Best Friends (Until Someone Better Comes Along) (11 page)

“They're not,” Ava said. “You just think they are.”

“But they are,” I argued. “If I did something completely embarrassing—like fall on my face during dance tryouts—everyone in school would know about it.”

“Yeah,” Bailey admitted. “I guess you have a point. But the thing is, if you just laughed it off, you could probably make people forget about it in two days. If one of
us
humiliated ourselves in front of the whole school, it would probably get blown up into this huge deal and whatever it was would follow us around until we graduated from high school. Like Susannah Green! Everyone called her Crybaby Green all last year because someone spread a rumor that she started crying about missing her favorite stuffed animal during Spanish. Remember that?”

The look on my face must have made it obvious that
I
was the one who had spread around the rumor about Susannah. She really had cried about something stupid and babyish, like missing her stuffed animal. I think. I wasn't actually in the same class with her when it happened, but Heidi had given me the details and, of course, we'd laughed about it all week.

Who does that in sixth grade? Susannah really hadn't
lived it down, but I'd never really thought about it much after that day. It didn't affect me on a daily basis, so I'd never really considered that the story had never gone away. It trailed her all year. Because of me. “Wow,” I said finally. “Poor Susannah.”

“Yeah,” Bailey sighed. “The thing you maybe don't realize is, most people care a lot less about what you and your friends are doing all the time than I bet you think they do. Mostly, I think people just kind of try to stay out of your way and hope you don't even notice them.”

I began to pick at my pinkie nail for the first time in over a week. Bailey saw me and said, “Hey! You're going to ruin my hard work.”

“Oh,” I said, stuffing my hands under my thighs. “Sorry.” After a moment's pause, I said, “Do
you
guys avoid me at school?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Bailey said, smiling sheepishly. “But it's a whole different world here at the lake, isn't it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. And you guys are so different than I thought you would be.”

“At first,” Ava said quietly, “you were exactly like I thought you would be. But now, you're different.”

“I'm really glad you guys ended up being here with me
this summer,” I said. “I don't think I would have survived without someone other than my parents to talk to this whole month.” All night, I'd been surprised at how much I was telling these newish friends. But at the same time, it was such a relief to confess some of my real feelings and fears to someone and know that the truth wouldn't come back to haunt me.

Because I knew my secrets were safe with Bailey and Ava, I also told them about my relationship with my parents and how much my dad had changed over the last two or three years. I'd complained about my annoying and critical parents with Heidi and Sylvie, of course, but I'd never admitted that my relationship with my mom and dad made me feel sad sometimes. I felt sort of wimpy, somehow, admitting that I was bummed because my dad never wanted to take me for ice cream anymore—that just sounded like a preschool problem. But I had a feeling Ava and Bailey might understand that it hurt to be forgotten by your parents. That sometimes I wanted to be noticed for more than my bad habits and worse attitude.

“My dad and I used to be really close,” I said. “But then, it was almost as if one day, he decided I was just this obstacle that moves around the house and gets in the way. We used to hang out on the weekends, avoiding my mom together, but
now I feel like we're all avoiding each other at the same time.”

“Why would you avoid your mom?” Ava asked. She'd told us, earlier in the night, about how her dad had ended up getting primary custody of her and Madeline when her parents divorced. Apparently, he had a more flexible job, and her mom travels all the time—so it worked out better for everyone for them to live with their dad most of the time. But I could tell Ava missed having her mom at home and missed having her around for a lot of regular life and girly stuff.

“She's really critical, and we just don't get along,” I said. “She's not the warmest person on earth.”

“I don't think I've even said a single word to her in the three weeks we've been here,” Bailey said, pulling her eyebrows together. “She hardly ever comes to the bonfires at night, does she?”

“Nope. She's sort of afraid of people.”

“Is she really?” Ava asked. “Like she has a phobia or something?”

