Текст книги "She's So Dead to Us"

Автор книги: Kieran Scott

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

jake

“Am I running some kind of geriatric summer camp here?” Coach shouted. “Let’s hustle!”

I didn’t hustle. I looked at Hammond and he rolled his eyes. I hate laps. If you’re going to make us run distance, at least let us out on the streets. What am I, some kind of lab rat scampering in circles for your block of cheese? Upperclassmen, at least, shouldn’t have to do this shit. It was so fucking hot out. And my brain was fried. And I still had three hours of practice ahead of me and back-to-school shopping with my mom tonight and all I could think about was the girl who used to live in my room.

The girl was hot. Not, like, model hot, but hot. I like a girl who dresses down. Who doesn’t need all those bows and doilies and jewelry and crap—’cause she knows she’s hot without it. And the ponytail? That sealed it. She even had those little curls behind her ear just, like, touching her neck. . . . Shit. So effing sexy. All night, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I mean, she used to sleep in my room. How could I not think about that?

“Dude, that’s ten,” Hammond said, smacking me in the chest with the back of his hand.

“Thank God.”

We grabbed paper cups full of water and dropped down on the grass to watch the stragglers.

“Jonah! Pick it up!” I shouted at my brother. Just to be a dick. He was a freshman, and all freshmen and varsity virgins get hazed. He shot me an annoyed look but sprinted the last turn. Hammond laughed and crushed his cup before tossing it onto the ground.

“Look at that little fucker,” he said, nodding at David Drake, who had finished ahead of us and was now running stairs on the bleachers, for no apparent reason. “He doesn’t watch out, he’s gonna get a kick in the head.”

“Maybe he’s on something,” I suggested, not at all serious.

Last year David Drake had been the most pathetic player on J V. This year he’d added at least ten pounds of muscle and had shown some respectable skill on the field. It was obvious he’d been working his ass off all summer, which I respect. Not everyone cares that much. I know I don’t. But Drake didn’t live on the crest, and he still had the balls to play soccer, which around here was a Crestie sport. So that meant Hammond didn’t like him.

Which brought up a question. Where was the new-old girl living? As far as I knew, none of the Crestie families had moved this summer. I glanced sideways at Hammond. “What do you know about the girl who used to live in my house?” I asked.

Hammond’s head whipped up so fast I heard a crack. “What about her?”

“Who is she?” I asked. “Were you, like, friends with her?”

“Why? What do you know?”

I stared at him. Why was he so tense all of a sudden? “She came over yesterday,” I said. “Guess she wanted to see her old place or something.”

“Shut the fuck up. You saw Ally Ryan?” Hammond shifted position. He reminded me of a dog waiting for a treat. A pit bull –German shepherd mix. The kind of dog that would take the Milk-Bone out of your hand and then bite your fingers off just for fun.

“Yeah,” I said. Ally Ryan. Her name was Ally Ryan. AllyRyanAllyRyanAllyRyan. “Wait. Ally Ryan. I’ve heard that name before.”

“She comes up every once in a while,” Hammond said.

Right. Now I remembered. She was the girl in the picture in Shannen’s room. The one of a whole mess of Crestie girls taken at the country club pool in, like, sixth grade. I’d asked Shannen about her once, and she hadn’t wanted to talk about her. Interesting.

“Dude. How did she look?” Hammond asked.

I didn’t like his tone. He was practically licking his chops. “Fine. Good. Whatever. I don’t know what she looked like before.”

“Is she hot?” Hammond asked.

I lifted a shoulder. “She’s all right.”

Hammond eyed me for a long moment. I stared straight ahead at the field, where the coaches were lining up cones for drills. My face was burning. I hoped I was already red from running so Hammond wouldn’t realize why.

“Dude, you don’t want to go there,” Hammond said.

I sucked down the rest of my water. “Who said I was going anywhere?”

“Good. Because Ally Ryan is, like, enemy number one.”

“What? What does that even mean?” I asked.

“Short version? Two years ago her father screwed all our families out of a load of money and then left town,” Hammond said. “We were all friends before that. You know, Sunday dinners and all that shit.”

