Epic Fail

  “I haven’t even started.” She turned to me. “Next time I’ll tell you some stories about him when he was little.”

  “Difficult?” I said.

  “Difficult?” She looked genuinely surprised. “My little Derek? The shyest kid you’ve ever seen, used to hide in my skirt wherever we went. You couldn’t get him to say a word to anyone, and he’d do whatever you told him to. I miss those days. As you can see, he’s changed.” She waved her hand in the air. “All right, all right, I’m leaving. Lovely to meet you, Elise.”

  “You too,” I said.

  She leaned forward and whispered audibly, “Go easy on him. I know you girls today like to torture your young men, but he’s a good one.”

  “Okay,” said Derek, whose face had turned bright red. “Now you really have to leave, Jackie.” He took her by the shoulders and gently—but firmly—shuttled her tiny body out of the kitchen and into the back hallway. He returned, dusting off his hands.

  “So that was Jackie,” I said, sitting on a stool and plucking an orange section off the fruit plate.

  “That was Jackie,” he agreed, sitting down on the stool next to me.

  I nibbled on the slice. “She’s kind of adorable.” I carefully licked a drop of juice from one end of the orange. “Like a cross between a leprechaun and Mary Poppins.”

  “Do you have any idea how distracting that is?”

  It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the way I was tonguing the orange section. “Sorry,” I said, and popped it entirely into my mouth.

  “No, you’re not.”

  I smiled.

  He served himself a slice of pizza. “You going to have any?”

  “I’m not all that hungry.”

  “Have another orange section,” he suggested, his eyes gleaming. “I like when you eat those.”

  “Shut up.” I swiveled in my stool so our knees brushed lightly against each other. “I should probably go home as soon as we’re done. It’s late.”

  “Can’t you stay for a movie?”

  “It’s already past midnight.”

  “Really?” He looked at his watch with genuine surprise. “My parents will be home soon.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s another reason right there to get going. I don’t think I can get up the nerve to face your mom a third time in one night. Especially since I keep taking you away from her parties. She must hate me.”

  “She probably didn’t even notice we left.”

  I watched him eat his pizza. He ate neatly, folding up the slice and biting into it sideways so no sauce spilled out. I said, “But I’d like to come back and watch a movie another time.”

  He sat up, wiped his mouth and fingers with a napkin, took a sip of water, and took his time before leaning back in the stool and lazily regarding me. “Then,” he said, “you will.”

  We pulled up in front of my house half an hour later. I said good-bye and reached for the door.

  “That’s it?” he said. “That’s all I get?”

  “Sorry, but if anyone other than Juliana is watching—”

  “Got it.” He turned the car off. “I’ll walk you up to the door, shake your hand, thank you politely for a lovely evening, and deliver you safely into your mother’s waiting arms. How’s that?”

  “You’ll be the answer to her dreams.”

  “Just hers?”

  “No, you idiot. Not just hers.”

  His hand reached for mine and squeezed it hard. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go put on our little performance.”

  But I opened the front door to darkness and silence.

  “Can I call you tomorrow morning?” Derek asked from the step below. “Maybe we can meet at a Starbucks, get some homework done?”

  “And then find some place to be alone after?” We smiled stupidly at each other for a while, and then I reluctantly stepped back. “You’d better go.” I stood in the doorway and watched him get into his car and drive away, amazed that I’d actually gotten to put my hands around that long, strong body and touch my lips to that handsome face, eager to do it again as soon as possible, wishing the hours away until then, happier than I’d felt in ages, maybe ever.

  I shook myself awake, stepped all the way inside, closed the door, turned around . . . and almost screamed.

  My mother was standing right behind me in the dark.

  How long had she been there?

  “It’s almost one, Elise.” Her tone was unexpectedly mild—she was stating a fact, not reaming me out.

