Going Vintage (26 page)

Ginnie mans the kitchen like a short-order cook and
waitress in one. Dad’s reading the paper—I didn’t know we even
subscribed
to the paper—and Mom is flipping through an antiques magazine, like this is just another fine Thursday morning. Like she didn’t write a blog last week about Dad’s obsession with old junk and how sometimes she fantasizes about marrying Mr. Clean because he’d smell better.

“Mallory!” Ginnie chirps. She has on a frilly throwback apron Mom bought her at a mall kiosk. “We need to discuss the soiree. Do you have your list of things you need to buy?”

Do I have a list?
Please
. “Yep.”

“Did everyone on your guest list RSVP?”

“They did.” Everyone being The Stars, Cardin, and maybe Oliver if I can muster the courage to ask him. Ginnie has invited twenty-five of her friends to our soiree. The upperclassmen won’t come; they’ll want to go out to eat somewhere more fancy, but freshmen stay in their own flock. Plus, free food.

“Can I get you some orange juice?”

If she tells me it’s fresh-squeezed, I’ll go manic.

“I’ll just eat some dry toast.” I sit down and drum my fingers on the table. Is it tattling if I tell Ginnie about Mom? Does Dad know? Would he care? He would have to. She’s not telling us the full truth.

There’s a confrontation brewing, but I’m not ready for it yet. I still need to figure out what I saw, how I feel, and who my mom really is. “Mom, can I take your car today? I have a lot of errands I need to run for pep club.”

“Actually … yeah, you probably can.” Mom smiles benevolently. “I’m working from home today anyway.”

Sure you are, Totally Thrifty. I still haven’t made eye
contact with her. Maybe she’ll consider eye contact a breakthrough and write a mother/daughter poem about it.

“I’m headed up to Burbank today to talk to a medical-history guy,” Dad says. “Think I’ll comb through some thrift stores while I’m up there. Want me to stop at Chervil’s and buy those chocolate raspberries you love?”

Mom beams. “That’d be good. Come home early. If I get all my work done, I can have the afternoon off.”

Ginnie swallows a smile at this. Her pancakes have saved this family.

I thought I felt nauseous when Jeremy tooled out, but this is so much worse. It’s a gnawing
knowing
in my stomach. Dad doesn’t look up from his paper to reach over and squeeze Mom’s hand. There’s something so simple and true about the gesture.

This scene is what I dreamed of when I began to seek out a bygone era. Our family together, for breakfast nonetheless. Who cooks breakfast anymore? If we ever did sit at the table before, Mom and I would be texting and Ginnie would be watching TV and slurping cereal, and Dad would be MIA. But this new, cheery version feels like a facade, like we’re a family in a 1960s magazine, advertising syrup and wholesome values. I want to tear out of the glossy pages, jump away from this image.

I shoot out of my seat. “I have to go to school early.”

Ginnie flips a pancake. “Meeting Jeremy behind the bleachers?”

“Ha-ha, Ginnie. Not in the mood.”

“If you’re with him again, fine.” She flips again, the batter
sticking to the skillet. “I mean, he’s a V-necked loser and you’re a complete idiot. I just wish you’d have told me first.”

Mom turns around in her seat, excited. “You’re back together?” Yay! Another blog post!

“What? No, of course not.” The way Ginnie is frowning and not looking at me tells me she is not joking. I really should have stayed in bed. “If I was back together with Jeremy, don’t you think you would be the first person I would tell? Where did you hear that, anyway?”

“Where didn’t I hear that? Everyone saw you touching in the hallway—”

“No, we were talking. And he touched me! I didn’t touch him back.”

“
And
he took down that whole Friendspace thread late last night, probably because you’re getting back together.”

“Whatever. Friendspace also says I’m a freelance prostitute. Glad you’re taking that as the gospel truth.”

“Oh, yeah, saw you logged on last night. Way to be authentic,” Ginnie says.

