Breaking Up Is Really, Really Hard to Do (8 page)

“Ramos, second serve,” Ginny barked. Lulu, chomping on gum, sighed and whacked the shuttlecock into the net.

“Aiken serves,” Ginny said. Bridget picked the shuttlecock out of the net and walked pertly to her service corner. Lulu tugged at the bottom of her skirt. She was a tattooed bottle-blond whose naturally dark hair struggled mightily to assert itself against the peroxide. Lina had a strong hunch that Lulu was only taking badminton because RSAGE required students to play at least one sport for three years, and badminton was the easiest. Unlike the perky Bridget, Lulu wasn't the badminton type.

“How's your first assignment going?” Walker sat beside her in the nearly-empty bleachers. “Don't feel bad if this doesn't make the paper. It has nothing to do with your writing—it's just that it's hard to squeeze an exciting story out of intramural badminton. Kate's just trying you out.”

“Actually, an interesting angle occurred to me,” Lina said. “Who's on the badminton squad, anyway? What's a girl like Lulu doing here, or Rania Burke, or Abby Kurtz?” Lina nodded toward Rania, a hip-hop diva type, and Abby, a sneering punk rocker covered with so many chains and studs she clanked.

“Sports requirement?” Walker said.

“Exactly. But look what a motley crew it's brought together. The badminton team might be the most diverse squad in the school, socially, and why? Because so many of its members have one thing in common—they hate sports.”

“Interesting,” Walker said. “The sport for people who hate sports. Except for Bridget over there. And her friend Miriam.”

Bridget and Miriam were the only girls in the gym who wore the regulation badminton uniform in the Rosewood colors, white and pink. The rest of the team wore t-shirts, cut-offs, pleather minis—just about any-thing but appropriate badminton wear. But since it was just an intramural sport and they rarely played teams from other schools, Ginnie didn't waste her energy enforcing the dress code. It was hard enough just to get the team to show up for practice.

“Fault!” Bridget screamed after Lulu finally batted a serve that scored a point. “Her foot went over the line!”

“Who gives a—” Lulu began, but Bridget cut her off, saying, “Maybe if we were playing in the backseat of a car you'd pay more attention.”

“You little—” Lulu ran under the net and dove for Bridget, knocking her to the gym floor. Ginnie blasted her whistle. “Girls! Girls! Stop it right now!”

“Whoa,” Walker said. “Lulu just opened up a can of badminton whoop-ass on Bridget. Maybe there is more of a story here than I thought.”

Lina snapped a picture of Ginnie breaking up the fight. “We're going to revolutionize the sports page.” She scribbled “Badminton Smackdown!” in her notebook.

“Cat fight—I love it. But I've got to go cover the girls’ soccer game,” Walker said. “I can only hope it will be as exciting. See you later.”

“See you,” Lina said. Things calmed down in the gym, and Ginnie disqualified Lulu for unsportsmanlike behavior. Game, Set, Match: Bridget.

“Good,” Lulu snarled as she stormed out of the gym. “Now I can finally leave this yawn factory.”

The next match began. Lina's mind wandered. What would Larissa be doing now? Certainly not sitting in a gym watching girls bat a shuttlecock around. Maybe sitting in a dark movie theater, thinking of Dan.

If only she could be Larissa for real. Wouldn't everything be better then?

9

Portraits

To: mad4u

From: your daily horoscope

HERE IS TODAY'S HOROSCOPE: VIRGO: The answer to a sticky problem will come-to you from an unexpected source.

T
hat's your sister?” Stephen asked. He and Mads were in the art room one afternoon, working on their projects as usual. Mads had taken portrait photos of her mother, father, sister Audrey and brother Adam, who was home from college that week, nerding up the place. Eleven-year-old Audrey, the living Bratz doll, was posed in her signature style—pink Juicy Couture sweatpants, a white t-shirt (cut off at the waist and flashing a pink sequined heart on the front), strawberry-blond hair tied with a pink velvet bow in. a high ponytail. She was doing her best Britney imitation, sticking out her lower lip (her idea of a pout), hands on hips.

“Is something wrong with her mouth?” Stephen asked.

“No,” Mads said. “She's trying to look sexy.”

“Looks like a bee stung her lower lip.”

“I know. She always poses that way. Do you think I should draw her like that or try to correct it?”

