It's a Mall World After All

  I looked across the pool for the first time and saw Candy talking with a group of girls. She caught my gaze and flashed me a grin—I suppose because Colton had his arm draped across my shoulder. I gave her a little wave back.

  "Which one is Kayla?" I asked Colton.

  "The tall one with the short blond hair."

  She stood beside Candice with a soda in her hand, poised, pretty, and with a figure that more closely resembled Barbie than a trained seal.

  "You ought to apologize to her," I told Colton.

  "Now? She's surrounded by all of those other girls."

  "What's the point of being sorry if you don't let her know? You'll both feel better about it if you apologize."

  He shook his head. "She probably doesn't even remember it anymore."

  "Trust me, she remembers it. She went home, put your name in her journal, and then drew a thousand slashes through it."

  Colton looked at me, then back at Kayla. "I can't just walk up to her out of the blue and apologize for a comment I made four years ago. She'll think I'm weird." I lifted my face toward Colton's ear and whispered, "If you want to kiss me, you really ought to apologize to that girl."

  "All right then, I'm going." He stood up and walked around the pool without another glance in my direction. Unfortunately, halfway to Candy's group Kayla and another girl left the others and headed in the opposite direction around the pool. Colton continued to follow them, but got waylaid when Candy stopped to talk to him. He nodded at her, smiled, and watched as Kayla walked away. Then he looked back at me, said something hurriedly to Candy, and pulled away from the group.

  Kayla was almost gone. She walked behind the planter wall on her way toward the club. I didn't think he'd catch up with her, but he broke into a jog, and then I heard him call her name.

  Somewhere behind the wall footsteps stopped. I heard another set of footsteps catch up.

  "Kayla," Colton took a deep breath. "How are you doing?"

  A girl's voice, tentative, said, "Fine."

  "Do you remember me? We went to junior high together."

  "Oh yeah, Colby, right?"

  "Colton," he said.

  "Colton," she repeated.

  There was a pause. I bit my lip, anxious for him. Did he realize how close I was, that I could hear everything he said? I was sorry I'd made him do this and at the same time proud of him for doing it.

  "Um . . . so . . . uh . . . do you remember how you used to play volleyball?"

  "Yes," she said, her voice friendlier. "I still do."

  "Great, great. That's really . . . um . . ., do you remember that one game back in junior high where our team was losing and I yelled out that trained seals could hit the ball better?"

  Her voice grew instantly cold. "No."

  "Oh. Well, I just wanted to tell you I was sorry I said it. You know, just in case you remembered me yelling it."

  "Thanks," still cold, "but I already have a boyfriend."

  "I wasn't trying to hit on you," Colton said loudly enough to make me realize he knew I could hear him.

  Two sets of footsteps walked on. I put my hand over my face. She hadn't remembered after all, and I'd just made Colton make a fool of himself. "I was not hitting on you," Colton called again, probably for my benefit.

  Okay, I owed him a really good kiss after this.

  "Who weren't you hitting on?" I recognized Bryant's voice coming toward Colton on the walkway. "That girl who just passed? Dude, what's wrong with you? She was gorgeous." I stiffened. A breath of night air lodged in my lungs and refused to come out.

  "She's not my type," Colton said loudly. "And besides, I'm busy."

  I heard a noise, like a slap on the shoulder. "Yeah, thanks for keeping the bloodhound off my trail tonight. I really owe you one. Olivia was looking hot, and instead you had to put in time with Miss Freezer. Maybe next time—hey, where are you going?"

  I didn't care where Colton was going. Although had he asked, I would have offered some suggestions. I had been so stupid to think he cared about me, to think he saw me as anything other than a bloodhound and a bother. All his flirting—the way he'd held my hand and stayed with me all night—it had just been a lie to keep me away from Bryant.

  I slid out of his jacket, left it on the bench, and walked toward the pool. I was leaving, but not by the walkway. I'd hike around the entire building if it meant avoiding Colton.

  I made it halfway around the pool when he caught up to me.

  He kept his voice low. "Charlotte, wait."

