Page 9 of Puddin''


  Willowdean shakes her head. “If there’s anyone I’m sorry for here, it’s you. That girl is like a ball of prickly burrs all tied up in a bow.”

  I smile halfheartedly. I’ve already promised myself to give her the benefit of the doubt, but the truth is I’m mad. I’m really, truly angry. I feel violated, like this one little space I had to call my own—this dirty, smelly gym—is no longer safe. It’s no longer my own. And it’s hard not to take offense to the fact that working with me is part of her punishment. I shrug, trying to get beyond the negativity. “Well, if anything, she’s lucky my uncle was generous enough not to press charges.”

  Amanda nods. “You’re not kidding.”

  A brief quiet settles. This slumber party needs a hit of adrenaline.

  “Ice-cream sundaes!” I say, the words coming out like more like Eureka! “I think it’s time for an ice-cream sundae break.”

  Hannah laughs, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. “Well, that’s something I don’t hate.”

  Willowdean nods. “A-plus slumber party, Millicent Michalchuk!”

  Sprinkles make everything better, and for a whole night I even forget about Daisy Ranch and how in the world I’m ever going to get into broadcast journalism camp.

  Callie

  Ten

  The wheels of my mom’s Tahoe barely come to a stop outside the gym before I swing the door open and jump out. “I can’t believe you agreed to this without consulting me,” I tell her. This is the constant argument we’ve had for the last few days, which I’ve spent at home serving suspension. Every time it fizzles out, one of us sparks it right back up again, like two trick birthday candles.

  “Well,” she shouts as I slam the door. The automatic window buzzes as it rolls down, so she can be sure she’s heard. “I still can’t believe you vandalized a place of business like some damn hooligan.”

  “You don’t think I’ve already been punished enough? Everything I’ve spent the last few years working for has basically evaporated.” My voice grows louder with each word, and a few people in the shopping center, including a couple of men exiting the gym, pause to watch our interaction.

  My mom, fully aware of our audience, doesn’t bother to indulge me. “I’ll pick you up at six,” she says. “I love you, honey.”

  I spin on my heels and shout, “Sure you do.” I go out of my way to make eye contact with absolutely every person I pass in the parking lot. It takes everything in me not to snap at each of them. Keep staring, I think. Watch the pretty girl’s life unravel before your very eyes. And that’s really one of the shittier parts of this whole thing. When you’re at the top, people just love to watch you fall.

  The bells above the door jingle as I walk into the gym, and Millie is the first person I see. Perfect, I think.

  Popping down from her stool behind the counter, she waves and says, “Hiya! You’re Callie.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” I respond dryly. “Hi, Millie.”

  You would think a girl like Millie would do her best to stay out of the spotlight, but I swear to God the girl does everything in her power to not be missed. Like today. In her lavender leggings and hot-pink tunic dress with sneakers that appear to be hand-painted with flowers and kittens.

  She claps her hands together. “Welcome to Down for the Count! I don’t know if you remember me, but I do the morning announcements for your mom at school.”

  “Well, we collided in the office the other week,” I tell her. “You were in the pageant.” Couldn’t miss her, really. “And we’ve gone to school together since elementary school. So, yeah. I know who you are.”

  She smiles, but her lips are stiffer than they were a moment ago. “Well, I try my best not to make any assumptions, and I didn’t want to embarrass you in case you had forgotten me.”

  Oh, this girl is good. Her passive-aggressive game is next level. It’s so good that most people would just mistake it for manners. “Right,” I say. “Well, let’s get this over with.”

  I haven’t seen this place in the light of day. The brand-new window stretching across the store front is shiny and tinted. Much of the equipment has signs on it that read TEMPORARILY OUT OF ORDER, and the women’s locker room is currently under construction . . . which is probably from the damage incurred last week. I know that I should feel bad, but I’m too pissed off to care.

  Millie takes me behind the counter and pulls out a label maker and a blank plastic name tag. “First things first! A name tag. C-A-L-L-I-E?” she asks.

