Dream Girl Page 26
My voice had slid to a softer version of its normal self. I’d always wanted Cheri-Lee to understand why I wasn’t her daughter’s biggest fan, but at this moment everything else in the world ceased to matter. I had to get through to her.
“And maybe it’s not as simple as you think, either. The last thing Sheila needs is any more grief, with her father leaving and all. This hasn’t been an easy time for her.”
While I was biting down on my lip and feeling guilty, she yanked the pineapple out of my grasp. “She’s still very bent up over that Hayden incident, you know.”
“Hayden and I were only ever just friends.”
Cheri-Lee eyed me incredulously.
“It’s true.” I steered her and the shrimp sculpture back to the crowd. “Just let us work it out on our own. We will.”
“You’d better.” Over the cherry-colored frames of her glasses, she eyed me sternly. “You’re two of the sweetest girls, and I’m sick and tired of your shenanigans, both of you.”
Our tussle appeared to have gone unnoticed. Everybody else was clustered by the couch, where they were listening to Becca. The scene was reminiscent of a kid telling ghost stories in the middle of the night—the crowd was captivated, and the only light sources in the apartment were a handful of candles stuffed in the necks of empty wine bottles.
“I was waiting outside my voice coach’s studio—which is really just another word for office,” Becca was saying. “And I could hear him practicing scales. All of a sudden, I heard a horrible noise inside and I opened the door. He’d collapsed from stomach troubles. Something went wrong with his gastric bypass surgery.”
“Dear Lord!” Kiki hooted, clapping her hands together.
“What did you do?” Henry asked.
“That’s the amazing thing—I didn’t have to do anything. Apparently this kind of thing happens all the time at the opera house. All these guards came out of the woodwork and rushed him to Beth Israel. He’s fine, back on his feet.” She popped a grape in her mouth and grinned. “He just might need to alter his diet a little bit.”
Kiki turned to me, “Speaking of diets, would you kindly remind me when we’re supposed to eat?”
“It should be very soon,” I promised her. “Do you want to try one of Cheri-Lee’s shrimp?”
Mom scurried out of the kitchen with flour in her hair. “Why doesn’t everybody sit down?” she asked nervously.
Kiki wasn’t the only hungry one. There was a mad rush for the table, and hands were flying into the bread basket before every seat cushion had been sat upon.
Henry’s construction-paper-and-feather place cards had Becca sitting as far from me as possible, but she didn’t seem to mind. And I wouldn’t have been much use; she and Douglas were chatting away about some reality fashion show I’d never seen.
“This is marvelous, Priscilla,” Cheri-Lee said, scooping a helping of walnut-sausage stuffing onto her plate. “You should go to Florida more often.”
Mom patted the top of Dad’s hand. “I don’t think I’m allowed to do that again.”
Kiki took a small bite. “Not bad,” she said, grabbing a raisin pecan roll out of the breadbasket. “Though rather moist for turkey, isn’t it?”
Mom looked immeasurably grateful when the sound of knocking came at the door, distracting everyone from the question. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kiki glance around to make sure it was safe to stuff the ball of bread into her mouth. For some strange reason, she hated letting other people see her use her hands to eat.
“Sheila said she might be swinging by,” Cheri-Lee said. “Why don’t you go and see, Claire?”
“Bliss,” I grumbled to myself as I got up from the table and trudged over to the door.
But instead it was Louis, with his tennis racket slung over his shoulder.
“It’s you!” I gushed.
“Sorry I’m late.” He’d misinterpreted my statement. “The match was never ending. We played to 7–6.”
“Did you win?” I asked, watching him kick off his tennis shoes.
“I would have. My racquet was messed up.”
“Well, you came to the right place.” I dragged him into the main room. “You can eat away your sorrows.”
“I’d rather eat a burger.”
“You all know Louis, right?” I looked around the room, and then my eyes alighted on Becca. She was sitting straighter than usual, appraising him as if he were an animal that had trespassed on her territory. “Everyone but Becca.”
“Why don’t you sit here, Louis?” Douglas asked, clearing his place. “I have to be at the soup kitchen at eight.”
“You do know Thanksgiving was a week ago?” Becca asked. She didn’t want Douglas to give his place to this alien interloper.
“I offered to help prepare tomorrow’s breakfast,” Douglas told her. “Soup kitchens are open every day of the year.”
Becca looked down at her plate, slightly ashamed.
“Not necessarily,” Kiki came to Becca’s rescue. “Sadie Lindenquist and I used to host the most fabulous dinner for the needy at the Colony Club on alternate Thursday nights.”
At this bit of information, Mom put down her fork and smiled. “I didn’t know you fed homeless people, Mom.”
“Well, to be perfectly honest, they were artists, but by the way they blew about from one apartment to the next, they were practically homeless.”
Kiki tucked into her supposed turkey and left everybody else at the table to exchange wide eyes and suppressed smirks.
