Charmed (4 page)

Chapter Twelve

Margaret corners me in front of the school as soon as Dillon pulls away in his Jeep, with Tuck sitting pretty in the front seat like he’s always been Dillon’s dog.

“Where have you been?”

“Dillon’s. You know that.”

Margaret rolls her eyes. Amanda is standing off to the side, pretending not to be listening. She’s so obvious.

“Why haven’t you been at school?”

I shrug. “I’m here now.”

She rolls her eyes again. She glances at Amanda. Amanda purses her lips.

“Yeah, but what about the last three weeks?”

“It hasn’t been that long!”

Amanda purses her lips tighter and adds an annoying rise to her eyebrows. She looks like she’s about to birth a toad out of her mouth. “Oh, yes it has.”

“Stay out of it, Amanda.” If I were someone different, I’d punch her prissy lights out right about now.

“We’re worried about you, Izzy.” Margaret’s expression is so sweet, I wish I could ignore the “we,” but I can’t.

“We?”

Margaret pales. “Well, of course Amanda is worried about you too. Right, Amanda?” Amanda nods so enthusiastically that I wouldn’t be surprised if her head fell right off and rolled into traffic.

“What the hell does she care?” I glare at Amanda. She smiles like I’m some kind of gimp to pity.

“Of course I care.” Amanda’s breath stinks. Good luck ever trying to find a man who’ll kiss that.

I shake my head. “I don’t need this crap.”

Margaret takes my hand. “Mrs. Singh’s been asking about you.”

“Did you give her my number?” If she did, I’ll kill her.

Margaret looks like I’ve slapped her. “How could I?” She lowers her voice, but that just makes Amanda perk up her ears. “You never gave it to me, Izzy.”

“Well, Margaret…” God, some friend I am. “You never asked.”

“Come on, Margaret.” Amanda backs away. “We’ve got to get to class.”

Margaret stares at me for a second and then follows Amanda inside.

It gets worse. Mrs. Singh takes me out of my first class and escorts me straight to her office. I actually love her office; it smells like oranges and cloves, and it’s decorated with Indian tapestries and rugs and shimmering blue and gold drapes. She is the first East Indian principal in the district, and only the third woman ever. Last year, the news was right into her and she gave television interviews in this office, dressed in her saris. My mom says she’s glamorous and smart, but what does that matter if you hate kids? Everybody knows she hates kids.

There’s a bowl of East Indian sweets on her desk, but you’re only allowed one if you’re in there because of something good. She takes one, tucking it into the corner of her mouth to speak. “Tell me, Izzy.”

“Tell you what?”

She rolls her hands in front of her. “Come on, tell me.” She has a real English accent mixed in with her East Indian accent. It sounds like a nice smell. She should work at some posh private school where everyone’s polite and wears uniforms, not this grungy hole. I wonder why she doesn’t?

“Okay, fine, Izzy.”

Fine, what?

“You leave me no choice.”

I sit up. I know where this is going, and I don’t like it one bit. “But I’ve been sick!”

She laughs. I can see the sweet at the back of her mouth.

“Is that right?”

I nod. My nice long polished nails find their way to my teeth. I start gnawing.

“I’ll be honest with you, Izzy. I don’t believe you. Not even one little bit.”

I shrug.

“I’m suspending you for three days.”

“But I just got back!”

“Over the next three days, I want you to think seriously about the direction of your life. Come to me first thing Thursday morning and we will make a plan together.”

“For what?”

“One plan for you to stay in school and another plan to deal with your drug problem. The two plans will work together.”

“News flash, lady. I don’t have a drug problem!”

Mrs. Singh pushes the bowl of sweets to me. Maybe they’re for lost-hope cases too. I don’t want one now, even though the licorice smell makes my mouth water.

“That will be all, Miss McAfferty.” She pops another sweet into her mouth. “I will see you first thing Thursday morning. In the meantime, your job is to think hard about where you want to go in life and how you will get there.”

