Текст книги "She's So Dead to Us"

Автор книги: Kieran Scott

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

ally

It was weird, being back in Chloe’s house. Aside from the fact that pretty much everyone in the library was staring at me or whispering about me, not one detail had changed. The antique velvet chaise we used to get yelled at for climbing on still sat in the corner beneath the green glass reading lamp. There were fresh flowers on every table—red and white poinsettias, just like every other December. The leather couches at the center of the room still looked like they’d just been reupholstered, and the same five coffee table books were displayed on the table between them: Victorian Homes of San Francisco, The Art of Georgia O’Keeffe, Covered Bridges of Massachusetts, The Life of Paul Newman, and The True Story of the Titanic. I could still remember the day we’d flipped through that last one fifty times, page by page, looking for a photo of Kate Winslet and being thoroughly baffled when there wasn’t one.

On the other side of the room, next to the twin study desks, Jake was talking to Hammond, both of them keeping their eyes on the crowd. Suddenly I caught his eye, and he tilted his head in an almost imperceptible nod. My body temperature skyrocketed to nuclear levels. I turned around and studied the spines of the books, pretending not to notice him. My phone beeped, and I fished it out of my clutch purse. It was a text from Annie.

Still alive?

I laughed under my breath and texted back.

So far.

Good. Take notes!!! & come over after. We can detox you! :p

“So. Having fun?”

I tucked the phone away as Shannen sidled up to me and offered a cup of cider. She was wearing a black silk dress with a high, ruffled neck and no sleeves. Her heels gave her a good three inches on me. She leaned back against the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf behind me and surveyed the room. I put my clutch down and took the cup.

“Couldn’t you get excommunicated for talking to me?” I said, feeling grateful nonetheless. She was the first person who’d spoken to me all night. I took a sip of my drink. It tasted like the apples had already turned. Weird. Mrs. Appleby was nothing if not a perfectionist.

“Yes, but I have my excuses all lined up,” she replied, talking out of the side of her mouth. “First, it’s the holidays, and talking to you is a form of charity.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

“And second, I’m drunk,” Shannen added, lifting her cup in a toast.

My lips pursed. “Is that what I taste? Did you spike this?”

Shannen shrugged. “What’s Sunday dinner without a little smuggled alcohol?”

I bit my tongue to keep from rattling off the ten things wrong with her logic, not wanting to browbeat the one person who had acknowledged my existence. Other than Jake and his nod.

“You should have some. Drown your sorrows,” she said.

“What sorrows?” I asked.

She took a deep breath and turned toward me, resting her shoulder against the shelves now. “You know, it’s the holidays . . . your dad is MIA. . . .”

My throat completely closed off.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, sometimes I wish my father would disappear,” she joked. “But do you ever wonder where he is . . . where he’s living . . . whether he’s working?”

“Of course I do,” I said, telling myself she was just making conversation. That she wasn’t trying to be mean. She couldn’t know what it actually felt like, the not knowing. How whenever someone brought it up, it was like they’d attached a vacuum hose to my heart and hit the “maximum suckage” button.

“Did your dad ever work in a service job? Like as a waiter or anything?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“What? I don’t know. Why?” I asked, my pulse racing.

She shrugged and turned to face the room again. “No reason. I just sometimes wonder where a person like that ends up.”

I took a shaky breath and sipped my cider, then spit it back into the cup when I remembered there was alcohol in it. What the hell was this line of questioning about? I felt an intense need to change the subject but couldn’t think of a single thing to talk about, what with all the emotional trauma. My gaze immediately traveled to Jake, the one remotely friendly face in the room.

“So, what do you think of our Jake?” Shannen asked, as if reading my mind.

I started. The girl was seriously fraying my nerves. “Why? Did he say something about me?”

Shannen frowned thoughtfully. “No. I just thought you might have formed an opinion about the guy who now lives in your room. Why? Should he have said something about you?”

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Faith slipping through the side door that led to the conservatory. I took it as a good excuse to bail.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Shannen.

I set my drink on the bookshelf and took off after Faith, knowing Shannen would think I was rude, but not caring. The conservatory was cool and quiet, the glass walls surrounding the grand piano looking out over Mrs. Appleby’s prize rose garden. Faith stood in the center of the room, fiddling with her cell.

