Be Strong & Curvaceous (15 page)

I slid right past the first question, since I’d be going to work as usual at four, and answered the second. “I wouldn’t go on a bet. If they want entertainment, they can hire a juggler or a trained monkey. I have better things to do.”

“Good for you.” Lissa air-clapped for me. “Nine out of ten people here would sell their little brothers for an invitation.”

I had to laugh. “Antony may be a pain, but he’s worth more than that. Hey, has anyone seen Mac yet?”

“She stumbled into core class looking like the morning after,” Lissa said. “No books. She had to borrow a piece of paper from me to take notes on. Maybe your grades don’t count in an exchange term.”

“Oh, I think they do,” Shani said. “I’ll bet she gets an A in Party 101.”

“What did your teacher say?” I asked.

Lissa shrugged. “He handed her his textbook and asked her to stand up and read a sonnet. Which she did, flawlessly. I think he just likes to listen to her accent.”

It must be nice to party all night and use charm and your friends’ notes to pass your classes.
Mac and her classes aren’t your problem. Neither is her stalker. She won’t let them be your problem, so just let it go.

“See you guys later.”

I found an empty table in a sunny part of the quad and did a fast triage on my homework assignments. Just how much could I get done before I caught the three-thirty bus to work? AP Chem: that could wait for study group Sunday night. English: Read a chapter of the textbook and the first ten chapters of
Clarissa
. I could do that tomorrow before I went to sleep. Spanish: vocab, no problem. A quick review before class and I’d be good to go. Math: the end-of-chapter test.

Groan. I could feel the headache coming on already.

But it wasn’t like I could put it off. Mr. Jackson, our math teacher, was relentless, and she who fell behind got left behind. Resigning myself to the pain, I got to work.

An hour later a shadow fell across my books and I looked up.

“Trying for the Dean’s list?” Brett Loyola asked.

I stared into that smile, which was at least as dazzling as the sun behind his head, and lost the ability to speak. He sat down opposite me as though a star-struck female wasn’t anything unusual—which it probably wasn’t—and turned my textbook toward him to see what I was working on.

“Math,” he said in a knowing tone. “But you’ve done the word problems, right?”

I nodded. “Another week and we’re moving on to trig. If we all survive that long.”

He laughed. “Most girls wouldn’t be happy about that.”

“I like something I can visualize on paper. Give me a triangle or the volume of water in a pipe and I’m good. Word problems just confuse me.”

“I had to give Christine Powell emergency tutoring to get her through her first midterm. She’s in worse shape than you.”

I bet.

“So, what are you up to?” I amazed myself, sounding so casual. As if the very sight of him sitting in front of me, his arms crossed on the table, didn’t make me forget to breathe. Heroically, I resisted the urge to dabble my fingers in his shadow, which fell across my papers just inches from my pencil.

“I just got done with crew and saw you out here, working away.”

Do not blush. Do not
. “I have a busy weekend, so I wanted to get as much done now as I could. You know how Jackson is. He told us fifty times he does the Bay to Breakers marathon. He thinks math is something you train for, too. ‘You have to do it every day.’ ” I mimicked Mr. Jackson’s beefy voice.

To my amazement, Brett laughed. “Busy weekend, huh? Whatcha got going?”

Stories—okay, fibs—flapped in my skull like a flock of birds. I shook them off. “Just stuff. Personal stuff.”

“I see,” he said knowingly, as if that were code for something else. Like a mad, passionate affair, maybe. Uh-huh. That was
so
me. “So are you coming to the party?”

I swallowed. “I hadn’t really thought about it.” Not after I’d decided not to go.

“Christine invited you, right?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“I get it. More personal stuff?”

Had he heard the rumors or not? And if he had, how did he feel? What did he think of me? Did he think of me at all?

“Look, Brett, this is kind of awkward.” I sounded desperately uncomfortable. I knew that. But I plunged on anyway, knowing it would shoot down any chance at all of him seeing me the way I wanted him to. “There’s a rumor going around. About—about you. And me. About us.”