Margaret is waiting for me in the hall.

“What happened?”

“Leave me alone, Margaret.” I beeline for the front doors, hoping to make it outside before I start to cry. I’ve never been suspended before. It feels awful, worse than getting caught stealing. Margaret runs along beside me.

“Tell me what happened!”

I push out the front doors; she’s still following me.

“Look, Margaret, buzz off, okay? Go find your girlfriend.”

Margaret folds her arms. “You’re being mean, Izzy.”

“And you’re just plain immature. Grow up a bit, and then maybe we’ll have something in common. In the meantime, go play tea party and dolls with Amanda.”

Margaret slowly backs away, turning at the last moment before she disappears inside. I stand on the sidewalk, stuck. I want to run after her and apologize, but I also just want to run away and never see her again. I stand there until Mrs. Singh comes out with her coat on, a purple scarf at her throat. She’s carrying a briefcase, her car keys in the other hand.

“Is there a problem, Izzy?”

That seems like such a simple question, yet I don’t have even the start of an answer. I shake my head and start walking toward Dillon’s place. He’ll make it all better. He’ll know what to do.

Chapter Thirteen

Dillon says I’m crazy not to think that being suspended is great.

“Three days off? Enjoy them!”

He’s mad about my chewed-up nails though. We go over to Barrel’s house so Kitty can fix them. More people come over, and soon it’s a party and I don’t care that we’re at Big Bad Barrel’s because I’m having a great time. His place is so much nicer. It’s a whole house and the stereo is huge and there’s lot’s of comfy places to curl up and chill out when I get tired of dancing. Dillon likes it when I dance. All the guys like it. There are lots of guys.

“Get her to dance again!” That’s Martin. He always wears a suit. He keeps nipping into the bathroom. I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling. We all know he’s doing drugs in there. He’s not very good at sharing.

Dillon pulls me off the couch. It’s dark outside. We’ve been here all day. I feel like my wineglass is welded to my hand. It keeps getting filled and emptied and filled and emptied. I’m doing the emptying, but I don’t know who’s doing the filling.

Dillon stands me up in the middle of the room. I teeter a little, but try not to. It’s these high heels. I take them off and throw them at Martin because he’s looking at me funny. He catches them and laughs.

That’s better. Not so tippy. I want to seem like I can handle myself. I don’t want to look like some drunken floozy mess, even though that’s exactly what I am at the moment. Oh well. You live once, right?

Dillon lifts my arms over my head and Martin pulls my shirt off. I’m wearing one of the black push-up bras. Martin wolf-whistles. I drape my arms over Dillon’s shoulders, but he pushes me away.

“No, babe. By yourself.”

Barrel turns up the stereo and I dance, spinning and spinning until I feel sick. I lunge for the bathroom, but Martin’s in there again. I puke on Barrel’s brand-new leather chair, the one that matches the couch and the stool. Barrel calls it an ottoman, just to sound posh.

I try to wipe it off, but Barrel sees. I wait for him to come and give me hell. He comes over, but doesn’t rough me up at all. He rubs my back.

“I’ll just add that to the tab.” He winks and walks away.

I wish he’d come back and rub my back some more. I call for Dillon. Maybe he’ll come and rub my back. Kitty tells me he left.

“With Erin.”

That skank from the mall? I lurch to the front door. Tuck and Dillon and the Jeep are gone. I crawl upstairs and fall asleep on an enormous, soft bed. It’s just getting light out when I wake up. Martin is asleep beside me. His suit is still on, but his fly is open. I’m sure nothing happened. But I’m naked, so I’m not that sure. If anything did happen, it’s my fault for being such a drunken slut. I pull on my skirt and bra. I can’t find my underwear. Bad sign. Where’s my shirt?

I find my shirt and my shoes in the living room. Kitty is asleep on the couch, spooned with a skinny man with a goatee. I think he was the one that brought out the coke. I didn’t do any, I don’t think. I wonder where Barrel is?

