“I’ve got a meeting,” she replied, starting the car. She intentionally didn’t say it was to plan the school Prom because she knew Mason would have a field day with that notion and tease her incessantly, probably right up until the day came where she was in an absurdly expensive dress and walking into the white limo that would be parked in front of her home.
“Oooh, a meeting – how glamorous,” Mason replied sarcastically. “Is Ms. Claire going to be accompanying Ms. Platt, the very busy business woman, to this elusive meeting?”
Hmm, she instantly thought to herself. Why would Mason even care who would be going to a meeting with her, not to mention if Claire would be joining her. The thought left her mind as soon as her brother kept on talking.
“You seem to be dressed pretty light for a very important meeting,” he continued, referring to the pink tank top she was wearing.
“Why are you so concerned about my well being, Mason,” she asked, slightly irritated. If her parents heard the front door slam shut (and she was entirely positive that they had and were just biding their time before coming outside to see what the commotion was) it was only going to be a few minutes longer before this conversation would become a Platt Family affair.
“Down girl,” Mason replied, leaning closer to his sister. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scarf and handed it to her.
“Here, in case it gets cold,” he said and retreated into the house. She threw the scarf into the backseat and backed out of the driveway before Mason even made it back into the house.
What a weirdo, she thought as she made the short drive to the coffee shop, already 10 minutes late.
***
Seated around a large table at the back of the shop, she recognized some students from her grade, as well as a grade below hers. Bennett sat at the edge of the table, her long red hair tied into a bun that stuck out haphazardly from the every side of her head, reminding her of a half princess Leia.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said as she approached the table. Most of the students smiled, except for Chrissy Barr who did not hide the fact that she was on Team Claire and that she wasn’t happy about being kept waiting. She caught Chrissy’s obvious eye roll before taking the empty seat beside Bennett, who gave her a warm smile once she sat down.
“Well, now that we are ALL here, I guess we can start,” Chrissy said, her voice a cross between a child first learning to speak and the Golden Girl’s resident slut Blanche Deveraux. “Let’s start with the theme. I was thinking we could some something underwater, like the Little Mermaid or something?”
Bennett had a hard time suppressing her giggle at that but thankfully Chrissy didn’t notice. She was afraid it would send the little hot head out of control and they would all have had a lethal firebomb to deal with.
“All the girls could get, like, super long wigs or get hair extensions or something,” Chrissy went on. The other girls in the group had a glazed expression on their faces which Chrissy did not seem at all to notice. “The guys could get shiny suits that sort of look like fish arms or gills, or whatever they’re called.”
“And we could get crab purses and maybe have our pictures taken in a real water tank with fish swimming around us!” Bennett spoke up, obviously having reached the maximum of her patience.
“Ooh, that’s a great idea!” Chrissy perked up, smiling widely.
“I was kidding, Chrissy!” Bennett soon replied.
“No, I think it’s a great idea. Good one, Bennett!”
She looked over at Bennett, who was momentarily confused by Chrissy’s inability to really tell that Bennett was being sarcastic, which was clearly her trademark.
Awkwardness and silence filled the air at the coffee shop as Chrissy finally understood that Bennett was teasing her. The girls looked from one to another, edging someone to come up with an idea to have Chrissy shoot down. Finally, she took it upon herself to bring up.
“Well, I was thinking something along the lines of a masquerade ball”, Darcy said. She noticed the attention of the group focus on her, surprised that she could command such attention. She was honestly surprised that Chrissy didn’t immediately interject.
“We could totally have a classy prom. Imagine how awesome a masquerade theme would be.” She was surprised to hear the joy in her voice and took her voice down a notch. She didn’t know if she did that out of embarrassment or minding the other patrons of the coffee shop.
“Just think of it… a lavish, fancy ball. We can channel 18th century France with castle decorations, chandeliers, and crazy masks. We could even have a contest to see who comes up with the best, or most creative mask—and make sure there’s a great prize!”
“Like an iPad or something?” Chrissy threw in, obviously really into her idea.
“Totally! That way, everyone will want to participate and make it really memorable,” Darcy quickly replied. “And it’s a theme that everyone could feel good about taking part of. Think of it: the popular kids will wear something nuts and the shy kids will be thankful to be able to hide behind a mask!”
The rest of the girls in the group smiled and nodded, breaking into conversation amongst themselves. Chirssy smiled. Darcy felt that the smile on Chrissy’s face would quickly turn into a frown but that didn’t happen.
“You know, Darcy, I thought you would want to do something really awful and cheesy, but this is actually a really awesome idea. Props,” Chrissy whispered to her, the other girls oblivious to their little exchange.
“Um, thanks, Chrissy,” she said, looking over at Bennett who was chatting with another girl, jotting notes down. I guess a passive aggressive compliment is better than no compliment at all, she thought to herself as the group began to map out ideas and jot down plans to be made for what they thought would be the biggest event of their lives.
***
“Where’d that come from?” Bennett asked once both girls were on their drive home. They had stayed at the coffee shop for over two hours, clearly enthused and excited about her idea for the prom, which was received with a literal resounding round of applause.
