“Whose was …? Oh, you mean the lip balm?”
She nodded.
I paused, then spit it out. “Alicia’s. Alicia Dugger’s.”
Mary Bryan paled.
“I know,” I said. “I know, I know. But it’s not like she’s never borrowed anything from me before. I’ll get her a new one, I swear.”
“But Keisha told you,” Mary Bryan said. “She didn’t keep anything secret, she told you right up front …”
“You mean that hocus-pocus from last night?” I said. I tried to laugh it off. “Come on.”
Mary Bryan twisted the bottom of her shirt. “She told you how it works,” she whispered. “‘For one to rise, another must fall.’”
It brought the cold feeling back to my body, and I almost felt as though I was going to faint. “Please. You guys are nuts. I mean, it’s done, okay? I did what you wanted, so you can drop the whole charade thing.”
She gazed at me.
“Because it’s really pretty stupid,” I said. It was the first time I’d said anything like that to her, anything the slightest bit critical.
But all Mary Bryan said was, “Don’t do it again. Not if she’s your friend.” She touched my arm, or rather the cloth of my shirt. She turned and hurried down the stairs.
During geometry, something odd happened. I was taking notes as Mr. Hopper explained some proof when suddenly the world slid sideways. My pen clattered to my desk, and a shimmer pulsed through me. Life was an infinite web of lights—I knew it because I felt it—and mine burned brighter than most.
The sensation lasted only a second, and then it was gone. I was still me, my butt on the hard plastic seat. But I understood, although I wasn’t sure how, that Lurl had found the lip balm.
At lunch, the cafeteria lady handmade my turkey sub, adding guacamole, fresh tomatoes, and two strips of caramelized bacon. I put aside thoughts of offerings and rituals and gave myself to the moment.
“How did she know?” I asked Keisha, glancing down the food line to verify that yes, the lesser mortals were receiving Turkey Joes. I spotted Phil receiving his plate, and he grinned a hello. He motioned with his eyes at Keisha, a gesture that meant,
“Where will we have it?” Laurie asked. “Should we invite guys?”
Keisha stood up, and Bitsy and Mary Bryan followed suit. I quickly got to my feet.
“Thanks, girls,” Keisha said. “We know we’re in good hands.”
“Just don’t bring the megaphones this time, eh?” Bitsy said.
We left them talking excitedly. I hadn’t eaten a bite of my food, but I wasn’t the least bit hungry.
In English, Miriam Fossey looked at me funny and nudged her best friend Angel. She and Angel whispered back and forth, and Angel’s eyebrows shot up. Then Angel whispered something to Bobbi, who passed it onto Taniqua. Soon all the girls in the class were whispering, and I knew it had to do with me. I knew because after class, Miriam made a point of coming over and talking to me, which she hadn’t done all year.
“There’s something different about you,” she accused.
“There is?”
“I saw you at lunch. You were sitting with Bitsy and Mary Bryan and Keisha.”
I tilted my head. In fifth grade, Miriam and I had been friends. We both liked to swing. Then in sixth grade, she told me my neck was dirty. That was soon after Dad had left. She said she couldn’t hang out with me anymore, that her mother had said so.
“Huh,” I said to her now. “So I was.”
Miriam scrunched up her mouth, and I could tell she was dying to say something snotty. But what was there to say? Anyway, Miriam was a snob, but she wasn’t stupid.
“Well,” she said at last. “Lucky you.”
On Friday, we ate with the debate team. Boiled chicken breasts for them, Duck a l’orange for us. I had never tasted duck before. It was delicious.
However, the debaters weren’t as fun as the cheerleaders. They were at first, when they told me how wonderful I was using phrases like, “as evidenced by your superior mental endowment” and “proven without contest by your taste in dining companions.” But then they fell into an argument about the importance of peer group interactions, and it got really boring.
“Why?” moaned Bitsy as Rutgers Steiner pressed Callie Winship about the multiple definitions of “social intercourse.” “Why, why, why?”
“Just tune them out,” said Mary Bryan. She plucked a marinated orange slice from my plate. To me she said, “The stoners are even worse. All they do is gaze at us and stroke our hair.”
“So why do you—” I made a
“The Fall Fling isn’t a
On Saturday morning I IMed Bitsy for party fashion advice. I was too chicken to call her in person, but I needed her input. Plus, I wanted the thrill of IMing Bitsy McGovern. Of knowing I actually could.
she IMed back.
“Another party?” Mom said when I jogged downstairs.
“Yep,” I said, moving quickly behind the sofa so she wouldn’t comment on the skirt. “It’s my coming-out party.”
Mom looked confused. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said. Bitsy’s horn beeped from the driveway. “So … bye! See you when I see you!”
The party was in an abandoned warehouse that somebody’s brother had rented or something like that. I didn’t get all the details, and when we got there, I didn’t care. It was a huge open space, like a barn, and the cheerleaders had decorated it with strands of silver star lights and red Chinese lanterns. Velvet cushions were piled in the corners, and along one wall sat a gold brocade sofa with dark green throw pillows. A rent-a-hot-tub bubbled away in the center of the room, and a full bar was set up ten feet away. Kyle Kelley held court with a bottle of Tanqueray and a lemon. When he saw us, he raised the bottle in salute.
“It’s amazing,” I breathed.
Mary Bryan seemed pleased, as if it were a present she was responsible for.
“They did a nice job,” Keisha acknowledged. She wore a pale sage dress that matched her eyes, and she looked like a creature from a fairy tale. Compared to her I was a vamped-up club girl, but I hardly cared.
“Knock ’em dead,” said Bitsy. She used her thumb to soften my sparkly eyeshadow, which she’d applied for me in the car. “You’re the belle of the ball.”