Tagged (11 page)

M
Y MOM WAS IN THE KITCHEN
when I got home, walking from one end of the room to the other as she talked on the phone. She only paced like that when she was upset, but I could tell she was trying to keep her voice calm and controlled. I listened to her as I searched the fridge for a snack.

“Yes, I have that on the specification sheet you gave me,” she said. “No, it's not in front of me at the moment. It's at work. This is my
home
number.”

Mom sounded totally frustrated. I didn't know who she was talking to, but I knew that tone of voice, and whoever was on the end of the line had about two minutes to hang up or get yelled at. She was balling her fist so tightly her knuckles were turning white. Not a good sign.

There was nothing decent in the fridge, so I grabbed a box of crackers from the pantry and plopped down on the family room sofa. Mom came in a few minutes later and sat down next to me.

“Who was that on the phone?” I asked, my mouth half-f of cracker.

“A very rude customer,” she replied, resting her head against the back of the sofa. She closed her eyes for a
moment, then opened them and turned her head toward me. “You're home early.”

“Yeah. Bonnie had her neighbor there. She's helping out and it wasn't too busy, so they said I could leave early.”

“How did you get home?”

“Hitched a ride with some weirdo.”

She bolted upright. “What?”

“Kidding. Lan picked me up.”

Mom settled back into the sofa and closed her eyes. “She just dropped you off and left?” Usually Lan stayed for dinner or hung out or something.

“She was on her way to see her new boyfriend.”

“That's nice,” Mom murmured. She was falling asleep, so I took my crackers and went to my room for a while.

After the revelation that Eli's older brother Ben was the tagger behind half a dozen gorilla murals in several different states, I actually began to calm down. Finally, I had some kind of answer. I remembered that when the school was tagged in January, Ben had been in town. I wasn't sure how he had managed to create the other murals in Cleary, but it didn't seem to matter. What mattered was that Eli was in another state with his parents, which meant he was probably nowhere near Reva, one of my main concerns. I didn't know where Reva was, and I didn't care—I just didn't want her curled up next to my future boyfriend, tracing those razor-sharp nails of hers up and down his back.

I tried to block the image from my mind and went to research my history paper. Were we supposed to define art or support our position on the gorillas? Both, I guessed. I perused pages on art quotations and famous artists and European
museums, but nothing inspired me. It occurred to me that I was trying to find someone or something else to answer a question that I needed to work out on my own. Mr. Gildea was smart to have given us two weeks to complete the essay. I wished he would have given us two months.

I gave up after an hour. Dad came home and we made dinner, careful not to wake Mom.

“She's had a lot on her plate lately, so to speak,” Dad explained as he unwrapped a frozen pizza.

“I know the feeling,” I said.

 

P
ARTIES SHOULD, BY DEFINITION
, bring people together to celebrate. Tiffany's birthday bash, now less than two weeks away, was having the opposite effect on the students of Cleary High School. In fact, it would not be much of a stretch to say that “the social event of the year” had incited a small war.

The first battle began when Mallory discovered that one of the senior cheerleaders had purchased the exact same red silk dress as her.

“Take it back,” she demanded. It was after lunch on Tuesday, and Mallory's high-pitched screeching attracted a small crowd in the hallway.

“I already cut the tags off,” the cheerleader protested. She was surrounded by half the squad, all of them standing with their hands on their hips as if frozen in a choreographed dance move.

“I don't care! Take it back!” Mallory was close to tears. Monica took off in search of Tiffany.

“
You
take it back!” yelled the cheerleader. I was watching the scene from the back of the crowd. It was amazing to watch
two normally composed girls transform into enraged toddlers before my eyes. It was like they were fighting over a doll.

The shouting got louder, the crowd got quieter, and soon two vice principals and a security guard arrived to break things up. Guy fights usually ended with punches thrown, but girl fights always ended with blood on the tile and chunks of hair strewn across the hallway, and the vice principals knew that better than anyone. I didn't think they had to worry, though—neither girl wanted to endure the trauma of unsightly bruises or challenging hair issues before the big night.

