Tonya Hurley_Ghostgirl_03 (12 page)

“I’ve been slumming it for years with the both of you and no one seemed to mind that,” Petula snapped.
The Wendys tried to roll with the blow but couldn’t escape the range of Petula’s verbal shrapnel.
“If you start spreading lies about me, I’ll just have to start telling the truth about both of you.”
Petula knew that The Wendys were easily distracted, particularly susceptible to reverse psychology, and that the more she challenged them, the faster they’d back down—and probably turn on each other.
“What truth?” Wendy Thomas asked.
“Exactly,” Petula said, knowing that she didn’t have anything on the girls, but figuring that The Wendys would find something to accuse each other of later.
The Wendys began eyeing each other suspiciously, as expected.
“You know, I really wish I had a lower IQ so that I could enjoy your company more,” Petula said to both of them, cocking her head back for effect.
The Wendys took this personally since Petula had always questioned the accuracy of this kind of scoring. In fact, she believed that the only real measure of smarts was real-life results. Thus, she’d trained The Wendys in the art of using their anatomical gifts to attract attention as a means of achieving the highest possible grades. Petula called these assets their “learning curves.”
“Breaking news,” Wendy Thomas announced. “Standardized testing is a flawed measure of intellectual ability.”
For a change, Petula realized that Wendy’s factoid carried some weight. She’d done her job well. Too well.
“Even so,” Wendy Anderson added, “we’re still smart enough to know a future bag lady when we see one.”
She pulled the abandoned T-shirt down, stretching it out for Petula to see it clearly.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Petula pressed. “Huh?”
“It’s not all I’ve got,” a voice sounded from behind.
Petula spun around to see Darcy, smirking and fingering the advance button on her digital camera. Petula just glared as Darcy walked around to join The Wendys, and completed the wedge.
“What is this?” Petula eyed the trio, hands on jutted hips. “Stunt casting?”
If it was, even Petula had to admit they’d done a good job. Darcy had many of Petula’s qualities and all the characteristics that she loved in her stooges, except for one: she was not a follower. Petula was fascinated at the move being made against her.
“You don’t replace us,” Wendy Anderson scoffed, gesturing toward Darcy like a new refrigerator on a daytime game show. “We replace you!”
“What I did or didn’t do,” Petula answered carefully, “is my affair.”
“I didn’t say you were cheating,” Wendy Thomas huffed.
“You aren’t even dating.” Wendy Anderson sought to dis. “Everyone knows that.”
Petula could only stare in amazement.
“It’s not just your business,” Darcy intervened, coming to their defense. “They have to answer for it too.”
Judging from the crowd of kids gathered around them, most of whom were eyeing Petula with a mix of confusion and condescension she’d never experienced before, Darcy wasn’t far off. Petula remained indignant nevertheless, choosing to invoke the tried-and-true “So what?” defense.
“So sue me, bitches,” Petula scoffed, flipping them off as she departed.
“Now there’s an idea,” Darcy said to her disheartened new followers.
Damen wanted to see Scarlet, but it was very late, so he decided to play the romantic, and sneak in and surprise her. He approached the house, with Charlotte, still seething from the little Scarlet-and-Eric jam session she’d spied on earlier, unknowingly in tow. Through the window, he could see her listening to music on her bed and flipping through a book, as usual. The tunes from her stereo speakers were blaring so loudly, she didn’t notice anything else, not even Damen and Charlotte peering in at her through the window.
Damen stood there for a minute admiring her, and Charlotte could see that it was the look of real, genuine love. She had longed to be gazed at like that, to be adored, and she thought she might be on her way to that undiscovered country with Eric. It was more than a little ironic to her that Scarlet, of all people, might be the roadblock in the way of that journey.
Damen tapped on the window, but Scarlet couldn’t hear him with the music blasting. He didn’t want to knock any louder and alert her mother or Petula, so he waited, a bit foolishly, for the song to be through. He started tapping at the fade-out and finally managed to get her attention. It was a weird, almost sad scene, Charlotte thought. She was feeling too uncomfortable to stay but too curious to leave.
“Who’s there?” Scarlet asked, slamming her book shut as she jumped off the bed.
Damen just smiled, completely oblivious to the fact that he was the second guy of the day to surprise Scarlet, and waited for his warm welcome.
