Getting Caught (2 page)

And Peyton-types.

Grand thoughts, my ass. Obviously cuteness and excessive punctuation is more his thing. But that still doesn’t stop me from forgetting how to breathe every time he walks into the room.

I’m about to turn my thoughts back to another quote that will turn Bryn’s ears even redder when I notice something. Something amazing.

Dave is staring at me.

No, not me of course. He’s never even looked within a ten-yard radius of my direction, ever. So it’s probably someone behind me. The cafeteria is packed this period for study hall. I’m sure there’s some peppy, Peyton-like girl nearby he has to extract his daily dosage of cuteness from.

But wait. Now he’s walking toward me. It
is
me, right?

I stop breathing, though I can hear Bryn’s voice, playing like a slo-mo recording, in my ears. She’s going on about how a yearbook is something to treasure, how my children and my children’s children will see it, and do I really want to talk about drug use? As if I’m really going to shell out the seventy-five bucks to buy the damn thing. But I can’t bring myself to care. Because yes, Dave is really coming toward me. Grinning and moving purposefully for me, like he’s been waiting for me all this time—and now, here I am.

The time I’ve been waiting years for is now.

He stops and gives Bryn a little shoulder rub, his eyes never leaving mine. Oh God, he’s staring right at me. I swallow and when he says my name, “Jess Hill?” it sounds like music. It’s a voice so sweet, I can’t even be upset that I’ve been in school with him forever and he still isn’t sure who I am.

“Ye-es,” I say, somehow transforming the word into two syllables.

He grins, then turns to his buddies and nods at them. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed before, but it seems like the entire football team has somehow followed him into the cafeteria. They’re standing there in a line, all thirty of them, as if it’s Taco Day and they want to make sure they have time for thirds or fourths. I guess they need to make sure their muscles are properly nourished, since muscle weighs more than brain.

Then Dave reaches into the pocket of his baggy jeans. It only takes me a moment to realize he hasn’t come over to profess his love. Something is definitely wrong. When he pulls out a condom, slaps it on the table, and winks at me, I know.

The rest of the boys follow quickly. A couple of them do a “Hey baby,” or an “After school, behind the bleachers?” thing along with their wink. Before long, there are thirty condoms piled in front of me, and the entire study hall is erupting in laughter. Where the hell did the study hall teacher disappear to? Maybe she could just shoot me and put me out of my misery.

I catch a glimpse of Dave, beautiful Dave, laughing in a huddle with some of the other guys. He has his arm around Bryn, who’s now standing with them, smirking triumphantly.

Dave doesn’t look so beautiful anymore.

I don’t cry. Ever. I don’t blush, and I don’t giggle. It’s just not in me. So I grin at the group, tear open a condom, blow it up, and let it go. As it rockets across the room, I squint, scratch my head and address the guys in my most even voice. “So, wait. Which one of you is first?”

Chapter Three

Peyton

“You’ve
got
to be kidding me,” I say, staring at Bryn.
Please,
please
let this be the first time in her life she’s ever joked about something.

“No. I swear. She winked like she thought it was totally funny.” Bryn purses her purple lips, completely solemn despite the ridiculous makeup. Sometimes it’s hard to take her seriously.

“She must have been faking it,” I say. “Jess Hill doesn’t have that kind of confidence. The first time she tried to talk to Dave, she was shaking.” I lean back in my auditorium seat, scowling. Up on stage, four guys are dragging out a big plywood set that’s supposed to be the front of a high school for the second act of
Grease
. I’m supposed to be playing peppy Patty Simcox, but peppy’s the last thing I feel.

Instead, I feel like strangling the nearest person. Jess’ cavalier reaction totally ruined my prank. She was supposed to turn beet-red and stutter, like she would have last year. Like she
did
when she realized I’d stuck a super-maxi pad with red dye all over it on her back, and she’d been walking around like that for half the day.