  “Sorry,” I said. I flicked on the light. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  She didn’t answer, just leaned forward and sniffed at my mouth. I was used to the alcohol check and obligingly breathed out in her direction. She nodded her approval. (She didn’t know it, but she owed me some thanks: that breath would have been a lot more garlicky and less pleasant if I’d eaten the pizza instead of the orange.)

  Before she stepped back, I caught a whiff of wine on her breath and was tempted to point out she would have flunked her own test. But she was over twenty-one and, anyway, I kind of preferred my mother after she’d had some wine. It mellowed her out.

  “Were you waiting up for me?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I woke up and couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d answer some emails. Parents are always writing me.”

  “Were there a lot of angry ones?”

  “People never write to say things are fine.” She played with the belt on her bathrobe for a moment. “So, Elise, are you and Derek Edwards officially a couple now?” The barely restrained eagerness in her voice disturbed me.

  “I don’t know.” I moved toward the staircase. “We had a nice time together. But it’s no big deal.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s all I care about, you know. If you girls are happy, I’m happy.”

  “Good to know.” I pretended to yawn, and it turned into a real one. “It’s been a crazy night,” I said. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Did you get a chance to talk to them more?” she asked idly, following me to the stairs. “Derek’s parents?”

  “I talked to Melinda a little.” I put my foot on the bottom step.

  “Did she ask you about me?” She curled around the banister, so she could look up into my face. “Does she know your mother’s the school principal?”

  “We didn’t get that far.”

  “Maybe I should invite them over,” she said. “You know how Dad and I like to meet the parents of your friends. I could see if Derek’s parents could join us for a barbecue one weekend.”

  I stared at her. “Are you crazy?”

  She drew herself up. “Why not? Just because people star in movies doesn’t make them superior to the rest of us, you know. As the principal of a high school, I also affect a lot of lives.”

  Great. I’d hurt her feelings. Damage control time. “I just meant that Derek and I aren’t really going out or anything yet. We’ve only had one date.”

  “But you’ll go out with him again?”

  “Possibly.” You’ll have to pry me off him with a crowbar.

  “Well, when it’s clearly serious—say, after the third or fourth date—then we’ll have that dinner.”

  I decided not to argue with her anymore. Derek’s parents would never come to dinner at our house, anyway. The invitation itself might embarrass me, but it would never go any further than that. So I just nodded and said good night, and we went into our separate rooms.

  Mine was dark except for the streetlight shining in through the curtains, but that was bright enough to get changed by. I crept quietly to the dresser, pulled out my pajamas, sat down on my bed to take off my shoes, and almost screamed—for the second time that night—when the table lamp suddenly went on.

  “Doesn’t anyone ever sleep around here?”

  “It’s late.” Juliana sounded wide awake. She must have been lying there waiting for me. She sat up and crossed her arms. “V
ery, very late.”

  “Is it?”

  “Tell me everything, Elise.”

  “Jules,” I said seriously, “I am so totally in love—”

  She squealed and bounced on the bed.

  “—with Derek’s house. It’s beautiful and huge—like you wouldn’t believe. There’s a cineplex-sized screening room, which you’ve got to see.”

  “I hate you,” she said. She leaned forward. “Tell me everything,” she said again. “For real this time.”

  So I did.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  On Monday, Derek, Juliana, and Chase were already eating lunch together when I entered the courtyard with my lunch tray.

  They were talking about college as I joined them. Big surprise—it was all the seniors could talk about lately.

  Derek was saying, “—for Stanford, but I know I’m not going to get in.”

  “Hi,” I said, squeezing in next to him. I didn’t even try to keep my leg away from his as I settled in. Now my goal was to keep the whole length of my thigh pressed against his for the entire meal. He welcomed me with a gentle squeeze of my kneecap under the table.

  Chase was rolling his eyes. “You’ll get into Stanford, D. Your grades are good, you’re captain of the lacrosse team, and your parents are . . . your parents.”

  Derek scowled. “Colleges don’t care about that stuff.”

