Getting Caught (3 page)

I glare at him, wondering how a guy in his mid-twenties could have such a bad memory. “You know my mom,” I say.

Well, really, he doesn’t. And honestly, neither do I. My mom is Debbie Hill, “Middleton County’s Most Successful Realtor!” It says that on her business cards, right next to a picture of her smiling like the Stepford mom. To most people, being the county’s reigning queen of realty means she must sell a lot of houses. To me, it means I never see her. Which is fine for me, because whenever I do, she’s badgering me on one of three things: my clothes, my grades, or my social life.

That’s why I love Gavin. He’s like the brother I never had. He doesn’t air his disappointment in me on a daily basis. He didn’t yell his head off when I wore this funky tartan miniskirt that barely covered my backside. He didn’t blow a gasket over my four-D report card. And he never, ever tells me that when he was my age, he was class president, homecoming king, and Greek god all rolled into one. Supposedly, when my mom was in high school, she was so popular Madonna was jealous.

He nods and reaches for a napkin to wipe away the errant cheese. Though Gavin acts like a goofy sixteen-year-old guy, he’s actually pretty brilliant. He’s the one I go to when I need help with my homework, and we spend the slow parts of the evening working on it. He’s the reason I’m getting C’s instead of D’s and F’s.

I’m shoving a slice of mushroom and pepperoni into my face when my cell rings. I fish it out of the pocket of my bleach-stained denim skirt, inspect the display, and groan.
Another
lewd text. “That wench.”

Surprisingly, he nods. “Because when we’re seventeen, we’re basically like you were when you were two. I think there’s that much of a maturity gap.”

I sigh. “Seriously.”

“I
am
being serious,” he insists. “Look at me. At seventeen I had a full-ride scholarship to Harvard and a stellar future mapped out. But I couldn’t handle the pressure. Two years later I was rifling through garbage cans because my parents wouldn’t take me back when I dropped out.” He’s told me this story a dozen times, but I listen politely, because it’s obvious he regrets it. “I still try on my Harvard blazer every few months or so,” he says, a faraway look in his eyes. Then he pats his belly and grins. “Another few slices and it probably won’t fit.”

I think of Peyton and her Harvard quest. Gavin’s probably better off not having graduated from that stupid Ivy League school. He isn’t the type who will stab his supposed “best friend” in the back just to get ahead. He doesn’t fit in with the Peytons of the world any more than I do.

I reach for my pizza and, when I bring it up to my nose, see something that looks like neither pepperoni nor mushroom. I throw it back on my plate and glare at him. “Fake cockroach, Gav? Come on.”

Gavin’s grin transforms into a pout. I guess my nonchalance wasn’t what he was looking for, but between him and Peyton, I’ve learned to keep my cool. After all, when it comes to playing practical jokes, the payoff is all in the reaction.

Peyton hasn’t figured that one out yet, which makes this whole prank war even more amusing. She probably spends hours going over each prank with Bryn, plotting every minute detail.

And yet she will never see me cry or freak out. Not anymore. I won’t give her the satisfaction. Despite the fact that she’d sellout her own brother to get ahead, she still manages to lead a perfect fairy-tale life. So I’m not going to add to that fairy tale by doing what she expects of me. Our prank war is like the wicked stepsister vs. Cinderella. Except there’s no prince waiting at the end of this for me. And the stepsister skips off to Harvard at the end of the book, so I’m determined to get the best of her before then.

Gavin reaches over, plucks the offending item off my plate, and holds it up to me. “What will it take to get you riled up?”

I roll my eyes. This is the tradeoff for making great under-the-table wages with Gavin. I don’t think a day has gone by that I haven’t found a puppy with a third eye, or a fake cat paw sticking out of the kitty litter. “More than that.”

My phone rings again. I don’t even look at it this time, just reach into my pocket and turn it off with a grimace.

Gavin notices my expression and says, “What’s with all the phone calls?”

“You know how popular I am,” I mutter, popping a slice of pepperoni in my mouth. To his disbelieving look, I say, “Two words: Peyton Brentwood.”

He raises his bushy eyebrows. When he’s sitting there in therapist mode, with his fingers laced under his chin, he looks more like forty-five than twenty-five. “Another prank?”

I nod. “Yeah. Actually, I have to give her credit. This one was pretty good. Way more public than her past ones. Usually she plays it safe. This one got an inquiry straight from the principal himself.”

“Did you turn her in?” Gavin asks.

I shake my head. “No, that’s against the rules we made up freshman year.” I pause at Gavin’s weird expression. “What? We were still talking the first…two days, I think? Peyton threw down the gauntlet and said she’d quit when I got busted pranking her. After that it went downhill really rapidly. Besides, even without the rule, I’m dying to see her get caught red-handed. She thinks she’s untouchable, but one of these days she’ll slip up.”

I think about her condom joke again. I’d been so proud of myself. My reaction was legendary. It got Dave Ashworth to know who I was and put the joke right back on Peyton. Or so I thought.

But since then, everything has become a nightmare. Suddenly, guys were stopping me in the hall, wanting to make an “appointment.” Or asking me how I like it. Ken Greeley even tried to grab my ass, which put an end to me ever wearing my favorite tartan mini again. And now somebody must have gotten my cell phone number, because strange numbers keep appearing on the display. The last time I answered, a smooth voice said, “What are you wearing right now?” Even though I told the sicko I had on sweats covered with last night’s lasagna and three-day old undies, I still felt violated. So now I screen my calls.

When I explain this to him, he scowls. “What about the one you like—Dave?”

I sigh. “I don’t like him. Not anymore. I thought he was someone…a little deeper. But he’s just like all those other assholes. Immature.”

“Has he been harassing you, too?”

