Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? (32 page)

Ronnie's big brown eyes filled with tears, and they already looked tired from crying. “You have to help me. I don't know what to . . .” She stopped, gulped, tried again. “I can't tell any—”

“You're not pregnant,” Margalo said.

“No, no, that's not—But it's—It's embarrassing.”

Usually Mikey didn't have anything much to do with Ronnie Caselli. She didn't dislike Ronnie, but she didn't trust her for much or care very much what she got up to, since their interests seldom coincided. But now Mikey was worried. Because if Ronnie Caselli wasn't on top of the world, who knew what could happen to the rest of them?

“Drugs?” Mikey asked. “Are you sick? Not HIV.” Because kids didn't get AIDS, did they? But they did, didn't they? “Cancer? Are your parents getting divorced? C'mon, Ronnie.”

“It's Chet,” Ronnie murmured. One tear pooled out of her eye and started down her cheek. She wiped it away, with another one of those sad, sad smiles.

It was one of Ronnie's love crises, and who cared about that?

“What's happened?” Margalo asked. Mikey leaned back and took a bite of apple turnover, ready not to be surprised.

But she was. Shocked, in fact, and so was Margalo, even though Margalo's face didn't give that away. Margalo's expression didn't change at all when Ronnie started telling them. What Chet wanted—Well, that wasn't surprising, Mikey guessed, everybody said boys just wanted to have sex—and then what he had threatened to do.

“Rhonda,” Margalo said.

“What?” Mikey asked, and then she got it.
Rodents!
Was she going to start feeling sorry for Rhonda Ransom, too? As if she didn't have enough problems in her own life.

“But why would he want to if you don't?” Mikey demanded.

“He's a guy,” Ronnie explained. Now that she had stated her problem out loud, she seemed a little more normal, for which Mikey was grateful.

“And it's his Senior Prom,” Ronnie added, as if that explained something.

“And if you won't sleep with him,” Margalo said, stating it clearly, “he'll tell everyone that you did.”

Ronnie nodded. “And then he'll ditch me.”

“You mean you haven't already broken up with him?” Mikey demanded.

Margalo asked, “When did all this happen?”

“Yesterday. Last night. We had a study date, at my house because I'm not allowed to go out on school nights.”

“He said this in your own house?” Mikey demanded.

“He was whispering,” Ronnie explained.

“He can't get away with that,” Mikey declared.

“They'll believe him,” Ronnie explained to Margalo. “They will, and everybody knows how much I love him.”

“You have to stop all this falling in love,” Mikey told Ronnie. “It's not like you really are, anyway, because”—she raised her voice to drown out their objections—“if you really are in love, it's not that easy to fall out of it. You've been in love three times that I personally know about, and we're not even friends, and that's just in one year.”

“Never mind that,” Margalo said. “Who have you told about this?”

“Nobody. He does love me,” Ronnie explained.

“Like I believe that,” Mikey muttered.

“He says I'm breaking his heart.” Ronnie smiled again. She was about to weep again.

“Right,” Mikey said, but Margalo, she could see, was thinking about something else, so Mikey reassured Ronnie, “I'll be happy to tell him what I think. And punch him in his baby blues, too.”

“You can't,” Ronnie said. Her voice was low, urgent. “You can't do that because he'll say it then—about me. And you know everybody will believe him. Because they'll want to believe him about me,” she said, and, “Do you think I have to do it with him? I don't want to. I don't want to have sex with anybody, not yet,” Ronnie whispered, as if that embarrassed her too. But it was the first smart thing she'd said since she started all this falling in love, as far as Mikey was concerned, so why should it embarrass her?

“Maybe you should tell your parents,” Margalo suggested.

“I can't. No, really, I can't. They—They don't know anything about how things are for me. They'd—they'd probably ground me for a whole year or make me change schools. What if they didn't believe me? They don't understand what it's like for me, so whatever they did . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she explained simply, “They're grown-ups.”

“Okay, then, what about your adviser?” Margalo suggested.

