Текст книги "He's So Not Worth It"

Автор книги: Kieran Scott

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“Have you ever been inside this one?”Jenny and I paused in the middle of the beach that night as she pointed up at the darkened Appleby house. My feet were buried in the cold sand and the wind whipped around us like it was trying to kill something. The reeds at the top of the beach were flattened against the dunes, and the clouds overhead moved so fast against the cobalt blue sky, it was making me dizzy. My face already stung from spending hours in my room alone, thinking about the look on my dad’s face that afternoon, and crying my eyes out. Now I was so tense my arms were permanently wrapped around myself. My mother still wouldn’t talk to me, and when I’d come down for dinner, Gray had given me a look that could have killed a charging elephant, then dropped a folder of takeout menus on the counter and walked out with Quinn for destinations unknown. I was officially persona non grata in the world of my pseudo-family. All I felt like doing was curling up in a ball and dying, but the last place I wanted to be was inside that house. Thankfully, Cooper had called to tell me he and his friends were going to be partying a little ways up the beach. So here I was.“Cuz I looooove this one,” Jenny added.I blinked, returning to the now. What was with the Lane family’s jones for Chloe’s house?“Yeah, actually. One of my friends lives there.”It seemed easier than saying former friends and then explaining the whole sordid idiocy.“Really? Does she keep any clothes in there?” Jenny asked, taking a couple of steps toward the deck. “I bet she has awesome clothes.”“All right, all right. Let’s go before you get yourself into trouble,” I joked, putting a hand on her shoulder.Jenny shot me a wide-eyed, innocent look. “What? I was just asking.”We started up the beach together and she shook her head, glancing back over her shoulder. “How do you have a house like that and not even use it?”I took a deep breath and looked out at the ocean, not about to explain why Chloe hadn’t come down. There were whitecaps on the water as far as the eye could see, and the surf was so loud we had to raise our voices to be heard. Thinking about Chloe made me feel sad all over again. I’d recently seen her get devastated, just like my dad had been devastated that afternoon. And both were sorta kinda my fault.“Come on, let’s go back to the fire. It’s freaking freezing out here.”There was a whoop and a shout down the beach, and I saw Charlie’s shadow loping toward the others, which gave me more of an excuse to get back there.“Chum’s here,” I said.“Oh! I love Chum! He always brings beef jerky!” Jenny gave a little jump, tugged her red-and-white-striped hood over her braids, and jogged ahead of me. Her heels kicked up so much sand, I had to slow down and shield my eyes.“Hey, Ally,” Charlie said, lifting his chin.My shoulders felt heavy as I said “hi.” Because I suddenly remembered that there was something I had to tell him. Something I figured he’d want to know. God. Could this day get any more depressing?“Can I talk to you for a sec?” I asked.Cooper looked back and forth at the two of us with a suspicious, possibly jealous, expression. I managed to feel flattered for a second, before the weight of what I was about to do flattened it like a two-hundred-pound dumbbell to the pinky toe.“Sure. What’s up?” Charlie asked.He walked over to me, hands in the pockets of his blue sweatshirt, head bowed. I moved a few steps away from the fire and he followed.“Uh oh. This seems serious,” he joked, and laughed. But when he looked at my face, he stopped smiling. “What is it? Did something happen to my mom? Did he—”“No. Your mom’s fine,” I said quietly. The fire crackled and sparked behind us, the wind blasting our faces with smoke. “She’s . . . here.”Charlie actually looked over his shoulder.“No, not here here, but down the shore. She’s staying with us. And so is Shannen,” I said.“Shit. You didn’t tell them, did you?” he asked.“No, but . . . here’s the thing. . . . My mom says your parents are getting a divorce,” I said.Charlie’s head popped up. His eyebrows, too. He looked, suddenly, like the Charlie I used to know. All happy and alive inside.“She’s leaving him? Shut the eff up.” He smiled and nodded a few times as he looked at our feet. “Go, Mom.”Okay. So maybe this wasn’t a bad piece of news. All of a sudden, I sensed a disturbance in the force. Everything went quiet, except for the crackling of the fire and the whistling of the wind and the crashing of the surf. Before I could even look over at Cooper for an explanation, she was there.