Be Mine (14 page)

“Just do whatever you did last night.”

“Good advice,” Jennifer said as she opened the front door.

“Ready to enter Claudia's evil lair?” Will asked as he stepped inside.

“As ready as I'll ever be,” Jennifer said as she reached into the hall closet for her coat. She could feel Will's eyes studying her from behind.

“Like what you see?” she asked, turning around with a saucy smile.

Will was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I'm definitely surprised. Who knew you could look so hot?”

Will's words left Jennifer speechless. He thought she looked
hot
? That wasn't what she'd been expecting to hear. But she'd take it!

“You might have to beat the guys off at this party,” Will said.

“Don't you mean
you're
going to have to beat them off?” Jennifer reminded him as she pulled on her gloves. “After all, you're my boyfriend.”

“
Fake
boyfriend,” Violet piped up as her eyes worriedly flickered back and forth between Jennifer and Will.

“I'm not the jealous type,” Will told Jennifer. “But don't worry. I'll be keeping my eyes on you the entire night. I wouldn't want you trading me in for some other guy.”

“Shouldn't
I
be the one worried about getting traded in?” Jennifer asked. “After all, you're the one who always has a new girlfriend.”

“I don't think either one of you has anything to worry about since this is all
pretend
,” Violet reminded them.

“Are you coming to this party?” Will asked.

Violet laughed. “Claudia would
never
invite me to one of her parties. She's been snubbing me since third grade. I'm going home.” Violet gave Jennifer a hug good night. “I'll talk to you tomorrow. Good luck!”

Violet left, with Will following after her, leaving Jennifer to turn off the hall lights and lock the front door. When she got outside, she saw Will leaning against the side of a red car parked at the curb.

“No motorcycle?” she asked.

“I borrowed my older sister's car. I figured it was too cold for the motorcycle. Disappointed?”

“Well, I was wondering what it would be like to sit behind you with my arms wrapped around you and the wind blowing through my hair,” Jennifer admitted.

“I'll give you a ride another day.”

“Promise?”

Will crossed his heart. “Promise.” He studied Jennifer from head to toe. “I never saw you as a biker chick.”

“There's a lot you don't know about me, Mr. Sinclair,” she said as she got into the front seat.

“Guess I better start finding out,” Will said as he went around to the driver's side and opened the door. “Because it's almost showtime!”

Will and Jennifer tossed questions back and forth to each other on the drive to Claudia's house. They knew their answers but both were aware there was more to their charade than just knowing the right answers.

“Leave most of the talking to me,” Jennifer said. “Girls are always gushing about their boyfriends. Guys usually don't like to talk.”

“True,” Will agreed.

“A lot of it is going to be body language. Holding. Touching. Like last night.”

“Piece of cake,” Will said. “We did a pretty good job fooling Natalie and Tom.”

Jennifer knew last night had gone well. But like she told Violet, Natalie wasn't Claudia. They were going to have to be on their guard the entire night. They couldn't afford any slipups.

When they arrived at Claudia's house, a line of cars was parked in the driveway, as well as double-parked in the street.

“Looks like there's already a huge crowd,” Will said as he parked behind the last car in the driveway. He took Jennifer's hand in his. “Ready?”

Jennifer squeezed his hand, fighting against the butterflies in her stomach. “As ready as I'll ever be.”

“We can do this,” Will said. “We can.”

Jennifer didn't say anything. She just nodded, wishing she had Will's confidence.

Claudia's entire house was lit up. It was a huge McMansion with three floors. As they approached the front door, they could hear music blasting.

“I don't believe it,” Jennifer said as they walked inside.

The house was decorated for Valentine's Day. There were tons of red, white, and pink balloons floating in the air. Pink and red streamers were draped around the staircase leading to the second floor and foiled hearts and cupids were pinned on the walls. But what got the most attention — and shocked Jennifer — was the huge pink banner strung across the living room that said VOTE FOR CLAUDIA AND CHASE! The flat-screen TV in the family room showed nonstop clips of Claudia and Chase, dating all the way back to freshman year, and there were poster-size photos of Claudia and Chase hanging from the ceiling of every room with invisible wire.

