I jet past the senior lawn where Melissa and Jennifer offer wild waves, always happy to see me, and my spirit automatically lifts. Who cares if I’m soon to find myself without a defunct car? Something tells me it won’t be the first time in my life that I’m without a set of wheels.
Jennifer and Melissa share a side-eye glance, and instantly I’m aware that they’re up to something.
“What gives?”
“Oh, nothing.” Melissa plucks at a curl. “You wouldn’t happen to need to go to your locker for any reason, would you?”
“Okay—again, what gives?” I head in that direction, and they follow, tittering from behind like a bunch of seventh graders. “I swear, if the janitor’s dog took another lion-sized shit in front of it—” I stop cold and instantly brighten as I spot a single yellow rose tucked into the air vent, and attached to it is a folded piece of paper.
I head over and pick it up. I miss you, the note reads.
“Aww!” the two of them coo as if I just plucked a puppy from thin air.
“Russell is a winner.” Melissa takes the note from me.
“That he is,” I say, unsure of what the odds are that both Slam and Russell would choose the very same hue when it comes to that romantic flower.
“Russell is a keeper,” Jen chimes.
“Don’t I know it.” I bury my nose in the delicate petals, because no matter who it’s from, I’m keeping Russell.
“Hey.”
We look up to find a totally handsome, tall, dark-haired, and blue-eyed stud—my stud to be exact. “Can we talk for a minute?” His forehead wrinkles, and he looks pretty distressed.
“Sure.” We take a few steps from my locker, and both Melissa and Jennifer linger in the background. Russell is pretty intense right now, so I can’t really blame them. They care about him, too, and if something is wrong, we all want to help.
A heavy sigh escapes him. “My sister came into my room this morning crying hysterically. She said Joel’s little sister told her I was adopted.”
“What?” I jump back in my new sneakers. They’re a touch big, but I wanted to wear them with the new jeans I bought to impress Russell, and now it all seems so stupid in light of what his family is going through. “I didn’t say a word, I swear.” My heart thumps clear into my throat in fear Russell doesn’t believe me.
He glances back toward Mel and Jen, and his expression sours. “Are you sure you didn’t tell them?”
“No! Not a soul, I swear. Maybe she heard your mom talk about it?”
“No way. My mother wouldn’t breathe those words out loud. She’s far more protective over where I came from than I could ever be.” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “Maybe it was my dad. Never mind, I’ll get to the bottom of it later.” He takes a quick sniff from my rose. “Nice flower. Where’d you get it?”
A sickly smile comes from me in lieu of an answer. Deep down, I knew it was from Slam. That’s just the kind of life I’m having.
We make our way to homeroom, him sick with the thought of someone blurting his family secret, and me holding a rose from my ex-boyfriend. This day has got to get better.
By nutrition, the entire school is alive with the rumor that not only is Russell James adopted but that his real father is serving hard time at San Quentin for stabbing three people to death in the eye. Ridiculous—stupid, and vicious, but that’s what rumors are. They’re nothing but a bad game of telephone where the details grow more distorted by the hour. Russell left Mr. Sardona’s class early to drive to the junior high down the street and calm his poor sister in the event she’s subject to this wild bullshit, too.
“What the heck is happening?” Jennifer jumps out of line at the snack shack as I walk by and pulls me into a hug. “Is any of that stuff true?”
I open my mouth to say something, but then I promised Russell I wouldn’t tell a soul, especially not my friends.
Melissa runs up. “God! Is Russell even here? I’ve got to call Joel and leave a message for him at his dorm. He’s going to flip out when he hears all this garbage floating around about his best friend. He and Russ are like brothers. He’s going to want to know exactly whose ass to kick.”
Amanda and her two-man cruel crew strut over, decked out in head-to-toe neon and lace. Talk about your wannabes. It makes me physically ill just to look at them, and, thanks to their foolish fashion antics, I think I’ve permanently acquired an aversion to the color green.
“What?” I bark. No need to beat around the bush, I know it’s me they have a beef with.
