Who's Your Daddy? (16 page)

Ismet was interested in girls from school?

A sour swirl of jealousy moved through my middle. I did not EVEN want to know their names. “It doesn’t matter,” I lied in this brittle, fake-cheery tone. I felt a resurgence of the tears I’d shed earlier. “Really. I don’t
need
a boyfriend.” Shefka didn’t say anything, because she probably knew I was lying to myself. “Can you do me a favor, though, Shefka?”

“Sure. What?”

“Don’t tell your brother I have a crush on him.” I crinkled my nose at the mere thought. “I’ll get over it.”

“Well, all is not lost. You never know. Ismet might come around eventually.”

Yeah. Sure. And I would suddenly turn into a hip and cool girl just like that—
abracadabra
. “Whatever. I mean, if he does, that’s fine. I still don’t want him to know how I feel.”

“Will you continue to visit our house?” She sounded pensive, almost frightened of my answer.

I smiled—a bittersweet kind of a smile. Shefka was a good friend. “Of course I will. I’d miss you and Jenita too much if I didn’t. Plus, I’m still your Spanish tutor.”

“Good. Ismet does consider you a friend, you know.”

I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “Well … great. Friends.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “That’s a good thing.”

Yeah, sure it was.

It pretty much boiled down to this: Lila was one of the guys, I was a “good friend,” and Caressa? Temporarily deluded. I decided right then and there that the dumb supper had indeed been a colossal failure, pointing all three of us toward the absolute MOST wrong guys ever.

They’d never like us. We’d never date them.

Our prom night dreams were a bust.

We were dateless,
still
, and firmly back at square one.

That, as they say, was that.

Fall dragged on like a particularly wicked case of PMS, leaving all three of us cranky, bloated with disappointment, and basically despising all things male. Despite our aspirations, nothing good had happened to any of us so far this year. No brilliant ideas, no progress in the dating department, no demonstrable improvement in our social lives—
nada
.

Big shocker of the millennium (not)—Caressa never heard anything back after she sent off that expertly forged letter to Bobby Slade. She was actually surprised by that fact, whereas the rest of us were hoping the lack of feedback would be the lightbulb inside her head to make her realize,
Hey, Bobby Slade is all wrong for me, what with him being OLD and me being MAJOR JAILBAIT.
Why didn’t I see it before?
It didn’t work that way for Caressa at all. She was still convinced her destiny was as Mrs. Bobby Slade. Whazzup?

Though she’d promised me on the afternoon I’d forged Mr. Thibodoux’s siggy that she would quit stalking the twenty-one-year-old and start fishing in the pond of available guys our age, she had yet to cast a single line. Then again, she was pretty swamped with the dismal play rehearsals, so I decided not to issue a smackdown. It wasn’t like Meryl or I were really out there baiting hooks either.

Speaking of Meryl, the whole Ismet deal had pretty much gone down the crapper. She had gotten a lot less optimistic about her prospects with the guy after it looked like his goal in life was to pretend he was an all-American boy with a starring role on
The O.C.
, instead of grasping hold of the reality that (1) he was and always would be Bosnian, which was (2) perfectly OKAY—duh, and (3) his family had unfortunately moved him to freakin’ White Peaks, Colorado, not Orange County, California.

NEWSFLASH: LIFE IS NOT A TV SHOW.

HELLO! Was everyone in this town perpetually stoned?

Meryl was still gaga over the guy, though, and she spent a goodly portion of her time pining away for him and their missed potential like a freakin’ war bride. She just couldn’t think of an effective way to show him she was right for him, and the rest of us had begun to think maybe she wasn’t.

I, in contrast to the delusions of Meryl and Caressa, had my feet firmly grounded in reality. Okay, so I still had a crush on Dylan, aka he-who-is-completely-wrong-for-me, but he was still dating Jennifer Hellspawn Hamilton. This was a fact I had fully and easily accepted, therefore I had not and would not act on my insane attraction. I was, instead, working off my tension by doing everything possible to make Hellspawn jealous.

It was child’s play, really.