“You scared the crap out of me,” she said. “Why didn’t you text me to tell me you were coming?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” he said.
“With a heart attack?”
Hadn’t he learned that his surprises weren’t really working out? Scarlet thought.
“I just wanted to see you,” Damen said.
“Get in here before my mother finds you and rips out a never-seen-before internal organ.”
Damen climbed through the window and looked at her.
“Is it Halloween, already?” he joked.
“What?”
“Your tee,” he said, referring to the band tee she was wearing.
“That’s funny, you used to like it,” she snipped.
Charlotte knew where all this was going, at least she thought so, and more importantly she knew why.
Scarlet was wearing one of her old band tees, the Plasmatics, but she cut the top and sleeves off, reinventing it as a halter, with one asymmetrical strap holding it up across her chest to her back. Her old self was fighting its way back. And winning.
“What’s gotten into you?” Damen asked, taken aback by her criticism.
“You have,” she said.
“You’re taking this the wrong way,” Damen explained, a bit haplessly. “I only said that because you haven’t worn those tees in a while, so I thought you were getting them back out again for a reason.”
“Yeah, there’s a reason, actually,” she said, biting her lip from unloading on him completely.
It was almost as if Scarlet was forcing a reaction from him so she could speak her mind. As if she was looking to replay an argument that she’d already had—and won—in her mind. Charlotte wished that there was something she could do. She felt so… helpless.
“Sorry, I didn’t know this stalker post was taken,” a voice called from the darkness.
It was Eric. He came around the back of the tree and revealed himself to Charlotte.
“I was wondering where you were,” Charlotte said, both asking and scolding him at the same time.
“So, this is how you spend your nights?”
“It’s actually not; I spend them with him,” she said, referring to Damen. “It’s obviously how you spend yours, though.”
“Why are we doing this?” Eric asked. “Are you actually jealous of a living girl?”
“No,” Charlotte said unconvincingly.
His acknowledgment actually made things worse, and the fact that he brought up Scarlet was proof, she surmised, that he had something to hide. She knew nothing could ever come of it, but his having feelings toward Scarlet hurt just the same, if not worse.
“Come on, this is crazy,” Eric said dismissively. “I didn’t die for her like you did for him. Don’t forget that.”
“You make it sound so…,” Charlotte began.
“True?” he said, finishing her thought.
Chapter 13 The Obsolete Girl
Lose yourself, lose your audience.
—Noel Coward
Superiority complex.
Bad news is good news. Few things satisfy us as fully as the comedown of someone we dislike, or someone we do like, or even someone we don’t even know. We eat it up like a scandalous tabloid story, a “without makeup” photo, or even mildly juicy local gossip. Nothing sells like failure.
Petula approached her locker cautiously, more than a little suspicious of the pink envelope jutting from it. It could be a letter bomb, she thought, considering the way things had been going. She reached for it slowly, grasped it quickly, and ran her manicured index finger under the flap, opening it. It didn’t detonate, but Petula was ready to explode as she pulled out the pink and purple card inside. It was an invitation, handwritten in girlish sixth-grade-print style.
YOU ARE OFFICIALLY SUBPOENAED TO A
TRIAL PARTY FOR PETULA KENSINGTON
TODAY
4:00 P.M.
HAWTHORNE HIGH GYMNASIUM
RSVP TO WENDY ANDERSON OR WENDY THOMAS VIA TEXT
Petula was livid. Who were these three wanna-me’s to convene a popularity inquest? By what authority, Petula wondered, since she was the only one with the power to order such an inquiry. She grabbed her things and stomped off to the gym, ready for battle.
Hawthorne High was eerily quiet after last period. The buses were empty and the parking lot was filled with parked cars. No stereos blasting, no curse words being tossed about, no nothing. All the activity was centered on the gymnasium, where weeks from now, the prom would go down and memories would be made; but today, history of a very different sort was on the slate.
A Who’s Who of Hawthorne glitterati, all of whom seemed to have a vested interest in the success or failure of the current social leadership, filed into the gym. The students packed the bleachers from top to bottom, leaving the very bottom row, which was taped off, open, for what, remained to be seen. They sat there quietly, all anticipating… something.
Slowly but surely, things began to happen. The Wendys and Darcy arrived, pushing dramatically through the gym doors like TV court show litigants, dressed in nearly identical navy two-piece pinstriped power suits with the recently recovered vintage band tees underneath, hard-shell briefcases, spike heels, black retro Lady Clubman eyeglass frames with non-prescription lenses, and their hair twisted up in tight buns.
