Best Friends...Forever? (7 page)

 

On the day of the tryouts, I went with Ashanti for moral support.

"You okay?" she asked. "You're awful quiet."

I shrugged. How did I tell her what I was actually worried about? That I knew she'd be chosen for the squad, and I was afraid she'd get close with all those girls and have no time to hang out with me? I would never have told her that, so I just said I'd been depressed since Peyton and I had stopped talking.

"I kind of want to go over and wish Peyton luck," I said. "But I don't want to get shot down."

Ashanti nodded. "I'll go over with you, and I'll do the talking. If she wants to talk to you, she can and, if not, well I'll be standing there, so it's not like she can just walk away and make you look stupid."

"Thanks."

We waited until Peyton went to get a drink of water and then walked up to her.

"Hi," Ashanti said. "We both just wanted to wish you good luck today."

"Oh, thanks. You too," she said, looking straight at Ashanti.

I decided to jump in then. "I'm not trying out. I don't have all the routines down and…well, I kind of stink at the somersaults and stuff," I said.

She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced around uncomfortably. I exchanged a nervous look with Ashanti.

"I think the squad will be great if a bunch of the Hillcrest girls get on it," Ashanti said.

"I don't actually want to be here," she said. "Devon and India begged me to try out, but I don't want to be a cheerleader. I don't want to have to practice for hours after school, and I don't want to wear those short skirts."

"Hey, do you want to come over tonight?" Ashanti asked. "Landry is coming over after tryouts."

"I'm supposed to sleep over at Devon's tonight," she said.

"Oh, okay. Never mind."

"I'll call you tomorrow, okay?" Peyton said. I started to smile, and then she said, "Talk to you tomorrow, Ashanti. And good luck."

She had acted like I wasn't even there. Wow.

They called the next group up, and we went back in the gym. Tori was there, which was weird since she'd never mentioned trying out to me. It hit me how far apart we had gotten as friends. Ashanti went up and her jumps were flawless. She looked like a professional as she did the cartwheel, but she added an extra step at the end of the routine.

"I can't believe I messed up," she said, sitting next to me.

"You were great. I'm sure you'll get picked."

Devon and India were in the next group. They both started out good, but Devon stumbled at the end after her cartwheel when she lost her balance. Peyton was in the last group and she looked confident as she did the split jump and went into the cartwheel. They called out the numbers of who made the first cut. Ashanti, India, Peyton, and Devon were all chosen. Peyton decided not to go on to the next level and sat alone instead of with me.

"Are you sure?" one of the girls asked her. "You were super good."

"Thanks, but I don't like it enough to go to practice every day," she said. "And some of the older girls who will be in charge next year are jerks."

In the next round, the girls had to cheer by themselves instead of in groups. Maggie went first, and executed her jumps like a professional. Devon went next and fell on her knees when she did a back flip. She does backflips all the time and never falls. My heart went out to her as she seemed embarrassed, but she got up and finished the routine.

"I feel so bad for her," I said and felt dumb for saying it aloud. I glanced around to see if anyone heard, and Peyton was staring at me without any expression on her face, making me wonder what she was thinking. Tori came over and sat down.

"This just isn't for me," she said. "My mom thought maybe it would be a good idea to have a second sport on my high school transcript for colleges, but I dunno. I'm not into it."

At the end of the practice, they announced who had been chosen for next year's squad. Maggie, Halle, India, and Ashanti had all made it, but Devon's name wasn't called. Peyton went over to talk to her while I congratulated Ashanti.

I heard a lot of people saying, "Maybe next year," and a bunch of the girls were crying.

Ashanti, Tori, and I went to meet Ashanti's dad in the parking lot.

"I'm guessing things went well, since you're all smiling," he said.

"I made it," Ashanti said.

"Good for you, but remember Mom and I are expecting straight A's, so no cheering if it affects your grades," he said. "Landry, did you decide to try out after all?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I still can't do the splits."

"Me either." He winked at me.

Ashanti wanted to stay longer to watch the older girls practice, so her dad took Tori and me home. I told Mr. Russell he could drop Tori off at my house.