“She comes to Sunday dinners?” I asked. I dreaded the stupid Sunday dinner tradition. My mother had campaigned for over a year to get my family invited to them, and once we were in I still had no idea why. It was all so fake, the crest families gathering once a week for a homemade five-course meal like we were one, big, happy family. We didn’t even know these people existed two years ago, but now all of a sudden my mother’s happiness hinged on whether or not Mrs. Appleby approved of her banana crème pie or whether Mrs. Kirkpatrick broke her vegan rule for Mom’s roast. I had an okay time with my friends, but the formal setting always made everyone act like tools, like Faith flirting with the wait staff or Shannen trying to sneak alcohol between courses or the Idiot Twins, well, being themselves, only ten times louder. I was constantly counting the seconds until dessert was cleared and we could bail. But I had a feeling I could tolerate Sunday nights a lot better if Ally were there.

“Came. Past tense, dude,” Hammond said. “Look, everyone hates the Ryans. Her dad is the reason Shannen’s father is on a permanent bender. He’s the reason I have no college money and Liam had to take out freaking student loans. Trevor and Todd lost their house because of him.”

“That’s why they live at their grandparents’?” I asked.

“Yep.”

Huh. I’d wondered why the Idiot Twins and their parents lived in the Enclave. It was this exclusive condo neighborhood on the crest where most of the places were owned by Crestie grandparents who only visited on the holidays. The Steins lived there year round, and every once in a while their grandparents would come back and squeeze in. They seemed to like it, though. Nana and Pop were like superheroes to those dudes.

“Wait. But Shannen always says her dad’s been sloshed her whole life.”

“Maybe, but he got really bad when Charlie split, and then he went off the reservation after Ally’s dad lost all their savings,” Hammond said, his jaw clenched. “Stopped going to work, lost his job. . . . That’s why he’s ‘consulting’ now,” he said, rolling his eyes and adding air quotes. We both knew Mr. Moore hardly ever left their house. If he was an advertising consultant, he wasn’t doing very well at it.

“Whoa.” I was surprised Shannen hadn’t told me that part. She was basically my best friend and usually told me everything. But then, maybe this was why she hadn’t wanted to talk about Ally the one time I’d asked.

“No shit,” Hammond said. “Chloe’s dad’s the only one who didn’t get screwed when the Ryans skipped town. Guess he was the only one smart enough not to invest with the guy.” He ripped up some blades of grass and threw them at his feet. “Trust me. We’re all better off if Ally Ryan stays far, far away.”

“Wow. Crazy,” I said.

Probably not the best idea to invite her to Shale’s party, then. I wasn’t even sure why I’d done it. Usually I didn’t invite anyone anywhere. Especially when it wasn’t my party to begin with. I just go with the flow. Don’t rock the boat. But I don’t know. I think I’d just wanted to make sure I’d see her again. Of course if I’d thought about it for two seconds, I would have realized I’d be seeing her in school. Every day. But whatever. Maybe she wouldn’t show up. I mean, if she was at all aware of how everyone felt about her, she’d be stupid not to stay home. Either way, not my problem.

Coach blew his whistle. “Let’s go! Break time’s over!”

“The girls are going to shit when they hear you talked to Ally Ryan,” Hammond said as he stood up. “You coming?”

“Yeah.” I got up and tossed my cup in the garbage can, then stooped to pick up Hammond’s and tossed that, too. I wanted to know more, but I wasn’t about to press for details. If I had learned one thing since moving to this town, it was that the people on the crest had their own way of doing things. They had their theme parties and their group vacations. They had their cheesy little traditions and their pack mentality, as my dad called it. And they also had their opinions. And hardly any of them made sense. At least, not to me.

“Hey, guys,” David Drake said as he jogged to catch up with us. He bounced back and forth from foot to foot, juggling his soccer ball. He had this self-satisfied look on his face. The kid was showing off his energy level. Maybe later I should take him aside and give him a few pointers about not coming off like a pathetic, needy loser.

“Fuck off, Drake,” Hammond said, slapping his ball away. It rolled across the field and onto the track on the far side, where the cheerleaders were throwing each other around.

