"Yeah. Actually you have to. It's couples only. Sorry Hannah, I guess that leaves you out." From the corner of my eye, I saw Amy smile at the girl with the long red hair.
Sorry my ass
. Amy's insincerity shone like a traffic light.
"Oh I'll be there," Hannah replied. "Derek called me, like, half an hour ago. He misses me
sooo
much. He practically begged to come over tonight. You
know
he wants to get back together."
I froze, holding a pencil so tight I was surprised it didn't snap.
"What did you tell him?" Amy asked.
"I left him hanging," Hannah said. "I'm gonna tell him he can, of course. But I'll let him sweat it out a while longer."
Derek wasn't exactly a unique name. It could totally be a different Derek.
"God, Hannah, don't wait too long," Ashley said. "Some other girl will be all over that."
"Did you see he got a tattoo?" Hannah asked. "Fucking sexy."
I swallowed, hard.
Probably the same Derek
. Mechanically, I went back to putting school supplies in the bags and shoving them down the table at Amy and company. I was a faster worker than they were. About fifty bags were piled in front of Amy. None of the girls had even noticed that I'd stopped working briefly. I shot a glance over at them with each bag that I stuffed.
Amy had an interested look on her face. "A tattoo? No, I didn't know. What's it of?"
"A four leaf clover, on his neck," Hannah said.
Definitely the same Derek.
"On the back of his neck, like a girl?"
Hannah scowled at Amy. "Of course not. It's on the side, like he's not afraid of anyone seeing it."
"What's it mean?" Ashley asked.
"Mean?" Hannah replied, confused. "It's not like it's a Chinese symbol or something. It doesn't mean anything."
Amy took one of the pencils out of the bags and tapped the eraser against her teeth, then shrugged one shoulder. "You know Hannah, it's probably just a booty call."
"No way." Hannah said, shaking her head vehemently. "You should have heard him. I'm his whole world. He wouldn't even look at another girl." She flipped her long red hair over her shoulder and put her hand on her hip. "Yeah, I'll take him back, but he's gonna squirm first. After that, if he wants to tap this ass, I'm all in."
Hannah shook her hips and all three of the girls laughed. I don't know what the look on my face was, but it couldn't have been good. Lucky for me, Grady had walked by just in time to catch the "tap that ass" comment. His eyes met mine, and he took me by the arm, leading me away.
"I'm sorry Mary," he said in a low voice. "I think they only come because their parents make them. Let me find something else for you to do."
"Can you just take me home?" I was surprised by how tiny my voice sounded. I hardly knew Derek. Obviously. Sure, our bodies might have fit together real nicely in that closet, but wasn't
I
the one who'd shoved him away? Yes I was. And rightfully so, as it turned out. He had a girlfriend.
Grady glanced at all the activity around us, obviously torn.
I looked at my shoes and muttered, "never mind."
Grady took my hand. "Come on Mary. Race you to the car."
Dammit, if we could get past the fact that he'd want to burn me at the stake when he found out I was a total heathen, Grady would have been, like, the nicest boyfriend ever.
I was roused from my reverie when the bedroom door smacked open. Monica stood there, all five-foot-one of her, eyes blazing and chin jiggling, ruddy spots standing out on her cheeks. "Get the fuck off my bed, Baby."
Lazily, I gave her the finger. "Your bed's in Rachel's room."
She screamed with rage before wheeling around and stomping away. I could hear Phoebe's wheezy laughter all the way from the living room.
When my alarm went off at five-thirty the next morning and I stumbled over to my closet, there was nothing there. I stared at the empty hangers for a while before I remembered that I'd put my cheer uniforms under the bed. So where were my jeans and t-shirts?
I got down on my hands and knees and snagged a skirt and top from under the bed, then grabbed a pair of socks from the laundry basket at the foot of my bed, carrying them with me into the bathroom. I took the hottest shower I could stand.
Pulling my still-wet hair back into a ponytail, winding the hair band around and around until I couldn't get it any tighter, I opened the door to find Joe waiting outside. This was going to be an annoying routine.
"Sorry about your stuff," he said as he slipped past me.