My mom wasn't home yet, so I grabbed a box of brownies and two bottles of juice. Tori and I sat on my bed, and although we were talking again, things were still a little weird between us. I knew we should probably talk things over, but I didn't want to get into it, and I could tell she didn't either.

"Did you get the special edition Skylar Halston book?" she asked.

"There's a special edition?" I asked.

"Yeah, Sterling and Caramel witness a murder. I haven't gotten it yet, but I heard it's twice as big as the regular books."

Neither one of us knew what to say after that, so we both shoved the brownies into our mouths. Tori started looking at the new bookshelves dad had put up on the wall next to my bed. I had a few new mysteries she hadn't read yet.

"How are things going with your parents?" she asked.

I shrugged. "My dad was hoping that he could transfer to a clinic here by February, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. He's still planning to move here though."

"That's good. How's Vladi?" she asked.

I told her I hadn't talked to him in a while.

"He seems like a nice guy," she said. "You know, I saw him at one of the cheerleading tryout practices the other day. His team was finishing up in the gym as we were going in, and he asked Peyton why you were so upset that night."

"He did?"

"Mm-hmm. She just said it was a misunderstanding. I didn't know what was going on…I dunno. I never know what's going on with you anymore."

"Wait, he acted like he didn't know why I left?" I asked. She nodded. "I ran out of there and called my mom because I thought Peyton was telling him what a backstabbing jerk I was. I haven't talked to him since then."

She asked why I thought Peyton would talk about me behind my back. I shrugged and said I was used to that. She nodded and said Ericka had done that to her, too.

"Okay, let's make a pact that we'll never talk bad about one another behind each other's backs no matter how mad we get," she said.

I felt like saying, "What about what you guys did to me?" But I didn't. After all, it wouldn't help, and I honestly didn't know if she would see her part in any of it. I just had to hope the next time around she was going to be a good friend.

"Let's promise not to stop speaking to each other, too. I
hate
that," I said.

My mom came home exhausted and suggested that we order take-out. She handed the two of us some take-out menus and told us to choose. I wanted to see if Tori could spend the night, but I was afraid Mom might say no, so I waited until Tori went to the bathroom to ask.

"I haven't had anybody over to spend the night in forever," I said.

"Okay, just don't be too loud," she said. I had a feeling she said it was okay because no one had called me in the last few weeks. Ashanti was busy with cheerleading practice, and Thalia hadn't called either. I think Mom was worried that something might have happened because she had made a joke about how quiet the phone had been. But I didn't think it was funny.

Tori called her parents, and they said she could stay. Her mom said she'd drop her stuff off. Mom picked up dinner from the Chinese restaurant. We opened our fortune cookies, and Tori's cookie said, "A period of transition awaits you."

"That's a dumb one. I wanted, 'A hot
guy
awaits you,'" she said. "Read yours."

'"Trust is the most important thing in a relationship.' Oh, whoopee. These fortunes stink."

We asked my mom what hers said, and she hadn't even read it. My mother was so boring sometimes. Later, when we were cleaning up after dinner, I found her fortune stuck in the fried rice carton. "Anything worthwhile takes time and patience." Weird.

Tori told me that I should e-mail Vladi, since I had run out on him at the ice cream place. I shrugged and said I didn't know what to say to him. In fact, I always felt a little weird around him since a) he was a guy, b) he was in high school, and c) he was thoughtful and let's be honest, hot. Deep down, I knew I should apologize for acting like a weirdo, but he probably had moved on already and was dating like, half the high school girls' soccer team. Closing my eyes, I could just imagine him reading my e-mail and thinking, "Landry who? Oh that chick I used to sort of babysit? My charity case? No time to write her now. I've got a date with the girl who plays Colin's girlfriend on
As the Days Roll On.
"

"I wish he just knew when I needed him to call or e-mail me. Like he was psychic or something. You know, like that TV show where that guy can communicate with people by using his mind," I said, hugging my knees to my chest.

"Yeah, but the people that guy talks to are dead," she said.

My mom came in and said that Vladi had messaged her while she was online.