  “Yep.”

  “Callie and Millie,” she says, testing our names out in tandem. “We sound like a crime-fighting duo.”

  “Except in this duo, I’m the actual criminal,” I remind her.

  Her cheeks turn even pinker than they already are as she repositions herself back on her stool. “There’s another stool under the desk for you.”

  I watch as she carefully taps my name out on a label maker, and while it prints, she reaches under the counter for a backpack. Her hands emerge with sheets of stickers. “To decorate your name tag!” she says.

  While she applies the label to my name tag, I finger through the pages of mini holographic stickers and settle on a smiley face, which I apply upside down to signify that I’m in mourning for the life I once had. RIP me.

  “You know what?” says Millie. “You and my friend Hannah would really get along.”

  “Okay?”

  She smiles. “So Friday afternoons are on the slow side for us. Well, to be honest, almost every time of day is on the slow side for us at the moment. My uncle Vernon and aunt Inga own the place. Uncle Vernon is pretty chill and has been okay . . . through all of this, but Aunt Inga . . . well, you could say she holds on to things for a little longer.”

  “Inga?” I ask. “What kind of name is that?”

  “She’s Russian.”

  “Right,” I say. “So avoid the bitter Russian lady.”

  “Well, I never said bitter.” Millie smiles stiffly. “But yes.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  “Well, when members come in, they give us their card and we file it in this little box while they sign in on the clipboard.” Millie holds up what appears to be a small recipe box. “And when they leave, we hand them their card back.” She goes on to explain the procedure for when someone forgets their card and how to sign up new members.

  “So you guys are just a boxing gym?” I ask.

  “Well, under the franchise we were, but we’re trying to expand now and just be a regular . . . gym.”

  I look around. It’s not like the dance team did this place any favors, but it wasn’t exactly nice to begin with. We have another gym in town, Rick’s Total Body Fitness, which is undoubtedly the nicer of the two. Bryce and his dad have a membership, and Bryce added me as their permanent guest.

  “Maybe you guys should get some tanning beds like they have in the locker rooms at Rick’s? Or what about some spin classes or Pilates?” I feel my eyes growing bigger. I could make this whole damn place over. That would be some do-gooder stuff that would make my mom happy and maybe even get me back on the dance team. Shit, I’ll make over Millie while we’re at it. She could be my pièce de résistance or whatever.

  “We don’t want to be that kind of gym,” Millie says plainly. “Uncle Vernon wants this to be a no-frills kind of place, where you come in just the way you are.” Her gaze travels over the unoccupied machines and the rows of punching bags behind the boxing ring. “There’s nothing wrong with being tan and going to Pilates.” She shrugs. “But that’s not our thing.” She grabs a bucket full of cleaning supplies. “Now’s a good time to sanitize the weight machines.”

  Deflated, I yank the all-purpose cleaner from the bucket and tuck a roll of paper towels under my arm. This is what I get for trying to find the bright side. Note to self: the only bright side I’ve got left is Bryce.

  Later that afternoon as I’m following Millie to the back room, my arms weighed down with some seriously foul sweat towels, I as
k, “So do I, like, get a break at some point?”

  “Oh!” squeaks Millie. “Well, it’s usually just me, so I hadn’t really thought about that, but yeah, I guess you should. What do you think, like fifteen minutes or—”

  “I was thinking more like an hour.”

  She opens the lid to the washing machine, and I nearly gag as the whiff of BO hits me one more time as I release the towels from my arms.

  “How about we call it a compromise and say thirty?” She glances down at her cell phone. “We close in an hour anyway, so letting you go for an hour-long break would just be flat-out silly, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “That would be super . . . silly. You think I could borrow your phone?”

  She doesn’t even take a second to think about it before handing it over and leaving me there in the back room.

  I know only two phone numbers by heart: 911 and Bryce. I punch his number in as quick as I can.

  The line rings and rings and rings. “Come on,” I whisper. “Pick up.”