By the end of the day, Tiffany had decided that the cheerleader could still attend the party if she wore a cropped jacket and promised to stay away from Mallory the entire night. It was a compromise—not a good one, but it would work.

The incident reminded me that I had yet to shop for my own dress. Lan had been prodding me to get one, but I was waiting for her to receive an invitation.

“We'll go dress shopping together,” I told her.

Lan nodded but said nothing.

Mallory's dress disaster was not the only conflict Tiffany had to contend with. The prom committee, which consisted of several popular seniors, was not happy with the timing of the party (only a month before prom), the theme of the party (too similar to prom, which was going to feature nearly the same shade of blue tablecloths) or the location of the party (they had also reserved the country club—six months in advance).

Ticket sales were way down. Most of the senior class would be at the party and had already announced that they would not be buying a second dress or renting another tux. The general feeling was that a free, exclusive party was much better than
an expensive dance that anyone could attend. There was also the television coverage to consider. It looked like Cleary's prom was going to be canceled.

“It's not my fault,” Tiffany announced to anyone who would listen. “People want quality, not tacky tradition.”

She definitely had her supporters, but Tiffany was beginning to lose the admiration of half the senior class, most of the cheerleaders and all of the freshmen. Not that she cared, as she pointed out on an hourly basis. They were all just jealous, in her opinion. Still, she wasn't holding her head as high, and there were a few times in class when I glanced over and saw her staring into space, a blank look on her face. I wondered if she was realizing that her dream party was transforming into a nightmare. I felt a twinge of sympathy for her at those times, but it wouldn't last. Tiffany would always do something that made me want to strangle her, like pull out car catalogs and wonder out loud which high-priced luxury vehicle her dad was going to surprise her with.

“If it's not a convertible, I'll die,” she announced before class one day. “I mean, what's the point of having a Beemer if you can't put the top down?”

Sometimes people would nod in fake understanding, but her spoiled-girl soliloquies were beginning to wear thin.

Lan hadn't mentioned the party in over a week, and I questioned if she still wanted to go. Once, as I helped her sort through tiny pink beads for an orchid pin she was making, I pondered the party's theme.

“Do you think it will be a kind of ‘diamonds are a girl's best friend' motif?” I asked. “Because that's what I heard. Diamonds and pearls, that kind of thing.”

“Pass me a few clear ones,” Lan said, nodding toward a box of beads.

She hadn't been speaking up as much in class, but Lan still hadn't received an invitation. I wanted to approach Tiffany about it, but she was always surrounded by a small flock of fans. I decided to wait a few more days. If Lan decided she didn't want to go, that would be fine. I wanted her to have an invitation so that she at least had a choice. It wasn't that long ago, I realized, that her choice would have been clear. Now, I wasn't so sure.

Lan wasn't the only person causing me confusion. I was still waiting to hear from Eli. It had been eight days since I'd seen him, but it felt like eight weeks. I searched for him in the crowded hallways at school, my heart quickening any time I caught a glimpse of someone with his same shade of chestnut-brown hair. After school I checked my e-mail, hoping for a message, no matter how brief. And when the phone rang and the caller ID showed Unknown Number I always answered it, only to feel disappointed when it was the inevitable telemarketer.

My concern that Eli was okay had morphed into worry that he was simply avoiding me. Maybe he had reconsidered and decided our first kiss was an only kiss. Maybe Reva had found a way to win him back. Maybe he had spent the past week realizing that he didn't like me as much as he had. I came up with a new “maybe” every day, but they all boiled down to one depressing thought: maybe Eli and I were over before we ever began.

