Moby Clique (7 page)

“Whatever. You’re just jealous.” I notice she’s not lisping. I wonder if Parker told her to lose the retainer.

“Of what?”

“Maybe the fact that I’m more popular at this school than you and I’ve only been here five minutes but you’ve been here forever. I mean, it’s so obvious,” Lindsay says.

I sigh. “Parker is evil, Lindsay. She’s probably just befriending you to get to me somehow.”

“Oh, and you don’t think she could just
like me for me
?” Lindsay’s eyes are flashing now. She’s seriously ticked.

“No, I mean, of course she would,” I lie. There’s no way in hell Parker would go for Lindsay. She doesn’t befriend people in general as a rule. She ruins their lives. Stomps on them like ants. While I’m thinking of how to explain this so Lindsay will get it, I happen to glance down and look at the books in Lindsay’s arms. Her spiral notebook is sitting on top, and there’s a giant doodle on it in marker. It’s a heart and in it is “L.T. + R.K. 4eva.” My heart starts to race. R.K.? Ryan Kent?

I grab the notebook.

“Is this
Ryan
?” I say, pointing angrily to the R.K. “Are you crushing on
my
Ryan?”

Lindsay’s eyes widen a little, a guilty look flitting across her face, and then she grabs the notebook back.

“He’s not
your
anything. You broke up with him,” she says.

“Not true,” I say. Technically, I broke up first, but then he broke up second. “Besides, you
cannot
like him. You just can’t.” I am angrier than I should be. But, objectively, there are a million reasons why this won’t work. One, Parker would kill her if she found out. And two, hello—he’s
my
ex. Sisters cannot date each other’s exes. It’s a rule. Somewhere. Definitely in stone.

“It’s
my
life,” Lindsay says, flipping her Parker pony-tail. “I can like who I want.” And with that, she pushes past me, pressing her “Lindsay loves Ryan” notebook tightly to her chest.

This time, I will kill her. I swear.

Eight

“Ryan won’t go for her,”
Blade tells me with certainty. She and Hana and I are standing outside the cafeteria after dinner.

“She’s
way
too young,” Hana agrees.

“She’s way too something,” I agree. I still get a bitter taste in my mouth anytime I think about Lindsay and that stupid notebook of hers. Ryan is objectively gorgeous, but Lindsay’s my sister and she ought to show a shred of loyalty. Borrowing (read: stealing) my shoes is one thing. Stealing my ex is in a whole other league, even for Lindsay.

“Anyway, forget them,” Blade adds.

“Yeah, forget them, and come to the pit with us,” Hana says.

The pit is a giant stone circle at the center of campus in front of the chapel. Every night, there’s a lit fire. There are stone benches around it, and it’s too dark to study. The only other gathering places are the library and the dining hall, and both of them are heavily monitored by Bard faculty and Guardians. The pit is monitored, too, just more at a distance.

There’s not much to do at Bard. There are no computers or televisions or mobile phones, so the pit is pretty much it in terms of excitement. Unless you just want to sit around and count the gargoyles hanging off the eaves on buildings around here (so far, I’ve counted ninety-three), then the pit is it.

“I don’t know,” I say, hesitating. Hana and Blade have been trying to get me to go to the pit since the start of school. The pit also is the place you go when you want to see and be seen. I used to hang out there a lot when I was dating Ryan. The idea of going there sans Ryan just makes me feel like a loser.

“Plus, we’re juniors now, so we get the
comfortable
benches,” Hana reminds me. Technically, all the benches are made of stone, but the ones closest to the fire are unofficially officially reserved for upperclassmen. It can get cold at night, even during warm days at Bard, and the cold stone benches suck the heat right out of you.

“Miranda got to sit on the comfortable benches with Ryan last year, remember?” Blade says. Swiftly, Hana pokes her for reminding me. Not that I could forget. Ryan—a year older than me—would always save me a place next to him, and when I’d sit down, he’d wrap me up in his letterman jacket and keep me warm.

“I just don’t think I feel like it,” I say, hesitating.

“Come on. You can’t avoid Ryan forever,” Blade tells me, practically. “Besides, if you keep hiding, then Parker wins.”

“Yeah,” Hana agrees. “You’ve got to show her you’re totally over Ryan.” She pauses, giving me a doubtful look. “You
are
over him, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, of course,” I say, with more conviction than I feel.

