Kasey Screws Up the World (3 page)

I wasn’t sure if I admired her ability to transcend embarrassment or was jealous of her composure while my hands shook like I’d just come out of a really cold pool.

Dad stepped forward and put his arm around the boys, their photograph still dangling from his fingertips. “You know—” Dad’s leg jerked forward, and I could tell by Lara’s stoic expression that she had just kicked him in the shin. “What! There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. The girls thought you were cute.”

My mouth flopped open and the shorter boy smiled at me. Not at Lara.
Me
. Maybe he needed his eyes checked.

I wanted to jump off the ship. I grabbed Lara’s arm and pulled her down the hall. After a couple feet, she twisted around to wave at the boys, but they were already gone. “Didn’t you think they were cute?” she asked.

“Yeah. They were. But Dad—”

She leaned in conspiratorially. “I know. We’ll ditch him after dinner.”

“I’m sure they’ll love me and my unavoidable silent treatment.” I lowered my voice, now paranoid they would pop up again unexpected while we were talking about them. The last time I tried to talk to a boy at a party Denise had dragged me to, I couldn’t remember my name…or how to make words come out of my mouth. Needless to say, when a guy thought you didn’t know how to use your lips for speaking, he generally wasn’t interested in using them for kissing either.

“Just let me do the talking.” She must have seen my face because she chuckled and touched her fingers to my cheek. “Kidding. I’ll help you.”

During dinner, Lara kept leaning in to whisper boy tips, something I’d been begging her to do all year, but she was always too busy with her extra dance rehearsals. “Keep a smile on your face. If you’re too shy, play it off like you’re someone with a lot of secrets. It’ll make you intriguing.” She spooned soup into her mouth while our parents gabbed about something boring. “Oh, and I know Dad’s jokes are cheesy…”

We both glanced in his direction, then regretted it. Soup dribbled from his chin.

“But you’re funny, Kase. Use it to your advantage. Be witty. Boys like that.”

I was on information overload. Her advice seemed to contradict. Be quiet, yet witty. Smile, but remain mysterious.

As I ate my dinner—and the other dinner I ordered just because I could—I couldn’t stop thinking about that boy who had noticed me. And I realized he had nailed her advice with his mysterious smile.

After dinner, Lara and I made our way to the lounge for the Broadway-style review, a show boasting dance medleys similar to those Lara belonged in and I wished I did.

“Look!” Lara squeezed my arm. “There they are.” She waved at the boys from the photo and they changed directions to veer down the glittering hallway toward us. “Boys, you need to stop following us. Two words: restraining order.” She giggled in that flirty way of hers.

I stepped behind her, trying to bend down out of sight, hoping this was what Lara meant by “mysterious.” I knew, without looking up, that the boy who had smiled at me was now standing next to me. A shadow on the floor in the shape of a hand waved at me.

“You should probably arrest us then. Got any handcuffs?” The tall boy winked. If I weren’t so impressed by his guts, I’d have written off the wink as cheesy. He stepped close to Lara, so close the toes of his black Chucks touched her red heels.

Lara encircled his wrist with her index finger and thumb. “You have the right to remain silent.” The two of them giggled. As I rolled my eyes, I caught the smiley boy matching my expression.

“I’m Lara, by the way.” She nudged me out of her shadow with her hip, forcing both boys to stare at me.

“Uh…” I looked to her for help. She nodded encouragingly. “Kasey,” I squeaked. I took remembering my own name as an accomplishment.

“I don’t know, I would have gone with something more fun if I were going to lie. Like Bambi.” The smiley boy invaded my personal space to let a few people pass through the crowded hallway. My natural instinct was to step back and give him more room, but I used up a week’s worth of will power to remain in place. “I’m Finn. Or Odysseus, depending on who I’m talking to,” he whispered practically in my ear before stepping back a few inches. “And God’s gift to women over there is Hayden.”

Hayden shrugged one shoulder in a nonchalant way that showed he agreed with his brother’s assessment. People trying to get a seat at the show pushed past us, some giving us disgusted looks for blocking the entrance.

“We should probably get to the show.” Oh sure,
now
my mouth decided to participate.

“You over eighteen?” Hayden asked and Lara nodded while I shook my head. “We’re going to check out the dance club. You in?”

“Yes!” Lara shouted before Hayden even finished. “You just said the magic word.” She pulled my torso toward her, but my feet didn’t budge. “Kasey, come on. Let’s see if these boys can keep up with us on the floor.”

My pulse thumped in my ears and not to a beat I could dance to. I was fine dancing on my own or in a group where no one focused on only me. But around Lara? She had sucked up all the talent genes when she was in the womb, leaving me only the half-assed leftovers. I had Finn’s attention for some weird reason, if he saw us on the dance floor, I was sure to lose it. It had happened before. There’s a reason I used to spend most of my time at parties clinging to the wall with a drink in my hand instead of grinding with cute boys like my sister.

Finn nudged my shoulder. “I was going to try and sneak in using Hayden’s ID. You can try with your sister’s.”

