Tell (17 page)

“Dress yourself?”

Cadie sighed.  Melody was teasing her, and she was not in the mood.  “You know what I mean,” she said irritably.  “I’m tired of looking like an environmentalist scavenging for algae samples.”

“Nice analogy.”

Cadie sat down on her bed and pointed wordlessly at her closet again.

Melody smiled and rolled her eyes.  “Okay.  Let’s see what we have to work with here.”  She began rifling through the clothes in Cadie’s closet.  She immediately pushed past the clothes that hung in front, the battered work shirts and hoodies, and started looking through the clothes in the back, the ones that still had the tags on them, the clothes that her mother brought home for her from the Gap and Express because they were “so cute.”

Melody pulled out a small light gray tank top, then a deep blue, looser-fitting tank top and laid them both on the bed.  “Do you have skinny jeans?”

Cadie found a pair, a Christmas gift from her mother, in her dresser.  Melody, meanwhile, went to work browsing through the shoes that Cadie had in her closet.  “I’ve never even
seen
half these shoes before,” she remarked, her voice muffled from being so deep in the closet.  She emerged a moment later holding an open shoe box that contained a pair of gray pumps.  “Do you have makeup?” she asked as she handed Cadie the box.

“Um—”

“I’ll go get mine,” Melody interrupted, assuming correctly that the answer was no.  “We have the same complexion, anyway.  Put those on and see how they look.”

Cadie dressed as Melody left the room, feeling completely constricted in the skinny jeans.  She pulled the gray tank top over her head, then the blue, and slipped her feet into the gray pumps, feeling slightly unsteady on her feet.  Melody came back just as she was standing up, and she smiled and nodded approvingly.

“Okay, you don’t need me to do your makeup, do you?” Melody asked, setting cosmetics out on the basically untouched surface of Cadie’s vanity.

“No, I can do it.”  She did not wear makeup often, but she had worn it enough to know that she had a steady hand and it always looked all right.  She had also had other people do hers enough to know that she preferred to do it herself.  Cadie noticed that Melody had only brought in a few items; obviously she had gone through and picked out what she thought Cadie should wear.  

When she finished, she approached her full-length mirror with a feeling of consternation.  She almost did not recognize her own reflection.  “Holy shit,” she said.

The effect was startling, but she hoped not unappealing.  The combination of the heels and the skinny jeans made her look taller, her legs longer.  The eyeliner along with the way her bangs stopped just short of her eyes made them seemingly pop out of her face, and the tank top accentuated their blue, making them brighter.  It also helped that her glasses were not obstructing her face.

She did look older, she realized.  Maybe early twenties instead of only almost eighteen.  Maybe.

“Am I going to have to dress you every morning?” Melody asked as they left the house together.  “Or is this something we can do the night before?”

They picked up Susan at her house.  Cadie was a little nervous, expecting some kind of commentary about her appearance, but Susan offered nothing other than the usual greetings as she got into the car.  Evidently her new look had not even grabbed Susan’s attention.  She felt kind of disappointed.  She did not set much store by Susan’s opinion, but she had made a drastic change, and it would have been nice to be noticed.

Susan’s blathering fell on Cadie’s deaf ears as they drove to pick up Stacy.  They pulled into her driveway and Cadie leaned on the horn.  Her heartbeat sped up as she
watched Stacy walk to the car, her head down as she perused through her purse for something.

As she climbed into the car, she said, her face still downturned, “Does anybody have any gum?  I’m out.”  Stacy’s eyes flicked up to Cadie, and her jaw dropped.  “Holy shit,” she said, echoing Cadie’s sentiment from that morning.

“What do you think?” Cadie asked.  “Seriously.”

“Seriously, you look phenomenal.”

“What?  Why?”  Susan leaned her head around the seat to look.  “She looks the same.”

Stacy shot Susan a dark look.  “You’re a douche bag.  She looks fantastic.”

Whether it was the fact that she knew she looked good or the fact that Stacy had called Susan a douche bag, Cadie was in an exceptional mood when they pulled into the school’s parking lot.  She saw that the orange Camaro was already there, but Shane and Felicia were nowhere in sight.  As Melody and Susan headed off toward the school together, Stacy grabbed Cadie’s wrist before she could walk away.

“This is because of Shane, isn’t it?”

“Crap,” Cadie said under her breath, making no attempt to deny it.

“I knew it,” Stacy said triumphantly.

“How did you know it?  And more importantly, do other people know it?”

“I doubt it.  I could just kind of tell something was going on at the party.”

“You were hammered,” Cadie shot back.

“I was
tired
,” Stacy answered defensively.  “Besides that, I saw you two leave eighth period together every day last week.”

“We have calc together.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave together, but you always do.  You always walk out together and you’re always talking when you do.”  Stacy’s last period French class was only two rooms away.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Cadie said honestly.  Now that Melody and Susan were a safe distance ahead, the two of them started walking toward the school.

“And everybody knows that he keeps blowing off Amanda.”

Cadie looked at her sharply.  “What?”