“Good. Then we’re going,” Blade says, dragging me by the arm.

When we hit the pit, it’s packed, as I expected. It’s after dinner, and we only have one free hour before curfew, when we have to head back to our dorms for mandatory study time. Everything at Bard is very strict and regulated, so you don’t have a lot of free time. The school’s motto is “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” Naturally, it’s a quote from Shakespeare, and it’s engraved in the campus chapel.

I glance around, but there’s no sign of Ryan, Parker, or Lindsay, so I relax a little. Maybe this was a good idea. Maybe I was overacting.

Hana and Blade take one of the last semi-empty upperclassmen benches, and I crowd in next to them. The fire pops and cracks, and the smell of wood burning reminds me of a ski vacation we took once back before my parents got divorced. We spent a week in Colorado, and Lindsay first learned how to ski and I helped her learn. That was back in the days when we got along. I remember a fire that smelled like this one, and drinking lots of hot chocolate, and me telling Lindsay knock-knock jokes, and Lindsay pretending they were funny. My parents barely even fought the whole week. It was a good trip.

I wonder what happened to us. To Lindsay. To my parents. To me. How do you go from happy to totally dysfunctional in a few years?

Oh yeah, your dad runs off with his secretary and totally abandons the family. Yeah, that’s how it happens. Then he divorces said secretary and marries
another
one. Dad can never find grass green enough. And then my sister is the only one who is okay with my dad being a cheater and my mom being a doormat, so my parents start treating her like a princess and me like a pariah because I tell the truth and they don’t like it.

Dad’s faults are obvious—he pretty much wears them on his Brooks Brothers shirts. But Mom’s are a little more subtle. Until she started dating Mr. Perkins, I think she was still hoping Dad would take her back. She’s a pleaser, Mom. Always wanting other people to like her. Come to think of it, Lindsay is a lot like Mom. Desperately craving approval all the time.

Since Lindsay is like Mom, I wonder if that makes me like Dad? God, I hope not. Dad is the last person on earth I want to be like.

Still, I wonder if Lindsay is my fault somehow. Did I fail her, like Dad failed us?

As if I conjured Lindsay by thinking about her, she appears at the outer ring of the pit. I smile at her, and I’m about to wave her over, thinking maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on her, when Parker and the rest of her clones appear next to her. Parker sees me straight away, and then leans over and whispers into Lindsay’s ear. I know without hearing what she’s saying that this is not going to be good.

“Miranda,” Lindsay barks at me, walking over toward our bench. “That’s
Parker’s
seat. So you guys have to move.”

Lindsay is wearing her hair just like Parker’s in a high ponytail, and she’s got on Parker’s perfume, too. It smells like she bathed in it. It’s making my eyes water.

Blade’s eyes narrow and Hana stiffens next to me. I can tell that Blade wants to stay and fight and Hana wants to flee. I’m somewhere in the middle, but one thing is for sure, I’m not going to let my little sister boss me around.

“Tell Parker that if she wants this bench, she has to come over here herself.” I’m tired of my sister playing errand girl for Parker the Evil. If Parker wants to fight, then she ought to at least do it herself.

Before Lindsay can relay the message, Ryan suddenly appears at her elbow.

“Is there a problem here?” Ryan asks. Great, now my ex is joining in on the fun. Throw in a bit where I’m naked and forgot to study for a final exam and this is my worst nightmare.

“Yeah,
Miranda
won’t move,” Lindsay says, crossing her arms. “
Tell
her that’s Parker’s bench.” She leans over just enough so Ryan can get a look at her cleavage. Is my sister
flirting
with my ex? Oh, I had better
not
be seeing this.

“I don’t see her name on it,” Blade scoffs, making a big show of looking for an engraving.

“We can sit somewhere else,” Ryan says quickly. “It’s no big deal.”

“But it
is,
” Lindsay says, stomping her foot. “The only benches left are the cold ones.”

Then Ryan does something that takes me by surprise. He throws his arm around Lindsay’s shoulders and pulls in close enough to whisper something in her ear. Her eyes get big and bright.

I feel a twinge in my stomach. Jealousy? What is Ryan doing getting so cozy with my sister?

“Seriously?” Lindsay says when he’s finished. “You mean it?”