David chuckled. “Yeah, right. Good one.”

This guy had no idea of the size of the hole he was digging for himself. I looked at Hammond and we laughed. David did, too. Like he was in on the joke. Dig, dig, dig.

“Line it up!” Coach called out.

We did. I made sure I was between Hammond and David so that Ham couldn’t shove the kid over in the middle of a calf stretch.

“That dude is so getting hazed this weekend,” Hammond said, almost loudly enough for David to hear.

I bent over to stretch out. Ally Ryan’s face flashed in my mind, and I squashed it. I wasn’t about to hook up with some chick all my friends hated. Even if them hating her made no sense. It wasn’t worth the drama. I was just going to have to start fantasizing about someone else. Luckily I’d heard some marys from Blessed Heart Academy were going to show up at Shale’s. Blessed Heart girls were hot. I needed distraction from Ally Ryan.

Done and done.

ally

Right. So this was a bad idea. I felt it the moment I stepped up to the imposing double doors of Connor Shale’s sprawling ranch-style house at the very back edge of the crest. The homes were newer here. More modern than the classic mansions my family and friends had grown up in. And Connor’s was practically all windows. Floor to ceiling, back to front. How anyone got any privacy in this place was beyond me. The house was tucked away in the thick woods that formed the barrier between the crest and the Garden State Parkway a couple of miles off, but if you got past the trees, you could see everything.

Like Chloe Appleby standing in the center of the sunken living room, surrounded by Shannen Moore, Faith Kirkpatrick, and a half dozen other Crestie girls, both younger and older. Like the backyard beyond, where the Idiot Twins had hooked up some kind of zipline over the pool, from which they were now swinging like monkeys from two opposing trees. As I watched, the two of them collided in midair. There was a groan. A splash. Then a cheer. Which meant, I supposed, that they had lived.

And then there was Bedroom Boy, who was pressed up against the far wall, a girl in a barely there minidress slobbering all over him. Well, then. I guess he hadn’t invited me here because he actually wanted to see me or anything.

I took a breath to quell the disappointment in my chest. This was not about Bedroom Boy. This was about seeing my lifelong best friends for the first time in a year and a half. I reached for the door, but my nerves took hold and atrophied my arm. I couldn’t do this. Wait, yes I could. I had to. If I didn’t see them now, I’d see them at school tomorrow. And then our encounter might happen in front of my mom. Which would just make it that much more intense. Besides, if I stood out here one second longer, someone was going to notice me, and then I’d have to go in but I’d already be mortified because they’d have seen me hesitating. This was a total nightmare. I held my breath, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.

“Ally?”

The voice came from behind. I whirled around to find Hammond Ross standing there all Long Beach Island tan in a colorful Billabong T-shirt and destroyed cargo shorts. He was just as blond as ever, but taller, broader, less doofy-boy and more hot-guy. Also, he didn’t look unhappy to see me. Which kind of made sense, but also kind of didn’t.

“Hammond. Hey.”

His eyes flicked past me toward Chloe and the rest of them. Checking to see if they’d noticed him talking to me. My nervousness mounted.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked, wrapping me up in a brief hug.

So I guess they hadn’t noticed us yet.

“I—”

“Wait.” He pulled back, looking suddenly nervous. “You’re not gonna tell anyone about—”

“Oh. My. God. She’s. Here.”

I would have recognized Faith’s voice even if it hadn’t been louder than every other one in the room. I moved from Hammond and the wide-open foyer into the even wider-open living room, where all my former friends had turned around to face me. Bedroom Boy somehow lost his hanger-on as he stepped away from the wall. He hovered a bit behind the rest of them, pushing his hands sheepishly into the pockets of his chino shorts. Even though he’d just been hooking up with some drunken frosh and obviously didn’t care one iota about me, my heart was not unaffected at the sight of him standing there with his hair all coiffed, a royal blue Polo shirt hugging his muscles just so. But it was more distracted by the fact that I was here. I was home. With my friends.

“Hey, guys,” I said, lifting a hand awkwardly.