M
AYBE IT WAS UNDERSTANDABLE
that Tiffany Werner was not in a good mood on Thursday morning. Her party was only nine days away and judging by the heavy bags beneath her eyes she had not been sleeping well. More people seemed angry with her than happy for her, and Nothing Serious, the band scheduled to perform, was trying to back out of the deal. Three good reasons why anyone would be having a bad day. But there was no excuse good enough to justify what happened in history class that morning, and afterward, most people thought Tiffany had been lucky to make it out of the room alive.

It began like any other class day: Mr. Gildea took attendance while everyone chatted, then he collected homework and reminded us about our essay, which we had less than a week to finish. There were a lot of questions about the paper. Did we need to include historical references? How many pages? Was there a word count requirement? Everyone seemed anxious about it.

“I'm simply looking for strong support and evidence of critical thinking,” he said with a bemused smile. “No page requirements, no word limit. It's done when you think it's done.”

“But we should definitely mention the gorillas?” Lan asked.

That's when Tiffany began to unravel. Maybe she had been close to losing it all morning, but when she heard Lan say
gorilla
something snapped.

“That's it!” she screamed. And I mean screamed, like cover-your-ears-because-it-hurts screamed. She stood up, her hands visibly shaking. “I do not want to hear that word,” she growled, her voice deadly.

I was looking from Tiffany, whom I half expected to start foaming at the mouth, to Mr. Gildea, who looked incredulous. I'd never seen him like that, like he had no idea what to do.

“Does everyone understand me?” she demanded, her voice starting to creep back up into screaming range. “I. Do. Not. Want. To. Hear. That. Word.”

“Miss Werner, have a seat, please,” Mr. Gildea said. His voice was gentle, like he was coaxing an angry dog. He hadn't moved from behind his lectern. I thought he was honestly afraid that she might bite him if he got too close.

Tiffany was glaring at everyone as if daring them to argue with her. When she made eye contact with Lan, she pointed a single shaking finger. “Don't say it, Lan. You're the worst one. Every time we discuss anything you have to bring it up and I'm sick of it! So just shut up, Lan! Shut! Up!” She stomped her foot so hard I thought the heel of her shoe was going to break in half.

Now the class was looking from Tiffany, who was still standing at the back of the class, to Lan, who was sitting at her desk, her cheeks burning pink.

“Do not speak to me that way,” Lan said slowly. She kept her voice subdued, but anyone could see that she was fuming.

Tiffany went berserk. “I will speak to you any way I please!” she screamed. “And if you don't like it, you can go right on back to the rice—”

That's when Mr. Gildea lost it. “Miss Werner, sit down now!” he roared, drowning out Tiffany's words. It was the loudest I had ever heard a teacher shout. The glass on the door trembled a little, and everyone froze, mouths open. I don't think anyone even blinked. Mr. Gildea's face was a shade of purple I had never seen before, and Tiffany looked as if she had been slapped. She made a little choking sound before bursting into tears and running from the room.

An eerie silence settled over the class. We could hear Tiffany sobbing as she ran down the hallway. Doors opened and we heard teachers talking in the hallway, asking what was going on. There was a light knock at the door.

“Andrew?” It was the freshman history teacher from across the hall. “Everything all right in there?”

Mr. Gildea, still looking a little purple, opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. We all strained to hear what he was saying, but he was whispering. I reached across my desk for Lan's hand, and when she looked at me I could see that her initial rage had been replaced by a soft kind of sadness. Brady came over and knelt on the floor by her desk, asking her if she was okay. Lan nodded but didn't say anything.

The class began to whisper, and the whispers grew louder and louder until Mr. Gildea returned a few minutes later, at which point everyone automatically stopped talking and waited for him to say something. Instead of addressing us, though, he simply collected his papers and left the room. A nervous-looking sub came in a minute later and asked us to please study quietly.

 

L
AN SPENT HER LUNCH PERIOD
in the office with Mr. Gildea and Principal Carter, who had called her in to discuss “racial sensitivity.” Tiffany had already left for the day. Her mother picked her up, and the rumor was that she wouldn't be back for a while. The other rumor was that she was going to check into a hospital for exhaustion.