“Faith,” I whispered.

Her hand flew to her throat. When she saw it was me she grimaced. “God! You scared the hell out of me,” she said in full voice. Then she looked me up and down. “Where’d you get that outfit? Walmart?”

I chose to let the comment roll off my back. “Can we talk?”

Faith crossed her arms over her chest. Her long blond hair was back in a sleek ponytail, and she wore a pink party dress with cap sleeves and a black sash around the waist.

“Why? So you can call me a bitch again?” she asked.

“No. I’m sorry about that,” I said. I ran my fingertip along the music stand where Chloe used to practice her flute. “I just . . . you’re so different,” I said, trying to sound diplomatic. “I guess I was just shocked.”

“Different how?” she asked, her eyes like slits. “Oh, you mean because I have a life? Because I’m not just following you around like some puppy dog?”

I blinked in surprise. “You never followed me around like a puppy dog.”

“Whatever. You loved the fact that you were more popular than me. That you got to bring me along to parties I wasn’t exactly invited to, like I was some orphan you were helping out. That you and Chloe and Shannen were like a little threesome,” she said, lifting a hand. “Well, guess what? There’s a new threesome now. And we don’t need a fourth.”

I swallowed hard. “I don’t understand why you have to be so mean,” I said. “I thought we were friends.”

She pulled her head back, and for a second, I saw her. The old Faith. My friend who was sweet and kind and cared about other people’s feelings.

“Yeah, well, friends don’t just disappear in the middle of the night and never call,” she said. “Friends don’t desert each other.”

“But it wasn’t my fault. And I’m sorry I didn’t call. I—”

Faith took a step toward me. “It doesn’t matter. Your father stole from us. He broke up my family.”

“Wait, what? Your parents are—”

“Getting divorced? Yeah. Thanks to you,” Faith spat. “That’s what happens when your dad loses all my dad’s money. But instead of blaming your father, my mother blamed mine, so here we are. One more statistic. Do you know what it’s like having to explain to my brothers why my dad’s moving out? To listen to my mom crying in the middle of the night? I wish you’d never existed. You and your entire family. I wish you’d never come back here.”

My hands shook. Okay. Apparently coming in here after her was a bad idea. I had no idea her parents were splitting up. Here I’d thought I’d be able to make up for everything with a simple apology, but I’d had no clue how much she’d been hurting. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I—”

“What’s going on in here?”

We both turned around to find Chloe and her mother framed in the doorway. Chloe wore a dark green velvet dress and pearls, while her mother looked very First Lady in a crisp white blouse with puffed sleeves and a slim black skirt.

“Allyson. How nice to see you,” she greeted me politely. “Faith. You both know, however, that we aren’t allowed in the conservatory unattended.”

I glanced at Faith, and for a split second she forgot to be a bitch and started to smile. We’d never been allowed anywhere in this house unattended, but that’s what we always were. It was a long-standing joke. But just as quickly as it had come, the smile was gone.

“Sorry, Mrs. Appleby,” Faith said, tucking her phone away. She slipped past Chloe and her mom back into the library.

“Allyson?” Mrs. Appleby said.

I ducked my head and followed Faith. Chloe didn’t bother to move out of my way, so her mother had to turn sideways for me to get by. Unbelievable. No matter how hard I tried with these people, they were never going to give me an inch.

jake

“Dude, Ally Ryan looks hot again tonight,” Trevor said as we walked into the dining room. There was one huge table running the length of the vast room, with at least fifty place settings.

“Yeah, too bad I never got a chance to tap that,” Todd added.

They laughed and slapped hands. I swallowed my disgust.

“Don’t be a jackass,” Hammond said, buttoning his jacket as he came up behind us.

We all looked at him, confused. Hammond had never scolded anyone for anything, especially not sex talk.

“What?” he said, pausing. “There are parents all over the place. Get a life.”

He moved off to join Chloe and her family near the huge Christmas tree at the head of the table, where a professional photographer was going to snap a family photo. Keeping one eye on Ally, who was slowly making her way along the opposite side of the table, I glanced at the place cards. Mrs. Appleby liked to mix kids and adults. She put everyone near people they wouldn’t ever talk to, like her parties were some kind of experiment.

Who was I going to spend the night making tortured small talk with?

