crystal clear
that I was
not amused
by my dad, but she was busy rummaging in her purse.

She took out a tube of lipstick and started applying it as my dad peered at her through the rearview mirror. “Do your parents want you back by a certain time?”

Xiang made a pouty face. “Yeah, if I’m not back here by four, it’s likely the planet will explode.”

My dad smiled. “Rightee-oh. Then we’ll shoot for three thirty to be safe. I mean, we have seven billion lives to think of—it’s quite a responsibility!”

Groan.

Xiang moved on to applying mascara. “Um, thanks,” she said.

Needless to say, I couldn’t have been more relieved when the car finally pulled up to the mall entrance.

“Now, you girls be good. Marty, you got your cell?” I rolled my eyes and nodded. “Great. So I’ll see you at this entrance at three o’clock sharp, ’K? Oh, and remember what I said about talking to—”

“Bye, Dad!” And with that, the door was closed, and I was pulling Xiang away from the car. The giant glass doors to the mall mercifully slid apart, allowing us to get
away
from that man. I let out a heaving sigh.

Xiang, weirdly, couldn’t see how completely irritating my father was.

“Your dad is sooo nice,” she said. I had no idea what she was talking about—her parents must torture her with yodeling or electric forks or . . . something.

Then
she said, “And he is so cute!”

With those words, I spontaneously combusted into a mushroom cloud of fire all over the entrance of the mall, inflicting third-degree burns on a dozen nearby shoppers and melting several fake palm trees.

“
Excuse
me? You need help. Serious, long-term, psychiatric help.”

Xiang tossed her hair and smiled, apparently demonstrating that she was quite happy, thank you, to be mentally ill.

Whatever.

We headed straight for the food court—we were starving, and since we only had three hours to power-shop, we definitely needed to load up on calories. We snagged a table by the fountain, with excellent people-watching potential. Xiang offered to hold the table while I got the food.

“Um . . . could you get me . . . a seven-layer burrito from Taco Bell? With a Coke. Oh, and a pintos-and-cheese, too. And four mild sauces. Oh, heck, get me a Meximelt, too. I’m hungry enough.” Clearly, the girl wasn’t afraid to eat. I loved it.

But when I finally made it back, I nearly died of shock. Our table was crowded . . . with six boys! Xiang was holding court over the group, and I had to squeeze myself past them to put the tray onto the table.

Xiang grinned at me. “Oh, Marty—great! Thanks,” she said, but there was something weird about her voice; it was unnaturally babyish. “Let me introduce you to the guys!”

The
guys
? Like, her posse? Xiang is nothing if not full of surprises. First Jimmy and his “guys,” and now Xiang—what was going on?

“This is Tim, that’s Parker, Kevin, Chris, and Billy, and—ack, I forgot your name!”

A small, brown-haired fellow’s face flushed. “George.”

“George! Of course.” Xiang turned to me. “He’s in percussion, so we can’t really even see each other at rehearsal.”

Ohhhhhhhh. This was a Cleveland Youth Orchestra contingent. The world made sense again. They all looked like nice enough guys, but after a quick scan, I knew I wasn’t looking at my future husband among them. They all kind of looked the same, with similar shaggy haircuts and slouchy jeans—no sparks here. Damn.

Oh, well, back to the business at hand. Boy musicians or not, I had a date with a Chicken Soft Taco.

“Do you play an instrument?”

I looked up, mid-bite, at . . . let’s see, that would be . . . Chris? I shook my head, munching away.

Damn, that’s a good taco.

“Marty’s really into theater, though,” Xiang interjected. Her new voice was starting to drive me nuts. “She’s dragging me into joining the fall musical. We just haven’t figured out how, since I can’t do the onstage stuff, and I don’t really want to do the backstage stuff.”

Parker gave Xiang a quizzical look. “Well, why don’t you just join the orchestra?”

Xiang and I bolted up in our seats as if someone had
Tasered us. Then I sprayed Chicken Soft Taco everywhere as we burst out laughing.

DUH! Why hadn’t we thought of that before?

“Ohmigod, we are soooo dense,” Xiang groaned.

“What’s the show?” Parker asked.

“
Into the Woods
,” I answered, slurping my Coke.

Xiang gasped. “I know! You guys should all try out, too! I don’t know what kind of instruments they need, but I’m sure they need clarinets.”

Pause. Everyone just looked at Xiang.

She turned bright red and rushed to add, “Oh, and drums and violins and stuff. Lots of different instruments. Not just . . . well, whatever. I’ll find out which ones they need.” By the time she finished speaking, Xiang had somehow managed to hide her entire body behind her small cup of pintos-and-cheese.

Parker, too, had turned a shade or two redder. “Yeah, that sounds good. Well, we should go,” he said. “See you around.” He abruptly stood and walked away. The other boys trailed after him.

“Uh, what was that?” I asked. “What did I miss?”

Xiang peered out from behind the refried beans, then slowly unfolded herself back into three dimensions.

“I just . . . ugh!” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m
such
a complete idiot.”

Okaaaay . . . I guess that meant it was time for me to put down what was left of my Chicken Soft Taco. And I guess it was time for some Girl Talk, a skill I had never had the opportunity
to master. Would a lifetime of watching romantic comedies be enough to go on?

“Xiang, what’s wrong? What are you talking about?” I asked, tentatively rubbing her back.

“I just . . . well, it’s Parker. I think I . . . well, I don’t know. What do you think of him?”

“I, uh, I just met him,” I replied uncertainly. “He seems nice, and he’s cute, I guess.” I wasn’t sure what the correct answer was, but at least I got Xiang to nod, however sadly.

“So . . . I’m guessing he plays the clarinet?”

More sad nodding.

“And you like him?”

More sad nodding. (I’m awesome at Twenty Questions, by the way.)

“And this is a bad thing because . . . ?”

“My parents would totally, totally, totally freak out. He’s not Chinese. They think I’m too young to even be thinking about boys, that I need to focus on school, and that American guys . . . oh, what am I even talking about? Parker and me? That’s so far from happening, it’s not even funny.” She shook her head.

I rolled my eyes. Screw the sympathetic Girl Talk. “Xiang. Come on. Seriously. Get a grip. You wouldn’t be the first teenager in the world to date someone her parents didn’t approve of.”

I nudged her.

“Right?”

Another nudge. “Am I right?”

Xiang took a deep breath. “You’re right. You’re right, you’re right, you’re right. But whatever. I don’t even know if he likes me.”

I gave her a hard stare in response.

“OK, maybe I can sort of tell that maybe he possibly likes me.”

“Mmm. I thought so.” I bumped up against her.

Xiang shoved back, harder. I found myself throwing my hands out defensively, laughing.

“OK, OK, OK, no fighting. Oh, look, Parker’s coming back. Psych!”

Xiang shoved me again, and we finally settled down enough for me to finish my taco.

“Hurry up and eat,” I told her. “We don’t have that much time to shop.”

An hour later, I still hadn’t found anything that (a) looked cute, (b) fit, and (c) was even close to affordable. Seriously, it was like Maplewood Mall was conspiring against me, like it was some elaborate practical joke. Every time I saw a garment that seemed plausible as something I would
actually wear
, the store would be missing my size. Oh, but they would have it in another pattern—a totally hideous one.

Or, when the one I wanted actually did fit, the color would wash me out to the point of transparency. I swear, in some of those clothes, I could moonlight as an educational-science display, because you could totally trace my circulatory system.

Or, I’d have to sell my firstborn to be able to afford it. Seriously, were these skirts and dresses made of woven twenty-four-carat gold thread or something???