Chapter Twelve
Molly sat on the end of Maeve’s bed, knees drawn up but splayed, painting her toenails a gaudy purple while Maeve, her back against the headboard, thumbed through the Tiger Beat she’d bought that afternoon.
She’d thought about shoving the magazine down the front of her jeans, but shoplifting was pointless without anyone to see you get away with it.
It had been funny and conspiratorial to steal with friends, to run to the park afterward and lay out the loot on a picnic table, the risk worth the reward of pulling off a petty heist. But her old friends were gone.
And she didn’t have new ones who she could hang out with in the same way.
She missed basketball. She missed Claire.
She’d bought the nail polish but told Molly she’d swiped it.
Talk about pathetic! Lying about stealing to impress your little sister.
She watched Molly slop polish all over her cuticles, pursed her lips, and closed the magazine.
“You’d better not get that on my bedspread, or Mom will kill me. Or you.”
“I’m trying to be careful. It’s hard. Toes are so far away from hands.”
Maeve rolled her eyes. She knew Molly was fishing for attention. “Give me that.” Molly handed the bottle and brush over with a satisfied grin.
Maeve didn’t want to admit how much she needed Molly’s company.
Here she was, seventeen years old, and her best friend was a third grader who didn’t know the first thing about boys or basketball or rumor mills or periods or bras or how snaky and fickle girls can be.
She didn’t know what it felt like to be an outsider, how saying or doing one stupid thing could change everything.
But, then again, it wasn’t just one thing that got Maeve into this situation.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad, okay?” Maeve said, Molly’s big toe pinched between her fingers. “I’m going to a party tonight. In the woods.”
Molly bent forward, blew on the nail. “A birthday party?”
“No, not a birthday party. More like a party to blow off steam,” Maeve said.
Molly scrunched up her face. “Huh?”
“Remember that boy Oskar I was telling you about? The exchange student?”
“The German boy. With the tongue. I remember.”
Maeve had had a nonspeaking townsperson role in the spring play, and at the cast party after the final curtain, the bottle pointed at her when Oskar spun it. He’d lurched across the circle, and suddenly his tongue was down her throat.
“Yeah, so he and a bunch of other kids are going to a party. He asked if I wanted to go, too, so I said yes.” Maeve put the cap back on the nail polish and used the magazine to fan Molly’s nails.
Molly flexed her foot to admire her purple toes. “Are you going to kiss him again?”
Maeve did not want to kiss this Oskar again.
But she had to admit, there was some satisfaction in it.
It had all started freshman year. If only her parents had let her switch from Spanish class to German with Claire and Robin, she wouldn’t be in this situation.
But no. They’d been firm to the point of ridiculous.
Her dad had raised his voice—something he never did—shouting at Maeve that he would not have German spoken in his house, and that was that.
And her mother had almost burst into tears!
Then Claire and Robin grew closer, and Maeve was the third wheel.
To make matters worse, Robin decided to go out for basketball, and before Maeve knew it, Robin and Claire were both starters, and Maeve was a reliable benchwarmer.
No, she didn’t want to kiss Oskar. But she did want to shut up that stupid, pimply dullard Kim who peeked over Maeve’s shoulder in class one day and saw Maeve had doodled Claire’s name in bubble letters.
It wasn’t framed in a heart or anything.
It was nothing. A thing between friends.
But loud enough to make sure someone else would hear, Kim said, “Oooh! Maeve has a crush on Claire!” And somehow, somehow, it had stuck.
No matter what Maeve did or said, no matter how hard she tried to prove otherwise, she knew that people still snickered about her, and she’d let it get under her skin and it had made her act weird around Claire, which made Claire act weird around her.
Then, beginning of junior year, Maeve and Claire were assigned to the same homeroom, and some random boy said, “Look, Claire. There’s your girlfriend!
” Claire told the kid to go fuck himself, which made Maeve’s heart leap until Claire turned to Robin, made a gagging motion, and said, “Gross,” which pulverized Maeve’s hopeful heart.
Weeks later, at tryouts, the varsity roster was filled until Maeve was the only junior left standing.
“Looks like one more year of JV for you,” the coach said.
In front of everyone—Claire, Robin, her teammates, even the hotshot new girl from Canada, Wendy Walker—Maeve told the coach he could stick JV and had walked out of the gymnasium, away from basketball and the only friends she had.
