Addison Blakely: Confessions of A PK (9 page)

“That will be lovely, dear.” Poor Mrs. Lyons flapped so hard I thought she might take off in flight.

“And I—”

“Next!”

A guy from the football team and his ventriloquist dummy bumped Jessica into the wings. I winced. Those things always freaked me out. Jessica must have agreed, judging by the way she quickly fled the stage.

The football player took his place on a stool and braced the doll on his lap. “Hello, everyone.” He used a high voice as he opened the mouth of the doll, but his own lips were clearly moving—obvious even from this distance.

Marta and I exchanged glances. Looked like we were going to have to get
very
creative.

Mystery meat again. High school was so cliché. I inched my way up in line at the cafeteria, debating the lesser of two evils. Gowith a veggie plate and be hungry later, or risk death by meat loaf?

If that was even meat loaf.

“So I hear you’re helping with the talent show.” Claire’s voice rang out behind me, a mixture of scorn and disbelief.

I refused to turn and give her the satisfaction of my full attention, so I just slid my tray along the rails in front of the protective food covers. “Sort of.”

“What do you mean?” She pressed in close behind me, as evidenced by a sudden waft of her designer perfume. Not a pleasant aroma when mixed with the smell of lumpy gravy.

“I’m organizing a fund-raiser so the proceeds this year can go to a good cause.”

“How noble of you.” Claire snorted.

“Thanks.” Treat sarcasm with sarcasm—worked with Wes, anyway. I nodded when the cafeteria server offered me mashed potatoes and shook my head vehemently when she held up a spoonful of steamed spinach. At least here at school I had the freedom to choose what I wanted to eat without worrying about Dad following in my carb-lover’s footsteps.

Claire’s tray clattered onto the rails behind mine. “I saw you watching the auditions. What did you think?”

“Of what?” If she was fishing for compliments, I wasn’t about to bite.

She nodded at the cafeteria lady to load her plate with the mystery meat. Brave soul. “My piece. I’m doing a fashion demonstration.”

Why was I not surprised? I shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t see it. We left early.” More like Marta and I ran for our lives after suffering through Jack Johnson’s bumbled misquoting of “The Raven.” I could just picture Edgar Allan Poe rolling in his grave.

“We?” Claire frowned.

“Marta and I.”

Claire’s nose tilted toward the ceiling at Marta’s name as if yanked up by a marionette string. “Oh.” Disdain dragged the word out several syllables longer than necessary. “Well, whatever. You should have stuck around for the good stuff.” Claire accepted a dollop of congealed mac and cheese from the server.

I bypassed it and went for the fruit cup, debating whether to defend Marta or let it go and avoid yet another showdown at Crooked Hollow High. “I think
good
is relative at this talent show.” Best to simply focus on the subject at hand until I could escape with my sorry excuse for a lunch.

“Then it should make choosing the winners all the easier to decide.” Claire tossed her hair and smiled with that same overconfidence that used to merely strike a nerve. Now that smirk grated me so badly I wanted to smear it with macaroni.

I picked up my tray with both hands before I could indulge my impulses. “Maybe so. See ya.” I headed toward a back table, where Marta had saved me a seat. Lucky girl brought her lunch today. We were supposed to go over our list of what needed to be done and set a date to start painting flyers.

“Addison, wait.” Claire’s tray nearly knocked into mine as she hurried to catch up beside me. “Exactly how involved are you with the advertising for the talent show?”

I stopped. “I’m writing up the ad copy to give the Foundation for their newsletter and website promo. But why do you care?” Out of patience now, I braced my tray against my hip to support its weight. Claire had never been Miss School Spirit unless there was something in it for her—like the glory of cheerleading or the popularity of running for class office.

“I just—” Claire’s jaw clenched as if the words she attempted to say tasted bad. She finally spit them out. “I don’t want our little misunderstanding to give me bad publicity.”

My eyes narrowed. “You call ditching me and treating your best friend badly a misunderstanding?” Man, she had some nerve! “And don’t think I don’t notice how you talk about Marta. Leave her out of this. She’s just being a good friend to me—something you could stand to learn about.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Addison.” Claire’s voice tightened, and she leaned in closer, our trays touching. “I couldn’t care less about your little foreign groupie. But there could be scouts at this show, and I refuse to let a chance to be discovered get ruined because of some grudge you’re holding against me.”

I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out of my mouth. “You really think a talent scout is going to come to a small-town high school talent show? This isn’t
America’s Next Top Model
or
American Idol
, Claire. Did you or did you not hear Kelly on the accordion?”

Claire’s lips pressed into a thin line, and an angry spark lit her eyes. “Just because you—”

“Hey, beautiful.” A male voice registered in my ears seconds before something solid knocked against my back. I stumbled forward, my tray colliding hard with Claire’s and upsetting her plate, which slid to the edge of her tray and sloshed gravy down the front of her white ruffled top.

Claire shrieked as she held her dripping tray away from her. Austin laughed as he brushed past me, convicting himself as the culprit. “Careful with your tray there, cheerleader.” He laughed before high-fiving a football buddy at a nearby table. What a jerk. I grabbed some napkins and offered them to Claire. “I’m so sorry. Austin is such a—”

“Don’t. Touch. Me.” Claire snatched the napkins from my hand, dropped her tray at my feet, and stalked out of the cafeteria to a chorus of guffaws. I stared down at the mystery meat now clinging to my favorite shoes. Claire’s threat about my not wanting her for an enemy rang in my mind like a warning bell.

