Good Girls Part 16

"I'll submit them to the next edition of Ebb&Flow. I have connections there," I say.

"Okay," she says. "But I have to tell you that the chances of your stuff getting selected are slim. We get lots of pieces about sc.u.m-sucking s.l.u.t jockeys." She tips her face up at me, streaky as Elvira's left out in the rain.

"Are you mad at me?"

"For what?"

"For acting like such a jerk. I was so mean to you. I kept saying all those things about Luke, how he was such a player and all that."

"Oh, shut up. He is a player . You were worried about me."

"I was worried. But I think . . ." She plucks at the rip in her jeans. "I think I was jealous."

"Jealous? Jealous of what?"

"You seemed to like Luke so much. And he seemed to like you, too. As much as a guy like him can like anyone. Anyway, I wanted that feeling. And I knew I couldn't have it, and it seemed so unfair that anyone else had it, and it all ends up being for nothing anyway, because guys suck freaking rocks." Her face twists up. "I 185 should have supported you. I should have been there for you. And I wasn't."

I'm about to argue, to say that she's always been there for me, but it's insane to deny that sometimes people fail each other. Maybe she wasn't there, not the way she could have been, but she's here now. And so am I.

"Listen," I say. "Here's what we're going to do."

"What?"

"We're going to sit here until spring."

Ash thinks a minute. "I'll run out of cigarettes."

"Who cares? Don't you know that smoking is so last decade?"

"What about food?"

"Nah. We need to lose a few pounds anyway."

"Speak for yourself," she says. She uses the hem of her T-shirt to wipe off her face. "You're starting to get roots. Time for another dye job."

"I'll dye it pink if you want. To match the tulips."

She exhales. "We stay till spring?"

"Till spring. I promise."

"Okay," she says. She leans back in the seat and so do I. We wriggle around to get more comfortable as the engine purrs us a sad winter song.

We don't stay in the car, of course. After about ten minutes, Ash is better, and more than that, bored, so 186 we go back to the cafeteria. Then we have to spend the next ten minutes consoling Joelle, who is still upset for making Ash upset. Pam and Cindy get upset because they don't know the entire Jimmy/Ash/Cherry story, so we have to fill them in. Cindy tells us that it sounds a bit like The Sweetest Vengeance, a romance novel she's reading, and Ash informs her that bodice rippers are s.e.xist fantasies that only feed into women's fears of owning their own s.e.xuality. Cindy gets upset all over again. Pam has to buy all of us fries to shut us up.

It's a long lunch.

When I get home that afternoon, my mom's waiting in her usual spot in front of her laptop. But today she's not typing or drinking coffee, she's smiling big.

"What's up?" I say.

"We got some mail today." She waves a sheet of paper .

"Report cards? Gimme!"

I s.n.a.t.c.h the paper from her . Three A's. Four A pluses.

A personal best. I sigh in relief. "I can't believe I got an A plus in Lambright's cla.s.s."

"Audrey, look at the cla.s.s rank."

"What? Why?" I've been number four forever. I scan the page. Cla.s.s rank: 3/314. "I'm number three?"

"That's what the paper says."

"How's that possible?"

187 "Could be all those A pluses. You outdid yourself."

She pauses. "I hope that you can relax now. I hope this makes you just a little bit happy."

I touch the number 3 on the page. "Almost," I say.

"Almost happy."

188 Spring, Sprang, Sprung January turns into February. For my birth- day I get a gift certificate from my friends, a silver necklace with a tiny cross from my parents, the continued cold shoulder from Luke, and a driver's license from the State of New Jersey. I borrow my mom's car so much that she complains she doesn't recognize it (or me) anymore.

189 In March, Ms. G.o.dwin decides to go traditional for the spring musical: Grease. Joelle is trying to get Pam to try out for Rizzo. Pam is suspicious. She says she saw the movie once a long time ago but doesn't remember much besides a very young John Travolta in very tight pants.

"Who's Rizzo?"

"She's mean, she's sarcastic, she's smooth. She's the leader of the Pink Ladies."

"I don't remember any Pink Ladies. Are they les- bians?"

"No!" says Joelle. "They're like a girl gang. Except that they don't beat anyone up or kill anyone."

"Well, what do they do?"

"They just go around acting cool."

"Sounds boring," says Pam.

"It's so not boring. It's fun! You'd be perfect, I swear.

I'll help you learn the part."

Pam shakes her head. "This is really not my thing, you know."

"I'm telling you, you'll love it. You get to dress up in these great fifties costumes and sing these songs . . ."

"Sing! I'm not singing anything!"

Joelle puts her hands on her hips. "Pam, you never study and you don't do any of your homework. You don't have a job. You hang around the theater at every rehearsal. Plus, you've given up on guys, right? What 190 else do you have to do?"

Cindy nods. "She has a point."

Pam crooks a finger at Cindy. "I'll try out if she tries out."

"But I don't want to try out!" Cindy says.