“Why does your Friendspace say you’re a prostitute, Mallory?” Mom asks. A prostitute daughter would provide
weeks
of blog posts, probably net her a new sponsor. “What happened now?”

“You’re mad at me for no reason,” I say to Ginnie. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I was on your side,” Ginnie says. “I’m so on your side, I woke up early to practice cooking for a soiree. I joined pep club. So when I see you sneaking online and talking to your
ex, it pisses me off. Typical Mallory follow-through. You came, you saw, you quit. You’re soft.”

“
Soft
? I am not soft. You don’t even know what happened.” Crap, I don’t know what happened. But I deserve more credit than this. So I have one relapse. Look at all the other changes I’ve made. And it’s not like I forced her to do all this. She got a homecoming date as a result of The List.

“I can guess what happened. You’re going back to him.” Ginnie sets down the spatula. Good. I’m worried she’s going to flip me after those pancakes. “That’s why you’re hanging out with his cousin, trying to get insider tips. Did you know they got in a fight last night? Oliver told Jeremy to leave you alone, then Jeremy told Oliver he was taking you to the dance again.”

“No, he’s not.”

“You could have cleared things up if you’d been there.”

“I had a paper to write!” I yell.

“His cousin?” Mom’s eyes are wide. “No, honey, remember, I said stay away from the cousin.”

Dad merely cocks an eyebrow behind his newspaper. This is as present as he gets during female disputes.

I smack Ginnie’s arm. How can she just turn on a dime because of something Jeremy posted online, a boy who
clearly
cannot be trusted? Because she heard some rumors and saw a fight that probably had more to do with Oliver and Jeremy’s cousin issues than with me? Those two always fight. Believing Internet hearsay is exactly part of what we’re supposed to be protesting here. And … freak. She’s picked up the spatula again. Who cares about pancakes? PANCAKES ARE NOT GOING TO SAVE OUR PARENTS’ MARRIAGE.

“So when I have a boy cheat on me, you get mad, but when you think other people are having affairs, you warm up the griddle.”

I wish I could take back the words as soon as I say them. Ginnie’s face drains of color. She’s helping me, she cares, she’s just mad because she thought I was giving up, like I always give up, but still.
Still
. She’s my sister. She should believe in me when no one else does.

“Who’s having an affair?” Mom asks, giddy with potential scandal.

“Get out of my kitchen,” Ginnie whispers.

Under another circumstance, this line, with Ginnie dressed up in an apron, wielding a spatula, would be hilarious. Now the bite behind her whisper leaves me raw. I might be the one jumping in and out of things, but she’s Miss Hot and Cold.

I grab my backpack and Mom’s keys and hurry out of the house. Ginnie doesn’t try to stop me, even though I’m her ride. I wish she would. I want to say sorry. I want to erase that horrified look in her eyes and the coldness behind her words. I’m Mallory. I’m the same. Just because someone thought they saw something and someone else said something online, that doesn’t make it real.

It doesn’t.

Does it?

Chapter 20

Times I have ditched school:

1. April—freshman year: Mom let Ginnie and me stay home one day, and we got manicures, read celebrity gossip magazines, and ordered Chinese food in the middle of the day. Mom took thirty million pictures. I’m guessing the bonding is all documented on her blog—she probably made good money on us too
.

2. September—sophomore year: right when Jeremy and I started hanging out. We went to a corn maze, but it was the middle of the day Wednesday
,
so the maze wasn’t open and we ended up just wandering around a field. We were in a group, too big of a group, got caught, and I was grounded for a week, but Jeremy held my hand and asked me out, so it was worth it. Then
.

3. February—sophomore year: Jeremy’s house. We watched movies and made out. Don’t want to talk about it
.

4. October—junior year: today
.

I get to school early. Mr. Hanover is alone at his desk, sipping tea and shuffling through tests. I hand him my paper and explain that I am deathly ill but wanted to turn in my assignment.

