All the Way (2 page)

Then I broke up with him a month before I found out my parents were moving me to Senior Hell. Talk about hindsight.

“I don't know,” I said. “Sam knew I was tired of him. He wasn't the one. So I doubt he'd want to get back together now. He'd know I was just using him for the prom, which is totally beneath me.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow.

“It
is
beneath me!” I protested. “I mean, using my ex as a date for the prom? When I already broke his heart once? That's way too low.”

“Whereas using some new guy isn't entirely out of the question, since maybe it could develop into something, and besides, maybe he's using you, too, so who cares?” she asked.

“Exactly.”

Rachel laughed, and I got up to pace around the room in a state of what was rapidly becoming misery. The truth was, we'd already run through all the available guys at Woodward Baines. There wasn't really anyone I could ask or hope to snag. So, if I was going to go to my senior prom, there was really only one remaining option—something I'd been avoiding thinking about.

The Norton prom.

Somehow I'd have to find a date at my new school for their prom instead.

Ideally, it would be someone like Tyler North, this cute Norton guy I'd been crushing on since I first laid eyes on him last fall.

Ideally, it would
not
be someone like David Ulster, the geeky guy who'd been crushing on me ever since I walked through the front doors of the school.

The minute I thought about the Norton prom, I glanced out the window toward the house next door to see what was going on over there. I couldn't help it. It
was
Friday afternoon, after all—the time when my next-door neighbor, Molly Barton, held her famous after-school parties that everyone in the whole school knew about, even though only a small handful of people were invited.

Let me just say this: they were the kind of parties you didn't have if your parents were home.

Molly was one of those cliché most popular girls in school you usually only read about in books: a cheerleader, senior class president, a good A- or B+ student who volunteered at the homeless shelter and whose father just happened to be a big shot on the school board and owned half the commercial real estate in town. I mean, seriously, how many people do you know like that? Usually natural selection managed to spread the wealth around at least a little bit. At Woodward Baines, we didn't have a perfect most popular girl in the senior class. One girl was the gorgeous cheerleader
and
the homecoming queen, but someone else had the rich father, and a third one had the killer grades.

But Molly had it all—plus the silky blond hair straight out of a shampoo commercial and a body that would put a lot of models to shame. And she didn't stop there. She apparently had an appetite for just about everything, because I'd seen her after school on Fridays, hanging out with her Juicy Couture-wearing friends, drinking or smoking dope, making out with Joey, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, in front of everyone, and then taking him into her bedroom, where things
really
got down and dirty. Not that I was spying on them or anything. But you couldn't help noticing. They didn't even bother to pull the shades.

Except today was different. I stood there staring openly, not even trying to duck behind our curtains, just watching what was going on in Little Miss Perfect's bedroom.

I thought I'd seen everything over at Molly's house, but this was something new.

“You could stand to spend prom night with Evan D'Unoffrio, couldn't you?” Rachel went on. “He's funny and . . . Carmen, you're not even listening to me. Hel-
lo
. Carmen, you pervert, what are you doing? Spying on the slut next door again?”

“Shh,” I said, as if I thought Molly and Joey could hear us, which of course they couldn't. “Look.”

Rachel got up and came to the window to see what I was all worked up about. From the studio window, we had a clear view into several rooms in Molly's oversized house. We could see straight through the French doors of the family room, where five or six of her friends were still hanging out, their beer cans spread all over the coffee table, probably leaving stains.

Straight into Molly's apple-green and gold bedroom, decorated with an antique armoire and tons of green silk throw pillows that were usually pushed off the bed onto the floor, so she and Joey could go at it.

Today, though, the bed was still made. Molly and Joey were fully dressed.

“Oooh, trouble in la-la land,” Rachel said, watching the scene below us.

They were having a fight—a real yelling and screaming fight. It was nothing violent, nothing to make you pick up the phone and call 911 or anything. But it was obvious she was really mad, and he was shouting back.

Then she whirled away and flopped down on her bed, sulking. He just stood there awkwardly, like he didn't know whether to leave or stay, waiting for her to say something else, but she didn't. It was so weird, and fascinating at the same time, watching their little drama play out without being able to hear what was going on.

“What are they fighting about?” Rachel wondered out loud.

I shrugged. “They can't be fighting about sex. She puts out plenty.”

“Maybe he doesn't put out enough,” Rachel joked.

“Joey? Ha. He's a total stud.”

“Yeah. So what else is there to fight about?” Rachel wondered, then answered the question herself. “Maybe she's pissed because he spends too much time with his friends.”

“Could be. He hangs with his buddies a lot. Or maybe he's been flirting with some other girl,” I said.

Rachel shot me a glance. “That would be
you
, if I'm not mistaken. Right?”

“Me? Oh, God. No way,” I said, flustered. I hadn't even thought of that. “I mean, yeah. He was sort of flirting with me last Friday afternoon, but it was just some lame attempt. It didn't mean anything . . . I don't think.”

My voice trailed off, wondering.
Did
it mean anything? I had already told Rachel all about Joey—how he was the captain of the football team, and one of the most popular jocks in school, despite the fact that he was kind of an arrogant jerk. I couldn't quite figure out why people at Norton put up with him, let alone liked him so much—he was so full of himself. He had this blog called Joey's Joint (and believe me, the dirty pun was
definitely
intended). It was all about himself, all these totally conceited accounts of his weekends and his exploits. Everyone at Norton checked out his blog on Sunday night to find out what outrageous thing he had done, or at least claimed to have done, the two days before.

My favorite, to be honest, was the time he rode bare-assed on a saucer sled down the hill at the Tall Oaks Country Club, on some kind of bet. Apparently his cute little butt froze to the saucer, and he had to pour a beer on it to get it unstuck.

