Rolling Dice (3 page)

Well, until I get home, at least.

“Is that you, Madison?”

“Considering I’m the only other person in this state who has a key to the house, no, Mom, it’s not me,” I call back.

The house smells of cooking, and I automatically know that Dad’s been making pasta. I breathe in deeply: Dad’s cooking always smells amazing. Mom’s cooking often smells a little more … burned.

“You’re just in time for dinner,” she says, popping her head around the kitchen door for a moment. As I take off my shoes she carries on, “Did you find a cell phone?”

“Yeah. It has Internet and stuff.” I don’t specify the “stuff” because I’m not entirely sure what the “stuff” consists of just yet. I only know how to send a text, make a phone call, and open Google.

“That’s good.”

She doesn’t even ask me how much it cost. She’s just glad I’m acting like a normal teenager.

I walk into the kitchen, which is all wooden units and ceramic tiling and beige walls, as Dad is dishing out pasta. I grab a plate and sit down at the table.

“Did you finish putting the rest of the boxes in the attic?” I ask.

“Yep,” Dad tells me smugly. Mom’s been bugging him to move all the old photo albums and toys from when me and Jenna were kids—you know, the usual kind of junk you keep in attics—out of the spare room for
days
.

They sit down, and I realize just how fast and hard my heart is beating. They haven’t noticed the nose piercing yet. Maybe they won’t—at least for a couple of days. Or maybe they’ve noticed and miraculously just don’t care about it. I don’t know, but I’m not going to question it.

After a couple of minutes Mom says, “You were out a long time.”

“I went to the café. To try and set up my cell phone. There was this guy who works there, though, and he had to help me work it.”

“There was a guy?” Mom’s ears perk up at that. I knew they would.

“Yeah. He said he’s—well, he’s
going
to be a junior at the high school, same as me.”

“Really? What’s he like? Was he cute?”

Yes
, I think,
he’s very cute
.

But I shrug and say, “Sure. I guess. He was really nice, anyway. He said there’s a party at the beach tomorrow night. Like, a back-to-school thing …”

“Did he ask you to go?”

I nod, but hastily add, “He just meant as friends, though. So I can meet people before school starts.” I have to specify it’s not a date; Mom would go crazy if she thought her daughter, who was finally breaking out of her shell and becoming a normal sixteen-year-old, actually had a date.

“Oh.” She sounds a little disappointed, but then adds, “But that’s nice! He sounds lovely. What’s his name?”

“Dwight.”

“Dwight …?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where does he live?”

“Around here somewhere, I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t ask for his autobiography.”

“More to the point,” Dad says, pointing his fork at me, “what about this party?”

“It’s on the beach. It sounds like it’s a bunch of the kids who go to the high school. Dwight said it starts around eight.”

My parents exchange a brief look, and then my dad tells me sternly, “No drinking, Madison, you hear me? We don’t want you going out and being stupid. You don’t know these people, and I don’t care if they’re all drinking, you’re not.”

I’m of half a mind to argue, just because. But the truth is, I’m too excited about this party—
an actual party!
—to argue. I just nod and smile and say, “Yes, of course. Got it.”

Dad nods and gives me a stern warning look. “Good. And you can be home by eleven-thirty.”

“What if nobody else leaves then? What if it finishes at twelve, or one?”
I don’t want to give anyone cause to think I’m a loser
, I add silently.

“You can be home by eleven-thirty, Madison,” Mom tells me. “Like your father said, you don’t know these people, and we don’t want you staying out till tomorrow morning with them.”

“Fine,” I grumble, but I don’t make too much fuss. An eleven-thirty curfew is better than them telling me I can’t go.

We eat in silence for another minute or so, and then Mom says, “Madison, look at me a moment.”

So I do.

And her cutlery clatters to the plate, almost flicking pasta over the table. “What the hell have you done to your face?”

It takes me a moment to realize what she’s talking about.

I bite my lip, and I can feel my stomach fall away.

“We trust you to go out and buy a cell phone and you come home with—with that?” she cries. She’s turning red in the face with anger now. Mom rarely gets mad. She’s that loveable kindergarten teacher who adores children. Jenna and I always knew that when our mom was mad, we were not going to get off lightly.

