Rules for Secret Keeping

  “Not really,” I say, shrugging. “It was probably Emma.” I can tell by the look on her fact that I have it right. “And if there’s any information I really want to know, it’s why people think their secrets are being read.”

  I rip a piece of paper towel off of the holder, dry my hands, and then walk out.

  By the end of the week (and the day of the You Girl banquet), I still have nothing on Olivia. Not one. Single. Thing. I’ve followed her all week, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it. Although, there was one small sliver of time today where I lost sight of her between third and fourth periods. I saw Jake coming down the hall, and I ducked into an empty classroom so I wouldn’t have to pass him. She could have done something shady then. It’s such a shame! It would have been absolutely perfect if I could have exposed her today, the day of the You Girl banquet. Of course, I have bigger problems, i.e., the fact that I still haven’t told Tom or my dad that they’re both going to the banquet. An it’s in, um, three hours.

  “Maybe she’s not reading them,” I wail to Daphne while we’re sitting outside on the benches after school, sharing a bag of chips and waiting for Daphne’s newspaper meeting to start.

  “She definitely is,” Daphne says. “We just have to think. What did you find out today?”

  “Nothing!” I say. “Absolutely nothing, except that Olivia likes to reapply her lip gloss about three bajillion times a day. She’s probably reading them at home. Which makes sense. I mean, think about it—the only ones she would read at school are the paper ones. And most of her secrets are probably digital.” Crap. I wonder if we could follow Olivia to her house. We could get one of those long-lens cameras and try to get pictures of her at her computer, doing scandalous things with all the secrets. Like paparazzi.

  “Samantha!” a voice cries. I turn around. Emma. Great.

  “Oh, hey,” I say. “What’s up?” Ever since Emma confessed to me that she was going to the Fall Festival with Jake, and ever since I found out that she told Olivia about what happened with Barb, I’ve kind of added her to the list of people I’m avoiding. (And okay, yeah, the list isn’t that long. In fact, she and Jake are the only two on it. But still.) I haven’t answered her texts, I’ve made sure that I’m in class before she is, I don’t go down the hallways where I know she’s going to be. I’ve been forced to talk to her a little bit in homeroom, but that’s about it.

  “Samantha,” Emma says, pouting out her bottom lip. “Are you avoiding me?”

  “No,” I say. “Um, not really.”

  “I called you, like, fifty million times!” She plops herself down on the bench between me and Daphne.

  “My phone’s been dead,” I lie.

  She looks at me skeptically. “Anyway,” she says. “I am sooo tired. I’ve been like, nonstop running around trying to get ready for the Fall Festival tonight.” She pushes her long curls out of her face forlornly, like she can’t deal with the stress of trying to get ready for a seventh-grade school event. “By the way, Daphne, we’re totally going to wear our cowgirl hats to school on Monday, so make sure you wear yours.”

  “I’m not going as a cowgirl,” Daphne says.

  “Yes, you are,” Emma says. She reaches over and grabs the bag of chips Daphne’s holding, then pulls one out and pops it into her mouth. “If the money’s a problem, just tell me. I can give you back the twenty dollars.” She rolls her eyes.

  “No,” Daphne says. “It’s not the money. And I’m not going with you.” Uh-oh. I thought Daphne had already told Emma about this.

  “I don’t like plans getting changed at the last minute,” Emma says. “Besides, I already told my mom to pick you up.” She leans back and pulls up the bottoms of her jeans, revealing caramel-colored cowboy boots. “Aren’t they cute? I figured I’d wear them to school so I could break them in.”

  “Well, I’m sure your mom won’t mind that she doesn’t have to come and get me,” Daphne says lightly. She reaches over and takes the bag of chips out of Emma’s hand. Wow. Things are getting really tense around here. I look down at the ground.

  “No,” Emma says, her voice tight. “Probably not. But we need to have three cowgirls.”

  “You don’t have to have three cowgirls,” Daphne says.

  “Yeah,” I chime in. “It’s not like the Three Musketeers or the Three Stooges or something.” I meant it to come off as light, like, Oh, look, you don’t have a costume that really requires three people, but Emma turns around and glares at me.