Jennifer had nothing on me … well, except for the good looks, the popularity, the hot guy,
blah blah blah
. But in the wits department, I was battling with a woefully unarmed opponent, which was a beautiful thing. She despised me, but hey, that didn’t change the fact that I got to spend tons of quality time with her boyfriend while she pouted at home. Ha freakin’ ha! I
know that sounds evil, but if anyone deserved to be taunted, it was her.

By the big weekend after Thanksgiving, my pals and I had pretty much written off ever having meaningful relationships of any kind with the opposite sex. I had also written off the possibility of ever looking cool in front of my peers, because once again, I was forced into very visible junior narcdom. Yes, it’s true. I had to work at the famous White Peaks Christmas Market looking like a public-relations dweeb of the first order.

The big annual Christmas Market went down for the full weekend after Turkey Day. It started Friday night with the tree-lighting ceremony, ice skating on the lake, a bonfire, hay rides, and copious mulled-cider consumption, not to mention midnight bikini skiing for your real hardcore types. People from all over the state (not to mention Wyoming and New Mexico) flocked to White Peaks for the festivities, spending the weekend shopping, listening to live music, watching ski exhibitions, and eating fun stuff like roasted chestnuts and funnel cakes.

It was usually my favorite weekend of the year—USUALLY being the operative word in that statement.
This year from hell, instead of getting to hang out with my friends and ogle the out-of-town hotties, I had to stand on a street corner and hand out fliers and coupons from the various shops and restaurants on the main shopping drag in Old Town. IN THE MAN PANTS.

It blew. I probably didn’t have to tell you that.

Here’s what blew most of all: Dylan was excused from this particular exercise in humiliation, leaving me to toil in the misery alone. Yeah, again the FAIRNESS was in question.

The events stretched from the main drag in town to the Olympic launch ramp for the ski jumpers near the White Peaks ski resort, and DYLAN, as a member of the high school ski team (aka the ELITE), got to forgo Dacron polyester hell in order to don his tight-fitting hottie garb and perform exhibition jumps for the enthusiastic crowds. He had girls from a freakin’ tri-state area fawning and swooning, whereas every guy alive was giving me and my large butt a wide berth, no pun intended.

The town looked perfect—all snow-covered and merry—and I didn’t care. I glumly shoved fliers in people’s hands, all the while hosting a gala pity party for myself.

I was down to a mere five MILLION or so fliers and
coupon books to hand out when Meryl and Caressa showed up.

“Hey, Lila.” Caressa held out a hot cup of mulled cider, and the spicy tartness swirled up on the steam to tantalize my senses.

“Mmmm. Thanks.” I gratefully set aside my stacks of handouts, hoping they’d all blow away, and took the cup. I watched my friends over the rim of my first sip. Mulled cider was just what I needed. I started to feel more positive. “What’s up with you two?”

Caressa and Meryl exchanged a quick glance, then Meryl smiled at me bravely. “I’ve been researching new ways for us to figure out who our boyfriends might be. I think I found some stuff we can try.”

My head was shaking NO even before she’d stopped talking. “Meryl, with all due respect, haven’t we learned our lesson? The dumb supper resulted in nothing but disaster.” I paused, indicating my outfit. “Why risk making things worse?”

“How could things possibly get worse?” Caressa asked. “I say, we try some of the ideas.”

I scowled for a moment, but curiosity got the best of me. “Okay, like what?”

Meryl’s face relaxed. She knew she had me. Reaching up to tuck her hair behind one ear, she said, “Well, one of the customs says to swallow the heart of a wild duck, and you can have whichever guy you want.”

My eyes bugged. “Uh, ix-nay on the eart-hay. I’m not swallowing animal guts of any kind. I’ll become a nun first.”

Caressa laughed. “My reaction exactly.”

“I know, guys. I wasn’t going to suggest we do that. I just wanted to tell you the story because I found it interesting. Plus, it gives me comfort to know we aren’t the most desperate girls in history.”

“Good point.” I sipped my cider, trying not to think of slimy duck parts. “What other ideas?”

