Inside Girl Page 4

  I didn’t mean to be dishonest with Judith and Meredith, but sometimes I found myself trying so hard to act “normal” that these weird little defensive half-truths came out before I could even think about it. I don’t like to lie, so every time it happened, I found myself feeling lousy and awkward. The worst part of it was that the better I got to know them, the more I did it. Part of it was the situation with SBB—she’d ended up staying with me all week, so whenever I hung around with Judith and Meredith after school, I had to keep thinking of new excuses for why they couldn’t come over to my house. But now it was starting to develop into a full-blown bad habit.

  “Hey, so did I tell you guys about what happened in English class today?” Meredith asked. All week, she’d been sharing stories about her crazy English teacher, Mr. Franklin. I hadn’t seen him yet, but according to Meredith he was shaped like a gumdrop and wore taps on his shoes. “We were talking about this Robert Burns poem, and all of a sudden Mr. F started singing it. I mean, really belting it out. Apparently it’s the lyrics to a folk song or something, but he just started singing it, randomly, right in the middle of the discussion.”

  “Does he have a nice voice?” asked Judith.

  Meredith giggled. “He thinks so anyway.”

  I smiled, and was about to join in their conversation myself, when I looked up and saw Sara-Beth Benny walking down the sidewalk toward us. She wasn’t very recognizable—this time she had on a Farrah Fawcett–type seventies wig, a sweat suit, and no makeup to speak of—but I knew it was her right away, maybe because she was dragging her feet in this sad way that she does whenever she gets upset. From her eyes, it looked a little bit like she’d been crying.

  I wanted to stop her and ask her what was wrong, but I was afraid that if I went and talked to her, or even said hello, Judith and Meredith and everyone around would figure out who she was and make a big scene. So instead of jumping up and going to her, I did just the opposite: I tried to turn my chair so she wouldn’t see me, and pretended to be really absorbed in whatever my friends were talking about. Even at the time, I felt awful about it, but when Sara-Beth passed by without seeing us, I breathed a sigh of relief, even though I still wasn’t sure what I was so afraid of.

  Chapter 8

  Don’t Open That Door!

  This was really fun,” said Meredith as we picked up our purses and threw our coffee cups in the trash.

  “It’s such a cute neighborhood too,” said Judith. “Is your house really just right around the corner from here?”

  “It’s pretty close, yeah,” I said, navigating my way between tables back to the sidewalk. I felt nervous and a little guilty, because I kind of knew they thought it was weird I hadn’t asked them over. I didn’t want to keep making excuses, but after seeing SBB headed in the direction of my house—and in tears—I didn’t know what to do. I tried to change the subject by saying, “So what are you guys doing this weekend?” but Judith ignored it.

  “Oh, nothing much. Anyway, since we’re right here, we might as well walk you home. I’d love to see Flan’s mysterious house—wouldn’t you, Meredith?”

  “It’s not mysterious,” I said. “It’s just kind of a mess. Between the renovations and the leak …”

  “Sure. I bet it’s like one of those old haunted mansions from Scooby-Doo.” Meredith giggled. “Stop worrying! I’m sure it’s beautiful, Flan.”

  “Don’t be so embarrassed,” said Judith. “It’s this way, right?” She strode forward purposefully, slipping out to cross the street between two parked cars.

  So as we walked toward my house, even though I was trying to laugh and make conversation like usual, I had the uncomfortable feeling that criminals must have when they’re being trailed by the police—the feeling that I was about to get busted. As we walked past apartment buildings, an antique store, a little juice bar, even a dingy subway stop, I found myself wishing I were going anywhere but home.

  The three of us turned onto Perry Street and walked under trees with leaves just starting to change. Meredith and Judith cooed over the funky touches my neighbors had added to their town houses: a stained-glass window that showed two blue figures dancing around the sun, a window box that overflowed with creeping vines, a balcony decorated with white icicle Christmas lights.

  “That’s the Eastons’,” I said. “They’re old and sort of crazy, I think. They used to have a light-up Santa up there too, before the bad windstorm.”

