The Diamonds (28 page)

“You know what I just remembered?” Anderson said as I grabbed my coat from his bedroom. I slipped it on and closed the door.

“What?”

“I have this huge history project due tomorrow. It's gonna take me all night, and I have to go over to Mark Shebar's house.” He frowned. “I'm sorry.”

I took his arm. “You know this stakeout is really important, right?”

He nodded.

“I feel like your heart isn't in it for some reason.”

Anderson was the one who had encouraged me to hang out with the Stonecutters and make friends. It was because of him I'd put my best foot forward and opened up, but he'd yet to do so himself. Why was that?

“Do you not want to be a Stonecutter?” I asked. “You can tell me.”

Anderson pulled me close; even underneath all the layers of cotton, I could feel his chest against mine as he breathed. “Of course I do,” he said. “I'm just really stressed. I'm sorry I haven't been as proactive as I should have been. I'm going to try harder. I promise.”

I stared into the blue-green of his eyes. Was I mad at Anderson? Not really. Just disappointed. Now that our relationship was out in the open, we seemed to be spending less time together than ever before.

“Why don't you hold off on the stakeout tonight?” Anderson suggested. “Go home and relax. This weekend we'll do something just me and you.”

“Okay,” I said. It wasn't as though I was dying to sit alone in the Starbucks parking lot.

Anderson leaned in to kiss me quickly on the lips. “You're the best.”

When I got to my car, Monique was spread across the hood like a lingerie model. “There you are,” she said as if she'd been waiting all day. “Let us go,
oui
?”

“Aren't you supposed to follow Priya with Turbo?”

“There was too much testosterone in his car. Eet was disgusting. I need to spend the afternoon with a lady.” She dropped her legs to the pavement. “You do not mind, do you?”

I unlocked the car. “I was actually gonna head home. Anderson just canceled on me, and I figured I'd catch up on some homework.”

“Do not be silly,” Monique said, falling into the passenger seat. “I will go with you. Eet will be fun.”

I barely spent any time alone with Monique. Maybe with her the stakeout
would
be fun. Well, fun-ish.

“All right,” I said, starting the engine and turning on the radio. “Let's do it.”

We drove away from Anderson's house, down the service road to the highway.

“Do you have any harpsichord music?” Monique asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know.” Who listened to the harpsichord? “My taste isn't very eclectic, I guess.”

Monique clucked her tongue and rubbed the silver hoops of her earrings. Her hair was pinned to her head every which way and stuck out in the back like a peacock's tail. She reminded me of a gypsy from the Disney version of
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1996).

“What a shame,” she said. “Music is the voice of the heart. Especially that of a harpsichord.”

I kept on driving, past houses and trees and Bennington, until we reached the Starbucks in a tiny cluster of stores on Lafayette; it was pretty much equidistant from Priya's, Lili's, and Clarissa's. Over the summer, the four of us had gotten free iced coffees from a cross-eyed barista named Sean who had a crush on Clarissa.

I hadn't gone back since the Closet Incident.

I found a spot near the far end of the parking lot. Mostly out of sight. I turned off the engine; Monique rolled down her window and the cool air slapped me in the face. (It felt kind of nice, actually.) Then she rolled the window back up and reclined in her seat as if she were getting ready for a continental plane ride. “How long do we wait?”

“I dunno. An hour or so.” I glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. 5:17
PM.
“Maybe two.”

“What shall we do to pass the time?”

“We could just, you know, talk.” Boyd had been such a Chatty Cathy I'd never had to worry about
what to say, and with Turbo, well, skating wasn't exactly conducive to conversation. Tommy and I discussed the Stonecutters. Anderson felt my boobs. What on earth did I have to talk about with Monique?

“Divine,” she said, touching her hand to her forehead. “Let us play truth or dare,
out
?”

I laughed. I hadn't played that in years. “Sure,” I said. “You go first.”

“Truth.”

“Okay. Umm, where was your favorite place to live?”

Fact: I am terrible at coming up with questions for Truth or Dare.

“Paris,” she said quickly. “Now you—truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Who is a better kisser: Anderson or Jed?”

I cocked my head at Monique. “You little sneak! You just want gossip.”

“Eet is part of the game,” she said, blushing. “You have to tell me.”

“Anderson. Hands down.”

“His mouth is so big,” Monique said. “I feel like eet would swallow me whole!”

“You're crazy,” I said, pushing the lever on the side of my seat and reclining alongside her. “Now you go. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Are you a virgin?”

Monique was silent. Had I gone too far? “I have never had a boyfriend,” she answered, gazing out the window.

“You don't need a boyfriend to have sex,” I said, which I immediately regretted. It made me sound like a slut. “I mean, I understand why it's important to wait for someone you love.”

“Eet is okay, you did not offend me,” she said quietly. “I just wonder sometimes if I will ever find that.”

“Find what?”

She played with her earrings again, letting them move back and forth against her neck. “Someone to love.”

“Oh, Monique,” I said, reaching over and taking her hand. “You will. Of course you will.”

“Who would want to date me? I am not like the other girls here. I am a freak.”

“You are
not
a freak,” I said.

A few months earlier, I
had
thought she was a freak. Monique, who danced to the beat of her own drum, who dressed more like a homeless person than someone who'd traveled the world, who had the mustache of a twelve-year-old boy, who spoke with a heavy accent and listened to the harpsichord in her spare time.

But she wasn't a freak. She was her own person. Granted, I didn't exactly understand who that person was—not yet, anyway. But she deserved to be happy, just like everyone else. Just like me.

“Maybe eet would be better if I looked more like you,” she said, letting her eyes sweep over me.

“You don't want to look like me,” I said. “I'm a mess. You need to be yourself. Don't change for anyone. You will meet someone, I promise, and then you'll
know he likes you for
you
—not because of someone you're pretending to be.”

