Getting Caught (11 page)

He goes back to piling the sugar packets, like a seasoned architect. “What about it? I just thought it would be too crowded.” He gives me a hard glare. “What are you saying? That I dragged you out here because I’m ashamed to be seen with you?”

I purse my lips and give him an
If the shoe fits
look.

“If that was the case, I wouldn’t have asked you out. I just figured you wouldn’t want to see Peyton, since you seem to hate her so much.”

“I forget. Why
did
you ask me out again?” I say, still not assured. Here we are, in the middle of nowhere, bringing the average age of the clientele in this place down to sixty. Not only that, he’d started the date by trying to get me to agree to mini-golf, knowing Willow Valley doesn’t
have
a miniature golf course and we’d have to travel way out of the way to get to one. Not to mention that he picked me up a half hour late. Not exactly a way to impress a girl. All of this, in my mind, combined to mean one thing: he regretted asking out a punk girl and was afraid of what his friends would think.

“I kind of missed the beatings I used to take from you in gym,” he says, flashing me the irresistibly sheepish grin that makes me remember why I’m hooked on him.

“But I thought you would have been dying for another of Charlotte’s famous milkshakes and the opportunity to brag about how the baseball team beat Vincent High, your sworn enemies. That seems like your type of thing,” I say.

I shrug and stuff a French fry into my mouth. “Yes. Normal. Safe.
Boring
. You don’t stray from the path.”

He looks confused. “Are we talking Robert Frost here? Two paths diverging, et cetera?”

“Just because a path is well-worn doesn’t mean it’s the best one. Getting good grades, extracurriculars, going to college…it may be right for some people, but not for everyone.”

He looks like he’s spacing out, but suddenly he snaps to attention. “Sorry, I thought I’d been magically transported to English class. So college is not for you?”

I nod. “At least, not now.”

“You’ve thought a lot about this, huh?” He chews his burger carefully and swallows. “But some people would say you’re just coasting through life. What about having ambitions?”

“I
have
ambitions. I mean, yeah, school isn’t for me,” I admit. “I want to find something I’m passionate about, and it’s definitely not the pep squad or calculus. So after I graduate, I’m going to travel. Try new things.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. There’s got to be something out there for me, you know? I get the feeling Peyton’s doing all this Harvard stuff because that’s what the perfect student is
supposed
to do. Not because she really wants to. Recipe for disaster.” I realize I’m babbling again, jumping around from one topic to another, so I take a breath and say, “What are your plans?”

“I have a full-ride scholarship to play ball at Saint Bonaventure,” he says with a smirk. “So I guess you can probably smell the havoc sizzling, huh?”

I can’t help but laugh. “SO you really
like
football? You don’t just do it because... well.. it’s expected?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I do
like
it. I’m sure you think it’s lame, but I love it. It’s one of those things that never lets me down.”

“And then what? College is just a way of extending your high school existence. There has to be something after that. What about the real world?”

He gives me a defensive look. “Hey. I don’t know. Ball got me a scholarship. I figured I’d map out my life later.”

“What about your book?”

He stares at me, mouth slightly open. I know it was a little pathetic for me to admit that I remembered his writing, since I hadn’t heard anything about it since freshman year. Back then, in English, we were given an assignment to write a short mystery story, and Dave turned in a full-length novel. The teacher thought it was amazing and read parts of it to the class. Talk about submitting it to publishers had been tossed around, but then, summer vacation came, and it was never mentioned again. I’d fully expected to eventually see, “A Novel by David Ashworth” in Barnes & Noble.

He looks at his plate and says, “I do like to write. It’s my hobby.”

“Do you like it more than football?”

He grins. “I don’t know. Probably. I kind of forgot about writing for a while. Everyone else did, too. Except you, I guess. Football is what people expect of me. It’s ball that got me the scholarship. Last I checked they didn’t have writing scholarships.”

“Do you
want
to go to college?”

He nods. “Of course.”