“The faculty tells everything to anybody, about students. They talk about us, you know they do, especially if you're
having problems. Then everybody would know, and then Chet would—”

“Mr. Robredo?” Mikey suggested, but Ronnie looked alarmed and maybe even frightened at that suggestion.

“I
couldn't,
” she said. “Really, I just couldn't. Could you?”

“Of course,” Mikey maintained, although she wasn't so sure of it. But she wasn't sure she wouldn't, either, and besides, this wasn't a problem she expected to be running into.

“All right,” Margalo said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees, to think. “All right, then. I have an idea. To make it work, we'll need Louis's help and you're going to have to—How good a liar are you? Or how good an actress, because you're going to have to pull the wool over Chet's eyes.”

“He's a senior,” Ronnie protested.

Margalo ignored that. “And we're going to need to get it set up fast, today, right away. So you have to start lying right away. And go put on some makeup, too. People are already wondering what's wrong. The way you're talking privately with us. The way you're looking not at all good.”

This was true. Neither Mikey nor Ronnie had noticed it, but they were getting looks from some people. Mikey Elsinger and Margalo Epps were not the kind of girls that someone like Ronnie Caselli had what looked like it might be a private conversation with. Curiosity was building as to what this private conversation might be about.

“I'll tell them . . .” But Ronnie was too upset to think of a believable lie.

Then Margalo asked, “What do you know about Mikey's stepfather?”

“Jackson?” asked Mikey, as if she had a choice of stepfathers. What was Margalo doing asking Ronnie about Jackson? Talk about
non sequiturs.

“He's from Texas. He's somebody important. Rich,” Ronnie added. “Why?”

Margalo said, “Let's say he's a lawyer, and you asked Mikey to get his advice.”

“Is he?” Ronnie asked.

“Because you're thinking of bringing a sexual harassment suit against Chet,” Margalo said.

“What?” asked Ronnie.

“Brilliant!” cried Mikey. “Why not date rape?”

“That's a serious crime. We don't want to mess around with something like that,” Margalo said. “But listen, Ronnie—If Mikey has a stepfather who is a lawyer, and if she asked him about what constituted sexual harassment, and if Chet knew she was doing that for you,” Margalo said, setting out the points of her plan. She concluded, “He'll head for cover. He'll be frightened, I'm pretty sure of it.” She began her instructions. “If I were you, I'd start by asking Rhonda if Chet sexually harassed her, and then just one or two other girls he's been out with, like that tenth grader between Rhonda and you—”

“Candy DeAngelo?”

“Her. Ask her if she's ever been sexually harassed. They'll talk to their friends about your asking that question, you can count on it. You don't have to tell them exactly what happened, you just bring up the subject, like a reporter gathering information. But Louis is key to this plan. You need Louis to talk to people about how your family is thinking about doing what Jackson advises.”

“But everybody's furious at Louis for messing up in school, his father especially, so Louis isn't in the mood to help the family. Although he might help
me
,” Ronnie said. Just thinking about this plan was reestablishing her self-confidence. “He'd do it to help
me
,” she assured Margalo and Mikey. “I'll get him to come talk to you. You stay right here,” she said. She rose, already looking better, with some sparkle to her eyes and some straightness in her shoulders. “What's your stepfather's name?” she asked Mikey.

“Jackson. But he's—”

“Don't say it,” Margalo advised.

That was irritating, Margalo giving orders like that, but Mikey obeyed. This was one of Margalo's best ideas ever. This was fighting fire with fire, rumor with rumor, taking an eye for an eye, really getting even and maybe even getting ahead. “Do you think it'll work?” she asked Margalo.

That question alarmed Ronnie. “What if it doesn't?”

Margalo just grinned, like a little kid who got excused from taking a spelling test she forgot to study for. “I don't know,”
she told Mikey. “I just thought it up, I haven't thought it through. But it
could
.”

“Hey hey,” said a male voice, distracting the three of them. A large male hand emerged from one side of Ronnie's waist, and Chet was standing behind her. “Hey, Babe, I've been looking all over for you.” He smiled down at Mikey and Margalo, who remained seated, staring up at him, a little stupefied.
Had he heard what they were saying?