“I guess it depends on which way expresses the true Audrey,” Stephen said.

“Definitely lip-out,” Mads said.

“Then draw her that way.” Stephen flipped through the photos. “That's my dad,” Mads said, pointing to a shot of her father sitting at his cluttered desk in his home office. “He's a labor lawyer.” Russell Markowitz's graying hair puffed around his head as if it had never known a comb. He grinned from behind his big glasses.

“He looks like a nice guy,” Stephen said.

“Yeah. He's so nice we call him the Dark Overlord as a joke.”

Stephen flipped to a picture of a slim woman with frizzy blond hair and red cat's-eye glasses, sitting in the lotus position with a Siamese cat on her knee. “Captain Meow-Meow? And Mom, right?”

“We call her M.C.,” Mads said. “For Mary Claire. She's a pet shrink. Holistic, of course.”

“Is there any other kind?” There was one more picture in the pile. A nineteen-year-old with thick black hair and glasses like his dad, face contorted in pain over a table full of dead plants. “Who's that?”

“That's my brother, Adam,” Mads said. “He's about to kill me because he left me in charge of his plants while he's away at college. I watered them maybe once. Basically, I killed them. I tried to warn him—I've got a black thumb. Thumb of death. Not like Adam and M.C. They can make anything grow.”

Stephen set the photos on Mads’ art table. “These portraits are going to be good,” he said. “They all tell a story. But you'd better get to work. You've got a lot of people to immortalize in pastel.”

“Look who's talking,” Mads said, nodding toward his bedroom installation. “You've still got a whole dresser to build—and fill with clothes.”

“How many more portraits are you planning to do?” Stephen asked.

“Well, I've got one more photo to take,” Mads said. “Sean Benedetto.”

“You're doing a portrait of him?” Stephen asked.

“Sure.” Mads smiled. “He kind of cries out to be immortalized in pastel. Don't you think?”

Stephen shrugged. “It's your art project. How are you going to pose him?”

“I don't know yet,” Mads said. “I know my family and Holly and Lina so well, it's easy for me to find ways to express their personalities. But how to show Sean's? He's such a complicated person.”

“He is?” Stephen asked.

“Definitely,” Mads said.

“I don't know the guy. What kinds of things is he interested in?”

“I don't know,” Mads said. “Partying. Music.”

Mads went to the window. She could see the school playing fields in the distance. The girls soccer team was running drills, and the boys lacrosse squad broke up for laps.

“Some artists use athletes for inspiration,” Stephen said. “Degas painted dancers—”

“He's a great swimmer,” Mads said. “Maybe I'll pose him in his bathing suit.”

Stephen laughed. “His bathing suit? Would he do that for you?”

“I don't know,” Mads said. But the more she thought about it, the more excited she got. It was perfect. She'd make it the centerpiece of her show. Maybe she could even draw him life-sized!

But Stephen had a point. She could probably get Sean to stop long enough to let her take a snapshot of him in his normal clothes. But how could she get him to pose in his bathing suit?

10

The Awful Truth

To: hollygolitely

From: your daily horoscope

HERE IS TODAY'S HOROSCOPE: CAPRICORN: Something confusing will happen today. But you're used to that by now, right?

H
ave you ever seen the Eleven before?” Mo asked Holly. They leaned against the jukebox at the Rutgers Roadhouse Saturday night, waiting for the Kevin Eleven to take the small wooden stage.

“No, never seen them before,” she said.

“You'll like them. They're great to dance to.”

Holly watched as kids paid the three-dollar cover charge and streamed into the bar. The Roadhouse was a low, ramshackle wooden building that had been there forever. They served pizza and burgers and beer. bands played there most nights. This was an all-ages show. Anyone could come in but you needed to show ID to get a beer.

Holly recognized a few kids from school. Sean, with his leggy blond friend Jane, nodded at Mo from across the bar. Holly realized that she'd been seeing Sean at social events with Jane for several weeks in a row now. That went against the usual Sean pattern of a new girl every week. Holly wondered if Mads had noticed it, too. It was a new development, and not good for Mads’ chances. Not if Sean and Jane were getting serious.

