“She did?” I said.
“We try to keep a clean rotation,” she explained. “A little taste for everyone.”
At the cheerleaders’ table, I sat between Bitsy and Keisha and across from Elizabeth, Amy, and Jodi, who drank me in with wide eyes as if they’d never seen me before. Which, although they had, they probably really hadn’t. Mary Bryan sat two seats down, fawned over by Laurie and Trish. She lifted her hand in a wave.
“Oh my god, this is so exciting!” Elizabeth said. She rapped her plate with her fork. “Everyone, this is Jane. Jane, this is everyone. Jane’s the new … you know!”
“No way,” said Amy. “Congrats!”
“That’s awesome!” cried Jodi.
“How do you feel?” asked Elizabeth. “Are you thrilled? You must be so thrilled!”
Bitsy leaned in, murmuring, “I for one bloody well am. Haven’t felt this grand in weeks, you brilliant girl.” She hooked me with her arm and grinned at the others. “She’s superb, yeah?”
“She’s just precious,” Elizabeth affirmed.
I blushed from my head to my feet. The only other conversation I’d had with Elizabeth had ended with “Who the fuck are you?”
“I … you know. I’m really happy,” I said.
Jodi reached over and grasped my chin, the way a grandmother might do. She squeezed it and let it go. “Oh, she is just too darling for words.”
I couldn’t stop smiling. And why not? Yesterday I was nobody, but today I was precious, darling, superb. A tiny part of me way back in my head said, Wait. Hold on. Can this really be? But it was squashed by the coos of the cheerleaders, who weren’t—I was absolutely sure—faking their adoration. Because I had never felt anything like this before, these waves of positive regard. It was like being bathed in love.
They bombarded me with questions: What music did I like, where did I get my T-shirt, did I want them to do my hair? I answered dizzily. I giggled and tilted my head. A few tables over one of the feral cats yowled and took off with the turkey from someone’s sandwich, and Jodi put on a very serious face.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, Jane,” she said.
“Huh? Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “I’m used to it.”
Jodi blinked. “Don’t you think they’re a nuisance, though? Don’t you think something should be done about them?”
After a quick glance at Mary Bryan, I said, “Actually, um, I think everyone should just leave them alone. I mean, they’re not really hurting anybody, are they?”
Jodi drew back. She changed her expression to reflect this new perspective. “That is so mature. Live and let live, right?”
Amy and Laurie nodded their support.
“We should start a petition,” Trish suggested. “What do you think, Jane? Maybe hold a pep rally?”
“We could dress up like kittens!” Jodi said.
Elizabeth held out her hand. “Not me. Uh-uh.”
“Why not?” Jodi asked.
“The whole squad? Out there prancing around for everyone to see?”
“It would be cute.”
“Uh, no. It would be demeaning.”
Bitsy spoke into my ear. “Silly cows.”
I looked away and smiled.
“I think a pep rally is a good idea,” Keisha said. “It would be a great way to raise awareness.”
“See?” Jodi said, jabbing Elizabeth.
“And I know you all will figure out the best way to stage it,” Keisha went on. “That’s what you do. That’s why y’all are the cheerleaders.”
Jodi lifted her chin. They all sat up a little straighter.
“But right now we need your help with something else.” She touched my shoulder, and I sat up straighter, too. My skin hummed with specialness. “We need to plan a party for Jane. Will Saturday night work for everyone?”
“I’ll be in charge of decorations,” Amy said right away.
“And I’ll do food,” said Jodi. “I have an excellent recipe for flaming custard in individual spongecake boats.”
“Where will we have it?” Laurie asked. “Should we invite guys?”
Keisha stood up, and Bitsy and Mary Bryan followed suit. I quickly got to my feet.
“Thanks, girls,” Keisha said. “We know we’re in good hands.”
“Just don’t bring the megaphones this time, eh?” Bitsy said.
We left them talking excitedly. I hadn’t eaten a bite of my food, but I wasn’t the least bit hungry.