  “Two cowgirls isn’t as fun,” she says. She turns back to Daphne. “And if you don’t dress as a cowgirl, you can’t come with us.”

  “I don’t want to go with you,” Daphne says. “I’m going with Michelle.”

  “Michelle who?” Emma asks. She sounds totally bewildered, like she can’t fathom the fact that not only is Daphne not going with her, but that she’s going with someone named Michelle. I take a chip out of Daphne’s bag and chew on it nervously. I don’t think this conversation is going in a very good direction.

  “Michelle Josephson,” Daphne says. “We’re going as soccer players.”

  “Michelle Josephson?” Emma snorts and pulls her jeans back down. “You’re kidding, right? Daphne, come on, that’s not exactly going to help your social status, now is it?”

  Uh-oh. So not the right thing to say.

  Daphne’s hand tightens around the bag of chips she’s holding, and a few of them crunch as they crush under her grip.

  “Well, whatever,” I say, forcing a laugh. “I’m sure you guys will run into each other at the Fall Festival and maybe you’ll have some punch together or something.” I stand up and try to grab Daphne’s hand. “But we should get you off to the newspaper office; you’re going to be late.”

  “Well, whatever,” Emma says. She rolls her eyes. “It’s fine, I don’t care if you go with Michelle to the festival. I just didn’t want Charlie to have to be left alone, since I’m going to be spending a lot of time with Jake.” She tilts her head and thinks about it. “But I guess she’ll be fine. Now that you’re not going, more boys will probably talk to her.”

  “Yeah, so, we’ll see you later,” I say again. I’m standing up completely now, and pretty much trying to yank Daphne off the bench. Seriously, I’m really yanking. I’m pulling the sleeve of her coat and everything.

  “Bye,” Emma says. “Just make sure you and Michelle don’t have too much fun without me.” She sounds like she’s trying to make a joke. A really snarky, semi-mean joke that makes it sound like Daphne and Michelle are maybe the least fun, most lame people ever. And so Daphne turns back around. Crap. I was this close to getting her out of here.

  “All right,” Daphne says, her tone getting dark. “I’ve kept quiet about this for too long, but now . . . now this has gone just FAR ENOUGH.” Her cheeks are red and she pushes the sleeves of her coat up. Wow. I’ve never seen Daphne like this. Are Daphne and Emma going to get into a fight? Am I going to have to break it up? God, I hope not. There’s no way I’m strong enough to separate the two of them.

  “Watch it, Daphne,” Emma says, standing up from the bench. Her voice goes all steely and scary. “You don’t want to say something you’ll regret, now, do you?”

  “Oh, trust me,” Daphne says. “I won’t regret it.” And then, before I have time to even realize what’s going on, she whirls on her heel and looks at me. “Emma knows you like Jake.”

  “What?” I shriek.

  “Yup,” Daphne says. She crosses her arms over her chest. “She knows. She’s known since the sleepover. And she continued to pass notes to him anyway, she continued to go after him anyway.”

  “I didn’t,” Emma says, shaking her head. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, Samantha, I swear.” Her blue eyes are wide and innocent.

  “But she . . . How would she . . . ?” This is way too much information to be given all at once, and I’m trying to put it all together in my head. Emma knows I like Jake? And she’s known this whole time? But how
could she possibly? The only person who knows I like Jake besides me is Daphne. And I certainly didn’t tell Emma, and I can’t imagine Daphne would ever in a million . . . I turn to look at Daphne.

  “I told her,” she says quietly. Her lower lip trembles, and she looks down at the ground. “It was an accident, I didn’t mean to, I just . . . It slipped out; I thought she already knew.”

  I look at Emma. “Is it true?” There’s a huge lump in my throat, and it’s making it hard to talk.

  “No,” she says, shaking her head vehemently back and forth. “Why would I have asked him to the Fall Festival if I knew that you liked him?”