Instead, it’s like my prank worked
for
her. I bet all the guys thought it was totally hot. She’ll probably have ten invites to the Tolo dance before the end of sixth period.

And now I get to spend the next several weeks looking over my shoulder, wondering when her revenge will hit. One more disaster like this, and she’ll win for sure.

“ARGH!” I punch the seat in front of me, which totally shocks Bryn. She jumps back so fast that her chair would have fallen over if it weren’t bolted to the ground.

Bryn recovers and moves to rub my shoulder, her brown eyes wide and sincere. I know she would have told me not to pull the prank if she’d known about it in advance, since she doesn’t have a competitive bone in her body and can’t understand why I’m constantly at odds with Jess. But even though she isn’t keeping score, she knows one thing: my prank was a dismal failure. “For what it’s worth, it was a good idea,” she whispers.

Sometimes it’s easy to remember why she’s my best friend. Why she replaced Jess, the most self-absorbed, two-faced person in the universe. “Thanks, Bryn,” I say. Even though I don’t feel much better now, I know something that will lift my mood immensely. “I just need some retail therapy. Want to come?”

She gives me a look. “Your stepmom will kill you.”

I shrug. Probably. But after today I need it.

The stage has finally been set, so Bryn and I get up and take our places. Neither of us has terribly big parts (I have twelve lines and Bryn has eight) but that’s not really important. The only thing that matters is that I get to put
Senior Year School Play
on my college application.

In another few hours I can shop away my worries and forget about Jess Hill sabotaging my perfect prank. I hope.

###

“You don’t need more clothes, Peyton.”

My stepmom, Tina, stares at me with what can only be considered a death glare. She’s wearing mismatched socks, holey jeans (and not the trendy kind, either—these are just old) and a gray T-shirt with seven colors of paint on the front.

“Yes, I do,” I tell her for the thousandth time. I’ve come to realize, in my four years of knowing Tina, what buttons need to be pushed. After some persistent whining, she usually caves.

Okay, so that probably means I’ll have to wait until after our mall trip to do my homework and SAT prep. Nothing I can’t handle. I thrive under pressure. Besides, this is probably nothing compared to what Harvard will have in store for me. Practice makes perfect.

I rush through the dishes, feeling proud at the progress I’m making, but I guess I clang them together a little too loudly. Tina pokes her head out of her art studio and gives me
the look
. “Slow down, hon,” she says.

She doesn’t get me. She never has, but I guess I’ve never really tried to get to know her, either. She thinks I go way overboard on my perfect grades and thousand hobbies. I think her art is really bizarre. I always think that some day I’m going to go into her studio and sit down and we’re going to have this great Disney-channel style moment, but then I remember the stack of vocab flash cards and the six sets of math homework, and I always sail right by her studio and head to my room instead.

Besides, I have an open door too. It wouldn’t kill her to extend a little effort either.

Speaking of people who don’t get me
—my dad wanders through the kitchen like a lost traveler and sets his briefcase on the counter. “Hey pumpkin,” he says. He looks tired, and his shoulders are a little droopy, just like his blond hair. He used to work for this big marketing firm, then a small boutique advertising agency in the city, but he got fired from those jobs. I’m not sure why, but I have a good idea. I swear he doesn’t know his ass from his elbow sometimes. For the last three months, he’s been trying to get his own marketing company together. So far, the pizzeria in town and a mobile dog grooming van are his only clients.

“Hey Daddy,” I say, and give him a kiss on the cheek. I don’t think he notices I’m here.

“Dishes, huh?” He gets a 7-Up from the fridge and plops down on a wooden stool at the counter, loosening his chocolate-colored tie at the same time. He cracks open the can and takes one long swig, gulp-gulp-gulping it until it’s gone. “Cool.”

As usual, he is not on this planet.

“Um, yeah,” I say, trying to bring him back to earth. “I’m going to the mall but Tina said I have to do these and pick up my room first.”