She had felt very happy about having her idea being so well received, especially since she knew how finicky and judgmental Chrissy and most of the other girls were. It had felt good to be able to contribute to the group which made her feel like she was fitting the role of a ‘teen’ believably and earnestly. At the back of her mind, as it always was, was Marina, and her prolific messaging which made her feel stressed out.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It just sort of came out,” She was lying, of course. She had had that idea ever since she herself was in high school the first time around. She remembered vividly how if she had been given a chance to join the prom committee the second time around, she would bring up the idea and everyone would rejoice and applause her and thank her for her great idea. Like magic, that’s what had completely happened.
Bennett intuited her lie but didn’t pry. She, instead, focused her attention on the road before her, both literally and figuratively. All of the prom talk clearly reminded her of the looming deadline to Marina’s vague “make things right” requirement if she intended to stay in this life of a new teen. She still had absolutely no idea or inkling what there was to indeed make right or even in what direction to proceed into, but she tried to remain positive.
She was undoubtedly ambivalent about the joy factor she was having in her new life. There was no mistaking the fact that the books she read with such earnest in her former life were clearly very fundamentally different than the predicaments she was facing first hand. There was such a strong sense of urgency to every action she had to take, no matter how minor or major. She had forgotten the ferocity of being a teenager, and she wasn’t sure how much she liked that, especially experiencing it on a daily basis.
On the other hand, she was enjoying the new (old) life due to the fact of making new friends and not having to work every day at a thankless job where she felt like her sanity was being tested day after
day, or the loneliness that sometimes accompanied the weekends she was alone with her dog. And her books. She suddenly then remembered that she didn’t actually have a job any longer, but she decided to let that one go.
“Hello, earth to Darcy,” she heard Bennett say, as though she was farther away than she was. She looked over at Bennett.
“Oh sorry, I guess I just didn’t get enough sleep last night!” she quickly mumbled but she didn’t fool Bennett, who strangely knew her well even though they were relatively new friends.
She kept driving, stress on her mind, but a little bit of joy, too. One moment at a time, Platt, she thought to herself as both girls made their way down the palm-tree lined street, flanked by enormous homes and almost too-well manicured lawns.
Chapter 25
Rumors were running rampant that following Monday morning about her being possibly pregnant. By the end of the day, it was considered factual that in about nine months time there would be a tiny Platt running around the family palatial home.
She didn’t know for certain who had leaked the secret, but if her seldom wrong intuition was right, the gossip monger was equal parts Jason and Claire. The trouble with confronting them was that she wasn’t entirely sure. The concrete walls of her high school seemed to have ears of their own, and she wouldn’t have really been surprised if it was the caretaker who would spread around such a terrible piece of untrue gossip.
But when there’s a juicy bit of gossip, there will always be a lineup of hormonal teenagers biting at the chomp. As soon as she parked her car early that morning before the first bell rang, she felt the heavy and obvious stares from nearly everyone she walked by or was within eye sight of. They weren’t even impolite stares, but full on ogles. When she tried to match the stares of a fellow student, the stares remained. She decided to just cope with the uncomfortable abundance of attention and start with the tedium of the school day.
She chose to take the high road and not succumb to her raging teenage hormones. Instead of providing credence to the rumors and adding fuel to the gossip heavy fire, she opted to stay mum on the whole subject and go about her day as normally as possible. In all truth told, it didn’t take a lot of effort out of her to just that.
Upon entering the school and fiddling around with her locker, she saw Bennett out of the corner of her eye. Her new friend joined her side and gave her a reassuring pat on the back. She remained quiet and closed her locker door gently and began to walk towards her first period class. Bennett remained right by her side as she began her long walk down the brightly tiled hallway. It was almost as though the student conversations ceased as she walked by, reminding her of a really bad 80’s movie. She never thought it would be a true event to occur, but here it was.
“Everyone’s saying…” Bennett began to say once they neared the door of English class but she quickly cut her off.
“That I’m knocked up – I know,” she said, nearing the nearly full class room that sounded like a cacophony of giggles and murmurs concurrently. “It’s not true.”
Bennett looked to the ground, redness coloring her full cheeks. Her red hair was styled in two side braids, reminding her of Pippi Longstocking. She was tempted to share her observation but realized that it was likely that Bennett wouldn’t have known who Pippi actually was.
“People are saying that Charlie is the one, who, you know…” Bennett stammered on uncomfortably. Both girls halted by the classroom door to finish their conversation. “…and that’s the reason why the two of you are going to prom together.”
She felt her eyes narrow into slits and true anger build up within her tiny frame. In all the years that had elapsed since her first go round in high school, she had thankfully managed to forget how cruel kids were. This cruelty was a plot point that was often omitted (intentionally) in all of the books she loved to read. It sometimes showed up from time to time in the stories she read if it proved to act as a catalyst to some larger event, but it was seemingly a daily event in her actual new lift.
Up until that point, she thought she held some sort of semblance control of any situation that would be thrown at her. How serious could teenage issues be, after all? However, now that someone else was involved, a boy she liked and was innocent nonetheless, the flame of anger within her became a full on flame within milliseconds.
