Mia the Melodramatic (20 page)

Eric raised his eyebrows. “Anyone we know?”

“You could say that,” Henry replied with a sly grin. “I’m bringing Stephanie Rasco.”

“What?!” Eric and I screamed in unison.

“Hey, just because you guys don’t like her doesn’t mean I can’t.” Henry picked up a slice of pizza. “Besides, that little peppermint mocha is as loose as a triple XL sweater on a supermodel.”

“Yuck.” I threw my piece of pizza down onto my plate. “I think I just lost my appetite—forever.”

“You and me both,” Eric said, putting down his slice of pizza, too. “Well, now that Henry has turned to the dark side, I need someone else to go with me tomorrow night. You want me to pick you up, Mia?”

“Wow. Just the two of us. It’ll be like a date or something.” I laughed as I sucked up a swig of soda.

Eric squeezed my knee under the table. “Yeah, maybe it will.”

I coughed and soda poured out my nose.

“Great! Now
I’ve
lost my appetite.” Zoë threw her pizza back onto the pan.

I wiped my nose and glanced at Eric out of the corner of my eye. Did he just ask me out? And if he did, what did I think about it? Eric was tall, blonde, handsome, and sweeter than a box of chocolates. I’d be nuts to turn him down. But he was also Eric—my friend, and I’d already gone through this with my friend Mike a couple of years ago. Mike liked me, but I couldn’t make myself like him as more than a friend. Then he started dating Lisa and he turned out to be this magnificent kisser and boyfriend. What if Eric turned out to be an awesome kisser and boyfriend, too? I mean, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to find out, would it?

T
he smell of newspaper ink tickled my nose, waking me up from a sound sleep. I pried my eyes open and screamed—a picture of me cross-eyed, tongue sticking out, and dressed as a daisy was plastered on the front page of the paper.

Chris waved the
Des Moines Register
closer to my face. “Look, you made it above the fold.”

I grabbed my glasses from my nightstand and shoved them on my face. Unfortunately, my clear vision only made the picture look worse. I tore the paper from his hands and crumpled it into a ball. “Where did you get that?”

“On our front porch step this morning—the same as the other 200,000 people who subscribe to the Saturday edition.” Chris motioned to the crinkled wad in my hands. “And don’t worry about ruining our paper. Mom’s already out buying up every copy she can find.”

“But why is this on the front page? I thought these kinds of pictures were buried in the community section or somewhere like that.”

“Slow news day?” Chris said. “Or maybe the paper is trying to raise funds for aging flower children and thought you’d be perfect as their poster child.”

“Not funny,” I said, hurling the ball of paper at his head. “Now get out of here!”

“I don’t know what you’re so freaked out about.” Chris picked up
the paper and smoothed it on my bed. “I think it’s the best picture you’ve taken in a long time.”

I pointed to the door. “Leave. Now!”

As Chris left my room, still chuckling, I looked down at the picture. I was ruined. In a single minute, all the work I’d done to finally get rid of the nickname “Mia the Meek” had been for nothing. I’d never be able to face anyone at school without knowing they were secretly calling me “Mia the Maniacal Magnoliophyta.” OK, so probably nobody but me and the rest of my academic quiz bowl team knew that “magnoliophyta” was another name for a flowering plant, but still.

I should sue that photographer for inflicting severe emotional damage on me. Or maybe I could sue the owners of the newspaper. That’s where the real money was. Then, after I won my lawsuit—after all, there was no way I could lose—I could use the money to have total reconstructive surgery and relocate to some African village where no one from Iowa would ever recognize me.

I was just figuring out my opening statement at the trial when Chris called up the stairs, “Mia, someone’s here to see you.”

“Who is it?” I yelled from my bed.

“I’m not your personal secretary,” Chris shouted back. “See for yourself.”

I sighed. It was probably Zoë. She said something about stopping by and borrowing one of my shirts for some sort of costume tonight. I got out of bed, shuffled down the stairs in my pajamas, and said, “Do you really think my clothes are stranger than yours?”

“Well, I’m not too into pink teddy bear pajamas,” a familiar voice said. “But on you, they’re kind of cute.”

I gripped the handrail to stop myself from falling. “W-w-what are you doing here?” I stammered as I tried to cover up my pj’s.

“Jeez. I haven’t been gone that long. I live here. Or should I say, I live next door,” Tim said. “And I thought I’d be neighborly and drop off our copy of the paper for your scrapbook. Great picture of you,
by the way.”

I snatched the paper from his hands and a static charge ignited between us.

“Wow. Look at that electricity. Just like old times. I knew you were still hot for me.” As Tim smiled, a wave of memories crashed over me—Tim smiling while we played basketball together, Tim smiling when I brought him cookies, Tim smiling right before we kissed...

I shook my head to force the memories from my mind as Tim stepped closer to me. “Come on, Mia. I’m home now. Don’t be mad at me anymore. Let’s make up and put everything that happened this summer behind us.”

Oh, he looked so good. He was tall, tan, and tempting. Afraid I might melt into a pool of desire right there under his gorgeous brown eyes, I lowered my gaze. Unfortunately, my eyes rested on his broad shoulders, and I saw that he’d really filled out over the summer. Every part of him looked like solid muscle. I guess all that sailing had been good for him.
Sailing!
That’s right! Tim had been out sailing with Felicity while I slaved away at work. Suddenly, all the anger I’d stored up over the summer came boiling to the surface and I took a step away from him.