  “I don’t know,” I say slowly. “Maybe because you liked him too?” It all starts to click into place. The way Daphne was acting all weird after the sleepover. How Emma told Olivia what happened with Barb. It’s true—Daphne told Emma I liked Jake, and Emma went after him anyway. So basically I have one friend (Emma) who I thought was my friend but never really was, and another friend (Daphne) who told my biggest secret.

  “No,” Emma insists, shaking her head some more. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Why would I tell you that I told her unless it was true?” Daphne asks. “Why would I risk you being mad at me?”

  “She’s lying!” Emma yells. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter. I mean, even if I did know you liked him, I didn’t do anything wrong. He doesn’t like you like that, Samantha; I asked him.”

  Warm tears spill down my cheeks, and I wipe them away angrily with the back of my hand. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I . . . I have to go.”

  And then I push past both of them, ignoring them when they call my name. I walk out of the courtyard, down past the circle in front of the school, and onto the road. And then I start to run.

  I RUN ALL THE WAY HOME. IT’S TWO miles, and I am not a runner, not even close, and so by the time I get home, my legs are on fire, and the bottom of my jeans are completely soaked and muddy. The worst part? Now I have the super fun task of figuring out how to finagle this whole thing with my dad and Tom for the You Girl dinner tonight. I’m hoping I can spin it as some sort of weird, last-minute mix-up.

  But when I get to my house, no one’s home, and there’s a note on the counter:

  Dear Samantha,

  Tom is working late, but will be home around six, so that should give you plenty of time to still get to the banquet on time. He will change into his suit at work, and pull into the driveway and honk for you, so please be watching and ready to run out to the car. Good luck! I will be with you in spirit. Please call me as soon as you find out and text me lots of pics!! I am so, so, SO proud of you no matter what, always.

  I LOVE YOU,

  Mom XXXO

  Great. I guess I’ll have to tell my dad first. He’s going to be heading to the banquet right after work, and he thinks I’m getting a ride there from Tom. That part isn’t a lie; he just doesn’t know that Tom is going to be staying there with us. But when I try his cell, I get his voicemail. Figures. I hang up without leaving a message. I mean, what would I say? “Oh, hi, Dad, just so you know, Tom’s going to the You Girl banquet even though I know you hate him and last time you talked to him you hung up on him, see you tonight, kisses!”

  I really wish Taylor were here so we could talk about all of this, but she has cheerleading. I think about texting or calling her, but she won’t get it until practice is over, and by then Tom and I will probably be on our way to the banquet. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

  I trudge upstairs, where I spend the next hour getting ready and trying not to think about what just happened with Emma and Daphne. I soak myself in a bath filled with bath bombs and glitter bubbles, then pull my hair back into a sleek ponytail. I have a simple black shift dress to wear, with black shoes that have a little bit of a heel. I wanted to wear a red dress, but my mom and I agreed this was more professional. Not that it really matters, since we picked my outfit over the weekend, way before the whole Barb-at-my-school debacle and before I realized there was no way I was going to win the You Girl award, red dress or not.

  Once I’m ready, I go downstairs to wait for Tom. I eat a blackberry yogurt and then reapply my lip gloss. And right when I’m putting on my third coat of gloss and starting to feel really sorry for myself, I have an idea. A completely, totally, crazily brilliant idea!

  Maybe there’s a way for me to keep them apart! Neither my dad nor Tom knows that the other one is going to be there. So maybe I don’t even have to tell them! That way, my dad won’t know that I invited Tom first (or at all), and Tom won’t feel like some kind of charity case I couldn’t uninvite! Of course, it will take some finagling on my part, and Nikki will probably have to help me, but . . . it could definitely work. Feeling cheered, I dump the empty yogurt container in the garbage.

  The sound of Tom’s horn honking comes through the window, and I take a deep breath, then run out of the house and into the car.

  The lobby of the King Tower Hotel is absolutely insane. Seriously. Complete and total chaos. I’ve never seen so many people—the You Girl staff, all the finalists and their parents, some photographers from the magazine (no sign of Tony, though; I guess this banquet is too important for freelance), and a bunch of girls who are too young to qualify for this year’s contest but won their way in as spectators. Everyone is all dressed up. My mom would be happy to know that it seems like a lot of the finalists brought their moms, since she thinks that business is a male-dominated industry. I take a couple pics of girls standing with their moms and text them to her, trying not to feel sad that she’s not here.

