The International Kissing Club (53 page)

Ms. Vogel gasped as Izzy pushed her aside. Izzy scanned the audience, squinting against the glare of the stage lights. After years of being Invisabel Isabel, here she was up onstage for the whole school to see. For the whole world to see, since Cassidy had the camera rolling.

She even had her father’s attention.

“I had a big speech written out about how I betrayed a friend and now I’m really sorry,” she said into the microphone. “I was going to tell you about how I was one of the popular kids for a couple of weeks, and it wasn’t worth it. I was going to tell you that loyalty and honesty and fairness aren’t things they can teach you at school.” In the far back of the audience, she could already see some of the teachers starting to respond. She recognized her father’s silhouette as he elbowed someone aside and made his way down the auditorium aisle. Better get a
move on. “But I don’t think I’m going to have time to say all that. So let’s cut to the chase.”

She unzipped the bag, scooped out the piglet and held it up to the audience, turning so both she and the piglet were in profile for the entire school and all the Facebook fans to see. And then, she kissed the pig.

Chapter 32
Mei

Watching Izzy up onstage, putting lips to snout, Mei couldn’t help but feel a burst of pride. It took some kind of guts to kiss a pig in front of the entire school on purpose, even a tiny and cute one.

Beside Izzy, Ms. Vogel gasped. Hands in the air as if to ward off a monster, she backed away. But other teachers were less squeamish. Principal Callahan elbowed his way past the other teachers and headed for Izzy. Izzy saw it as well and hopped down off the stage and into the audience. Mei followed suit. They converged on the spot where Piper and Cassidy had gathered in the front row.

A smile on her face for the first time since the showdown at Dairy Queen, Piper looked from Izzy to the piglet. “I kinda thought it’d be bigger.”

Cassidy snorted. “Women all over the world say that.”

The four of them burst out laughing. As funny as the quip had been, there was more than humor underlying the sound. There was relief. Their friendship was going to make it, after all.

Piper reached out and scratched the piglet behind its cute floppy ear. She met Izzy’s gaze over the pig’s head and smiled at her.

A second later, Izzy’s father reached her. Anger radiated through his stocky frame and his voice rose furiously. “Isabel …”

Izzy practically tossed the pig to Piper. “Return this to Tanner for me?” she said with a wink.

Piper caught the piglet in her arms. “You know you didn’t have to do this.”

“Yeah, I did.”

A second later, her father was leading Izzy away. Cassidy said, “Is it just me or does she look a lot like Heath Ledger being dragged off the bleachers in
10 Things I Hate About You
?”

Piper turned to Mei. “Did you know she was going to do this?”

“Me? No. I would have tried to talk her out of it,” Mei admitted. “I love you, but I wouldn’t wish pig snout on anyone.”

Cassidy just shrugged. “All I knew was she wanted me to tape it for the IKC page. She refused to tell us what she had planned.”

Before they could say anything else, Tanner walked up to them. He flashed Piper a friendly but distant smile.

Piper handed the pig over to Tanner, who slid it back into the backpack.

“Thanks,” she told him, and when she smiled at him, Mei didn’t see even a glimmer of the old adoration.
Thank God.
They’d had enough guy-related drama to last a lifetime.

“So what do we do now?” Piper asked, turning her attention back to her friends without a backward glance. Then she giggled. “We could break her out of detention like Julia Stiles.”

“Too bad she’s the only one with a good rack,” Cassidy muttered.

“Umm, I think we’ve gotten in enough trouble with our clothes on,” Mei said. No one mentioned her skinny-dipping in China, and she wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up.

Perhaps it was only natural that they ended up at Mei’s house. The tension was still thick as molasses at both Piper’s and Cassidy’s, but their parents trusted Mei’s enough to consider her house an appropriate location for lockdown. “Mei, your mom is such a badass!” Cassidy said, popping a Cheeto in her mouth. “I would have thought your mom would chain you up in the kitchen.”

“Are you kidding? My mom, the feminist professor, is applauding my attempts to shatter the double standard. And I think deep down they’re just relieved I didn’t go to China to search for my birth parents. Next to that, the IKC seems so normal and American.”

Cassidy just scoffed. “Yeah, like you would do that.”

Mei sucked in a breath. Why was it harder to admit this to her friends than it had been to tell Guiran? “Actually, I did.”

Piper bolted upright. “Holy crap! Did you find them?”

“Right,” Cassidy quipped. “ ’Cause in a country of one point six billion people, she’s just going to order up her biological parents. I bet they were waiting for her at the airport with a sign in their hands.”

Ignoring Cassidy’s sarcasm, Mei admitted the truth. “I went there hoping to find some shred of information about them. I didn’t find jack.”

She didn’t tell them about what she
had
found at the orphanage. The mood tonight was celebratory, and she didn’t want to ruin it with stories from the SWI.

“Wow,” Piper said, leaning back against the pillows stacked on Mei’s bed. “You should have said something. Are you okay?”

“You know what? I think I am. For a while, it really tripped me out. But now, I’m thinking it’s not so bad the way everything happened. Barring your indefinite grounding.”

A moment later, Piper snatched up a throw pillow and whacked Mei’s arm with it. “But no wonder you only earned three points while in China. I knew a hot chick like you could have gotten more if you’d really put your lips to it.”

“Lacking focus and direction. That’s me,” Mei joked.

A second later the doorbell rang and then Izzy showed herself in. Piper all but launched herself at their friend. “What happened? Did they infringe on your rights? Abuse your civil liberties? Should we call the ACLU?”

“Or PETA?” Cassidy snorted.

