Limos, Lattes and My Life on the Fringe Read online

  I pulled out my phone and showed it to her, my eyes glued to her reaction. She frowned in that delicate way only she could pull off, but when she shook her head, I believed her.

  “This one either?” I said as I clicked to the second text.

  She shook her head even harder.

  “Do you know who did? I have to know, Joanna, just for my own peace of mind.” I swallowed some bubble gum of my own. “If you tell me, I’ll even promise not to accept if Patrick does ask me.”

  It was an easy thing to offer, since it was obvious he wasn’t going to, but her eyes widened as if I’d just said I’d sever an arm for the cause.

  “I swear to you I have no idea,” she said. “And you know I would tell you for that.”

  “So … a date with Patrick trumps loyalty to the group. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “You’d rat on your friends if it meant going to the prom with Patrick.”

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “If I had a group of friends I really loved, I wouldn’t just automatically ditch them for a guy, no matter who he was.”

  Joanna looked at me as if she’d just realized I was there. “You are so — different than I thought,” she said. “I can totally see why Patrick likes you.”

  That seemed to stun her so deeply, she walked away without making me promise again to follow through. I was a little stunned myself.

  My invitation list still read only Valleri Clare, but I needed to get to my locker and grab my stuff for class. When I got there, I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that Patrick wasn’t waiting for me. No wonder I’d always steered clear of this kind of drama.

  I had to yank to get the locker door open, and when I did, the reason why dropped to the floor. Someone had stuck a folded piece of paper in on the hinged side. Had to be Valleri; she was the only one I knew who didn’t text everything she wanted to say.

  The minute I unfolded it, however, I could tell it wasn’t from her. The letters had been cut from a magazine and pasted on in haphazard fashion. And Valleri would never have written what this note said:

  IF YOU GO TO THE PROM, YOU WILL REGRET IT. IT’S GOING TO BE LIKE A SCENE FROM CARRIE.

  Carrie? The movie where they dumped blood on the girl who was elected prom queen?

  “What’s happenin’, girl?”

  I jerked so hard the paper fell out of my hand and my elbow connected with my locker.

  “Sorry,” Patrick said. “Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  Before I could stop him, he leaned over and picked up the note. I watched his face go white.

  “What is this?” he said.

  I started to shake. “It was stuck in my locker. And I know it wasn’t Joanna, because I was just talking to her, and this wasn’t here the first time I came.”

  Patrick was following my babbling lips with his eyes. “Joanna?” he said. “Nah — this has Alyssa all over it.”

  His voice alone stopped the jitter in my head. I took a breath.

  “Alyssa would never risk getting glue on her manicure,” I said.

  Patrick shook his head. “You don’t understand — she wants prom queen bad. She’s, like, obsessed with it.”

  “And she’s probably going to get it, so why would she do this?”

  “Because she knows you are probably going to get it.”

  “In whose world? Are you kidding me?”

  He stuck the note into his pocket and put his face close to mine. I couldn’t move. Or breathe.

  “You, like, symbolize the prom this year. People respect you. Even people who would never admit it. And Alyssa knows it.”

  I wanted to come back with a quip, but I couldn’t think of one. I still wasn’t breathing when he pulled his face away.

  “I’ll take care of this,” he said. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  When he left, I let out all the air and sagged against the locker. I realized I hadn’t told him he should ask Joanna to the prom. I would do it, of course. But there was suddenly nothing I wanted to do less.

  I didn’t see Patrick again until after lunch. Valleri and I watched him from across the cafeteria while he sat in a corner with Alyssa, shaping the conversation with his hands.

  Valleri slowly shook the curls. “He even makes chewing somebody out look like, hey, would you chew me out now?”

  I looked at her in surprise. “Valleri Clare,” I said, “do you have a crush on Patrick?”

  She laughed. “No. But I appreciate a nice guy. There aren’t that many of them. I met one in France and — I know we’re too young and all that, but we email every day, and who knows about someday? But I’m not going to date just to be dating, you know?”

  “I never thought about it. It’s not like I’ve ever been asked out.”

  “You will be,” she said. “Trust me.” “Did you talk to him?”

  I looked up from my sandwich at Joanna. Her lip was quivering. Actually, her entire body was quivering.

  “Sit down before you fall down,” I said.

  I could feel Valleri staring at me as Joanna dropped into the chair beside mine.

  “So did you?” Joanna said.

  “I haven’t had a chance.”

  “You waited too long! Look at that — he’s asking Alyssa right now.”

  “No, he’s not,” I said. “He’s interrogating her.”

  “Huh?”

  I looked hopelessly at Valleri.

  “He’s just asking her some questions about something,” Valleri said.

  “She didn’t send those text messages either,” Joanna said.

  “I asked her.”

  I felt my eyebrow go up. “Excuse me if I don’t automatically believe everything Alyssa says.”

  “No, it’s true. She wants you to go to prom.”

  “Because …”

  Joanna shifted in the chair. “Okay, no offense, but she totally thinks you’re going to lose prom queen and she wants to see you suffer. I don’t think that. And I don’t even care about winning, if I can just go with Patrick.”