  “Well!” Tom says, looking around and taking it all in. He’s practically beaming. I feel a little sorry for him, actually. It’s like he thinks I’m some kind of celebrity or something. “There’s the check-in desk,” he says. “We should get you all checked in.”

  “Good idea,’ I say. I’m looking wildly around the lobby for my dad. Luckily, he is late to pretty much every single thing I’ve ever invited him to, so hopefully I’ll be able to sneak Tom in, get him settled in at a table, then somehow get back out and grab my dad. And then, you know, get him settled in somewhere. Preferably somewhere far, far, away from Tom.

  “Yes, hi, I’m Samantha Carmichael,” I tell the woman who’s in charge of checking everyone in.

  “Let’s see,” she says, peering over her large glasses. She takes our tickets and then starts going through this box of file folders, one with each finalist’s name on it. “Carmichael . . . ,” she’s muttering, moving at about the speed of a snail. Obviously she doesn’t know my dad could get here at any moment.

  I spot my folder, then reach over and pluck it out of the box.

  “Got it!” I say. “Thanks so much!”

  The woman looks a little stunned, but honestly not as stunned as she would be if my dad showed up and there was some kind of huge scene. My folder says I’m at table six, so I hustle Tom through the doors of the banquet room and over to our table. In a wonderful stroke of luck, table six is buried in the back corner. On the table is a little card that has “Samantha Carmichael” written on it in silver calligraphy. Next to it, there’s a matching card with my dad’s name. “Richard Carmichael,” it says. Oops. I pluck it off the table and drop it onto the floor.

  “That was a little rude, Samantha,” Tom says as he sits down. “To grab your file folder like that right out from under that woman’s nose.”

  “Uh, sorry,” I say. “I was just anxious that we were going to be late!”

  “You were?” Tom asks uncertainly. He looks around the empty banquet room. A few people are scattered around, talking and sitting, but for the most part, we’re pretty much the first people in here.

  “Anyway!” I say. “I gotta go to the bathroom! You stay here so that I don’t lose you.” I give him a pat on the shoulder.

  “Okay,” Tom says, still sounding uncertain. Hopefully he’s writing my insane behavior off as nervousness. I mean, people do crazy things when they’re nervous. Like all those people o
n American Idol who forget the words to their songs, or the way Olympians can totally choke at the last minute. Grabbing a file folder out from under some lady’s nose is nothing when you really think about it.

  I head back into the lobby and find the bathroom, where I’ve made plans to meet up with Nikki. She’s already there, looking gorgeous in a navy blue dress. Her long dark hair is held back on the sides with two jeweled clips, and the rest falls to her shoulders in loose curls.

  “Hey, Samantha!” she says when she sees me, enveloping me in a hug. She smells really good, like some kind of fruity perfume.

  “You look gorgeous,” I tell her.

  “Thanks,” she says. “So do you.” She rummages around in her sapphire clutch and pulls out her extra ticket. “Here you go,” she says, handing it to me.

  “Thanks,” I say. I look down at the ticket, my mind racing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I say, “It’s just . . .”

  “Oh, no,” she says. “You didn’t tell them they were both going to be here!” She gives me an exasperated look, but not in a mean way. It’s more of a Samantha-what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you? kind of look.

  “Not exactly,” I say. Nikki knows all about all the drama between Tom and my dad. I told her in our emails. Although how she knows I didn’t tell them they were both going to be here is beyond me. She must be pretty intuitive. I guess you have to be, to be successful in business. And from what I can tell, unlike mine, Nikki’s business is booming.

  “Well,” she says, sounding determined. “You’ll just have to make sure that you sit them on completely opposite sides of the room.” If she’s fazed by the fact that I’ve invited two guests and not told them about each other, she doesn’t show it.

  “Right,” I say, thinking about it, “but the problem is, there are place cards.”

  “Place cards!” She says it like it’s the craziest thing she’s ever heard.