Which I’d sort of known.
“My brother lost all of his scholarships because of what that guy did!” Seth cried.
“I know,” I said. “But — seriously, Seth — don’t you think Tommy’s been punished enough for it?”
“Why?” Seth demanded. “Because someone spray-painted that he’s a freak on the middle school’s gymnasium wall? You think that’s the same thing as what happened to Jake?”
“You guysdid run him out of town,” Jenna Hicks piped up, as she inserted the earbuds to her iPod.
Seth shot her a quick look. “Tommy Sullivan ranhimself out of town,” he said.
“Yeah,” Jenna said with a laugh. “Because you guys were gonna kill him.”
“Hey, now,” Dave said. “That’s not true.”
Jenna let out another laugh. “Right,” she said sarcastically. Then she switched on her music, so she couldn’t hear the conversation anymore.
I envied her.
“People!” Ms. Hayes clapped her hands sharply. “That isenough! We still have work to do! Take your places…and — Miss Hicks. Miss Hicks!” Jenna switched off her iPod and looked at Ms. Hayes tiredly. “If you don’t show up with an escort tomorrow night, you won’t be allowed to participate in the pageant. Do you understand?”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
We all hurried to take our places, guys to one side of the stage, girls to the other. As soon as we were out of earshot of Seth and Dave, Sidney pinched me and hissed, “Why didn’t you tellme Tommy Sullivan is back in town? That ishuge!”
I wanted to whisper back, “I thought you already knew. You issued a hottie alert for him yesterday at the beach.”
But then I remembered how I’d already lied and told her that guy was someone Liam knew from football camp.
Seriously, it can get to be a problem when you can’t keep all your lies straight anymore.
Something Tommy had already apparently realized. And which was no doubt part of his diabolical scheme to ruin me.
So instead I just said, “I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”
“Are you kidding?” Sidney whispered back. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys are planning a blanket party for later.”
My stomach lurched. Because a blanket party is what the Quahogs call it when they jump a guy and beat him up (in the old days, they’d put a blanket over the victim’s head so he wouldn’t know who was hitting him. Now they don’t bother, on account of the fact that so many of Eastport’s cops are former Quahogs, and Quahogs don’t rat out other Quahogs).
“That’s barbaric,” Jenna Hicks, who’d overheard, hissed.
“Yeah.” Morgan looked pale, but resolute. “Violence is never the answer to any situation.”
Sidney looked from them to me, and then burst out laughing — presumably at Jenna’s and Morgan’s naiveté.
I pretended to join in with the laughing. But inwardly, I really wasn’t seeing anything too funny about the situation. Mostly I just wanted to kill Eric for bringing up Tommy in the first place. What’s the matter with Eric Fluteley, anyway? For a guy who claims he wants to go out with me (in public…not just make out behind an emergency generator) so badly, he sure had a funny way of trying to win me over.
Then again, Eric didn’t know that just last night, I’d been fighting an urge to stick my tongue in Tommy’s mouth.
Or maybe hedid know — some kind of boyfriend sixth sense — and that’s why he was trying so hard to get Tommy killed.
It was hard to concentrate during the rest of the pageant rehearsal. Seth seemed really upset — I could feel his bicep tense up every time I slipped my hand through the crook of his elbow so he could “guide” me to my spot on the stage…and I was pretty sure he wasn’t doing it to impress me with the size of his arm muscles, either, but because he was super worked up over the Tommy thing.
He didn’t mention it to me again, though. I really hoped that was because he was coming to grips with the idea of Tommy going to Eastport High, and not because he was plotting what Sidney had mentioned — a blanket party. With Seth, it’s always hard to tell, because he’s so quiet a lot of the time.
I used to think this was because he was really sensitive and deep.
But lately I’ve sort of come to realize it’s because most of the time, he’s just thinking about what he’s going to eat next…a lot like my brother, Liam.
Guys aren’t actually all that deep, it turns out.
Well, except Tommy Sullivan. Who apparently has been carefully plotting my social annihilation for the past four years. It’s obvious he’s just been waiting until I’d risen to my current level of popularity/happiness before making his move. Because the higher they are, the harder they fall.
And what could be higher than being Seth Turner’s girlfriend, and Sidney van der Hoff’s best friend?
And, freakishly, I played right into his hands with my own weakness where hot guys are concerned. If he hadn’t caught me making out with Eric Fluteley, he’d have nothing on me.
Well, nothing except my desire to make out with him, too.
God, what iswrong with me?
Rehearsal couldn’t end soon enough. The minute the photo op was over — Ms. Hayes had me snap shots of Morgan dancing and Sidney pretending to sing — and Ms. Hayes was like, “Well, I think that’s it for the day, people. Remember, you need to be here no later than six tomorrow night,” I kissed Seth good-bye and took off for my bike, saying I had to get my photos over to Mr. Gatch at theGazette in order for him to publish them in tomorrow morning’s edition.
After all that emotional trauma (not to mention Ms. Hayes), it was a relief to cruise over to the offices of theEastport Gazette. Because whatever crazy thing tends to be going on in my life, it fades in comparison to the crazy things that go on at a small-town newspaper. When I walked in, someone was standing at the classifieds desk screaming about his neighbor’s barking dogs, and how the paper had to print a story about it or this person was going to take his story to theNew York Times …and then we’d all be sorry.
I swear the entire town of Eastport, Connecticut, is made up of wackadoos.
I downloaded my pageant pictures into the art director’s computer. She promised to look them over and forward the best ones to Mr. Gatch, the editor in chief. I thanked her and was on my way out — I had to get home to change before my shift at the Gull ’n Gulp (Peggy won’t allow us to wear shorts to work, unless they’re neatly pressed white or khaki ones) — when I noticed the person Mr. Gatch had been having the meeting with coming out of his office.
And nearly had a coronary.
Because the person was over six feet tall, dressed in cargo shorts and a Billabong slim tee, with broad shoulders and longish, red-brown hair.
He didn’t see me. Mostly because I ducked behind a filing cabinet.
I couldn’t believe it.I couldn’t believe it. What washe doing here?
As soon as he was gone, I hurried over to Mr. Gatch’s office door, which was still open, and went,“What was Tommy Sullivan doing here?”
Mr. Gatch, who is a big, brusque man with no patience for anyone, most of all freelance photographers who are still in high school, looked up from his computer monitor in an annoyed way and went, “I’m sorry. But I fail to see how that is any of your business, Ellison.”
I blinked at him. Mr. Gatch has a reputation for crankiness, but this seemed particularly ornery to me. It wasn’t like he and I were close.
But he had asked ME, and not Dawn Ferris, the staff’s only other freelance photographer (she also works part-time at Office Max), to photograph his great-grandson’s second birthday party. I had thought this afforded us a certain level of closeness.
Apparently, I had thought wrong.