Oh, Lord. I need You now. Please help me to not be such a dork.

“Yeah?”

He hadn’t heard. I felt like banging my head on the table. Why hadn’t I kept my mouth shut?

“Maybe you haven’t heard it. Anyway. I—I wanted you to know I didn’t start it. I don’t know who did. Someone with a big imagination and nothing to do, I guess.”

“Someone is always spreading rumors. You get used to it. Don’t let it bother you, Carly.”

My name. Ohmigosh, he remembered my name!

“It does bother me. Did. Because it involved you. And it wasn’t true.”

Could I sound any more idiotic? He was going to wonder how I got past the admissions board, at this rate.

“Are you so sure about that?”

I stared at him. “About what?”

“That it isn’t true. Because I was hoping you’d go with me.”

Welcome back to the Twilight Zone, ladies and gentlemen. I’m your host, Carly Aragon, and I’ve just been abducted by aliens and replaced by a popular fashionista on whom Brett Loyola would appear to have a crush.

Chapter 13

H
I, PAPA, it’s me.”

My father took me off his office speakerphone right away and picked up the receiver. “Carolina, it’s good to hear your voice. I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight.”

I moistened my lips and chose my words carefully. “Actually, that’s why I’m calling. Would it be okay if I came home Saturday night instead?”

“Saturday? But that would only give us Sunday together, and then Enrique comes at five. What’s going on that’s more important than being with Antony and me?”

“Um . . . I have a date.”

Silence fell while my father digested the unthinkable. “A date? With a boy? Do I know him?”

“Of course with a boy, and no, you haven’t met him personally, but you’ve seen him. At the Benefactors’ Day Ball in October.”

“I don’t remember.”

“He was dancing with the committee chair. Tall, dark hair, very handsome. His name is Brett Loyola and his family owns a bunch of restaurants and things up here.”

“Loyola? Wasn’t there a mayor by that name?”

“That was his
abuelito
.”

“I see.”

“He’s really nice, Papa.”

“If he’s so nice, why haven’t I met him? You know how important it is to me that I know who your friends are.”

I bit down on the urge to say,
Because you’re never here
. “He only asked me this afternoon.” And I was still expecting to get a text message that said:

TEXT MESSAGE
_________________________________________________

Brett Loyola Kidding! How about those chem notes?

_____________________________________________________________

“And what’s the event?”

“We’re going to a”—
don’t say party, he’ll freak—
“walking over to his friend Callum’s house. My roommate is going, too, and the girls who are on the Design Your Dreams committee with me.”

“Will there be adults there?”

“Callum’s mom and grandmother.” I hoped. I didn’t actually know. “Papa, it’s not like I’m thirteen and we’ll be playing Spin the Bottle. It’s just an evening at Callum’s house to listen to music and talk.”

“If they start drinking, you’re to go back to school right away.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Papa.”

“That kind of thing is all too likely. I want you to take a picture of the mother and grandmother with your phone and send it to me, so I know there are adults there.”

“Papa!”

“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, young lady. If that offends you, then I want you to have one of them call me.”

“You might as well put my hair in pigtails and give me a lollipop.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I took a long breath and tried to sound mature and reasonable. “I’m not a baby, Papa. I’m nearly seventeen and it’s just a group of friends getting together. If I go around taking pictures of people’s parents, I’ll never live it down.”

“Then you’re not going.”

There’s only so much a girl can take. I’d been dealing with a lot of stress, with classes, with Mac and Drifter and Brett. But even leaving all that out, I’d been practically on my own for nine months. I was running my life just fine without parental supervision, thank you very much. I was trustworthy, practical, and responsible—everything he wanted me to be. And this was how he treated me? “No? You’re sixty miles away.”

“Carolina Isabella!”

I choked. I’d gone too far. “I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean that.”