Mr. Hanover holds the paper in midair. “But … why are you turning this in?”

“Remember? Alternative assignment due today?” No need to explain that I used the very resource I was avoiding to complete the alternative assignment. Teachers are busy people—they don’t need the details.

“But you don’t need this.” He scratches his beard. “Jeremy turned in your virtual factory yesterday.”

“He … he what? But I told you I can’t use the Internet.”

Mr. Hanover flips through the report. “Did you use the Internet for this? You didn’t cite your sources. Where’s your bibliography?”

Oh, right. My bibliography.

If I go along with Jeremy, I owe him. If I do my bibliography, I have to name the Internet sources, which makes the whole reason for doing the report void. Or I lie and say I only used books, which I did, but not in the cut-and-paste job I’m turning in.

I cannot win.

“I’ll … I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow, ’kay?” I glance up at the clock. School starts in fifteen minutes. “I think I’m going to throw up. Sorry!”

“Bring in your bibliography tomorrow!” Mr. Hanover calls after me. “Stop by the nurse! You need to check out!”

No need to check out if I never check in. I don’t have anywhere to go. Not school—with school assignments I didn’t do. Not home, where Mom is probably blogging about a sale on condensed soups, or posting the picture she took this morning of Ginnie being all domestic, captioned “Like mother, like daughter!”

The rest of the school is pulling into the parking lot as I drive away. Oliver’s Nissan turns left just as I make a right. He stops in the middle of the intersection and honks at me. I smile apologetically, sort of an I-would-love-to-talk-but-we-are-driving-cars-in-opposite-directions smile. But Oliver takes it as let’s-stop-all-traffic-and-have-a-conversation time.

He rolls down his window. “Where are you going?”

“Taking a sick day.”

“Are you sick?” he asks.

“No. Senioritis.”

“You’re a junior.”

“Then juniorea. No, that sounds like an STD.”

For that, Oliver gives a barking laugh. Cars honk. I want to freeze this, freeze us. It’s never felt this good to make someone laugh, especially after the morning I’ve had. “I’m fine. Just need a break.”

“Go take something for that juniorea. I’ll call you after school, okay?” He taps his horn once in good-bye and turns. So … I guess he’s not mad at me anymore. That was significantly drama-free.

I have no set destination and half a tank of Mom’s gas at my disposal. A free day like this is the perfect chance to finish up everything on The List, mainly my homecoming dress. Also, I’m ditching. That’s dangerous, right? No? More cowbell?

It’s still too early to randomly drop by Grandma’s, so I pick up decorations for the soiree. Target has a vintage party line, and I know it’s probably as authentic as a McDonald’s salad, but even women in 1962 knew that party planning involves give and take. I also stop at the drugstore for some sixties-approved makeup: fake eyelashes, liquid eyeliner, and dramatic lipstick. By ten, I’m pulling into Grandma’s community. I try to remember what the Miss Etiquette library book said about drop-bys. The proper approach seems a phone call, so I stop to use the house phone in the main lobby.

When I get there, I find a tray of cookies and lemonade set out next to the flat-screen TV. I miss thirty-minute sitcom problems and fake reality with fake people, and since I want a cookie and it’s rude to get crumbs everywhere, I take a seat and watch a reality show about an interior decorator who’s
dating a soap star. The room she’s doing is sixties modern—all orange and brown and clean lines. So really, this is research.

A woman in a gray suit clicks into the lobby. She’s in her late forties, maybe fifties, with short curly hair. Still too young to be a resident. She fidgets with the pamphlets while waiting for the front-desk girl to appear. I look back to my scripted reality show, which is far more interesting than someone checking in at a retirement community.

“I’m here to see Vivian Bradshaw?” the woman says.

And I take that statement back. Who is this? I switch my seat, pretending it’s so I can be closer to the cookies, but this is really about Gray Suit and her mysterious involvement with my grandma.