  “Do you know all your neighbors?” asked Meredith. “We’ve been living in my building for three years and I hardly know any of mine.”

  “It’s a pretty friendly neighborhood, I guess,” I said, even though that wasn’t strictly true. Actually, I’d met most of the neighbors when they’d come to complain about the noise coming from Patch’s parties in the early hours of the morning. Over the years, I’d gotten very familiar with seeing my neighbors angry and in their pajamas. “This one’s mine.”

  We walked up the steps to my front door. I bought a little time by fumbling with my keys while I tried to figure out what to do. I didn’t want to lie to Meredith and Judith—or worse yet, make them feel like I didn’t want to have them over—but what was I supposed to do? SBB was going nuts in there, and if I brought in a couple of people she’d never met, she’d probably go completely psycho on them. And finding America’s favorite starlet a teary, howling mess in my living room would probably make them wonder what else I was hiding, not to mention make them never want to hang out with me again. So I did the only thing I could: I panicked.

  “Listen,” I said, half-turning with my key in the lock. “I’m really, really sorry, but I just can’t have you guys over right now. I promised I wouldn’t have anyone over and … my family’ll get really mad if I do.”

  Meredith and Judith looked up at me, totally speechless and confused. I opened the door. I wanted to tell them more—reassure them that I still liked them and stuff—but I felt like I’d already said too much. So instead I just added, “Things are just complicated right now. But I’ll see you on Monday, okay? I promise.”

  Before they could say anything, I went inside and shut the door behind me. For a minute, I just stood there, feeling as crappy as I ever have in my life. Things had been going so well with my new friends, and I’d totally blown them off. My face was burning hot and I felt sick. I promised myself that I’d text them later in the evening—maybe I could explain the situation better if I had a little time to think about it first.

  But there was no time to replay it in my head just then, because I had been right: Sara-Beth Benny was a teary mess. She was lying on the sofa right in the middle of the living room, covered with balled-up Kleenexes, and she had so much running mascara around her eyes that she looked like a wild raccoon. She’d changed from her sweat suit into a pair of True Religion jeans and a T-shirt that had a silk-screened cartoon kitten on it, crying its eyes out into its furry paws. That was the good thing about having eight closets’ worth of clothes—she really did have an outfit for every occasion.

  “Sara-Beth,” I said, “what happened? Are you okay?”

  Sara-Beth looked over at me and sniffled. “Oh, Flan, I’m so glad you’re finally here,” she said. “The worst thing in the world just happened. The co-op board rejected me.”

  “What? Why?” I went over and sat down in a chair across from her. “Maybe you misunderstood something. That doesn’t make any sense. They haven’t even interviewed you yet. I didn’t even get a chance to write you a recommendation.”

  “I know. They flat-out rejected my application. They called me today and said they thought me living there would make the place too … ‘chaotic.’ That was the word they used.” SBB sat up, and dozens of wadded-up tissues avalanched to the floor. “I think it was the cover of Us Weekly that did it. The photographer got that shot right outside of my last apartment.”

  I felt really, really sad for Sara-Beth. After all, this was beyond unfair—she’d never wanted those pictures to get taken. Even if she had
divorced her parents and thrown a party so over the top that it had wound up on an episode of E!: America’s Wildest Parties, she still deserved a nice place to live—or at least a fair chance at getting one. For a second, I imagined how weird it would be if I didn’t have the house on Perry Street to come home to, with all its familiar furniture and nice memories. But I couldn’t even wrap my mind around how lonely that would make me.

  “You know, Sara-Beth,” I heard myself say, “you can stay here for a while, if you want. Until you find another place.”

  “Oh, could I? I promise I won’t be any trouble at all. Thank you. Thank you so much! I can hardly wait.” Sara-Beth leapt off the sofa. “I’ll be back in one hour with my trunks!”

  “Trunks?”

  “If that’s all right. I like the old steamer trunks, you know? They’re so charming and old-fashioned.”

  I nodded. “Okay, sure.”

