So the instant I found Holly, I plopped my backpack on the lunch table and said, “Okay. I want to know every detail about Casey being on the fire escape.”
“Wait a minute,” Marissa said. “Where have you been? Lunch is almost over, and Heather was looking for you.”
My eyebrows go flying. “Heather came over here?”
“Yeah, and she was, like, nice to us. She said she’d give us a hundred dollars if we could get her phone back. No questions asked.”
I laughed. “Oh, really. Well, that’s because she thinks I have it, which I don’t.”
“Can you imagine getting your hands on that thing?” Dot whispers. “You could check out all the texts she’s gotten and sent. You could probably totally blackmail her!”
I blink at her.
Marissa blinks at her.
Holly blinks at her.
“What?” Dot asks. “There’s gotta be a ton of juicy stuff on her phone. Way more than a hundred dollars’ worth.”
Now, the funny thing is, she’s right, but giving Heather some blackmail of her own had never even crossed my mind. “So true!” I tell her. “And I wish I had it, but I don’t.”
And, yeah, I’m dying to tell them about Sasha tripping Heather and all that, but I stop myself. It feels weird keeping it from them, but I really don’t want to get Sasha in trouble. I mean, she may not know that she saved Billy from blackmail, but I do. Plus, if word slips out that I know anything about it, I’m dead. Heather won’t rest until she finds a way to destroy me.
So I switch the subject back to the one we’re supposed to be on in the first place. I turn to Holly and say, “Details, remember? Tell me about Casey.”
Her answer’s not exactly what I was hoping for. “I think I’ve told you everything.”
“No, you haven’t! What was he wearing? Did he, like, stand there for a while thinking or just go up and turn around? Was anyone with him?”
“Of course no one was with him! And what does it matter what he was wearing?”
I look down and shrug. And I’m suddenly feeling really stupid, because for some reason what he was wearing when he was sneaking up the fire escape mattered to me.
So I frown and say, “Was he in shorts? Jeans? A T-shirt? A flannel?”
She rolls her eyes. “Jeans and a flannel.”
“So nothing flashy?”
“Definitely nothing flashy. And he was moving cautiously, okay? I don’t think he really knew what he was doing. And, yeah, it took a minute for him to turn around.”
All this helped.
I don’t know why, but it did.
“Look,” she says gently, “you should call him.”
“But I have called him! A bunch of times! He hasn’t called me back for weeks.”
“Well, that was because he was supposed to be keeping the secret about your mom and his dad, right? Have you tried calling him since then?”
“Yes!”
“Did you leave a message?”
I just look down.
“Sammy, it’s obviously killing you. Stop being so stubborn and call him.”
“Yeah,” Dot says. “Call him.”
Marissa nods. “It’s a no-brainer, Sammy. Call him. Like, now.”
Dot slides her cell phone over, and when I finally pick it up and punch in Casey’s number, they all hunch forward like a flock of love vultures.
I wait through four rings.
Five.
“It’s gonna roll over to voice mail.”
They vulture in closer. “Don’t you dare hang up!” Marissa says.
“Leave a message!” Holly tells me.
“But—”
Dot says, “Just do it.”
So I take another deep breath, and after my stupid heart goes wacky over Casey’s “Leave a message” message, I say, “Holly says she saw you going up my building. Would you please call me back?”
Then I snap the phone closed and slide it over to Dot.
The three of them look at each other for a minute, and finally Holly asks Marissa and Dot, “Would you call her back?”
Dot shakes her head. “Not me.”
“She’s calling from someone else’s phone,” Marissa mutters, “and she doesn’t even say who she is.”
“Or that she misses him,” Dot throws in.
“Or even hi,” Holly says.
“Nah,” Marissa says, “I wouldn’t call her back.”
“Stop it!” I snap. “I’ve called him a bunch, and he hasn’t called me back. What am I supposed to do, beg?”
They all look at each other like, Not a bad idea.
“Stop it!”
“Aw, come on, Sammy,” Marissa says. “You could’ve tried a little harder.”
Dot nods. “Been a little friendlier …”
“Maybe not jumped in like you were accusing him of something,” Holly says.
I plop my head into my hands, and it feels like it weighs a ton. I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to take it all back and try again. I feel so stupid and pathetic.
“Aw, Sammy,” Dot says, wrapping her arm around me. “It’s easy to fix. Just—” But she’s interrupted by her phone vibrating in her hand. “This is probably him now!”
Only it’s not a call, it’s a text.
And as she reads it, her face goes white.
“What?” I ask. “Is it from Casey?”
She tries to hide her phone from me, but when I wrestle it away from her, what I see makes my heart drop through the floor.
TWELVE
The text is from Casey all right.
It’s short and to the point.
Stop calling. We’re done.
I just hand the phone back to Dot and tear out of there. And even though Marissa chases after me, nothing she can say will fix this.
It’s over.
Officially over.
Making it through the rest of the day was not easy. I mean, as if getting the text wasn’t bad enough, having Heather in both classes after lunch was brutal. Not that she harassed me. She actually didn’t say boo to me, which was scary in its own way. But just her being there was hard. It was a constant reminder that she’d been right—Casey had moved on, which is exactly what she’d wanted.