In English, Miriam Fossey looked at me funny and nudged her best friend Angel. She and Angel whispered back and forth, and Angel’s eyebrows shot up. Then Angel whispered something to Bobbi, who passed it onto Taniqua. Soon all the girls in the class were whispering, and I knew it had to do with me. I knew because after class, Miriam made a point of coming over and talking to me, which she hadn’t done all year.
“There’s something different about you,” she accused.
“There is?”
“I saw you at lunch. You were sitting with Bitsy and Mary Bryan and Keisha.”
I tilted my head. In fifth grade, Miriam and I had been friends. We both liked to swing. Then in sixth grade, she told me my neck was dirty. That was soon after Dad had left. She said she couldn’t hang out with me anymore, that her mother had said so.
“Huh,” I said to her now. “So I was.”
Miriam scrunched up her mouth, and I could tell she was dying to say something snotty. But what was there to say? Anyway, Miriam was a snob, but she wasn’t stupid.
“Well,” she said at last. “Lucky you.”
On Friday, we ate with the debate team. Boiled chicken breasts for them, Duck à l’orange for us. I had never tasted duck before. It was delicious.
However, the debaters weren’t as fun as the cheerleaders. They were at first, when they told me how wonderful I was using phrases like, “as evidenced by your superior mental endowment” and “proven without contest by your taste in dining companions.” But then they fell into an argument about the importance of peer group interactions, and it got really boring.
“Why?” moaned Bitsy as Rutgers Steiner pressed Callie Winship about the multiple definitions of “social intercourse.” “Why, why, why?”
“Just tune them out,” said Mary Bryan. She plucked a marinated orange slice from my plate. To me she said, “The stoners are even worse. All they do is gaze at us and stroke our hair.”
“So why do you—” I made a dumb me face. I started over. “So why do we bother? Why don’t we sit with whoever we want?”
“Yes, Jane,” Bitsy said. “Excellent question.” She turned to Keisha. “Why don’t we?”
Keisha telegraphed her disapproval. “Because it wouldn’t be fair.”
I waited for more. Bitsy rolled her eyes. Finally, I said, “Oh.”
“At least we get to be together,” Mary Bryan said. She appropriated another orange. “You know, the four of us.”
I scooped the remaining orange slices from my sauce and slid them onto her plate. “Here.”
She grinned. “Thanks.”
Bitsy nudged my elbow. “What’s this, pet? A friend of yours come to visit?”
I glanced up to see Alicia walking toward us with a wavering smile. I looked beyond her at the drama table. Tommy Arnez was shaking his head, his face flushed. His friend pushed his shoulder and laughed.
“Hi, guys,” Alicia said in a wobbly voice. “Can I sit with you?”
It was the first time I’d been around her since the lip balm incident, and I was hit by an unreasonable annoyance. No, she couldn’t sit here. She should go back to her own table where she belonged.
But I said, “Uh, sure. Of course. But … why aren’t you sitting with Tommy?”
“He’s helping Bryan rehearse his lines for Our Town,” she said. “I didn’t want to mess them up.”
“Lovers’ spat, eh?” Bitsy said. She seemed perkier than she had all meal.
“No,” Alicia said. She pulled her chair in beside me, so clos
e that her leg brushed mine. I inched my chair farther to the left.
“But something’s going on,” Bitsy said. “I can tell.”
Alicia hesitated, then blinked two times. “We’ve got a date for tomorrow night.”
“Do you now?” Bitsy exclaimed. She selected a French-cut green bean and waved it in the air. “Go on.”
Alicia started telling us detail after pathetic detail, all in a nasal, wheedling voice, and I squeezed my napkin into a ball. Gone were the warm fuzzies from our chat outside Hamilton, replaced with an urgent desire for Alicia to shut the hell up and stop embarrassing me. I knew I wasn’t being fair—this was Alicia, not some toad, slimy with need—but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want her touching me.
“But it’s not like you’re a couple,” I said.
Alicia blushed. “I never said we were. I said we have a date, that’s all.”
“Yeah, but it’s, what, to some performance-art thing?”
“So?”
“So?” I laughed. If she would have let it go, then I would have, too. But no. She had to ooze in where she wasn’t wanted. “You said that part of their act involves a tampon dispenser.”
