Inside Girl (8 page)

Anyway, none of this explained why she was sitting
in my living room, crying, in the middle of the night. I was so surprised to see her there that I dropped Noodles, who quickly scrambled across the living room. He jumped onto her lap and tried to lick away her tears.

“Down, down, little guy!” Philippa pushed at Noodles, laughing a little despite herself. “Why does your dog smell like Chinese food?”

Before I could answer, Patch came out of the kitchen, eating a sandwich.

“Hey, sis,” he said as he went up the stairs. “New dog?”

“Yeah. So what's going on here?”

“Philippa ran away from home,” Patch yelled down the stairs. “I guess she'll crash with us for a while.”

I nodded, still confused. “What happened?”

“I had a terrible fight with my folks,” Philippa said, staring down into her lap. “God, it was so unbelievable. We were all just beginning to speak to one another again, and then when they found Mickey sleeping in my bedroom, they just totally—”

“Flipped out? Oh, I could tell you some stories.” Sara-Beth flung herself down on the couch dramatically. “It's a horrible thing, having a mom and a dad.”

“Yeah. They can be such assholes.” Philippa blew her nose loudly. SBB nodded.

“And those snakes are out for every cent they can get,” SBB said. “That's why you're going to need a good lawyer—the best.”

I thought of Judith's father. Maybe I could send some business his way.

“But I'm not just mad at them. I'm pissed at Mickey too. He totally bailed on me. He thinks this is all just a big joke.” Philippa slumped back on the couch. “The minute they found him, he was out the window. Literally. He sprained his ankle! Sometimes I think he doesn't care about me at all—he just likes me because I'm a challenge. First he can't have me because of my folks, then he can't have me because I'm into girls. But whoo-flippin'-hoo, once he gets me, he just totally flakes out. He just treats me like a girlfriend, not like a real friend, you know?”

“That's terrible.” I sat down on the couch. It sort of sounded like Philippa was overreacting—Mickey was a good guy, from what I knew about him—but then again I hadn't heard the whole story. Noodles jumped into my lap and I scratched his belly. “So let me get this straight: your parents found Mickey in your room, Mickey totally bailed on you, and you came here to get away from all of them?”

“Basically, yeah. Plus my parents might be suing the Pardos, but that's a whole other issue. Sorry to
burden you guys.” Philippa covered her face with her hands. “It's all a huge mess. I just need someone to talk to, I guess.”

“I love these late-night chats.” Sara-Beth grinned. “It's like a sleepover.”

“It kind of is.” But I could barely keep my eyes open. Even Noodles was falling asleep in my lap. I dragged myself up off the sofa before I could pass out, and held my sleeping dog like a baby. “Hey, I've got school tomorrow, but you two should keep hanging out.”

“Do you want to?” Philippa looked at SBB all sorrowfully. “I should warn you that I'm not going to be much fun. I'll probably just keep talking about my problems all night.”

“Of course I'll stay up with you! But on one condition.” Sara-Beth looked up at me. “Flan, can we have a blanket fort?”

“Sure, I won't stop you. There's a closet full of blankets and throws right off the pantry.” I carried Noodles upstairs, put on my pajamas, and crawled into bed. I was exhausted. Down below I could hear Philippa crying while Sara-Beth knocked over furniture and rummaged through the linen closet, but even if she was breaking everything in the house, I was way too tired to care.

* * *

In the morning, I woke up with Noodles licking my face. He really was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. Pomeranians have these funny little mouths that make them look like they're smiling all the time. I spent a long time just petting him before I made myself get out of bed and start getting ready for school. The minute I started trying to move, I understood why most of us don't party like rock stars during the week. It's one thing to stay up if you don't have anything to do the next day, but if you have first-period algebra to look forward to, it's another situation entirely.

I could tell SBB and Philippa had stayed up even later than I did, because even though I was banging around the kitchen, trying to figure out how to make the coffee I normally don't drink, they didn't make a sound. Sara-Beth really had rigged up a blanket fort, using the leather wingback chairs from my dad's study and what looked like the entire contents of the linen closet. It looked like an elephant was sleeping under a patchwork quilt, right in the middle of our living room.

