A Week of Mondays

  My mouth drops open, too, and I let out a quiet gasp.

  Hadley shoots me a strange look. “You’ve never seen The Breakfast Club?” Her tone is accusatory and aghast.

  I don’t answer her. I scoot off the bed, mumbling a hasty good night, and then I’m scurrying down the hall into my bedroom. I tear open my closet door and scan my selection of clothes. I won’t have a ton to work with, but I’ll have to make do. It’s not like I can buy an entirely new wardrobe at ten o’clock at night. I start pulling hangers off the rack and assembling the new look on my bed, trying out different combinations.

  Emilio Estevez didn’t see Ally Sheedy as his match until she transformed herself. She’d been hiding under that awful bag-lady disguise her whole life.

  Maybe I’ve been doing the same thing.

  Maybe I’ve been afraid to truly be myself.

  I hear a creak near my bedroom window and my head whips around. My face breaks into a smile. I can’t wait to tell Owen my big plan. He’ll love it.

  I run to the window and thrust it open, reaching my hand out to help him with his entry, but there’s no one outside. Only the wind blowing through the leaves of the tree.

  Then I recall the events of the night. I didn’t see him at the carnival. I didn’t run out crying. There would be no reason for him to come check on me. We’re still in that uneasy place where we left things today.

  I feel a stab of guilt in my chest, but I quickly push it away. Tomorrow, Owen won’t even remember that fight. Tomorrow, I’ll fix everything. I’ll make it up to him.

  I assume I’ll get another chance. Another Monday. Why wouldn’t I? I haven’t successfully fixed this day yet.

  After a half hour of costume trial and error, I finally piece together the perfect outfit. An outfit Tristan is practically guaranteed to respond to. He doesn’t think we’re a match, huh? Well, wait until he gets a load of this.

  I’m about to take a picture of the ensemble with my phone when I realize it won’t be there tomorrow morning. So instead I take a mental snapshot, then scoop up all the clothes and return them to my closet.

  I’m hanging up the first item when an idea hits me.

  Why am I bothering to put all of this away? Won’t everything just magically be put back into place tomorrow morning when the day resets?

  A mischievous grin spreads across my face. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve never ever had a messy room. Everything has always been put into its proper place. My mom used to brag to her friends about how tidy I was. My favorite game to play as a kid was “housekeeper.”

  I look down at the clothes in my arms and suck in a huge breath.

  Then …

  I let go.

  The clothes and hangers fall into an unsightly heap at my feet. I cringe, fighting the urge to pick them up so they won’t wrinkle. I glance around my neat, orderly bedroom. My posters perfectly aligned on my wall. My bookshelf meticulously alphabetized by author. My collection of glass figurines precisely positioned on my dresser. The string of soft fairy lights hung over my bed. The labeled folders stacked on my desk.

  After another deep breath, I release a quiet battle cry and lunge into action. I become Hurricane Ellie. A category seven. A force of destruction. I dump books on the floor. I pull clothes off their hangers. I yank posters from the wall. I destroy everything. Until there’s nothing left of my old, safe world.

  This is the new Ellison Sparks. She is reckless. She is determined. She is not to be messed with.

  Panting, I collapse on my bed, my heart racing. I feel like a wild animal who’s finally been let out of its cage and has wreaked havoc on the poor neighboring village.

  I sit up and survey the damage.

  It’s impressive. I can barely even see my carpet anymore.

  The old Ellie would be totally freaking out right now. I can feel her buried deep down inside me. I can feel her trying to steer my body, manipulate my muscles, will my legs to move, my arms to pick up, my hands to clean. But I repress her. I shove her further and further down.

  She had her chance and she failed.

  She lost the boy.

  She blew it.

  It’s time to try something completely different. It’s time to become someone new.

  The Way We Were (Part 3)

  Five months ago …

  “I beg to differ,” I argued, pulling my wet legs out of the pool and hugging them to my chest in an effort to thwart the bitter wind that was sweeping through Daphne Gray’s backyard. “I have amazing taste in music. If my taste in music were an ice cream flavor, it would be—”

  “Rocky Road,” we both said at once.