Guys who do idiotically dumb things like that seem vulnerable to me, which makes them almost likable.

Emphasis on
almost
.

Anyway, I had told Rachel all that, and how he was always hitting on me and flirting when he ran into me as he left Molly's house. Her house and mine have adjacent drive-ways, and it usually timed out that I was on my way back for dinner from the garage studio when he was leaving her house to go home.

No—not on purpose.

But I didn't actually think he was serious. I couldn't possibly be the reason Joey and Molly were arguing—could I?

I stared, waiting for something else to happen, just like Joey was. Finally Molly sat up and said something to him with a hateful, furious look on her face. Joey froze for a minute. Then he stomped out of her bedroom and slammed the door. We could see five heads snap—all of the people in the family room turned at the sound of the door slamming.

A minute later, Joey stormed down the driveway, got into his car, revved the engine really loud, and roared away.

“Wow,” Rachel said. “That was intense.”

I nodded, still watching Molly, who was now facedown on her bed.

Everyone in the family room seemed to know something bad had happened, because they kept looking toward the direction of Molly's room, waiting for her to come out. When she didn't, they finally got up, one by one, and slipped out the back door.

“Hmmm. Looks like you're a home wrecker,” Rachel teased, shooting me one of her
go for it
grins.

“Oh, come on. I haven't even talked to him in two weeks. There's no way they were fighting about me.”

“Maybe not. But she looked ready to throttle him about something. I'm guessing you don't get that pissed at someone just for spending too much time with the guys.”

I forced myself to turn away from the window. How wrapped up in their lives could I get? I had a life of my own—sort of. At least that's what I was telling myself.

And honestly, that was the real reason I was so determined to go to the prom. My senior year had sucked, but I didn't want to let it end that way. I didn't want to graduate and go off to college feeling like I hadn't really ever
been
a senior, hadn't done all the fun senior stuff and taken advantage of what was supposed to be the best year of my high school life.

At least if I got a date and turned these last few weeks into something special and memorable, it would make up for a whole year of social isolation.

“So what am I going to do?” I asked Rachel. Of course I meant about the prom.

She gave me a sympathetic look but shrugged. What could she say? We both knew I had zilch in the way of choices.

Rachel checked her watch. “Oh my God, I've got to get ready. Jeremy's picking me up in an hour, and we're going to a party at Steph's.”

She had blurted it out before she thought about how I'd feel.

Uninvited.

Quickly, she shot me an
I'm sorry
look, then gathered up her beads, threw a long shimmery scarf around her neck, and headed for the stairs.

Hey—it's not her fault that a few of my old friends have sort of forgotten about me. Not all of them, of course. But Steph and I were never that close.

I followed her down and out of the garage to the street, where her three-year-old Ford Focus was parked. “Call me when you think of a plan,” I said. “I am
not
going to miss our senior prom!”

“I'll ask Jeremy. He'll come up with someone.”

It was a hollow promise, I knew, because Jeremy was terrible at this kind of thing. The guy has zero social networking skills. But she was trying.

“Great—thanks.” I was determined to be optimistic.

Rachel got into her car and zoomed off into the sunset—literally, the sun was going down. I walked to the mailbox and started to haul out the stack of catalogs we got almost every day. My mom is the mail-order queen.

Then I heard a car engine roar up and squeal to a stop in front of Molly's house.

It was Joey, still driving his shiny black Mustang convertible like he wanted to kill someone. He stomped up the steps to Molly's house and went in without even knocking.

Wow. What's that about? I wondered. It didn't look like she'd text-messaged him that she was so sorry, would he please come running back right now.

Then Joey came out again, slamming the door behind him and carrying his backpack. I guess he'd blown out of there in such a hurry the first time, he'd left it behind.

“Hi,” he said, instantly slowing down and crossing over from Molly's driveway to mine.

“Hi.”

I tried not to glance at Molly's windows. Was she watching us? How much more trouble did this guy want to be in?

“Nice top,” Joey said, looking me up and down and grinning at my chest.

I knew he was technically talking about my sweater, which was a pale blue supershort thing that clung to me in all the right places and showed plenty of midriff. But his eyes were fixed on only one part: my boobs.

Okay, so I have a great chest, I'll have to admit.

I tried not to smile at him, because he was being such a Neanderthal, but he gave me that great, seductive smile he has, dimples and all, and then he met my eyes and didn't let his own wander down to my chest again. So I finally smiled back.

“Thanks.” I didn't know what else to say. A few of the mail order catalogs started to slip, so I pressed the stack closer to me. Honestly, I didn't intend this, but it made my boobs look even bigger.

Joey laughed.

“So, uh, we should go out sometime,” he said, still keeping his eyes where they technically belonged.

“Oh, right.” I shook my head. “What are you, a masochist or something? I'm thinking Molly wouldn't be too good with that.” I glanced at her house, wondering if she was taking this whole thing in.

“No, that's over,” Joey said. “Molly and I broke up.”

He made it sound like a mutual decision, but it hadn't looked that way to me.

“Are you sure?”

I was sort of stalling for time because I wasn't sure I wanted to come between the two most powerful social icons in the whole school. But he was way cute—and I really wanted a date for the prom. I'd have to be crazy to turn down Joey Perrone at a time like this.

“Definitely. It's over,” he said. “Molly's history. Listen, why don't we go to the donkey basketball game tomorrow night? It should be slammin'. Hornersham on an ass? I've got to see that.”

Donkey basketball is a lame Ohio fund-raising thing that's been around forever. Some company brings donkeys to your high school, they teach you how to ride without hurting the animals, and then it's teachers versus students riding donkeys, trying to play a real game of basketball on the court.