  “But there’s just one more eensy little thing I need to ask. If I’m going to stay …” Sara-Beth paused. “You can’t tell anyone, even your friends, that I’m here. If the news gets out that I’m here, the paparazzi will swarm—absolutely swarm—and then I’ll never get into a co-op.”

  “All right,” I said. But there was a sinking feeling in my stomach that told me it would be anything but.

  Chapter 9

  Something Sweet

  Even though I’d promised myself that I would text-message Meredith and Judith to somehow give them a better idea of what was going on, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. What would I say if I couldn’t explain about Sara-Beth Benny and her weird housing situation? I’d just have to make up more lies, and I didn’t want to do that. So instead, I spent the weekend doodling sad faces in the margins of my history textbook, wondering if Meredith and Judith would completely shun me on Monday morning. They didn’t call or text me, which I took as a pretty bad sign. Fortunately, I had SBB to keep me company, so I wasn’t totally miserable. On Sunday afternoon, we made pink lemonade and watched Some Like It Hot, which did a lot to help cheer me up.

  On Monday, I was pretty nervous when I went looking for Meredith and Judith down by the subway stop. I kept checking my watch, all paranoid that they’d decided to take a different route to avoid me or something. But when they finally came up the stairs, they didn’t look angry to see me there—more just wary than anything else, I thought.

  “Hey,” I said, awkwardly tugging on my backpack straps. “I was starting to think I’d missed you guys.”

  Judith sighed. “No, it’s more like we almost missed you. Gorgeous here forgot to put her contacts in this morning, and we were almost ready to get on the train when she realized we had to go back.”

  Meredith rolled her eyes at Judith affectionately, like she was used to getting razzed. “But who takes about two hours to blow her hair dry, huh?”

  “You guys walk to the subway together every day?” I asked as we started walking to school.

  “Practically every morning,” said Judith. “We barely live a block away from each other. Guess that’s why we were so curious about your house—we don’t know anyone who lives downtown.”

  I took a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize to you guys about that—”

  “No, no.” Meredith smiled with her little teeth and tossed a quarter into a street musician’s saxophone case. “Don’t worry about it. Like I said to Judith on the way home, we were the ones being nosy.”

  “No, you weren’t. Not at all. My place is just a disaster right now.”

  I was glad we’d at least talked about it a little, but I hated keeping secrets. The whole rest of the way to school, I kept feeling like they were sneaking suspicious glances in my direction.

  Fortunately, Meredith and Judith weren’t too mad to eat lunch with me, so we all walked together from fourth period to go stand in the lunch line together. That day, the food in the cafeteria was particularly gross. They had a bunch of cold things every day—yogurt, apples, bagels—but only one hot lunch, and that day it was Tater Tot casserole. I’d never seen anything quite like it. It was gray and soupy, with soggy little clots of potato scattered around in it like they were plastic packing peanuts thrown in there by mistake. Most of the people ahead of me in line were letting the old lady with plastic bags on her hands glop it onto their plates, which I couldn’t quite believe. Once I saw that Meredith and Judith had decided on salads and bagels instead, I joked, “Check it out. The Iron Chef’s here, and the secret ingredient is crap.”

  Meredith laughed—and so did the guy behind me in the lunch line. I turned around and almost jumped out of my skin. He was wearing jeans, a red polo shirt, and these really cute John Fluevog shoes that looked like they were stolen from a bowling alley, and his eyes were crinkled up with laughter. And it was him: Bennett Keating, the second-cutest boy in tenth grade.

  “I know,” he said. “I forgot my lunch too. It’s so stupid—surrounded by all these good restaurants, and we’re stuck eating this.”

  “Y-yeah,” I stammered, willing myself not to blush. “It’s really ridiculous.”

  “I’m Bennett.” He offered me his hand to shake but, like an idiot, I was still holding my tray. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

  “Oh. Well, I just started here. I mean, I’m a freshman. My name’s Flan.”

  “How’re you liking this place so far, Flan?”

  “It’s nice.” I wished I could stop sounding so boring. I grabbed a bagel and set it on my tray, then held a paper cup under the soda machine and pressed a button. A fine spray of Dr. Pepper got all over me, but fortunately Bennett didn’t seem to notice. “I mean, the people here seem really cool. It’s great how many student clubs and activities there are and stuff.”

