The v Club

  "He didn't say no," Debbie asked. "Did he?"

  "No, he said yes."

  "That's great!" Debbie said, grinning. "She got a recommendation from Greenleaf," Debbie told Riley, whose face lit up.

  "See! I told you he would do it!" Riley said.

  "Yeah . . . thanks," Eva said. "So . . . what're you guys doing?"

  "Oh, we're just talking about my two favorite subjects, math and science!" Debbie said, nudging Riley with her shoulder. "We're going to cram for the Math and Science competition together."

  Stop touching him, Eva thought. God, can't you stop touching him for five seconds?

  "I thought you weren't going to do that competition thing," Eva said.

  "I decided to keep my options open," Debbie said, winking.

  Okay, I'm gonna hurl. Hurl on her shoes, Eva thought. That'll teach her a lesson.

  "I'd better go get my books before bio," Riley said. "I'll see you guys later. Congratulations, Eva. That's really cool about Greenleaf."

  Eva flushed and hated herself for it. If Riley and Debbie were going to be studying together, then Riley

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  and Debbie were going to be hooking up by this time next week.

  "Thanks," she said, looking away.

  "He is so delicious," Debbie said the second Riley was out of earshot. "How could I have never realized how delicious he is? Can you even believe those eyes?"

  He's going to be on her list. She's going to have details and a rating on Riley.

  "I better get to class," Eva said, walking quickly down the hall. Eva had run away from a lot of people in her lifetime--guys she'd tongue-tied herself in front of, and authority figures of all kinds. She'd just never thought she'd have to run away from Debbie.

  "Do you think they're going to let us bring a list of the formulas?" Riley asked, He tossed his pencil onto his open physics book and rubbed his eyes. "They have to let us bring the formulas, right? No one can remember all this."

  They were sitting together at a large round table at the Ardsmore Public Library. They were supposed to be concentrating on the test, but all Debbie could think about was how Riley was even cuter when he was stressing.

  "Definitely," Debbie said, trying not to stare at him. About fifteen minutes ago he had run his fingers up through his blond hair in a moment of velocity-versus- speed confusion, and it was still sticking up in front. She hadn't told him about it because she kind of liked it that way--Riley Marx, mad scientist.

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  But as hot as he looked, Debbie had decided she was going to control her flirtatiousness around him. She had no idea what, exactly, Riley had heard about her, but she felt the distinct desire to prove whatever it was wrong. She'd worn her most responsible outfit to the library-- wide-leg jeans and a black polo shirt--and had gone a full hour without tossing her hair or licking her lips--a new individual record.

  "I think I need a break," Riley said, reaching up with one hand and pushing his hair forward. He blew out a breath and looked around the deathly quiet periodical room. "I'm gonna get some MM's. You want anything?"

  "I'll come with you," Debbie whispered, pushing her seat back. Then she immediately wondered if that was wrong. Did following him out to the vending machines make her seem too clingy?

  Argh, what am I doing? Since when do I have to work to impress a guy ? And since when do I care what anyone thinks about me?

  And then she stopped short when she realized her answer. It wasn't just that she cared what anyone thought of her. It was that she cared what Riley thought of her. Somehow his opinion seemed important. And he was, after all, the Boy Scout. If she wanted him to like her, she was going to have to refute all those rumors--somehow.

  So far neither one of them had brought up the dramatic scene from the school library, and Debbie was relieved that Riley seemed as determined to put it

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  behind them as she was. The last couple of nights had been spent tossing and turning while she wondered what Riley had heard and if he was going to hold it against her. But it wasn't like she was ashamed of the things she'd done, so it shouldn't matter what Riley thought.

  Unfortunately, it did.

  "So how do you take your MM's? Are you a plain, a peanut, or a crunchy?" Riley asked, shaking the change in his hand.

  "Plain, definitely," Debbie replied. She stood with her hands behind her, concentrating hard to keep from playing with her hair.

  "Well, you don't seem very plain to me," Riley joked.

  Debbie flushed from the exertion of holding back about a thousand witty, cute responses.