  Tristan grinned. “I don’t know, Ellie,” he said, sounding like an old-timey boxer about to challenge me to a fight. “I’m having serious doubts.”

  “Just because I thought your music was…” I trailed off.

  “Noise,” he was nice enough to remind me. “You called it noise.”

  My cheeks turned the color of cherry tomatoes. The super-ripe ones. “Sorry about that.”

  “So, if you don’t like my music, what kind of music do you like?”

  “Um,” I bumbled, “you know, like, old music.”

  “Old music? Are we talking Renaissance? Medieval? Because I could play you a really mean Baroque concerto on the electric guitar.”

  I giggled. “No, I mean like from the sixties.”

  “Ah. So you’re a hippie?”

  “Not all sixties music is hippie music.”

  He leaned back. “Okay, hippie. What’s your favorite song from the sixties?”

  I slumped. “That’s impossible. You can’t make me pick.”

  “Um, I think I just did.”

  “Um, I don’t have to answer.”

  He reached around me and grabbed one of my sneakers, clutching it possessively to his chest. “If you want your shoe back, you do.”

  Of course, as my heart was racing like a hamster on a hamster wheel, all I could think was I really hope that shoe doesn’t smell.

  “Hey!” I made an effort to reach for the shoe.

  He pulled it out of reach. “Nuh-uh. Shoe for song.”

  “I can’t choose my favorite! There are too many.”

  “You don’t have to write it in blood. No one’s going to know if it’s really your favorite or not. I won’t wake up Jim Morrison in his grave and tell him you gave him the shaft.”

  I let out a huff. “Fine. I guess I would say ‘You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me’ by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.”

  He pursed his lips in deep concentration, and then declared, “Nope. Don’t know that one.”

  My mouth fell open. “How could you not know that song? It’s a classic. And you call yourself a musician.”

  He slammed the sole of my shoe against his chest like it was a dagger burying into his heart. “Ouch!”

  I recoiled. “Oops. Sorry. Again. But seriously. You have to know that song.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t. How does it go? Sing it for me.”

  I instinctively scooted away from him. “Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no.”

  He threw his hands up. “What?”

  “I am not singing. Especially not for you.”

  “Me? I’m only a guy who calls himself a musician, but in reality I’m just a bunch of noise.”

  The words were hostile but his face was one hundred percent flirt.

  “Go on,” he urged. “Sing. I’m waiting to hear this classic masterpiece of a song that is so not noise.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Not doing it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t sing!”

  “Everyone can sing.”

  “Fine. I can’t sing well.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Even in the shower? Everyone sounds better in the shower. You do sing in the shower, don’t you?”

  “Sure I do, but—”

  Suddenly there was a tug on my hand and I felt myself being yanked to my feet. He leaned d
own, grabbed my second shoe and paired it with the other under his arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

  The feeling of his hand wrapped around mine made my tongue too big for my mouth. “Where are we going?”

  “To the shower. I need to hear this song.”

  I tried to pull my hand away but he kept it tightly clutched in his. “Um. Excuse me?” I protested. “I’m not getting in the shower with someone I just met.”

  He kept walking. “We’re not running the water. It’s for the acoustics. You can keep your clothes on.” He paused and peered down at my shoes tucked under his arm. “Well, except for these, which you’ll get back after I hear you sing.”

  I followed behind him as he led me back through the sliding glass door and into the wild, flapping arms of the party. Jolts of nervous energy were shooting through me with every step. I could feel a thousand pairs of eyes on us. I could hear their screaming thoughts, their silent shouts of disbelief.

  What is he doing with her?

  Is that where he’s been all this time?

  Why is he holding her shoes?

  Or better yet, why is he holding her hand?

  Tristan Wheeler was not allowed to walk back into this party with me. The planet was not allowed to be knocked that far out of orbit.

