The ABC's of Kissing Boys (13 page)

“Hey yourself. You doing anything? You want to come for a drive?” she asked, jangling car keys. Like everything was same old, same old.

I resisted the urge to slam my head against the door-jamb to see if I was dreaming, then shouted a few words at my parents and followed her out. Bracing myself for a final death sentence. Or worse.

But when I got a good look at her face, it was all relaxed and controlled and, well, Chrissandra- like. After a long moment, she even smiled. Okay,
what
was up?

“So how's everything with Romeo?”

“Uh, great,” I said. Because it was. If you overlooked technicalities like the whole thing being a ruse and a scam.

She playfully punched my arm.
Ouch.
“I'm totally jealous, you know. I mean, not that you're with
him,
” she said, “but that you've found true love.” She thumbed her keyless entry remote. The car lights flashed and doors unlocked with a click. “Not that Kyle isn't my everything. But sometimes I think he needs a bit of a wake- up call that I'm his.”

She laughed, while I think I just stared and gaped. It wasn't like her to admit that areas of her life needed work. She was all about being fantastic and making sure those around her knew it. Now I
really
wondered what was going on.

“But that's not what I'm here to talk to you about,” she said as we both climbed into her red hatchback, a birthday present. “It's about soccer. We've got a … situation on varsity,” she said, and put the car in reverse. “And Elaine, Mandy and I think you're the one to take care of it.”

Tension electrified my legs and arms—it was like that fight- or- flight thing you hear about when people are on the verge of being attacked by a bear. But I knew staying cool around Chrissandra was essential. She could sense fear, and she'd eat you alive. “Oh?” I managed.

“Yeah, which is the reason we decorated your locker a second time and have been bad- mouthing you. It's a cover so no one will suspect we're working together.”

“Working together?” I repeated. I had to hand it to them for creating camouflage so effective that even
I
couldn't see through it.

“It's about AJ,” she went on, referring to the senior who'd had knee surgery. “I saw her pour some pills out of a prescription bottle before practice on Monday. And they weren't antibiotics or vitamins, if you get my drift.”

We rounded a corner, to see the bridge's traffic gates rising. Figured. I always had to wait for trawlers and sailboats to clear the bridge, but everything about Chrissandra's life seemed perfectly timed.

“When AJ went to the water fountain to knock them back,” she continued, “I got a look at the label. Vicodin. For pain. Which, of course,” she said, and made an
el stu-pido
face, “is against school rules. And also tells us she's a disaster waiting to happen on the field, that her knee is
not
at full strength.”

I didn't get what this had to do with me and quite frankly was a little afraid to ask.

“Mandy thought I should go to Hartley directly,” Chrissandra pushed on, her tone loud to drown out the rhythmic
ka-thumps
of the tires against the bridge's metal seams. “But you know how Hartley sometimes gets weird about my help?”

Weird? Yeah. Especially when Chrissandra was telling her how to do her job.

“Plus, I can't risk making enemies with my teammates if somehow AJ worms her way out of this. So the perfect solution is for you to slip an anonymous note under Hartley's office door while varsity is on the field, telling her to check AJ's locker for painkillers.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. No one would think twice about you being in the locker room. They'd just think you hadn't gone home yet or were maybe hanging around to talk to Hartley. It's perfect, see? All the varsity players are safe from suspicion, AJ gets nabbed, and then you can move up to take her place.” She held up a hand as if waving a Fourth of July sparkler. “Am I good or what?”

I knew I was supposed to clap my hands and gush, to act as if she'd arranged high tea for me with my beloved Prince Harry. But ever since she'd destroyed my life, I'd had trouble taking her at face value.

The thing was, though, if AJ really
was
popping pills for pain, she deserved to be exposed. She could hurt herself—and the team—with a game injury. And slipping a note under Heartless's door was a heck of a lot easier (and cheaper) than bribing her at the sports fair.

But was there more to this than met the eye?

