Identity Crisis Page 9

  DecOlan: did she forgive you?

  KnuckLise99: eventually.

  DecOlan: so you don’t get along?

  KnuckLise99: we’ve just always been total opposites.

  DecOlan: how so?

  KnuckLise99: you know how i said high school isn’t really all pep rallies and prom committee? for my sister, it was.

  DecOlan: gotcha.

  KnuckLise99: plus nothing ever bothers her. not even my dad—

  She stops writing. The screen reads KnuckLise99 is replying. But the words take a long time to come.

  KnuckLise99: he left us for someone half his age. elena forgave him.

  DecOlan: but you didn’t?

  Again she doesn’t write back immediately, and I wonder if I have asked too much. When she does reply, she changes the subject.

  KnuckLise99: look don’t worry about the concert. i’ll take Maeve. we’ll hang once your mom is better. ok?

  DecOlan: i’ll make it up to you.

  KnuckLise99: yeah right. what could possibly compare to a Knuckles concert?

  DecOlan: our first date.

  And then I describe it for her, a hazy Hallmark card come to life: a sunset picnic down at the beach, with chocolate-covered strawberries and lobster rolls; the crash of the waves and the smell of the salt air; the wind in our hair and the sand between our toes. Lying back, pressing flat onto the woolen blanket, holding hands as the wily seagulls circle slowly. Dashing into the waiting ocean, letting them steal our unattended crumbs. The date is easy enough to describe. I’ve only pictured myself and Cooper on it about a million times before.

  Chapter 17

  ANNALISE

  “I hope you’re all ready,” Ms. Pinella says, with only a touch of a sadistic smile, as she passes the test papers out to the class. Blargh. From the moment I walked into the room, I knew this wouldn’t end well. I am so not ready for this. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Eva, whispering to slander queen Amanda Gerard, then smirking at me.

  My face starts to burn. I know what she’s doing. Telling Amanda what happened yesterday at the ticket giveaway. How Annalise Bradley was a fool, waiting for some guy she met online who never showed. Or worse, pretending to have a boyfriend that didn’t even exist and getting busted. I’d been such a complete lunatic, crying when he didn’t show, hysterically running through the mall, although if I hadn’t, I never would have crashed into Colin Dirge and scored tickets. After talking to Declan last night and clearing everything up, I felt so much better, I’d almost forgotten what was still waiting for me. This.

  I glance over at Eva, knowing there is no way to stop her from spreading stories and making me look like an idiot. Are the glances and mean comments from last year going to start up all over again? What if it never ends? What if she won’t let it? What if everyone believes her?

  I want to get up and leave, but there is no escape. Beside me, Cooper gives me an inquisitive look but I dodge his probing gaze and hug my hoodie tightly around my body. Then, the bell rings and the room quiets as everyone anxiously flips over the exam. Cooper hunches over his paper, his pencil scratching away. My eyes go blurry as I study the first test question. Calculate the correct answer: If Declan lives 40 miles west of the city in Worcester and I live 20 miles south of the city in Dansville, how long would it take to get to his house, walking five minutes over to the station, then traveling 50 minutes by commuter rail to South Station and taking an hour-and-three-quarters train ride to his home, then walking 10 blocks at a rate of 5 miles an hour?

  No, Ms. Pinella’s test doesn’t actually include this particular question. But I realize it’s the only one I want to solve for X. That’s it. I’m doing it. Today. I’m going to just go and finally meet Declan, face-to-face. The way he described our romantic first date still sends shivers down my spine, but why wait weeks until his grounding is over? If Declan can’t come to me, I’ll go to him. Track down every O’Keefe family within the Worcester city limits if I need to. Plus, if I can come home with a photo of the two of us together, it’ll prove to Eva and whoever else she blabs to that Declan really does exist. That I’m not just making him up.

  The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. I can do it. My mom is working the swing shift today, so she won’t even be home until midnight. I’ll go see him after school, pop in on him in person, surprise him. I’m sure if I can tell his parents the whole amazing story of how I was given the tickets, they will relent and suspend his grounding for this one night. If I plead with them, make my case, okay, put them on the spot, how can they say no? And when I show up at the concert on Declan’s arm, even Eva will have to admit to the world she was dead wrong.