“Hey! What’re we drinking?” Shannen asked, slapping her hands together.Charlie ducked behind me. As much as a lanky giant can duck behind a girl like myself. He grabbed my elbows from behind and pressed his head into the small of my back.“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”“What?” Shannen said as the locals just stared. She lifted her chin in my direction. “I’m with her.”You are so not with me, I thought. And would have said were it not for the fact that her brother’s long-ass toenails were cutting into my heels. Only Shannen would feel like it was okay to crash a party with my friends mere weeks after completely destroying me. She really did live in her own little world where everyone else revolved around her.“Chum? What the hell are you doing back there?” Dex asked.“Fuuuuuuck,” Charlie said to the ground. Then, ever so slowly, he released me and stood up. Shannen’s face fell so fast it made a dent in the sand at her feet. “Hey, Shan.”“Charlie!?”It was like that scene in Grease in the parking lot when Danny and Sandy first see each other after their summer of love and Rizzo’s the only one who knows what the heck is going on. I was Rizzo. Shannen threw herself at Charlie and they hugged. He picked her up off the ground and her legs kicked up.“What the hell are you doing here?” Shannen demanded as her feet hit the sand again.“Slumming, you know,” Charlie lifted his shoulders.“Hey! Watch it,” Cooper joked, but he sounded serious.“Come on,” Shannen said, shoving his arm so hard he turned sideways. “I thought you were in Arizona.”“Yeah, that’s kind of a long story,” Charlie said, hanging his head. What was with all this head hanging? Back in the day this kid wore his chin higher than anyone I knew. “Don’t be mad at Ally, though. I made her promise not to tell you.”Shannen’s eyes flashed as she looked up at me. “You knew?”I bit down so hard on my tongue my taste buds filled with blood. Don’t kill her. Do not kill her. There are too many witnesses.“Yes,” I said slowly, loudly. “I knew where your brother was and I didn’t tell you.” I spoke like she was a tourist in from Greece who knew zero English. Very slowly. Very succinctly. Determined to get my point across.Shannen sort of flinched. She tucked her hair behind her ear, which was something she always used to do when she didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t seen her do it once since I’d been back in Orchard Hill.“Let’s go somewhere,” she said to Charlie.“Like where?” he said.“I don’t know. Anywhere. We need to talk,” she said. “There’s a lot going on.”Charlie glanced at me, but didn’t say that he already knew. Instead he nodded, lifted a hand at the crowd, and trudged off with Shannen by his side. From behind, it was amazing how much they looked like each other. Same long legs, same dark hair, same hunched shoulders. They’d always been the perfect pair. The brother and sister who made only children like me wish for a sibling. He shouldn’t have been exiled, and she shouldn’t have turned into a bitch.“Damn,” Jenny said, stepping up next to me.“What?” I asked. In the sullen mood I found myself in, I expected her to say something deep and meaningful. Something that would make sense of all this contradictory crap spinning in my head.“He took the jerky with him.”I scoffed a laugh. For some people, it was all just about the jerky. Must have been nice when life was so simple. Over her shoulder, a light flickered to life a little ways off in the distance. The deck light at Gray’s house. My heart skipped a tense beat as my mom walked out to the railing and leaned into it. The wind tugged her hair back from her face as she scanned the beach, and I realized with a surge of hope that she was looking for me. Of course she was looking for me. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going. Maybe she was ready to talk about this afternoon. And for the first time all summer, I was more than ready to listen.I took one step toward the house, and then Gray came out behind my mom and slipped his arms around her waist. She turned to face him and he held her in his arms and the two of them started kissing like they were auditioning for some awful, middle-aged porn movie.So, she wasn’t looking for me at all. Apparently she didn’t give a crap where I was, who I was with, or what I was doing. Maybe Cooper had been right all along. Maybe all I was to my mother was the person keeping her from the people she really wanted to be with.Suddenly I felt very small. And stupid and angry and naïve.“Hey, Crestie Girl. Want a beer?”I looked up at Cooper. He held a can of something with the word “Lite” splashed across it. Ice dripped from the can and hit my feet, sending shivers up and down my legs.“Sure,” I said, taking it from him. “Why not?”And while Gray slid his hands under my mom’s T-shirt in the distance, I chugged a beer for the very first time.