  No reason to fuel the I'm-a-slut fire.

  "Thanks," she said instead.

  Riley bent and grabbed the brown bag of candy from the dispenser. "You okay?" he asked, his brow furrowing as he stood up.

  "I'm fine," Debbie said.

  He shook a bunch of MM's into his hand and held it out to her. "Listen, if it's about what happened in the library the other day--"

  Debbie's heart thumped. "I thought we were forgetting about that," she said, holding her hands out in a cup so he could dump the candy in. Normally she would

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  have stood there and opened her mouth so he'd have to place one of them on her tongue.

  "Okay. Fair enough," Riley said. "As long as you forgive me for being such an idiot."

  "I forgive you," Debbie said with a smile. A not too leading smile.

  "Gladness," Riley said, popping an MM in his mouth before opening the door for her. "Okay, we have an hour before we have to leave for the V Club thing. By then I plan to be a physics god."

  "I'm sure the elderly folks will be very impressed," Debbie said.

  She walked back into the library, making sure not to sway her hips or shake her hair out. Any other guy and she would have laid it on so thick they'd already be back in the ancient history section fogging up the windows. But Riley was different. She had to make him forget everything he'd heard about her. She had to make him realize she was not the slut of the century.

  She was going to prove to Riley Marx that she was the type of girl he wanted. She was going to prove to herself that she was good enough--even for him.

  Mandy watched through the bookshelves as Debbie and Riley returned to their table, hoping they wouldn't look up and see her. She sat in a big, cushy chair against the wall at the back of the library, and she'd been there all day, since well before her best friend and her study date

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  had shown up. Normally she would have gone over and sat with them, but Mandy had come to the library specifically to be alone.

  Once Debbie and Riley were bent over their books again, Mandy looked down at her own work, or lack thereof. She'd intended to write her speech for the V Club elections, but so far all she'd written in her notebook was, Fellow members, I am running for V Club president because. . .

  Even in the silence, miles away from her house, which was clear on the other side of town, Mandy was having trouble concentrating. She'd barely slept at all last night, haunted by a recurring nightmare in which her parents were drowning in Huff Lake and she couldn't move her feet from the sand to swim out and help them. She had just watched her parents drown over and over and over again until 5 A.M., when she'd woken up in a cold sweat, turned on the television, and forced herself to stay awake.

  And in less than an hour I have to go be chipper girl at the rest home. That should be fun.

  There was a stirring over by Debbie's table and Mandy looked up. Eric. Her heart thumped at the mere sight of him. She heard her name whispered and saw Debbie and Riley glance around. They didn't see her, but Eric started walking in the direction of the stacks. Mandy held her breath as he came around the end of the bookshelf to her right.

  "Hey, sweetness," he whispered when he saw her. His handsome face was lined with concern. As he approached,

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  the vinyl of his jacket swished, the noise sounding insanely loud in the silence of the room.


  There was no chair in the vicinity, so Eric crouched at Mandy's feet and put his hands on her knees as he reached up to kiss her. Mandy instantly felt calmer in his presence. Being with Eric was still the safest place she could think to be. How had she let herself forget that?

  Just tell him what's going on, she thought. You'll feel so much better if you just tell him.

  Maybe Eric could make everything okay.

  "Your mom told me you were here," Eric whispered. He reached up and touched her face. "Why didn't you call me? I would've come with."

  "You really want to study on a Saturday?" Mandy asked, smiling slightly.

  "No. I really want to be with you on a Saturday," Eric replied, causing her smile to widen. "I feel like I haven't seen you all week."

  "I know," Mandy said, looking down at her hands.

  Eric studied her face, his eyes flicking back and forth slightly. "Is everything okay?" he asked. "I feel like ... I don't know . . . maybe this is going to sound crazy, but I sort of thought maybe you were avoiding me?"

  "No!" Mandy protested, even though it was somewhat true. "It was just a busy week."

  "Yeah, but you didn't call me back the other night, and we never go to bed without talking first," Eric said. He inched a bit closer to her and leaned in. "You're not mad

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  about all the sex talk, are you, 'cause I'll drop it right now."