Finally I spotted my name. I was between Mrs. Moore and Mr. Shale. Great. Mrs. Depressed and Mr. Loud. I glanced around and saw Ally’s name on the next card. Instant excitement. I looked over my shoulder at Mrs. Appleby, made sure no one else was watching, then quickly switched Ally’s card with Mr. Shale’s. Then I shoved my shaking hands into my pockets. I had just broken a major Crestie rule. No one messed with Mrs. Appleby’s order of things.

“If everyone would please take their seats!” Mrs. Appleby announced, ringing her obnoxious little dinner bell.

I sat, watching out of the corner of my eye as Ally came around the end of the table, still searching for her place. When she found it, she looked at me and blushed. As she slipped into her seat, her arm grazed mine. She was wearing this dark purple blouse with a wide neck that exposed her collar bone. All I wanted to do was kiss that collar bone. Trevor was right. She did look hot.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

I felt like every inch of my skin was on fire.

“A toast,” Chloe’s mother announced. She lifted her champagne glass, and we all followed. Even the eighth graders at the table had champagne. Cristal was not considered alcohol on the crest. “To a happy holiday season!” Mrs. Appleby announced. “And to us!”

“To us!” everyone chorused. We always toasted us. Just to remind ourselves that there were people out there who weren’t part of us.

“Having fun?” I asked as a waiter in a tuxedo placed a dish of risotto in front of me. My stomach grumbled. There was always one good thing about Sunday dinners: The food kicked ass. Everyone started to eat, and the room got loud.

“Oh, so much,” Ally answered sarcastically. “You?”

“Totally.” I chewed and swallowed. “So. Where’s your boyfriend tonight?”

Her cheeks turned crimson.

“He has a gig.”

“A gig?” I laughed. “He’s in a band?”

“Yeah. And they’re pretty good, actually. Why do you care?”

“I don’t. Just making small talk,” I said with a smile.

She smiled back. This was going well.

“So, I’m thinking . . . after this we should go somewhere,” I whispered.

She ducked her head. The blush deepened. “Go somewhere?”

“Yeah. You and me.”

“Are you forgetting about the previously mentioned boyfriend?” she asked.

I grinned. “No. What does he have to do with anything? All I want to do is talk.”

She scoffed and tore off a piece of her roll. “Yeah, right.”

I sat back, faking offense. So innocent. “Why? What do you think I want to do?”

She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”

“No, really. Tell me. Is there something you want to do other than talk?”

Ally shoved a huge piece of bread in her mouth. I’d been right about one thing. Sunday dinners were way more fun with her there. I took another bite of my risotto and looked across the table for the first time. Shannen was glaring right at me as if I’d just stomped on her foot.

Crap. I glanced quickly away.

“So, Gray, how are things at the hospital?” Mrs. Kirkpatrick asked.

“They’re fantastic, actually,” Dr. Nathanson replied. “We’ve just been given the go-ahead on the new cancer wing.”

“That’s fabulous news!” Mrs. Appleby remarked. “I’m so glad my little fund-raiser this fall was a success.”

“It certainly was,” Dr. Nathanson replied, tipping his glass toward her. “Thank you again for sponsoring it. And thank you for inviting us tonight. It’s an honor.”

“It’s our honor to have you,” Mrs. Appleby replied. “And I’m so glad you brought along our old friend.” She smiled at Ally’s mother. “I would have invited you myself, Melanie, but I wasn’t sure you’d be interested.”

I felt Ally tense up next to me, but her mother beamed. “Oh, please, Clarice. Of course I’m interested. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you girls.”

She grinned at Mrs. Moore, who gave her what I thought was an encouraging look, and at Faith and Hammond’s moms, too. My mother looked kind of pale as she touched her napkin to her mouth and cleared her throat.

“Yes, Melanie, they’ve missed you, too,” she said. “I can’t tell you how often they talk about you. It’s always Melanie this and Melanie that.”

Ally’s mom seriously looked as if she was going to shit with happiness.

“It’s true,” Mrs. Kirkpatrick said. “We’ve especially missed your seven-layer chocolate cake.”

Ally smiled as her mom beamed. “That was always a crowdpleaser,” Mrs. Ryan said.

“Very much so,” Mrs. Appleby said. “You should think about making this a weekly thing again.”