Once, Jenna smashed an antique vase Mom had inherited when her grandma died. It was completely by accident—Jenna had tripped and smacked into the table. Mom got so angry about it, though, Jenna was grounded for a week.

So right now, I want to turn to dust and I wish I’d never gotten the piercing.

“It’s only a piercing,” I mumble defensively. “It’s not like I got a tattoo—”

“You got a
what
?” Dad shouts, more shocked than angry.
“Why?”

“Yes, Madison.” Mom’s seething. If looks could kill … “Why don’t you tell us exactly why you disfigured your face like that?”

“I don’t know,” I mumble. The smell of pasta, which seemed delicious when I walked in, suddenly makes me feel sick. “I just wanted to … I thought it’d look cool …”

“Oh, Madison, you stupid girl!” Mom says, and in that instant all the anger seems to go out of her. She doesn’t sound mad anymore; more like she’s upset. Sympathetic, even. It’s almost as though the anger directed at me was the only thing keeping her upright; she collapses back into her chair like a rag doll.

Then she sits back up and leans over the table, putting her hand over mine. “Honey, I know it’s been hard for you. I know. It’s killed me inside. And I know you want to make a good impression here, and make friends—but you don’t have to do something like that just …” She trails off with a sigh.

She thinks I did it so people will like me more.

Maybe she’s right. I mean, I thought it’d make me look edgy and cool … A conversation starter. Something that would stop me from being relegated to the background. So, yes, maybe my mom
is
right—except I did it for that reason on more of a subconscious level. Who knows? I’m not in the mood to psychoanalyze my actions right now.

I open my mouth, starting to argue that it wasn’t that, but she cuts me off. “Well, you can’t take it out now. It might get infected.” She sighs. “I’m not happy about this, you know, Madison.”

“I know,” I mumble.

I expect her to say that I’m not allowed to go to the party tomorrow, and maybe even ground me. I’ve never been grounded before. But then again, if I’d done anything worth being grounded for, what difference would it have made? Back in Pineford, when everyone else went to a party, I just stayed in my room anyway.

But now, when I think I may actually get grounded for the first time ever, I kind of panic inside a little.

Then Mom says, “Have you thought about what you’re going to wear to this party?” and that’s when I really,
really
begin to panic.

Jenna phones that night, and after about ten minutes Dad yells up to me, “Madison, Jenna’s on the line for you!”

I pull the earphone out of my left ear and lean over to my nightstand to pick up the extension. “Hi, Jenna.”

“Nose piercing, huh? I’ve gotta say, Mads, I did not expect that from you. Mom’s so
not happy about it.” She laughs. “Good for you, though. I bet it looks hot.”

“Heck yeah.” I say it sarcastically, but I actually kind of hope it does, now that she’s said it.

Jenna laughs again, and before I can ask how the Big Apple is, she dives right in and says, “Tell me all about this coffee-shop guy!”

“His name’s Dwight. He’s a junior, same as me, and he’ll go to the high school with me too. So that’s good, you know, ’cause I kind of have a friend already. He’s really nice too—he has a great smile.”

“Aw,” my big sister coos. “What’s he look like? Is he tall? Buff? Cute? Does he look like he plays football or anything?”

“Well, he’s kind of cute …” I twirl a piece of hair around my finger as I say it, and there’s a smile playing on my lips. “He’s tall. Dark hair. And he surfs,” I add. “But he only invited me to the party as a friend. He wasn’t even flirting, so it’s not like it matters.”

Jenna totally ignores that last part. “Really? He’s a surfer? Wow. That’s …” She laughs. “That’s actually pretty cool! Sounds like you’ve got yourself a very nice guy in the bag there! And what’s this Mom said about a party?”

Jenna said party like “part
aaay
,” which makes me giggle and shake my head.

“Dwight told me there’s a party on the beach tomorrow night. He gave me his number so—”

“He gave you his number?”
Jenna shrieks. “
Omigod!
Are you serious? And you said he was just being friendly. Pfft.”

“Yeah, but only so we could meet up beforehand. He
was
being friendly!” I insist.