If it hadn’t been for the theater kids, she wouldn’t have any social life at all.
And the German boy was a theater kid. Did she want to kiss Oskar?
No, she absolutely did not. But she would.
To get back at her parents. To prove something to Claire.
To clear her name. Sure, she’d kiss him again.
Maeve smacked Molly’s foot playfully. “Wouldn’t you like to know . . .” she said. “Now get out of here. I have to change and come up with a story for Mom and Dad. And Pix, seriously, you have to promise. You can’t tell.”
“I know!” Molly said. She crossed her heart with an X, locked her lips with an imaginary key, then snatched the nail polish off Maeve’s side table.
“Thief!” Maeve cried and threw the magazine at her.
“Ha! Mine!” Molly said, grabbing the magazine off the floor before hightailing from Maeve’s room with her loot.
Maeve huddled in a folding chair, her jacket on backward to keep her warmer.
She’d settled on jeans and a pink sweater, a pink barrette holding her bangs to the side.
Pink, the color for girls who wanted to kiss boys.
It was early, but she was already buzzed.
She surveyed her new friends next to the campfire, small groups of misfits and weirdos smoking grass and swigging cheap wine, others drinking flat beer from a week-old keg in the back of one of the two cars parked close by.
Oskar sat across the fire, chatting in German to the girl whose family hosted him.
He glanced at Maeve, then past her, and shot up so fast he about dropped his beer.
“Oh, man!” he said, waving furiously. Maeve, confused, looked over her shoulder.
Voices on the path, giggles and laughter in the orange light.
Becky Glover, the senior center on the basketball team appeared first, followed by Claire and Robin, then the broad-shouldered Nordic twins—sophomores no one could tell apart, who were also on the varsity team—then Wendy Walker, that point guard who’d transferred from Canada.
Maeve sat a little taller.
She had spoken to Wendy Walker exactly once, and it was the day Maeve quit the team. She was sitting on the sidewalk outside the back door of the gym, waiting for her ride home, and out came Wendy, basketball under her arm.
She kicked Maeve’s foot. “Rad decision in there,” she’d said.
“Huh?”
“Telling off Coach. I mean, you’re a good player. The team’s deep, is all. But that guy’s a douchebag, and sorry, but he doesn’t like you.”
“Yeah, he’s never been a fan. He doesn’t like my shot. He says I don’t know how to protect the ball. He’s a jerk. I could make a list of things he’s said to other girls. So, I don’t know if it’s just me.”
“Yeah, I think it’s you. And me, but let’s be honest. He can’t be mean to me. I’m going to be his star for the next two years.” She’d smiled when she said it, but she wasn’t joking. And Maeve knew she wasn’t wrong.
“Modest much?” Maeve asked and immediately regretted it.
“It is what it is. Anyway. Glad you stood up to him.” She let the ball drop to the pavement and dribbled it, making two scissor steps. “See you around.”
That girl was so cool.
Maeve finished the beer in her cup and dropped it onto a bed of pine needles. When she stood, she realized her coat was still on backward. She fumbled dumbly until it was on straight.
Oskar ran around the fire. “I invited them!” he said to Maeve, as if he’d pulled off some huge social feat.
There were whispers, awkward hellos, warring parties making nice. Claire stood close enough to Maeve that to say nothing would be awkward. “Hey, congratulations,” Maeve said, touching the barrette. Her body bobbed with discomfort. “Good season. Great season. Really.”
“Yeah, thanks. You were in the play, right? I heard it was good. Sorry I missed it.”
Robin joined them with a beer that had a remarkably full head of foam. “Don’t think the nerds knew they needed to pump the keg,” she said, tipping the foam across her lip. “Hey, Maeve. What’s shakin’?”
Maeve bubbled like she was drunk on champagne.
Had it all been in her head? Was she the one who’d snubbed them?
The conversation turned funny and dark. They filled her in on the coach walking into the girls’ locker room when he knew they would be undressed, catching several girls “tits out,” as Robin put it.
Becky Glover had gone to the principal, and the principal had gone to the superintendent.
“Doubt he’ll coach next year,” Claire said. “You should try out. Wendy really thinks he had it in for you. She said you knew he was a perv all along.”
Maeve tried to sound casual. “Maybe.” Wendy Walker talked about her? To the team?