The rest of the meal proceeded smoothly—plenty of wine and chocolate. Very few awkward silences. And no more glares from Cheri-Lee. But the best part was watching Becca. All this time, I’d known her to be the paragon of composure, sometimes a little high-handed, but after ten minutes of sitting with her back to Louis, she started to warm to him. He brought out her girlishness, a side of her I’d only seen when we were alone together. Becca was acting alternately coy and effusive, and enjoying herself more than I ever would have thought possible. They were talking about horror movies and entertaining each other with impressions of bad zombie acting. Everything was going perfectly until he leaned in to take an uneaten spinach pie off her plate. The plate snatching didn’t bother her, but he inadvertently knocked the pitcher of gravy onto the floor, splattering her beautiful embroidered velvet flats.
Louis disappeared under the table, wiping her shoes with a napkin. “I’m sorry!” he kept saying. “I’m a spaz!”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, leaning down to him. “I didn’t like these shoes anyway.” She kicked them off and sat cross-legged. “Much more comfortable. I’m starting to get why everybody makes a fuss about going barefoot around here.”
Kiki and I exchanged a look.
It was funny, I thought. I’d always meant to introduce the two of them, but never in a million years would it have struck me to set them up. But now that they were inches apart, I could see that I’d blocked out the obvious. I had two sarcastic, privileged, and, yes, not-bad-looking best friends. How had it not occurred to me to bring them together?
Becca barely said anything to me until dessert, when she passed me her cell phone and frowned. “Looks like Andy’s not coming after all.”
DIDN’T REALIZE IT WAS A DBL FEATURE.
TELL CLAIRE I’LL MAKE IT UP TO HER.
I OWE HER A FIELD TRIP. I’LL MAKE IT XTRA GOOD.
My heart quickened. I nearly dropped the phone when I was handing it back.
“He’s an idiot to miss out on this. Let’s make him jealous.” Becca got up and pointed her cell phone at the table. “Everyone, say cheese.”
Since cheese makes me wince, I said “Chocolate” and tried to duplicate one of Mom’s bewitching smiles for Andy.
“Looks like you’ve done more good for that Shuttleworth clan than you might recognize,” Kiki said after dinner. We were in the backseat of a taxi that was headed uptown to the Waldorf. She was right—I’d never seen Becca smile as much as she ha
d at the end of the meal when Louis made a point of telling her he wanted to see Valley of the Dead, the movie she’d been talking about wanting to check out earlier in the evening.
“I don’t know how I didn’t think of it before,” I told her. “They’ll make a lovely match,” Kiki said “and we can be sure neither of them is using the other for their money.”
“That’s a romantic way of looking at things,” I said dryly.
“I’m just being practical. I do want the best for everybody.” She rolled down the window and took a deep breath of fresh air. “Especially you, my dear.” She gave me a funny look. “Time to get cracking.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not supposed to use the cameo to achieve things only for yourself. But if there are other people involved, well, that might be a different story. You’re on the verge of something….”
“I am?”
“Do I have to spell it out? A-N-D-R-E-W.”
It took me a second to realize what she meant. Andy. I was struck by a gut feeling of my own—it was as if a thousand tiny fish were swimming around my stomach. I was slammed with every emotion under the sun—terror, anxiety, ecstasy, and that’s only two percent of the things I was feeling. I leaned back in my seat and looked out the window, pretending not to have grasped what she was driving at.
“Pull yourself together.” Kiki gave my knee a double pat. “He’s just as scared as you.”
I was riding my bike along a path in Washington Square Park when I saw him. He was sitting on a bench and reading the newspaper. His brow was furrowed and his long legs were carelessly kicked out.
I pulled up in front of him and tapped his foot with my own. He smiled at me, and next thing I knew, my bike was leaning against the bench and we were sitting side by side and my heart was beating so hard I was afraid he’d hear it. He was running his finger around my wrist, then up my arm, and somehow he was tugging at my earlobe, and playing with the part of my ear that met my neck. It tickled, and I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening—only that I felt warm and safe, as if I were floating above everything I’d ever known until now.
It was all in black-and-white, but when I woke up the next morning, I felt a wave of calm. I knew everything would be colored in soon enough.
The author would like to thank Christy Fletcher;
Ben Greenman, Sarah Fan, and Eden Edwards, readers extraordinaire;
The Mechling caravan, and, alphabetically, Stacy Abramson, Vanessa Bertozzi, Pooja Bhatia, Andrew Bujalski, Anne Dodge, Gail Ghezzi, Kitty Greenwald, Matt Herman, Jamie Irving, Steven Jack, Jessica Johnson, Laura Moser, Lisa Oppenheim, Tim Rostron, and Jake and Daniel;
And Krista Marino, dream editor.
LAUREN MECHLING is the coauthor of all three 10th-Grade Social Climber books. She has written for the New York Times, Jane, and Seventeen. She lives and writes in New York City.
You can visit her at www.laurenmechling.com.
Published by Delacorte Press
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Lauren Mechling
All rights reserved.
Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mechling, Lauren.
Dream girl / Lauren Mechling.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When fifteen-year-old Claire Voyante’s grandmother gives her a cameo for her birthday, she starts having dreams that seem to be telling her something that has to do with her new, wealthy friend being in danger.
[1. Dreams—Fiction. 2. Clairvoyants—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Family life—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 6. Family Life—New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 7. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.M51269Dr 2008
[Fic]—dc22
2007034497
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
eISBN: 978-0-375-84905-3
v3.0