They took their seats at one empty table, leaving little doubt about whom the sole chair at the empty table across from them was reserved for.
Pam and Prue followed them, instantly taken with the ominous tone of the room.
“I feel like we are about to witness a hit-and-run,” Prue said.
“You would know,” Pam jibed.
They settled in and waited, along with the crowd.
After rifling through, though not really examining, her papers, Wendy Anderson walked over and searched the bleachers for volunteers for the jury. From the awesome response to their invites, The Wendys were confident that they could stack the entire panel in their favor with ambitious Junior Varsity cheerleaders, all of whom could benefit directly from The Wendys’ goodwill and patronage. Sure enough, there was no shortage of volunteers happy to ensure a rush to judgment. With the jury selected and seated, anticipation for the main event built to a fever pitch. And Petula did not disappoint.
As the doors opened slowly, the entire crowd fell silent. Petula took a few steps in and stopped to assess the surreal scene facing her from the other side of the gym. She’d never been so alone, and for many in the audience, had never been seen alone either. Where The Wendys would have been dutifully trailing behind her, she had only her shadow in tow. Even CoCo, still assembling outfits for the next run downtown, hadn’t arrived to provide invisible support. Literally, no one had her back.
Petula approached the empty seat facing the audience and directly opposite Darcy and The Wendys. She refused to give her accusers the satisfaction of looking directly at them and instead stared over them at the peanut gallery waiting patiently in the bleachers. It was the kind of gathering Petula might have assembled in her own honor, filled with the cream of the crop, by Hawthorne’s small-town standards, all perfectly willing to step on or over each other on their way up the populadder. At least The Wendys had learned something from her, she thought.
She walked toward the tables and felt something she’d never felt before. A wave of self-consciousness crashed over her. She could feel the eyes of her classmates on her, picking her apart. A less proud person might have acknowledged the panic beginning to set in, but Petula had no experience with anxiety and instead put her jitters down to a chitosan colon cleanser she’d had before last period.
As Petula took her seat, Darcy stood up and called the proceedings to order, removing one shoe and slamming the spike heel down in front her, like a gavel.
“The case of the Hawthorne High Populazzi vs. Petula Kensington is now in session,” Darcy announced.
Although this was really an impeachment trial, The Wendys preferred to make it a class action suit, assuming there was strength in numbers and that their motives might seem less personal and petty. Petula rolled her eyes in disgust and stared daggers at them for the first time since entering the gymnasium. To her surprise, she was unable to intimidate them. They were all business.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Wendy Anderson advised, confusing an arrest with a trial.
“I know my rights,” Petula responded. “Let’s get on with it.”
“You are hereby charged with actively seeking to ruin The Wendys’ hard-earned reputation by consorting with all manner of lowlifes, dropouts, and losers,” Darcy began. “And of depriving The Wendys of their rightful inheritance as your heirs in the Hawthorne High social scene by replacing them with aforementioned skeeves.”
Petula forced herself to listen carefully to the charges. As far as she could tell, they had no idea what she was really up to downtown, which was fair enough, since she barely did either. Her best move, she surmised pragmatically, was to say little, but to say it defiantly.
Pam and Prue were also listening intently, hoping for some clue to help them better understand what they were supposed to be doing. The more they heard, the more they found their focus shifting to Darcy. The Wendys were shallow and petty, to be sure, but Darcy was malicious. She was enjoying turning the screws on Petula, a girl she barely even knew.
“How do you plead?” Darcy asked.

“Not guilty,” Petula replied arrogantly.
“Objection!” Wendy Anderson interjected, stomping her foot like a spoiled child.
“You are too!” Wendy Thomas shot back, apparently not fully grasping the concept behind the presumption of innocence.
“Prove it,” Petula challenged smugly. “And you’d better have more on me than my sister’s T-shirts.”
Darcy took the cue. She pulled up digital pictures and video clips on her digicam and cell phone and texted them one by one to her buddy list, which just so happened to be everyone in attendance. Petula thought about challenging the admissibility of the surveillance images on constitutional grounds, since taking the pictures was potentially an invasion of her privacy rights, but quickly decided that this situation probably didn’t rise to that level.
