Be Strong & Curvaceous (14 page)
Maybe Shani would know. She’d never lie to me, and she wouldn’t shrug me off, either. She was pretty hooked into school gossip, mostly because it entertained her. She saw it as her very own walking, talking issue of
Teen People
.
I pushed open the front doors and glanced into the common room as I went by. No Brett. Just as well. I didn’t think I could face him if some oh-so-kind person had passed on the latest. Out of habit, I paused in front of the portrait of Eleanor Spencer and gazed at her dress until I felt calmer.
Then I focused.
The Worth gown. Complete with his trademark draping, a waterfall of clever pleats and tucks from shoulder to waist. I leaned closer, trying to see clues in the Impressionist daubs of paint. What if I didn’t design a ballgown? What if, with two yards of fabric, I made a cocktail minidress using a design element like this pleating right here? It would be a tip of the hat to Spencer’s past, and yet be modern enough to make an entrance at—at TouTou’s, for instance.
Carly Aragon, you are a genius.
Brett Loyola and all of his and Vanessa’s friends might be laughing at me now, but when I stepped onto the runway in that dress, he’d see me. Really see me. The way he’d seen me the other night, under the trees, when we’d talked about religion. And that wouldn’t be all. There’d be designers in that audience with master’s degrees in history. They would know where that design element came from. They’d know what I was trying to say.
We’d speak a common language.
Now I just had to make sure the words were perfect.
To: DList_DYD_Committee
From: [email protected]
Date: May 1, 2009
Re: Meeting 2nd period
Hi all. Let’s meet at Starbucks today during Life Sciences. I have the final list of designers to share with you, and we’ve decided on an event planning company. Plans are full speed ahead, so I need to catch you all up.
Vanessa
From: [email protected]
Date: May 1, 2009
Re: Our dear mama
Hey
hermana menor, que pasa?
So on the theory that organic waste rolls downhill, Mom is nagging me relentlessly to talk to you about this bridesmaid thing. I don’t have a problem standing up with her, but she says you do. Not to play monkey in the middle, but do you want to tell me what’s wrong?
I know you don’t like Richard, and yeah, Mom walking out on us and getting married again so soon sucks. It’s like all these weepy country songs I’ve been forced to listen to at the studio lately. (Which—OT warning—make me appreciate alt-bluegrass and Tex-Mex even more.) But anyway, the deal is, it’s her life. We’re making our own way and she’s making hers, and let’s make the best of it.
My take. Call me if you want.
Love ya,
Alana
G
IRLFRIEND, WE HAVE to talk.”
“Ow!” Shani’s bony fingers gripped my elbow so hard that I had trouble shaking her off. “What? I have core class in fifteen minutes.”
She hustled me into the common room, which for once was empty. It was Friday morning and everyone was probably still at breakfast.
“It won’t take that long for you to give me the scoop. How could you keep this a secret? I thought we were friends.”
“Keep what a secret?” The only secrets I had were my job and Mac’s mystery e-mail stalker, and it wasn’t likely she would have told Shani about that.
What did I know? Mac had blabbed about Brett, so maybe she’d decided to make Drifter this morning’s headline, too. If I’d seen her last night, I’d have ripped a strip off her, but I hadn’t. I couldn’t even tell if she’d come back to our room to sleep because she was gone by the time I woke up that morning.
“Don’t play innocent.” Shani’s brown eyes practically snapped, but with anger or excitement, I couldn’t tell. “I got an IM from Gillian yesterday. Apparently you’re the big news around here.”
I felt my face go cold.
“Oh, come on, don’t look so shocked,” Shani said. “You’re never around, and when you are, you hardly talk. Now with what Gillian says, it all adds up.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out a hip. “When were you going to tell me you and Brett had hooked up?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement at the door. I turned just in time to see blond hair swing out of sight. “Lissa? Is that you?”
Sheepishly, she came back into view. “I wasn’t eavesdropping, honest. I was just walking by and thought I heard your voices.”
“Don’t leave.” I motioned her in. “Maybe you can make some sense of what this girl is saying, because I can’t.”
Shani blew me a raspberry and rolled her eyes. “Don’t play coy with me. We haven’t seen you in a couple weeks. It’s all over school that you and Brett are an item. Since this is, like, your dream come true, I thought you would have at least shared the happy news with us.”
I looked from one to the other. “But there isn’t any news. No item. I’m not going out with him. I’m not even sure he remembers who I am half the time.”
“That’s not what I hear.” Lissa pulled us farther into the room, close to the hearth. A gas fire usually burned there in the winter, but now that it was May, a big vase of fresh peonies and lilies stood on the tile in front of it. “You’ve been keeping it pretty clandestine, but now the news is out. I hear you guys let yourselves be seen together the other night, and you’re going with him to the party at Callum’s.”
“I was invited. Like I’d ever go. All I need is for the entire school to know I’m crushing on him.”
“The entire school thinks he’s crushing on
you
,” Shani pointed out.
“Yeah, but the big reveal is that it’s all gossip. Why would I want to go to that party and deliberately watch him forget my name in front of everyone? Or worse, not see me at all?”
“You’re not going out,” Lissa repeated in an I’m-just-clarifying-this tone.
“Are you kidding? He spoke to me on the lawn a couple nights ago. That’s it. That’s all that happened.” She and Shani exchanged a glance. “What? What was that look?”