  “If they’re choosing between Joe Blow’s son and Melinda Anton’s son, they’re going to choose Melinda Anton’s son,” Chase said, reasonably enough. “I don’t see why that makes you so uncomfortable.”

  “Because if I do get in somewhere, I don’t want people saying I don’t deserve it.”

  “Then change your last name.”

  “Wouldn’t change who my parents are.”

  “Yeah, but it might—” Chase interrupted himself. “Isn’t that your sister?”

  But Derek was already leaping to his feet and waving at a slight figure standing alone among the tables, looking around. “George!” he called out happily. She turned and spotted him and immediately ran toward us. He met her halfway and gave her a big hug.

  So this was the famous Georgia Edwards. She was taller than I expected and pretty, with long straight dark hair cut in a heavy fringe over her forehead and large blue eyes like her mom’s. She could easily have passed for twenty, but she ducked her head like a shy little kid when her brother led her over to our table and introduced her to me and Juliana.

  “I thought I wouldn’t see you until I got home,” he said to her. He had his arm slung over her shoulders and was gazing down at her fondly.

  “I knew it was lunch time, so I figured I’d come say hi.” Her voice was so soft, you had to strain to hear it. “I’m on my way to meet Mom at the Ivy. Jackie drove me—she’s waiting in the car.”

  “It’s great to see you, George,” Chase said. “How’s the East Coast treating you?”

  “It’s good,” she said. “But people are already wearing their winter parkas.”

  “We just moved here from Massachusetts,” I said. “I miss the fall. Are the leaves changing?”

  “Yes! There’s this one tree in front of my dorm—I don’t know what it is—” She faltered. “I should . . . but it has these big spreading branches and the leaves are, like, flaming red right now.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “We had one of those in our backyard and I loved it. But I never learned the name either. Something long and Latin.”

  “Et-tu-Brute-ica?” Derek suggested. “Semper ubi sub ubi-cus?”

  “You might want to reconsider ever being a botany major,” I said. “Scratch ancient languages off the list while you’re at it.”

  Georgia giggled. “We have to take Latin at—” She didn’t get to finish because Chelsea was suddenly racing toward us, screaming in delight.

  She threw her arms around Georgia. “Oh my God! Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be here?”

  Georgia allowed the embrace, but she looked uncomfortable and quickly detached herself from it. I got the sense that the girls’ devoted friendship was a figment of Chelsea’s Derek-loving imagination. Good. I didn’t think Chelsea was much of a threat, but I didn’t love the idea of her hanging around the Edwards’s household anyway.

  “I have missed you so much,” Chelsea said. “We have to get together and totally catch up. Call me this afternoon, okay?” She turned to the rest of us. “You have to see this, guys. It’s hysterical. I call it ‘Loser Love.’” She pointed to a tree at the far end of the courtyard.

  We all looked. Webster Grant was bending down to catch something being said by the girl sitting and leaning back against the tree trunk: Campbell McGill. They were too far away for us to see their expressions, but her face was tilted up to his at an angle that suggested total adoration.

  “He moves on fast, doesn’t he?” Chelsea said, and I turned back in time to see her eyes flicker to Derek’s face and then—pointedly—to mine. She didn’t even notice that Georgia had turned pale and was clutching her brother’s arm tightly, just went on smoothly, “Oh, sorry, Elise—am I breaking your heart? I know you have special feelings for Webster. Was he supposed to save himself for you? Too bad for you your father’s not famous.” Maybe she thought that would wound me, but the arrow hit a different target, and poor Georgia looked stricken.

  “Chelsea,” Derek said.

  “What?” She turned to him with a catlike smile still playing around her lips.

  “Nothing. Just . . . be quiet, will you?”

  Her eyebrows soared. “Oh, are we not allowed to say anything negative about Webster Grant now? Just because Elise likes him? But you don’t like him—I know you don’t.”