  “Ten more minutes,” Ms. Pinella announces, gently jarring me back to reality.

  Crap. I have made little to no progress on this test. I quickly scratch in a few answers, skipping the ones that are too hard. Maybe I should have spent more time studying last night after I got home from the mall instead of chatting away with Declan for hours, while listening to the new version of “Inner Beauty” on repeat. I see Noelle Spiers, who probably did spend the rest of the night studying, finish the test early, get up, and saunter out of the room, glancing back smugly at the rest of us.

  The bell tolls, indifferent to my cause. Cooper spies my test paper and gives me an odd look, noticing I have left the back page mostly incomplete. I quickly turn it over and shove it into the pile making its way up towards the front of the room. I can’t think about it right now. Or him.

  Ms. Pinella’s sensible heels click on the tile floor as she circles the room; last call for dawdlers. As I rush out the door, I can hear Eva pleading with her for, like, one more second, and am pleased when she gets firmly denied.

  “How much longer?”

  I pull the earbuds out of my ears and squint at the route map. “Three more stops.”

  Maeve and I are squished in the back row of a Friday afternoon packed commuter train rumbling toward Worcester, listening to “Inner Beauty” for probably the seventy-eighth time in the last twenty-four hours, but who’s counting? When I told her about yesterday’s mall fiasco and my plan, she insisted on coming along, since there’s no practice on Fridays anyway. I’d had to dip even further into my boob reduction kitty to buy two train tickets instead of one, but it was totally worth it to have Maeve along as company for the long ride.

  “You sure I look okay?” I ask nervously. She’d taken one look at what I was wearing and insisted we stop by her house to give me a quick makeover, swapping out my band T-shirt for a daring cropped purple top from her closet and a pair of her skinny jeans so tight I could barely breathe.

  “Positively fetching,” Maeve says mockingly. “Samantha thought so.”

  Maeve’s little sister had gasped in appreciation when I had emerged from Maeve’s bedroom, then told me I had to sign up for this awesome online contest her friends were all doing—that turned out to be Tori’s stupid InstaHotOrNot beauty pageant. Maeve and I had simultaneously groaned before Maeve hurled a pillow at Samantha’s head and forbidden her to enter.

  The conductor comes on the loudspeaker and announces our stop is next.

  “Do you think I should have brought something?” I ask nervously, as the train’s brakes begin to squeal in protest. My mother is a firm believer that you never show up at someone’s home without a casserole or a bouquet of flowers.

  “Like what?” She arches an eyebrow. “A nice Bordeaux?”

  I shrug, feeling silly. “Guess not.”

  “Your presence is the present,” she says grimly, rising to her feet.

  We jump off the train and I study the street signs, totally disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings. Never in my life have I been to Worcester. Now that we are actually here, my stomach is tied in knots of excitement. In a few more minutes, I will be face-to-face with Declan. I glance up at the sky, which was clear and blue when we boarded the train but now has dark clouds rolling in. Just what I need. A freak thunderstorm, so I can sh
ow up on his doorstep looking like a drowned rat.

  “This way,” Maeve directs, and I follow her lead. We are skipping excitedly down the sidewalk when a beat-up brown car approaches us, then slows down, pulling close to the edge of the street. A weasely faced boy, with a black baseball hat covering his greasy hair, hangs out the window. “Hey, ladies? How ya doing?”

  I freeze, looking straight ahead, and Maeve answers with a clipped, “Fine.”

  “You lost? Need a ride?” he asks, shooting a look over at the driver, another boy whose sideburns and facial fuzz make him look seventeen-going-on-thirty-five. “Anywhere?”

  Maeve shakes her head firmly, crossing her arms across her chest. “Do we look like we need a ride?” The car inches alongside us, spewing exhaust, and even though it is broad daylight, the empty street suddenly feels ominous.

  He eyes me up and down, and I suddenly regret that Maeve talked me into this hoochie mama outfit, wishing I were back in my baggy Knucklie T-shirt, wishing I hadn’t left my hoodie at home because it was so warm today. “How about you, Red? You more friendly than her?”

