Rhymes With Witches (9 page)

On Monday, I avoided the Bitches as best I could. I picked different routes when I glimpsed any of them in the hall, and I stayed away from the bathrooms altogether. But I ran into Mary Bryan as I was heading for history, and for a moment we were face to face at the bottom of the stairwell.

“Jane,” she said.

My stomach dropped, and I pushed into the crowd. She called after me, but I pretended I didn't hear.

At noon I bought a Nutrigrain bar from the vending machine and snuck to the library. I took the long way past the basement art rooms, because hardly anyone except the art kids went down there. A group of them leaned against the wall by the Ceramics Studio. One of them was Raven Holtzclaw-Fontaine, from Kyle's party. I could tell she didn't have the vaguest clue who I was.

In the library, I chose the farthest back carrel. I slit open my bar and got out my book. Ramona was cross because she had to clean up her room, and Beezus was cross because her mother wouldn't let her spend the night at Mary Jane's. Even Picky-picky, the cat, was cross. Cross, cross, cross.

“God, you are so predictable,” Alicia said, clomping across the floor. She dragged over a chair from the next carrel. “And thanks for returning all my calls. Really, it meant a lot to me.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was busy.”

“Yeah, right. Doing what, hiding beneath your covers? I've seen you today, running around like a scared chicken.” She tilted her head. “Guess they didn't pick you, huh?”

“Guess not.”

“You must have really bombed at the party.”

“Guess so.” In my mind, I saw Bitsy's expression when she dropped me off. How her eyes hadn't even registered me.

Alicia blinked. For a moment she seemed uncertain, and then she reclaimed her usual brusqueness. “Well, it's their loss,” she said. “Let them have their freaky black magic—we're better off without it.” She spotted my paperback and grabbed it by its spine, losing my place. “Ramona books again? Jesus, Jane. When are you going to grow up?”

She meant it as a tease, as in
You're so dumb, but I love you anyway
. I snatched back my book.

“Hey,” she said. “Just because they didn't pick you doesn't mean you can take it out on me.”

“Are you done yet? I need to eat my lunch.”

She glanced at my untouched Nutrigrain bar. “Yeah, because you're starving, I can tell.” But she stood up. “Not to, like, mess up your whole self pity thing, but are you still going to come to cheerleading tryouts this afternoon?”

I sighed. “Yes. I'll be there.”

She gnawed on her thumbnail. “I'm not going to make the squad. I don't even know why I'm bothering. But at least we can be losers together.”

I felt really, really tired. “You never know,” I said. “Maybe there'll be a miracle.”

Sadly, Alicia sucked. I wasn't saying that to be mean. But she just wasn't cheerleader material.

Her voice screeched when she yelled, “Go, Devils!” And during a complicated knee-slap-clap combination, her tongue snuck into position under her lower lip. And her final cheer didn't end with a split. It ended with a squat. And no matter what the group leaders had said, it wasn't okay. Of the sixty-five girls who tried out—over half the girls in our freshman class—only Alicia and Tina Burston failed to do a split. And Tina Burston had a broken leg. She auditioned without her crutches, which was actually pretty impressive. She'd painted her cast green and white.

“I sucked,” Alicia muttered as everyone exited the gym. “Don't bother lying, because I know I did.”

“Results will be posted tomorrow!” called one of the group
leaders through cupped hands. “But remember, you're
all
winners! Way to go!”

“Yeah, right,” Alicia said. “Five of us will be winners, and the rest will be big, fat losers.” She pushed through one of the heavy double doors. She didn't hold it open for me, and it caught me on the forearm. I jogged to catch up.

“Aren't you going to say anything?” she demanded without turning around. “Aren't you going to tell me how terrible I was?”

“You weren't terrible,” I said. I struggled for something positive. “Your outfit rocked. You really stood out.”

She snorted.

“It did. And you can wear the board shorts at the pool this summer. They'd look great with, like, a white tankini.”

“Is that my sympathy prize? ‘You didn't make the squad, but at least you can wear your board shorts again'?”

“Come on. You don't
know
you won't make the squad.”