“Well, on Friday after the game, she was trying to get him to go home with her and he wouldn’t go.  He told her that he had to go straight home, but I know for a fact he went to Fort Beast afterwards, and everyone else knows too.  And he was supposed to go home with her after the party at my house, but he totally peaced out without even saying anything to her.”

Realization dawned on Cadie.  “Oh, my God, he left with me that night.”

“What?” shrieked Stacy, causing some underclassmen to turn and stare in their direction.

“Well, he didn’t leave
with
me,” Cadie amended.  “I didn’t mean it like that.  He left at the same time we did and we talked outside before we left.”

Stacy shook her head, a smile on her face.  “I don’t suppose Felicia knows any of this.”

“No.”  Cadie sighed as the two of them stopped in an alcove before turning down the hallway to their lockers.  “I didn’t think there was anything to tell.”

“I wouldn’t tell her, either.”

Shane stood next to Will’s locker that morning, absently twisting a Rubik’s cube that he had found in his room and was determined to solve.  “Where’s the party this week?” he asked, not looking up.

“I think it’s at Amanda’s,” Will said, pulling a book from his backpack and shoving it into his locker.

Shane nodded.  He had gotten one side of the cube entirely white, but as the rest of the sides were still completely mixed up, this was of little help to him.  He sighed and looked up from the cube to find Will staring at him.  “What?”

“Trouble in paradise?” Will asked him.

“What are you going on about?”

“Are you and Amanda fighting?”

Shane furrowed his brow.  “What would we have to fight about?”

“I don’t know.  But I heard she was pissed at you.”

“For
what
?” Shane demanded.

“Well, for apparently telling her that you couldn’t see her after the game on Friday because you had to go straight home, but then you came out to Fort Beast with us.”

Shane looked back down at the Rubik’s cube.  “Oh.  I guess she found out about that.”

“Yeah, I guess so.  And I guess you were supposed to hook up with her after the party at Stacy’s, but you blew her off then, too.”

“Damn, how does everybody know all this?”

Will raised his eyebrows at him.  “Seriously, what high school do you go to?”  He shoved his backpack inside his locker and slammed the door, twisting the combination lock a few times to make sure it was locked.  He leaned against the locker door.  “And what gives?  Is there a reason you keep avoiding getting laid?”

“I’ve just been busy.”

“Why do you even try to lie to me?  You can’t bluff to save your life.”

Shane sighed.  After the party at Stacy’s, he truly had forgotten that he had made plans with Amanda.  He had texted her and apologized, but apparently she was still pissed at him.  Now she had found out that he had lied to her about Friday night, too.  This was a piece of unfortunate luck.  He would have to think of some excuse to give her later.

But what excuse was he supposed to give to Will?  Why
had
he blown her off on Friday night?  She had approached him after the game, asking him for a ride, saying that her parents were not going to be home and they would have the house to themselves.  And he had lied to her, saying that he had to be home by midnight, even though he could have easily stayed out past curfew since his parents did not know what time they would be getting in from the game.  And he had stayed out past curfew anyway, drinking with the team.  But why had he avoided Amanda?

The truth was in the corner of his brain, speaking quietly but still demanding to be heard.  Shane pushed it further back into his brain, refusing to listen.  He wondered how long that was going to work.  He was still carrying the tube of raspberry lip balm in the outer pocket of his backpack.

Shane looked back at Will, prepared to make up some lie about why he had not wanted to see Amanda on Friday night, but he was momentarily distracted by the look on Will’s face.  He was staring down the hallway, his face slack, wearing an expression of utter disbelief.  “What?” Shane asked.

“Holy shit,” was Will’s reply.

Shane turned, and he knew his expression had to have matched the one on Will’s face.  For a moment, he was struck dumb.  He did not even realize that he had dropped the Rubik’s cube.

Cadie was at her locker, only four away from Will’s, but it took Shane’s brain several minutes to register that the person he was looking at was actually Cadie Dawson.  Her hair was down, for one thing, and it was a lot straighter than he remembered it being before.  She was also wearing clothes that were a lot different than the baggy shirts and jeans she normally wore.  A pair of high heels had replaced her regular boots.  Had her legs always been that long?

“Told you she had a body under there,” Will muttered.

Shane elbowed him, a lot harder than he had intended, because Will grunted and doubled over for a second.  At this, Cadie looked up.

Her eyes met Shane’s for a long, agonizing moment.  Finally, she glanced down, and Shane realized she was looking at the Rubik’s cube.

“Oh,” he said stupidly.

He started to retrieve it, but she beat him to it, bending at the waist to pick it up.  Shane realized he was staring down the front of her shirt and instantly averted his eyes, feeling his face heat up.  Then he realized Will was staring down the front of her shirt shamelessly, and he elbowed him again.

Cadie held out the Rubik’s cube, stepping forward and closing the distance between the two of them.  Four lockers had been okay, but once she got within arm’s length, Shane found it very difficult to suppress the urge to touch her.  Or possibly kiss her.  Or maybe drag her into a custodian’s closet and have his way with her.