“These,” Darcy informed the jury, “were taken downtown the other night.”
As photo after photo loaded into cell phones, jaws dropped and gasps of surprise filled the room. There was proof positive of Petula lavishing attention and designer threads on a gaggle of grateful street dwellers. Oddly, the only person in the room smiling was Petula, whose placid expression, even more than the photographic evidence, revealed the pride and satisfaction she had taken in her handiwork. She couldn’t help herself.
“Every picture tells a story,” Darcy smirked, confident she’d given the jury sufficient reason to believe.
“And every dog has its day,” Petula warned weakly. “Or should I say every bitch?”
“Objection,” Wendy Thomas popped off. “That’s hearsay.”
The irony that The Wendys, who could give a tutorial in gossip, were using “hearsay” as a defense of Darcy was not lost on Petula. It was now plainly obvious to her that this trial was for show. Nothing she was going to say would affect the predetermined outcome. The verdict was inevitable.
Nevertheless, a certain sense of relief at being outed began to fill her as she remained silent.
“The prosecution rests,” Darcy exclaimed.
“Your turn,” Wendy Anderson said grudgingly, pointing at Petula.
Petula did not respond and looked up again at the crowd, almost sympathetically. She could see their minds had been made up as well. It’s not that they were particularly hard-hearted or uncharitable kids, it’s just that people like them occupied a certain role inside and outside of school.
Their obligation to the needy was to host self-financing fund-raisers and put together bake sales, dance marathons, kissing contests, and the like that usually resulted in phantom proceeds. The main purpose of the events was to “raise awareness,” not to actually relieve suffering but to make everyone aware that you cared about the problem—from a distance.
Petula’s big sin was that she’d gotten her hands dirty, figuratively and literally. The kind of aid she was providing was specific and personal. Anybody could throw together a coat drive, she thought. This dealt with the surface issue of protecting against the elements—important work—but also put some ego and color back into their lives.
Petula was a big believer not just in her own superiority, but in her innate exceptionalism. She had an unconditional self-love that she found profoundly lacking in most everyone around her. It had given her tremendous power over others, The Wendys to be specific. Now, she thought, trying to share it, confer it on those most in need of it, would be her undoing. She was beginning to have second thoughts about all of it as she waited for the ax, or rather the heel, to fall.
With Petula twisting in the wind, Scarlet happened to breeze by the gym on her way to the parking lot. She peeked in the door, figuring the Prep committee was always good for a few laughs, but what she saw was definitely not funny. At first, it looked like Petula might be conducting some kind of how-to-dress-for-your-body-type prom seminar, but the vibe was a little too grim for that. Scarlet looked a little closer and spied The Wendys wearing her T-shirts and Darcy standing in full prosecutorial mode. Scarlet had not seen her sister appear so vulnerable since she was in a coma.
“What the hell?” was all she could eke out as she hid behind the door and listened.
After a few moments of silence, it was obvious Petula would not speak on her own behalf.
“Nothing to say for yourself?” Darcy asked Petula.
Darcy turned to the crowd, inviting their participation and seizing the moment to instigate a full-on public repudiation of Petula.
“How about you guys?” she added, cajoling the mob behind her. “Anything to add?”
The sense of betrayal was evident in their mocking voices as all kinds of nastiness rained down on Petula from the cheap seats. Homecoming this was not.
“We made you, and we can break you!” a shout came from the crowd.
“You are a just a bunch of bleach and labels,” a girl vented.
“Thank you,” CoCo said, scoping out the heckler, as she strolled into the chaotic scene.
Pam whistled to get her attention and waved for her to come over.
“What have I missed?” CoCo asked, curious as ever about the misfortunes of others.
By the looks on Prue’s and Pam’s faces, CoCo got her answer.
The three spirits returned their attention to the terrible tribunal.
“Everyone who doesn’t like Petula anymore, raise their hands,” Wendy Anderson ordered, raising her own left arm, palm up, fingers spread widely.
Virtually everyone followed suit as an instant forest of limbs sprang up. There was no need to count. The bleachers looked like a group ad for underarm deodorant.
“Majority rules,” Wendy Thomas noted snidely, stating the obvious. “Case closed.”
“You have been found guilty of abdicating your role as our leader,” Darcy proclaimed.