It’s snowing, great big fat flakes. They’re melting when they land, but it’s too cold to go back to Dillon’s like this. I take a sweater from the floor. I think it’s Kitty’s. I’ll give it back. I pass the leather chair I puked on. It’s badly stained.

I walk across town in my teetery heels. Some jerk-off in a pickup slows beside me and offers me a ride. I know what he’s after. I’m not that stupid. If only Dillon was here.

“My boyfriend would beat the crap out of you if he was here.” I look at his license plate, but my head’s too foggy to remember the number.

“Oh, your boyfriend, huh?” The man is older than Barrel, close to Rob’s age. He looks familiar, but maybe that’s because all slobby creeps look the same.

“Yeah. That’s right, my boyfriend.”

He laughs. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.” He drives off. I give him the finger.

Do I still have a boyfriend? Did I cheat on him? He wouldn’t dump me for scabby-faced Erin, would he?

I stand outside Dillon’s door for a minute before I knock. He hasn’t given me a key yet. He keeps forgetting to get another one cut. There’s no answer. Maybe he’s not there. His Jeep isn’t. Or maybe he’s just pretending not to be there. Maybe he’s in there with Erin. I pound harder. No answer.

“Tuck?” If he’s in there, I’ll at least hear his tags jingle. I whistle. “Here, boy!”

Nothing.

I have nowhere else to go, so I go home and wait in the shed until Rob finally leaves. I go in through the basement window that doesn’t lock. I have a hot shower and then make myself the biggest meal I’ve had since I moved in with Dillon: bacon, eggs, toast and a stack of pancakes drenched with syrup and butter. I page Dillon every ten minutes or so. He doesn’t call. He’s dumped me. I know it. I don’t blame him. I wait for Rob to come home and plan how I’ll beg to be allowed to stay.

Chapter Fourteen

Rob freaks out that I’m even in the house at all, so no, I’m not allowed to stay. He says I should be happy he’s not going to call the cops and have me arrested for break and enter. He says when I do come back with the money I stole, I damned well better bring his dog back too. That’s going to be harder than getting together two hundred dollars. I can’t imagine Dillon giving up Tuck. They go everywhere together now.

I go to the mall and page Dillon a million times. He never calls. I go back to Barrel’s. Thank God only Kitty and another couple of girls are there. She says Barrel and Dillon took Erin to Kelowna to work. Personally, I think Erin would make a really bad drug mule. She seems stunned most of the time. I think she’s into heroin, but I don’t want to know, so I don’t ask. There are marks on her arms, though. If I find out Dillon ever slept with her, I’ll make him get tested for STDs. Mind you, if anything happened with me and that Martin creep, I should probably get tested too. Oh, so gross.

Kitty’s letting me stay until Dillon and Barrel get back. She lends me some pajamas and we stay in all day and watch soap operas and talk shows. The other girls sleep all day and only come downstairs on their way out after dark.

“Where are they going?” It’s snowing harder and is sticking to the ground now.

“Work.”

“Where do they work?”

Kitty rolls her eyes. “At an all-night dry cleaners, you idiot.”

How was I supposed to know that? Kitty says I can sleep in the big bed, but that’s the one I woke up with Martin in and it gives me the creeps. I sleep on the couch in the living room instead.

In the morning, I get cleaned up for my meeting with Mrs. Singh. I get almost to the front doors of the school before it dawns on me. The school is very closed.

I actually think this: Why would Mrs. Singh tell me to meet her on Thursday if she knew full well that there was no school today? I actually think this too: Does Mrs. Singh really hate kids that much?

Only the doors to the gym are open. A woman is shouting over some canned music.

“And one! And two!”