  “Hey, where’s Gifford?” I asked, just to try to change the subject. “I didn’t see her in English.”

  “Sick,” Chelsea said dismissively. “Too bad—she would have laughed so hard at that.” Another nod toward the couple under the tree.

  Georgia whispered to her brother, “I should go.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car!” Chelsea said, grabbing her arm. “It’ll give us a chance to talk.”

  Georgia cast a desperate look at Derek.

  “Thanks,” he said coolly to Chelsea, “but I haven’t seen my sister in months and I want a few more minutes alone with her.” They moved off. He stopped, looked back. “You coming, Elise?”

  It was the way he said it, I guess—the way his “alone with her” automatically included me—that made Chelsea pivot on her heel and stare at me, her mouth flopping open in dismay.

  Juliana had told Chase all about Derek and me, of course (and maybe Derek had, too, come to think of it), but Chase wasn’t the kind of guy to go running to his sister with the latest gossip.

  So it wasn’t until I jumped up to walk with the Edwards siblings that Chelsea suddenly realized that things had changed in our little group.

  I ignored her horrified stare, dumped my tray in the trash, and moved into my place at Derek’s other side.

  On the way home from school in the minivan that afternoon, I told Layla I had seen Campbell and Webster together at lunch.

  “She really likes him,” Layla said. Then, to my surprise, she added contemptuously, “She’s such an idiot.”

  “I thought you guys were friends.”

  “Not anymore. She’s been such a jerk since the other night. She kept calling me a baby for asking you guys to come get me.”

  “You totally did the right thing.”

  “Do you know she doesn’t even remember that she took off her shirt in front of him? She told me I was lying when I brought it up. She can’t remember most of what happened, just that she was having fun and I ruined it by calling you guys. It’s so annoying.”

  “She should be grateful to you,” Juliana said.

  “Things could have gotten seriously bad,” I said. “Those two friends of Webster’s were totally wasted. And he’s—” I stopped myself. I didn’t want to say anything about him that would ma
ke them start asking me questions about how I knew all that.

  “Anyway,” Layla said, “no one in our grade really likes Campbell. Since I stopped hanging with her, these other girls I like have been nicer to me and I’ve started eating lunch with them.”

  “Good,” Jules said. “But don’t be mean to Campbell, okay?” I gave her a look and she added sheepishly, “I don’t like anyone to feel left out.”

  Layla said, “What’s so weird is that I still don’t think Webster really likes her.”

  “He likes that her father’s famous,” I said. “Some people are really into that.”

  Layla made a face. “That’s stupid. Derek Edwards has way more famous parents than Campbell, but I don’t like him because of that.”

  “There are better reasons to like him,” I agreed.

  “But I don’t,” Layla said. “He acts like he’s so much better than everyone else. He’s not very nice.”

  “Layla!” Juliana said, horrified. “Elise and Derek—”

  “She doesn’t have to like him,” I said, cutting her off. “In fact, it’s probably best for everyone if she doesn’t.”

  After dinner that evening, my dad asked me to come into his office and do the crossword puzzle with him. But when I got there, instead of inviting me to perch on his desk chair with him like I usually did, he pointed to the empty armchair across the desk and said, “Sit down a second, Elise. I want to talk to you about something.”

  He had that tone in his voice—the one that made me feel like I was in trouble. I tried desperately to figure out what I’d done. The only thing I could think of was that I stayed out too late on Saturday, but he hadn’t brought it up before.

  I got up the courage to look him in the eyes and was relieved to see concern there, not anger. But I was still confused. “What is it?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

  He raised his hands and pressed his fingertips together, then peered at me over the pyramid they made. He spoke slowly, like he was choosing his words carefully. “There are few things more difficult than resisting the culture around you, Elise. No matter how solid a moral foundation a person may have, his values can always be corrupted by popular influence. And an impressionable young girl is even more vulnerable to societal pressures than others.”