  “Well, if you want to do that, you better get lost,” I said, “because here he comes. I can’t ask him if you’re sitting here.”

  She bolted from the chair and then stopped. “Just one more thing,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You can’t tell him that I asked you to talk to him.” I wasn’t sure I followed that, but I nodded. “I’m going to leave too,” Valleri said. “Don’t!” I said.

  She squeezed my hand. “Just trust me.” So it was just me at the table when Patrick joined me, already shaking his head.

  “Alyssa didn’t do it,” he said. “How do you know?”

  “Because I tried everything except waterboarding. I’ve known Alyssa since kindergarten. I’ve always been able to get her to fess up to a lie, but she’s not cracking. Too bad too. I wanted it to be her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if she was the one, we’d know what we were dealing with. Now we don’t, and I hate that.”

  “Okay,” I said, “now that I’m thinking about it, I seriously don’t think anybody is going to dump a pail of O negative on my head at the prom. They’re all about it being first class. They wouldn’t mess it up.”

  “So, what, it’s an empty threat? Why go to all the trouble of pasting words on a piece of paper?”

  I looked around the cafeteria. Nobody looked like they had that much energy. Izzy was asleep with his head on the table as usual — though how he could still do that after the YouTube fiasco …

  “What?” Patrick said. “You just thought of something.”

  “Maybe it was YouTube. Maybe he was hiding with his camera while I was reading it. It’s probably on the Internet already.”

  Patrick’s brown eyes narrowed. “Are you just trying to get me to let this go? Because I’m just about to go
to Mr. Baumgarten —”

  “No!” I said.

  Izzy actually stirred two tables over. I lowered my voice. “He’ll cancel the whole prom,” I said. “We’ve worked too hard for that to happen.”

  “But we can’t just ignore it.”

  I chewed at my thumbnail. “Okay, what if we both keep investigating? Somebody’s going to say something sooner or later. You could keep an eye on the Facebook page —”

  “I’m not going on there — I hate that thing.”

  The heat in his voice was so un-Patrick, I blinked. “Okay. But see what you can get out of YouTube.”

  He nodded, face still doubtful. “But I’m not saying anything to Egan.”

  “Good call.”

  “Man, I am so bummed about this. Everything was going great.”

  “Okay, here’s something that’ll cheer you up. Or not.” “Talk to me. I’m dyin’ here.”

  I told him about the pre-prom party at my place, and to my relief the grin returned.

  “I was trying to come up with a guest list,” I said. “And then you just said how much you hated that Facebook page, with the invitation-only party, and I just realized —”

  “You saw that?” Patrick said.

  “I went on there one night —”

  “Man, why did you do that, Tyler? I hate that you saw that.” “The picture of me looking like I’m stoned?” I tried a laugh, but he didn’t join me. “I’m really sorry,” he said.

  “You didn’t do it.”

  “People I used to think were cool did. I’m sorry I ever thought they were.”

  That look was back in his eyes, the one I couldn’t name before. I knew now that it was disappointment, and I didn’t like seeing it there.

  “So, do you want to know what I was thinking?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  “I think since having an exclusive, closed party after the prom goes against everything we’re trying to do, an invitation-only pre-prom party would do the same thing.”

  “Go on.”

  “So what if I opened it up to everybody who’s going to the prom? I still don’t know who would come — “ “I’ll be there,” he said. “That idea rocks.” That, and the dance in his eyes, was all I needed. But for Joanna, I remembered, it was a different story. “You can bring your date, of course,” I said. “I don’t have a date.” So far so good.

  “Then you want to know what I think?” I said. He grinned. “Do I have a choice?” “I think you should ask Joanna.”

  The grin froze, right there on his face, like I’d blasted it with liquid nitrogen.

  “I’m not asking Joanna,” he said.

  The look in his eyes warned me not to ask why. “Oh,” I said. “Just thought I’d throw that out there.” “Because she told you to?” Ew.

  “She did,” he said. “You didn’t hear it from me,” I said. Patrick worked his shoulders. “Could we change the subject?”

  “The party.”

  “Valleri could make up, like, a huge invitation — “ “ — and fliers —”

  “We could do a group picture at the party and print it in the Herald — okay, we totally need to go to Scarnato’s after school and plan this out.”

  I smiled and he smiled and we were okay again. I could settle for “okay” and a latte, couldn’t I?

  That was Monday. With the prom on Saturday, that gave us five days to find out who made the threat. The good news was that there weren’t any more messages. The bad news: we still didn’t have a clue by Thursday.

  That wasn’t the only thing bothering me. Mom was all about the pre-prom party, and she and Sunny had already made two trips to Albany for supplies — none of which I was privy to, because they said I was the hostess and needed to save myself. That was all fabulous, except that my father never missed a chance at the dinner table to try to lure me into a debate about the practical applications of the prom to future life. He would only stop when Sunny threatened to leave the table. I was really beginning to love my sister.

