The Unexpected Everything (3 page)

PALMER

How are you holding up?

In the safety of my own room, I looked down at my phone and felt myself really smile for what I was certain was the first time that day. I could see Peter had been right to keep my phone away from me—it looked like these texts had started right around the time my dad's speech was wrapping up.

I crossed over to my bed, phone in hand. We'd been in this house five years, but my room hadn't changed a whole lot since the day we'd moved in. It had been professionally decorated, but by someone who clearly didn't know they were designing for a middle schooler. It was all taupes and beiges and subtle patterns, everything matching, like a bedroom suite had just been picked whole out of a catalog. After all this time, it still sometimes felt like I was sleeping in a hotel. I had my makeup and jewelry organized on my dresser, framed pictures of my friends, and clothes folded on the chair in the corner, but aside from that, there was very little that marked this room as mine. I flopped down onto the bed, kicking my shoes off and settling back against the throw pillows, getting comfortable, since these text chains could go on for hours.

I glanced down at the last text, Palmer's, and hesitated, my hand over the keypad. I leaned closer to the window that was above my bed—it was open slightly, and I could hear voices drifting up to me. I looked out and saw the press conference had wrapped up. People were wandering around the lawn, and there was no sign of either Peter or the podium.

I turned my back on everything that was happening outside, hoping that maybe the next time I looked, everyone would be gone, the flattened grass the last reminder of what had taken place there only a few hours before.

ME

I'm fine.

PALMER

Really?

BRI

REALLY?

TOBY

?

ME

Totally fine. The press conference was a pain,

but it's my dad's issue, not mine.

BRI

Hm.

ME

What?

TOBY

She's saying she doesn't believe you.

PALMER

How can you tell?

BRI

No, Toby's right. I don't. But we can discuss it later.

ME

There's nothing to discuss

BRI

Yes there is

TOBY

And when we discuss it, why don't you also show me

the curling iron thing?

PALMER

Toby, I thought we were going to be supportive.

TOBY

I AM being supportive! I even tried to drive over

and be there for Andie, but the guard at the

gate wouldn't let me in.

ME

He wouldn't let you in?

TOBY

No! Something about needing to be on a list,

national security, I don't know.

ME

Sorry, T. This should be back to normal as

soon as all the press is gone

TOBY

Well, I was offended. He knows me, after all.

We go way back, me and Ronnie.

PALMER

His name's Earl.

TOBY

Oh.

PALMER

But anyway!

We're going out tonight.

ME

We are?

BRI

We are. We voted, and it's a necessity.

TOBY

Absolutely. That's what I tried to tell Ronnie.

PALMER

Earl.

BRI

There's a party. We're all going.

We think you need it after everything that's happened.

I turned and looked out the window again, at the press corps that weren't leaving nearly as quickly as I wanted them to. There were now reporters lined up in front of the house, cameras pointed at them, no doubt recapping what had just occurred. It didn't seem like I was going to be leaving unnoticed any time soon.

ME

I'm not so sure that's going to happen, guys.

TOBY

PALMER

No, it totally will!

BRI

Don't worry

PALMER

We figured it out.

ME

But the press are still all over this place.

We'd need a way to get me out of here unseen. . . .

Don't know how that's possible.

TOBY

Andie, RELAX. We have a plan.

I looked down at that sentence, feeling a tiny stab of nervousness. The fact that nobody would tell me what exactly this plan
was
had me concerned. Especially if Toby was the brains behind it. I moved a little closer to my window, still trying to keep myself out of sight, and pushed it open more. There must have been a reporter doing her recap practically right beneath me, because suddenly I could hear it crystal clear, her miked voice traveling straight up to me.

“The last time the congressman was the focus of this much attention was five years ago, when, due to his wife's failing health, he withdrew his name abruptly from Governor Matthew Laughlin's unsuccessful presidential campaign, despite the fact he was seen as the front-runner for the VP slot. His wife, Molly Walker, died from ovarian cancer six weeks later. It's unclear what this latest upset means for the congressman's future—”

I slammed the window, shutting out the reporter on the lawn, and picked up my phone again.

ME

A party actually sounds great.

Let's do it.

“Okay,” I heard Palmer say as the car slowed down and then turned left. “We're almost there. Andie, how you doing?”

“Um,” I said from where I was lying between the seats on Palmer's minivan's floor, under a blanket that seemed to be covered in equal parts dust and cat hair, “I've been better.”

“Just a little bit longer,” Bri said from above me as what felt suspiciously like a foot patted my shoulder.

“Better safe than sorry,” I heard Toby say, with the blithe assurance of someone who wasn't currently trying not to breathe through her nose.

“Toby, do I make a right?” I heard Palmer ask, as the car slowed and then stopped.

“To get to Ardmore?” I piped up from beneath the blanket, then sneezed twice. “It's a left, then another right.”