Amanda’s face flushes with color as she inspects my outfit. It’s true, I haven’t worn jeans in forever and a day, and here I thought that was going to be the big celebrated event taking place this afternoon.
“Like I was going to ask you to stop spreading all the lies about the James family, but”—her cotton candy hair twitches back and forth as she steps in to inspect me closer. “Those are my fucking clothes!”
“What? You wish.” Honestly, can this day get any stranger? Any second I expect my mother to splash me with a cold glass of water and wake me from this nightmare. God, I wish she would.
“No, really.” Amanda hops and points to my leg. “There’s like a hole by the knee. That’s why I put them in the donation pile. And those are totally the shoes I wore to summer camp! They have my initials on the soles!”
I pick up my left foot and spot a worn-out letter A on the heel. My stomach drops. I pick up the left, and sure enough, there’s a bright blue P staring back at me.
Oh my shit. I close my eyes momentarily. This day can most definitely get worse.
My face burns with heat as I look to both Melissa and Jen, only to find their faces turning purple as well. There isn’t a worse feeling in the world than to have your best friends just as mortified by your actions as you are.
“You got those at Goodwill, didn’t you?” Amanda doesn’t waste any time pointing and laughing, and, soon her entire candy-coated clique is doing the same. “Like you are a serious reject!”
The crowd presses in, and the faces all distort to one laughing, knee-slapping blob of anarchy.
I try to bolt, but Jen pulls me back. “Ignore them. We’ll go to the library.”
Amanda snorts through her laughter. “She’s so skanky. I bet she steals from Goodwill, too!”
“That’s it.” I pluck my shoes off, one at a time, and hurl them at her—pinning her in the forehead with the left one. “A is for Asshole!” I shout as I barrel through the roaring crowd and race to the parking lot. I jump into my car just as Jennifer and Melissa crest the horizon. In a wild frenzy, I struggle to stick the key into the ignition, and once I do—nothing happens.
“Shit!” I hit the steering wheel again and again, creating little, short, staccato honks until the horn decides it’s a great day to stick and bleats into one long annoying battle cry.
“Arrghh!” I tip my head back and scream a good long while.
Jennifer manages to extricate me just as Russell’s Beamer pulls back into the lot, and he races over.
Melissa shouts the obvious at him, and he pops the trunk and starts disconnecting wires until we’re met with a deafening silence.
“Thank you,” I whimper.
“What’s going on?” Something in his eyes, something about his accusatory tone doesn’t settle well with me. “And are you…barefoot?”
“I just”—the words stutter from my lips—“can you get my car to start?”
The bell rings, and I convince both Jennifer and Melissa to please not miss third period on my behalf—that I’m fine. If they stick around, with my luck, they’ll incarcerate us all for the attempted murder of Amanda—assault with a deadly, slightly smelly weapon.
Russell tries to turn the engine on the Gonorrhea Ghia, but, again, it’s refusing to respond. He dives back under the trunk for a moment.
“Something’s wrong with your engine.” He gives the motor a hard grimace. “It’s not your battery. It could be your alterna
tor. You’re looking at a couple hundred dollars with a top mechanic.”
Without warning, I combust into tears. Russell comes in quick and wraps his arms around me tight.
“Hey, it’s okay.” His warm breath soothes my forehead.
“It’s not okay. Nothing is okay.” I pull back with a hard sniff. “Would you mind taking me home?”
“Yeah, sure.” He helps me into his car and switches the radio from KLOS to KROQ for me because he’s sweet that way. “Institutionalized” by Suicidal Tendencies rocks the speakers, and I don’t hesitate in turning it up. We blare that song all the way to San Ramos.
Russell parks in front of my house for the very first time and kills the engine while looking up at our beat-up rental. The dying weed-riddled lawn is the first to greet him, and suddenly I’m embarrassed to have him here.
“My mom is sick, or I’d invite you in.” At least I didn’t have to lie. Besides, what are we going to do in there? Sit on my bed in the room that I share with my brother? It’s bad enough I have to look at all those pin-up girls he has on the wall, the last thing I want to do is subject my boyfriend to them—if he is indeed still that. “You’re pretty mad at me, aren’t you?” I don’t need a roadmap to answer that question. I can tell by the inflection in his voice back there he’s pretty pissed. I don’t blame him. I would be, too.