“No,” I said, laughing at how serious Ava looked. She looked worried, as though my mom suffered from some sort of chronic problem, instead of just major stranger issues and general crankiness. “Not like that. She's just sort of snobby, I guess.” But then I realized it wasn't snootiness; it was
something else. Something that I myself had felt in the first few days at the lake. “Actually, it's not that she's snobby, but I think she's maybe afraid she won't really know what to say to people she doesn't know that well. She's not great at just chatting with strangers, so sometimes she comes across as unfriendly or sort of bossy and harsh.”

“
Is
she unfriendly?” Bailey asked.

“More shy than anything, probably,” I said, shrugging. “I guess I've never really thought about it all that much. But I think it's in situations like this, where she doesn't really know anyone at all, that she's super-bad at faking it. So she's been a total grump all month, and my dad has been so consumed with work that I don't even really know why he forced us to come with him. Except for the night we all went on that picnic, I've hardly even seen him.”

I took a deep breath. I was really annoyed, all of a sudden. “I think my dad would have been a lot happier this month if he'd just come alone. Then he wouldn't have to worry about my mom and me screwing up his ‘reputation.' ” I made quotation marks in the air, since that's what I'd heard him say to my mom when he was giving her a hard time about her rarely showing up for the evening activities. I think my dad
was getting pretty frustrated with my mom's bad attitude at the lake too. So maybe he and I still had something in common.

“Do you ever tell your parents how you're feeling?” Bailey asked, her eyes wide and innocent.

“Ha.” I laughed bitterly, thinking about all the times I'd told my parents how I was feeling and how well
that
had gone over. “They don't really care for my honesty. The whole sharing-our-feelings thing doesn't really happen in our house.” Then I thought about it for a second, and realized that most of the time, me sharing my feelings meant me talking back. I hadn't told my dad that I missed our ice-cream outings, or that sometimes it would be nice to
talk
to him instead of formally
communicating
with him.

Suddenly, I didn't want to talk about it anymore, since I was getting bummed out after a night full of fun. So I waved my hands in the air and said, “Let's stop talking about my defective relationship with my parents and move on to something more interesting. Do you guys realize we've only played half of our game? No one has done Spy yet. The game is Liar
and
Spy, right?”

Bailey yawned. “Yeah, but what are we supposed to spy
on? It's pitch-black out there, and remember, the friendly raccoons are out now.”

“True,” I said. “I forgot about the raccoons.”

“But would it be worth risking a run-in with the raccoons . . .,” Ava said, rubbing her hands together, “if we spied on Brennan?”

W
e had to sneak out
of the cabin very quietly. Not because of Ava's dad, who apparently wore earplugs at night (the sound of the crickets chirping in the woods kept him from falling asleep), but because I knew Coco was a super-light sleeper, and my trusty puppy would totally give us away if she thought we were going out on an adventure without her. She was probably curled up, fast asleep, on Madeline's pillow, but we didn't want to risk it. So we all tiptoed out the screen door and down the front steps of the cabin.

The moon was nearly full, so the pathways were somewhat visible in a smattering of places. But the trees hung low in other sections of the path, choking out any kind of light at all. “This is really creepy,” I whispered as we picked our way
toward the clearing that housed the communal fire pit area. There, the trees opened up into a big circle where the moon could shine through. Brennan's family's cabin was down a long path on the other side of the fire pit. About as far away from Ava's cabin as you could possibly get.

“Abort mission?” Bailey suggested, when we were only about ten feet away from Ava's front steps. “More lies and truths instead?”

“No way,” Ava said, leading us down the path. “Let's see what Bren looks like when he's asleep. I wonder if he snores.”

I giggled quietly. “What if he sleeps with a blankie?”

“I really hope he does,” Ava said, laughing along with me. “That would make this mission totally worth it.”

We stopped when we reached the fire pit. “It's that path, right?” Ava asked, pointing into the darkness. “Or that one?”