And then there was the other thing, which I let slip. “Unless Hartley promotes Lyric instead.”

“Lyric, Schmyric! Ever notice her mouth barely moves when she talks? And come on, you wipe up the soccer field with her.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, knowing Chrissandra valued confidence. “But I'm captain. And Hartley told me yesterday what a good job I'm doing. I don't think she'd want to lose me.”

Chrissandra pulled into the Dairy Queen lot and idled the engine. I knew she wouldn't dream of eating there (“all fat and fart,” she had long ago declared it), but she conceded that it was the unofficial center of town. “Okay,” she said, “we'll make things sweeter. How about I talk to Rachael, and after you leave the note, we'll both go to Hartley, backing you to move up.”

“Rachael?”

“Yeah, I have a major in with her.”

Funny, I'd gotten the opposite impression from Rachael.

“And if that doesn't work, we'll get a petition going.” She patted my hand, BFF that she was. “And if
that
doesn't work, we'll … we'll … all go on strike. Like in the cafeteria last winter, when all the workers walked out.” She chuckled to herself. “And it's not like they can train and replace the varsity soccer team with scabs.”

I studied her face, which looked totally hound- dog sincere. I wondered if she was really on my side or if she'd just gotten even better at BS'ing. In any case, I was tired of saying what she wanted to hear—of playing by the Chrissandra Rules—and for once, laid my cards on the table.

“Well, great,” I told her. “I'd appreciate any help I can get. But why now? Why not help me a few weeks ago, when this whole thing began?”

Something flashed in her eyes. “Oh, we wanted to. We
did.
But … of course, moving you up meant kicking someone off. Player limits, remember.”

“And you, Elaine and Mandy were afraid it would be one of you?” I said, hoping she picked up on the word I was screaming in my head:
Coward!

Her back went ramrod straight. “More like we just weren't in power positions.” She put the car in reverse and backed out. “Look, I understand you need a day or two to think it over. But I'm sure you'll do the right thing.”

“ Uh- huh,” I said, knowing what I really needed was electroshock therapy, to erase all memory of how they'd treated me lately.

“Besides, we're not done publicly humiliating you yet,” she said with a light laugh and an evil grin. “We have more ideas.”

And gee, how could I deprive any of us of
that?

•

Chrissandra drove me home, chatting amicably, as if she hadn't just threatened me. As she turned onto my street, my heart turned over at the sight of the tall silhouette up ahead. Leave it to Tristan to be shooting hoops until last light. (And, coincidentally, just when I truly needed a friend.)

I powered down the passenger window, but when Chrissandra came to a full stop in front of my house, I saw that the figure wasn't Tristan at all—but his father. And another body emerged from a shadow.

My dad.

I realized with a start that the two had been talking. And while I crossed my fingers that they were finally mending fences (so to speak), the fury on my dad's brow when he turned toward the headlights stole that fantasy.

Before I could get out of Chrissandra's car, he was at the door. He had a bottomless pit of material when it came to embarrassing behavior, and if he went off on the turf war in front of Chrissandra, I thought I just might have to take my own life.

“Parker Elizabeth! Were you kissing the Murphy boy?”

I froze. “Huh?” I said, so shocked by his question that Chrissandra and her threatening presence beside me took a total backseat.

“Murphy here says when he came in the back door this evening, he saw you at the front, kissing his son.”

Oh, crap!

In a desperate measure, I denied it with an “Uh, no, Dad” but nodded my head at the same time.

“I knew this was no good. But your mom insisted you were just showing him around school.”

Chrissandra spoke up. “She was teaching him how to drive.”

“Drive?”
Mr. Murphy looked from me to my dad, exploding with gale- force winds. “He's not
old enough
to drive yet.”

“That's why they were practicing out of town,” Chrissandra explained, in what sounded like a logical tone. “So they wouldn't get caught. Then one thing just led to another.”

“What?”
the dads said in unison—arguably the first time they'd ever come together on anything.

“Nothing,” I said.