Petula kept mum. Darcy sat down and turned to one Wendy, then the other, whispering and pointing at Petula as they scrolled through the cell phone pictures. They then turned to the J.V. jury for their decision. After a short deliberation, a note was passed to the popularity prosecutors and the inevitable was announced.
“Petula Kensington, please rise,” Darcy requested.
Petula stood, facing her nemesis, crossed her arms in front of her, and sucked in her cheeks, as the crowd weighed in for good measure.
The Wendys, who had been busily scribbling away on their index cards, jumped up and read Petula’s sentence.
“The name of Petula Kensington will be removed from all prom posters and programs, invitations and floats, and from every school newspaper and yearbook ad,” Wendy pronounced. “In addition, she will be stripped of all authority over the cheerleading and pom-pom squads, disinvited from all parties and pep rallies, and prohibited from speed dialing, instant messaging, texting, socially networking, or communicating with us, by any means.”
“I’m de-listed?” Petula asked skeptically, suddenly feeling like a worthless stock on the popularity exchange.
“D-Listed,” Darcy sniped.
Call it what she liked, the facts were that she was now rendered obsolete. Overthrown by the very kiss-asses she’d once ruled.
“This trial is adjourned,” Darcy announced, once again striking the tabletop with her high-heeled shoe.
Petula remained standing, stock-still, as The Wendys and Darcy grabbed their things and left in formation, followed by the crowd, who filed past, refusing to look at her. The only acknowledgment of her existence, a few disapproving mumbles.
For the first time in her life, Petula Kensington was invisible.
Charlotte sat waiting for Scarlet to arrive home from school. She’d held off as long as she could. Whether it was out of fear that Scarlet might not be able to see her anymore, or had outgrown their friendship, or that she was intimidated by Scarlet’s growing chemistry with Eric was no longer important. She needed to talk to her. Privately. No Damen. No Eric.
She let her feet dangle from Scarlet’s bed for a while, and looked the room over, the contents of Scarlet’s letter playing over and over in her head. It felt very different. There was no new furniture, but most of what was there had been reupholstered and repositioned.
The space seemed bigger and brighter, more open and less cluttered than she remembered. The word Charlotte was looking for, which Scarlet would really hate, was sleeker. The changes were subtle but significant and seemed to Charlotte to be in keeping with the image in the photo she’d seen in Damen’s dorm room.
The best measure of where Scarlet was emotionally, however, always was her wardrobe. Charlotte made a beeline for Scarlet’s closet and rummaged through the gorgeous frocks she had accumulated. Long gone were most of the tees and hoodies she was known for, with just a few managing to make the cut.
This, it occurred to Charlotte, was one of the few things about being a ghost that was so cool. Who wouldn’t want to poke their head, unseen, into someone’s life? It was like eavesdropping, on steroids. There was so much to learn about someone. Without all the emotional filters and facades, you could experience who a person really was, not who they wanted you to think they were. In the case of a friend, however, there are some things it is better not to know. People change, Charlotte thought. What if Scarlet had outgrown her, just like her band tees? Out of sight, out of mind.
Charlotte continued to torment herself for what seemed to be an eternity, when she heard the doorknob, an antique rose crystal job she’d always admired, jiggle. Charlotte wanted to speak, to screech, anything, but she couldn’t make a sound.
Scarlet walked into the room, threw her car keys and bag onto her bed, and walked right past Charlotte, who was propped up, eagerly waiting to be acknowledged. Charlotte was devastated, deflated. How could she make it though all this stuff with Eric, be back on earth—back at Hawthorne, no less—and not have Scarlet to confide in? Her worst fear had officially come true.
Charlotte plopped herself back on Scarlet’s bed. She just wanted to snuggle up and bury herself with pillows; she wanted to hide.
“Hey, don’t get your dead juice on my new coverlet,” Scarlet said while fixing her hair in her art deco vanity.
Charlotte was confused.
“You heard me,” Scarlet said, looking behind her through the mirror.
Scarlet turned around and pounced on the bed next to Charlotte, almost tackling her.
“I thought…,” Charlotte began, trying to wrestle back, but still stunned.
“I know what you thought,” Scarlet said. “It took everything out of me just to walk past you!”
Charlotte needed Scarlet for lots of things, but this reminded her that she needed her for something else—some comic relief.
Scarlet smiled a crooked smile and then fell into a heap on her bed.
“What are you doing here?” Scarlet nearly screamed.