I ate lunch with Eden and the rest of the newspaper staff. Everyone was buzzing about Tiffany's nuclear meltdown.

“I heard she tried to bite Mr. Gildea.”

“She threatened to kill the whole class.”

“They found a knife in her purse.”

None of it was true, and I was about to clear a few things up when someone approached the lunch table.

“Kate.”

I looked up at the sound of my name. It was Reva. She was dressed in black jeans and a black top and her nails were painted black. I panicked. Was she going to attack me here? Would she slit my throat with those deadly nails in front of a hundred witnesses? I saw Brady get up from his table across the room and walk swiftly over to stand behind Reva. It was bad, I thought, if Brady felt like he needed to hang around.

“Hi, Reva.” I tried to sound neutral, but my voice came out like a strangled squeak.

“I wanted to let you know that Eli will be back at school tomorrow.” Her eyes never left mine. It was like she was trying to see through me.

“Oh. Well, that's…great.”

Reva continued to stand there. Was I supposed to say something else? Had Eli asked Reva to talk to me? Maybe it was a trap—she would remain silent until I confessed to stealing her
boyfriend. The entire lunch table was silent. I hadn't told anyone else about me and Eli, but they knew something was off. Reva never spoke to me.

“We broke up,” she said. Her voice was flat.

“I'm…I'm sorry to hear that.”

“I'm sure you are.”

Before I could respond, she turned and left the cafeteria. Brady looked at me, shrugged and returned to his table.

“That was weird,” Eden remarked.

“Why is she telling you about Eli?” someone else asked.

“No idea,” I said. “I have absolutely no idea what that was about.”

Only one thing mattered to me in that moment, though—Eli was returning to school. I didn't know what it would be like to see him again, or what I would say to him, but he had promised to make things right. It was a promise I hoped he would keep.

 

I
MET UP WITH
L
AN AFTER SCHOOL
. I didn't have to work, so she was coming over to my house. I wanted to make sure she was okay after everything that had happened. She was quiet as we walked to her car, but I knew she would open up once we were in my room.

We had just made it to the parking lot when I noticed Monica and Mallory. They were parked just a few spaces down.

“One sec,” I told Lan.

I approached Monica because she was the closest. She was already in her car, so I tapped on the glass and she rolled down the window.

“What do you want?” She was clearly annoyed.

“I need you to give Tiffany a message from me,” I said as
loudly as possible. The parking lot was half-f of students, and I wanted them all to hear what I had to say.

“Tell Tiffany that I won't be at her party,” I said. “I prefer to spend my time with people who actually possess a shred of class.”

Everyone heard me and a few people chuckled. I began to walk away, even though Monica was hollering at me.

“You were going to be uninvited, anyway!” she yelled. “But don't worry, your mom can tell you all about how great it was. Maybe she'll take a few pictures for you, too.”

I kept walking and pretended I hadn't heard.

“What did she say about your mom?” Lan asked.

“She said my mom would be at the party.” Things started to make sense all at once: how Mom was so stressed with work and was coming home late every night, how she was mad at her boss and had a customer calling her at home—it was all related to Tiffany.

“Can we make a quick stop before we go to my house?” I asked Lan. She nodded.

Fifteen minutes later we pulled in front of Cleary Confections. Inside, the scent of warm bread filled the air. It was one of the slow periods. Mom's assistant, Bud, was wiping down the little café tables while easy listening music played softly from a tiny boom box behind the counter.

“Hey, Kate. Your mom's in the back.” Bud tossed the rag he had been using over his shoulder. “I hope you're bringing her good news,” he said quietly. “She's having a real bad week.”

“What's going on?” Lan asked, her eyes darting toward the back.

“We're overbooked big-time. The boss took on way too
much. Now he's leaving for vacation and we're stuck with some huge orders.”