  “I think so. Some people find it really hard to navigate at first, though.” He cleared his throat. “I’m actually doing a piece for the school paper about the new class’s impressions of Stuyvesant.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Maybe I could interview you?”

  “Sure!” I tried not to squeak.

  “What’re you doing after school?”

  “Um …” I glanced toward Meredith and Judith, who had fallen totally silent—out of shyness or because Bennett was flirting with me, I couldn’t tell which. “The three of us usually hang out, so—”

  “Well, then, we should all go get some ice cream. We deserve it after this lunch. There’s a great place right around here—Cones, have you ever heard of it?”

  “Wow, I love that place.” Cones was an adorable little ice cream shop just a couple of blocks from my house. “Meredith, Judith—you want to go after school?”

  They nodded silently, each wearing a big smile.

  “All right. Nice to meet you guys,” he said, sailing off into the cafeteria with his tray. As soon as he was out of earshot, Meredith and Judith practically exploded with whispers.

  “That was so awesome!” Meredith cheered into my ear. “Oh my God, Flan, he really likes you! That was like love at first sight!”

  “And he has tons of cute friends! This is so amazing!” Judith was so happy, she was nearly jumping up and down.

  My luck couldn’t have been better. Two totally wonderful things had just happened at once. First, Bennett had asked me out, and second, Meredith and Judith had started trusting me again. This was turning into an amazing day—and all because of Tater Tot casserole. Who’d have thought?

  On the way out of the cafeteria, Bennett stopped by our table with two of his friends: that snobby guy Eric (who mentioned twice that he was entering some male modeling competition, even though I could tell by one look at him that he needed some major manscaping—at least an eyebrow wax and a better haircut—before he could even think about being in print ads) and this other kid, Jules, who was kind of heavyset but had cool black-framed glasses that made him look like he was in an emo band.

  When school was over, we all met at the front entrance and walked out together. It was great, leaving school with thr
ee cute guys, and I started to feel like maybe I wasn’t such a loser after all.

  In fact, I was more worried about Meredith and Judith. As soon as the guys showed up to meet us, they started to get all giggly and only talk to each other. I’ve seen girls act like that before, but I’ve never quite gotten it: you can know a girl who’s totally cool, funny, whatever, but as soon as you put her into the same room as a cute guy, she suddenly will only giggle and whisper to her best friend like she’s nine years old, and no one watching her would ever be able to guess that she’s actually an interesting person. Then again, I’ve known lots of seemingly normal guys who burp and tell dirty jokes to impress the girls they like, so I guess it goes both ways.

  “So, do you guys all work on the Spectator?” I asked.

  Eric rolled his eyes. “Journalism, ugh. What’s the point? Since when do people want to see pictures of drowned cows and starving babies?”

  “That’s not really what we focus on in the school paper,” Bennett said.

  “I’m the photographer,” said Jules, “and I made a rule for myself to keep drowned cows and starving babies to a minimum.”

  “Unless it’s a story about the cafeteria food,” Bennett joked, glancing at me with a flirty smile. I laughed. Meredith and Judith were way ahead of us on the sidewalk by now.

  At Cones, we got a table near the window. I ordered mint chocolate chip, and Bennett paid for it. I wondered if that made it a date, but before I could overanalyze it too much, Jules started telling this crazy story about his West Highland terrier and how she managed to get inside his building’s ventilation system.

  “The people downstairs thought a giant rat was coming after them. And we were like, ‘No, that’s just Muffy.’”

  “I wish I had a dog,” I said. “The last time I had a pet was when I was in fifth grade. She was a chinchilla.”

  “What happened to her?” asked Bennett.

  “Don’t ask,” I sighed. Zsa-Zsa had actually crawled down the stairs during one of my brother’s parties, only to be crushed under the wheels of a Vespa that Patch’s friend Mickey had driven into our house. Mickey had felt terrible about it, and he’d made up to me by hiring a skywriter he knew to write, “SORRY PATCH’S LI’L SIS” in the sky.