  I didn't turn around, and I didn't glance over my shoulder. I just kept walking.

  He grabbed my arm to stop me. "That wasn't what it sounded like."

  Right. How many ways are there to interpret the phrase, "Thanks for keeping the bloodhound off my trail tonight"?

  "Let me go." I tried to pull my arm away from him, but he held on to my elbow.

  Then, as though he didn't want to make more of a spectacle than we were already making, he lowered his voice even more and pulled me a step closer. "Would you listen to me for one minute?"

  Why? So he could tell me more stories? Or worse yet, so he could tell me that the ends justified the means—and I had just been part of the means of the whole scheme. I didn't want to hear it. With one last burst of energy, I said, "No!" and pushed him away from me.

  It didn't occur to me until afterward how close we were standing to the pool, or how unexpectedly pushing someone could cause them to lose their balance.

  Colton took a step backward. His arms flailed for a moment, but in the end gravity won out. A splash shot up that instantly drew everyone's attention. A moment later Colton's head popped out of the water, his hands already scooping his way to the side of the pool. He said something that resembled, "Aaaayyaaaeeeeaa!" but with a lot more exclamation marks.

  "Your jacket is back on the bench," I told him. "Just in case you're cold now."

  Then I walked away—well, technically, I walked past Candy and her friends, who all stared at me open mouthed. As I left, I heard Candy, her voice full of resignation, speaking to one of the other girls. "I'm afraid Greg was right about her all along," she said. "Some people just can't be taught social graces."

  I turned my cell phone off as I drove out of the club. I didn't want to talk to anyone. It wasn't that cold out, but I sat shivering anyway. It's amazing how in one instant you can transform from a confident senior into a skinny junior high geek with braces and glasses. I mean, I actually peered into my rearview mirror to see if I looked the same.

  I did, but apparently the geeky kid still lived inside me somewhere, visible to all those who looked at me. Because they all knew I was a loser.

  Why had I ever thought someone like Colton, who'd always been handsome and popular, could be interested in me? His last girlfriend had been Hamilton's head cheerleader. Hello, you just don't go from dating Miss Holds-the-School-Record-for-Jumping-Up-and- Down-in-a-Miniskirt to dating Miss Holds-theSchool-Record-for-Most-Bug-Insults-Flung-at-Her.

  Of course, it had all been a joke to him. He and Bryant probably had a good laugh over the fact that I'd been so easy to buy off. I must have seemed so desperate. All Colton had to do was throw a little charm my way—well, that and a thousand dollars—and I'd turned my back on my best friend.

  Because that's what I'd done.

  I gripped the steering wheel until my fingers hurt. Sure, Bryant was only interested in getting a football scholarship to Stanford. Nothing was going on between him and Shelby. That story was about as likely as the other one Colton had tried to sell me—the one about him wanting to date me.

  I turned the van toward Brianna's house. I'd tell her the truth. All of it. Even the truth about what I'd done. It would mean she'd be mad at me, and the kids at St. Matthew's would have a lousy Christmas; but hey, that's the way life worked out a lot of times. The rich and the popular people of the world called the shots, and when you didn't do things their way, you ended up with underwear and UNO cards underneath your tree.
/>
  I slowed the van until it came to rest at a four-way stop. No other cars waited at the intersection, but I still didn't move forward. I just sat there thinking how unfair everything was.

  Finally, I tilted the rearview mirror until I could see my face again.

  I wasn't that skinny kid anymore, the one who let the popular guys harass her. And I didn't have to let down all those kids at St. Matthew's. After all, Bryant and Colton weren't the only ones who could play this game underhanded.

  Colton and I had made an agreement that he'd come up with the money for our service project, and I wouldn't rat on Bryant. Fine. So I wouldn't rat on Bryant. But that didn't mean some of Brianna's other friends couldn't, say, check up on Bryant's activities and discover the truth about him themselves. Maybe Kelly and Aleeta, who sat with us at lunchtime. I wouldn't tell them anything. I'd just point them in the right direction.

  And then we'd see who was eating her cake and having her service project too.