I finally choked down some granola and the coffee-flavored water I'd managed to make, and I boiled some spaghetti for Noodles, who was standing on his hind legs and waving his paws around excitedly. I promised
him that I'd buy him some dog food after school, then stumbled out the door. As I walked, I realized there was no way I'd be able to keep this up for long. Normal by day, fabulous by night only really ever works for superheroes—for the rest of us, it always falls apart sooner or later.

On my way to second period, I went up three escalators, pushed through a crowd of thousands, and found Meredith and Judith waiting outside my classroom. Fortunately, they were way too giggly and excited to notice how wiped out I was.

“Oh my God, did you hear?” Meredith asked me. “A bunch of the sophomores are having a big party this weekend. It's going to be excellent.”

“Okay …” I looked from Judith's face to Meredith's and back. “But we're not sophomores.”

“We might as well be!” Judith squealed. “Check it out!”

She thrust a folded-up piece of notebook paper at me. My name was written on it in Sharpie, with a single zigzag line drawn under it, like the person who wrote it was trying to make his handwriting look macho and sharp. I unfolded the note.

The message was written in pen:

Hey, Flan, I just happened to be passing by your locker and thought I'd let you know there's a party you, M., and J. might be interested in this weekend. It's going to be mostly sophomores, so you might not know everyone there, but it should be chill anyway. It's on Friday night at my friend Devon's place in Chelsea. Call me for details. Here's my cell
.

He'd put down his cell phone number, his landline, his e-mail, and his AIM. Then he'd signed off—
Bennett
—with the zigzag underline. There was a PS too:

It was cool talking to you yesterday. Give me a call
.

Even though the party sounded cool and everything, I was also kind of cracking up inside. It was so cute and funny how Bennett had put down every possible way of contacting him and asking me to call. Twice. But even if it was kind of silly, it also melted my heart. When I looked back up at Meredith and Judith, though, they were just grinning at me like I was holding a winning lottery ticket.

“Did you read it?” asked Judith. “Isn't that amazing?”

“Wait a second, how did you get this note?” I asked. I was not getting a lot of privacy lately: first Sara-Beth was spying on me out of the window—now my school friends were reading my mail.

“We passed by your locker,” Meredith explained. “Bennett was about to stick it through the vents in your door, but he figured you'd be more likely to get it if we brought it to you. He did mention the party to us too.”

“Okay.” I folded it up and put it back in my pocket. For a moment I was suspicious that they'd opened the note but then I figured it was easier to just believe them. At least he hadn't mentioned anything about the ear-kiss. I wanted to keep that to myself.

It was weird: I'd always been a really open, honest person, but since starting high school I suddenly had a lot of secrets. I had to hide Sara-Beth, because I'd promised to, and now that Philippa had run away to our house, I probably wasn't supposed to tell anyone that she was there either. But I was also keeping a bunch of stuff about myself secret: the fact that my parents didn't work, all the parties and craziness that went on at my house, my celebrity friends, my nights out on the town. I even felt weird mentioning my old
boyfriend, Jonathan, to Judith and Meredith, since they seemed to have had practically no experience with guys. And now I was hiding the ear-kiss too—supposedly to protect Bennett, but really more to protect myself. Enough was enough. I opened my mouth to tell Judith and Meredith about it, about anything and everything, but at just that second, Bennett walked by.

“Hey,” he said. “You got my note?”

“Yep.” I held it up, and he flashed me a dazzling smile.

“I've gotta run to class. But I'll talk to you later, right?”

“I'll call you.”

Bennett disappeared down the hallway, and before he was even out of earshot, Meredith and Judith hugged each other.

“This is going to be the coolest weekend ever,” Judith said. “Hey, listen, we should all go over to your place to get ready before the party, Flan. We can do one another's hair.”

I hesitated, but fortunately, before I had to think of another excuse, Meredith jumped in.