  Then there was the issue of the photographer. The studio Egan’s committee had hired was charging some exorbitant fee for just one shot, and he was charging extra for groups larger than a couple. Egan kept telling us they couldn’t find anyone cheaper, but he promised to keep trying. With only a few days left, I didn’t hold out much hope for that. We just told people to bring their own cameras to my house and we’d do something nice.

  And then there was the matter of Joanna. I couldn’t go on letting her think Patrick was going to pop the question any minute, so Monday after school I’d tracked her down in the library, where the prom committee was having their final meeting. When she saw me come in, she all but leaped over two tables and a dictionary stand and dragged me out into the hall. I heard YouTube behind us, saying, “What the —”

  “Did you talk to him?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “And?”

  “Look, Joanna, I —”

  “He said he wasn’t going to, didn’t he?”

  I nodded.

  “Did you tell him he should? Did you try to talk him into it?” “Actually, I started to and he just wouldn’t listen to me. Look, maybe you should just talk to him yourself and find out why.”

  “I don’t want to know why!”

  She put her face in her hands and leaned against me. I didn’t have much choice but to put my arms around her. “Did he ask you?” she said. “He did, didn’t he?”

  “Uh, no, he did not.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tyler,” she said through her tears. “I’m so sorry for both of us.”

  Alyssa chose that moment to pass by. Her eyes enlarged; she clearly couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  That made two of us.

  At least Candace, Ryleigh, Izzy, and Noelle and Fred and the rest of the twelve who were going as a group were happy. They gathered at the lunch table with Patrick and Valleri and me daily and made up for the Fringe averting their eyes every time I got within ten feet, and Kenny and Graham acting like I was carrying the plague.

  Still, I felt unsettled. I’d tried so hard to do this good thing, and there was still so much of it that wouldn’t fall into place. No amount of extra credit was enough. It wasn’t until I was sitting on my window seat Wednesday night that I realized — in a sudden sweat — what I needed to do.

  I pulled out RL.

  Thought you’d never ask,

  the first warm page said.

  I have a story for you.

  Thank God. Literally.

  Yeshua was getting sick of the religion scholars and the big ka-hunas we talked about last time trying to catch him in all these technicalities, like having a logical explanation for everything was what mattered.

  I used to think it was. Now I’m not sure.

  Not sure is good in this instance. He said to his disciples, “Watch out for those guys. They love to walk around in their robes and hoods that tell you how much education they have, and bask in the flattery, and assume they’re going to win every election because, well, because they’re them.” He said, “Don’t be drawn in by that, because the whole time they’re being all that, they’re exploiting the poor and making it hard for people who can’t help themselves.” He said they’d get theirs in the end.

  I knew all this. And I wasn’t doing that, so how was this supposed to help me?

  We’re getting to that. Just then he looked over and saw the rich people dropping bags of money into the collection plate and making a huge production out of it, like “Do you see this? Do you see how much I’m giving?”

  I knew that too. I’d seen it firsthand.

  This is the part I want you to get. Then Yeshua saw a widow that was pretty much destitute drop in two pennies. And he looked at his disciples, and he said, “That’s the biggest offering that’s been given today. All these wealthy types? They’re never going to miss a cent of what they brought in here. But that woman gave what she couldn’t afford. She gave everything.”

  The book w
as quiet. It had yet again told me a story I already knew. Only this time, I also knew enough to ask — “What do you want me to do with that?”

  What do you think?

  “Give everything I have.”

  Have you done that?

  “I didn’t have any dresses to donate, but —

  “ Are you serious? Go deeper. Did you give what you couldn’t afford?

  I pondered that. The book waited.

  I gave up my so-called friends. But then I got more.

  More waiting.

  I gave up my easy relationship with my father. But I gained a sister. I guess I gave up being sure about everything. But I got feelings. I still don’t know if I even like that.

  So what’s left to give?

  “I don’t know. I’m feeling pretty naked right now.”

  She gave everything she had.

  I looked around the room, puffing frustration.

  You’ll know it when you see it. If you stick with Yeshua.

  I was startled. Wasn’t that what Valleri said — she just knew it was a God thing when it happened? But I was no Valleri. No, but you’re some Tyler.

  There it was again: the voice that wasn’t mine but didn’t come from anywhere else. It was there, though. And I liked that it was there.

  I looked down at the page and nodded at it.

  “Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  And your heart, the voice whispered back. It will be in your heart.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thursday. Two days before prom, and the excitement was so real you could feel it on your skin. All that we could do had been done, and now I had to take care of a few things.

  Like, oh, what I was going to wear. I brought that up to Sunny Thursday morning on the way to school.

  “I was wondering when you were going to get around to that,” she said. “If you hadn’t said something by tonight I was going to.”

  “I guess I should have picked something out at the dress shop.”

  Sunny shook her head. “There was nothing there for you. I do have a dress I held back, if you’re interested.”

  I gave her a look. “I could so not get my big toe into anything that fits you.”

  “Get outta town, girl. Come to my room tonight and we will just see.”