He nods. For one hopeful millisecond, I think he might offer to do them for me. He does that sometimes, usually on the weekend, when his brain has slowly resumed functioning. By Sunday afternoon, he’s practically normal. But two hours into Monday morning and his head is back in the clouds. I don’t know whether to be frustrated with him or empathetic. Usually I’m some odd mixture of both.

“When you think of
Keds
, what do you think of?”

I turn off the faucet and grab a dishrag. Ordinarily I’d think it would be kind of cool to help a marketing guru come up with ideas, but this is my dad we’re talking about. The second he leaves the room, he won’t remember a thing I said. “You mean, like the sneakers?” I ask half-heartedly.

Most of our conversations go like this. It’s like his brain is so overwhelmed he can’t function. Sometimes I’m surprised smoke doesn’t come out his ears.

I stand there, staring at him, a dish dripping in my hands. He’s tapping on the brown-freckled Formica counter top.

“Also, they kind of go for that hippie-slash-artist sort of vibe. But not always. It’s hard to explain,” I finish, giving up when I realize my theory has been lost in his clouds.

“Artists, hmm.” He tosses the empty can in the recycling. It leaves a ring of condensation on the counter, and he starts to rub his finger in it, in circular motions. He’s always doing things like that. It’s like the rest of his body is so absorbed in fidgeting and moving that it exhausts his brain so he can’t think clearly.

The only time I see him truly relaxed is when he and Tina are out on this completely ridiculous tandem bicycle they bought two years ago. He gets the dopiest grin I’ve ever seen every time they go for a ride.

“Sure, honey.” He scrunches his eyebrows together, deep in thought, and then stands. The stool topples over onto the vinyl floor, but he doesn’t pick it up. “Have fun at the pep rally,” he says.

I watch him go, half feeling sorry for him and half hating that such a space cadet could be related to me. The thing is, about a thousand years ago, he used to be normal all the time, not just on weekends. He used to be more…like me. I know this because he has his undergrad and MBA degrees hanging in his study. He graduated with honors, and in his old high school yearbook there are about a thousand pictures of him in every kind of sport or club imaginable. So I know there is some of me in him—he just doesn’t seem to use that anymore. My mom was business-minded, ambitious, and focused, too; she owns her own PR firm. Sometimes I think Tina’s carefree, artsy ways have worn off on him, and not in a good way.

I don’t even know what to think of the home front anymore, so I just avoid thinking of it altogether.

Even though I’m still excited to go shopping, I can’t help but think about the history homework and English literature sitting on my desk upstairs. It’s going to be another all-nighter. But this is what I live for, this is the pressure that drives me. And Jess probably just pretended to be unfazed by my prank. There’s no way she can match me. My last one may have not gone as planned, but by no means am I giving in.

On the contrary. Next time, I’ll be stepping things up.

Chapter Four

Jess

I crouch down on the linoleum and scoop up the smallest of the three chocolate lab puppies. The other two are sold, soon to go home to loving families, but this little bundle of energy is the odd pup out.

Kind of like me.

Gavin finishes stacking a shelf of fish food and comes into the back room. “Pizza’s here if you want some.” He studies me through his thick glasses.

“I’m starving,” I say, wondering why Gavin even poses the question. In all three years of working for him at the Pet Pantry, I’ve never once turned down dinner. I put the puppy down and soap up my hands at the sink, and as I’m wiping them dry with a paper towel I feel something lapping at my ankles. It tickles. Laughing, I bend over, hands on knees, and say, “Hey, you. What do you think you’re doing?”

I give up on the puppy and turn around, ready for dinner. Gavin is wearing his red Pet Pantry polo shirt again, his dark chest hair spilling from the open buttons. His arms, too, are covered in full black hair. If he were any one of the animals he’s so fond of, it would be a chimpanzee. His small, wiry body, and the way he jumps about while playing with the dogs… If I ever saw him eating a banana, it would complete the image.

He grins at me, his mouth full of pizza. “Looks like you found a friend. You should take him home.”