“No way!” Alicia slapped Massie's arm.
“It's true.” Claire jumped in. “I walked in on them back when Massie and I were sharing a bedroom. They were in a full-on lip lock.”
Massie shrugged and looked away, brushing her cheek against her shoulder as she turned. She wanted to look sweet in spite of her new racy reputation.
“Can we take your clinic too?” Alicia asked. “I played spin-the-bottle a few times in Spain, but those kisses were closed-mouthed. And I'm so beyond ready to go open.”
“Really?” Dylan teased. “With who?”
“Josh Hotz.” Alicia rolled her eyes. “Given!”
Dylan giggled, knowing full well that Alicia had had a crush on the preppy, Polo-loving Briarwood boy for weeks. But Massie, who knew the rest of the story, casually glanced at Claire, who was biting her pinky nail.
If Alicia knew Claire had already kissed Josh, she would send her back to Orlando in last year's Louis Vuitton Cerises bag. And it was obvious from Claire's nervous expression that she was well aware of this.
“What about you and Cam?” Alicia asked Claire. “Have you kissed yet?”
“Uh, not yet.” Claire's fair complexion turned scarlet. “Any day now. Hopefully the clinic will help me get some confidence.”
Massie looked out at the emptying parking lot, knowing how hard it must have been for Claire to sound chipper when she talked about Cam. Because the truth was, ever since last weekend, when Cam had seen Claire and Josh kissing after the Briarwood soccer finals, he had wanted nothing to do with her. He wouldn't even give Claire a chance to explain. If he had, he'd have found out that Nina had purposely made it seem like Cam liked
her
, not Claire. And once he understood
that
, he'd get why Claire was so hurt, and he'd have to forgive her for kissing Josh. But for now, Massie was the only one who knew any of this.
“I wanna kiss Chris Plovert,” Dylan declared. “I'm a sucker for a wounded boy on crutches.”
“I thought you stopped liking him after the Love Struck dance,” Alicia said.
“I did, but now that I'm a size two, I have no goals.” Dylan pulled off her green hat and fluffed her hair. “My life seems boring and pointless. I need a good make-out to spice things up.”
“Great, so you're all in?” Massie asked as her family's silver Range Rover pulled into the parking lot, headlights flashing.
“In,” Alicia confirmed.
“In,” Dylan agreed.
“In,” Claire added.
Massie stepped down off the cement curb expecting Isaac, her driver, to step out of the SUV and open the door for her. Instead her mother, Kendra, rolled down the window and smiled. Some breathy Norah Jones song was playing at full blast.
“Guess who?” Kendra shouted above the music.
“Mom?” Massie sounded like she hadn't seen the woman in years. “What are you doing here?”
Kendra smoothed her freshly manicured hands over her brown chin-length bob and tried to act shocked. But her recent round of Botox injections made her look more stunned than surprised. “Since when is it strange for a mother to pick up her daughter from school?”
“Since third grade,” Massie responded. “When we got Isaac.”
“Well, he lost a filling and had to run to Dr. Wilson, and Inez was in the middle of making her scallop linguini so I thought it would be fun to—”
“You know we drive Alicia and Dylan home, right?” Massie asked.
“I do now.” Kendra popped the automatic locks on the door so the girls could get in. “All aboard.”
Massie slid across the buttery soft backseat with her friends, like she always did, leaving Kendra up front alone. She leaned forward. “Mom, we were going to go to the mall. You know, to get stuff for our trip.”
“Sounds good to me.” Kendra stepped on the gas and the car jerked forward. She slammed on the brakes and the girls fell on top of each other and broke into fits of laughter.
“Seat belts, everyone,” Kendra shouted over her shoulder.
No one argued.
Once they were on the road, the girls started talking about what stores to hit first. But Massie had other things on her mind, like how she was going to teach a clinic on making out when the only guy she had ever kissed was her father. And a quick peck on the cheek was hardly what her friends had in mind. That much she definitely knew.
THE BLOCK ESTATE THE LYONSES' NEW GUESTHOUSE
Thursday, February 19th 5:22
P.M.
“Your room is a total ten.” Layne Abeley flopped down on Claire's new bed and bounced a few times, like she was testing the coils and springs in the mattress. She ran her black-painted fingernails over the glittery stars on the sky blue down comforter and slowly shook her head. “Unbelievably cool.”