"What?" But Joe had already clicked the door shut and locked it.
How would Joe know my clothes had vanished?
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I walked woodenly over to my old room and cracked the door open. Two empty beds. Not a surprise about Rachel, she always stayed out all night. But Monica? She never got up before noon. She was hiding.
I turned around and canvassed the house, looking for my clothes. Had Monica bleached them or something? They weren't in the tiny laundry area. I didn't really have to tiptoe around my mom in the living room. She'd fallen asleep in front of the TV, and
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
theme song was so loud, it gave me plenty of cover.
As I made my way to the kitchen, I realized that the television had also drowned out the sound of the dogs. I looked out the window over the sink and bit my lip. My mother's three Rottweilers lay in their fenced enclosure, snapping at each other and writhing around in a torn up nest of what had been my jeans and t-shirts. As I watched, Felony took a scrap of denim in his mouth and shook it violently, gnawing on it, working his teeth until foam sprayed through his jowls. Monica had obviously dipped my clothes in something that the dogs couldn't get enough of. They were utterly destroyed. If it weren't for my cheerleading uniforms, I'd have no clothes at all.
I knew I should grab something for breakfast, but my stomach twisted at the thought of food. Joe appeared in the kitchen, his backpack slung over his shoulder, his arms full of maroon and gold material. "I took these out of your room. Monica wouldn't check under the bed while you were in it, but these uniforms would be gone by the time you got home tonight. If they won't all fit in your locker I wouldn't mind giving you some space in mine."
I nodded wordlessly, and took my uniforms from him.
"Now that Phoebe's decided you're relevant you're really in for it," he said.
He moved silently to the front door, opened it a crack, placed his fingertips on the top of the door, and quietly eased it open. It always squeaked shrilly when I came and went, but now it didn’t make a sound.
"How did you?" I whispered, but Joe put his finger to his lips and motioned me through the door. Once I was down the front steps, he joined me on the scrubby lawn.
"Let's meet Kaia out in front of Mrs. Dutton's house," he said.
Joe loped with long strides across the lawn to our neighbor’s house. I could barely keep up, weighed down by all my uniforms. I tripped over the garden hose that lay limply in the patchy grass, and accidentally kicked not one, but two discarded aluminum cans. Joe gave me an exasperated look.
"I'm not feeling so ninja today," I muttered.
We stood on the street in front of Mrs. Dutton's funny little cottage-style house to wait for Kaia. I could still see our shabby turquoise mobile home, but we were definitely out of earshot. "How did you open and close the door without it squeaking?" I asked.
"Put just enough pressure on the top of the door when you're opening it and it doesn't make any noise. Too much or not enough and it won't work. I'll teach you tomorrow."
"What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?"
"Let me put it to you this way. I saw Phoebe asleep just a few minutes ago when I rescued your uniforms. But do you know when the last time
she
saw
me
was?"
I shook my head. "No idea."
"Last Thanksgiving."
"Are you serious?"
Joe nodded. "Almost ten months. I've turned it into a game, just for the hell of it. I know I'll lose eventually, but I really enjoy playing."
We were quiet for a couple of minutes and I kicked at a rock in the road. Damn, I was bound and determined to ruin these blindingly white shoes. "Joe?"
"Yeah?"
"Yesterday, when I saw you in the hall outside our bathroom, I actually thought how weird it was that I never see you. Have you been avoiding
me
too?"
Joe dipped his head and swallowed, his Adam's apple moving visibly in his throat. "Yeah."
"So why are you helping me now?"
"For the same reason Phoebe's trying to collect you." He shrugged. "Of course, my motivation is completely different."
"And I still don't know what you're talking about."
"What do you think of me, Tawny?"
I shook my head at him. "Let's get one thing straight. That whole Tawny thing was a mistake. I
really
don't want to be called that. For now, call me Barbie."
He raised his eyebrows, the expression on his face so comical that I laughed a little myself, which felt good. The knots that had formed in my stomach when I saw the dogs destroying my clothes started to loosen a little.
"Because Barbie's so much better?" he said.
"I know, I know. It's a placeholder name. Definitely not for the long term. But it's working for me right now."