And something about Casey and me being “done” before we actually had the chance to start felt really … unfair. Cruel. Like someone had wrapped barbed wire around my heart and was twisting it tight.
Marissa tried to talk about it again during drama, but it just made things worse. I didn’t want to talk about it or think about it or try to figure out some strategy to win him back.
We’re done didn’t leave much room for strategizing.
And even though it was nice to see Billy in such a good mood during drama—especially while Heather was obviously in a bad one—the lump in my throat kept getting bigger and bigger, and I was dying to get home so I could finally just let go and cry.
So after school was over, I tore out of there as fast as I could. I did all right while I was pumping like mad on my skateboard, hopping curbs and dodging cars, but once I was off my board and going up the fire escape, I couldn’t help it—my eyes just overflowed. Casey had walked these very steps the night before. Had he been hoping to run into me on the fire escape?
But why?
So he could tell me we were done in person?
By the time I’m sneaking down our hallway, I’m a soggy-faced mess. And I’m dying to just flop onto the couch and flood a pillow, only I can’t.
Someone else is already on the couch.
Someone I sure didn’t invite.
“Oh, great,” I moan. And before my mother can finish her sarcastic little “Why, thank you,” I dump my stuff, charge into Grams’ bedroom, and slam the door.
The apartment’s a one-bedroom, with a tiny bathroom, kitchen, and a one-couch “family” room where I sleep. There really is no place to escape to. But whenever someone unexpected or troublesome or scary is at the door, my go-to hiding place is Gra
ms’ closet. And since my mother kinda covers all those bases, I find myself diving into the closet and closing the door.
How sad is that?
My cat, Dorito, is already there because he likes my mother about as much as I do.
Smart cat.
Anyway, there I am, surrounded by shoes and dangling clothes, hugging my cat, when my mother opens the closet door and sighs. “Honestly, Samantha.”
I pull the door closed.
She pulls it back open. “Please. Show me you’re more mature than this.”
I pull the door closed, and this time I hold on tight.
“Samantha!” she snaps when she can’t open the door. “Get out of that closet this instant!”
I can hear Grams’ voice. It’s quiet and calm, and it sounds like she’s trying to convince my mother to leave me alone for a little while.
“This is ridiculous!” my mother says. “Are you telling me you let her get away with this kind of behavior?”
Grams’ voice is louder now. “Give her a few minutes, Lana. Didn’t you see she was already upset when she came through the door?”
Things get quiet out there. And after maybe half a minute of silence, I’m starting to feel a little foolish for hiding in the middle of a bunch of shoes with my cat. But then my mother starts up again. “This is completely unacceptable!”
She tries to open the door, but I’m still holding on. “You’re what’s unacceptable!” I yell at her. “Just go away and stay away! You have totally ruined my life!”
“Samantha,” she says with that oh-you-are-so-trying-my-patience tone that she loves, “you are thirteen years old—”
“Nice of you to admit it!” I shout, because there was a time when she lied about my age to the rest of the world and to me.
And, really, I didn’t care that I was running our little through-the-door conversation into the mud. I didn’t care that I was acting immature. I just wanted her to disappear, because the bottom line is, things were going great with Casey and me until she stepped into the picture and messed it all up.
“What I’m trying to say,” she calls through the door, “is that everyone has crushes at thirteen. They don’t last. You get over them.”
I open the door and shout, “Oh, so it’s okay to go around destroying them because, what? They’re not going to last, anyway?” Then I yank the door closed and hold it hard.
I can feel her trying to open it and then give up. “Samantha, you get out here this instant! My dating Warren should have no effect on your little crush on his son!”
I open the door again. “But it does! We’re totally messed up because of you!”
This time I’m too slow closing the door. She wedges herself in the opening with all her movie-star might and says, “Well! Blame me if you like, but you’re obviously not mature enough to be in a relationship, anyway!” She turns to Grams. “Now do you see why I don’t tell her things?”
This makes me furious. She’d pulled so many stupid stunts on me, and I’d never had a meltdown like this. Not when she’d left me with Grams so she could run off to Hollywood. Not the gazillion times she’d refused to tell me who my father is. Not when she’d let Dorito get out and he almost got killed and she “didn’t have the time” to help me find him. Not even when she broke it to me that I was turning thirteen, not fourteen like I’d thought, because she’d wanted me to start kindergarten a year early so she could have free day care. And I’d flunked kindergarten!
So, yeah, I’d been really mad at her before, but I’d never acted like this. And now that I had, I knew she would use it against me for years. Anything she wasn’t comfortable explaining, this would be the reason she’d give for not telling me. And she’d make it all my fault.
“Please,” I said, sobbing into Dorito’s fur, “just leave.”
“Samantha, really. You should be happy for me. It’s not like my life’s been easy, you know. And how could I have predicted I’d fall in love with Warren? It just happened.”
So there.
She said it.
She was in love.
“Please,” I beg her, gulping for air, “just leave.”