“I know, I love it.” Claire's insides filled up with so much pride, she thought she'd pop, like one of the annoying watermelon Bubble Yum bubbles Layne was blowing.
Claire pulled off her socks and padded across her fluffy white sheepskin rug. “Can you believe the Blocks paid for all of it?” She reached inside the decorative lemon yellow locker that held her CD collection and reached for her favorite mix,
Cam's Christmas Carlos.
Claire used to giggle when she saw how he'd accidentally misspelled
carols.
It made her feel close to him. But tonight, when she fed the mix to her new Bose sound system, her insides felt like they were getting sucked out of her belly button. She felt hollow and empty without Cam in her life.
“Actually I
can
believe they paid for it.” Layne's green eyes widened and filled with horror as “All I Want for Christmas Is You” blasted through the four white speakers that hung from the corners of Claire's ceiling. “What I can't believe is that they finally let you toss Massie's dead grandmother's old furniture and get new stuff. I felt like I stepped out of a time machine every time I came over. It took days to get the smell of mothballs out of my hair.”
Claire chuckled and was suddenly overcome by a rush of warm appreciation for Layne, her special friend: the one she could let her guard down with, shop at Target with, eat sugar and fat with. Layne was not part of the Pretty Committee and probably never would be, and that was more than fine with Claire. It was nice having a friend who saw Westchester the same way she did, through the eyes of a coat-check girl at a black-tie affair.
Claire's emotions had been up and down like this for days. Whenever she thought about Cam, every bone in her body felt like it had been stuffed with lead. She'd sigh a lot and stare off into the distance, wondering if she'd ever be able to smile again. Then, minutes later, she'd share a moment of true friendship with Layne or Massie and her teeth would start chattering with joy. But one thing had been for sure: both the highs and the lows usually ended in tears.
“Why are we listening to Christmas music in February?” Layne pulled a pair of bile yellow Converse sneakers out of her Sunshine Tours bag. She dumped a Ziploc bag of black rhinestones on Claire's bed and reached for the glue gun she'd “borrowed” from art class.
“Cam burned this for me.” Claire curled up in a ball on a stack of pillows on the floor by the window. Inez, the Blocks' live-in housekeeper, had made them from Claire's old T-shirts from Orlando. It was either that or Massie was going to use them to pull poo-berries off her dog Bean's butt, and Claire had given in. She had lived in Westchester for six months, which was long enough to know that the “right time” to wear an oversize Lisa Simpson tee would never, ever present itself.
“I should have known Cam was behind this cheddar-filled mix.” Layne smeared glue all over the rubbery tops of her sneakers. She pinched a rhinestone and dropped it on the sticky surface. Then she slowly dragged it into position and reached for another one. “Are you going to do your new Keds?” Layne waved a Ziploc full of pink rhinestones in Claire's direction.
Claire shrugged and curled up into a tight ball. The sound of Layne slurping forced her to lift her head.
“What's with you and those Go-Gurts? They're gross.” The thought of gooey liquid yogurt in a tube made Claire's insides churn almost as much as they did when she thought about Cam.
Layne spit a wad of Bubble Yum into the empty tube and tossed it into Claire's blue glass trash can. “Why so cranky?” Layne asked during a long wet burp.
“Ewww.” Claire buried her face again and wondered why she hadn't told Layne what had happened between her and Cam. She imagined herself saying, “Hey Layne, guess what? Last weekend Cam dumped me.” And immediately had her answer. Speaking those words out loud would make them true and Claire wasn't ready to accept that. Massie was the only one who knew the truth. And that was because she'd had a hot tip from Derrington and possessed a knack for interrogation.
“Come sit next to me so we can finish these sneakers before Lake Placid.” Layne dropped three black rhinestones onto her shoe at once. Two of them fell facedown.
“Ugh.” She used her long pinky nail to flip them back over.
Claire put her Simpsons Orlan-d' oh! pillow on her lap and ran her fingers along the soft cotton. Her favorite sleeping shirt had been reduced to a decorative accent. What had once given her tremendous comfort was now just a memory. Just like Cam.
“You should put a rhinestone
C
on each one of your shoes,” Layne suggested. “You know, one for
Claire
and one for
Cam.”
“We're done,” Claire blurted out.
Layne lifted her head. “Why?” She ran her fingers through her teased brown hair. “Is it because I'm using glue on your new bedspread?”