My skin tingled. Ally at every Sunday dinner? That would be the greatest thing ever. And if she were here every week, my friends would have to get used to her again. And then, who knew?

“Clarice, I would love that,” Mrs. Ryan said happily.

“Good.” Then Mrs. Appleby sat back in her chair, and something in her eyes shifted. “In fact, perhaps you should host next month.”

Ally’s smile faded.

“Oh, what a fabulous idea!” my mother trilled, catching on to the joke. “But don’t you live in the Orchard View? Would you even be able to squeeze us all into that tiny place?”

Ally’s mother went ashen. I wanted to launch myself over the table and wring my mom’s neck. How could she say that? What the hell did she have against Ally’s mother? They didn’t even know each other. Suddenly she seemed no better to me than Faith and Shannen when they were shredding Ally for no reason. Just for fun. Just to win each other’s approving laughs. I hated her in that moment. Her and all her fakeness.

“Ladies,” Shannen’s mother scolded. Across the way, Shannen’s dad let out a loud burp.

“Excuse me,” he said loudly.

“Nonsense, Brendan,” Mrs. Appleby said, barely stifling a laugh. “It’s the highest form of flattery.”

A few people laughed under their breath. There was a long silence as Mrs. Moore blushed purple. Ally’s mother leaned behind Todd’s back to whisper something to Dr. Nathanson. He nodded and pushed his chair away from the table.

“Thank you for having us, Clarice, but I think we should be going,” he said, standing.

“Oh, Gray, please,” Mrs. Appleby said, standing as well. “Is that really necessary?”

“Yes, I believe it is,” he replied.

Good for him.

He took Ally’s mother’s hand as she got up as well. She turned away from the table, her head down.

“Ally? Quinn?” Dr. Nathanson said.

Quinn’s face was on fire. She looked like she was about to cry, probably out of embarrassment, but she got up. Ally didn’t move. I looked at her. The mortification was written all over her face. So blatant I felt it in my gut. Suddenly I didn’t care about Shannen’s glare or the fact that Chloe and Hammond and Faith were watching. Or my parents. I leaned toward her ear.

“Don’t listen to them,” I said. “They’re just a bunch of sad old bitches with nothing better to do.”

Ally looked at me, her eyes shining. I wanted to kill every person in the room who’d ever made her feel bad. But then she pressed her lips together and shoved herself up from the table. As she followed her mom toward the door, the room was dead silent.

“Thanks for coming,” Faith said sarcastically under her breath. Some of the kids giggled. Chloe shot her a scornful look, but Faith just rolled her eyes.

Ally paused, turned around, and faced the table. Dozens of unsympathetic faces stared back at her.

“No, thank you . . . all of you, really, for a lovely evening,” she said pointedly.

And then she was gone.

ally

After spending the night listening to my mother crying into her pillow, the last thing I was up for on Monday morning was a full day of school. But if she was going to rally and go, I was going to rally and go. I just hoped none of those Crestie bitches said a word to me in the hall. Otherwise, there was going to be blood.

“I can’t believe it,” I ranted to David and Annie as we walked down the main hallway. “I can’t believe I ever cared about being their friend again. Clearly everyone on the crest is pure evil.”

“I don’t know. Gray’s pretty cool,” David said, shedding his jacket. “And Quinn seemed nice at dinner that night—”

Annie and I turned, and we both gave him a look that could have stopped a charging bull in its tracks. He lifted his hands in surrender.

“Sorry. You’re right. Pure evil.”

“Thank you.”

Not that I didn’t think Gray was cool. Especially after he’d been so chivalrous at the Applebys’ party, going against the Crestie pack and getting my mom out of there after she was attacked. I just didn’t feel like being contradicted in all my fury.

We kept walking. “All I know is, after the obnoxious presentation their moms put on last night, I never want to be friends with them again.”

At that moment, we came around the corner and stopped, bumping into each other one by one like an overdone comedy routine. Shannen, Chloe, and Faith were all standing right next to my locker.

“Uh-oh. This is not going to be pretty,” Annie said under her breath. She whipped out her camera phone and hit record.

“Unbelievable,” I said through my teeth.

I shouldered Shannen out of the way and spun the lock on my locker door. Annie and David hung back on the other side of the hallway, Annie moving back and forth as she tried to get the best angle on Shannen’s face.