“Or do your parents want you to go to college?”

“Uh, well—” He gives me a hard look, but it’s obvious he’s just trying to hide his discomfort. Then he laughs. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that? I feel like I’m being questioned by the FBI.”

I smile sweetly.

“I want to go to college,” he says definitively. “I want to play ball. After that, there’s no plan. But I thought that’s what you’re into? Flying by the seat of your pants and all that?”

“Sure. But the point is to do it because you
want
to be adventurous, not because you’re indecisive.”

He sighs, defeated. “So when do you start skydiving and climbing Mount Everest and wrestling mountain lions? After graduation?”

“Well, I’m thinking of working on a cruise ship. Saving up some cash,” I say proudly. “We’ll see.”

He slurps up the last of his Coke and says, “But really, Jess, aren’t you just escaping? Willow High treated you like crap, and you’re running away from it.”

“What? No, I—”

“The real world is a lot crueler. What makes you think you can survive there?”

Now it’s my turn to growl. “I could get along just fine at Willow if I wanted to. . I
choose
not to fit in.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, leaning back and putting his hands out. “Just checking.”

I hadn’t realized it, but my voice had been rising. I didn’t really care what the Peytons and Bryns of the world thought, but for some reason, Dave always got under my skin. Even when he was across the room, he mattered to me. And I’m not sure why I felt the need to convince him that not following ninety percent of seniors off to college didn’t make me a total moron, but his patronizing tone meant I wasn’t getting through. So why would he want to date someone he obviously thought was headed for a bleak and pathetic future?

“I don’t get people like you,” I mutter, shaking my head. “What’s it like to be so absorbed in what the world says you
should
be doing that you never consider what you
want
to be doing?”

He wipes his mouth with a napkin and smiles. “The world says I shouldn’t be going out with Jess Hill. But here I am.”

“Ooh, big deal.” I jab my thumb back to where the two old men have fallen asleep in their coffees. “The only witnesses to this are a bunch of Alzheimer’s patients.”

He narrows his eyes. “You’re a tough girl to please.”

I bat my eyelashes. “Does that mean you’re not going to try?”

He grins and motions for me to lean across the table, and as he does the same, I can tell I’ve sparked his competitive side. He brings his mouth close, so close that his breath is warm on my ear, and whispers, “Just the opposite.”

Chapter Fifteen

Peyton

As I push my way through the swinging doors backstage, I get a tingling sensation. Something’s up. When everybody sees me, they look away—no one is looking at me for more than two-point-five seconds. Not a good sign.

When I walk into the girls’ dressing room, I
know
something is going on. Bryn is sitting on a couch, a program for the musical on her lap, and her face scrunched up so it looks like a wrinkled prune. When she sees me, she cringes and holds it out.

I grab the program and I scan down to
Patty Simcox
. “Pays for Bent Wood? What does she think she’s doing?”

Bryn shrugs and then, as if she thinks I’m a complete idiot, feels the need to explain to me, “I think she’s trying to prank you.”

I rip the program in half and let the pages flutter in all directions. “Whatever. I can deal with it. Maybe people won’t notice.”

Bryn gives me a doubtful look.

I cross my hands at my chest and act like I’m not worried. “Hey. I sent thirty guys up to her with condoms, and she managed to make it work for her. I bet I can think of a way to spin this. Right?”

Bryn stares vacantly. She’s no help. Now Jess, she’d know exactly what to say. She’d probably waltz out there and tell them that bent wood feels better, and then turn it on someone like Ken Greeley so everyone thinks
he’s
the one who’s anatomically incorrect. And then everyone would be so busy making fun of him, they’d forget to tease her about the program.

Oh, who am I kidding? Like I have the guts to pull something like that!

I sink down onto the couch beside Bryn. “Do you think she’ll…you know…get caught?” I say, my voice hopeful. “I mean, jeez. Everyone will see it.”