They had walked into a shrine devoted to Claudia and Chase.

“I feel like we're in enemy territory,” Will whispered.

“Me too,” Jennifer whispered back as she stared into a bowl of candy hearts. She picked one up and saw it said CLAUDIA LOVES CHASE. Another said: C + C 4EVER.

“Talk about confidence,” Will said. “I guess she figures her nomination is in the bag.”

Jennifer dropped the candy heart back into the bowl. “There's a difference between being nominated and winning.”

Will looked around the party. “So where is the Evil One?”

“Good question,” Jennifer said, wondering exactly the same thing.

“Where's Claudia?” Eden asked Natalie.

“I think she's up in her bedroom. Why?”

Eden didn't wait for an answer. She was too angry. Instead, she stormed up the stairs to the third floor. When she got to Claudia's bedroom, she didn't bother to knock and barged right in.

A startled Claudia looked away from the mirror at her vanity table, where she was sitting and applying her lipstick.

“Did you forget how to knock?”

“How could you do this to me?” Eden wailed.

Claudia capped her lipstick and picked up a hairbrush. “Do what?”

“Invite Keith to your party! He's here. With his new girlfriend!”

“What was I supposed to do?” Claudia asked as she started brushing her hair. “Not invite him?”

“Yes!”

“How could I? He's one of Chase's best friends.”

“And you're supposed to be
my
best friend.” Eden hadn't really wanted to come to Claudia's party, but Claudia had given her a massive guilt trip when she'd called that afternoon. Finally, she had caved in and said she would come. “You could have warned me so I wouldn't have been blindsided when I walked through the front door and found them in the living room. Do you know what it was like for me to see Deena sitting on Keith's lap?”

Claudia put down her hairbrush. “It slipped my mind.”

I'll just bet it did
, Eden thought darkly. She knew how much Claudia loved causing drama.

Sometimes Eden asked herself why she was still friends with Claudia. True, there were times when Claudia could be kind and thoughtful. Often she would invite her to spend long weekends with her family at their house in the Hamptons during the summer, or at their ski lodge in upstate New York during the winter. She was always giving her clothes she didn't want anymore — some with the price tags still on them. Their friendship went back to junior high, when they had found themselves with identical schedules. Because they were in the same classes, they often ended up talking between periods or during lunch. As they got to know each other, they started hanging out after school and soon they were making weekend plans together. It continued when they started high school and Natalie became friends with them.

But over the last year, Claudia had started to change. She'd always been a bit mean . . . but never to Eden and Natalie. But more and more, Claudia was showing her nasty side to them and Eden didn't like it. Neither she nor Natalie deserved to be treated this way. Not when they were supposed to be Claudia's best friends.

“What am I supposed to do?” Eden asked.

“Ignore them!” Claudia exclaimed, walking to her bedroom door. “Have a good time. This is a huge house. I'm sure you can find someplace to hide from them, although if I were you, I'd find a hot guy to dance with and show Keith that you've moved on!”

After Claudia left, Eden went over to the vanity table and checked her appearance in the mirror. At least she had pulled out all the stops with her outfit. It didn't look like she was nursing a broken heart. She was wearing a strapless white silk ruffle top and a short chocolate-brown suede skirt with matching boots. To bring more attention to her dangling chandelier earrings, she had pulled her hair back into a slick ponytail. She looked pretty and confident. She only wished she felt that way.

She wanted to go home, but she couldn't leave. Not yet. If she did, Deena and Keith would think they'd scared her off, and she wasn't going to let them think that! So she went down to the kitchen and decided to get a soda. She'd stay for an hour and then leave.

But when Eden entered the kitchen, she found another nasty surprise.