  I put the van into drive and headed back to my house. Finally I stopped shivering.

  When I came through my front door, Julianne walked up to me, toothbrush in hand and her mouth half full of toothpaste. "Colton called you twice. He wants you to call him back."

  I put my purse in the coat closet. "Does he?"

  Rebecca waited for me at the top of the stairs, leaning across the banister. "What happened between the two of you? He sounded upset."

  "Really?"

  Evelynn popped her head out of her bedroom, still slipping her nightgown on as she spoke. "Are you going to call him back?"

  "No."

  She secured her last button and smoothed down her nightgown. "Why not?"

  "Because I've given up on guys. They're all condescending elitists." I walked into my bedroom and shut the door, but I could still hear my sisters out in the hallway.

  "What's a condescending elitist?" Julianne asked.

  "Someone who upset Charlotte," Evelynn said.

  Footsteps, and then my father's voice. "Is Charlotte home? Good. Now she can answer her own phone calls."

  "I doubt it," Rebecca said. "She's given up on men."

  My father grunted. "Well, that's one down, and three more weddings to talk you girls out of." He tapped on my door in passing and called out loudly, "Carry on, Charlotte, carry on."

  seven

  As I walked to second-period calculus on Monday I saw Colton waiting in the hallway by the door. I knew he was waiting for me.

  I also knew I couldn't avoid him forever. In fact, I couldn't avoid him at all, since we had three classes together.

  When he saw me, he walked up. "Can we talk?"

  "Sure." I kept my voice light, as though Saturday hadn't mattered at all. "Did you talk to your dad about our fund-raiser?"

  "Yeah. He's cutting a check today. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

  "Then what? Our trip to St. Matthew's Elementary? I can do it by myself if you don't want to go."

  "I'm going." He took my hand and pulled me farther away from the classroom, down to where the hallway spilled open to an alcove with benches. Neither of us sat down. I pulled my hand away from him as soon as we stopped walking.

  "About Saturday," he said. "I know Bryant said some things that upset you."

  "Are you talking about when he called me Miss Freezer, or when he said you only spent time with me to keep me away from Shelby and him?"

  "It wasn't like that."

  "He also called me a bloodhound. I remember that, of course, because I keep each insult tucked away in my personal grudge-bag."

  Colton folded his arms. "Bryant didn't know you were listening."

  "And that makes it better because it's okay to talk about people behind their backs."

  Colton rolled his eyes. "You, of course, only compliment Bryant when he isn't around, right?"

  "I . . . " I didn't know how to answer that accusation. "This isn't about Bryant and me. This is about you using me, which I suppose shouldn't surprise me, since that's how you get what you want, isn't it?"

  Colton looked up, consulting the ceiling momentarily before he spoke. "I didn't use you, and you might be able to see that if you didn't have such a big chip on your shoulder."

  "A chip on my shoulder?"

  "Not just a chip," he said. "Stalactites. Stalagmites. Entire rock formations. No one can get close to you for fear of an avalanche."

  I didn't know how to even begin to defend myself. He'd been in the wrong on Saturday. I was sure of it. How had he turned this around so it was my fault? I folded my arms, although more to keep myself from trembling than as an act of defiance. "You know what—I think we should call Friday off. I wouldn't want you to worry about getting buried beneath an avalanche or anything."

  "Fine." Colton's voice turned businesslike, erasing our argument with a change in tone. Which just made me think he had never really wanted to go out on Friday and was glad to have the whole thing called off. "About St. Matthew's Elementary," he said, "I called this morning, talked with the principal, and faxed over a wish list and clothing-size questionnaire. They'll send home the wish lists today, along with permission slips for a Santa field trip to the mall. I'll pick up the wish lists Thursday after school."

  "You have wrestling practice after school," I said. "I can pick up the lists myself." Colton shook his head. "I've already cleared it with the coach. Besides, I should be the one to talk to Sister Mary Catherine, since I'm in charge."

  Which, I suppose, was Colton's subtle way of telling me he was calling the shots as to how to run the Santa service project.