Bryn looks at me for a minute and then shrugs. “Maybe. But you know the principal. He’s not exactly Nancy Drew.”

I snort. “I know. You’d think since Jess and I are the only ones in the entire school who keep getting pranked, he’d put two and two together.” I’ve been waiting for that moment, waiting for the light bulb to go on in his head, but so far I’ve been lucky.

Unfortunately that means Jess has been lucky too, but she’s bound to get caught by the end of the year. Especially if her pranks are this public. I’m not stupid enough to do something this obvious and over the top.

“And I was kind of hoping she’d tone down the pranks since my last one was so lame. That way she’s not so on guard when she finds out about my mega-prank.”

Of course, that was a long shot. Jess’s pranks haven’t been tame since the first day of sophomore year, when she
really
started getting into it. Somehow, she messed with the morning announcements; I’m pretty sure the principal hadn’t realized what he was saying until it was too late. Sandwiched between sporting tryouts and the cafeteria menu, he’d actually said,
if you’re interested in a triple-x video of Peyton Brentwood, check out www…
And then his voice trailed off and he cleared his throat. Then he just started discussing meatloaf as if no one would notice.

I was called into the office twenty minutes later for a full explanation, but I played dumb. Yeah, if one of us got caught, the other would be the winner. But the problem was, I didn’t have any proof. And does it really count as getting caught if I turn her in?

“Oh my God, I almost forgot to tell you,” Bryn says, leaning forward in her excitement. “I heard about the date!”

“Really? Who told you?” I feel my heart beating faster in a happy
thump-thump
that makes me feel positively gleeful. Who knew revenge could feel so good?

“Ken. God, he’s so cute, you know? Did you see his new leather jacket? I swear—”

“Focus!” I interrupt. She can go on and on about Ken for days. She’s already got this sparkle in her eyes, like she’s in dreamland.

I need to hire new informants. This is a total letdown. I look down at the shredded remains of the program and say, “I wonder if he can pull it off for this long. Prom is still over two months away.”

Bryn shrugs. “Yeah, but with all his sports, he won’t have time for many dates. If he starts now she’ll really buy it, hook, line and sinker.”

“Good point.”

Bryn and I change into our costumes. I’m wearing these skin-tight jeans that make it hard to move, plus an off-the-shoulder sweater. Bryn’s wearing a full skirt and saddle shoes. Her hair probably has a whole can of Aquanet holding it up in this giant bouffant.

The first act is already underway on stage. Bryn and I don’t come on until several minutes into the play, but we get up and watch the beginning from backstage, behind the curtains.

Opening night is always nerve-wracking. You’re never sure if everyone can really pull it off until the curtain falls on the first show and the audience is cheering.

“Speak of the devil,” Bryn whispers, nudging me. I look down the main aisle to the double doors and nearly fall over in shock.

Jess Hill is at a school event. At any moment, pigs are going to fly and hell will freeze over. She’s standing in the doorway, looking a little uncomfortable, like she can’t decide if she wants to sit down or just bolt.

“Jess Hill is sitting
in the audience,”
I whisper too loudly. Gina Thompson, on stage, glares at me. I mouth,
“Sorry!”
and then look back out at the seats. It’s hard to see more than shadows with the stage lights on, but I see her sit. She’s in an aisle seat, and she’s looking around, like she might take off at any given moment, but I can’t get over that she’s actually
sitting in the audience at a school play.
Voluntarily. Dave’s school spirit must be rubbing off on her ugly rebel clothes.

I’m so distracted by her I almost miss my cue. Just as Gina says, “All summer long,” I realize I’m supposed to be halfway on stage already. I get into position just in time for my line.

Gina and the three other girls leave the stage just as I say it. And then there’s silence. There’s supposed to be music, and I’m supposed to sing my next line instead of saying it. I’m only on stage for five or six seconds, alone, when Bryn is supposed to come out. But she’ll only appear when she hears her cue, so I’m standing in the glaring lights alone.