He settled for taking the Rubik’s cube from her hand, though this was a painful compromise.  Their thumbs touched briefly before she stepped away.

“Thanks,” he said lamely.

“Sure,” she answered.  The two boys watched her take her history book out of her locker, then slam the door with her heel-clad foot.  “See you in calc,” she said to Shane before disappearing into her homeroom.

Shane just nodded.

“Holy shit,” said Will again, once she was out of earshot.

“I know.”

“Holy
shit
.”

“I know, Will.  I saw her.”  Shane took a deep breath.  The truth in the corner of his brain began to speak up, demanding to be heard.  He was still determined to protect Felicia at all costs, but it looked as if Cadie was determined to make that as difficult for him as possible.

Fifteen

Felicia had been a ballet dancer since the age of four.  One of her first memories was having her mother take her by the hand and lead her into the same dance studio that she frequented now.  After receiving a Ballerina Barbie as a birthday present from her aunt, she had announced that
she
wanted to be a dancer, too.  Later, her parents told her that this announcement had come as a surprise—before then, Felicia had taken to roughhousing with Shane all the time, and they thought she would be a tomboy.  But she took to ballet immediately, and dancing seemed to agree with her.

She had always considered herself athletic, and ballet held an athleticism that was more graceful, more structured than any organized sport
in which she might have been interested.  Besides that, she hated to get dirty.  She had tried little-league softball at the age of ten and had aborted this mission quickly after coming home from a few practices covered in dirt, with grass stains on her nice new sweatpants.  She did not mind being covered in the sweat of a good workout, but shrunk from the idea of defiling new clean clothes.  Felicia enjoyed cleanliness in her life as much as she enjoyed cleanliness in conversation.

To her, dancing was a fresh, exhilarating experience that could not be replicated anywhere else.  Unlike the other girls, she sought neither praise nor attention from ballet.  The other girls in the class would compete tirelessly over dance solos while Felicia quietly auditioned and never complained if a better part was given to another girl.  However, this rarely happened.  Her love of dancing was written all over her face and in the naturalness of her movements, and everyone who had the opportunity to watch her dance was fully aware of it.  This made her more talented than most of the other girls in her class, and no matter how hard they worked to surpass her, they could never quite meet her level of passion.  Not only that, but when the other girls danced, they tended to be self-conscious; when Felicia danced, she could feel the audience fade until they became indistinguishable from her surroundings and nothing else seemed to be in the room besides the music, the stage, and herself.  This was not a skill, but simply a side effect of her love of ballet.

It was an effect that had been unmatched in any of the other girls until Elliot joined the class.  It was one of the reasons the two girls felt a strong kinship to one another and a further distance between themselves and the other girls.  She thought it might also have been one of the things that had drawn them so close in such a short amount of time.

Something else was drawing them close, and though Felicia’s mind refused to grasp it, her body was fully aware of it.  It was the way her heartbeat seemed to speed up whenever she saw Elliot’s smile.  It was the way her breathing seemed to come faster whenever she saw Elliot dance, her slender arm extended toward the ceiling, her long leg stretched gracefully out behind her as she stood
en pointe.
  It was, most of all, the jolt of electricity that seemed to go through her every time they might touch hands.

It was why Brian’s departure had scared her so much.  Without the safety of her boyfriend, she was afraid of confronting these feelings head-on.  She pushed them from her mind every time her brain tried to think about it.

She and Elliot dressed after dance rehearsal, pulling yoga pants and t-shirts on over their leotards and packing their toe shoes into their bags.  As Felicia reached back to let her hair down, Lauren Andrews approached Elliot from behind and placed a hand on her shoulder.  “You’re still coming on Friday, right?” she asked.

Elliot nodded.  “Sure.”

“Okay, cool.  Good to know.  I’ll see you girls later,” she called as she walked out the studio’s front door.

“Where are you going on Friday?” Felicia asked curiously once Lauren was out of earshot.

Elliot sighed.  “I told her I would go to the post-game party.”

“What?” Felicia exclaimed incredulously.

“I know, I know.  But after you left rehearsal on Saturday, she started talking to me and she was being really nice, and she asked me for my phone number.  Then yesterday, she called me out of the blue and said I should go to the post-game party on Friday.  I said I would.”

“
Why
?”

“Because, she’s been the only person to invite me somewhere—other than you—since I’ve moved here,” Elliot responded.  “And, no offense, I love you and everything, but I need to get some other friends.  Friends who don’t care when I drop the f-bomb.”

Felicia was silent for a moment, though her face had warmed at Elliot’s proclamation.  She also could not help but feel a twinge of jealousy that Elliot was making plans with someone else.  “Well, if the purpose of this is to make
other
friends, I don’t suppose you’d want me to go along.”

Elliot’s eyes widened with delight.  “Would you go with me?”

Felicia barked a laugh.  “Nope.”

Elliot sagged in disappointment.  “That’s what I figured you’d say.”