“How can you know that?” A corner of my blanket lifted up, and there was Bri—a piece of her, at least, just wide brown eyes and side-swept bangs. “You can't see anything.”

“She's making it up,” Toby said confidently as the blanket dropped again.

“Check your map,” I yelled up through the blanket, then started to cough on the dust I'd inhaled.

“It's . . . ,” Toby said, and there was a long pause in which she must have checked the directions on her phone. “Seriously?” she asked, not sounding impressed, but annoyed.

“Told you,” I said. I hadn't been trying to track where we were going ever since we'd left my house, but there were some things you couldn't turn off, and I liked always knowing where I was and how to get where I was going. It was the reason, whenever we needed to go somewhere in separate cars, everyone always followed me.

“Quick, drive around in circles to confuse her,” Toby said, and I heard Bri laugh.

“I don't think the party's going to be worth all this,” I said, as the car made, sure enough, a left and then another right. It slowed even more and started to feel like it had pulled off the pavement and onto the side of the road. It was amazing how much more you could tell about these things when you were lying on the floor.

It turned out that the plan to get me to this party had been Palmer's, and I had to admire her thoroughness. Palmer lived three houses down from me in Stanwich Woods. She'd taken a walk after the press conference to scout things out and had seen—even though the media was supposed to have cleared out—that there were several news vans parked in front of the Stanwich Woods gate, no doubt hoping for another scoop.

So she'd picked me up at my house, and then she'd smuggled me—hiding under the blanket—past the vans. Even though I was pretty sure we were in the clear and that nobody was tailing us, I
stayed hidden as we drove to pick up Toby and Bri. Luckily, it was only one stop—it almost always was. All four of us were best friends, but Toby and Bri were
best
best friends and basically inseparable.

We headed to the party right after picking them up, which was good, since I was nearing the limit of my endurance for being stuck under a blanket. But even though I couldn't breathe very easily, I was glad we were taking these precautions. I knew that if I were caught going to a party hours after I'd stood next to my dad, the responsible daughter in pearls, it wouldn't be good for anyone.

“Of course it'll be worth it,” I heard Bri say, and a moment later, someone whisked the blanket off of me, and I blinked, trying not to sneeze from all the dust motes that were now floating through the van.

“Air,” I said gratefully, as I took a big gulp of it and sat up, looking around, trying to see where we were parked and if there were any other cars near ours. “Are we far enough from the house?”

“Yes,” Palmer said patiently, turning around to look at me from the driver's seat. Stanwich was a town of almost no crime but a large police force, which meant that breaking up teenagers' parties on weekends was what they seemed to spend most of their time doing. And the first sign of a high school party was a ton of cars around a driveway, haphazardly parked. So it was standard party etiquette to park far enough away that you would deflect any suspicion, and walk. But I always parked farther than most people, not wanting to risk it. “Andie. It's fine. You don't have to worry about anything tonight but having fun. And you need some fun.”

“It's true,” Bri said from where she was sitting next to me.
“We voted on it.”

“We did,” Toby agreed from the passenger seat, as she lowered the visor and flipped up the mirror lid while simultaneously pulling out her makeup bag. We'd all learned years ago that the best way to get Toby out of the house before midnight was not to make her choose one outfit, but to let her bring options so we could vote in the car, and to let her do hair and makeup en route. But since Palmer refused to let her do her eyes when the car was moving, I had a feeling we might be waiting here for a few more minutes.

“You voted on what, exactly?” I asked as I brushed some lint off my shoulder and fought back the urge to sneeze again.

“That we were going out tonight,” Bri said. “And we weren't—”

“Letting you out of it,” Toby finished as she started to apply her mascara. “No matter what.”

“Exactly,” Bri said, nodding, and Toby held her hand back for a fist bump without taking her eyes off the mirror. I shook my head, but I could feel myself smile. It was the B&T show, as Palmer and I had dubbed it. Bri and Toby had been best friends since preschool, and were such a unit people routinely mixed them up, even though they couldn't have looked less alike.

Sabrina Choudhury and Tobyhanna Mlynarczyk had come up to me my first day of third grade at Stanwich Elementary, where I was sitting alone at recess, trying to understand the weird game that was being played with a big rubber ball. They hadn't played anything like that at Canfield Prep, where I'd transferred from after a poll showed that people—and the teachers' union—didn't like my dad sending his daughter to a
private school. I was feeling like I'd landed in a foreign country, when suddenly there were two girls sitting on my bench, one on either side of me. They had been Bri-and-Toby even then, talking over each other, trying to get me to settle an argument about which member of the boy band of the moment was the cutest one. Apparently, I'd picked the right answer—Wade, the one neither of them thought was the cute one—because from that moment on they'd been my friends. Palmer and I became friends when I'd moved down the street from her when I was twelve, and when ninth grade started, she'd talked her parents into letting her switch from Stanwich Country Day to the public high school. When Palmer met Toby and Bri, they all got along right away, and from then on it was like we'd become the unit we were always meant to be.