In the dark, everything looked totally different than it did during the day. I could see the Cardinal cabin from one of the benches that surrounded the campfire. It was dark inside, so my parents were obviously asleep. I wasn't even quite sure what time it was—probably close to midnight.

“It's that one,” Bailey said certainly. “But I'm not going first. It's really dark.” The sound of a stick cracking nearby made us all jump and huddle together. “What was that?”

“Just a squirrel, probably,” Ava said, but she didn't sound very sure of herself. “Or a raccoon, coming to get you.” She held her hands in the air like claws and wiggled them in Bailey's face. Bailey yelped.

We stuck even closer to each other as we walked toward the path to Brennan's cabin. I grabbed Bailey's hand and tugged her along behind me as we stepped onto the wooded path. “Why are we doing this?” Bailey whispered.

“Because it's fun,” Ava said. She turned back to look at us, her face barely illuminated by the moonlight. Leaves cast long shadows on her skin, making her look sort of spotted. She reminded me of a pony, all skinny limbs and wild hair and wide eyes.

We crept down the path, almost tiptoeing because we were stepping so carefully. Periodically, one of our feet would land off the edge of the path just the littlest bit. Brush snapped and crinkled under our weight, sounding like a wild animal was walking alongside us in the woods. “I jump every single time someone does that,” Bailey said when my foot accidentally landed in a pile of dried-up leaves.

When we had Brennan's cabin in our sights, Ava stopped. We stood in a little open area on the path, where there was just enough moonlight that we could see each other. If anyone
was looking out of the window of Brennan's cabin, they could
also
see us. I decided not to mention that to anyone, since I figured we all sort of realized the risks that came with our mission.

“Now what?” Ava asked, her hands on her hips. Her eyes were fixed on Brennan's cabin.

“Now we peek in the windows,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “Anyone know which room is his?”

“What we're doing is slightly psychopath-ish. You guys know that, right?” Bailey asked. She twisted her hair up into a loose bun and jabbed a stick in it to keep it in place. “If we get caught, I'm the one that's going to look especially insane. He already thinks I'm obsessed with him.”

“How do you do that?” I asked, pointing at her hair to try to distract her. Bailey was always twisting her hair up and keeping it off her neck using sticks, a pencil, a fork—she could get her curly hair to do just about anything she wanted it to do. It was pretty impressive.

“I just twist and stick,” said Bailey, with a flip of her hands. “My hair gets kind of gross sometimes if I tie it up with sticks, but who really cares when you're in the middle of nowhere, right?”

“It looks pretty when you have it all piled up like that,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ava said, turning away from Brennan's cabin to look at both of us. “Enough stalling. Bailey looks like a Greek goddess in the pale glow of the moon with her hair just so. We get it.”

We all laughed because Ava was acting so un-Ava-like and the whole situation was totally ridiculous.

There were no lights on in Brennan's cabin, which made the spying a lot less intimidating. If they'd been up, reading or playing games or whatever their family did at night, it would be really awkward. Not that what we were doing
wasn't
awkward just because it was dark, but knowing we probably wouldn't get caught definitely helped a little. Ava crept up the front steps and peered into the living room window. “Oy,” she stage-whispered. “Get your butts over here.”

Bailey wrapped her arm through mine, and together we snuck up the steps to join Ava. “There's no one in there,” I said, pressing my face against the glass.

“I know,” Ava whispered. She pointed to the back of the cabin. “Bedrooms.”

“Okay . . .,” Bailey murmured. “But what if they sleep naked or something?”

“That's what we're here to find out, right?” I said quietly as we tiptoed back down the creaky stairs. “It's a spy mission. We need to gather some recon.” I paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Wait. Do you sleep naked, Bailey? Is that, like, a common thing?”

“No!” she said, rather loudly, given the circumstances. “But I know some people do.” She twisted a curl that had escaped from the pile of hair on top of her head—it was now snaking down her neck. “I don't want to know if Brennan is one of those people.”