I didn’t see how a pass-back would work. Lara looked nothing like me. Taller, thinner, and with an oval face, she stretched out to perfect proportions while my body squashed like a coiled slinky. And that wasn’t even taking into account Lara’s dyed red hair. Hayden and Finn could easily pass for each other, as long as Finn perfected a smoldering look and left the smile at home.

“Come on, Kase, please,” Lara pleaded.

I didn’t want to ruin her night. Not when having mine ruined by a boy ditching me was a pretty standard Saturday night occurrence for me. My feet unglued from their spot and carried me down the hallway. Lara let go of my hand so she could power-walk ahead with Hayden. Even her elbows moved gracefully in sync with her steps, the lines of her body perfectly formed. I had to remind myself not to slouch.

Finn and I hung back to separate ourselves from our siblings, checking out the moon hovering outside a large window, its reflection quivering on the rippled water below. I couldn’t make out a single wave in the dark sea. I opened my mouth to speak, but then quickly shut it. I had nothing interesting to say.

He broke the silence. “So, you a dancer too?”

I wanted to say yes, but I remembered Lara’s advice. Keeping quiet made me mysterious. It also avoided promises. “Pretty sure if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

His lips quirked into a devilish smirk. “Oh, so we’re playing that game.”

We reached the nightclub where Lara and Hayden waited in line. Off to the side of the exit, we sat on plush velvet chairs. That way we could see when Hayden came out of the club.

“So you think we’re cute, huh?”

“I was hoping you would forget about that.” The thump of the bass echoed around us, loudest inside my brain. Or maybe it was just my heartbeat.

He threw his head back and laughed, raspy and just plain adorable. “I think it’s cute.” He stared straight into my eyes. “I think you’re cute.”

My cheeks burned hotter. Another degree and I’d have to start fanning myself. “Well, at least we’re in agreement.”

His eyebrows shot up his forehead. “So you think you’re cute too? Conceited much!”

“No! That’s not what I meant.” I tried to think about what Lara would say and nearly cringed when the answer came to me. A deep breath forced the words out. “I think you’re cute.”

“Just wanted to hear you say it.”

I crinkled my nose. “Fell right into that one, didn’t I?”

“Pretty much. I’ll keep that in my mental file.” He pretended to write on his hand. “Kasey is easily manipulated and gullible.”

“Hey!”

Finn leaned forward in his chair. “My file is pretty lacking.” He held up his hand as evidence. “So tell me…who are you?”

A dancer
. The words waited on my tongue but refused to come out. “A city girl,” I said, unsure how to define myself other than telling him I was a senior in high school. When Lara told people she was from New York City, it usually explained everything. “Your turn,” I said. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—drag my attention away from him to check if Lara and Hayden had gone into the club.

“Sorry, that information is confidential.”

“What do I have to do to be in the know?” I tilted my head toward him. Finn was so easy to talk to. He brought out a side of me I never knew existed. And then I realized what it was. Flirting. Lara’s advice was working.

“Well, there’s a secret code. And it’s pretty hard to crack.”

“So I just need to ask your parents?”

He gripped the sides of his chair. “Wow, Kasey. You’re smart. No one else figured it out. Okay, I’ll tell you what you want to know. Shoot.”

“I don’t know. Hobbies? Likes, dislikes?” I paused and took a deep breath, working up courage. “Girlfriend?”

“Yes, yes, yes, and no.”

“Only one of those was a yes or no question.”

“Yes, I do have hobbies. Yes, I do have likes and dislikes. And the last question was a no. But it’s not a hard no. It can be changed with a little persuasion.”

My heart thumped wildly. Was Finn discreetly asking me to be his girlfriend after only spending ten minutes with me? Lara would have acknowledged what he said with a witty comeback. My natural instinct was to cause a diversion and hope he forgot the topic of conversation. I nodded toward the door. “Hayden’s coming back.”

Hayden headed toward us, twisting Lara’s ID in his hands. I felt a smile cross my face. Finn grinned in return, and I told myself I was smiling because of him. Not because of the possibility of being Lara, even if only for a moment.

Displaying 2 out of 2 comments.

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Kasey
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LUNCH USED TO BE easy. Denise and I would pull over extra chairs to join the other dance team girls at a large table in the center of the room, where we’d be in prime view of everyone else. The perfect spotlight. Now, I only wanted to disappear.

I was able to avoid the embarrassment yesterday due to the first day of school being a half-day. But unless I wanted to be anorexic, I couldn’t delay it anymore. I set my lunch down at a half empty table near the front of the cafeteria and turned my head to say hello to the kids at the other end, as if I knew them. They were too busy flicking a folded paper triangle across the table in some sort of make shift hockey game. That was probably the best I was going to get.

I pulled out my sandwich, a ziplock of celery, and a bottle of water, but when I reached my hand into the paper bag again, nothing came out. I turned the bag upside down and shook it. Only air left inside. Something hard settled into my chest.