"I guess you forgot to log out, and he thought you were still on," Mom said. "I told him who I was, and he said to say hi to you."

"Did he sound weird or anything?" I asked.

"He just wrote, 'Hi Landry,' and when I told him I was your mom, he said, 'Sorry, Mrs. Albright. Say hi to Landry for me,'" she said.

"But did it sound like he desperately wanted to talk to me? What font did he use?" I asked.

Mom shook her head. "Why don't you e-mail him yourself and say hi?"

Mothers. I mean, why didn't I just grovel at his feet and throw rose petals in his path?

"E-mail him? Please. How desperate would
that
be?" I said.

"That is so weird," Tori said. "We were just talking about reaching him with your mind…it's like you channeled him or something…weird. Channeling Yagudin — that could be a book title."

Tori and I put on our sweats and went to make some popcorn. Channel seventy-eight was doing a special on real-life haunted houses. I knew I shouldn't have watched it, since I was what the announcer described as a "sensitive viewer," but I watched anyway. We made sure to switch the channel whenever my mom was around, because she'd have lectured me if she knew I was watching a show about actual ghosts. Movie ghosts are bad enough, but the real life stuff scares me to death. Once, after I watched
Death Stalks the Makeup Artist,
I had to beg my mom to let me sleep in her room. I even stopped using my mom's Little Rose foundation, because the ghost had tampered with the makeup artist's base.

"Ooh, I heard about this guy. He's mad because his wife promised to visit his grave every day, but then she stopped going there after a month. They say he walks through the cemetery at night and tries to find his wife," Tori said.

I thought about Peaceful Glades cemetery, which was across the main road at the end of my street. Sure, it wasn't directly across from my house, but when I went to the bus stop in the mornings, I could definitely see it. Normally, I didn't even notice it was there — unless I had just watched a movie about the undead. The first time my dad came to see the house, he had made a joke about us having "quiet neighbors" and that "at least we won't have to deal with loud parties." Easy for him to say, since he was just visiting on weekends and not living there full-time.

"Do you think ghosts leave the cemetery?" Tori asked. I shrugged and hoped no dead guy would decide to move into my house. She and Devon actually lived closer to the cemetery than I did, so maybe the ghosts would hit their houses before they got to mine. After all, Devon had all the premium movie channels, and Tori's house had that cool built-in fish tank.

Tori went to make some more popcorn as I snuggled into our new love seat. We had bought some new furniture since my dad was supposed to be moving in soon. Sometimes it felt like it was never going to happen. I mean, Mom and I had lived here for almost two years. When we first moved from Chicago, my dad had come to visit every single weekend, but then he and my mom started having problems. They fought all the time, and then Dad didn't visit as much because he was busy with the medical clinic where he worked. Things had started to get better, but he still wasn't living with us.

"Your mom said we could have this box of granola bars," Tori said, setting down the bag and the popcorn. "What's the next part about?"

"This guy had a Halloween display fall on him, so he haunts the grocery store where he died," I said, unwrapping a bar.

"Cool, 'Death by Display,'" she said.

 

Tori went home early the next morning, and I cleaned my room and deep-conditioned my hair. I was going to reorganize my books when I started to wonder if I should message Vladi just to let him know I hadn't meant to run out on him that night. After all, he had tried to talk to me last night, so I could just be acknowledging that. I sat at my laptop and bit my lip. To write or not to write. I went on his social media page and scanned it for signs he had a girlfriend. It seemed like a million girls liked and commented on stuff he posted, but while they seemed flirty with him, I didn't see him writing much back. I went to the most recent picture he posted, which was of a basketball player he liked. It happened to be one of the guys I had seen when I was in a coffee shop back in Chicago the previous summer. I posted a message about standing behind that guy in line. A few minutes later, I heard a "ping" and realized someone had liked my comment. It was Vladi.

"Seriously? You met him?" he wrote.

I typed that I hadn't talked to him, just stood there, but the guy had ordered a decaf white mocha latte.

"That's awesome."

"Yeah, he's super tall," I wrote.