“Well, good morning to you, too,” Shannen said.

I ignored her. My shoulder muscles were so coiled that if they sprang apart they’d take out the entire hallway full of students like a whip.

“Ally, we wanted to say we’re sorry about last night,” Chloe said.

From the corner of my eye I saw Jake, Hammond, and the Idiot Twins enter the hallway. Jake paused at his locker a few doors down, but I could tell he was listening in. The other guys gathered around the girls.

“Yeah. That’s not even going to come close to cutting it,” I said, jamming up on the locker handle and letting the door slam open against the wall.

“Oh, that’s fair,” Faith said sarcastically, shifting her weight from one tiny hip to the other.

I laughed and whirled on her. “I’m not being fair? Were you even there? All my mom wanted to do was please you people, and she got torn to shreds.”

“Well, if you don’t want us to hold what your dad did against you, then you can’t hold what happened last night against us,” Faith said, arching her eyebrows. “We didn’t do anything.”

My spirits fell slightly. Okay. She had a point there. Except—

“Right. So, what was that little parting comment you made on my way out?”

Faith blushed and looked away.

“She’s sorry for that. Right, Faith?” Chloe said, staring her down.

“Yeah. Sorry. It was a knee-jerk thing,” she replied, not looking me in the eye.

“Look, after last night we all got together and talked about it, and we realized you’re right,” Chloe said, tossing her perfectly coiffed hair over her shoulder. “Your dad was the one who messed up. Not you.”

I automatically glanced at Hammond. He cleared his throat and looked away. Little did Chloe know that I had messed up too. Big time.

“So listen, we’re having our annual going away party next Sunday night,” Shannen said. “We’re all going to meet at the new pool annex at nine o’clock. You in?”

“We’re breaking into the pool?” Trevor said excitedly.

“Skinny-dipping! Sweet!” Todd added.

They slapped hands over their heads.

I couldn’t contain the rush of excitement, even as I hated myself for having it. They were actually inviting me to something. One of our old traditions. Every year we all went away for a few days over Christmas, and every year we said good-bye to each other by throwing a private party in some forbidden location. Of course, I wasn’t hopping a flight out of Newark this year, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t go to the going away party.

Annie trained her camera phone on me. Right. Hadn’t I just sworn to her and David that I never wanted to be friends with these people again? But that was before this. Before they’d blindsided me with a white flag. Jake quietly closed the door of his locker and wandered over, standing behind Shannen’s left shoulder. I didn’t dare look at him, but I could feel the warmth of his gaze all over my skin.

“It’ll be just like old times,” Chloe said with a smile.

My heart fluttered. Just like old times. They were offering a truce. A real one. Wouldn’t it be kind of jerky to throw it back in their faces?

“So? What do you say, Ally?” Shannen asked.

I glanced at the camera apologetically. “Okay. I’m in.”

“Cool,” Shannen said with a smile. “We’ll see you there.”

After the Cresties had walked away and Annie, David, and I were left alone, none of us said anything for a solid minute. With Jake gone, I finally started to cool down—to think clearly again.

“Come on, you guys, it’s just one party,” I said.

David pushed himself away from the wall. “Yeah. A party with evil.”

“But you heard what they said, right?” I asked, tugging a few books out of my locker.

“Got it all on film,” Annie said, pocketing her phone.

“And it sounded real, right? They really felt bad.”

David and Annie looked at each other. “Sure. If you trust the face of evil,” Annie said.

“You can’t play both sides, Ally,” David said. “You can’t be both a Crestie and a Norm.”

A tingle of apprehension went through my chest. “Why not?”

“Because . . . it’s just wrong,” David said, lifting both shoulders. “Like, on a primordial level.”

“He’s right. Your head might actually, literally explode from the pressure,” Annie said. She looked at David. “We are so going to lose her.”

I sighed and slammed my locker door. “Okay, Melodrama Girl. You’re not going to lose me. It’s just one party.”

David took my hand and looked into my eyes, his expression all mock-serious. “Just promise me you’ll come back.”

He was kidding around, but a hard stone of guilt formed in my gut. Because one of the reasons I had said yes, one of the reasons I was already looking forward to this, was that Jake was going to be there.

“I promise,” I said. “I’ll come back.”