Alicia strode to the bottom of the concrete stairs that led to the gym. Saabs and BMWs lined the campus drive, and car doors slammed as girls climbed into their rides. Alicia wrapped her arms around her ribs.

“What about when I squatted at the end of ‘Pump It Up'?” she asked. “Was it totally obvious I didn't do a split?” Her gaze slid sideways to gauge my reaction, and my heart went out to her.

“It looked fine,” I lied. “It looked totally natural.”

She kicked at the curb. She wanted to believe me, I could tell.

A car horn played “Dixie,” and Rae leaned out of the window of her Plymouth Cougar. “Alicia!” she called. “Let's go!”

Alicia grabbed her bag. She almost met my eyes, but not quite. “Well, see you tomorrow.”

“See you,” I said. I scanned the line of cars for Mom's Volvo, but she wasn't here yet. Out of habit, I checked for the Bitches. No need. Like Alicia had said, they were way beyond cheerleader-cool.

When we got home, Mom threw her keys on the counter. “Chinese?” she suggested.

“Sure,” I said. I didn't care.

She dug the menu out of the junk drawer. “Go ahead and chill out for a while,” she said. “I'll call you when it gets here.” She waited until I was halfway up the stairs, then stepped into the hall. “Oh, and a package came from your dad. I left it on your bed.”

I stopped. I turned around.

“He sent me an elephant hair bracelet,” she said. “Not exactly my style.”

“An elephant hair bracelet? Is that what he sent me, too?”

“You'll have to open it. I have no idea.” She hesitated, and for a second I thought she might say something real. Instead, she flashed me a smile and returned to the kitchen. Several seconds later, I heard, “I'd like to place an order to go, please. What? Sure, no problem.”

I trudged back downstairs, because no way was I dealing with
Dad now, even in the form of a boxed-up gift waiting in my room. Already the mention of him had stirred up the familiar mix of anger and loneliness. Anger that this was what he thought being a dad meant, sending knickknacks from all over the world. Or rather, anger that he thought he could get away with it—or was willing to get away with it—regardless of whatever father truth he actually believed in. That was what made it so bad. Because at some level, he had to know he was hurting me. And yet he did it anyway.

Dad used to love me. He would come to my room when I was scared, and he would turn on the light to show me that everything was okay. “It's the same house in the night as it is in the day,” he'd say. Then he'd sit on the edge of my bed and rub my back until I fell asleep. Even if it was the middle of the night, he'd yawn and stick it out.

I couldn't figure out what had happened to that love, and that's where the loneliness came in. Stupid, pointless loneliness. I fought against it, but it came in anyway, carving me out and leaving me empty.

I went into the den and signed on to the Internet. I checked my e-mail. There was a note from Phil about
Survivor: Senior High
, which he was also addicted to. It would have made me laugh if I'd have been in a better mood. And there was already a moan-and-groan message from Alicia about her cheerleading tryout. “IM me!!!” she wrote.

Maybe later. I could still hear Mom puttering in the kitchen, so I opened a new window and Googled “snarky bitches,” since I'd
never actually checked the site during my early religions class. At
SnarkyBitches.com
, I learned that if I ever got a boyfriend—not likely, but just say—and he cheated on me or hit me or got a super bad mullet haircut, I could post the sordid details on the site and my snarky sisters would send me all their love. And if I included his e-mail address, they'd flame him with hate messages, up to a hundred a day.

Good to know, but not related to my Bitches.

“My” Bitches, who were not my Bitches anymore.

Before bed, I steeled myself and opened Dad's gift. Inside was a genuine jade hair comb. It said so on the enclosed slip of paper. I unwound the bubble wrap and regarded the comb, which was decorated with inlaid stones in the shape of a butterfly. It was very cute. Only, I didn't do “cute” anymore. Hadn't for years.

I shoved the comb into the drawer with the Egyptian teddy bear. “Thanks, Dad,” I said aloud. “It's just what I wanted.”

The next morning, as I was on my way to check the cheerleader postings, I saw Stuart Hill pin Camilla Jones against her locker. Just as Camilla didn't kowtow to the Bitches, she also didn't kowtow to the football players, and from the looks of it, Stuart wasn't pleased.