“Rumor has it that Vanessa found out and her little needle is buried in the red zone,” Shani said at last.
“Why should she care?” I demanded. “She kicked him to the curb before spring break.”
“I’ll tell you what I think.” Lissa sat on the upholstered arm of the couch. “I know for a fact she really wants Callum. I bet she’s hanging on to Brett to save her pride because Callum can’t see her as anything but his buddy from when they were kids.”
“Well, someone better tell Brett that,” I said, “because as far as I know, he’s got a thing for Mac.”
“But does she have a thing for him?” Lissa wanted to know.
“I think so,” I said. “She’s the one who’s been out with him and his friends. In fact, I don’t think she even came in last night.”
Shani’s eyes widened. “Now
that’s
a headline. Where was she?”
I shrugged. “If they weren’t together, then I have no idea. Listen, now that we have this cleared up, I have to get to core class.”
“Watch your back,” Shani warned. “We may know the truth, and you may know the truth, but Vanessa and the rest of the school don’t know it.”
I nodded and gave them both the warmest smile I could muster, then headed down the corridor. On top of everything else, now this? At least my feelings for Brett weren’t public knowledge. If they were gossiping about us going out, that implied people thought he had feelings for me. I knew he didn’t, but at least my pride wouldn’t go down in a gale of laughter.
Concentrating on History of the Ancient World was nearly impossible, so it was a relief to get out and head for Life Sciences and my fashion-design elective. I could think of no better way to lose all my stress than to immerse myself in plans for my dress. As I approached the door, I was so busy compiling a list in my head of the materials I’d need for the hands-on part of the class, which happened after the lecture, that I didn’t see Emily Overton until I practically walked into her.
“Hey,” she said. “Just the person I was looking for. Are you coming?”
“Hi. Coming where?”
“To the DYD meeting. Vanessa sent an e-mail last night. Didn’t you get it?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t checked my mail since yesterday afternoon.”
“It’s a good thing I ran into you, then. Come on. It’s at Starbucks.”
I glanced frantically into the classroom, with its pattern-drafting equipment and dress forms and yards of muslin for experimenting, all waiting for me. “I—I—wait, Emily.” I shook my arm free of her leechy grip.
“What’s to wait for?” she demanded. “The Life Sciences teachers all know what we’re doing. It’s not like you’re going to get a demerit.”
Two girls pushed past us, and commandeered a dress form. That left four. If I didn’t lose Emily, they’d all be gone. “It’s not that. It’s just that I, um . . . I really need to do some work in here today.”
“And Vanessa really needs us to know what’s going on. Don’t you want to hear who the designers are going to be?”
Sure, but that would be common knowledge by dinnertime. And the meeting? They’d order their extra-hot nonfat no-whip lattes and spend forty-five seconds on an update and the rest of the time talking about me and Brett—right in front of us. And truthfully, I could go a few more days without seeing Vanessa. At least until her needle got back down into the black, you know what I mean?
I stepped past Emily and into the classroom. “Tell her I’m sorry, okay?”
“Okay,” Emily said slowly. “But she’s not going to be happy that you blew her off.”
“You said that sometimes the boys don’t come. What’s the difference?”
“They’re boys. All the girls come.”
“Well, I can’t,” I said firmly. I was taking a calculated risk, but I needed to get my hands on some muslin, stat. Besides, even if Vanessa did want to cut me from the committee, she’d have Mac to deal with. We were showing definite signs of becoming friends, what with all the secrets between us, and she’d want me to stay. “I’ll see you later.”
And I headed over to the window to bag a dress form before she could say another word. As I sat through a pretty interesting lecture on how to turn a tailored collar and afterward began the hands-on work with the form and my muslin, pleating and draping and marking cutting lines, keeping Eleanor Spencer’s dress in my mind’s eye for reference, a sense of calm began to wash away the edge of my anxiety.
Gillian once told me she talked to God all the time, in her head. Asking Him to walk her through tense moments. Thanking Him for good things. I remember thinking at the time that she had some nerve, yakking away to the Creator of everything like they were best buds.
But maybe there was something in it.
You are here with me, Father. Thank You for helping me see that. Thank You for this class and for letting me discover something that I really love to do.
Help me figure out how to handle this Brett rumor. If I have to look like an idiot because of my feelings, help me get through it gracefully.
And help me know what to do about Drifter. I don’t like the sound of him, Father. I’m asking for Your protection here and Your hand around Mac. I don’t think she believes in You, but for my sake, could You keep an eye on her? Thanks, Lord.
Gillian was right. Prayer wasn’t something you had to do. It was something you loved to do. I felt twenty times better after putting my problems in front of God. I might be clumsy and undecided and not very well equipped to handle things, but He wasn’t. He had everything I needed—I just had to ask.
During dance practice, I felt so confident that I got through a complicated hip-hop routine with only one mistake. “Nice work, Miss Aragon,” the instructor called to me. “A few more performances like that and you’ll be ready for the recital in June—which, may I remind you all, is your final exam.”
At lunch, I grabbed a panini sandwich and stopped by Lissa’s and Shani’s table. “I have so much homework I’m just going to go out in the quad and work all afternoon,” I told them. “If I don’t see you, have a good weekend.”
“Are you going down to San Jose?” Shani asked. “And blowing off that party?”