I turned to Lan. “This might not be the best time,” I said. “We can ask her later.” Lan nodded. Mom was rarely in a bad mood, but when she was—watch out. Hell hath no fury like a stressed-out woman in an overheated kitchen.

“Bud! I need more buttercream and I need it now!”

Bud winced. “All week,” he whispered to us. “It's been like this all week.”

Before Lan and I could slip out of the store unnoticed, Mom walked through the swinging doors.

“Kate! What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Mrs. Morgan,” Lan said.

“Hello, Lan.” Mom gave her a weak smile and sat down at one of the café tables. She was a mess. Her hair was pulled into a sloppy ponytail, she wasn't wearing any makeup and her apron was crooked. Bud brought her a cup of coffee before heading to the back room.

“We're not staying,” I said. “I mean, we can talk later.”

“No, no. You're here. Sit. I need a break, anyway.”

It felt like the worst time to ask her about the party, but I thought it might be one of my only chances to do so.

“So are you making Tiffany Werner's birthday cake?” I asked.

Mom sighed. “Yes, I am. Unfortunately.” She shook her head. “I guess they had some fancy baker up in North Carolina all set to do it, but he backed out at the last minute. They offered Sam a huge sum of money.” She stirred her coffee. “It's a total disaster. Bigger than a wedding cake, and it has to be hand delivered.”

“Oh.”

Mom stopped stirring her coffee. “That's the party you're going to, right? Don't worry, I'll be in the kitchen the entire time. You won't see me.”

“That's not it,” I said. I explained what had happened in school earlier. Lan added to it and, when we were through, Mom shook her head.

“I wish I didn't have to do this, girls, but it's not something I can get out of.” She reached across the table and squeezed Lan's hand. “I'm sorry, dear. No one has the right to make you feel inferior. Ever.”

Bud came out of the back room. “We need more blue,” he said.

Mom sighed and got up. “We've made fifteen different batches of blue icing, and not one has been the right shade.” She glanced at the clock. “Mrs. Werner is coming by soon. I need to get ready.”

She gave both Lan and me a quick hug. “Tell Dad I'll probably be late again.”

Once we got to my house, Lan's quiet unhappiness became a simmering rage. “I wish there was something we could do to sabotage this party,” she said. We were in my room devouring a bag of chocolate cookies. In my opinion, misery loved not only company, but calories, as well.

“I thought about that,” I admitted as I reached into the bag. “I don't know, though. Tiffany's doing a pretty good job of ruining this thing on her own.”

Lan examined her cookie thoughtfully. “Still, there's got to be something we could do. Not awful,” she added quickly. “But something to throw it off. Something to make it not so perfect.”

“You're not going to do something crazy, are you?”

“No, of course not. It was just a thought.”

“You sure?” It wasn't like her to back down so quickly.

Lan stood up and brushed crumbs off her jeans. “I'm sure.”

I wanted to believe her, but something was different about Lan. Tiffany had crossed a line, and I was concerned that Lan was about to cross one in return. She was up to something. I hoped that whatever it was, she would tell me so I could talk her out of it. I wanted to see Tiffany topple from her pedestal just as much as Lan did, but I didn't think it would be possible to do anything to her at the party. A private security team would be monitoring the area and a half-dozen police cars would be stationed less than a mile away. If Lan got caught, she could be thrown into the back of a squad car with half the school and a camera crew watching.

I looked at my best friend. She was miserable. Maybe she was going to do something extreme, but if it made her feel better, I wasn't going to let her do it alone.

“If you need help, count me in,” I said.

She smiled. “Thanks. I'm not going to do anything, though. You're right, Kate. Tiffany will ruin this thing on her own.”

I was relieved that she wasn't going to try something that could get her into trouble, and even more relieved that I wouldn't have to get in trouble with her. I had meant what I said—I would stand by her no matter what—but the fear of public humiliation was nearly enough to make me want to back out of that promise. The party was now only a week away, and I wanted more than anything for it to be over so we could move on as if it had never happened.