  "No, it's not that," she said.

  If only it were just that, she thought. If that was all I had to think about, we'd be doing it already.

  She looked into Eric's eyes. She loved him so much. Why had all this other stuff had to happen and get in the way of everything?

  "Then what is it?" Eric pressed.

  Mandy shook her head.

  "What is it, Mandy?" Eric asked. "I'm not stupid. I know something's going on with you."

  Mandy felt like her heart was swelling up and filling her chest. She looked at Eric and tried to keep the tears back. God, she wanted to tell him. She was practically dying to get it out of her, but when she opened her mouth to speak, it seemed to close itself right back up.

  "Tell me," Eric said gently.

  I can't, Mandy thought. I can't tell you, because I think he's guilty.

  Suddenly she was filled with a sadness so all- encompassing she could barely breathe. This was the thought she'd been trying to keep at bay all along, but there was no denying it anymore. If she couldn't even tell Eric what was going on, if she couldn't tell him that her dad was being investigated but that it was nothing to worry about because it was all a big mistake, there was only one reason why. She suspected her father had done it. He'd committed tax fraud. Her father was a criminal.

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  "Mandy?" Eric said.

  "Eric, I really need you to go right now," Mandy said.

  "What?"

  "I swear it's not you. I just ... I really just need to be alone."

  Suddenly his face changed. He pulled his hands away from her knees. He got up, his jacket swishing, and stood there for a second, looking at her like a stranger. Mandy wanted to say something to make him feel better, but there was nothing left in her to comfort him.

  "Fine, call me when you feel like talking," he said finally and walked away.

  Mandy pulled her legs up to her chest and rested her forehead on her knees, too upset to even cry.

  Kai stood in the corner of the sun-drenched activity room at the Ardsmore Assisted Living Residence and watched as Mrs. Buerkle opened up a can of Scrabble whoop-ass on the rest of her table. The second she'd walked into the room, Kai had noticed Mrs. Buerkle and picked her out as the coolest in the bunch. For one thing, she was wearing a Pittsburgh Penguins hockey jersey and a pair of jeans instead of the muumuus and crocheted sweaters that abounded in this place. But it wasn't just her clothes; there was something about her that Kai identified with. Like she could be this woman in sixty-five years.

  "Combover! Ha! Triple word score!" Mrs. Buerkle announced, placing her tiles carefully on the board.

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  "That's not a word," Mr. Consuelo, who had a quite awful combover himself, protested.

  "I believe they added it to the official Webster's dictionary recently," Mrs. Buerkle protested. "Am I right, Kai?"

  "I think she's got ya there," Kai said with a smirk. "Unless you want to challenge ..."

  Mr. Consuelo looked defiantly from Kai to Mrs. Buerkle and back, then deflated. "Eh, forget it. She always wins."

  Kai smiled as Eva and Debbie walked over to join her from opposite sides of the room. Mandy was making her rounds, checking up on everyone like she was already in charge of the club, but she'd kept a good distance from Kai all afternoon.

  I'm really going to have to talk to that girl and find out what's up her butt, Kai thought. But for now, she was having too much fun to care. When she'd woken up that morning, Kai had felt that supervising a Scrabble tournament between old fogies was the last thing she would ever want to do. But it had gotten her out of touring Bucknell with Andres and her parents, and it was turning out to be more than a fair trade.

  "How's everybody doing over here?" Debbie asked brightly.

  "Fine, dear. Just fine," a large lady whom everyone called Babs replied. So far she'd racked up all of thirty- four points with words like at, mad, and can. But she seemed to be enjoying herself. "Now tell me, what kind of club is it that you girls belong to?"

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  This should be good, Kai thought.

  "It's called a V Club," Debbie said.

  Eva flushed and looked at the floor.

  "A what}" Mr. Consuelo asked, blanching.

  "Is that like a knitting circle?" Mrs. Hallstrom, the fourth "player, asked, tipping her hearing-aided ear toward the girls.

