Speed Dating (15 page)

Add up how many times you checked each symbol. Whichever symbol has the most checks, thafs your Underwear Personality. *— & — %— #— $—

* Free Spirit: You like to look natural, be comfortable, and be yourself. You like to have fun without worrying about how
you look—and that makes you extra fun to be around. You’re effortlessly sexy.

& Prim and Proper: You are modest and don’t like to have too much showing. You have an intellectual bent and would prefer
to be admired for your mind and personality rather than your figure, no matter how smashing. You believe that keeping it under
wraps only makes things hotter later, when the wrappings come off.

% Bombshell: You’ve got it and you like to flaunt it. You also may be curvy and can use the extra support that good lingerie
gives. You’re sexy and flirtatious and always up for a good time.

# Sporty Girl: You’re athletic and like your underwear to be practical, functional, and comfortable because you are on the
go. You believe a body in motion is sexier than one trussed up in a lot of frills.

$ Adventuress: You like high-style, edgy fashion, and the underwear that goes with it. You’re bold and daring and only interested
in people with the energy to keep up with you.

To:     linaonme

From: your daily horoscope

HERE IS TODAY’S HOROSCOPE: CANCER: If your conscience is bothering you, just bonk yourself on the head. That should
take care of it.

Forget about me for the moment (I never thought I’d say that!)—my life is a complete bore compared with the passion that is
Pete and Tess. To the casual observer, Tess seems calm, even sensible. Little do you all know! Yesterday I caught her
under the bleachers at the lacrosse field. The boys’ lacrosse team was practicing, but Tess wasn’t watching them. She was
facing the other way, watching the gym parking lot through binoculars—and swigging vodka out of a bottle! “Tess,” I said. “What
are you doing? If someone catches you drinking on campus, you could get expelled!”

“I don’t give a —” she said. (I won’t print what she said, because I don’t condone vulgarity on my blog.) “Peter is cheating
on me. Look!”

She passed the binoculars to me. She looked terrible and reeked of vodka. I peered through the binocs and saw Pete in a car
with a blonde. “Oh, my god,” I said, “is that—?”

“—my best friend,” Tess said. “Or rather, one of my two best friends. The blonde, slutty one. Not the dark-haired, pudgy one.
The one who doesn’t have a boyfriend in spite of the fact that she’s so fast. Which only goes to show boys don’t really like
sluts, in the end.”

I looked again. Pete was definitely playing doctor with Tess’s best friend, Polly (not her real name). No wonder Tess was
hitting the bottle. She started to cry. I put my arm around her, trying to comfort her in spite of her terrible smell. “Poor
Tess,” I said. “It must be awful knowing you can’t keep a boy interested in you for more than a few weeks.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m such a loser.” But then her tears suddenly turned to rage. “I won’t stand for this,” she seethed.“I’m
going to get my revenge on Polly. She won’t know what hit her. I’ll pretend I don’t know what’s going on behind my back. But
when she least expects it—wham!”

Polly, if you’re reading this—and you know who you are—this is a warning to you: Watch your back. I’d hate to see anyone get
hurt. (I think Tess might know tae bo.)

“Okay, I know this is ridiculous, but I just want to make 100 percent sure you know I’m not fooling around with Walker,” Holly
said. She sat next to Lina and Mads at their usual lunch table.

“I know,” Lina said. “You’re not the problem. It’s everyone else in school. Nobody even calls me Lina anymore. They call me
Tess and snicker behind my back.”

“What about me?” Holly said. “Polly—that’s not even an attempt to hide my identity. And she totally defamed me. She called
me a slut who’s fooling around with her best friend’s boyfriend. And I would never do that.”

“It’s crazy. How can anyone possibly believe Autumn’s stories?” Lina said.

“The line between truth and fiction has been blurred,” Holly said.

“I heard Rebecca say that if the first Pete and Tess stories were true, why not these?” Mads said.

“The major difference is, I wrote the first stories and
Autumn is writing the new ones.” Lina was paralyzed with frustration and anger. “I mean, smell me. Smell me! Have I ever, as
long as you’ve known me, reeked of vodka? I’ve never drunk vodka, not once in my whole life.”