“No.” He gives a weak attempt at denying it. “I just”—he bows his head and closes his eyes a moment—“how do people suddenly know all this stuff? Megan said she heard about some treasure box under my bed where I keep all his letters. She said he’s confessed to me each and every week—that he sends drawings of the way he’s going to escape and slaughter my new family.” He gives an anemic laugh. “It’s stupid and blown way off base, but, here’s the kicker—not even my mother knows about that shoebox.” His sad, crimson-stained eyes drag over mine.
“Russell.” His name hitches in my throat through the barbed wire strangling me from the inside. “What are you saying?” My voice pitches a little louder than necessary.
“I’m not saying anything.” He shakes his head at the leather steering wheel. “I’m just wondering how she knew any of that, hell, how anyone knows any of that if neither you nor I breathed a word of it?” Now it’s his voice filling the car with an uneven pitch.
I glance around at the expensive leather seats, the pricey dive watch on his wrist, his pager, his car phone, and here I am, shoeless, in used jeans that belong to the girl who will probably one day be his future wife. Amanda is right. We don’t belong together.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Russell. I wouldn’t tell anyone, and yet, it’s clear you don’t believe me. Maybe we’re not who we thought we were.” I run into the house and bolt the door behind me. Surprisingly, no one is home, so I’m free to ignore his incessant knocking—all three minutes of it. Russell doesn’t try all that hard to get me to reason with him, most likely because he doesn’t believe there’s anything to reason. In his mind, I let it slip and am suddenly too chicken shit to cop to it. He takes off in a hurry, but my tears blur him from my vision before he ever takes the turn at the bottom of the street.
I don’t bother to go to school on Friday. Both Melissa and Jennifer pleaded with me yesterday to blow this whole thing off, but even they were pretty broken up over the fact Russell has doubts about my ability to keep my mouth shut. Now that his secret is out—sort of—I filled them in on the real truth. No point in holding back now.
Russell calls over and over, and Kurt politely tells him to fuck off each and every time. After that, we simply disconnect the phone from the jack. I’m off work until Sunday, so I’m pretty much resigned to staying in this weekend. That is, until Saturday morning when my mother wanders into my bedroom looking like a zombie.
“What’s the matter?”
Her face is beet red, her forehead is beaded with sweat, and her hair is sticking up over her head like a tumbleweed.
“It’s worse.” She gravels the words out while pointing at her throat. “You’re going to have to cover for me.”
“At Admiral Rusty’s?” I’m shocked she’s asking. There’s no way Tony would allow just anyone to take an employee’s place.
“No,” she mouths the word. “With Priscilla.” As soon as Russell’s mother’s name eeks out of her throat, I start in on a violent shake of the head.
“No way, no how. I’m not entirely objected to scrubbing a stranger’s toilet for some cold hard cash, but there’s no way I’m going to Russell’s house.” Not that either Mrs. James or her son would want me there. I’m just sick at how everything’s worked out for the worse. And really, if Mrs. James doesn’t think I’m good enough for her son because I’m a daughter of the help, and if Russell can’t seem to believe I wouldn’t start these vicious rumors, then I don’t want anything to do with either of them.
Mom sits at the edge of my bed and shakes her head in protest, looking miserable in the process. “It’s the cotillion. She needs help at the country club. Just show up and tell them you’re there to replace me. She’s already made it clear she just needs a body. I just can’t risk losing another day of work until Tony gives me all my hours back.” Her bloodshot eyes swell with tears. “Christmas is coming. We really need this.”
I give a nervous glance out the window. I know that our rent is past due. I saw the nasty note left in our mailbox last week. I was going to give her my entire next paycheck now that I won’t need gas money anymore, but I know that Mom needs to remain in Mrs. James’s snooty good graces until she’s back on her feet.
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” It takes everything in me to swallow down what little pride I have left. “Can I borrow your car to get there? I’m afraid mine is sort of a loss at this point.”