Hammond closed the door behind me and went directly to Chloe’s side. So I guessed they were still together. There was a prolonged moment of silence as the periphery people moved discreetly away, staying close enough of course to keep an eye on the impending drama. I tried not to ponder what it meant that my friends hadn’t all rushed forward to hug me. Instead, I took them in. Chloe Appleby in her white sundress and coral sweater, her light brown hair pulled back in an eyelet band. Her posture was as perfect as ever, her discerning green eyes assessing me as if I were the new girl in town rather than the girl she’d known since nanny care. Shannen had cut bangs in her dark hair, and they practically covered her eyes. She was wearing skinny jeans and a black T-shirt with a studded belt, looking like some kind of badass supermodel. And then there was Faith. Faith had changed more than anyone. Gone were the cutesy tank tops and wild blond curls and natural skin. She was now wearing a cowl-necked tank top over microshorts and high-heeled sandals, her hair straightened and her face so perfectly painted it was practically airbrushed. Gone also was the friendly, open face. She had a scowl on like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Faith said. “What are you doing here, Norm? Because I know no one invited you.”

Norm. That was the nickname we Cresties had for the kids from the other, “normal” side of town. Which I guess was me now, technically. It wasn’t pretty, but there it was. My eyes automatically flicked to Bedroom Boy. He flushed and looked away. Perfect. I loved a guy with no spine.

“I just wanted to see you guys,” I told her.

My brain struggled to reconcile this bitchy socialite with the cherubic Hannah Montana fan I’d left behind less than two years ago.

“How are you?”

“Oh, please,” Faith said. “Like you care?”

“Faith,” Chloe scolded. That was Chloe. Always making sure that no situation grew too awkward or unpleasant. I had news for her. I was already feeling plenty awkward.

“No! No way!” Faith said, incredulous. “You know the only reason she’s here is because she wants us to take pity on her. She thinks she can be, like, rich by association or something.”

My skin stung as if I’d just endured a full-body slap. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Like we’re really going to be your friend again after your dad stole from our families?” Faith said, turning on me again with narrowed eyes.

“Stole?” I repeated, baffled. “He didn’t steal anything. Is that what you guys think? He—”

“Oh, please! So that’s why my parents can’t retire and Shannen’s mom had to sell their shore house and get a job and Hammond has no trust fund?” Faith said, crossing her skinny little arms across her skinny little chest. “Did you know the Zeldinas and the Fallons had to move away and the Steins had to take over their grandparents’ place? They lost their homes thanks to you.”

I swallowed hard. I knew my family had been hit hard by my dad’s mistake, but no one had ever told me exactly what it had meant for everyone else. Trust funds, retirements, and homes just gone? I had no idea.

Okay, Ally. Deep breath. You didn’t do this to them. Your dad did. They can’t really take it out on you.

“And don’t even get me started on what you did to Chloe,” Faith added before I could speak.

Gravity reversed itself. I looked at Chloe. She couldn’t know, could she? Faith didn’t mean—

“All right. That’s enough,” Shannen interrupted, speaking up finally.

Faith was dumbfounded. “Shannen, you’re not gonna let her—”

“Faith, please,” Chloe implored. “I don’t want to make a scene.”

“Too late,” someone in the crowd muttered, earning a round of uncomfortable laughter.

“It’s okay,” Shannen said. “Everyone, just chill.”

Shannen stepped in front of me. The girl who used to challenge me to swim races and paint my toenails in rainbow colors and name stars with me at sleepovers in the backyard. The girl I’d comforted on the worst night of her life. The one whose deepest secrets I kept locked away in the bottom of my heart.

“You need to go,” she said. “Now.”

My heart couldn’t take this. “Shannen, I—”

“Faith’s right. Take a look around. You don’t belong here.”

Her dark eyes flicked over my Old Navy shorts and well-worn shoes in distaste. I felt sick. My friends were really going to reject me because of what my dad did? Because I wasn’t wearing the latest label? I looked around, desperate for someone to tell me this was a joke—to take my side. Chloe looked sad, almost sorry, before she trained her eyes on the floor. Bedroom Boy, meanwhile, stared right back at me, his jaw clenched with something unspoken, his blue eyes almost pleading. For what? For me to go? Or for me to never have come?

