Getting Caught (15 page)

He peers into the basket. “What’s on the menu?”

I shrug. “I brought us sandwiches, cookies, and root beer. But…” I reach into the basket and pull out an enormous bag of broken dog treats Gavin had given me. “I couldn’t leave the pack empty-handed.”

He grins as I hand him a turkey hoagie. “Fantastic. Thanks.”

We unwrap our sandwiches and eat, watching the dogs scamper in the field. “I’m glad you came with me,” I say. “I hope it isn’t boring for you.”

He lies back on the blanket and comes up on his side, propping himself up on his elbow. “Not at all. It’s kind of cool.”

When he called that morning and offered to come along when I said I had “an errand” to run, I’d been worried. What if he was one of those people who didn’t like animals? What if he had it in his mind that I was a cool chick, and that all went away when he saw me trudging around in the mud with a handkerchief over my hair and a bunch of smelly dogs all over me? I’d played tough, told him he could come along if he didn’t mind being bored to death, but that didn’t stop him. He wanted to be with me, almost desperately. He seemed like he didn’t want to wait another day without seeing me. I liked that.

One of the dogs, a Pomeranian mix, bounds up behind him and puts its small paws on his backside, looking for the last crumbs of his sandwich. He laughs, leans forward on the quilt, his sandy hair falling in his face. Then he crosses his legs, picks up the dog, and ruffles the fur between its ears. “So,” he says, “isn’t it your turn to prank Peyton?”

I nod absently. A while ago, since I had no other ideas, I’d been considering taking out a singles ad in the weekly newspaper on Peyton’s behalf. It was lame, but it was all I could come up with.

But since that day in the mall, Dave has held true to his promise, and I’ve been so distracted by him I’ve hardly thought about the prank war. He’s called me almost every day, talked to me in gym class, and we spend every detention period making eyes at each other for so long that it flies by in seconds. We’ve also gone to the movies twice, but I’m not sure what we’ve seen since we spend the entire time making out. While everything with Dave is heating up, the prank war with Peyton is ice-cold. It just doesn’t seem important.

Maybe if I’d had something solid in my life, something positive and all-consuming like Dave, I would have given up on this stupid war months—or even years—ago.

“You should get her good this time,” he says, taking a hold of my hand.

“Oh, really? So when did Switzerland start taking sides?”

He shrugs. “As a neutral observer, I just think you should punch it up a notch. You never know what she has in store for you, so I think you should go for it.”

“Is that so?” I bite my lower lip. “Well, she’s all tunnel-vision now. I figured if I wanted any reaction from her at all, I needed to do something related to Harvard. But I couldn’t think of anything.”

“Speaking of Harvard,” Dave says, still stroking the Pomeranian’s ears, “Acceptances have been going out the past few weeks. My cousin in Ohio just got one, and so did Alex Matthias.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I saw her at the gas station last night, and she looked like hell. Like a truck ran over her. She was stuffing mini-donuts into her mouth by the dozens.”

“Oh,” I say, remembering how Peyton always used to eat sugary junk food when she was nervous about anything. Suddenly, a thought springs to mind. “You have that big game at Willow next week, right?”

He gives me a “duh” expression. He’s mentioned it to me nearly twenty times in two days, but baseball talk always has a way of making me zone out. “It’s the championship. The whole school will be there.” He pouts. “Except you, obviously.”

“I might be able to tear myself away from my busy social schedule,” I tease.

“How nice of you to care about the little people,” he throws back. “But what? Were you thinking of doing something at the game? Because that would be perfect. Big audience.”

I nod. “I think if I get out there the night before, with a bottle of weed killer, I can burn ‘Peyton Brentwood—Harvard Reject’ into the field.”

He grins. “I like it.”

I scrunch my nose. “I don’t know…do you think that counts as vandalism? Because I can’t get caught. And while Principal Vaughn has turned his head so far, I don’t want to push him too hard. He has to at least
suspect
it’s me and Peyton, and no one else.” I pause for a moment. “Harvard is her life. She was really rattled after the interview prank. I thought it really got to her. But her retaliation hasn’t been all that horrible.”

He is silent for a moment. When he finally speaks, it’s softer. “The thing is, she’ll get into Harvard, eventually. Everyone knows she’s a definite.” He leans back and stares up at the sky, then closes his eyes. “She’ll probably be rubbing her acceptance letter in your face next week. It’s just a joke. You should do it.”

I glare at him. “Whatever, Switz.”

He smiles. “So you’re going to?”

I pop a cookie into my mouth and mumble, “Okay.” Then I offer one to him and eye him suspiciously. “Why are you in the Peyton Hate Club now?”

“I’m not. But you’re
dangerous
Jess Hill, living life on the edge. I don’t want you going soft on account of me.”

I squint at him. “You think I’m going soft? I’ll show you soft.” And I climb onto my hands and knees and jump on his stomach.

He lets out a big “oof,” grabs me by the wrists, and rolls me onto my back, pinning me. “Flashbacks of gym class?” he says with a wink, staring over me.

“Why prom?” I sigh as he loosens his grip on my arms and I sit up. “Can’t we just slit our wrists or something more fun like that?”

“If I’m shelling out a hundred bucks for tickets, I want to make it fun,” he says, then looks into my eyes. “And it’ll only be fun if I can go with you.”

I can just imagine being escorted into the ballroom by a tuxedoed Dave wearing my cut-off denim skirt and fishnets. I’ve always considered prom, like Valentine’s Day, to be something for all of those with a fondness for cuteness and excessive punctuation, like Peyton and Bryn. They’ll be there, I’m sure, in all their giggling glory. Jess Hill does not
do
prom.

