I felt like I was on some trashy, staged reality show as I headed for her, like everybody on the lawn was watching me and laughing at me. But probably nobody was actually looking at me until I stomped up to the majorettes and told Addison, “I need to talk to you alone.”
She looked at me and blinked her eyes innocently. “Why?”
I had been friends with Addison for a long time. I usually knew when she was lying to me. I hadn’t known when she told me that Max had asked her out—maybe because I wasn’t in a mental place where I could believe he liked me then—but I knew now that she was guilty. Something in her eyes gave her away. Either Max had told her about last night, or she had figured out that we were together.
“You know why,” I said quietly.
She gestured to the other majorettes, who looked at us curiously. “There’s nothing you need to say to me that you can’t say to my friends.”
So now they were her friends, not mine.
I glanced at the five of them, watching me expectantly. My gaze rested on Delilah, whose black eyes were huge and full of horror. If Addison wanted me to say this in front of them, so be it.
“You lied to me.” Those words felt so good to say that it was easy for me to keep going. “You told me Max asked you out when he didn’t. You knew I liked him first.” I heard my own voice rising. I sensed people from across the school yard crowding behind me to watch this spectacle, which was exactly what I hadn’t wanted. Some wise-ass yelled, “Fight!”
I knew I was in trouble when Addison looked triumphant. “Your boyfriend is Carter!” she crowed. “If you like Max now, you stole my boyfriend! You have been double dipping!”
The crowd gasped.
“I have not been doing any such thing!” I hollered at her. “That is dirty. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
She put her hands on her hips, uncomfortable for the first time. “Oh yeah? And how do you know all these expressions if you haven’t been doing something dirty?”
“Because I am in band, and I am friends with trumpets!” I must have sounded as crazy as I felt, screaming this at her, because someone stepped behind me and put a steadying hand on my back.
“You are in big trouble, Gemma Van Cleve,” Addison sneered at me. She touched her nose with her fingertip. At first I thought she was reminding me that she’d broken my nose so long ago. Or she was rubbing in how ugly my nose was now.
Instead, she said, “You didn’t keep your nose clean.”
She turned and flounced across the yard and into school. Toward the band room. Toward Mrs. Baxter.
“Ooooooh,” said the crowd.
The person attached to the calming hand on my back stepped forward. It was Robert. “Show’s over, folks. Nothing to see here.” He waved his hands like he was shooing cows. Several of them actually mooed as they dispersed.
He bent to look into my eyes. “Are you okay? What was that all about?”
“Yeah!” The head majorette leaned close, bringing the rest of the majorettes with her. “You always keep calm and carry on, Gemma. If you’re involved in drama, it must be serious.”
I was going to brush it off and tell them, “Nothing,” but that would be a lie. And as I looked around and saw their concern, I realized they really were my friends. I wanted them to know what had happened.
So I told them the bare bones of the story. The truth, so that Addison couldn’t accuse me of spreading rumors about her.
“And she’s going to try to get you kicked off the majorette squad for that?” Delilah squeaked. “She can’t do that!”
“I guess she can,” I said, defeated. “We all knew what Mrs. Baxter’s rules were when we tried out.”
The bell rang, and we hiked up the stairs to the school. As I sat in a series of quiet classrooms, alone with my thoughts except for the occasional Pythagorean theorem or genealogy of the British royal family, I calmed down. I felt better about what had happened. I was relieved that I had confronted Addison. I had accused her of this one transgression, but that was all it took to purge my bitterness about a six-year friendship full of insults and slights. I was gratified that Robert had taken up for me and the majorettes had not abandoned me. I hoped that only a few people had witnessed the fight.
That hope was dashed as I walked from class to class. I was almost late for dance because so many people stopped me to ask if I’d really dated the quarterback and the kicker from the rival team. Technically I had never gone on a date with Max, so I said no. Which felt like a betrayal of him, even though our night together had ended awfully.
I dreaded going to band. Addison would be there, and she would confront me again. Mrs. Baxter would be there, and she would tell me I was off the squad. Expecting something horrible to happen was almost worse than it actually happening. I spent the whole sweltering hour in that excruciating limbo. I was so distracted that I dropped my baton. Twice.
Mrs. Baxter never called me out of the line. But she seemed to scowl at me more disapprovingly than usual. I couldn’t be sure because she and the band director viewed us from so high in the stands. But Addison was only five yards away from me, with the other majorettes gathered around her. She was definitely scowling.
The next time the band ran the drill, we all moved to new positions on the field, and I was a long way from Addison. I looked around for Delilah to ask her what was going on. She was already walking toward me.
“You told us you liked the kicker for East in the first place, instead of the quarterback,” she said. “But you’re not with the kicker now. Are you?”
I tried to read her expression. When we’d gone to the vintage store, she’d guessed that I’d fallen for a guy I was going out with that night. I just hadn’t clued her in that the guy was Max instead of Carter. I hoped she understood that I couldn’t have told her then, because Max had belonged to Addison. Or so I’d thought.
“I’m not dating either of them now,” I said. Seven words, and so much behind them.
“Good,” she said. “If you were dating the kicker, I would have been worried. Since you’re not, this is probably good news.”
I doubted it.
“This morning Addison was talking about turning you in to Mrs. Baxter,” Delilah said. “Now she’s talking about getting revenge on the kicker instead. Maybe you’re off the hook.”
“How is she getting revenge on him?” I hated to ask.
“She says he’s really superstitious about game days.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“She’s sending flowers to his house this afternoon,” Delilah said. “She acts like that’s going to get him good, but I don’t see how it will ruin his game, do you? Are flowers bad luck?”