“I should hope not. If this disrespect and rebellion are the result of going to that fancy school, I’m pulling you out of there.”

“Please don’t. I like it here. I earned it.”

“Then I want you to remember where you came from. Your mother and I brought you up better than this.”

“I know, Papa.”

“So, I’ll see you Saturday morning, then. I’ll tell Enrique to pick you up at, what, ten o’clock? Will you be recovered from your party by then?”

Uh-oh
. “Don’t bother Enrique. I’ll just catch the train. I’ll let you know which one, and you can pick me up in Fremont.” That was just half an hour from the condo.

“What’s the matter with Enrique?”

“Nothing, except the poor guy might want a life. He doesn’t have to give up a Saturday to cart me around when I can take the train practically from the doorstep.”

My father mulled this over, and I tried not to tap my fingers on my desk, in case he could hear me. “Fine,” he said at last. “You can take the train this once, and I’ll meet you at the Fremont station at noon.”

“Um . . .”

“Now what?” My father had already come within inches of losing it, and I couldn’t afford to have him go over the edge. At the same time, I couldn’t afford to skip a full Saturday of work, either.

“It might be a little later than noon.”

“Do you plan to sleep the entire day away? Is that more important than seeing your family?”

“Of course not. I just have some things to do.”

“What kind of things?”

Calm. Reasonable. Responsible
. “Papa, I’ll be done at four. I’ll take the train and be there in time to make supper.”

“What will you be done with at four? What are you hiding from me?”

“I’m not hiding anything! I have a job, that’s all, and I work until four on Saturdays.”

“You . . .
what
?”

I ran my free hand through my bangs in exasperation. You’d think I’d just confessed to a drive-by shooting.
Calm. Reasonable
. “I work in a photography store in the afternoons, and all day Saturday. So I may as well tell you, this will be a regular thing.”

“Reg—work—you work? In a store? Carolina, what are you thinking?”

“You don’t have to shout. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You are in school. You are to be focused on that. What in heaven’s name do you need to work for?”

“I need the money.”

“I will give you money!”

“You can’t give me enough to buy fabric from London and a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes, Papa. That’s what I need to walk down the runway at the Design Your Dreams show.”

“No one
needs
such garbage.”

“Maybe not in your world, but in my world, they do. So I got a job to pay for it. I’m being a responsible adult. And I like it.”

“I don’t care whether you like it or not. You call your boss immediately and tell him you quit. I will meet your train tomorrow at noon and we will discuss this.”

I would
not
be told what to do when this was so important. “What you mean is,
you
will discuss it. You taught us to be independent and to work for the things we want. Well, I’m doing just what you taught me. I’m old enough to make my own decisions, and there’s nothing wrong with what I’ve decided.”

“Carolina, you listen to—”

But I never heard what I was to listen to. I snapped my phone shut and turned it off, and unplugged the room extension, too, for good measure.

My father had nothing to complain about. I didn’t do drugs; I didn’t drink; I didn’t do anything but win scholarships and get good grades and make him proud. All I wanted was this one little thing, and he treated it like I was making extra cash by selling crack on the street corner.

Well, I was going to keep my job, and I was going to go to that party, and he could just get used to it. Maybe I’d be on that evening train to Fremont and maybe I wouldn’t. Either way, I made the decisions, not him. I was old enough to take control of my life, and that was that.

Something moved behind me, and I whirled around in my chair. Mac stood there, leaning on the door.

I gasped, half in surprise, half in sudden fear of what she might have heard. “When did you come in? How long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” she drawled. “Having growing pains? Carly Aragon’s secret life. Who knew that her deep, dark secret was . . . a job in a photo shop?”

“That’s none of your business!” I snapped. Then I looked at her more closely. “Weren’t you wearing that yesterday?”

“Give the girl a gold star.” She stripped off a denim mini that didn’t even come close to meeting the finger test, and unbuttoned her school blouse, which looked as if she’d slept in it.