Chapter 41
BECAUSE OF NICOLETTE’S MULTIPLE TRIPS to the bathroom, Barb had missed most of the first half of Gladiator, and they were currently missing the ending of the movie altogether.
But that was the least of her worries. It was nearly one a.m., and if they didn’t leave the Starlight in the next fifteen minutes, Barb wouldn’t make it home before her mother’s shift at Lucky’s ended.
And if her mother got home before Barb did, she was toast.
“Meet you back at Sam’s car?” she called out, directing her voice to the stall where Nicolette had been for the past ten minutes.
“Wait for me,” Nicolette said, and a few seconds later, Barb heard retching.
“What are you, prego?” Lorelei had asked when Nicolette had asked to get out of the car this last time. “This is like the fifth time you’ve had to go.”
“Didn’t realize you were counting,” Nicolette had snapped. “Are my bathroom habits that interesting to you?”
The toilet flushed, and Nicolette finally came out of the stall, looking miserable.
Strands of her dark hair were stuck to her sweaty forehead, and even beneath her foundation, it was easy to see she was pale.
She washed her hands and rinsed out her mouth, then met Barb’s gaze in the mirror.
“Can I stay over at your place tonight? I don’t want to go home. ”
Internally Barb groaned. She’d been hoping Nicolette wouldn’t ask.
She stayed over a lot, and while everyone on the street knew what the Montes household was like, Barb’s mother wasn’t thrilled at having to provide food and snacks for two teenage girls when it was already a struggle with one.
“I should ask her parents for child support,” Becky Bonifacio had joked more than once.
And with Richard in jail, things at Nicolette’s house had gotten even worse.
There was no money coming in, and nobody to monitor Deanna’s drinking.
The door to the bathroom burst open and Lorelei stormed in. “What the fuck?” she said, glaring at the Barb and Nicolette. “You guys missed the ending of the movie. What have you two been doing in here?”
Nicolette’s eyes cut to Barb, and her expression was clear. Do not tell her.
“Her stomach is upset,” Barb said, nodding toward Nicolette. “Something she ate. Are you ready to go?”
“Go where?” Lorelei asked, fluffing her hair in the mirror.
“Uh, home?” Barb said, staring at her. “If I’m not there by the time my mom gets home from work, I’m dead.”
“Call her at the diner and tell her you’re sleeping at my house,” Lorelei said with a shrug. “I told my mother I was sleeping at your house. Come on. You don’t want to go home. I want to show Sam the beach.” She turned to Nicolette, who hadn’t said a word. “I know you don’t want to go home.”
“No, but I also don’t want to hang out with Sam anymore,” Nicolette said. “His car smells like stale tacos and pine trees and cigarette smoke. Just drop me and Barbie off at her place.”
Lorelei’s mouth dropped open. “You guys are bailing?”
Nicolette flashed Barb another look in the mirror. Barb didn’t need to be psychic to know that Nicolette was willing her not to cave, as she was so apt to do.
“She’s not feeling well, and I have to go home,” Barb said to Lorelei. “Give us a minute, okay? We’ll meet you back at the car.”
Lorelei crossed her arms. “Okay, I thought I was imagining it before, but now I know I’m not. What the hell is going on? You’re both acting weird, like you want me out of your hair so you can talk about stuff you don’t want me to know. Tell me right now.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Nicolette said. “Other than we don’t want to be stuck in the car while you give your new boyfriend another handsy. We just want to call it a night, okay?”
“I know what this is really about.” Lorelei’s eyes narrowed. “You’re jealous. You are still so mad he picked me.”
“Bitch, please.” Nicolette rolled her eyes. “He did not pick you. You basically spread your legs and invited him in.”
“Oh, like you haven’t been hooking up with Jonathan on the down-low since Christmas because you’re bored ?” Lorelei said.
“Wait, what?” Barb said, startled. “Jonathan Burrows? Is that who—”
“Shut up,” Nicolette hissed at her. To Lorelei she said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Barb blinked and stepped back, her mind racing.
She knew that Jonathan and Nicolette had hung out a bunch of times, and if he was the father, then her friend could certainly have done worse.
His class clown tendencies could sometimes distract from the fact that he was actually a pretty smart dude.
He’d had a crush on Nicolette forever, and way back at the Christmas dance—just like Lorelei said—she’d flirted with him because she was bored.