Leaning against the kitchen counter, having salsa and chips fed to him by a tall cocoa-skinned girl with blonde dreadlocks, was her ex-boyfriend Luther. After the girl would pop a chip into his mouth, Luther would give her a kiss. She'd then kiss him back before popping another chip into his mouth.

It was obvious to Eden that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. She could tell by the way they were acting.

Eden ducked out of the kitchen before being seen. She didn't want to talk to Luther and meet his new girlfriend. Like Keith, Luther had never given her a reason when he'd broken up with her last summer. He'd said, “I'm just not feeling it anymore.”

At least he'd done it in person and not by text message.

Now that the kitchen and living room were off-limits, where else could she go?

She decided on the rec room. It should be safe down there.

Eden headed down to the basement, and as she got closer, she could hear music blaring. It was an old Madonna song from the 80s. At the sound of the music, Eden found herself swaying. She loved to dance.

As she grooved to the music, Eden noticed a couple dancing together in a corner. Even though it wasn't a slow dance, they had their arms wrapped around each other's necks. But they were more focused on kissing than dancing. As they stepped out of the shadows into the light, Eden's eyes widened in shock.

The guy holding the girl was Malcolm, another one of her ex-boyfriends.

Had Claudia invited
all
her exes?

Eden no longer wanted to dance. Before Malcolm could see her, she left the rec room and went back upstairs, where she found her coat buried under a pile in the front hallway.

“Where are you going?” Natalie asked as she passed by her.

“Home!” Eden exclaimed.

Before going home, Eden stopped at the supermarket. If she was going to feel sorry for herself, she needed to do it with some ice cream. She grabbed a small basket and headed for the ice cream aisle. After finding containers of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Mint Chocolate Chunk, she decided she needed a can of whipped cream.

She was walking down the dairy aisle when she saw the last person she expected to see on a Saturday night.

Dexter.

And he was with a pretty girl!

For Eden, it was the last straw.
Everyone
she knew was paired off. Even a brainiac like Dexter!

Was she the only person who was all alone on a Saturday night?

Before Eden could stop herself, tears were falling down her cheeks.

It was at that exact moment that Dexter turned around.

“Eden?” he asked in shock.

Eden quickly wiped away her tears, embarrassed to have been caught crying.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, coming over.

“Everything's fine!” she exclaimed, trying to smile.

“What are you doing here? I thought you'd be at Claudia's party.”

At the mention of Claudia's party, Eden remembered why she had left and the tears returned. And this time, there was no holding them back. “Everything's not fine,” she sobbed. “I've had the worst night of my life. I ran into three of my ex-boyfriends and they all have new girlfriends.”

“That must have been tough,” Dexter said, his voice filled with sympathy.

“Why didn't they want me, Dexter? Am I that horrible?”

“Of course not!” Dexter quickly answered.

The pretty girl came over. She had shoulderlength brown corkscrew curls. “Is everything okay, Dex?”

Eden sniffed. “I'm sorry. I'm ruining your date.”

Dexter laughed. “Date? What date? This is my sister Angie. She's a freshman at North Ridge High.”

“Hi,” Angie said, reaching into her purse for a tissue and handing it to Eden.

“Thanks,” Eden said, blowing her nose.

“Why don't you come back to our house?” Angie suggested. “We were going to watch some movies. It might help you get your mind off things.”

“I'm sure Eden wouldn't want to come over,” Dexter hurriedly said. “She probably has other plans.”

“I'd love to!” Eden exclaimed.

She didn't know why she had said yes. Maybe it was because Angie was so friendly. Or maybe it was because anything was better than being home alone.

Dexter's other two sisters were waiting when they got back from the supermarket. As soon as Dexter and Angie walked through the door, they were pulling at their bags.

“Did you get me potato chips?” one asked.

“Where are my pretzels?” the other demanded.

Dexter held the grocery bags over his head. “I got everything you wanted, but first I want you to say hello to a friend of mine. Eden, these are my other two sisters, Thelma and Yvonne.”