Mads put an arm around her. “No, you’ve never smelled like vodka. Don’t worry. No one could possibly believe that. You always
smell like a mix of lavender shampoo and pencil shavings.”

“It’s a very sweet smell,” Holly added.

“Tess. Polly. Mads.” Ramona sat down at their table in the lunchroom. “You’re the only one without a Nuclear Autumn nickname,
Mads.”

“I feel so left out,” Mads said.

“I’m sure she’ll get around to you,” Lina said.

“You can’t let her get away with this,” Ramona said. “The whole school is lapping it up. The wilder her stories get, the more
people want to believe them.”

“I’ll write a Mood Swing rebuttal,” Lina said.

“That will never work,” Ramona said. “You’ve got to fight fire with fire. Start a bunch of rumors about Autumn, so she has
to go on the defensive. Then she won’t have so much time to attack you.”

“I can’t do that,” Lina said. “I don’t have any dirt on her.”

“Duh. Make it up,” Ramona said.

“But that’s… that’s not right,” Lina said.

“Who cares?” Ramona said.

“What Autumn is doing isn’t right, either,” Mads said.

“No,” Lina said. “I can’t.” It was tempting—so tempting—to trash Autumn in her blog. But she was a high-road kind of girl. And,
anyway, if she stuck to her journalistic principles, she’d have a better shot at the internship. “I’m not Autumn. I’d rather
handle this my own way. RSAGE students are smart. I’m sure if I appeal to their sense of decency and truth, I will prevail.”

Mads suppressed a snicker.

“It’s your funeral,” Ramona said.

“And our reputations,” Holly said.

Autumn has been writing about some people who supposedly go to RSAGE: Peter, Tess, and now Polly. I can’t say for sure that
she is making these stories up out of nothing, though I suspect she is. But one thing I do know for sure: The exploits of
Peter and Tess have nothing to do with me or my life. There is not one grain of truth in any of those stories. Okay, yes,
I have a boyfriend, and I have a friend whose name rhymes with Polly,
but that’s as far as it goes. Walker is not cheating on me with “Polly” or anyone else. I didn’t leave my panties in his car.
I don’t drink vodka or own a pair of binoculars.

I know it’s fun to read these stories. But, please, I beg everyone to understand that they are just that—stories. Let’s all
calm down and stop this speeding gossip train before it runs off the tracks!

I know nobody reads Mood Swing anymore, so if you missed it (totally understandable), here’s an update: Lina is accusing me
of making up my gossip! Don’t listen to her! Everything I write is true. She’s just trying to spin things her way. Damage
control. Like Congressmen do when they get caught with their pants down. My readers are too smart to fall for that. So ignore
Mood Swing and keep your dial tuned right here! More Pete and Tess news on the way. Tess was last seen coming on to a junior
of the male persuasion, in a desperate attempt to make Pete jealous. The junior didn’t look too interested. Good luck, honey!

“Satisfied?” Ramona asked. She and Lina were in biology lab. Ramona was poking through their dead frog
in search of its heart. Lina could hardly bear to look at it, lying there pinned to the mat with its stomach sliced open and
its insides exposed.

“I give up,” Lina said. “She’s evil. Unstoppable. No one will listen to me. No one wants to hear the truth. And Autumn’s being
rewarded for lying!” She hung her head, nose away from the frog because of the formaldehyde smell. “What can I do? It’s hopeless!
Autumn is free to ruin my life as she pleases.”

“You need help,” Ramona said. “Supernatural help. Never fear. Ramona’s here.”

“How can
you
help me?”

“Your big weakness: scruples,” Ramona said. “When dealing with a girl like Autumn, scruples are a handicap. I’ll steer you
away from your scrupulous impulses and show you the path to the dark side. I’ve always thought your dark side was a lot closer
to the surface than you were willing to admit, anyway. Welcome to the nether regions of the soul.”

Lina didn’t say so, but she knew Ramona was right. “All right. Dark side, here I come.”

To:     hollygolitely

From: your daily horoscope

HERE IS TODAY’S HOROSCOPE: CAPRICORN: Your life has become a romantic clich6 so stale, even the cast members of
Friends
refuse to play you in the movie.