  When I don’t answer, his smile twists into something ugly. “Nice rack,” he leers at me, and my mouth goes cotton ball dry.

  Maeve cuts in. “Hey! Get lost, a-hole!”

  I hear the driver curse at us as the car peels off. I am just relieved they are gone, but Maeve angrily snatches a rock off someone’s driveway and hurls it after the bumper, using her spiking arm. She grunts with satisfaction as the stone sails through the air, and I crack a hesitant smile. Clunk. Impressively, she actually manages to nick the rear tire.

  Her look of triumph changes to holy-crap panic as the car’s driver suddenly slams on its brakes. Maeve grabs my hand and practically drags me down the street and around the corner, our feet pounding down the pavement, not daring to look behind us, sick with fear. We stumble through someone’s backyard, where Maeve spots a child’s playhouse and we clamber inside. My heart thumps like crazy as we huddle together, bent over at the waist, trying not to stomp on the princess pink plates and teapots belonging to some little girl who has yet to discover this darker side of gender relations. I try to speak but Maeve puts her fingers over her lips to shush me. We wait there for what seems like an hour, but is probably just ten minutes, and don’t hear a thing.

  We eye each other. Are they gone? Eventually, Maeve unfolds herself from the playhouse and brushes herself off, peering up and down the street. “All clear,” she declares. But I am still frozen inside, shaken at the guy’s creepy comments, feeling violated by his eyes. Why is it always me? Maeve doesn’t take anyone’s crap, but she also doesn’t have to deal with guys leering at her like that, commenting on her body the way I do. I’d trade places with her in a second.

  “Come on,” she says impatiently. “You coming or not?”

  I shrug, hanging back, the whole thing making me question why we’d ever come, reminding me what I already knew. What if Declan just seems perfect on paper? What if he is no Prince Charming, but instead a Prince Hans? What if like all boys, underneath, he is just another creep? Am I making a huge mistake?

  She looks back in at me, assessing my shaking shoulders. “That guy was a loser. Seriously. Forget what he said. This is why you don’t go to Worcester, right?”

  I exhale a little laugh and smother my doubts. No. He is nothing like these morons. I know Declan. I know him. I know that he struggles between his love of science and his belief in a higher power, that he thinks reality TV has brainwarped our generation, that his favorite word in the English language is checkmate. I know that he hates public speaking but loves swimming in the ocean, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and his family.

  And possibly, someday, me.

  “Let’s go.” I climb out and follow her back down the street, and we rehash the story, this time making fun of the boys’ goofy faces and bad teeth, and I say I can’t believe she has such good aim, and Maeve admits she almost crapped her pants when that car slammed on its brakes.

  By the time we arrive on Declan’s street, our mood has brightened. Maeve grabs my hand, double-checking the address I had pulled off the web and written on my palm: 43 Runyon Road. Finding it was easy—I searched for Declan’s dad’s name on whitepages.com, and luckily, there was only one Patrick O’Keefe in all of Worcester.

  “This is it.”

  We stop in front of the modest brown ranch home. The lawn is neatly trimmed; the early fall leaves already raked away. To my relief, it looks like your typical suburban tract home. No crazy cult compound, after all. No barbed wire. No barking pit bulls. Two flowerpots of orange marigolds dot the doorstep.

  Still, I linger. What if—?

  “We didn’t come all this way to admire the landscaping, did we?” Maeve pushes her glasses back up her nose. “Moment of truth,” she says, shoving me toward the front door.

  I nervously smooth my hair, hoping he’s happy to see me, hoping I don’t have anything stuck between my teeth, hoping he is all I have built him up to be.

  We ring the bell, and wait. A few seconds pass and we hear voices inside, arguing over who should respond. Finally, we hear footsteps shuffling toward us, a male voice sighing, “Got it.”

  The front door opens, and I see him through the mesh screen door. My heart leaps. It is him. Definitely Declan.

  Declan peers out through the screen at us. He is just as I’d imagined him, wearing a faded Star Wars T-shirt and a pair of loose blue jeans. A smile spreads over my face. I clear my throat, trying to gather my thoughts and what exact words to say.