I peek in. It’s an exercise class. Oh my God, there’s Margaret! She’s sweating. The fat on her thighs jiggles. Those shorts are too short, really. Amanda is beside her, slender and really very coordinated, I have to say. The rest of the class is all fat women, including the instructor. She’s at the front, her back to the mirrored wall. Amanda catches sight of me in the mirror. She locks eyes with me and doesn’t miss a step. I wait for her to poke Margaret. I wait for Margaret to come and tell me off in that reassuring, self-righteous way that she has. Amanda smiles like an ice queen and looks away. Margaret is busy trying to keep up. She doesn’t look away from the instructor, not even once. I back away.

There’s a sign on the bulletin board beside the door. “Saturday morning fat-to-fit classes 8-10 am.” Saturday? It absolutely cannot be Saturday.

Kitty confirms it. The party lasted three days, didn’t I know that? I ask her how I ended up sharing a bed with Martin.

“Oh, you mean Reg.”

“Is that his name? The guy in the suit?”

“No, Reg was the one wearing black track pants.”

“Martin,” I say. “The guy in the suit.” But I can almost remember a pair of black track pants. There were snaps down the sides. I push the memory out of the way. “His name is Martin.”

“Oh, him. Uh, hey…” Kitty pours milk into a pot and puts it on to heat. “I think the guys will be back tomorrow.”

I hope she doesn’t mean Martin and the track pants guy. “Dillon?”

She nods. She takes out a big ceramic bowl and dumps a bag of flour in it.

“What are you doing?” I know she’s changed the subject from the party. She probably doesn’t want to embarrass me. I’m okay with that, especially because I don’t want to know about me and Reg, if there is anything to know about me and Reg. So long as Dillon never knows about any of it. Not that anything actually happened. At least, I hope not. If it did, I pray Martin was too screwed up to remember. As for this Reg guy, I’m just going to pretend Kitty never even brought him up.

“I’m making bread.” She adds the hot milk to the flour, yeast and sugar.

“For Barrel?”

She laughs. “No. For myself.”

I imagine Kitty learned to make bread from her mother, or maybe her grandmother. I imagine them speaking Chinese together in the kitchen. I imagine Kitty as a little girl in Chinese slippers and a satin quilted jacket, standing on a chair, beaming up at her beautiful mother.

“Are you making Chinese bread? The kind your mother made?”

“My mother make bread?” Kitty laughs again. “No, I learned it from a book.”

For some reason that makes me so sad I almost cry. We watch TV while the dough rises, and then more TV when the bread is baking. My mouth waters when she takes it out of the oven. We sit on the counter and wait for it to cool a little, and then we eat the whole loaf, slathering on butter and apricot jam.

When the other girls wake up and come downstairs, they say we’ll get fat from all that bread. They pour themselves cups of coffee and take them with them when a car pulls up out front and honks its horn.

“Why do they dress like that if they work at a dry cleaners?”

Kitty lets me have the last piece of bread. She shakes her head.

“Honey, they don’t work at a dry cleaners. I was being sarcastic. They’re hookers.”

I wait a little too long before I answer, so I doubt she believes me.

“I knew that.” I just can’t bear to admit that I was that naïve. I can’t believe I called Margaret immature when I’m such a stupid baby myself! “I knew they were hookers. I was just being funny.”

“You and Dillon should have a talk when he comes home.”

“A talk about what?” Maybe he knows about Martin already. Maybe one of the girls told him. Maybe Kitty knows something I don’t know. Maybe Martin paid for me. Maybe Reg did. Maybe there were more! I tell myself it’s about the leather chair. The other girls moved it onto the porch because it stank. It’s even more ruined now that it got snowed and rained on.

“You ever heard of roofies?” Kitty says.

I shake my head.

“It’s a date-rape drug.” She cleans up the mess on the table like she’s talking about the weather and not about something scary. “I think someone put it in your drink. How else can you explain losing three whole days?”

I can’t go to the cops. Dillon would be furious. No one would believe me. It probably wasn’t that at all. It was just stupid me, being a drunken skank. I deserved it. From now on, though, I’ll make sure I know who’s topping up my drink.

“Nothing happened.”

“You’re probably right,” Kitty says.