“Sure do,” Ryan says, and then he hands her his letterman jacket. The very same jacket that I wore most of last semester. She giggles and puts it on and gives me a look that says “Ha!” and she then trots happily back to the other benches. I can’t believe what I’ve just seen. Is Ryan going after my
sister
? I feel hot and then cold and then hot again. “Furious” is the word that comes to mind. F-U-R-I-O-U-S.

I glance quickly over the fire and see that I’m not the only one. Parker’s mouth is pressed in a thin line. She’s only barely keeping it together, and I’m sure it’s only for Ryan’s benefit. She gives Lindsay a stare that would kill a weaker person, but Lindsay doesn’t even register it, because she’s patting the letterman jacket like it’s a puppy dog. Oh, she is in for a world of pain, and not from me. Parker may have been out to humiliate me before, but now she’s gunning for Lindsay.

“Sorry, guys,” Ryan says, flashing us an innocent smile, completely oblivious to the fact that he’s just started World War III.

“Keep your friend Parker on a leash,” Blade tells him.

“She won’t bother you again,” Ryan promises, but he’s looking at me. I’m too mad to even respond, so all I do is nod curtly and look away. That’s when I see Heathcliff standing very still under a tree a little distance from the pit. He’s watching me closely. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since my sister went Broadway in the cafeteria, and the first time we’ve made eye contact since he ran off and left me on the commons after thinking I still had a thing for Ryan. And now he sees me talking to Ryan? Not good. Not good at all.

I put up my hand in a little wave, but Heathcliff just shoves his hands in his pockets and walks quickly in the other direction.

It’s official. My life should be declared a national disaster.

Nine

The next day,
I look for Heathcliff everywhere, but can’t find him. I feel like I need to explain.

“Have you guys seen Heathcliff?” I ask Blade, Hana, and Samir, who are gathered for what they call dinner in the cafeteria. We’ve just finished eating and we’re piling our trays on the conveyer belts near the exits.

“Not since fifth period,” Blade says. “And he seemed to be in one of his moods.”

“I don’t think he has moods. I think he just has one mood,” Hana says.

“Yeah, royally pissed off,” Samir adds.

“He’s not surly all the time,” I say, thinking about the afternoon on the commons. He definitely smiled at me then.

The three of them give me skeptical glances as we push through the doors and head outside. “Oh yeah, he’s only surly
when he breathes,
that’s all,” Blade says.

“You think he frowns in his sleep?” Hana asks.

“If he even sleeps at all,” Samir says. “Do fictional characters need to sleep? He certainly doesn’t seem to need to eat, since he’s skipped most of the cafeteria meals around here.”

“He does need to eat, and I’m sure he needs to sleep,” I say. “He’s just like us.”

“Yeah, only he’s actually a figment of somebody’s imagination,” Hana points out.

“Does that mean I’m a figment, too?” I ask.

“No, you’re only one-sixteenth a figment,” Blade says.

“Or is it one-twenty seventh?” Hana asks.

“Hey, guys, look,” Blade says, pointing to a new bulletin board outside the cafeteria. Over the top, bold letters read:
REWARD FOR INFORMATION
. Below it, there’s one photograph of a Bard student in a Bard blazer.

“You think that’s the runaway?” Hana asks.

“Looks like it,” Samir says. “Or, could be anything. What kind of information are they looking for? I could tell them that this guy needs a haircut. You think that’s good for cash?”

It’s true that the Bard student in the poster has a shaggy mane of blond hair, like a skater.

I make a move toward the board, but my forward momentum is stopped by a hand on my wrist. I glance back and see Heathcliff standing there in the dusk.

“Where the heck did you come from?” Samir asks him, as he and Hana both look startled to find themselves standing next to Heathcliff, who does seem to be able to materialize just about anywhere he wants to. It doesn’t hurt that he seems to know all the secret passageways on campus.

Heathcliff doesn’t answer them, he just shrugs.

I always forget how tall he is, and how broad his shoulders are. And his eyes are so dark they’re almost black.

“Heathcliff! I’ve been looking all over—” I don’t get to finish my sentence because he cuts into it.

“I’ve got something to show you,” he tells me.

“Come on, guys,” Blade says. “I think this is our cue to go.”

Heathcliff ignores my friends as they turn down the path that will take them to the library. He is looking at me expectantly, his dark eyes fixed on mine and his hand still firmly around my wrist.