  On the eighth ring he answers. “Hello?” His voice is slow and sleepy.

  “Babe!” I almost scream. “Babe! It’s me. I’ve got thirty minutes right now, but you’ve got to come to me.”

  “Hello?” he asks again.

  “It’s me, Callie. Were you sleeping? I’m sorry to wake you up, but I’ve been on lockdown for days.”

  He clears his throat. “Sorry. I stayed out last night and totally missed school today. Last night was wild.”

  “You had a wild Thursday night?” I ask. “You know what? Never mind. Can you come get me? You gotta hurry, though. I only have a little bit of time.”

  “Yeah, sure thing,” he says. “And whose number is this?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “I’ve been trying to call you for days. I even swung by the house, and your stepdad made me leave. Did you really trash that gym? Why didn’t you tell me? Patrick’s telling people you must have been high as hell.”

  “Just get here, okay? I’ll explain everything.”

  It never takes more than ten minutes to get anywhere in Clover City, which is why I’m all kinds of ticked off when Bryce’s ten-minute drive takes twenty. By the time his tires squeal to a stop in the parking lot, I’ve already wasted most of my break sitting on the curb.

  As I get in the car, I slam the door shut behind me.

  “Hey, babe. Gentle on the door? This girl is fresh off the lot.” He leans over and kisses his way up my neck. “You wanna grab some tacos or something?”

  “I only have ten minutes,” I snap, jerking my body away.

  “What kind of break is that?”

  “Well, I had thirty minutes. But you took your fucking time.”

  “Well, this isn’t the reunion I’d imagined.” He pulls around to the back of the parking lot. “But we can do a lot in ten minutes.”

  “Not gonna happen,” I tell him. “You were out last night? Did someone have a party? Whose party?” I feel so cut off from the world without even the ability to stalk everyone on social media. “Is Patrick really telling people I was on drugs? What are people saying?”

  “Yeah. Kirsten. You know, Volleyball Kirsten. Her and Sam had a thing because Kirsten’s parents were out of town.”

  “You mean Volleyball Kirsten with her ass cheeks hanging out of her shorts? Yes, I know Volleyball Kirsten.” I cross my arms over my chest.

  “What’s your deal?” he asks. “Are you pissed at me for going out? I’ve heard nothing from you for days, okay? Radio silence. All your mom would say was that you were paying your debt to society. I heard Sheriff Bell tried to get you to snitch, though, and you were a steel trap. That’s my baby.”

  “Well, keeping my mouth shut has gotten me absolutely nowhere.” I shake my head, because in this moment of weakness right now, I’m pretty sure I’d drag the whole team down with me if I could. “Bryce, I’ve lost everything. The team, my social life, my job. It’d be nice if I didn’t have to worry about you and Volleyball Kirsten, okay?”

  He drags his fingers up the length of my thigh. “Baby, you don’t have to worry about me. I can fend off the ladies when you’re not around to mark your territory.”

  Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better. “What about Sam?” I ask. “Has she asked about me?”

  He studies the leather of his steering wheel before shaking his head.

  I glance down at the time on his dashboard. “I only have four minutes left.”

  “Why the hell are you working here, by the way?”

  I bite down on my lip. “I could explain, or we could make out for four minutes.”

  He laughs. “Option two, please.”

  Millie

  Eleven

  Judge not, lest you be judged. Judge not, lest you be judged. Judge not, lest you be judged. I repeat Matthew 7:1 over and over again in my head. It’s one of my favorite verses, and one I often find is either misused or ignored altogether.

  I knew working with Callie would test my patience. She’s just one of those girls. The kind of girl who I’m sure is smart, but gets by on pretty. She doesn’t have to go out of her way to be polite or sweet to anyone, because she’s not trying to make up for something else. I know people think I’m just a ball of cheer, and I am. Sometimes. But I don’t exactly get to be moody or snappy when I don’t feel like putting on a happy face, because when most people meet me, I’m already starting out with a deficit. Fat girls don’t get that luxury.