Then Autumn breezed in, trailed by Vince, Rebecca, and David. Autumn stuck her hand in the back pocket of Vince's jeans, and Vince did the same. They marched around the room, stopping for a long, showy kiss every few feet. Autumn was soaking it up. She couldn't get enough attention, but then everybody already knew that. Vince was the surprise. He grinned like a movie star at people he didn't even know. Holly had thought he was quiet and shy. She'd thought he might calm Autumn down. But it seemed that the opposite had happened—Autumn had hyped him up. They were hanging all over each other. A slow song came on the jukebox and Autumn immediately pressed herself against Vince. They swayed and kissed, even though no one else in the room was dancing. They obviously didn't mind—people who weren't dancing had more time to stare at Autumn and Vince and be jealous of their passion.

“Uh, you fixed those two up, didn't you?” Mo said.

Holly nodded. “I think I've created a monster.”

“I'll say. They're grossing me way the hell out.”

In her mind, Holly started writing a new quiz. Some people needed to learn about how to behave in public.

Are You a PDA-aholic?

Do you and your honey gross everyone out with your constant Public Displays of Affection? Take this quiz and find out if you need to tone it down! Grade each statement with a 1 (not like you at all), 2 (sort of like you), or 3 (so like you it's scary).

_1. Your idea of a polite greeting is full-body contact.

_2. You spend so much time lip-locked you're not even sure what your honey looks like.

_3. You're always the last to leave a party—you come up for air and everybody's gone.

_4. When people see the two of you coming, they reach for their rain slickers and umbrellas.

_5. You know what your boyfriend ate for breakfast without his having to tell you.

_6. You brush your teeth before you call your honey just in case she can smell your breath over the phone.

_7. You're covered with so many hickeys people call you “Redneck.”

If you scored 7-10 points:
COLD FISH
. You do not have a PDA problem. You could probably stand to loosen up a little. Your honey is starving for affection!

If you scored 11-16 points:
NORMAL LOVEBIRDS
. You're affectionate without being icky. You have each other; you don't have to drag everyone else into it.

If you scored 17-21 points:
BLECH
! Keep it under wraps, would you? Who are you trying to impress?

The Kevin Eleven finally jumped onstage. The crowd hooted. “Hey,” Holly said to Mo. “There are only four of them. Not eleven.”

“That's part of the joke,” Mo said. “I think they just like the way the name rhymes.”

“Is there someone on that stage named Kevin, at least?” Holly asked.

“Actually…no. The lead singer's name is Cyrus.”

The band played a country-tinged rock song and people started dancing. Mo took Holly's hand arid they bopped from side to side together. Autumn and Vince were still glued to each other, even though this wasn't a slow dance.

Mo awkwardly twirled Holly around, and she saw the door open. A tall, broad-shouldered boy with choppy brown hair walked in. He wore a red t-shirt that said, I'm O
UT
O
F
B
ED
—W
HAT
M
ORE
D
O
Y
OU
W
ANT
?

Oh no. It wasn't…Yes, it was. Rob.

He spotted her, waved, and worked his way through the crowd toward her and Mo. Mo hadn't noticed him yet and didn't realize that trouble was headed his way. Holly, on the other hand, was acutely aware of it.

“Hey!” Rob said. He kissed Holly on the cheek as if she were still his girlfriend. “Lucky to find you here. How's it going, Mo?”

Mo stared at him for a minute, clearly confused. “It's going fine,” he said slowly. “I guess.”

Rob took Holly's free hand and danced a few steps with her. Then he said, “Let's get something to drink. Mo, you want something?”

“I'm fine,” Holly said.

“Me, too,” Mo said.

“Sure? Okay. I'll go get a Red Bull.” Rob drifted over to the bar.

“Holly, what the hell is going on?” Mo asked. “I thought you broke up with him.”

“I did,” Holly said. “You should have heard me. I'm not sure
he
heard me, though.”

“Well, I don't think he has any idea what's going on here,” Mo said. “He doesn't seem to realize we're on a date. You want me to talk to him?”

It was tempting, but Holly knew she had to do it herself. “No, thanks, Mo. I'll talk to him. I'm sorry about this.” Rob had gotten his drink and was headed back toward them. “I'll take care of it right now. Wait here.”

She intercepted Rob. “Hey, can we go outside for a minute?” she said.

“Sure. Whatever you want.” Rob followed her out the door. They stood in the light of a street lamp illuminating the roadhouse parking lot.

“What's up?” Rob said. “Haven't talked to you in a few days.”

“I know,” Holly said. “That's what usually happens when you break up with someone.”