Daily Field Journal of Annie Johnston Sunday, July 11Position: Gourmet salad bar at Dickson’s Farm (favorite Crestie summer lunch spot).Cover: Deciding between Kalamata or regular, martini-type olives.Observations:12:34 p.m.: The Halloran Electrical van pulls up outside. Brakes squeal. Music is cut dead. Will, who’s much more of a Wendy’s guy than a salad guy, gets out from behind the wheel, walks around the front, and opens the passenger-side door. A pink espadrille searches for the ground. I recognize it before I see the person it’s attached to. Subject Chloe Appleby. (Note: THIS is interesting .)12:36 p.m.: Will and Subject Chloe walk to the salad bar, pick up plastic trays, and go about making their salads. They talk, laugh. Subject Chloe makes suggestions.12:37 p.m.: Will’s hand touches Subject Chloe’s back. She doesn’t flinch away. It doesn’t linger long.12:43 p.m.: On their way to have their salads weighed, they grab a basket and fill it with eight premade wraps and a bunch of sodas.12:48 p.m.: There’s some kind of debate at the register as Subject Chloe and Will both try to pay. Not sure who wins. The Weight Watchers crowd has just arrived and is blocking my view.12:50 p.m.: Subject Chloe and Will walk out. He opens the car door for her. She smiles as she gets in. They speed away. (Innocent Assessment: They were just buying lunch for the crew working on her house. Not-So-Innocent Assessment: They’re totally doing it.)

There was a circle on the page in front of me, with a big “x=?” over the diameter line. Or was that the radius? Which one went straight across? I used to know this. I had a feeling that if it was gray and raining and less than sixty degrees outside, I would know this. But today? With the sun in my face and the pool shining out there and knowing that every single person on the planet was having more fun than me? I didn’t know what the hell that frickin’ line was and I didn’t care.Why hadn’t Ally texted me back? Was she so pissed at me that she couldn’t even be text buddies? Or was it because I’d asked her to be friends? Maybe she still wanted to be more than friends, so when I’d asked to be friends, she’d been offended. Couldn’t she just write something back? Let me know she’d gotten the text? Was it so hard to type yes, no, or maybe into a damn phone?I took out my cell, deciding to call her out with another text. Something that struck the exact balance between caring and not caring. What was the word? Aloof. I needed to find the aloofness.Ten minutes later, I was trying to think of something good to say. Maybe I should be paying more attention in English class.Suddenly, Chloe appeared in my yard. She just walked out from behind the bushes and I almost had a heart attack. She squinted up at the house, like she was looking for something. I stood up and waved, shoving my phone back into my pocket. She smiled and waved back. Then she motioned for me to come downstairs.This was the benefit of having the biggest house in town. My mom was in it somewhere, but clearly nowhere with a window on the backyard. I walked to the door of my room, opened it silently, and peeked my head out. Nothing. I ran downstairs on my tiptoes and cut through the dining room—which we use about four times a year—to get to the backyard. Mom was more likely to visit the kitchen than the dining room. Like, ninety-nine percent more likely. If they made SAT questions about how to avoid my family members, I’d be going to Harvard.“Hey!” Chloe said as I slid open the glass door to the back patio.I lifted a finger to my mouth to shush her, then pulled her around the corner. No windows. Awning overhead. Unless you were in the pool, you couldn’t see us.“What’s wrong?” she whispered.She was wearing a pink bikini under her white tank dress and I could see about seventy-five percent of her breasts from my angle. I cleared my throat and looked away. I’d also be going to Harvard if the questions were about how best to sneak a glance at cleavage. But Chloe was my friend, and still Hammond’s girl in my mind, so I’d have to control myself.“I’m still grounded. Seriously grounded.”“Oh, sorry.” She pulled her lips down and back for a second. “Faith told me she saw you down the shore over the weekend, so . . .”“Yeah. Big mistake,” I said.“Oh.” She tilted her head and ran her fingertips along the wrought iron edge of our smaller patio table. “So, did you see anyone?”I bit my lip. I hated it when girls dug for info. I wasn’t good at knowing what they wanted to hear and what they didn’t. “Well, I saw Faith.” She looked at me like I knew that already. “And Hammond and Ally,” I admitted.“Were they, like, hooking up?” she asked.“What? No.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Ally doesn’t like him.”Her eyebrows shot up. “So you think he likes Ally.”Crap. Was that what that sounded like? “No. No, of course not,” I said. “Chloe, they weren’t even at the same party. Ally’s, like, hanging with some local crowd. Hammond said he’s barely even seen her.”Her expression brightened. “Yeah?”I suddenly recalled, vividly, the sight of Ally on top of that local dude, and felt sick to my stomach. But she didn’t need to hear about that. I’d made her feel better already.“Yeah.”“So if you’re grounded, I guess that means you can’t hang out,” she said.“I wish.”She groaned and leaned back against the pillar behind her. I breathed out, relieved. Looking down at her cleavage accidentally was no longer an issue. “I’m so bored!” she said.“At least you don’t have to take some dumb-ass class this afternoon,” I said, rolling my head around to crack my neck.“What class?” she asked.“English Literature,” I said in a low voice, trying for a British accent. “My mom’s making me take it.”She stood up straight and frowned. She wasn’t interested, was she? That would be insane.“When’s it meet?” she asked.“Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for, like, six weeks,” I said. “It’s two o’clock at Bergen.”“Okay. I’m in.”“What?” I laughed. “Are you serious?”She shrugged. “It sounds like fun.”I reached forward and put my hand on her forehead, which I’d seen Shannen do a hundred times. Chloe rolled her eyes and smiled as she batted my hand away.“Just making sure you’re feeling okay,” I said.“I know. I get it,” she said. “I like to read.” She walked a few steps past me and took her sunglasses off her head, folding them in front of her. “Besides, if I join the class, then we can hang out and study together. Your mom can’t ground you from studying.”She made a good point. “I don’t know. The class might be full. I mean, studying stuffy, dead English dudes for the summer? That’s, like, a major draw.”Chloe laughed and put her sunglasses on. “I’ll pick you up at one thirty.”Then she twiddled her fingers and walked away. I felt energized all of a sudden. It was good, making somebody feel happy for once. Having someone be glad to have me around. I went back inside to study and put the new mood to use before it went away.