“Of course,” she mouths. Mom tilts her head to the side with a sad smile as she runs her fevered hand over my cheek. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, Mom. I promise, everything is just fine.”
And there you have it—my first, and hopefully last, lie to my mother.
The Glen Heights Country Club sits nestled above the golf course, with its Roman marble entry, its limestone encrusted façade. A sculpture of a pair of dancing dolphins sits inside the foyer with a river of crystal blue water streaming from their spouts. Behind them a silver-framed sign reads Welcome Daughters of the Peninsula! Fall Cotillion of 1985!!!
Wow. There are a lot of exclamation points happening here, I muse as I make my way to the back. I’m not exactly certain what a cotillion consists of, but I do know every girl here will be wearing a ball gown that costs more than my next car will ever be valued. I guess I need to face it. This world really is made up of the haves and have-nots, and I happen to fall into that economically depressed second category.
An entire army of men and women scurries around the enormous, opulent hall.
A redheaded woman with a clipboard stuffs a uniform in my arms. “Thank you! Thank you a million times for showing up. We can’t be down a single body tonight. Lord knows the country club would have our heads for it. Everything has to go off just right this evening. These couples have been practicing for months for this very event. A decent dinner that goes off without a hitch is the least we owe them.”
I pluck at the uniform in my hand—a black skirt with a white frilly blouse. Great, I’ve finally morphed into that forty-year-old waitress I’ve always wanted to be. On the up side, I bet they give great tips here at the club. I do a quick change and report for duty.
I’m assigned tables one through five, but, until then, I’m responsible for filling an entire legion of water pitchers and landing two on each table. The atmosphere is undeniably festive here. There’s a heightened buzz of excitement in the air. I can’t help but admire the way the chandeliers sparkle like mad, the way the silverware gleams in neat rows next to every porcelain china setting trimmed in gold. There is even an enormous ice sculpture of a dolphin slowly dissolving near the back. Everything is so beautiful h
ere. I feel like I’m a part of a fairy tale—certainly not one I’ll ever star in.
Once I’m through setting each of my tables, my eyes snag on a placeholder at table number five. Amanda Prescott and Guest.
“Huh.” I shudder at the thought of serving her breadsticks for the next few hours, so I run around like crazy, begging people to switch tables with me, but no one budges. Fine. I’ll serve her. It can’t be any worse than what’s already happened between us. Besides, I doubt she’ll want to cause trouble in front of the entire future First Wives Club. Regardless, even if she’s not on her best behavior, I’ll be on mine. I’m over her in just about every way.
At five o’clock sharp, we’re all asked to line up on either side of the room, forming a scullery-laden crawl space that the debutantes will edge past until they reach the honor guard who will hold up their swords, creating a medieval tunnel—that, God forbid, should decapitate a certain ditzy little debutante—cough, cough, Amanda. But who am I kidding? I’m not that lucky. If anyone ends up headless tonight, it’s going to be me.
A few parents are acting as chaperones this evening and have already migrated over, awaiting their glammed-up children to enter high society.
The entrance sits wide open, and the first in a long string of limousines pulls up to the foyer. A man in a tuxedo blows a trumpet, and an older woman in a long black ball gown reads off the couple’s names as they enter through the crystal-laden arch. All we’re asked to do is look straight ahead and smile like loons.
A few of the names sound familiar as they make their way inside. The girls all look so beautiful with their enormous white carnation-like gowns, and the guys look pretty dapper themselves in their formal tuxedos. Who knew I’d essentially be headed to prom tonight? Only instead of dancing until my feet bleed, I’ll be refilling waters and bread plates until my soul bleeds.
Tess and Rachel are both here, and shockingly neither of them scored Jessie Fox as their escort. In fact, I don’t recognize any of the guys at all. I’m betting they’re imports from that overpriced academy where Amanda got the boot for blowing her chemistry teacher. It’s clear the mega-wealthy are here tonight—essentially the untouchable people of Glen Heights. I spot both Tess and Rachel headed to the table where I spotted Amanda’s place card and frown. Figures. Not that this night can get any worse.