Izzy chuckled, prying herself from Piper’s protective embrace.
“Well, I finally got some quality alone time with my dad. It was very touching. Too bad I can’t repeat any of the words he used.”

Even though Izzy was making light of it, Mei could tell she was working hard to hide the hurt. After years of bending over backward to earn her father’s approval, this was the thing that had finally gotten his notice. “So what
really
happened, Iz?”

“Well, let’s put it this way. One of you will have to drop me at home. I no longer have a car. I no longer have a life. I no longer have anything.” And yet she didn’t sound nearly as depressed about the prospect as Mei would have thought.

“What?” Piper gasped. “Linc punched a locker and ruined his entire life and he gets sympathy. All you did was kiss one animal. Or two, if you count Tanner.”

Mei added, “Maybe if you’re lucky you can convince your dad to release you to Tanner’s recognizance. For employment purposes only, of course.”

“So are y’all together now?” Cassidy asked.

Izzy gave a vague shrug. There was just the faintest hint of smugness in her smile. Like maybe, just maybe, she had hope. But the kind of hope that was so fragile and new you didn’t want to talk about it yet. “I don’t know.”

“Did he and Germaine … ?” Piper let the question dangle there.

“Break up?” Izzy bit down on her lower lip and nodded. “They did. Hey, Pipes, don’t be mad, okay?” Izzy seemed determined to change the subject. “But I called Germaine and tried to apologize.”

Piper gasped. “You didn’t!”

Izzy rushed on. “Regardless of everything else, I still kissed her boyfriend. She may be a backstabbing skank, but I knew I’d been one, too. I wanted to … you know, be the bigger woman and say I was sorry.”

Piper gazed at her through narrowed eyes before finally nodding. “I can see that.”

“So did she accept your apology?” Mei asked. Because that was
something she’d have liked to see; since it probably qualified as a once-in-a-million-years statistical anomaly.

“I think she was about ready to choke on her own bile. So, no. She didn’t. I’m still glad I tried. She did happen to mention—about fifty times—that he was a total loser and that I saved her the trouble of destroying his heart when she broke up with him. So,”—she blew out a breath and ended it with a shrug—“that’s everything I know about Tanner.”

“Hey, Izzy, check this out,” Mei said popping open her laptop. If Izzy was determined to be vague, then the least Mei could do was give her the easy out. “We already put the video up on the IKC page.”

“Let me see it.” She plopped down on the bed beside Mei and turned the computer to face her. “Hey, I can’t find it. What the …”

Cass sat down behind her and looked over Izzy’s shoulder as she scrolled down the page.

Post after post after post had supplanted the video they’d put up just hours before. There were so many, it took Mei a few minutes to process what she was seeing. Pictures—even a few videos—of girls kissing animals. In a show of solidarity, girls from all over the country, all over the world, were kissing their pets, their stuffed animals, any animal they could get their lips on. And of course, Jayson and Kyle had posted, too. Though, where Jayson had found a lemur in New York City, no one could guess. There were even a bunch of posts from fellow Paris High students, other kids who were tired of Germaine’s reign of terror.

For several long minutes, the four of them crowded around the computer, scrolling through the pictures.

“Dang,” Cassidy muttered. “We’ve started a revolution.”

“Again,” Piper added, with no small amount of pride.

“Jackson would be disappointed,” Izzy joked. “There are no chickens and only one goat.”

Mei started reading the comments out loud. “IKC rocks. Don’t let the yatches get you down!”

“We love you guys,” Cassidy read from Jayson’s post. Then she
laughed as she read the next part. “Hope that skank chokes on her own purity ring.” And finally, “You’ve got to kiss a lot of pigs before you find your prince.”

Piper ahhed. “That’s my favorite! Who’s it from?” she asked, looking up.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Mei feigned ignorance. “Some guy named … Sebastian.”

Piper sank back onto the bed. One by one, the other girls turned to look at her.

“What?” asked Cassidy. “You’re not pushing us out of the way to get to it? I thought this was your guy. You should be thrilled to hear from him.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not.”

“What does that mean?” Izzy asked. “What’s going on, Pipes?”

“We broke up.”

“Then why is he posting here?”

“Because I wouldn’t answer his e-mails.” She looked away.

“You wouldn’t?” Mei stared at her, confused. “What happened, Piper?”

“Wait a second. He just posted again,” Izzy said. “I miss you, Piper. Did you get the package I sent?”

“What package?” Cass demanded. “Did you get something from him?”

Piper blushed, then hesitantly reached for her purse. “I did. I just didn’t have the nerve to open it.”

“Well, give it to me. I’ll do it.” Cassidy held her hand out for the envelope.

Piper gave it to her, and the three of them crowded around as Cass ripped into it. She pulled out a box with pictures of French paintings all over it, staring in mute horror. Then she said, “Refrigerator magnets? That’s the most unromantic gift ever.”

Mei didn’t want to say anything, but she kind of agreed. Piper didn’t
seem to mind, though, judging from the huge smile on her friend’s face. “It’s the French Masters collection. And actually, it’s perfect.”

Mei wanted to know what she meant, but the look in Piper’s eyes said she wasn’t going to explain. So she settled for asking, “What are we going to do now?”

“Well, not all of us have found our princes, so I guess we’re going to keep kissing frogs,” Piper answered with a philosophical shrug.

Izzy groaned. Cassidy fired a pillow at Piper’s face. Piper caught it and pretended to fall to the ground. And that’s when it hit Mei. She didn’t have to travel halfway around the world to find her family. They’d been right here all along.