Ditched (2 page)

Where are you, Ian Clark?

Then music. It’s blaring through outdoor speakers, which seems odd this early in the morning. There’s no one to listen to it because there are no customers. Except for me.

The bel rings as the sliding glass door opens and a gush of stale air-conditioned air rushes over me. Country music blasts through the indoor speakers, too.

“Need something?”

The cashier stares at my shoes. My two-and-three-quarter-inch heels are covered in dirt and mud—the same ones I had proudly dyed iridescent royal blue just two days ago. But that was before I found out
nobody
dyes their shoes to match their dress anymore. And before I realized listening to the advice of a relative—not my best friend and not an enlightened editor of a prom magazine—was an unwise idea.

Thank you, Mom.

It makes sense that the cashier would stare. I’m guessing not too many girls waltz into the 7-Eleven at 6:15 on a 9

Sunday morning wearing heels that match their shimmering iridescent blue dress, looking like they’d just lost a match with a vindictive sewer rat.

“Got any Snickers?” My voice is weak.

Her eyes drift up to mine. She softens. She must notice my extreme lack of lip gloss. “You hungry?” She looks over my shoulder, probably to see if I am alone.

“Very.”

She is wearing high-waisted jeans (
very
high-waisted), a belt with a large silver buckle, and a long-sleeve white shirt tucked tightly into her jeans. Her ultra-long hair is pul ed back in a perfect French braid—total y symmetrical—with hints of gray peeking through. She looks like she belongs in a music video for the country song playing over the speakers.

Like she’d play the part of the consoling wise aunt who doles out good obvious advice:
Stop drinkin’ and smokin’ and gettin’

so many abortions, honey!

I can already tel I like her.

She reaches into a box in front of the counter and lays a jumbo-size Snickers on the counter. I was right—there real y is kindness in the world. I glance at her name tag. “Thanks, Gilda.”

I give her a big smile and reach for the candy bar.

“That’s $1.09,” she says.

“I . . . I . . .” I can’t believe Gilda isn’t going to take some pity on me and give me the damn candy bar! Do I look like a monster? She’s the one with pants pul ed up to her boobs!

10

She’d never be cast in a music video. Actors are
nice
. Which clearly, she is
not
.

I keep my mouth shut about her il -fitting clothes and lack of human decency, and pat my dress down as if my purse wil suddenly appear. But it’s gone and I have no idea where I left it. Of course al my money is in there. And my lip gloss.

And those directions to Lurch’s party. The one Ian and I were supposed to go to the next night. He said he wanted us to go do something fun, just to make sure there wasn’t any weirdness after the prom. He even said
weirdness
with air quotes, like I didn’t know what it meant. I had hoped

“weirdness” referred to al the making out we were going to do—so I guess I didn’t know what it meant.

I had no idea “weirdness” to him meant actual weirdness.

Dang it.

But in thinking over what happened last night, I have to say, “weirdness” was an understatement of epic proportion.

Unreasonably huge . . . an understatement that is Hummer huge. Because Lurch’s party—and especial y the excessive making-out part—is
never
going to happen.

Which is a pity. Lurch always has the best parties.

“I don’t have any money.” My voice cracks. It sounds pitiful. Like someone you might even want to take mercy on. But it doesn’t sway Gilda.

Gilda places the Snickers back in its box. Then she looks me up and down and tilts her head. “You need a phone or something?”

11

“Yes! Where?” I feel like a Jack Russel terrier—yippy, anxious.

“Out back. By the hoses. Fifty cents a cal .” I’m not exactly sure why she thinks I can suddenly come up with fifty cents if I couldn’t afford the Snickers. “Thanks.” I wince at her and secretly think about spraying her down with one of those hoses and wiping that unsupportive smirk right off her face. But al I real y want is to get home, so I retreat and hobble back through the sliding glass doors, across the parking lot.

The pay phone is
right
next to the hoses, just like Mean-Ass Gilda said, and I have to hike up my disgusting dress to get around them. I’m not sure why I care about saving my dress from any further grossness. This is absurd.