Stupefied seemed to be what Chet liked. His smile got lazy, sure of itself. “I haven't met these friends of yours, Ronnie.”

Ronnie had recovered quickly enough to say, with a toss of her head that made her ponytail brush against his neck, “Margalo Epps. Mikey Elsinger.”

Chet
was
handsome, with dark, thick eyebrows, and he did have a great smile, also sky blue eyes and broad shoulders; and he was tall, already over six feet. He ignored Margalo but said to Mikey, “You got tossed off the tennis team. Am I right? Mark was grousing.”

Mikey smiled right up at him. “Call me Michelle.”

“Michelle? That's your real name, right?”

“Yeah.” Mikey continued smiling,
You are in big trouble.
Even she could figure out what Chet was thinking. He was thinking,
There goes another one.
He didn't know anything about Mikey.

“So, what are you girls getting up to?” Chet asked, pulling Ronnie in close to him.

Ronnie looked at Margalo. Mikey looked at Margalo.

Margalo looked at Chet and discovered that she had the answer. “Ronnie wants us to tutor Louis.” She looked at Ronnie. “Because her family is so upset about him flunking the year.” She looked at Mikey. “Mikey will do the Math”—and then she turned back to Chet—“and I'll do English. If he passes those two, he can make up Science and Social Studies in summer school.”

“Why would I agree to tutor Louis?” Mikey demanded, not having yet figured out what Margalo was up to now. “He's stupid and he doesn't want to learn anything. It would be a total waste of my time.”

Margalo said to Chet, “I, on the other hand, think we could do it.”

“Why doesn't Louis ask them himself, Babe?” Chet asked Ronnie.

“He hates us,” Margalo explained.

“You're right about that,” Mikey said. “And it's mutual.”

“That's going to be part of the fun,” Margalo said.

“I don't get it,” Chet said.

By now Mikey and Ronnie did. Ronnie said, “I was just about to go find Louis and tell him.”

“I'll come with you,” Chet said. “I haven't laid eyes on you all morning.”

Ronnie looked up into his face with the soft-eyed look he was hoping to see.

“I really miss you when I don't see you all morning, Babe,”
Chet said. “She's made my senior year just great, just about perfect,” he said, apparently speaking to Mikey and Margalo, but still looking at Ronnie.

To get the conversation off of this topic, Mikey said, “I don't think Louis
can
get caught up. There's only thirty-nine days left—less, counting the exam period.”

“Where's your fighting spirit, Michelle?” teased Chet.

Mikey smiled again.
You're about to find out, you no-good ratfink lunchpail bum.
“He's been flunking Math since the second marking period. That's November.”

“I bet we can do it,” Margalo argued, keeping the conversation focused. Their only hope to successfully attack Chet was the element of surprise. “I bet when we get through with Louis, he'll pass both English and Math.”

Mikey played along. “How much? C'mon, Margalo, put your money where your mouth is. How much will you bet?”

Margalo hesitated, thought about it, looked at Chet as if about to ask his advice, but just as he was about to offer it, she said, “A nickel.”

“Done,” said Mikey, and she held out her hand. Margalo took it in hers and they shook, like wrestlers at the start of a match only they knew was fixed.

“Tell Louis we want to see him at lunch tomorrow,” Margalo said to Ronnie.

“You let them tell you what to do like that, Babe?”

“Let us do the explaining,” Margalo advised Ronnie.

M
r. Wolsowski was waiting for Mikey at the end of school, behind the desk in his classroom with its shelves full of books—class sets of novels and dictionaries, anthologies of poetry and essays—and its literary posters—Shakespeare, of course, surrounded by his most famous quotes; a time line showing major world events and when writers lived, from Homer to Toni Morrison; the movie poster for
A Room with a View.
Mr. Wolsowski had his windows wide-open, so he was using one of the dictionaries to weigh down his pile of papers.

Mikey went right up to the desk. Mr. Wolsowski put down his red pen—didn't teachers do anything but grade papers?—and sat forward in his chair. “What's the problem, Mikey?”