They’d ended up making out on the gymnasium dance floor until a very annoyed Daniel Hawksfield had told them to knock it off.
Later that evening, Nicolette and Jonathan had disappeared to a more private spot somewhere else in the school.
The DJ was playing Mariah Carey’s “Heartbreaker” as Barb and Lorelei climbed halfway up the bleachers to survey the gymnasium.
Lorelei was keeping one eye on Marty, who was taking pictures of everyone for the yearbook, and Barb was keeping one eye on Hawk, who looked extra handsome that night in a blue button-down she hadn’t seen him wear before.
Heartbreaker, you’ve got the best of me .
. . I should have known right from the start . . .
“Still hot for teacher, huh?” Lorelei had said to her then, following Barb’s gaze across the gym to where Hawk was standing. “One of these days you’ll have to explain to me what the appeal is. He’s too . . . attentive. But only toward girls. I swear he was looking down my top the other day.”
Barb was offended. “Hawk wouldn’t do that.”
“Sure he wouldn’t.” Lorelei smirked. “Don’t worry, Barbie, he’s all yours.”
The song switched to TLC’s “Unpretty,” which could have been Barb’s personal anthem. As if sensing eyes on him, Hawk turned toward the bleachers. From this distance, it seemed as if he was staring straight at her, but he probably wasn’t. Same old me again today . . .
“He’s not mine,” Barb said to Lorelei wistfully. “He’s not anyone’s.”
After the dance ended, Marty had driven them all home. That’s when Nicolette coyly informed everyone in the car that she’d allowed Jonathan Burrows to get all the way to third base.
“So does that mean he’s your boyfriend now?” Marty had asked when they stopped at a red light. He’d twisted around to look at her in the backseat. His face, normally expressionless, seemed disappointed.
“Oh god, no.” Nicolette was checking her face in her compact. “I don’t even like him that much.”
“So you make out with people you don’t like?” Marty frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“The light’s green, idiot.” Lorelei was sitting beside her stepbrother in the front passenger seat. “And it’s not for you to get. You’re not welcome to participate in this conversation with my friends.”
“Then maybe you’re not welcome to ride in my car,” Marty had replied, turning back around and placing his hands on ten and two. “I can let you out anytime, Lorelei.”
A shriek of outrage from Nicolette brought Barb back to the present, where the argument between her two best friends was escalating fast. Right now, Lorelei was going off on Nicolette, who looked like she was about to throw up again.
“Not everything is about you,” Lorelei shouted at Nicolette. “Believe it or not, it’s okay for a guy to pick me over you.”
“I never said it wasn’t okay,” Nicolette yelled back. She was sweating again, looking even paler than before, and Barb wondered if she even had anything left in her stomach to vomit. “I wouldn’t give a shit if you married him. You’re the one making this about you. I just want to go home.”
“You’re bailing on me, but fine.” Lorelei threw her hands up and headed for the door. “You two can find your own damn way home.”
Barb panicked and turned to Nicolette. “She’s leaving us here? How are we supposed to get home? I’m already way past curfew.”
“She’s just pissed, but she’ll wait,” Nicolette said. “But now I’m pissed at you. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m pregnant, and you nearly told her. Nobody else can know until I figure out what I’m going to do.”
“So what are you going to do?” Barb asked.
“I don’t know.” Nicolette’s voice choked on the last word. She stared at her reflection in the mirror. “All I know is that my stomach hurts and I look awful.”
Maybe it was the bad bathroom lighting, or the fact that she was tired from throwing up half the night, but Barb had to admit that her friend really did look terrible. It didn’t happen often.
“Obviously, I can’t keep it,” Nicolette said. “With my dad and Ray both gone, there’s no money, and I can barely handle my mother . . .”
“What about the baby’s father?” Barb asked. “Can Jonathan help out?”
“Jesus Christ, it’s not Jonathan.” Nicolette turned to her, disgusted. “I wouldn’t waste my virginity on him.”
“You were a virgin?” Barb didn’t mean to sound so shocked, but she couldn’t help it. The way Nicolette flirted with boys, she’d just assumed she’d started having sex once they hit high school but didn’t want to admit it.
“Yes, I was a virgin,” Nicolette snapped. “And the father could definitely help if he wanted to. But he wants no part of this. He actually suggested that maybe the baby wasn’t his.”
“What a dick. You’re really not going to tell me who it is?”