  But for some miraculous, impossible-to-explain reason, I didn’t care what they thought. Maybe it was because Tristan didn’t care. Heck, he didn’t even seem to notice. He was the wolf in this room and they were his sheep. And wolves don’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep.

  He guided me up the stairs and into a bathroom off the main hallway. He didn’t let go of my hand the whole time. Not even when he closed the door behind us, which he had to do with the elbow of the arm that was holding my shoes.

  “I thought the deal was I got my shoe back when I told you my favorite song,” I objected.

  He dropped my hand then and reached for the first shoe he stole from me. “You’re right. Here you go.” He handed it over but still clung tight to the second sneaker. “This one is for the performance.”

  He pulled back the rubbery shower curtain with a swish and stepped into the tub. He sat down cross-legged near the faucet, making himself comfortable, cocooning my shoe in the gap between his legs.

  He patted the base of the tub in front of him. “Come on. Plenty of room.”

  I choked out a laugh. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Less than thirty minutes ago I was resigned to driving home and watching a rerun of Law and Order, maybe two if I was feeling especially bold, and now I was about to get into an empty bathtub, fully clothed, with Tristan Wheeler.

  This doesn’t just happen to girls like me. This doesn’t just happen to anyone.

  Reluctantly I placed my sneaker on the sink counter, stepped into the tub, and slid down the back wall until my knees were under my chin.

  Tristan slid the shower curtain back into place, sealing us alone in this little fiberglass heaven. Then he looked at me and waited.

  “Do I really have to do this?”

  He motioned around us. “We’re in the shower. No one sounds bad in the shower, remember?”

  I took a deep breath. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding at Mach speed.

  I opened my mouth and hesitantly let the lyrics of the first verse tumble out. “I don’t like you, but I love you…”

  The melody was so soft, so convolutedly tangled up in my sporadic breathing, I wondered if he could even hear it. I prayed he couldn’t.

  But his gaze was trained on me. His jaw hanging in a slack smile. His eyes dancing. I closed mine tight. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him while this was happening.

  I’m singing! To Tristan Wheeler! What is this parallel dimension of my life?

  As I neared the chorus, I thought about ending it right there. He didn’t say I had to sing the whole song. But then suddenly my voice was lifted. It sounded richer somehow. Fuller. I realized it was because someone with a much deeper register was harmonizing with me.

  I opened my eyes and our gazes crashed together for the second time that night. A collision that I was sure I would never survive. Not even with four seat belts and all the airbags in the world.

  We sang the chorus together. Me taking the melody, him taking the lower third. “You really got a hold on me.”

  When we reached the end of the stanza I squinted suspiciously at him. “I thought you said you didn’t know it.”

  He tossed my sneaker to me. I caught it.

  “About that,” he said, grinning. “I may have lied to get you in the shower.”

  THE FOURTH MONDAY

  Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag

  7:04 a.m.

  Bloop-dee-dee-bloop-bloop-bing!

  I sit up with a start, rub the sleep from my eyes, and gaze around my room.

  Carpet. I can see my carpet.

  Bookshelf. Every title is back in its proper, alphabetized place.

  Desk. Papers stacked in neat piles.

  Wall. Posters pinned up in perfect alignment.

  Everything is as it should be. Everything is perfect. It’s like last night’s Hurricane Ellie never even happened.

  THIS IS SO COOL!!!!

  Bloop-dee-dee-bloop-bloop-bing!

  I shove the covers from my legs, stand up on my mattress, and start dancing. Dancing and singing and jumping and squealing and kicking the air like a mixed martial arts champion.

  Hadley bursts into my room a moment later. She stops in the doorway, staring up at me in utter bewilderment. I do a karate chop in her direction, belting out a “hi-ya!”

  “Um,” she begins warily. “What are you doing?”

  “Life is amazing, isn’t it?” I call out at the top of my lungs. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. “How come I never knew how bouncy this mattress is?! Hads, you have to try this!”

  “Ummmmmmm,” she repeats, elongating the word until it’s way too many syllables. “I’ll pass.”

  I stop bouncing, drop my head back, and let out a loud, witchlike cackle.