“No. Sometimes I see him looking at me when the other guys are making comments, and I’d like to think he feels bad about it. But he doesn’t try to stop them. He just goes along with it. Total lemming.”

His scowl deepens. “What you need is one really good prank. One that will blow Peyton out of the water. Why don’t you let me help you?”

Of the three years I’ve known Gavin, he’s been begging to be my accomplice in the prank war for two-point-nine of them. I shake my head. “I don’t know. I feel like that’s cheating.”

“She had the whole football team helping her on that last one. I’d say it’s fair.”

“Okay, okay,” I say, finishing my pizza and picking up the puppy, who’d continued to lick at the heels of my fishnet stockings. “But just so you know, she’s a little hard to track down. If she isn’t in class, she’s rehearsing for a play, helping the homeless, running a marathon, or saving the world from Lex Luther.”

He grins. “Oh, she’s one of
those
, is she? Now I know why you hate her.”

“She’s probably just like you when you were her age. She’s even desperate to get into your almost-alma mater.”

“Is that so?” He thinks for a minute. “You should be able to really broadside her, then. At this time of year, she’s going to be preparing for her interview. I bet she’ll be completely on edge. I know before mine, I didn’t sleep for a week. It was freaking
hell
.”

Chapter Five

Peyton

I’ve officially hit the
refresh
button on my email browser for the one-hundredth time.

Today is D-day: SAT scores are supposed to arrive via e-mail. So far, all I’ve gotten is something about Viagra, a Facebook comment notice, and a slew of email forwards from Bryn. She’s really into those, “send this to ten people and your crush will kiss you!” emails. It’s just as well; it’s probably the only way her crush
will
kiss her. I feel bad, really. But she shouldn’t be going after Ken, the biggest asshole in our senior class—he looks like an Abercrombie model, and he
knows it
.

When someone knocks on my door, I turn my eyes away from the computer for the first time in over an hour. I hope it’s not Tina, coming to assign me more chores.

“Come in,” I say, spinning around in my chair. I’m already wondering if the e-mail is in my box, and I don’t know it because I’m not hitting refresh. If Tina would just let me get a smart phone, I wouldn’t have to be doing this in the first place. But
nooo
, she had to talk about starving children in Africa when I brought it up. If only I had time for a job, I could pay for it myself.

My brother, Evan, steps through the door. He’s wearing green cargo pants and Vans, along with a ratty black T-shirt from the X-games. His hair is dyed an atrociously fake color of blond, but it’s hidden underneath a green trucker hat. I suppose in some circles, he’s considered hot. He leans against the doorjamb. “Hey. Still going to Harvard?”

It’s our inside joke, the one question he asks me every day.

After years of being practically non-existent, our mom left us for good when I was in third grade; he was in seventh. My dad hired a babysitter to hang with us in the evenings, back when he worked in the city and was hardly ever home. Andrea, the sitter, was the closest thing I ever had to a real mom
and
a big sister, all rolled into one. Somehow we just clicked. For the first time in my life, someone understood me. She liked reading books. She liked black and white movies, winning at every board game in the house, and studying for hours on end. We talked about life, goals, politics, world events… We even scoured the newspapers together, trading the business section for the world section, and then she’d quiz me about it to be sure I understood. She used to tell me I’d be president someday, and even though I’d laugh it made me feel good. Someone had big plans for me. Someone believed in me.

Andrea had one goal in life: Harvard. She said it would be filled with people like her. People like me. I knew in that instant I wanted it too.

When I hit sixth grade, Andrea got her acceptance and Dad decided we didn’t need a sitter anymore. I haven’t talked to her in years, but someday, when I get
my
acceptance, I’ll look her up.

My brother never understood what Andrea and I did half the time. Sometimes he’d get the comics from the paper and sit with us, but mostly we just bored him. The day Andrea told me about Harvard, I told my brother I’d be going too.

He, in all his seventh-grade wisdom, just laughed and told me how hard it was to get into an Ivy-League school. I just stuck out my tongue and told him I was going to be accepted.

So the next day he asked me if I still planned on going, like he thought I’d come to my senses after a good night’s sleep. I puffed out my chest and told him I was going to be accepted.

And the day after that, he asked again.

It had started out as a joke, but as I got older—and my grades got better—it turned into something else. Now when he asks me, it’s like a reminder of what I’m working toward. He’s not teasing anymore. There’s a sparkle in his eyes, and I know the day my acceptance letter comes, he’s going to celebrate with me.

You see, if it weren’t for him, I’d have probably gone insane by now. He’s the only one in my family who really believes in me
.
Tina and my dad probably couldn’t even name which Ivy-League school I’m obsessed with. I’m glad Evan has never moved out even though he’s twenty-one now. I sort of need him as my personal cheerleader.

Besides, I help him a lot too. I must spend five or six hours a week filling out job applications, tweaking his resume, and scouring Craigslist for jobs. We have a Sunday evening ritual, and I never miss it.

Maybe some siblings don’t get along, but my brother and I, we’re practically besties. As long as he’s not wearing sweaty socks, anyway. Then I won’t let him come within a ten-foot radius.

“Of course. As long as these stupid SAT scores arrive, and they’re better than last time,” I say.

“I thought you got a twenty-two fifty last time,” he says. My brother is not a book-smarts kind of guy. He barely made it through high school with a one-point-four GPA and never even took the SATs. To him, my score is good enough.

“I did. But seriously, that’s not Ivy-League material.” I can’t believe he thinks 2250 is the sort of number I’d attach to my Harvard application. Is he nuts?

“Move,” he says, walking up to my swivel chair.

“Now is not the time to patrol eBay.” I glare at him. He’s not really going to make me move, is he? My hands grip the sides of the chair. He might actually pick me up and force me to move, and all the while my entire world is about to be handed to me in a single email. How can he do this?