I sat there, waiting and hoping for him to comment back. Nothing. I sighed. Oh well. At least he hadn't said, "Landry? How are we friends on here again?"

Then he commented. "Check your private messages."

Huh? Oh wow, the little mailbox icon had lit up.

I opened my e-mail from him. He asked if I was mad at him or something, and I told him the reason I left that night had nothing to do with him and said I was sorry.

"It was just some girl drama, and I felt bad about leaving without explaining."

He wrote back, "Oh, okay. Cool. I didn't know if I did something or what. I knew you were upset that night, so I figured it was something to do with your friends, but you never messaged me after that so I didn't know. Is everything okay with them now?"

I thought it would be best to write that everything was fine and pretend I was one of those sunny, happy girls on the teen magazine covers who never had a pimple or a problem, but that wasn't real. So I wrote back that we still weren't speaking and told him what happened. I didn't expect to get an answer or, if I did, something about how girls were crazy and full of drama. But instead, he wrote back saying that stunk.

"I feel bad your friends would turn on you like that. All you did was tell the truth, but sometimes people don't want to see bad stuff about a person, especially if they were friends with India longer than they were with you. It's always easier to blame the new person than to see that your other friend might not be who you thought she was, you know?"

He actually understood what I was feeling.

"Hey, is it cool if I call you?" he wrote.

My heart did the cartwheel I was incapable of doing as I typed back, "Sure," along with my number.

He called and at first I was nervous, but then we started talking about how some people could act like a good friend one minute and then stop speaking to you over something small the very next. Then he mentioned how we'd be seeing less of each other since basketball season was almost over. I asked if he went to any of the other high school games or activities. I thought if he said he was into another sport, it would give us a reason to meet up.

"Not too much. Do you?" he asked.

"No. Do you ever just go out for ice cream at Ignatowski's or…whatever?"

"Sometimes. With basketball and school and all, I don't have time for going out on dates and stuff. I can't drive yet, but my parents are always on me about my homework anyway."

I twisted a piece of my hair. Was this his nice way of saying, "Why would I want ONE girlfriend when I could have fifty girls falling at my feet on a regular basis?"

"I know girls like to be in touch all the time, too. My last girlfriend was always on me about not texting her enough or calling," he said. "But, you know, I text when I can and all."

My mind was filled with questions about his old girlfriend, but I just said, "Uh-huh."

"A lot of the guys on the basketball team, they're a lot older, and they say their girlfriends are always getting on them about not doing enough, you know? My friends — the guys in my grade – don't have serious girlfriends. It's more like we go to the movies in a group sometimes. I dunno. What about you and your friends?" he asked.

I gulped. "What do you mean?"

"Do your friends have boyfriends or date a lot?"

Ashanti had Jay calling her, but other than Devon and India's trail of guys drooling over them, none of my other friends had ever even had a boyfriend. I wasn't even sure if I could count my day at the mall with Nikolas as a date. It kind of was a date seeing as Nik had called me and asked me to meet him there. Plus, I'd sound less pathetic if I seemed like I had been on at least one date before I met Vladi.

"No. It's more like they're just…um…"

"Talking?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, feeling relieved he filled in the blank. "Nothing serious." Oh crap, why had I said that? Now it seemed like I was okay with having "nothing serious" in my life, too. I didn't want to walk down the aisle — although if we did in the future, I had the perfect dress in mind — but I didn't want him to feel like he could date other people either.

"I guess it's a little harder to date at a smaller school like Hillcrest, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah, there's one guy who has dated like, everyone in my class twice," I said, thinking of Kyle.

"Have you gone out with him?"

"No, he…." Would never be interested in me. Wouldn't look in my direction. Barely noticed I existed unless he needed homework help. "Um, he isn't my type," I said.

"So you don't go out every weekend?"

Did he mean with guys or just friends? I was torn between trying to look cool and trying to be myself. Oh well, if he was going to like me, then he'd have to like the
real
me.

"I go out to the movies sometimes or to the mall," I said, "but just with girlfriends. My mom kind of watches how often I go out, and if I have a modeling thing coming up, she won't let me spend the night at a friend's. So I go out when I can, but my mom insists homework comes first."