  “Are you on drugs?” Hadley asks.

  “Nope!” I drop onto my butt and spring to my feet, sticking the landing with my arms up like an Olympic gymnast. “9.6 from the Russian judge!”

  “Mom!” Hadley yells into the hallway. “Ellie’s on crank! She’s a crankenstein!”

  I hoot. “Crankenstein! Good one!”

  My sister takes off and I close the door and start getting ready.

  Forty minutes later, I’ve been totally transformed.

  I took a black lace tube top that I usually wear under lower-cut shirts to make them “school appropriate” and turned it into a miniskirt. I paired that with a formfitting black long-sleeve shirt that I attacked with a pair of scissors, making it a crop top. I caked my eyes with dark shimmery eye shadows, rimmed my lids with heavy black eyeliner, stained my lips a deep, sensual red, and painted my fingernails black.

  Yup. Extreme Makeover: Ellie Edition is in full swing.

  The only thing I’m missing is the shoes. But I think I know exactly where to get them. I swing my schoolbag over my shoulder and head into my parents’ bedroom. My mom keeps all her old Halloween costumes at the back of her closet. I find the vampy lace-up boots from when she went as a Spice Girl four years ago and slide them on over a pair of fishnet stockings I wore for a camp play once. The boots fit perfectly, but it takes me about a year and a half to lace the darn things up. Once I do, my outfit is complete.

  I stare at my reflection in Mom’s full-length mirror, admiring the brand-new me. The improved me. I am no longer Ellie Sparks. I am Elle, the confident, sultry, ready-for-anything vixen. There’s no way Tristan—or any other guy on this planet—will be able to resist Elle.

  Ooh, which reminds me. I dig my phone out of my bag and see the two text messages from Tristan.

  Tristan: I can’t stop thinking about last night.

  Tristan: Let’s talk today.

  I quickly tap out the response I spent an hour formulating las
t night as I was trying to fall asleep.

  Me: Oh, I’ll give you something to talk about, Tristan Wheeler.

  I press Send with a giddy squeal and start down the stairs. I saunter into the kitchen like I’m on a fashion week runway in Paris. The Family Circus comes to a screeching halt. Hadley slams her book closed. My dad’s iPad nearly falls from his hands. My mom—who is about to slam a kitchen cabinet closed—lets her arms fall limply to her sides.

  I grab an apple from the fruit basket and take a big, luscious bite.

  Toast is for softies. New girl. New diet.

  “What?” I ask, my mouth full of pulpy fruit.

  I wait for the protests to begin. This is the part where my dad says, “There’s no way you’re leaving the house wearing that, young lady!” Or, “Go back upstairs and try again, missy!” Or, “Honey, I think you forgot to put your pants on.”

  But it never comes.

  Every member of my family is way too stunned to say anything. Well, except Hadley, who whispers, “Told you,” to my mom.

  I grab my umbrella and swagger to the garage door, stopping long enough to turn around and say, “Oh, Mom. I borrowed your shoes. I hope that’s okay.”

  She nods dazedly.

  “Aren’t they bitchin’?” I ask Hadley, staring down at my feet. I pull my phone out and take a quick picture. “Shoefie!”

  Then I disappear into the garage.

  What I wouldn’t give to have a hidden camera in that kitchen right now.

  I settle in behind the wheel of my car, start the engine, and click on my seat belt.

  Bloop-dee-dee-bloop-bloop-bing!

  I pull out my phone, grinning when I see that Tristan has responded to my last message.

  Tristan: Is this Ellie?

  I laugh aloud and press Shuffle on my “Wowza! Yowza!” playlist. “Good Golly Miss Molly” comes on and I crank up the volume.

  No, Tristan, I think as I back out of the garage. This is most certainly not Ellie.

  Get Back to Where You Once Belonged

  8:01 a.m.

  “Wow, it’s really chucking it down out—” Owen stops midsentence and stares into the car, dumbfounded.

  “Yes?” I ask, pouting with my red-stained lips.