“Don’t you dare ‘Come on, Mia’ me.” I scowled. “And stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” His eyes met mine as he closed the distance between us. “I’m just looking at you like I always have. What’s wrong with that?”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” I said, putting my hand on his chest to stop him from coming any closer. “What’s wrong is you hitting on me when you’re dating Cassie.”

“Cassie?”

“Yes, Cassie. The girl you’ve been e-mailing and calling all summer long. Or maybe you’ve dated so many girls over the summer, you can’t remember all of them,” I said as sarcastically as anyone
wearing pink teddy bear pajamas could.

“What do you know about Cassie?”

“She told me you guys are back together,” I said, hoping with all my might that she’d been lying to me.

Tim shifted uncomfortably. “She told you that?”

“Uh, yeah. She hates me. Of course she told me.” Not liking the look of guilt in Tim’s eyes, I put my hands on my hips and said, “So, it’s true?”

“Wow.” Tim ran his fingers through his hair. “This isn’t going the way I pictured it.”

“Well, then, why don’t you draw me a picture, Picasso?” I said.

“I just thought...” Tim nervously licked his lips “... I guess I thought when you and I finally saw each other again, everything that happened over the summer wouldn’t matter. It would be like old times and we could...”

“What?” I snapped. “Get back together?”

“Maybe.” Tim stared down at his shoes. “Or maybe just be able to hang out with me again without getting so mad at me.”

I crossed my arms and dug my fingernails into my flesh, trying to remind myself of the pain Tim had caused me over the summer—I so wanted to tune out the pleading in his voice. After all, if I let him get close to me, he might hurt me again and I really didn’t think my heart could stand being broken twice. Using all the acting skills I’d learned over the summer, I said in a hardened tone, “You haven’t answered my question. Are you and Cassie dating again?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it dating,” Tim said cautiously. “I mean, I was in Maine.”

“Then what would you call it?”

“I don’t know,” Tim replied. “All I know is that after you yelled at me on the Fourth of July and didn’t even thank me for the singing telegram, I was pretty mad at you. Then Cassie started e-mailing me—she had my e-mail address from when we went out last year—and I thought, what the heck? I mean, she can write a pretty
wicked e-mail—”

I put up my hand to stop him. “Cut the observations and stick to the facts.”

“Well, she was so sweet on the phone, I kind of forgot what she was really like. So, I told her that when I got back, she and I could maybe go to a movie or something. It wasn’t like I asked her to marry me or anything.”

“Well, she sure seems to think there’s something serious between you two,” I said, totally disillusioned with Tim. I mean, couldn’t he go without a girlfriend for longer then ten seconds?

“How about we make a deal?” Tim turned his charisma up to Prince Charming level. “I won’t go out with Cassie if you stop being mad at me.”

I shook my head with disgust. “I’m through making deals with you, Tim.”

“Oh, come on, Mia,” Chris said as he appeared from around the corner. “You’re playing awfully hard to get for a girl who hasn’t had a date in ten weeks.”

“Shut up and leave us alone,” I hissed at Chris.
Man!
I finally had a good ending line in a fight with Tim, and Chris went and ruined it.

“No, Chris, stay right here,” Tim said. “And tell me more about Mia’s love life—or lack of one.”

“Well, after you broke up with her—”

“I
broke up with
him
!
”
I exclaimed

“Whatever,” Chris said, brushing me off. “When you guys broke up, you should’ve seen Mia. She was all like bawling and listening to slow songs and—”

“That is so not true!” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I was not bawling.”

“Go on, Chris.” Tim smiled. “Tell me more about how devastated Mia was when I broke up with her.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “For the last time,
I
broke up
with
you
!” I screamed as I stomped up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door behind me.

L
ater that day, I pounded my foot on the carpet in my parents’ bedroom. “There is no way I’m taking Chris with me tonight!”

Ignoring my outburst, Mom continued to apply her mascara. “Your father and I already made plans for this evening, and Chris wants to see Zoë’s band play. I don’t see what the big deal is about giving him a ride to the Flying Squirrel.”

“But this is so not fair. You never let me go hear a band when I was in eighth grade. And besides, if you remember correctly, the last time I took Chris out with my friends, I almost killed him!”

“I think you learned your lesson on that one,” Mom said, giving me her “Mother Knows Best” look as she put down her mascara brush. “Now, is there some other reason you don’t want to take Chris with you? Were you planning on doing something you weren’t supposed to do tonight?”

“No,” I said, chewing on a hangnail. Eric hadn’t called, so I figured he hadn’t been asking me on a date after all. His knee pat must’ve been just a friendly gesture, which really kind of bummed me out. I mean, the more I thought about Eric asking me out, the more I liked the idea. After all, Eric and I dating made perfect sense. We liked the same foods, we got the same jokes, we both wore turquoise shirts—

“Then I don’t see what the problem is,” Mom said, interrupting my thoughts. “Your father and I would really appreciate your help
tonight. Plus, I think Chris has a crush on your friend Zoë, and it would be sweet if he got to hear her play.”

“So, now you want me to set Chris up with my friend? What am I, some kind of dating service?”

“Listen,” Mom said, “if you do this for us, we’ll remember it when it comes time for you to borrow our car next year...”

“Are you paying me off?”

Mom picked up her blush brush. “No, no... let’s just say your father and I are compensating you for your actions.”

“Don’t use your fancy English teacher words with me.” I scowled. “Call it what it is—bribery.”