“Only in context,” I murmured. “He’s superstitious about kicking, and his game day has to go like every other game day. I’d be willing to bet nobody ever sent him flowers before.”
Delilah touched my arm. “You really care about him.”
I nodded as tears filled my eyes. I was not going to cry. Not while Addison was glaring across the field at me and talking behind her hand to another majorette.
“Then you should discuss it with Addison,” Delilah said. “I’m sure she’ll listen to reason. Come on, I’ll go with you.” She tugged at my shirt.
I shook my head. If Delilah thought Addison would listen to reason, she didn’t know Addison very well. “I have another way to take care of it.”
My first idea was to camp out at Max’s house and wait for the florist truck so I could intercept it. But I didn’t know when Max would be home. I couldn’t be there when he arrived. I was the girl he’d gotten together with and made out with and dumped the night before. Finding me in his driveway would probably be even more unusual and traumatic for him on game day than receiving a bouquet of flowers. I didn’t have Dr. Hirayama’s number or the other Dr. Hirayama’s number, but I had Carter’s.
Thinking hard about this, I missed my baton twice more during practice, and I caught Mrs. Baxter shaking her head at me from the stands. Finally, after practice was over, I waited until everyone had filed out of the stadium with their instruments and I had the whole field to myself. I called Carter, hoping he would actually answer. He might not have turned his ringer back on after school. He might see my name and ignore the call, thinking I was asking him out on a date. He might—
“Hey, Gemma,” he said quickly.
After a little pause of surprise, I said, “Hey!”
“I know you’re calling because Addison told you,” he said. “We shouldn’t have done it when I hadn’t talked to you first. But Max told me this morning that y’all were making out at the same time Addison and I were, so I don’t see the problem. I mean, I know you and Max aren’t together now, but . . .”
I gathered from this non-apology that he had gone over to Addison’s house and sucked face with her last night, right after my birthday movie complete with I LOVE YOU bear. And no, Addison hadn’t told me. She had let me think I was the evil one. She had told Mrs. Baxter I was the mean one. I hated her so much at that moment that I could hardly see the goalpost at the far end of the football field.
But I was on a mission, and I fought through that anger to remember why I’d called Carter. I cleared my throat. “I’m surprised you and Max are speaking to each other after the scrimmage yesterday. His version of the story was different from yours.”
Now Carter paused for a moment before saying slowly, “He’s not exactly speaking to me. He yelled at me across chemistry class and got sent out in the hall. He’s pretty upset about how things ended with you.”
“But you still care about his mojo, right?” I asked. “You act like you don’t care about him, but you care how he kicks for your team.”
I took his silence for a reluctant yes.
“Addison is trying to mess with his mojo,” I said. “She’s sending flowers to his house. I need you to intercept them. It would be pretty normal for you to hang out at his house before a game, right? Or warn his parents about the flowers. Whatever it takes to keep Max from seeing them.”
Carter was quiet so long that I thought he was going to say no. I took a breath to tell him what being best friends with someone meant. Like I knew.
He spoke before I could. “Why would Addison do that?” he asked. “Does she still like him?”
I didn’t think Addison had the hots for Max. Not since he’d started making good jokes. I said carefully, “Addison is dramatic.”
“Yeah, she is.” Carter laughed. “I love that about her.”
I was glad someone did. “So, will you intercept the flowers? I know you think Max is silly to be superstitious. But you’re not going to change that about him by tonight’s game.”
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” he said. “Thanks for letting me know. And Gemma? I’m sorry about the popcorn.”
This made so little sense to me that I almost said, And I am sorry about the pumpernickel, and the backhoe.
“At the movie last night,” he reminded me. “I knew you wouldn’t want popcorn because you’re careful about what you eat. I bought it to make you mad. I was so into Addison, and I felt like you had messed everything up by liking me. I was trying to make you stop.”
He had done a great job. “That’s okay, Carter. I’m just glad that you and Addison are together now.” I said this with no irony in my voice.
“I hope you and Max can work things out,” Carter said. “I’ll tell him you called to warn me about this.”
“No!” I insisted. “That’s definitely never happened on his game day before. I don’t want to mess with his mojo.”
“Then he won’t know you did something nice for him,” Carter argued.
I winced. Carter was right. Max really hated me right now, and letting him know that I’d tried to protect him might help heal that wound.
But it wasn’t worth it. I told Carter, “His mojo is more important.”
After we hung up, I pocketed my phone and picked up my batons. I performed an illusion, a one-turn, a two-turn, and a figure eight, every trick that had caused me to drop a baton during practice. I performed them over and over until I was absolutely certain I had regained my confidence.
Finally I jogged up the steps, out of the empty stadium, into the empty parking lot. I walked to my pretty car, gleaming red in the bright sunshine. “Grrrrrr,” I growled as I started the engine, remembering the delight in Max’s eyes when he had driven it.
I knew he was angry at me. I understood why. But we’d had too much fun together in the past few weeks, and we’d made each other feel too good last night, for either of us to walk away now. We’d never even been on a date! At least, not with each other.
Max had told me he loved me. I hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him back.
As I thought about making up with him, shivers raced down my arms. I turned off the air-conditioning and opened the windows to the hot wind and the smells of late summer flowers and traffic. Maybe Carter would tell Max about what I’d done to save his mojo—after the game. That would help Max forgive me. And Carter had said Max had yelled at him in chemistry. At least I knew Max still felt strongly about me. That was step one.
I’d talked myself into an optimistic mood by the time I parked my car in the garage. Skipping into the kitchen, I was about to dump my book bag and take my batons outside to practice a little more when I heard my mother’s footsteps coming down the stairs. Something must be wrong. She never emerged from her office just because I came home.