As I step up to the phone, I hear a car—the rattling, knocking sound of a diesel engine. I whip around, hoping it’s Ian, but deep down knowing that he’s never coming to get me. A man pul s up in a Mercedes to pump gas. His car is old, just like Ian’s, but it’s a coupe, not a sedan. He doesn’t even notice me. Good.

I start to read the directions on the pay phone, but the words turn blurry. I can feel the tears gaining momentum—I press my temples with my palms, trying my best to contain them.

Get it together. You’ve gotten this far without fal ing apart.

My pep talk starts to work—the tears dry up and I glance back at the building to see Gilda planted at the window, 12

glaring at me with her arms folded, standing firm like a redwood tree. She must think I’m going to steal these hoses.

Gilda might be the type who takes her job too seriously.

I quickly turn back and finish reading the directions on how to make a col ect cal . I’ve never made one and it looks complicated.

I dial wrong three times, but then final y push al the right buttons in the right order and the phone rings.

Come on, Mom. Pick up.

“You’ve reached the Griffith residence. Please leave a message. . . .”

I can’t believe this. She’s stil asleep. Doesn’t she know I’m not there? No, this can’t be right. Maybe she’s out on a hunt with the police. They’re probably using drug-sniffing dogs and everything. Given the people I’ve been hanging out with the past few hours, those drug dogs wil sniff me out in two shakes of a spleef. Should be rescued any moment now. . . .

But I try the col ect cal one more time. “You’ve reached the Griffith residence . . .”

Crap! This can’t be happening. She’s asleep. She doesn’t even know Ian just ruined my life. I never wanted to go to this stupid prom at that stupid hotel. I told him that: I like running, not dancing. I like veggie burritos, not rubbery hotel chicken. And definitely not rubbery hotel salad. But he convinced me that prom would be different. It would be a night I would never forget, and he promised I’d love the food. Wel , he was sure as hel right about one thing: I will 13

never
forget this. But the food? I’m freaking starving.

Al of a sudden, I can’t hold the tears back anymore, my eyes feeling like the Colorado River after a spring melt—the flow just keeps coming. No pep talk can fix this. I fal to the ground, sobbing.
Why me, Ian? Why couldn’t you have—

“Eat this.”

There’s a tap on my shoulder. Gilda drops a Snickers on my lap.

She reaches out and gives me a hand, helping me to my feet. “Here.” It’s a scratchy paper towel from the bathroom—

she motions to the tears flowing freely down my face, and I wish she had brought more scratchy towels.

I try to explain, not real y sure what to say, and the words come out as a blubbering mess. “Why did you . . . Are you—”

“You look like you could use a snack. That’s al .” She leads me back to the store. “Come inside. We’l figure out what to do with you.”

I knew there was kindness in the world. Sometimes I guess you have to turn into the Colorado Snot River before someone shows it, but I’m just relieved to know it’s there.

Gilda pul s a stool up to the end of the counter and lets me sit while I scarf down my candy bar. She takes a plastic to-go bag and fil s it with ice from the soda machine, then spins the bag to close it and hands it to me. “What happened to you, anyway?”

I hold the ice to the knot on my head.
Ouch!

She waits a moment. “So?”

14

I look down at my dress. “You mean the stains?” She nods. “And the scratches and the bruises and the bump on the head and the new tattoo.”

I shake my head. “I know. So cliché to go to prom and end up with a tattoo, right?”

“That’s your
prom
dress?”

“It looked better without the filth.”

Her face is blank. “It’s just al so . . .
matching
. I thought maybe you’d been in a play. Or a pride parade.” I almost laugh—like she even knows what a pride parade is, but I don’t feel a need to educate her on this matter. “Nope.

Mom’s idea.”

“You didn’t get a friend’s opinion?”

I shake my head. “Didn’t even read a magazine. I just wanted to impress him—”

“With your matching skil s?”

“Color. But Mom dressed me exactly the way she did at her own prom . . . secondhand dress, dyed shoes, matching purse.” I lower my head. “It’s not like I’m proud of this.” Of course I would much rather be wearing my regular clothes: al -black everything, as Ian cal s them. True, I only wear black: black shirt, black jeans, black boots, every day, without fail. Because no one asks questions. They just assume I’ve gone to the dark side—and lately that would not be too far from the truth.