Monique smiled at me, the kind of smile that came from inside her, if that makes any sense. “You are so smart, Marni. Thank you.”

“No problem.” I let my eyes wander for a moment, and there—walking into Starbucks—was Clarissa. “Monique, quick,” I said, tapping her shoulder, “grab my camera.”

Monique reached into my purse and got out my camera. I pressed the power button and waited a few seconds. Then I took a picture.
Click
.

“I wonder who she is meeting,” Monique said.

“Me too.”

We watched for what must have been a minute or so before another figure emerged from the parking lot, opening the door to Starbucks and following Clarissa inside.

“Sacrebleu!”
Monique whispered.

The camera dropped out of my hand and onto Monique's lap. She picked it up.
Click
. But I didn't need a picture to remember whose face I had just seen.

“What is he doing here?” I muttered underneath my breath.

“Eet is extremely peculiar,” Monique agreed, peering out my window.

“He said he had to work on a history project with Mark Shebar. He said it was important.”

“Maybe he is meeting his friend inside?”

“And Clarissa just happened to show up one minute before? I don't think so.”

Monique shrugged. “Eet could happen. A coincidence, no?”
Calm down
, I told myself.
Think about this rationally
. Anderson wasn't meeting Clarissa at Starbucks behind my back. That was ridiculous. Obviously Mark was already inside, waiting to meet up for the project. It was the only plausible explanation. But why then had Anderson told me
not
to continue the stakeout without him? Was there a reason he hadn't wanted me at Starbucks?

“Go,” I said to Monique, “and see if Mark is inside. Please?”

I gave Monique a basic description of Mark—tall, brown hair, skinny—and sent her on her way. It seemed like an eternity before she returned. When she opened the door and slid back inside, though, she was smiling.

“Tall, brown hair, skinny,” she repeated. “Mark Shebar. That is who Anderson is with. They both have their computers. I did not even see Clarissa.”

A wave of relief washed over me. Anderson hadn't lied. “Thank God,” I said. I had already lost one boy-friend over cheating (well, sort of); I couldn't bear losing Anderson that way, too.

“I think,” I said, starting the engine and pulling out of the driveway, “it's time to turn in. What a night.”

“Oui,”
Monique agreed. “What a night.”

A major element of our plan was getting a mole into the fashion show. Despite Jenny's being one of Clarissa's targets for social demolition, she had a decent shot at getting picked; she was leggy, tan, and firm in all the right places, and she was the only Stonecutter who hadn't yet been blacklisted. (Neither had Tommy, but let's be real: he was as likely to model in a fashion show as my mother was to donate her old clothes to the poor.)

The day auditions finally arrived, I was a nervous wreck.

“Do you think she actually went?” Boyd asked. We were at Anderson's, waiting for Jenny. Boyd was filing his nails with his teeth. “Because I could
so
see her pulling an Invisible Woman on our sorry asses.”

“Dude,” said Turbo, sticking his hand into a glass bowl filled with mixed nuts and crunching down on a cashew. “These are good.”

“I bet they are,” Boyd smirked.

“She went,” I said. “That's not the problem.”

The real problem: there was no guarantee the Diamonds would pick Jenny for the fashion show. Clarissa hated her. But thanks to that list I'd found, I was hoping Clarissa would want Jenny around so that she could publicly ruin her in front of a packed audience. Jenny was surprisingly eager (“Just
let
her try to make a fool out of me!”); I prayed that the intrigue factor would get her chosen.

“Where is Tommy?” Monique asked.

After a few general suggestions on my part, Monique had started wearing more fitted clothes (which, after wearing a
muumuu
, pretty much meant anything) and showing off her figure. Now she was in a simple pair of black pants and a turnip-colored sweater.

“He had to stay after school for the paper,” I said. It was easy to forget that people had things to do other than attend Stonecutter meetings. Without Tommy and Anderson (who had joined the basketball team now that football season was over and had made me a copy of his house keys), the group was definitely quieter. Jed and Darcy had both stayed for calculus help after school.

“Oh, Boyd,” I said, reaching into my bag, “before I forget…” I withdrew three pictures—Glamour Shots the Diamonds had gotten at the mall freshman year—and handed them over. “For the shirts.”

Boyd's father, a photographer, owned a shop on Leonard Avenue, where he did everything from portraits to reprints to framing. It was called PHOTOS! (“I told him to add the exclamation point,” Boyd informed us. “It really makes it pop.”) Boyd had assured me it wouldn't be a problem to get the pictures blown up and copied onto plain white T-shirts.

“How many do we need?” Boyd asked, staring longingly at the glossy photos.

“Maybe twenty?” I said, forking over a fifty-dollar bill.

“Don't be silly,” said Boyd, refusing the money. “It's on me.
If
I can keep these pictures.”

“What pictures?” said a voice new to the conversation. It was Jenny, and she looked
hot
. Model hot. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, rouge accented her naturally high cheekbones, and her lips were detailed in two different shades of pink. She was in the same outfit she'd worn to school—knee-high socks, a plaid reddish skirt, and a cream-colored blouse with pressed cuffs—but had donned a pair of dagger-sharp heels for the occasion. She looked like a photo in
Vogue
or
Glamour
come to life.

“Très chic,”
said Monique.

“Whoa,” said Turbo. “Man, Jenny. Dude.”

Boyd squealed like a pig. “Aye aye aye! Here comes trouble!”

“Stop,”
Jenny said, even though the tone of her voice led me to believe she wanted us to do the exact opposite.

“So?” I asked. “What's the verdict?”

Jenny sauntered down the steps and into the den. She leaned over and fished through the bowl of nuts until she found what she was looking for—a pistachio—and nibbled at it until Boyd was about to explode.