“I got your note,” Charlotte said, smiling sweetly at her friend.
There was so much more Charlotte wanted to tell her, but she decided it was best not to just then.

Scarlet, for her part, was relieved and embarrassed. She never expected Charlotte to get the note, but she was glad she did and gladder still to see her best friend. If anyone understood the ups and downs of the whole “change” thing, and more importantly, understood Scarlet, it was Charlotte.
Without any further prompting, she started spilling her guts to Charlotte.
“You’re the only one I can talk to,” she said, getting uncharacteristically emotional. “And you’re gone.”
“I’m here now,” Charlotte comforted, sweeping Scarlet’s bangs from her lashes. “Talk to me.”
Scarlet hesitated. Letting everything out would make it much more real. But if ever there was a person to trust, it was Charlotte. Scarlet kept it simple, knowing Charlotte would understand.
“I’m losing myself,” she said, wiping the tears from her hazel eyes.
The pain of the admission was almost as hard for Charlotte to hear as it was for Scarlet to speak, but she’d gathered as much from Scarlet’s letter. If there was one thing that was never in doubt when it came to Scarlet, it was her sense of self.
“Look at me,” she went on, offering herself for inspection.
Charlotte could tell how fragile Scarlet was, so she proceeded with caution. No need to mention the pictures in Damen’s room that had tipped her off to all of this.
“Well, it just looks like you’ve grown up a bit, but I can see the old you,” she explained.
“Can you?” Scarlet sniffed. “Where?”
“In here,” Charlotte said, pointing to her heart. “You’re always the same.”
They embraced, reminded of the bond they shared. Scarlet was touched but still not ready to let it go.
“Be honest,” Scarlet said. “Do I look like the old me to you?”
Scarlet was pressing Charlotte, hoping for some objectivity. After all, they hadn’t seen each other for a while, so she would be the perfect person to make a before-and-after evaluation.
“What is all this obsessing with the ‘old me’?” Charlotte asked. “That’s what’s really new.”
“It’s just because I’ve been reminded of a lot of things I used to love, used to be, by someone,” she said.
“Someone?” Charlotte asked, knowing full well who that someone was.
Scarlet brushed off the question, obviously not willing to share that relationship with Charlotte.
“I just feel like I’ve made all these changes,” Scarlet explained. “And I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“Did you do all this for Damen?”
“It’s not that he ever asked,” Scarlet explained, her voice trailing off along with her thought.
“Then maybe this is just about you,” Charlotte offered, “growing up.”
As soon as the words left her lips, Charlotte knew this was not the best thing to say. Scarlet lashed out.
“What would you know about that?” Scarlet snapped, immediately wishing she could take it back as well.
Both girls eyed each other apologetically.
“I’m just not happy, Charlotte,” she said. “Damen’s this preppy college guy and I’ve been trying to keep up but I don’t know if we fit anymore.”
Scarlet paused for a moment, letting what she’d just blurted out sink in.
“He’s not a shirt,” Charlotte said.
“We’re just in different places, and I don’t know if I can bridge that gap.”
“Or maybe you don’t know if you want to,” Charlotte suggested, barely disguising the worry in her voice.
“Maybe,” Scarlet said flatly.
Chapter 14 Sweet the Sting
You talk to me as if from a distance
And I reply with impressions chosen
From another time
—Brian Eno
Assumptions are the death of a relationship.
If you think you know what’s going on inside someone else’s head, think again. We imagine that love gives us the power to read one another’s mind, when all we are really doing is reading our own. It’s a great self-defense mechanism but no substitute for actual communication. The best way to know what’s really on someone’s mind is also the riskiest: you have to ask them.
Charlotte found herself alone with Damen again, his sole companion as he worked the phone lines on the radio station’s graveyard shift. Worked was probably not the right word, as the board had yet to light up once. Watched the phone lines was more like it. Charlotte knew this feeling all too well from her first days at the intern hotline, but she also knew that if you waited, something would eventually happen.
It was no secret that there was a time she’d have killed a small animal to be this close to Damen in a private, soundproof room during his radio overnight. But now, so much had changed. Though she could never completely forget the flutters and twinges of her first love, the days of her schoolgirl devotion were long gone. The bittersweet yearning that she’d felt for Damen in life was now replaced by plain old sadness. Not because she wanted him, but because Scarlet apparently didn’t.