"Okay
…
Barbie. The question's still out there. What do you think of me? Who do you think I am?"
I ground my toe into the road's surface and now I really had scuffed my shoe. "Um, honestly, I kind of forgot about you. No offense," I said hurriedly. "It's not like I forgot you existed, I just didn't think about you. It hadn't occurred to me that we'd be in school together this year until I bumped into you yesterday morning."
"Excellent."
I took a half step backwards. "That's a good thing?"
"It's exactly what I've been going for. It's nice to get some positive feedback, since I can't really ask any of the others. Counterproductive to my mission and all that."
I clutched my uniforms a little tighter. "So that's your mission? Fading into the background?"
"Not entirely. I've been watching. Keeping tabs, and learning."
"Why?"
"Information is power."
"Stephanie Yates says my cheerleading uniform is power."
"Well, she would say that. And it is, of a sort. It had the power to make Phoebe notice you. But that didn't work out so well, did it?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "I have a bigger room."
"And no clothes."
I pressed my lips together into a straight line then blew out a little sigh. "There is that."
"Phoebe always wanted to be popular, but she was never able to get it right." Joe hitched his backpack a little higher on his shoulder. "She tries too hard. When she saw your uniform, she was attracted to its power. She thinks you're going to be her ticket in."
"Her ticket into what? Tenth grade? Dude, she's twenty-three."
"Doesn't matter. In her mind, she's still in high school, trying to be cool."
I rolled my eyes, which Joe probably couldn't see under the feeble glow of the streetlight from across the road. "It's not like I'm gonna be inviting her to any keggers."
"When she figures that out, you're really in trouble." Bad lighting or not, Joe must have noticed that I was struggling to hang onto my multiple cheer uniforms, because he reached over and plucked three of them out of my arms. "You're a lot like me, Barbie. I want to help you."
"Thanks," I said, hugging my remaining uniform to my chest. I was quiet for a couple minutes, but there was something I had to say and I finally spit it out. "No offense Joe, but I'm not sure I'm like you. Skulking around, spying on people," I hiked my cheer uniform in closer to my chest and did little air quotes with my fingers, "'gathering information'
…
it's kind of freaky."
Joe laughed. "That's not all I do. I'll let you in on a secret. When I'm not 'skulking around' gathering the information I need to protect myself, I'm in the damn library. I'm getting the hell out of here. If I'd thought a cheerleading uniform was the way to do it, I'd be the one with the skirt and pompoms." Joe's chest swelled with pride. "At the end of this year, when they announce the senior class valedictorian, it's going to be me."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. I've talked with my counselor, and it's in the bag. I'd have to fail all my classes for anyone to even come close to my GPA at this point. That means a full ride scholarship to college, and you know what that means?"
"Goodbye Anderson clan," I said.
"That's right."
"Wow. Grady told me that you were smart, but valedictorian? That's amazing. Congratulations."
A pair of headlights swung around the corner and backlit Joe's face in kind of a creepy way, and his expression didn't help matters. It was like a mixture of surprise and fear, and something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. "Grady? Grady Carrico?" he asked.
"Yeah, Grady said you guys were in the same math class, and that you were really smart."
Joe's eyebrows knit together. "Are you and Grady, like, friends?"
"Sort of." I saw now that it was Kaia's car coming. She must not have been paying a lot of attention to the side of the road, because she nearly passed us before screeching to a halt right next to us. She leaned across the passenger seat and held out her hands in "what the fuck" formation.
Joe reached for the handle, but paused and turned to me before opening the door. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to hang out with Grady Carrico."
"Tell me about it," I said. "Believe me, I'm trying to extract myself. At first I thought he was going to be a raving Jeebus lunatic, but he turned out to be really nice, and I don't want to hurt his feelings. I'm working on it." I tapped my toe. "Could you please open the door, it's freezing out here. Polyester's not the warmest material you know."
Joe frowned at me again, but he finally pulled open the door and hit the lever on the seat so that it flipped forward. I tossed my cheer uniform in Kaia's backseat, climbed in after it, and held out my arms for the ones Joe had. Once he'd handed them to me, he got in the car and slammed the door.