  Man, you supervise one activity where a homeless lady chases someone's car and people no longer trust your judgment. Still, I wanted to make sure that both Reese and T.J. made it to the field trip. "I'll go with you," I said.

  "Great. I'll meet you there." He turned around and walked back to the calculus room. I stewed about Colton's accusations all through class. At lunch I didn't even try to keep up with my table's conversation. Kelly mostly talked about Wesley, who had flirted with her during honors English again, but still never asked her out. This caused a lot of speculation at the table as to whether he was shy, a player, or so used to liberated women, he expected Kelly to make the first move. I refrained from saying that since he was a guy and therefore basically evil, he might be trying to torment her. I didn't think the others at the table would consider my viewpoint as helpful.

  Besides, it was too hard to pay attention to what Wesley had or hadn't said when what Colton had said kept running through my mind.

  Like he had any right to comment on my shoulders.

  "What do you think?" Aleeta asked me.

  "Think about what?" I said.

  Brianna gave a grunt of disbelief. "About Bryant and my matching shirts. I've almost decided on the phrase, 'All I want for Christmas is you.' She returned her attention to a piece of notebook paper in front of her. "Or maybe not. Which do you think is best?"

  Kelly leaned across the table to get my attention and mouthed the words, "They're all hokey."

  "Which one does Bryant like best?" I asked.

  Brianna shrugged. "I haven't talked to him about it yet. I figured I'd do it today, but I haven't seen him yet."

  He was avoiding her now. Or maybe not. Maybe that was my suspicious nature cropping up. "Don't you usually see him by this time?"

  "Usually." Her eyebrows drew together. "Do you suppose he's sick?"

  I wanted to say, "Definitely," then blink a few times and add, "Oh, did you mean absent?" But I didn't, because I'm actually nicer than Colton thinks I am.

  Kelly leaned sideways to see around Aleeta. "There he is. He's walking over here right now."

  We all turned to look at him, you know, to make it extra clear we'd been talking about him. For a moment his gaze flickered to mine, then it trained in on Bri­anna.

  Brianna waved him over to her in her usual open fashion. "Hey, hunk. Guess what—I've been thinking about making matching shirts
for you and me to wear to the winter dance. You know, something with a cute holiday phrase." She handed him the piece of notebook paper she had written on. "What do you think of these?"

  He read the list silently, then raised a questioning eyebrow at Brianna, "Who needs reindeer when I have you, dear?"

  "Charlotte thought of that one," she said.

  I smiled over at Bryant.

  "But right now I'm leaning toward 'Sugar Plum' for me and 'Sugar Daddy' for you," she said.

  His smile twitched. "Um. . ., that's really cute and all. . . but I don't think I want to do matching shirts."

  She blinked, taken aback. "Why not?"

  "How about we both just wear red? That would be matching enough."

  "Oh. Well, I guess if you don't want to . . ." She took the list back from him and looked it over again with a sigh. "Have you decided where we're going Saturday?"

  "Saturday?" he repeated.

  "Yeah. You canceled our date last Saturday to go to that wedding reception, but you promised we'd do something fun this Saturday."

  Recognition flooded his face. "Oh, that's right. Listen, about Saturday, I totally forgot that my aunt is coming into town, so we're all going out to dinner as a family. My parents won't let me get out of it." Bryant shot me a hurried look, which because of my skeptical, grudge-holding nature, I interpreted to mean he made plans with Shelby on Saturday. Before I could sufficiently glare at him, his gaze snapped back to Brianna. "Let's do something Friday. A movie. You can choose."

  "All right." She smiled up at him and scooted her chair over. "You want to sit with us?"

  He glanced at me again, and I knew what would come next. Apparently it was time to prove, once again, that he could make Brianna pick him over me. "I don't want to crowd you," he said. "Besides, I have some stuff to do, but if you're done with lunch . . . " His voice trailed off into an invitation.

  She'd only eaten half of her lunch, but she stood up anyway. "Sure. I'm done." She picked up her tray, said good-bye to the rest of us, and didn't look back as she walked away.