  I take a deep breath as the door swings open and Callie returns from her break. Judge not, lest you be judged. Judge not, lest you be judged.

  Every muscle in my body has been spun tight since this afternoon. Even my jaw is starting to throb. Ow! I hold a hand to my cheek. “How was your break?” I ask.

  Callie pulls down on her shirt around her waist and checks her makeup in the mirror behind the front desk. “It was whatever.”

  What does that even mean? “Was that your boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, Bryce.” Something about her voice feels far away, and suddenly I wonder if we don’t speak such different languages after all. “We haven’t spoken for days,” she adds.

  “Were y’all fighting?” I ask a little too quickly.

  She looks up. “Nope. Just been grounded. From absolutely everything. I can’t even go back to school until Monday.”

  “Why are you grou—”

  She smirks bitterly and motions around. “Why do you think?”

  “Sorry,” I say automatically, even though I don’t have a darn thing to apologize for.

  “Not your fault.” She plops down onto the stool beside me, like she’s resigned herself to this.

  I suck in a breath through my teeth. I wonder if she knows that I was the one who identified her.

  “What about you?” she asks. “Got a boyfriend?”

  The way she says it almost reminds me of that taunting singsong voice I’ve spent so much of my life hearing when I walk by. I watch her from the corner of my eye for a second before turning to face her. “It’s complicated.”

  She nods. “It always is.”

  “So we went to the Sadie Hawkins together in the fall.” I immediately feel ridiculous for spilling these details she didn’t even ask for. But once I start thinking about Malik, my brain turns into a fire hydrant that I just can’t manage to shut off. And with cleaning the gym and catching up on schoolwork, I’ve barely even been able to talk to him for the last week. “And there was a kiss. Well, a peck. But nothing since then. Nada!”

  She crosses her legs, holding her chin in her hand with her elbow rested on her knee. It’s like she’s a doctor giving me her prognosis. “So it started with the Sadie Hawkins dance, which I’m guessing means you asked him. The ball’s in his court at this point.”

  “Right. And we talk. But there hasn’t been any kissing. And I like the talking. But I really would prefer the kissing.”

  She shrugs. “When it’s good, it’s good
.”

  I nod longingly as I remember that moment with Malik in the parking lot of the school, the lights above us creating little glowing pools as we stood at the edge of one. “Tonight is his family birthday party, and he invited me and my friend Amanda. So maybe something will happen tonight?”

  “Hmmm.” She muses to herself for a moment. “Him inviting your friend tonight too is a major friend-zone sign. It’s been a while now since the dance, though, and you can’t just wait around for him forever.”

  Oh my gosh! She gets it! “Right?” Maybe she isn’t as awful as Willowdean said.

  “Give him one more shot,” she says. “But you gotta be smooth about it. Put yourself out on a limb for him just once more, and if nothing comes of it, at least you know you did everything you could.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s such bullshit the way we’re made to think that only boys can go after girls. What about what we want?”

  “Yes! Why should I have to sit around and wait for him to be brave enough? Maybe I’m plenty brave for the both of us.”

  Callie slinks back a little, like something about what I’ve said or my voice or something has just reminded her who she’s talking to: Millie, the fat girl. And not the cute fat girl. Not like Willowdean. I can practically hear Patrick Thomas oinking in the distance.

  My jaw throbs again, and this time I wince.

  “Are you okay?” asks Callie.

  I hold my hand to my cheek again. “Yeah. Just a toothache. You think you’re okay out here for a minute?”

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” she asks.

  I look at her for a moment, and she rolls her eyes. “I promise not to trash the place while you’re gone, okay?”

  I nod, secretly thankful that she put it out there before I had to. I shuffle to Uncle Vernon’s office, holding my cheek. I can feel the pain all the way down to my toes. I’ve had a toothache before, but this is something different altogether. I sit down at the desk and just close my eyes for a few moments as the throbbing thrums through me like a tuning fork.