Still, the weight of his stare gives me butterflies.

“Fine,” I say, and he pulls me back down to the quilt and covers my lips with his. But as he kisses me, my mind keeps trailing away. I’m hung up on a word I never thought I’d have to worry about in this lifetime.

Prom.

Jess, what have you gotten yourself into?

Chapter Twenty-One

Peyton

For the past three-plus years, Bryn has gone on and on about prom. Who she’ll bring, what she’ll wear, even what her stupid corsage will look like. I hate to be the one to break it to her, but her dreams are far from reality. Ken Greeley, her “date,” already asked Trish Martin, the biggest skank in school, and the dress Bryn envisioned, this strange red mermaid outfit with puffy shoulders, went out of style with legwarmers and hi-top Reeboks.

She picks up a yellow sequined gown, squints at it, and shrugs. “This is hopeless. Let’s just go.”

I turn to study Bryn, her face crumpled up. Now that Harvard is practically a thing of the past, it’s like I actually took a moment to realize how great she is. I mean, she’s right there with me, every step of the way, even though I’m sure I don’t give her nearly as much as she gives me.

What a waste, in the end. I could have been having fun like all of my friends, but my tunnel-vision made that impossible. And now I’m about to totally fall apart about it all. It’s done. I’m done. And poor Bryn is all that’s holding me together.

“We’ll find something perfect, Bryn. And you’re going to ask Tim Pederson to the prom, and he’s going to say yes, and we’re going to have the time of our lives,” I say.

When Bryn looks up at me, I can actually see her spirits lift. Maybe I’m good for something after all. “Really? You think he’ll go?”

“Totally. I did some digging and he doesn’t have a date yet. And he totally checks you out in gym.”

Bryn grins. “He
is
pretty cute.”

I turn back to the racks. “You should try this on,” I say, holding out a pumpkin-orange dress with ruffles. It’s the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s nothing like what I want.”

“Obviously. That’s why it’ll be funny.” I shove it towards her and she reluctantly grabs it.

“Fine, but this one is all you.” She hands me a slinky dress that starts out purple at the top but morphs into blue, green, and yellow, like tie-dye. I grin mischievously and take it without protest. Thank God for friends like her, or I’d be wallowing in my own misery right now, contemplating my next four years with Tina and my dad slowly driving me insane.

I shove her playfully toward another rack of clothes. Her arms are full of dresses.

“You know the rules,” I say ten minutes later as I hang my dresses on a hook at the door of my fitting room. “You have to show me everything, no matter how dumb it looks.”

“Fine. But you, too. No cheating.”

I pull my sweater over my head and pick up the tie-dye creation. It feels good as it slides over my stomach and hips, but it’s not only weird colors, it’s a weird length too. It hits me at an awkward mid-calf level.

“With Dave. He told Ken he was taking her.” I smile at that. Even though the rest of my life is falling apart, Dave came through in high style. After our little heart-to-heart, he must have felt so bad for me that he asked Jess to the prom. I’d expected that he’d date her up until prom time, but I hadn’t thought he’d have the guts to ask her. “And actually, I’m thinking I’ll have him dump her
at
prom. It’s only three days before graduation. That’s not enough time for retaliation. Maybe she won’t get caught, but high school will be over, so I’ll have the last word.”

Bryn laughs. “God, you’re so evil. I can’t even imagine her in a dress.”

“She used to wear them all the time, actually. In junior high she had this one baby blue knee-length dress that was kinda cute.” I step outside the fitting room in a slinky black floor-length gown.

“It’s too plain,” she says. “And I can’t picture her without her fishnets and wacko hairdo.”

I agree, on the black dress being too plain. I twist around in the mirror. I’m not sure what it needs. “Also, I’m not evil. You know Jess as well as I do. Her heart is pure black. You know she makes fun of you every chance she gets, almost as much as she makes fun of me. She’s just getting what she deserves.”

Bryn shrugs and disappears into her dressing room. I stand in front of the three-way mirror and twirl around a few times. Even if the dress is too plain, it looks good on me. I make a mental note to try on some more slinky ones.

“Twenty bucks says she wears combat boots under her dress,” I say.

“Fifty says she doesn’t even wear a dress,” Bryn retorts. She emerges from the dressing room in a navy blue gown with silver flowers embroidered around the heart-shaped neckline. It’s adorable and so totally her, thanks to the extra embellishments. I know she’s thinking the same thing, because her grin goes from one ear to the other, and she does a little twirl.

“You
have
to get that dress.”

“I know, right?” She’s so gleeful she actually giggles as she spins in the mirror for what must be the thirteenth time. “It’s nothing like my vision, but still. I’m so buying this.”

I nod as she keeps spinning in the mirror. Then I hear my cell phone ring. Still wearing the black slinky gown, I scurry back to my room and I pick it up. The screen says
unknown number.

I hate when the caller ID doesn’t do its job. With a frown, I flip it open. “Hello?”

“Hey Peyton, it’s Kim.” Kim is one of my better friends, and one of the few people, other than Evan and Bryn, who I told about being waitlisted from Harvard.

“Yeah?” I say. She has this nervous tone to her voice, and it’s freaking me out.

“Um, I heard that this girl from my old school, Mischa…well, they told her she got bumped off the waiting list, and now she’s in.”

“Oh, really? When?” I’m getting excited. Maybe there’s a letter sitting on the kitchen counter at home, just waiting for me to rip it open.

I’m not really sure
why
she wanted to tell me, since it’s a little bit like telling me I have a stain on my shirt when I’m already at school, and can’t change it.