A little late for that now.

“Do not let her get to you.” Marta offered me half of her strawberry pie, which I gratefully accepted. No way could I eat my lunch after seeing what it looked like smeared across Claire’s shirt. “She was embarrassed. She’ll calm down.”

“You don’t know Claire.” I shuddered.

“Doch! I feel I do, after watching the way she’s treated you lately.”

“Our friendship has always been complicated.” I speared a mushy strawberry with my fork. “We used to be close, but now it’s more like she’s the boot and I’m the doormat. I got sick of it.”

“You don’t deserve that,” Marta agreed. She raked a spoonful of whipped cream from the plate between us.

“Deserve it or not, I saw that look in her eyes. She’ll label this incident my fault, not Austin’s. Maybe if I had big muscles and a football uniform I’d get out of all responsibility, too.” I rolled my eyes.

Marta snorted. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“And she’ll never forget it.”

“But remember, she can’t be too mean to you because she is afraid of your advertising powers.” Marta grinned and finished her half of the pie. “So you’re safe for now.”

“Which is ridiculous because it’s not like I planned on spotlighting any of the students in the show anyway. I thought on the flyers we’d just list the time, date, place—you know. The basics.” I slid the plate away from me, disappointed that the sugar rush hadn’t eliminated my negativity. Too bad Got Beans didn’t deliver mochas to school.

“You could.” Marta pointed her spoon at me. “And not just to appease Claire. But to garner interest from the public. If they know what to expect, they might be more willing to come.”

“But what if the entire show is a joke? You saw the tryouts.” I winced. “What am I supposed to write on the flyer? Come see the worst ventriloquist act in history? Experience the vocal delights of the world’s most arrogant cheerleader?”

“Nein
. They can’t all be that bad.” But Marta frowned as if not convinced. “We’ll think of something, don’t worry.” She waved her hand and changed the subject. “Get back to telling me what happened to you and Claire. You said you used to be close.”

I filled her in on the last few years of our lives and all the ways Claire had changed. “Then lately she started getting snippy at me because Austin decided I’m his next conquest.” Ew. So not interested. “The more I don’t fawn all over him, the more attempts he makes to change my mind, then the more jealous Claire gets of his attention to me.” A vicious high school cycle I couldn’t wait to escape. Surely college wouldn’t be this immature. But I still had to survive senior year. Groan. “But even without Austin interfering, I knew things were changing between me and Claire. We used to have a lot in common, but now she’s only interested in appearance and guys and sex.”

“Meaning you’re not?”

I felt a blush staining my cheeks at Marta’s direct question. “I’m a preacher’s kid.”

Marta frowned. “So?”

“So, those decisions are sort of already made for me. I don’t waste a lot of time on makeup and hair, as you can tell.” I shook my head so my ponytail swished. “See? I have better things to do.”

“Your hair is cute up. What about the guy thing? Noboyfriend?” Marta grinned. “What about that guy in the coffee shop—Wes?”

I couldn’t exactly tell her Wes was the one making me suddenly doubt all my previous resolve about dating. I cleared my throat. “My dad doesn’t encourage dating. He knows all the issues that come with it, and my reputation is linked to his. I have to be careful.” I rattled off the answer I’d given a dozen times in the past few years and suddenly realized how textbook it sounded.

Marta chewed her lower lip before answering. “But you are still you, Addison. You’re still your own person. Do not hide behind a label of your father’s.”

“I’m not hiding,” I defended. “His rules make sense—most of the time. I’ve never been one of those girls to get a hundred crushes a year or freak out when a guy didn’t call. Those girls bug me.” I shrugged, avoiding her eyes. “And I’m not going to start becoming one of them now because of Wes. Besides, he’s got a lemon-drop girlfriend.”

Marta laughed. “Lemon drop? Is that more American slang?”

“Not exactly.” The bell rang, thankfully saving me from any more awkward revelations of my love life—or lack thereof. I quickly stood and gathered our trash on my tray. “Let’s go.”

My cheeks still felt flushed, and I wished I could subtly fan myself without drawing attention to the blotches that crept up my neck. I dumped my tray in the return bin and walked out of the cafeteria with Marta, her previous words cycling in my head like an iPod set to S
HUFFLE
.
Your own person. Don’t hide. Labels. You’re still you
. They struck a chord with me that had never really been pressed before. As I bypassed Austin’s table and ignored the catcall he whistled my way, I wished the entire last half hour had simply never happened.

T
he only thing more pathetic than doing a group project solo on a Friday night is going to your school’s open house with your father on a Friday night.
Like some sort of really screwed-up date.

I followed Dad out of the crowded auditorium amid a sea of fellow overeager parents and sullen students, the assistant principal’s monotone welcome speech still droning in my mind.

Dad held the heavy door leading to the south bank of classrooms open for me. “Which class is first?” He looked almost as uncomfortable as me, and I wished we could just go meet Ms. Hawthorne and then bail. She was the only one who requested to meet my dad, so why go through the agony of parading through my lineup of classrooms just like I’d done every morning for weeks already?

I believed in education. I did not believe in parent-teacher meet-and-greets.

“American history. Then gym.” Don’t get me started on how unfair it was to have gym within two hours of school starting each day. So far it was just a bunch of sitting around in our uniforms, but eventually we’d get to the sweaty stuff, and that would make the rest of the day interesting to say the least.