Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“They’re serving refreshments in the cafeteria now,” Flo said. “Let’s go. I want to watch Lainey meeting her public.” She dragged me along after her.
“Don’t forget she’s Jake’s niece,” I warned her. “Don’t go relishing this too much.”
“It’s our secret,” she promised. “But seriously, this is the greatest night of my life.”
But she came up short when we got to the cafeteria and found Lainey surrounded by a whole army of admirers.
She was holding an enormous bunch of lilies—which must have cost a fortune since they were out of season—and chattering animatedly to a collection of family and friends. Everyone was beaming at her.
Flo frowned. She was about to get a lesson in how life wasn’t fair, I thought, with a feeling of dread in my belly, as I saw the principal going to congratulate Lainey roundly.
“I don’t understand.” Flo looked up at me. “How come they’re all acting like she was good?”
“I guess because she’s a kid,” I said, putting my arm around her and giving her a squeeze. “And she’s their kid.”
“She’s not Mrs. Viney’s kid! And look at those girls from my class. They all laughed when she called me Fido, and now they’re fawning on her after that?” Flo looked ready to pull her hair out. “She was terrible.”
“Yes, she was,” I said fervently.
“Oh, this sucks. Let’s get out of here.”
I bit my lip. “Um, we can’t.”
She glared at me. “This isn’t the time to tell me to be a good sport. I was the first one to clap.”
“No, I mean we can’t because I got a ride with Jake. He’s going to drop us home after.”
Flo groaned. “Oh God. That means we’ll have to talk to her.”
“Not necessarily. Why don’t we grab a soda and a cupcake and go hide somewhere and I’ll just tell him to text me when he’s done?”
“Flo!” A short kid with a bob haircut and glasses came bounding over. “You were great. You were the only thing that didn’t suck.”
Flo snorted.
“Seriously, Brody took a video of it and was going to make a supercut of all her best notes, but then his mom confiscated his phone and said that was bullying. She has no idea.” The kid shot Lainey a dark look.
“Well, it probably is bullying,” I said carefully. “Even if she’s a bully it doesn’t mean it’s not bullying.”
Flo rolled her eyes. “Ash, this is my mom.”
“Hi.” Ash considered me. “I take your point. But then again, she did just stand up there and do that in public. And she’d probably like the supercut.”
“And no one would laugh at her,” Flo said, throwing up her hands.
I wondered what the hell a good parent would do here.
“You don’t really want people to laugh at her,” I said, feeling like I was about to walk the plank as they turned disbelieving and slightly hostile eyes on me.
“You just want her to understand how it feels, so she stops doing it to other people.”
“No. I want revenge,” Flo said.
“But that will make you as bad as she is.”
Flo flung her hand in Lainey’s direction. “That doesn’t look so bad!”
“Flo?” Jake’s voice cut through the babble, and I turned bright red, hoping he hadn’t heard us being rude about his niece.
He was holding a bunch of candy-colored roses wrapped with a bright yellow ribbon.
“You were the best dog I’ve ever seen. Better even than Hazel.
” He held out the roses and Flo’s eyes widened.
“They’re for me?”
“If you were the one in the dog costume, then yeah.” He passed them to her. “Congratulations, you’re a natural.”
“A natural dog?” She wrinkled her nose, even as she hugged the bouquet tighter.
“A natural performer. You were genuinely funny. Particularly in the scene where you followed Annie back to the orphanage.”
“Well, I copied Hazel a lot. I watched how she trips over her feet when she follows you around. What did you think of the play overall?” Flo asked, sounding a bit bullish.
“Well…” Jake scratched at his stubble.
“Yes?” Flo and Ash were hanging on his every word.
“Frankly?” He took a breath. “It was pretty hard to sit through.”
Flo exhaled hard. “Right!”
“There were moments I wished I had earplugs.”
Flo sagged in relief, throwing Jake a big smile. “I started to think no one had noticed. Come on, Ash, let’s get a soda.”
“Where did you pull those flowers from?” I asked him, astonished, but also thrilled by the way he’d punctured Flo’s bad mood.
“I had them in the back of the truck under the cover. One for her and one for Lainey.”
I looked over at Lainey, who was glowing. “You’re a good uncle,” I told him.
“I am. I deserve a medal for sitting through that and then lying to her face.”
“Surely she knows,” I said, bewildered. “And if she doesn’t, then someone really needs to tell her.”
“Her sisters will,” he said, sighing. “Imogen filmed it and is bound to make a supercut.”
“I think there’s a bit of that going on tonight.”
“She’ll survive. I hope.”
“So,” I said, with studied casualness, “do you want to point out your family?”
“Sure. Just over there, behind Lainey, that woman with the blond ponytail? The one telling off the teenager—probably for making a supercut to humiliate her little sister—that’s my sister Gaby.”
The woman in question was tall and broad-shouldered, in a blazer and jeans. She was hissing furiously at a girl I assumed was her daughter.