"My parents are the same way. School first, then basketball."

"Yup, and my mom says I have to treat modeling like a job, so I sometimes miss out on stuff with friends. Although I haven't had any modeling events in a while."

"Do you like it? Modeling, I mean. You never talk about it much."

I paused. I hadn't been crazy about any of the jobs I had done. I hated getting my picture taken, mostly because I only felt pretty while they were snapping away, and then I saw how goofy I looked when I had too big of a smile or when one of my eyes was half-closed. Plus, I hated when they enlarged the shots and I saw my flaws or overheard what they'd have to fix on my picture, like my giant pores. Runway work made me nervous, and I hated getting my makeup done. It seemed like the eye makeup always made my eyes water. I didn't like being poked by stylists either, but I kept at it, thinking eventually I'd get to the "good part." One day, I'd be on the cover of something or in a major ad campaign. I just had to hang in there a little longer, and it'd pay off, right?

"It's okay. My favorite model, Talisa Milan, says you have to pay your dues, so that's kind of what I'm doing now. Learning about the job and stuff," I said.

"Is this what you want to do for a real job later?" he asked.

How did I tell him I only wanted to continue with it as an adult if I was hugely famous and successful? Because doing more boring runway shows in places that sold spit-up rags and teething rings was not my idea of hitting the big time.

"I don't know," I said. "It depends on what happens down the road."

"Yeah, I get that. People always ask me if I want to play professional basketball, and I don't know either. I'm not even sixteen yet, and already college scouts know my name, but I don't know if I want to play for like, a job."

"It's a big decision," I said, staring at my face in the mirror. Who knew if I'd even be able to keep modeling? For the moment it was okay to be at the low end of the model height range, but what if I didn't get any taller? Some days I felt like I was too tall for eighth grade and the real world, but not tall enough for modeling. I hated towering over the guys in my class, but also knew I might miss out on modeling jobs due to my height.

"It's cool you understand what I'm going through. The pressures, the homework stuff, and the fact I don't have a lot of free time," he said.

"I'm kind of dealing with the same thing." Well, minus the pressure, since no one in the modeling world had given me a fat contract or even knew I existed.

"So I know I said I don't have time for a girlfriend and all, but…would you want to be my girlfriend anyway?" he asked.

My heart shot up three stories to my head. Did he just ask what I thought he did? Was he serious or just playing around?

"For real?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"Yes. Yeah, I would."

"I'm so glad to hear you say that. I got kind of nervous when you didn't say anything at first," he said.

I laughed. "No, you — I was surprised, that's all."

"So I guess I have a girlfriend now," he said.

I could tell he was smiling when he said it.

"Yeah, me, too…Oh, wait, no. I mean, I have a
boyfriend
." Shut up, shut up, shut up. Why couldn't I be normal for two minutes?

He started laughing. "I knew what you meant. I gotta go, but we'll talk tomorrow, okay?"

I got off the phone and threw myself backwards on the bed. I had a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend, but Vladi Yagudin, the sweetest, nicest…and hottest guy. Actually, he should be the one modeling, not me.

I picked my phone back up and texted Ashanti. She immediately called me.

"Ahhh! That is so cool. I mean, I knew it would happen, but this is major. May-jor," she said.

"I'm so excited," I said. "I can't believe he asked me."

"Why not you? You're amazing. Uber-adorable."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, right."

She said she had to go because her dad wanted her to take her clothes out of the dryer before she went to bed.

"My parents need to hire a maid. Has that man seen me fold? The clothes would look better lying in a heap in the dryer," she said. "See you tomorrow."

I sent Tori a text about Vladi, and she said she was happy for me, but she said she was on the phone with Ericka and couldn't talk.

Ericka
'
s got a crisis. We
'
ll talk tomorrow. Maybe you can come over after school. TTYL.

I sent back a smiley face and said I'd see her tomorrow. Then I went to look in the mirror. I appeared exactly the same as I did before, only now I had an actual, official boyfriend. Things were looking pretty amazing right now.