“No, we should meet at my place, and I'll help dress you guys up,” Meredith said. “No offense, Flan, but I think I have more accessories than both of you and Bloomingdale's put together.”

I had to stop myself from breathing a sigh of relief.

“That's cool.”

We decided that after the party we should sleep over at Judith's because, as she pointed out, her bedroom had two big beds and a comfy couch, and she had her own TV. With cable. I wasn't about to argue.

The rest of the day, I sleepwalked around Stuyvesant. It's really a huge school, not even in the same league as Miss Mallard's. And even though the hallways are all sterile and white and kind of same-looking, it's important to learn the geography, just so you don't wind up stumbling into the middle of the wrong clique and making a fool of yourself. On the second floor, for example, there's the Cuddle Puddle, a group of senior guys and girls who lounge around on the floor or each other's laps, and the first time I was up there I practically tripped over them. Then, up on the third floor, a bunch of Asian juniors hang out in the atrium. Some sketchy, punked-out kids lurk around the fourth-floor escalator, and on the fifth floor a lot of drama geeks are always singing and dancing and practicing their lines for performing-arts class.

Walking around the school that day was like being in a dream, and I found myself wondering where I fit in. It was weird: even though I'd been trying to reinvent
myself, I hadn't really found out what I wanted or liked yet. I'd been too busy hiding old stuff about myself to uncover anything new. I didn't want to end up just traveling around and goofing off forever, like my parents, but I still didn't know what I
did
want to be. I decided that from now on, I'd try harder to figure it out. After all, I was growing up—it was time to get serious.

The
Spectator
had a meeting after school that day, so I wasn't surprised that Bennett didn't offer to walk me home. In fact, it was even kind of nice to walk back to the house by myself. This way I didn't have anything to worry about, anyone to impress—or anyone trying to impress me. I could just go along at my own pace, thinking about stuff and being myself. I picked up a bag of dog food and some squeak toys at a petcare shop near our house and walked along with the shopping bag on my arm, feeling very grown-up and relaxed—almost as mellow as Patch can be sometimes. In fact, I was pretty happy right up until the minute that I opened the door and discovered that we had yet another uninvited houseguest living under our roof.

“Liesel Reid!” I gasped. “What are you doing here?”

Liesel was standing in the middle of the living room, surrounded by designer dresses on silver racks like you might see in a department store. Noodles was running around her feet, yapping and standing on his hind legs like he was in the circus or something. I guess he recognized her from the night before.

“Flan, darling!” Liesel air-kissed me from across the room. “Sara-Beth told me about the delightful time you've all been having. I just
had
to see the scene with my own eyes.”

“I figured she could sleep upstairs with you, since I'm staying in the blanket fort from now on,” said Sara-Beth, walking down the stairs in the multicolored Stella McCartney minidress I'd worn to my eighth-grade graduation. It was all baggy on her, and the hem hung down way past her knees.

“Then where's Philippa going to sleep?” I asked, pushing Noodles down off my legs. I guess the little guy smelled dog food in the bag I was carrying, because he was going sort of crazy.

“I thought I'd stay in the attic,” said Philippa, walking into the living room holding a six-pack of Patch's PBR. She was wearing the same pair of charcoal jeans from yesterday, and her maroon hair was twisted up tight into a tiny, messy bun. Her mascara looked blurry. She popped open one of the beers.

“It's kind of early for that, don't you think?” I asked, scooping up Noodles into my arms.

“Yeah, you know, I'm trying to build up a tolerance.” Philippa swigged from the can and involuntarily made a face. “The guys—Mickey anyway—can drink five of these in a row. It's lame that I get tipsy after just one. If I want Mickey to really respect me like a friend, I need to get tougher. More independent, you know? Start doing things on my own.”

“Like drinking?” I didn't know quite what else to say. It was cool that she was so into being her own person, but somehow I didn't like the idea of her drinking a bunch of beers by herself. It seemed kind of sad. And gross. That stuff tastes like ginger ale with a dash of gasoline. Plus, if she wanted to be so independent, why was she just copying what Mickey's friends did?