I
t’s like he’s leading a double life,” Holly said. “Everything Eli told me about his family seems to be a lie.”

She and Sebastiano sat side-by-side in the school hallway, leaning against their lockers. Kids stepped over their outstretched
legs as they walked by. Holly was telling Sebastiano about Eli’s parents and their dentist’s office-slash-house.

“But why would he lie?” Holly said. “His parents looked perfectly normal.”

“Maybe they’re
too
normal,” Sebastiano said. “Maybe he’s trying to impress you by pretending to be glamorous.”

“But if he has any intention of being my boyfriend, I’m sure to find out the truth eventually, and then what?” She sighed.
“He’s not serious about me.”

“Could he be insane?” Sebastiano asked. “Have you considered mental illness?”

“He’s not insane,” Holly said. “But he is confusing. Or else he’s a con man. The last time I saw him, we had a great time.
I didn’t mention that I’d looked up his address and spied on him at his house and found out everything he’d told me to that
point was a lie, so he kept them coming. He said his father was married three times before he met his mother, which is why
his sibling situation is too complicated to explain. But one of his half brothers is an oil magnate, and his favorite half
sister is in prison for embezzlement on trumped-up charges. Seems she was framed by one of her stepmothers—I forget which
one.”

“This all sounds so familiar,” Sebastiano said.

“You keep saying that,” Holly said. “Could it describe
your
family?”

“Almost, but that’s not it. The more you tell me the more it nags at me….”

“What I don’t understand is how, after telling me all that—which I guess is all lies, but who knows?—how can he turn to me,
kiss me, and say, The sky meets the water in your eyes.”’

“That’s it!” Sebastiano smacked his forehead dramatically. “I’ve heard that line before. All these details you’ve told me about
Eli—I know them from somewhere. And I finally figured out where.”

“Where?”

“Los Días del Corazón!”

“What?”

“Days of the Heart.
It’s a Mexican ‘telenovela’. A soap opera. Totally wild, very juicy. Those Mexicans know how to do daytime drama.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s on one of those Spanish cable channels,” Sebastiano said. “My babysitter used to watch the telenovelas when I was little.
She got me hooked. I still tune in every once in a while.”

Holly was shocked. “What are you saying? Everything Eli has said to me since I met him comes from a Mexican soap opera? How
can that be?”

“It’s true—even that ‘3:17’ thing. The very first words he said to you. Otavio used that line on Marisol just a few weeks
ago. I knew I’d heard it somewhere before.”

“Otavio?”

“You’d love him—he’s gorgeous. He’s the heartthrob of the show, but a real cad. Women part for him like the Red Sea for Moses.”

“Ugh, Sebastiano…” This was all so weird.

“But Marisol is the only one who can stand up to him. His equal. She’s beautiful, sexy, unattainable… until Otavio used that
line about always thinking of her at that moment in time. Only on the show, I think the time was 11:42.”

Holly was steaming mad. Her entire relationship with Eli—what there was of it—was a complete fiction? Based on a TV show?
How could he be so brazen?

“After that, Marisol is smitten, but she doesn’t show it,” Sebastiano said. “She waits for him to call—but Otavio doesn’t call
for a long time. He wants to make her want him, really want him. But he’s also kind of busy defending the ranch against a
raid by some evil drug lords who are blackmailing his father.”

“At least Eli didn’t try to get me to believe that,” Holly said, thinking of Eli, Sr., the paunchy dentist. “But Eli did make
me wait before he called me—and he had some kind of crazy excuse. It’s as if he’s following the show like a script. The little
bugger. What happened next?”

“Well, I missed the episode where the maid stabs the
mother with the diamond stiletto heel, but I saw the maid burying the bloody shoe in the garden. Otavio and Marisol have a
romantic dinner, but Otavio takes it slowly. He’s usually the Don Juan type, but with Marisol he just gives her a single,
chaste kiss.”

“Oh, my god.” That was exactly what Eli had done with her. Only none of it was real. He was copying a character on a Mexican
soap opera. And she had fallen for it. But it was all fake. Were his feelings for her fake, too?

The anger rose up in her and drove her to her feet. Eli wouldn’t get away with this. “That asshole!” she cried. “I can’t believe
what a jerk he is!”