“Huh?” Claire crinkled her pale eyebrows. Then she shook her head and exhaled sharply though her button nose. “No, I mean me and Cam. We're done. He dumped me.” The sound of those words coming out of her own mouth brought a swell of tears to her eyes.
“What?” Layne jumped off the bed. She crouched beside the nest of T-shirt pillows, unbuttoned her tight pink cords, then let herself drop to the floor. “What happened?”
Claire wanted to tell Layne the truth, but what if she didn't understand? Or worse, what if she sided with Cam?
“He said he lost interest,” Claire murmured to her cuticles. “He didn't want to be tied down.”
“Cam
Fisher
said that?” Layne asked. “About
you?”
Claire nodded. At that moment, it was physically impossible for her to look Layne in the eye.
“Did you check for hidden cameras?” Layne asked sincerely. “Maybe you were on some prank show. I mean, there's no way Cam would—”
“He did, okay?” Claire snapped.
A heavy, uncomfortable silence hung over their heads like one of Mr. Block's giant striped golf umbrellas.
“I've got it.” Layne jumped to her feet, refastened her cords, and lifted her index finger in the air. She started pacing back and forth.
“Maybe he misses the old you.” Her green eyes flickered. “You know, the girl he first fell in love with.”
“Huh?” Claire wished she had the guts to tell Layne the truth.
“We have to get you back to the old Claire. The one Cam first noticed.”
“What old Claire?”
“Claire B.P.C.” Layne said with a proud smile, like she had just said something brilliantly clever. Claire stared at her blankly.
“Before the Pretty Committee!” Layne wheeled Claire's industrial-looking full-length mirror across the room. “See for yourself.”
Claire pushed herself up and stood in front of the mirror with her hands on her narrow waist.
“You've lost your Florida charm. Your cute Disney bangs have grown out, you traded in your cherry ChapStick for lip gloss, and you wear boot-cut jeans instead of overalls,” Layne said. “You're not the girl Cam first fell in love with.”
Even though Claire knew the real reason Cam had dumped her, she couldn't help but wonder if Layne had a point.
“Maybe you should cut bangs again,” Layne said. “I bet once Cam saw the old Claire, he'd want you back.”
Claire knew this was ridiculous, but like any desperate person, she felt compelled to take a leap of faith and give it a try. Who knew, it just might be the thing that worked.
“Fine.” Claire sighed. “Maybe I'll ask Massie to call Jakkob for an appointment.”
Layne stopped pacing, put her hands on her chunky hips, and shook her head. “You just don't get it, do you?”
“Get what?” Claire felt a wave of prickly heat under her arms. She hated being left out of an inside joke, especially when it was at her own expense.
“Ugh.” Layne lifted her hands in frustration. “Claire B.P.C. would not call Ja-kkkkkkkob for a cut.”
“She wouldn't?”
“No, she'd do it herself.”
Layne stomped over to the bed, grabbed her Sunshine Tours bag, and dumped it upside down. Chewed pencils, three quarters, two dimes, six pennies, one Susan B. Anthony dollar, red hair elastics, two bottles of nail polish—one black, one fluorescent yellow—liquid eyeliner, two tubes of vanilla Go-Gurt, Carmex, Kleenex, a mini pink calculator, a Hello Kitty money clip filled with Big Red gum, three loose house keys, a disposable digital camera, a rolled up Delia's catalogue, and a baby blue Miss Army pocket knife spilled onto the freshly bleached hardwood floor.
Layne reached for the Miss Army knife and unhinged a few of its hidden tools: a nail file, a mirror, and a pair of tweezers. “Where are those cute little scissors?”
“You're so not cutting my hair with that Swiss Army knife thing.” Claire jumped to her feet.
“Got ’em.” Layne unfolded the collapsible scissors and forced her fingers into the tiny holes. “They're a little stiff, but they'll do the trick.”
“No way.” Claire darted for her bedroom door, grabbed her red bike helmet off the hook, slammed it on her head, and tightened the chin strap. “Let's see if those tiny scissors can get through
this.”
Claire knocked on the metallic plastic and giggled. Her mood suddenly shifted again and she felt light and giddy. She almost felt like Claire B.C.E.—Before Cam Ended.
“No problem.” Layne scraped her foot along the floor three times, like a charging bull, and ran headfirst into Claire's stomach.
“Get off of me.” Claire was laughing so hard it sounded like “Offa eeee.”