Instead of replying to Bennett, she turned around 180 degrees so that her back was now where her face was moments ago. Feeling the sudden shift in the dynamics, Bennett just stared at Darcy as she turned her glare towards Claire who was sitting by the fountain in the main hallway, steps away from her English class. With Rena in tow, Claire laughed loudly, clearly exaggeratedly as Rena never really had anything funny to say. A few students smiled at Claire’s expression of laughter, eager to get in on the joke, but quickly made their way on to their classroom.
Without really realizing she was doing so, she made her way, practically running at that point, towards Claire, Rena, and the pseudo group that had formed around them.
As she drew nearer, the other students noticeably stopped laughing. In fact, they seemed to distance themselves slowly away from Claire and Rena, sensing that an outburst was inevitable. As Darcy approached, she felt Claire stare at her directly. Her flame of anger then instantly became the atom bomb.
“So I’m pregnant, huh?” she practically yelled once she was inches away from Claire's face. Her voice was loud enough for everyone in the hallway to hear her. If the hallway was reasonably quiet before that point, it was now 100% still. Every conversation seemed to stop and all eyes automatically moved towards the group of girls, some non-chalant and some direct.
Claire giggled loudly, as though she had just revealed a hilarious punch-line to a joke. Rena, of course, copied Claire’s lead and laughed loudly as well, but she quickly thought she noticed Rena’s obvious discomfort at the site that was beginning to play out.
“Are you now?” Claire replied, matching Darcy’s volume. “That didn’t take long.” She giggled again. Claire looked up at the other kids who were still nearby for reactions, but the other students knew better and remained expressionless.
She slowly walked closer to Claire’s perch on the concrete bench that stood before the fountain. She lowered herself so that she was at eye level with her frenemy.
“Why would you spread such an awful lie about me?” she said, lowering her voice. Claire didn’t flinch. “Is it because I haven’t been the doting, brainless friend to you that you clearly desperately need to feel good about yourself?”
Rena leaned closer to hear.
It was clear that Claire hadn’t expected her to come back and defend herself so vehemently. Claire’s upper lip began to quiver but she kept her voice even and calm.
“I was just spreading news that I thought people should know. That you and Charlie are having a baby,” Claire spat back, her voice chock full of venom. “Don’t you want me to plan the baby shower?”
They say that everything is 20/20 in retrospect, and for her, that adage could not have been closer to the truth as she revisited that cataclysmic moment many times later. She didn’t know what came over her. At that particular point in time, she felt utterly consumed by the anger she had been feeling towards Claire. But there was something else, too. She knew on some level that there was more to her current state of wrath and anger than the recent events.
She could literally feel Claire’s words like icicles on her spine, drenched and then frozen in blatant lies and bitter sarcasm. She felt the bomb within her awaken something buried very deep, something that was born a long time ago during her original teenaged years. Those years where daily she saw the ways the most popular girls felt it was their right and duty to make the less popular girls feel so inferior, wrecking with their minds well into their adult lives. It was then that she realized that what she had adored and relished in all of the teen fiction books she read was fictional: pure and simple. The real life of a teenager couldn’t have been more different than the trials
and tribulations of Sweet Valley High or even the Twilight Books. Real life was worse. Far, far worse.
She leaned in closer to Claire, letting the silence in the air hang awkwardly between them. She caught a waft of the strawberry lip gloss that Claire liked to shellac her lips with. Claire looked at her incredulously, obviously riveted by the confrontation. She knew that Claire was secretly enjoying this public event, which added to the ire within her very being.
Before she was even noticed her hand leave the side of her jeans where it has become slightly moist from the discomfort of the situation, she heard the loud smack her palm made as it bounced off of Claire’s face. The sound was so loud that kids later said that they heard it in the parking lot.
There was a collective gasp in the hallway as the slap seemed to echo and reverberate amongst the white walls and metal lockers. Bennett stared open mouthed at the scene from her perch beside the classroom door. In fact, it seemed that the rest of the entire student body was agape at the confrontation.
Claire’s face immediately reddened. She brought her hand up to where her hand had just temporarily been and rubbed it gently.
She, too, felt her own face redden, embarrassed at her outburst, especially it being so public. She thought Claire would try to slap her back, or engage in some sort of physical fight, but instead she slowly stood up from the bench she sat upon. She gathered her book bag, and with Rena beside her, walked slowly to the bathroom
She soon felt guilty about the slap, but she felt there was no other recourse. Instead of returning to Bennett, she turned around and ran out of the school to the relative safety of her car, unsure of what her next step should be.
***
That evening, and for the rest of the week, she decided to feign illness and skip out on school. Her mother didn’t ask her to quantify her sickness, or to venture from her perch in her bed to go visit the doctor, which she was ever so grateful for. In fact, her mother didn’t even pester her at all.
She must have spent the first two following days of the outburst with Claire sleeping. She slept true, deep and dreamless sleeps. She was exhausted and couldn’t satiate her need for more and more rest. She had turned off her phone that Monday morning, and locked her bedroom door so that there was no surprise Mason visits at inopportune times. She was even sure to lower her blinds and throw the remote to operate them into the deep abyss of her closet.