Daily Field Journal of Annie Johnston Monday, July 12Position: Cream of the Crop denim boutique, Orchard Avenue.Cover: Shopping for jeans. (Personal Note: Do people actually spend $258 on one pair of jeans? I can buy everything in Old Navy for that price.)Observations:1:27 p.m.: Subject Faith Kirkpatrick walks in. Uniform: green off-the-shoulder minidress, sky-high wedge sandals, sleek ponytail. (Query: What’s she doing home from the shore?) I skirt the clearance rack so she doesn’t see me, get distracted by a cute pair of rolled, cropped jeans. Hmmm . . . these are actually—The dressing room curtain snaps shut. Subject Faith’s already inside and I didn’t see what she picked out. Damn you, Lucky Brand sale jeans!1:32 p.m.: Still considering jeans when Subject Chloe Appleby pulls up to stoplight outside in her white convertible. Uniform: puffed-sleeved, pink button-down. Subject Jake Graydon is in the passenger seat. Uniform: light blue T-shirt, Ray-Bans. Subject Jake says something. Subject Chloe laughs. The light turns green, and they zip off. (Assessment: Subject Chloe’s really sowing those wild oats now that Hammond’s out of the picture. Personal Query: Do I tell Ally?)1:35 p.m.: I buy the jeans. On sale, it still takes half my paycheck.1:42 p.m.: (Location: Scoops.) Experiencing extreme buyer’s remorse. Have enough cash left for ice cream, but can’t stomach it. This is a personal first.1:45 p.m.: (Location: Cream of the Crop.) No returns on clearance merchandise! Damn you, Lucky Brand sale jeans! Damn you to Hades!2:30 p.m.: (Location: My room, in front of the mirror.) Okay. They’re actually pretty cute.

I was scooping out strawberry ice cream for an adorable towheaded kid on Monday afternoon when Hammond walked in, ducked behind the counter, and sauntered up to me, all smiles. I already had a headache from being out too late with Cooper, Dex, and Jenny yet again, and had this awful sour taste in my mouth I just could not get rid of. I was definitely in no mood to deal with the likes of Hammond Ross.“Hey, Crestie Girl.”“Don’t call me that.”I let the freezer door slam, handed the cone to the kid, and rang it up. His dad paid me three dollars and told me to keep the change.“Thanks.” I tossed the money in the tip jar, on which the handwritten sign read send us to college! tnx! I wasn’t entirely sure people were going to want to send us to college if we couldn’t even spell out the words “Thank You,” but the tip jar was not my domain. I grabbed a sleeve of napkins and started to restock the dispensers on the counter.“Why not?” Hammond said, leaning into my shoulder slightly. “You let that local loser call you that.”“How do you even know that?” I said through my teeth.“I heard him say it the other day when—”“Well don’t,” I snapped. I dropped a dispenser on the counter with a clatter. “I hate it when he says it, so it’s even worse when you do.”He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry! God. You know, all I did was go to a party. What’s the big frickin’ deal?”“A party you weren’t invited to,” I said, shoving the napkins so far into another holder the ones on the other side popped out. “And you brought Jake and Faith.”“It’s a free country!” Hammond blurted.He walked past me, his hip bumping mine, and shoved through to the back room. The door hadn’t even closed when he was back again.“What’s up your ass this summer anyway?” he asked.I dropped the napkin holder on the counter. “What’s up my ass is that you people can’t seem to get the hint,” I said. “I don’t want to be friends with you anymore. I’m not a Crestie. So stop following me around.”“That is such bullshit!” Hammond said.“This is a happy place, people!” Mitch called out from the back.Hammond rolled his eyes and let the door close. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some customers approaching—vacationers of all shapes and sizes, wearing colorful Tshirts and with deeply red skin.“What’s such bullshit?” I demanded.“Just because you moved away doesn’t mean anyone stopped caring about you!” he spat.He was breathing really hard. I could see the outline of his chest muscles heaving up and down. I looked up into his eyes and he didn’t flinch. He stared back into mine. I felt a shiver go through me. He inched closer. And then, the door opened.