“Um, Madison, no, he was not, trust me! A guy who gives you his number like that”—I hear her snap her fingers sharply in the background—“likes you.”

“I don’t think so,” I say, picking a piece of loose cotton from my comforter. “I really, really think he was just being nice. You know, so I wouldn’t have to show up on my own and stand there like—like a lemon.”

“Mm,” she says thoughtfully. “Do you want it to be a date?”

“Kind of,” I mumble. I wouldn’t have told my mom that, but Jenna is different. “But it doesn’t even matter because
it’s not a date
.”

“All right—well, next question: What are you wearing?”

“Right now, shorts and a tank top and the sweater Gran knitted for me last Christmas.”

“I mean tomorrow, to the party.”

We both laugh then. I say, “I honestly don’t know.”

“Well, what are big sisters for? Shorts, definitely. Do you have any distressed shorts? And when I say shorts, I mean really short shorts. The kind Mom would not approve of.”

I giggle and roll off my bed to go open my closet. Jenna and I talk for over half an hour and she guides me through what she thinks is appropriate wear for a beach party. Considering she never went to a beach party when we lived in Maine, she seems to know an awful lot about them.

When I point that out, Jenna just laughs and says, “Madison, just trust me on this.”

And I do.

Ever had that nauseous feeling when you text a guy you like for the first time?

Well, imagine that: the twisting in my stomach so bad I almost need to pee, the clammy hands, the racing mind. Deleting and retyping one text at least a dozen times.

Except it’s even worse—since I’ve never texted a guy before, period. I have no idea what the protocol is.

I spend about twenty minutes trying to compose a text to Dwight. Right now, the screen on my cell phone reads:
Hey! How’re you? I was just wondering what to do about meeting you later for the party :)
—and all I can do is stare at it, and wonder if it’s all right. Should I delete the
How’re you?
And should I add a kiss on the end?

I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!

I drop the phone on my bed and run my hands through my hair, biting down on my lip to muffle a little scream of frustration.

Ping!

I freeze. Then I drop my hands, open my eyes wide and stare at my phone. I think my heart actually stops beating for that moment.

I lunge for my phone, snatching it up and staring at the screen.

It’s sent the message.

When I threw my phone down I pressed the send button. I hear a little whimper of worry escape my mouth, and my heart starts beating again, and beating hard.

I double-check the screen of my cell—it
definitely
sent the text to Dwight.

It takes a couple of minutes for the panic and anxiety to subside. It was probably the kind of thing I would’ve sent him anyway. It isn’t even such a big deal.

Now all I have to do is wait for him to text back.

I remember he’s working the afternoon shift, so maybe he’s still at work and won’t reply for a while.

I go to my closet and find the outfit Jenna helped me to pick out. It’s a pair of teeny tiny shorts that only reach a third of the way down my thigh, light blue denim and kind of torn at the hem. Then a white camisole, with a low neckline decorated with black lacy stuff. A pair of black sandals, and some gold bangles, and a thin white hoodie—because according
to Jenna, people won’t be too dressed up, and it might be cold, but I still want to look good.

I’m not sure about the camisole. I mean, I haven’t got much in the way of curves. Jenna may not have been to any beach parties, but she sure knows a lot more about parties and what to wear than I do.

I’m so busy contemplating how the outfit will look that when my cell phone goes
ping!
again, I jump.

Oh, gosh, he’s replied!

I hastily put my clothes back into the closet as tidily as possible, not wanting them to be creased tonight. Then I pick up my cell.

One new message: Dwight
.

I grin, but at the same time I’m feeling hideously anxious. But I do it—I open up the text.

Hey :) Where do you live? I can meet you at your house at eight, if that works for you?

I text him back with my address, and say that works out great, thanks! I throw in a smiley face and hit send; then I fall back among the cushions on my bed, and I smile.

A mixture of excitement and fear courses through my veins. I honestly don’t know what I’m thinking. I can’t stop smiling, because I’m finally being the person I want to be, and getting out there in the real world; I’m not being left behind in the shadows, or laughed at. My stomach has just totally disappeared, though, because I’ve never been to a party before and I have no idea what I’ll do there. I don’t know anybody except Dwight, and I can’t expect him to spend the whole night with me.