Her blush deepened. “I told Jane she was going to change if she hung out with you all,” she said. “And now she has. She’s just acting this way to impress you.”
“Oh please,” I managed. My face went hot, and I felt blindsided by her disloyalty. “Why don’t you tell them what you really told me? How I should stay away from them because they’re—” I clamped shut my mouth. I’d almost said “witches.” Witches, bitches, I had an insane desire to smack the whine right out of her. I shoved my hands beneath my thighs.
Alicia glared at me. “Anyway, it’s for poems,” she said. “It dispenses poems.”
“Poems in a tampon dispenser,” Bitsy said lightly. “How clever.”
Alicia squished up her mouth, not knowing if Bitsy was making fun of her. And then all at once her shoulders slumped. “It’s not like I had anything to do with it,” she said.
Mary Bryan’s eyes met mine. I knew I should feel ashamed, but I didn’t.
“Well, I think it sounds really fun,” Mary Bryan said. “First dates are exciting no matter what you do.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Alicia said.
“And if things go well, maybe he’ll ask you to the Fall Fling,” Mary Bryan went on. “It’s only two weeks away, you know.”
“The Fall Fling,” Rutgers Steiner said, diving back into the conversation. “Now there’s an example of authentic social intercourse. Do you agree, Callie, or do dances fall into your category of ritualized teenage cannibalism?”
“The Fall Fling isn’t a dance, Rutgers,” Callie said. “It’s an event. Which you would know if you had your finger on the pulse of actual high-school dynamics.”
Off they spun into another argument. Alicia scooted back her chair.
“Call me tonight?” she muttered.
“Sure,” I muttered back.
“Bye,” she said to the others. “I didn’t … I mean, I hope I wasn’t …”
“No worries, luv,” Bitsy said. She smiled breezily and took a sip of Perrier. “I just hope you and Timmy work things out.”
“Tommy,” Alicia said.
“Tommy. Right.”
Alicia took her tray and left.
“Sorry,” I said. I glanced up at Keisha, Bitsy, and Mary Bryan, and the rage I’d felt began to drain out of me. Now I felt shaken by my own reaction. “She isn’t always such a toad.”
Mary Bryan frowned. Bitsy laughed. Keisha said nothing at all.
On Saturday morning I IMed Bitsy for party fashion advice. I was too chicken to call her in person, but I needed her input. Plus, I wanted the thrill of IMing Bitsy McGovern. Of knowing I actually could.
It’s your coming-out party, she IMed back. Wear something sexy.
So I did. I wiggled into my shortest denim skirt, which I’d bought in a moment of summer madness and had never worn. It covered my crotch and not much more, and if I’d seen it on another girl, I’d have tsked with jealous scorn. But hell, I had good legs. More importantly, I was a Bitch. The knowledge unleashed me.
“Another party?” Mom said when I jogged downstairs.
“Yep,” I said, moving quickly behind the sofa so she wouldn’t comment on the skirt. “It’s my coming-out party.”
Mom looked confused. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said. Bitsy’s horn beeped from the driveway. “So … bye! See you when I see you!”
The party was in an abandoned warehouse that somebody’s brother had rented or something like that. I didn’t get all the details, and when we got there, I didn’t care. It was a huge open space, like a barn, and the cheerleaders had decorated it with strands of silver star lights and red Chinese lanterns. Velvet cushions were piled in the corners, and along one wall sat a gold brocade sofa with dark green throw pillows. A rent-a-hot-tub bubbled away in the center of the room, and a full bar was set up ten feet away. Kyle Kelley held court with a bottle of Tanqueray and a lemon. When he saw us, he raised the bottle in salute.
“It’s amazing,” I breathed.
Mary Bryan seemed pleased, as if it were a present she was responsible for.
“They did a nice job,” Keisha acknowledged. She wore a pale sage dress that matched her eyes, and she looked like a creature from a fairy tale. Compared to her I was a vamped-up club girl, but I hardly cared.
“Knock ’em dead,” said Bitsy. She used her thumb to soften my sparkly eyeshadow, which she’d applied for me in the car. “You’re the belle of the ball.”