  He glances briefly at me, his dark eyes showing no sign of recognition. None at all. I could be a third-grader hawking Girl Scout cookies or a Hari Krishna showing up to recruit his soul for the afterlife. My smile falters as his gaze floats over to the left of me, and his face breaks into the beam I’d been expecting. The one I’d come all this way for. The one that was supposed to be for me.

  “Maeve?” Declan says in complete disbelief, flinging open the screen door with an ear-piercing squeak. Then, he goes and gives Maeve the eager welcome that by all rights should have been mine. “Is that you?”

  Chapter 18

  NOELLE

  The math test is a breeze, even though I hadn’t gotten any studying done last night, between our little field trip to the mall and spending the night winning back Annalise’s affections. I duck out early after handing it in, and spend lunchtime in the library, mainly because it’s the last place on the planet Eva and Tori would think to go. After what happened yesterday, I’ve lost my taste for their company. But after last bell, they find me anyway, loitering by my locker, coming up on either side of my body and grabbing my elbows like a pair of Sopranos hit men.

  “Come on,” Eva giggles, flipping her hair. “No rehearsal today. We’re kidnapping you.”

  “Boys’ soccer on the upper field,” Tori says in response to my bewildered look, turning and leading the way.

  Resistance is futile. I follow them, crunching over leaves strewn across the field behind the school. We clamber up onto the chilly gunmetal bleachers, finding seats way at the top, putting our feet up on the bench below. The crowd is sparse; soccer has its groupies, mostly wannabe Anglophiles, but not enough to pack the stands like football or basketball. The players down on the field look like honeybees buzzing around a field of clover, decked out in our school’s yellow-and-black colors.

  “Amos!” Eva spots him and waves wildly to get his attention. He sees us, and turns. A flicker of something—displeasure? embarrassment?—flashes across his face. He quickly waves back, then heads into the throng of players. Trouble in paradise? I wonder, glancing over at Eva. But her face reveals nothing.

  I absently half-listen while Eva and Tori start gossiping; Tori complains again about the travesty of an early gym class, Eva bashes Ms. Pinella for not giving her one more second to get through the last answer on the math test, and how hard was that bonus question?

  But what does it all matter? In l
ight of my dad’s life crisis, my family’s newfound status on the dole, it all strikes me as petty. Insignificant. Actually, I have to admit, compared to my nightly discussions with Annalise, everything Eva and Tori talk about seems pretty pointless.

  “So, sale at LuLu’s tomorrow,” Eva says, mentioning the local boutique we all love. “Anyone want to check out the racks?”

  Tori says she’s in, but I hesitate, wondering if I am still allowed to go clothes shopping. Even with a sale, LuLu’s is not cheap, and we’d already bought a bunch of back-to-school clothes before my dad’s big announcement. I know my parents had told me we’d be fine, finance-wise, but after last night’s fight, things have been über-tense at home. I hadn’t thought through how my dad’s decision left us on the brink of danger. Would we become like some of those people you heard about on the news—losing our house, drowning in debt, bankrupt? Homeless, even? Maybe my mom was right: He should have kept quiet and sucked it up. What would she say if she found out I’d been the one who planted the seed of encouragement in his mind? Would she blame me?

  I say nothing, knowing what will happen if I share my financial fears. My friends would tsk ooohhh nooo, and give each other a look over my head, which meant they’d be texting frantically about me the minute I turned my back. Once my clothing budget is limited to Target, how long before Eva and Tori’s trash talk turns on me?

  “Maybe,” I hedge, thinking of a way I could bring in some extra cash on my own. The math department is always looking for tutors, and Ms. Pinella is always asking if I am interested. There is that. Eva shrugs and moves on to gossiping about the school principal, who is rumored to wear a hair piece to cover his bald spot. “What about a reverse pageant?” Eva asks Tori. “Worst-looking teacher at Dansville High!”

  I watch as Eva gazes at Tori, seeking her reply. Her approval. Tori considers it for a moment, then regally shakes her head. “No way. I get enough drama without pissing off the entire faculty.”