Grams is pulling her away now, and she’s keeping her voice low, but I can hear her tell my mother, “Why are your feelings the only ones that matter? Don’t you remember what it was like to be thirteen?”
“Having a crush on a boy is not the same as mature love!” my mother hisses. “And I shouldn’t have to give up true love for the capricious crushes of a teenager!”
“That teenager happens to be your daughter!” Grams snaps. “And the capricious one in this family is you.”
“Fine,” my mother says with a huff. “Take her side. You always do.”
A door slam later, she’s gone.
When I finally got tired of crying in the closet, I went into the kitchen and found Grams stirring a kettle of soup. Without a word, she put down the wooden spoon and wrapped her arms around me.
She didn’t try telling me that everything would be okay, or that there were lots of fish in the sea, or that tomorrow would be a better day.
She just hugged me.
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” I sniffed. “I’m sorry I was such a baby. It’s been a really, really bad day.”
She walks me over to our little kitchen table and sits me down, then brings me a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup and saltines.
I look at her, wondering why she made me chicken noodle soup, and how come it feels like the only thing in the whole wide world that I would eat right now.
“Thanks,” I tell her, and it comes out all choked up.
She sits across from me and fidgets with a napkin as she watches me sip down some broth. I peek up at her, and finally I sigh and say, “Casey told me to quit calling him.”
She nods and says, “I’m so sorry,” and I can tell from the tears welling in her eyes that she really is.
Then slowly it all comes out. I just give her little bits between sips of soup, and by the time the bowl is empty, I’ve told her way more than I had intended.
“Well, I completely understand why you couldn’t handle finding your mother here.”
I pinch my eyes closed. “If she marries Casey’s dad, I’m just going to die. What if they expected us all to live together? What if Warren wants us to be one big, happy family? Them and Casey and Heather and me?”
Grams laughs. “Your mother as a stepmother? She can’t even handle being a mother!” She shakes her head. “Can you imagine her in the same house as that wicked Heather? There’d be no survivors!” She reaches over and holds my hand. “I can’t see that scenario ever coming true, Samantha. Besides, your mother is not about to give up her television career, and it sounds like Warren is just starting his.” She lets go of my hand and adds, “I sure don’t see them wanting to be the Brady Bunch, now or ever.”
“The Brady Bunch?”
She shakes her head and chuckles. “Never mind. It was an old TV show. It used to be synonymous with a happy melded family, but I guess time marches on.”
We’re quiet for a minute, and then I ask, “What was she even doing here today? It’s Tuesday. Isn’t she supposed to be on the set or whatever?”
“Well,” Grams says, taking off her glasses and inspecting them for spots, “if you’d keep up with the story, you’d know that Jewel has gone missing and Sir Melville is frantically searching for her because he knows she’s found the ruby amulet and he’s afraid she’ll—”
“Wait—what’s the ruby amulet?”
She huffs on a lens and buffs it with the hem of her blouse for the longest time. Finally she says, “Your mother has a point, you know.”
“About what?”
“That you don’t bother to watch her show.”
“Grams! It’s a soap. It’s overdone and embarrassing.”
“But it’s your mother’s work, and even if you don’t appreciate the art form, you could show more interest than you do. Besides, she’s quite good
at it.”
“At being overdone and embarrassing? Yeah, I agree.”
Grams eyes me as she cleans the other lens of her glasses.
“Sorry,” I grumble. “That was mean.”
She nods, then pops her glasses back on her nose and says, “Have you ever considered that if you showed more interest in your mother’s life, she might do the same with yours?”
I just stare at her as she gives me a minute to let that sink in.
Then very gently she adds, “You know I’ve recorded all her episodes for you. You had time this summer, but you wouldn’t even consider it.” She leans forward a little. “Samantha, think about what a nice gesture it would have been. Plus, it would have given you something to talk to her about.” She sits back again. “You might even have gotten hooked.”
“Oh, so you want me hooked on a soap?”
She gives a little shrug and says, “I want you to know what the ruby amulet contains and why Sir Melville is desperate to save Jewel from herself.”
“So tell me.”
She gives me a sly smile. “Oh no. You need to watch the show.” She gets serious and adds, “You understand I was using the ruby amulet as a metaphor, right? I really want you to know what’s going on with her. And, yes, your mother should take some initiative, too, but you both need to show more interest in each other.”
I was quiet a minute, trying hard to battle against the feeling in my gut that she was right. And because I wasn’t about to admit it—at least not while I was still so ticked off at my stupid mother—what popped out of my mouth was, “Are you sure that wasn’t an analogy? Or maybe a simile?”
She thought about it a second, then grinned. “No, I’m not.”
I don’t know why the conversation made me feel better, but it did. So after I finished my soup, I took a shower and got on my homework. And after we had some real dinner, I actually read ahead on my assigned book until bedtime.
I tried not to think about Casey.
Tried not to think about my mother.
Tried not to think about being the Brady Bunch.
And when Grams caught me dozing off on the couch, she pulled the book out of my hands and kissed me on the forehead. “Tomorrow’s another day,” she whispered.