Meryl gave us this evil grin. “Well, I read a thing where you cut your fingernails and grind the clippings into powder, then stir them into cider. If you give this concoction to your crush, he’ll like you back.”

I considered making Dylan guzzle my nasty fingernail clippings. The notion held some retaliatory appeal. “That cheers me up. But, what else?”

“A lot of ideas with apples.”

“Huh?” Caressa said.

“Well, one tradition says that we should lick our knuckles and stick an apple seed on each one. Then someone else … like, for example, Caressa, you’ll secretly name the seeds on Lila’s hand. Once that’s done, she’ll wiggle her fingers until they all fall off but one. The one left is the guy she’ll supposedly date.”

“That sounds a lot better than swallowing animal organs. But then, what doesn’t?” I mused. I glanced around the bustling marketplace. “If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it. Where can we get some apples?”

Meryl swung her backpack around in front of her, unzipped it, then extracted a plastic bag full of apple seeds. “I was hoping you were up for it, so I came prepared.”

“Aren’t you optimistic,” Caressa said, with a laugh. She licked her knuckles and stuck out her right hand.

I pulled off my glove with my teeth and did the same.

Meryl carefully placed apple seeds on our knuckles, then licked the back of her right hand and extended it. I grabbed the bag of seeds and hooked her up.

“Okay, let’s go around in a circle. Caressa, you name Lila’s seeds, I’ll name yours, and Lila, you name mine.”

“Deal.” We were all silent for a few moments, naming the designated person’s seeds. I named the seed on the knuckle of Meryl’s middle finger Ismet, for symbolic reasons.

“Ready?” Meryl asked.

I took a deep breath, released it, then nodded. We both glanced at Caressa.

“I’m ready,” she said.

At the same time, we all started wiggling our fingers. I watched Meryl’s hand, since I knew who her seeds represented. The pinky seed fell off first, then the index finger seed followed suit. Uh-oh. I started to get nervous. I stared at the seed on her flip-the-bird knuckle, willing it to drop off before the other one. Sure, the other one represented Peter Dickensheets, a computer-genius type from school with a name so profoundly WRONG, no one should ever consider marrying him. But I hadn’t been able to think of anyone else on the spur of the moment. Besides, even a boy named PETER DICKENSHEETS was a better prospect for Meryl than a guy who didn’t want her.

Alas, Dickensheets fell to the ground.

I stopped wiggling my fingers, unable to believe
that Ismet was the seed left, then I looked down and noticed that I only had one seed left, too. On my pinky knuckle. Caressa kept wiggling until only her ring finger knuckle still had a seed.

“Okay,” Meryl said, breathlessly. She dipped her chin. “Who does my seed represent?”

I swallowed and thought about lying, but I couldn’t. I blew out an annoyed breath. “Ismet.”

Meryl looked startled. “Oh. Really?” I actually saw some hope blossom on her face, which sucked. I hated to see her get disappointed again.

I nodded. “What about me?” I asked Caressa.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Hutch?!” I rasped. “Don’t tell me that’s the freakin’ Hutch seed, Caressa, or I’ll know this was rigged.”

She bit her bottom lip and nodded around a grimace. “It’s Hutch. And how could it be rigged?”

She had a point. I flicked the seed off my hand.

We both turned our attention to Meryl. She’d gone so pale, her freckles stood out in sharp relief against her cheeks, and I dreaded hearing what she might say. Caressa extended her seed-endowed ring finger and arched a brow.

“Bobby Slade.”

“What?” I shrieked. “Meryl, why did you even name a seed after him?”

“I had to!” Meryl spread her arms wide. “It wouldn’t have been fair to Caressa if I’d left him off.”

I groaned as I spun in a circle with my hands covering my face. When I opened my eyes again, I implored my brainy pal, “There has to be some mistake. Let’s do something else.”

Meryl tapped her bottom lip with the fingers of one hand. She stared off into the distance as if trying to thumb through the files of her mind and find just the right non-animal-gut-munching ritual.

“I kind of like how it turned out,” Caressa said softly.