But Chrissandra's voice was louder. “Their being in love,” she said, then smiled at me.

Oh, God!

“Dad,” I said, cringing, “it's not really the way it sounds.”

“It had better not be,” Mr. Murphy muttered.

My father pivoted on one shoe until he was facing Murphy. “What do you mean by that?”

“Come on, Stanhope,
do you
want your daughter involved with my son?”

“Hell no, but he'd be lucky to have her.”

“Well, your daughter would be lucky to have my son.”

Chrissandra elbowed me, grinning so big I thought her face would split in half. “This is
so Romeo and Juliet.”

I wanted to give her an elbow right back. A sharp one in the head, for opening her big, fat mouth. But I also wanted to power the window back up and instruct her to drive me to the Canadian border, where I'd disappear into the wilds forever.

Instead, I went with the only choice that made sense. I opened the door and stepped out. “See you tomorrow,” I said, like nothing horrible was happening.

“Yeah, sure. But remember, don't say hi to me or anything. Tonight did not happen.”

I laughed. Because at this point, I was wishing for nothing more than for it to be true. Then I slammed her door and watched her pull away.

I walked slowly toward the Murphy house as the grown men argued like grade- school bullies.

“I'm going to get Tristan,” I said, hoping one of them would stop griping long enough to hear me. “We need to explain what's really been going on,” I added brightly, praying we'd be able to. Without too much emphasis on the kissing stuff. So that I didn't get shipped off to a convent, and Tristan to a military school.

Quixotic
:
Take the lead from
Don Quixote: when it comes to a kiss, there's
no such thing as being too romantic.

T
ristan appeared at his front door with one hand holding his cell phone to his ear, the other up in a give- me-a- minute gesture. I sighed and shifted my weight impatiently until he finished with a “See you tomorrow.”

I didn't care what he was up to—that was his own freshman business—but, for some reason, he felt the need to explain that he'd been talking about an English presentation.

Whatever.

“In case you didn't notice, our dads are having a showdown in the street,” I told him. “And this time, it's about us.”

He muttered something under his breath, followed me out and fell into step beside me. “Look, Parker, my dad saw us before. Kissing in the doorway. But I took care of it. I told him you'd lost a bet and had to kiss me.”

“You could have called and let me know.”

“I did. You were out.”

“Oh.” I had nothing to say to that. “Yeah, well, Chrissandra blew that cover for us, anyway, and now they think we're in love.”

“In
love
?”

He quickened his footsteps, and I had to break into a half jog to keep up. And while I understood the urgency, it wasn't like a house was on fire or anything. And was it really so completely offensive and out of the question that we could have feelings for each other?

Under the circle of light, our dads had stepped closer, like one was daring the other to make the first move.

Tristan took a couple of long strides, then busted in between them. He was the only other person who understood this paternal humiliation, and at that moment, I felt closer to him than to anyone on the planet.

“Dad, Mr. Stanhope. This thing between Parker and me, it's not real. I'm just helping her get on the varsity soccer team. It's almost over; then we'll pretty much go back to the way we were before.”

“Practically strangers,” I said, lunging forward. “Well, I mean,
maybe
we'll still be friends….”

Tristan ignored me. “She hatched some plan with Clayton and Luke, and it turned out she needed my help, too.”

I nodded, like,
Yeah, what he said.

My father's gaze bounced from Tristan's to mine. I made sure to nod. “This plan—it's not going to get you into any trouble at school?”

“Not at all. In fact, that's why it's going to work, because it's totally within school rules. Clayton's got all that covered.”

A smile tugged at my father's mouth, and he aimed his next sentence at Mr. Murphy. “My son's planning to become a lawyer. Have I mentioned that before?”

“Only about a hundred times,” Mr. Murphy snapped.

Dad turned to me. “How much longer till this whole thing is over?”

“Just a few days. Sports fair's on Tuesday, and we totally have to be broken up by then.”

“And at no point will you quit playing soccer?”

“Right.”