There he was, sitting behind the console, trying desperately to put together a few thoughts on paper that might reach her in a way his words could not. He wanted her to know how he felt about her, that he never wanted to change anything about her. That he loved her for who she was and everything she was going to be.
Charlotte sat there helplessly, witnessing the heart-wrenching struggle. Damen was vulnerable and in pain, and it hurt her to see him going through this. She began feeling very much like the friend who plays both sides, except she wasn’t playing either yet.
He was her assignment, so she must have been brought here to help him in some way. Salvaging his relationship with Scarlet was a pretty good guess, she thought. Back when she was in Dead Ed, she had guided his hand to check off the right boxes and pass a physics test, but coaxing the emotions out of his heart and onto the page seemed far beyond even her own ghostly powers.
But in order to help him, she needed to put some skin in the game, so to speak. She needed to make her presence known in some clever way that wouldn’t completely freak him out.
Suddenly, the blinking light on the console interrupted her strategy session and Damen leapt into action like a benchwarmer substituting for an injured player. He had a live one, literally.
“INDY-Ninety-five, we’re the difference, what’s your problem?” he said in the raspiest, quiet-storm voice he could muster.
The line was engaged but quiet.
“Hello?” he asked, a bit louder.
This time he could hear the sound of whimpering coming through.
“What’s your name?” Damen asked gently.
“Anais,” she said, still teary. “What’s yours?”
“Damen,” he said, reverting to his radio voice. “Your helpful host tonight on ‘What’s Your Problem?’ “
“My problem is my boyfriend,” the caller said frankly.
“Okay,” Damen said nervously.
He was totally unprepared for this kind of call. He had barely gotten through Psych 101 his first semester and couldn’t even write a letter to his own girlfriend, let alone comfort someone else’s. Charlotte, on the other hand, sensed an opportunity and placed a call of her own.
“Polly?” Charlotte asked, telepathically calling back to the intern office. “You’ve got to connect me to someone.”
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to hold out,” Polly said. “Booty calls are technically toll-free, but they will take their toll, so be selective, girlfriend.”
“No, not that kind of call,” Charlotte said to Polly’s disappointment. “Listen, is anybody on the line with a girl named Anais?”
“Yep, I am,” Polly said, curiously. “Why?”
“Oh, she’s just someone I know,” Charlotte said. “Would you mind transferring the call to me?”
“Okay,” Polly said. “But she’s a total basket case, calling into late-night love lines, the whole deal.”
Charlotte wasn’t interested in putting words in Anais’s mouth as much as getting into Damen’s head.
“So, you’ll connect me?”
“Gladly,” Polly agreed with a giggle. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
That was a piece of advice Charlotte definitely planned to ignore, but it was sweet of Polly to be so cooperative. Charlotte just assumed she’d be much more territorial.
“You were saying,” Damen said, easing his hand off the silencer and clearing his throat. “Something about your boyfriend?”
“He is a great guy,” Anais said, her mood turning suddenly sunnier. “But I don’t think he really appreciates me.”
“What makes you say that?” Damen asked, his curiosity piqued.
“I don’t feel like he likes me for me,” she informed. “Like maybe he wants me to be something I’m not.”
“Did he ask you to change?” Damen asked.
“No,” she said. “But he didn’t not ask me.”
That was a pretty wacky way to put it, Damen thought.
“Then maybe it’s all in your head?” he responded dismissively. “Just some insecurities coming out.”
No, he did not just tell a girl it was all in her head! Charlotte was desperate to get through, but she was getting nowhere. It was like dancing with a guy who knows only one step. So, she decided to take the lead.
“You are not hearing me,” she said. “If it’s real to me, then it’s real.”
Damen was stung and tried to process what she was saying. He was kind of literal in his approach to girls and relationships. Things were either good or bad, true or false; gray area was not his specialty. He tried to find an example from his own life that would suit the situation.
“I once knew a girl that tried to change everything about herself,” Damen offered. “And it really didn’t go well.”
“So?” Anais said, not sure where this was going.
“So, nobody asked her to change,” Damen said. “She was smart, sweet, and helpful.”
“Helpful?” Charlotte quizzed, putting a little more of herself into the chat. “You make her sound like a pet or something.”
All she could think at the moment was that he left out “pretty.” This was starting to get personal.