Raven Holtzclaw-Fontaine: I’m just really happy for you. And I’m not just saying that.
Me: Yeah? Hey, thanks.
Raven: Just be careful, that’s all. It’s so emotional. No matter how exciting it is, it’s so emotional.
Me: Uh … okay.
Raven: Take me, for example. Like how I got an art scholarship to RISD, right? But I’m not going to let it go to my head, even though it is one of the most prestigious design schools in the country.
Me: You got a scholarship? That’s awesome!
Raven: Wow. That is so nice of you to say so. I mean, I thought you might be all full of yourself, but you’re not. And I’m not going to be either. Unless I’m forced to.
Me: You’ll do great. I know it.
Raven: Listen, do you think I could paint your picture sometime?
Elizabeth Greene: Everyone sees me as just this kick-ass cheerleader, but there’s more to me than that, you know? And this internship I’ve been offered could be the opportunity of a lifetime. Only, a year is a really long time. And Antarctica’s friggin’ cold, there’s no getting around it.
Me: That’s true. I do think it would be cold.
Elizabeth: Plus there’s only this one research guy in the lab I’d be working in, and he’s ancient. He has one of those tubes in his neck to speak with, but apparently he’s not much of a conversationalist.
Me: Jesus. Don’t you think you’d get lonely?
Elizabeth: I think he’s self-conscious.
Me: Well, I guess you just have to ask yourself if it’s worth it or not.
Elizabeth: Oh my god.
Me: What?
Elizabeth: Nothing, you’ve totally put it in perspective, that’s all. Because you weren’t afraid to take on a whole new life, were you?
Me: I never … huh. I mean, I guess I wasn’t, was I?
Elizabeth, hugging me hard: You’re my hero, Jane. I’m going to go for it. I am!
Pammy Varlotta: Hey.
Me: Hey.
Pammy: Great party, huh?
Me: Man, it really is. I didn’t know parties like this even existed—you know, before I hooked up with Bitsy and Keisha and Mary Bryan.
Pammy: I know what you’re saying. I mean, not that I’m claiming to be in your shoes or anything. Is it awesome, being a Bitch?
Me, laughing: God, is that all anyone can talk about? It’s li
ke every single person has to bring it up.
Pammy: But … you brought it up, not me.
Me: What? No, I didn’t.
Pammy: Yeah, you did. Just now when you talked about hooking up with Keisha and everyone.
Me: Oh.
Pammy, wistful as hell: You’re sooo lucky. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person, that’s what everyone’s saying. So … is it awesome?
It was awesome, especially when I steeled my nerves and approached Nate Solomon over by the bar.
“Um … hey,” I said, smoothing my skirt over my thighs. If this Bitch thing was really working—really and truly and not just pretend—then Nate would respond.
He stayed focused on the task at hand, which was stabbing a hole into the bottom of his beer can with a pen.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
His eyes strayed to me, and the beer slipped from his hands. Foam fizzed from the gash.
Mike Miller chortled. “Beauty, man. Smooth move!”
Nate turned red, and my head buzzed with the unrealness of it. He dropped his beer because of me. He was blushing because of me.
“Shut up,” he told Mike, bending down and snagging the can. He pitched it into the trash.
I giggled, and Nate grinned self-consciously. He wiped his hands on his jeans and stepped toward me. My body tingled.
“You’re Jane, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You, uh, want to shotgun a beer?” He gestured at Mike, who, having pierced the bottom of his can, was now pressing the hole to his mouth and guzzling away. “When you pop the top, it comes pouring out.”
“Oh,” I said.
“We have pony beers, if you’re not ready for full-size.” He ducked behind the bar and produced a beer in a six-ounce miniature can. Then he plunked a really big beer beside it, twice the size of a normal beer. “Or we have tall boys, too. Want to try?”
“No thanks,” I said. “But I’ll watch you.”
“Yeah? All right, cool.” He grabbed the tall boy, and Mike tossed him the pen. With sure aim, he punctured the aluminum. He drew the hole to his mouth, popped the top, and chugged.
“Rock it!” called Mike.