“Okay, fine,” Nicolette said with a heavy sigh. “But I don’t want you to freak out, okay? It’s—”
“You guys aren’t going to believe this,” a voice said hotly from the bathroom doorway.
Startled, they turned to see Lorelei thunder back in, eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed a deep red.
“Sam is gone. He’s actually fucking gone.
There are only two cars out there right now, and one is Marty’s and the other one is Mr. Hawksfield’s.
I can’t believe Sam did this. He fucking bailed on me without even saying goodbye. ”
“What do you mean, Sam’s gone?” Barb said, her eyes widening. “Maybe he just moved the car. Did you look—”
“That car is so big you could see it from space,” Nicolette said. “If you say he’s gone, then he’s gone, and good riddance. But why is Hawk still here? What about his date?”
“How would I know? And who gives a shit about Hawk? This is just so fucking rude,” Lorelei said, her voice cracking. “I can’t believe Sam would just leave me like that.”
Lorelei was near tears, and internally Barb groaned again. She wasn’t sure how much more drama she could take. Nicolette and Lorelei were both so emotionally needy, and when they were feeling vulnerable, it wasn’t each other they leaned on. It was Barb.
“Yeah, that sucks,” Nicolette said, but she looked distracted. “But, um, I need to talk to Hawk before he leaves. I’ll be right back.”
Barb turned to her. “Why do you need to talk to Hawk?”
“Hello, I’m in crisis here.” Lorelei’s voice was a decibel shy of a shout as Nicolette moved past her toward the bathroom door. “Fuck Hawk. For once, can we focus on me?”
“What do you mean, for once?” Nicolette stopped in her tracks. “This whole day has been about you, and this is not a crisis, you fucking drama queen. You knew Sam for a day. He was always going to be moving on. A week from now, you won’t even remember his name.”
“Okay, hold on,” Barb said, her mind still on Hawk. “Let’s all just calm—”
“I’m a drama queen?” Lorelei stared at her in disbelief. “You’re probably the reason he left. All you’ve done tonight is complain and make your shitty comments and go to the bathroom every half hour to vomit because of that eating disorder you pretend you don’t have.”
“I do not have an eating disorder! And if you think that loser left because of me, you’re deluded.” Nicolette’s cheeks were bright red. “I wasn’t the one cock-teasing him all night.”
“Guys—” Barb said.
“Oh, no, you’d have fucked him by now, we all know that,” Lorelei said. “You’re not a tease, you’re a promise. I’m amazed you haven’t popped out a kid by now. Wasn’t your mom our age when she had you? There’s still time to follow in her footsteps—”
Nicolette shoved her. Caught off guard for a second, Lorelei quickly regained her bearings and shoved her back. Nicolette lost her balance and fell back against the bathroom wall. Within a few seconds, hair was flying and hands were slapping.
“Stop it!” Barb said, panicking. She hadn’t seen these two fight like this since kindergarten. “You’re both being stupid—”
“Come on, hit me again,” Lorelei said to Nicolette, pushing her back against the bathroom wall. Her hands were balled up into fists. “You know you want to, because this is how your family deals with—”
Nicolette grabbed a handful of Lorelei’s hair and yanked.
Lorelei shrieked and pulled Nicolette’s hair as well, and the two of them wrestled for a few seconds until they both fell through one of the bathroom stall doors.
Nicolette pulled her hand back to punch Lorelei, and Barb threw herself at them both, trying to get between them.
“Stop it, she’s pregnant!” Barb yelled. “She’s fucking pregnant!”
“What?” Lorelei said, heaving, but her hand finally dropped. “What are you talking about?”
Barb yanked Nicolette away, leaving Lorelei standing in the stall staring out at them.
“She’s pregnant,” Barb repeated. In that moment, she didn’t care if Nicolette never forgave her for revealing it. She could not stand by and watch Lorelei hit her again, even if Nicolette had started it. “Do not touch her. Back off.”
“You’re pregnant?” Lorelei said to Nicolette, her eyes as round as dinner plates. “You and Jonathan—”
“For fuck’s sake, it’s not Jonathan’s,” Nicolette said, and burst into tears. “The baby is . . . it’s Hawk’s.”
The gasp in the bathroom wasn’t Lorelei’s. It wasn’t even Barb’s, who was stunned to speak.
It had come from Marty, who’d come into the bathroom with his cleaning bucket and had heard everything.