“My point is,” Damen said, “she was fine exactly as she was.”
“Maybe she didn’t see it that way,” she said defensively. “You can’t tell someone else how to feel.”
“True,” Damen argued, “but you can’t blame someone else for the way you feel or the choices you make either.”
“Nobody makes decisions in a vacuum,” Anais spouted, even more of Charlotte sneaking out of her mouth. “We can only react to the way people think about us.”
“You can never really know what another person intends,” Damen suggested, mining his recollection of first-semester ethical philosophy. “It’s easy to get it wrong.”
“So this girl you knew just imagined all of it?” Charlotte prodded.
“No,” Damen continued, “but there was a big gap between reality and her perception of it.”
“And she fell into the gap?” she said.
“It’s not hard to do,” Damen explained.
Charlotte was both flattered and flustered that he thought to use her as a talking point, but his analysis was colored by a whole lot of hindsight. Sure, nobody asked her to change. Nobody noticed her enough to bother. This conversation was bringing up a lot of long-buried, so to speak, bad memories.
“People expect you to be a certain way,” she said, “to look a certain way, think a certain way. Otherwise they won’t accept you.”
“Then they’re not worth impressing,” Damen said easily. “Anyone who really cared about you wouldn’t expect you to change for them.”
“Easy for you to say,” Charlotte let slip. “You have everything you want, great looks, great body, great girlfriend, great T-shirt.”
Damen looked around, feeling as if he was being watched. What did this caller know about him or his life? Charlotte could see his distress.
“Do I know you?” Damen said.
“You must have it all figured out,” she said, ignoring his question. “After all, you’re on the radio.”
“I don’t have anything figured out, for myself or anyone else,” Damen went on. “But, my guess is that your boyfriend loves you just the way you are. Thank you for your call.”
Damen was dripping with sweat as he hung up the phone. He wondered if he’d been a little smug with the caller. More importantly, he wondered if he’d been a little smug with Scarlet lately.
Charlotte was not quite sure how she felt about the call either. This was the first real conversation she’d ever had with Damen. It left her feeling good about him—she’d clearly been right about his innate steadiness, loyalty, and common sense—but melancholy about all those changes she’d made. Maybe she could have gotten him on her own merits after all. And lived happily ever after. Hopefully, Anais wouldn’t make the same mistakes.
The real takeaway, she thought—the thing she was sure of—was that Damen loved Scarlet just the way she was. The problem was getting Scarlet to believe it.
Chapter 15 Secret Girls
I was feeling insecure
You might not love me anymore
—John Lennon
Tell-all.
Sometimes divulging your vulnerabilities without any kind of filter can make you more human, but then again, it can also provide material that can be used against you. When you enter into a relationship, you want to know that person, every single detail, and you want them to know about you. You are an open book. But, if things don’t work out, you better be prepared to duck when that same book is thrown back at you.
It was obvious from the second they pulled into the school parking lot that things had changed. Wendy Anderson and Wendy Thomas made the turn into the student entrance, and the early morning crowd parted, observing the invisible social barrier that separated them, to let them through. It wasn’t just underclassmen; it was their peers, seniors, who were admiring them. At first, they just thought that everyone assumed Petula was with them, but as they made their way around the lot in Wendy Anderson’s vintage MG Sprite convertible, it was obvious that wasn’t the case.
Once they came around to the perfect spot, right in front of the sidewalk to the gym entrance, they saw Darcy waving them in. They realized then that they not only had her to thank for their good parking karma, but for their newfound fame—the fame that they deserved but had never found, the fame that Petula had kept them from, and kept from them.
“I am getting dresses sent to me from everywhere. I haven’t even gone through the boxes,” Wendy Anderson said.
They both knew she was lying, but it was okay because they weren’t about reality anymore. They were about perpetuating the image they worked so hard to project. They were a team, now more than ever, and they had a new leader in Darcy. The Wendys felt like shareholders in a corporation now, instead of just trophy friends.
“I have holds at three boutiques,” Wendy Anderson said in a heated prom dress discussion. “I just can’t make up my mind.”
“You shouldn’t let anyone know which dress you pick until that night,” Wendy Thomas chirped.
“I’m actually thinking about wearing all three if I can reserve a quick change room,” Wendy Anderson said. “Just keep it on the down-low for the media.”
“Speaking of down-low,” Wendy Thomas giggled.