Right then, the back door slid open, letting in shouts and squeals and splashes from the backyard. In tromped the Stein twins in their almost matching Hawaiian-print bathing suits, dripping pool water all over the pristine wood floors. They had identical red welts forming on their foreheads. Not that either of them seemed to care.

“Yo! Where’s the chips and dips?” Trevor shouted.

Todd stopped in his tracks. “Dude. Who died?” Then he saw me and his eyes lit up. “Ally Ryan!” He loped over and gave me a huge, wet bear hug, his soaked brown hair dripping all over my shoulders. “You’re lookin’ smokin’ as ever! Where you been, girl?”

Trevor came over and hugged me too, turning me into the filling inside an Idiot Twin sandwich. The force of their hugs brought tears to my eyes. I’d missed them. All of them. Even the Idiot Twins. But clearly, only these two doofs had missed me.

“I have to go,” I mumbled, extricating myself from their clammy grasp and ducking away so that no one could see my eyes.

“Wait, what?” Trevor said.

“You just got here! We’re gonna have chips and dips!” Todd added.

I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so miserable. On my way out the door I almost barreled over some punk-looking chick with blond hair who had just walked in—right in time to see my ignominious exit. I sputtered an apology, then almost tripped again when I realized she was Annie Johnston, Faith’s best friend. Another one with a completely new look. In any other scenario I would have stopped to say hi, but she probably hated me as much as Faith did. I slipped by her and ran for the edge of the jam-packed driveway, where I’d stashed my bike under the thick border of evergreen trees.

My legs pumped the pedals with all their might as I raced away from Connor’s house, my breath coming short and shallow, until I reached Harvest Lane. There I placed my feet on the ground and glanced back over my shoulder in the direction of Vista View. Somewhere back there behind the trees was my old house. My old life. The life that I, apparently, could never go back to.

I was never going to lie out under the sun with Chloe again or ride bikes with Shannen or put on fake concerts with Faith or climb trees with Hammond and the twins. I was never going to kiss Bedroom Boy under the bleachers after a soccer game. Never going to see him waiting for me after class or searching for me in the caf or standing in a tux under the domed ceiling of the country club ballroom.

Not that I had been daydreaming about those things for the last two days. Not at all. Clearly it was time for me to officially grow up. I turned my back on Vista View and rode on.

My mother was going to die when she heard what had happened tonight. All she wanted was to move home and reclaim her old friends, her old life. That was all she wanted for the both of us. Well, it appeared that, for one of us at least, that was not going to happen.

God, I hated my father. How could he do this to us? To them? How could he lose all their money, move us out of a town we loved, and then just drop us? Just disappear without a word, without an explanation? Where the hell was he? Was he ever going to come back? Was he ever going to try to rectify what he’d done?

I tipped my front wheel down the hill at the top of Harvest and took my feet off the pedals, just letting myself fly. Letting the wind clear my head and tug a few tears from the corners of my eyes. At the bottom I almost forgot to stop. Almost flew directly into the two-way traffic on Orchard Avenue. But as soon as I saw the cars whizzing by, my brain snapped back into focus. I hit the brakes hard and yanked my wheel to the left, stopping two inches away from the brick wall of the bagel shop at the corner. My chest heaved. My heart raced. My pores oozed hot sweat into my clothes. And only one word came into my mind.

No.

Just like that, I knew. I knew my mother would never find out about tonight. She didn’t need to know I’d pathetically reached out to them and been brutally rejected. Clearly, my new life in Orchard Hill was going to be just that—a new life. I didn’t need the Cresties. I felt, suddenly, foolish for ever thinking I did. Somehow I’d survived the last year and a half without them. I could survive the next two. And so what if Bedroom Boy hadn’t defended my honor back there? I could handle myself. Sort of. At least, I would. From now on.

I turned my bike down Orchard Avenue and headed for my new home. Faith was right. I was a Norm now. It was time to start living like one.