"And I'm not the only one who's going to make a fool of myself," Pam says. "So you're trying out, too."

They both do. Pam doesn't sing well or act well, and she forgets a few lines, but she has a kind of presence that makes you want to watch her , some sort of razor-y, grit-your-teeth, man-eater thing. You see why people fall for it. Ms. G.o.dwin does, anyway. Pam gets the part.

Joelle snares the lead, Sandy, and her brand-new boyfriend, O/Joe, will play the male lead, Danny Zuko.

Cindy ends up on the crew with me, which suits her just fine. Ash promises to attend the rehearsals and write ter- rible tentacle poetry about the set and the performances.

"Ooh! Black bile!" I say.

"Frozen dread!" says Pam.

A new play means another s.l.u.t City World Tour road trip to the Home Depot, and also to the junkyard, where I can buy an old car door and some panels for the "Greased Lightning" sequence. And it also means more hammering and sanding and painting, more pizza for the minions, more hours spent at the theater listening to Ms.

G.o.dwin bark at Pam for trying to read her lines off her cell phone and at Joelle for not learning them fast enough.

191 n.o.body's fast enough. Mid-April, two weeks before the show opens, Ms. G.o.dwin wants to know when the sets will be finished.

"We don't have that much more to do," I tell her.

"Some painting and some a.s.sembly. It shouldn't take long."

She's wearing some sort of capelike scarf that's fas- tened at the throat with a large jeweled brooch. She tugs at the brooch and looks down her nose at me. "I'm sur- prised at you, Audrey. I've never seen you as behind as you've been this past month or so."

I think we're right on schedule, but that's not the kind of thing you say to Ms. G.o.dwin. You say, "I'm sorry, Ms. G.o.dwin. I'm working as fast as I can."

"Hmmm. . . ," she says. "Well. I suppose you've been distracted."

"Excuse me?"

She heaves one of her why-must-I-spell-everything- out sighs. "I don't like to get involved in the personal affairs of my students, but I have to say that I thought you of all people would have had better judgment."

I feel a cold flame in my cheeks, as if someone has pressed ice cubes to my skin. "What do you mean?"

"Audrey, I do have eyes and ears, even if I don't always comment on everything I see and hear . I thought you were far too smart to put yourself in that position."

She realizes what she's said, and I see her cheeks flush.

192 "But I am glad it wasn't worse for you."

This is the woman who wanted us to turn Hamlet upside down. What about a little female solidarity? A lit- tle support? I'm so mad I want to pound a nail into her head. "You know what, Ms. G.o.dwin?" I say, the words practically shredding my vocal cords. "I have to say that I think it's been bad enough for me. And you know what else? I would have thought that you of all people would be a little more understanding."

I stomp out of the auditorium and over to my locker.

It's close to seven o'clock, and I'm tired, sweaty, totally p.i.s.sed off, and covered with dust and paint. I'm stand- ing in front of my open locker, yanking on my jacket, checking my pockets for my precious car keys-okay, my mom's precious car keys-and thinking that if Ms.

G.o.dwin threw me off the design team it would be okey- dokey with me, when the door at the other end of the hallway opens. I'm not alone anymore. Luke's in the hall with me. He's wearing his baseball uniform, his mitt tucked underneath his arm. He's as dirty and sweaty as I am-dirtier, sweatier.

I freeze, he freezes.

We stare at each other. His eyes flick to my head, where I've knotted my hair-now even darker than before-in a crazy, fraying ball, and I just now remem- ber that I have pencils sticking through it. I look him up and down, take in the smudges on his forehead and 193 cheeks, take in those stupid short pants they make the baseball players wear. It annoys me that Luke can make kneesocks look good.

I don't know what to say. Hi? I love you? I hate you?

You make my guts twist? Where'd you get those rockin'

socks?

I say: "Love the knickers."

His head jerks back as if I'd slapped him. I can see him debating whether he wants to talk to me or not, but then he says, "What is your problem?"

I jam my arm into my jacket. "I don't have any prob- lems. Not anymore."

He walks toward me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said."

He stops about five feet away. The shine in his eye says that he'd like to slap me for real. "Let's get one thing straight: I didn't take that picture. You know I couldn't have taken it. None of my friends took it. I didn't pay anyone to do it or talk anyone into doing it.

And I didn't send it to anyone. I know you know this, I heard what happened with Chilly. This. Was. Not. Me.

None of it was my fault."

"I didn't say it was."

"Then what is up with you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say. I slam my locker shut and spin the lock.

194 "You look at me as if I just poisoned your cat. Your friends look at me as if I just poisoned your cat. I'm freaking sick of it. What did I ever do to you?"

His face is red, and the veins in his neck stand out.

I've never seen him mad before. It feels good to be able to make him mad. And then it feels weird. Why should I care if he's mad or not? Why should I care at all?

"n.o.body's looking at you like anything," I say. "Get over yourself."