  Kai laughed. "Um . . . no. We're just a bunch of virgins celebrating our virginity."

  "Well, now I've heard everything," Mr. Consuelo said, pulling off his glasses to pinch the top of his nose.

  "So you're all virgins?" Mrs. Buerkle asked just as Mandy wandered over to the group.

  Why does it feel like they're all looking at me? Kai thought, her skin overheating.

  "Yeah, we all are," she said. "Every last one of us."

  Mandy and Debbie exchanged a look that made it obvious they had been wondering about Kai. Kai was unsurprised. After all, Mandy had pretty much insinuated her suspicions already during volleyball practice. But it still irritated her that they had obviously talked about it behind her back.

  "I think it's great," Babs said. She leaned over and grasped Eva's wrist. "You hold on to your flower, girl. Don't let just any old rake take it from ya."

  Kai was certain that Eva was about to faint to the floor.

  "I think it's insane!" Mrs. Buerkle put in, glaring at Kai like she had just betrayed a lifelong trust. "In this day

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  and age? You girls have come so far! Why would you feel the need to restrict yourselves like that?"

  Kai and Debbie looked at each other blankly. Good question.

  "It's not a restriction," Mandy said, stepping into the fray. "It's a choice. A healthy choice."

  "Damn straight," Babs said, shifting her large butt in her small chair. "I wish I'd had some friends to support me before I gave it up to that Richard kid."

  Kai's eyes sparkled as she looked at her friends. "Richard?"

  "Oh, yeah. Bad seed, that one," she said, clucking her tongue. "He acted like he was my friend, you know. Got all sensitive and pretended like he was interested in me and my family and everything I had to say. Then he takes my flower and heads for the hills. Never heard from him again.

  "Men are worthless," Babs concluded.

  'That's it. I don't have to listen to this!" Mr. Consuelo said, standing rather quickly for a man with a cane.

  "Don't listen to Babs, girls," Mrs. Buerkle said, turning in her seat. "Not all men are like that. Sex can be wonderful. You shouldn't close yourself off to the experience altogether."

  "Who're
you, Dr. Ruth?" Kai joked.

  "Shoulda been," Mrs. Buerkle lamented. "You know how much money that woman has?"

  "My Harold could go for hours!" Mrs. Hallstrom

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  announced rather loudly, causing the entire room to fall silent.

  "Well!" Mandy called out suddenly. "I think it's time for snacks! Debbie. Kai. Let's go!"

  She grabbed Kai and Debbie's arms and pulled them toward the refreshment table as everyone around them resumed their games. Babs's words kept replaying in Kai's mind.

  "He acted like he was my friend . . . then he takes my flower and heads for the hills."

  Apparently Kai's life story wasn't all that original.

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  Chapter 11

  "Thanks for the ride," Debbie called out as she climbed out of Riley's car later that day. She couldn't have been happier with her own self-control. A whole day and no touching, no suggesting, no nothing. She was good. Still, her nonflirtation hadn't prevented Riley from flirting with her. Maybe whatever he'd heard about her didn't actually bother him. Maybe there was still a chance he wanted to go out with her.

  Debbie jogged into the house, her hair bouncing over her shoulders, and started right up the stairs. Her father entered her room right behind her and she jumped.

  "Who was that, driving you home?" he asked sternly.

  "Oh, that was just Riley," Debbie answered. In her excitement she forgot to come up with a girl's name. The second she realized her mistake, she headed her

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  father off at the pass. "We're studying together for the Math and Science competition," she announced.

  Her father's face lit up with a rare smile. "So, you decided finally to take my advice," he said, crossing his arms over his polo shirt.

  Debbie was irked by his obvious satisfaction, but she didn't let it affect her. She was in too good a mood. "Yes, I did," she said.

  "I'm very proud of you, Deborah," he told her.

  Debbie smiled. It was actually kind of nice when he said he was proud of her. It happened so infrequently lately. She was surprised by a sudden rush of warmth toward her father.

  "Hey, Dad," she said, surprising herself. "I have a lacrosse game this Friday. . . . Do you think you might want to come?"