But I get wild sometimes—with my nail polish. Black Cherry.

15

Gilda gives me a look like she’s in pain—physical pain.

“You mean you let your
mother
dress you the same way she dressed for prom?”

She must not have a daughter. Otherwise she’d understand how hard it is for a mother to let her daughter just “be.” At least for
my
mother. I consider explaining this to her, but I figure I should zip it and be thankful for the Snickers. Plus, the rush of chocolate is calming me down, and the balance of blood sugar suddenly makes me a much more reasonable person. Unlike most of last night.

I shrug. “Mom’s eager face—there’s no escaping it.” Gilda scratches her hair, digging in delicately with her long red fingernails, being careful not to mess up a braid. I can tel she wants to let loose with some sort of hand-flailing lecture on being myself and not letting my mother’s eager face control my life, but al she says is, “Huh.”

“Look, if I had known my dress was going to cause this much pain, I would’ve worn a sleeping bag. No . . . I wouldn’t have gone at al .” I take another bite of my Snickers and swal ow hard.

“So why did you go?”

Of course that’s when his face pops into my mind.

And al the amazing things he said to convince me to go to prom.

“Ian Clark,” I say, as if that explains everything. But she doesn’t know him. How could she understand his powers of persuasion?

16

Gilda looks around the store. “But Ian Clark isn’t here now. Did he do something bad?”

“Yeah. Very bad.”

“Did he—”

“Hurt me?” I ask, because, looking at me, I’d wonder too.

She wrinkles her nose. I can tel she doesn’t want to ask, but she knows she should. “Did he?”

“No, no. He ditched me.” I adjust the ice pack on my forehead. The pain is lessening. I’m starting to think more clearly. “I was ditched. Figuratively and literal y.”

“He sounds like a real jerk.”

I twitch. That word:
jerk
. It confuses my nervous system because my body wants to react with my first instinct . . .

defend him.

Because even though
jerk
is the only word I can imagine to describe him now, it’s not a word that ever entered my mind as being synonymous with Ian Clark. Ever.

I have always known
of
him—Huntington High isn’t huge and it’s the type of place where everyone’s business is just known. It’s almost as if we’re all distant relatives—

people you’ve heard of and you know their basic story—or the Lifetime movie version of their story—but you don’t
really
know them, and sometimes don’t want to.

Ian became more than a person I knew basic facts about back in sophomore year, spring quarter, P.E.: softbal . I remember my first words to him. “Have you seen that silver bat around?”

17

He turned and walked off on me. Sorta rude. But then he popped back into my vision a moment later, the bat in hand. “Silver bat’s my favorite too.” He gave it to me, but not in just some ordinary handing-over-of-a-bat type of way.

He flipped it around in a highly coordinated maneuver and presented it to me, handle first. Just to make it that much easier for me. “Whack it good,” he said with a little smile.

I struck out.

But I stuffed that little moment away in my mind—

the importance of it seeming like something that needed to be noted, filed, remembered. I now knew Ian Clark was a handle-first kind of guy. Why did this matter to me?

But time passed and the silver bat always seemed to be around and I couldn’t think of any other questions to ask him.

So I didn’t. And that memory started to fade. Ian remained merely an unexamined file in my brain.

Until last summer. The pool party.

Gilda opens up a bag of gummy bears and chews the head off of one, then hands a piece to me, an indication she’s ready for the story. “Why’d you go with this guy?” I twirl the gummy bear in my fingers. “Operation Lips Locked.”

“What type of operation is that?”

Breathe in. Breathe out. Here we go.

“It’s the type where you get ridiculed at Jimmy DeFranco’s pool party for hooking up with two different guys even though it was accidental because one of them was a dare 18

and one of them was due to drinking too many Jägermeister shots—him, not me—and get publicly humiliated when those two guys claim it was much more than kissing—which is al you remember happening—but the glares from people you hardly know pierce your skin and jab your heart, so you declare to your best friend you are never
ever
going to kiss another boy again until you know deep in your bones, in your marrow, in your cel structure—one hundred percent—that he is boyfriend material.”