“There’s my Crestie girl!”My face turned beet red. It was Cooper, of course. Hammond cocked his head in a sarcastic way and took a step back. Cold air rushed in all over my hot skin. As I glanced at Hammond’s pink cheeks, I felt guilty all of a sudden. And confused. And very, very warm. He hadn’t really been about to kiss me, right? That was just inconceivable.“You’re such a working stiff,” Cooper said. He leaned both forearms into the counter and smiled. “How late are you here?”I held my breath as Hammond slid past me to help the sunburned family, who had come in behind Cooper. The shrieks of the kids bounced off the linoleum and echoed against the plate-glass windows. They pressed their noses against the glass, leaving smears I was going to have to clean up later.“Ally?”Suddenly I couldn’t remember what day it was, let alone what time it was or when my shift ended. Luckily the Day-Glo, icecream-cone-shaped clock above his head told me we were well into the afternoon.“Um . . . till six,” I said, vaguely recalling the numbers scrawled on the schedule.“Cool. We’re hitting the Fishery after.” He fiddled with the tip jar, holding his hand over the top as a seal and turning it upside down and back, upside down and back. “Dex said they got in a whole boatload of fresh clams this morning. I’ll pick you up.”I hesitated. I knew that going to the Fishery with Cooper and his friends didn’t just mean fried clams for dinner. It meant another late night of partying on the beach, drinking the beer I still didn’t understand how they procured, making out in the cold sand with Cooper, and getting windburn around a roaring fire. Only some of which was pleasurable (the making out part). All I really wanted to do right then was take a long shower, cuddle up in some sweats, and watch TV. But my mother had only barely thawed toward me, and Gray and Quinn were avoiding me like I was covered in slime. Plus, every time I was inside the house, I was walking on eggshells waiting for Shannen to pull something or Gray to try for another heart-to-heart or my mom to suddenly decide to berate me about my dad. She hadn’t even asked me where I’d been the past couple of nights. It was like she hadn’t even noticed I’d been gone.But still . . .“I don’t know. I think I should maybe try to have dinner with my mom,” I said.“You mean the bitch who keeps choosing her smarmy boyfriend over you?” Cooper said, pulling a face. “That makes sense.”Hammond shoved an icecream scoop into the coffee chip with serious violence.“She’s not a bitch. And I—”“Dude. You hang out with your mother all year,” Cooper said. “It’s summer, for fuck’s sake.” He threw his arms out, palms up, like he’d just made the argument to end all arguments. He didn’t even notice the death glares he was getting from the mom at the far end of the counter. “Besides, I’m way hotter than your mom, right?”I laughed and felt myself relax. He had me there. And besides, what was one more night of avoidance? I actually felt relieved, all of a sudden, letting myself be persuaded. “All right, all right. I’ll come with you. But I can’t stay late.”“Yes. I win.” Cooper casually pumped a fist. Which made me feel momentarily annoyed. Why was he making it a contest?He leaned in for a kiss, and I let him have one because I wasn’t sure whether I was overreacting. Then he grabbed one of the wooden taster spoons and stuffed it inside his cheek like a lollipop. His flip-flops snapped as he walked out, and he nudged the mom of the singed brood with his elbow.“You don’t wanna go through him. He sneezes on the ice cream.” He tilted his head in my direction. “Tip her. She’s the goods.”Hammond’s fingers clenched around the sugar cone and scoop he held in his hands. Cooper grinned happily and walked out into the LBI sun.I groaned and leaned my tired body into the counter, wondering how he could be so awake and chipper when he drank way more and stayed out way later than I did. Whatever happened, I was not staying out past midnight tonight. I had to put my foot down. No matter what.