“Thank you,” I said, and this time I really meant it. Seeing her made me realize just how much I’d missed my mother.
At that moment, the doorbell rang, and I knew it had to be Toby. As I reached for the knob, I felt Mom slide into place behind me, ready to observe.
Oh, great.
“Hey,” I said, opening the door and glancing away from Toby’s blinding smile.
“Hi,” he said. “Wow. You look beautiful.”
“Of course she does,” Mom interjected. “What did you expect?”
“Mother,” I hissed, shooting her a dirty look over my shoulder.
She shrugged. “Hello, Toby,” she said, waving. “I’m Gina, Bianca’s mother. I know, I look more like her sister, right?”
I gritted my teeth. Toby laughed.
“Have a good time,” Mom said, kissing me on the cheek. “I’m going to pack up some of my things that are still here, but I’m talking at a retirement center in Oak Hill Sunday, so I’ll be staying at a hotel for the weekend. We’ll have lunch tomorrow so I can get all the details.”
She pushed me out the door before I could argue with this, and then I was alone with Toby on the porch.
“She’s funny,” he said.
“She’s insane,” I muttered.
“What kind of talks does she give? She said she was going to a retirement home?”
“Oh. She wrote a self-esteem book.” I glanced back at the house, watching through the window as Mom moved past, headed for the bedroom she used to sleep in, prepared to pack up the last few things she’d left behind. I’d never realized the irony until that moment. For the past couple months, I’d been struggling with my own self-esteem while my mother coached others on how to improve theirs. Maybe if I’d talked to her, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to figure things out. “She talks to people around the country about learning to accept themselves.”
“Sounds like a fun job,” Toby said.
“Maybe.”
He smiled, wrapping his arm around my waist and leading me off the porch.
I sighed and danced out of his grip as I let myself into the car.
27
Casey and Jessica were waiting in the backseat of the Taurus. Both of them grinned mischievously at me when I climbed into the passenger’s seat. “Someone’s dressing sexy,” Casey teased. “I gave you that shirt nine months ago. Is this the first time you’ve worn it?”
“Um,… yeah.”
“Well, it looks good on you,” she said. “Looks like I’m the Duff tonight. Thanks a lot, B.” She winked at me, and I couldn’t help but smile. Casey had recently taken to using Duff as a word of her own, molding it into our casual conversations. At first I’d found it kind of unsettling. I mean, the word was an insult. It was horrible. But after the revelation I’d had that day in the bathroom with Vikki, I appreciated what Casey was doing. The word was ours now, and as long as we held on to it, we could control the hurt it inflicted.
“It’s a messy job,” I teased. “But, hey, someone’s gotta do it. I promise to be the Duff next weekend.”
She laughed.
“Are you wearing a padded bra?” Jessica blurted out, apparently unaware of our conversation. “Your boobs look bigger.”
There was a long moment of silence, and I suddenly realized that I would have been safer with my mother.
Casey burst into a fit of laughter as I buried my face in my hands, completely mortified. Toby didn’t show any reaction. Thank God. If he had, I might have committed suicide right there in the car. Banged my head against the window until my brain was flattened like a pancake. Instead of snickering or glancing at my chest to see if Jessica was right, Toby acted like boobs hadn’t even been mentioned. He just stuck the key in the ignition and pulled out of my driveway.
Note to self, I thought. Murder Jessica when there are no witnesses.
Though, in a weird way, Toby’s lack of reaction bugged me. Wesley would have made a joke. He would have looked at my chest, of course, but then he would have said something. He would have made me laugh. He wouldn’t have just ignored it like Toby.
God! Of all things, this should not have been something that bothered me.
“You know,” Casey said when she was finally able to stop laughing. “It was pretty cool of you guys to invite us along.” She smiled at me, and I knew she was glad to be included. “But you realize this is totally going to ruin your date, right?”
“How so?” Toby asked.
“Because we get to be your chaperones!” Jessica declared with way too much enthusiasm.
“Which makes it our job to put a stop to all forms of hanky-panky,” Casey added. “And we’ll enjoy doing it.”
“Yep.”
But Toby and I had no need to worry. The minute we got inside the Nest, my friends took off for the dance floor, flipping their hair and shaking their butts in the usual fashion.
“It looks like they’re the ones who need to be chaperoned,” Toby chuckled as he led me to an empty booth.
“That’s usually my job,” I said.
“Do you think they can survive if you take a night off?”
“We’ll see.”
He smiled and touched my earring with his fingertips. “The band won’t start for half an hour,” he said, moving his hand down my neck to rest on my shoulder. It didn’t do anything for me. But if Wesley had done this, trailed his fingers across my skin that way, I would have…
“Do you want me to get us some drinks before the bar gets too crowded?”
“Sure,” I said, choking back the thought of Wesley. “I’ll have a Cher—Diet Coke.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He kissed me on the cheek and left for the bar.
People were spilling through the doors of the club. There was always a bigger crowd on nights when a band played. A few eighth-grade girls took the booth behind me, bragging loudly about how they’d pretended to be in high school to get in. A junior and one of his friends sidled past me, a poorly concealed beer bottle hanging out of his baggy jacket, and, for a split second, I caught a glimpse of the dark-haired freshman Jessica and I had watched at the basketball game weeks ago. She walked through the door, hand in hand with a cute boy I didn’t recognize. Even from my distance, I could see the smile on her face. She looked beautiful, and I knew one of her preppy blond friends was being forced to fill in as the Duff in her absence. Then she and her date were gone, swept away by the crowd, leaving me with an inexplicable smile on my lips.
I didn’t know what kind of band was supposed to be performing, but based on the number of kids with purple hair and lip rings who were walking in, I figured I’d be hearing Emo music.
There went my smile.
Great. Whiny boys with guitars. So my style, right?
I was absentmindedly watching the flood of people when he appeared among the crowd. At first I didn’t even notice. He was with Harrison Carlyle, talking casually as they pushed their way toward the bar. It was easy to track his movement. He stood a few inches taller than everyone around him, he glanced around the crowd with more confidence than the rest of our classmates, he walked through the swarms with more grace than any normal teenager could manage, and my eyes followed him without my brain’s consent.
Halfway to the bar, Wesley turned his head in my direction. His dark eyes locked with mine for an instant. Shit. I looked away, praying he hadn’t noticed me, even though I was sure he had.
“God,” I muttered, clenching my fist under the table. “It’s like he’s everywhere.”
“Who’s everywhere?” Toby asked, taking his seat across from me and sliding my glass along the smooth surface of the table.
“No one.” I took a sip of the Diet Coke and tried not to make a face. The lack of sugar left a bad taste in my mouth. I swallowed and asked, “What’s the name of the band that’s playing again?”