At First Sight (13 page)

I glanced around for Riley. When I found him, I caught him staring back at me. My heart gave a little jump when I saw the serious look on his face.

Enough is enough, I told myself firmly. We need to just deal with this already. I've got to stop playing games and lay it on the line, tell him—again—that I'm The One he's looking for. And not stop telling him until he believes it.

Summoning up all the courage I could find, I headed toward him. He was still watching me, not moving.

“Where is he?” a female voice cried out from the stairs. “Where's my sweet baby Riley? Because his Planetarium Girl is here at last!”

All eyes turned toward the newcomer, including mine. A girl was hurrying down the stairs. She had wide, teddy-bear-brown eyes, a big, round booty encased in a tight skirt, and a freakishly high-pitched voice. Her shoulder-length platinum hair was pinned back from her face with sparkly clips, and the heels of her wedge slides
added about four inches to her petite height. Think a blond Betty Boop on steroids. Another girl, taller and a little less flashy in general, was right behind her.

The first girl spotted Riley just as she reached the bottom of the steps. She stopped short and clutched at her own heart.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed, her voice approaching a pitch that only dogs could hear. “It's you. It's really you! After our wonderful, romantic, inspiring meeting in the planetarium, I was afraid I'd never find you again!”

“Get in line, sister,” one of the other fakers called out. “You're not the real Planetarium Girl. I am!”

The newcomer ignored her. She raced over and flung both arms around a surprised-looking Riley. “It's so awesome to see you again, Riley. I'm so glad you posted that thingy looking for me on MySpace.”

“It was on Facebook,” one of the video-game-playing girls called out, already sounding kind of bored. “Riley doesn't do MySpace.”

“Whatever.” The spawn of Betty Boop didn't seem too concerned. She never took her eyes off Riley as she went on. “Anyway,
I'm glad I can finally tell you that my name is Tiffie. And since you said you wrote me a song, I decided to write you one, too! Can I sing it for you, baby?”

“Um, sure, I guess.” Riley seemed nonplussed.

Tiffie took a deep breath, then burst into song. It was a fairly tuneless, rambling thing with goofy lyrics about kindred souls and planetary alignment. I had to give her an A for creativity, though her singing voice rated about a D-minus. I guess everyone was too surprised to do anything but listen to the entire song—all three verses. Even Riley's friends put down their PlayStation controllers and turned to watch.

By the end almost everyone was laughing, including Riley. Tiffie didn't seem to mind. She beamed at him.

“See?” she said. “We inspired each other.”

“That's cool.” Riley seemed amused. “I, um, appreciate you laying it on the line like that, Tiffie.”

The rest of the faker gang seemed pretty skeptical of the whole thing. “You can't be Planetarium Girl,” one of them told Tiffie. “You're way too short.”

“Oh, but she totally is!” I'd almost for
gotten about the second girl, the one who'd been behind Tiffie on the steps. But now she hurried forward. “See, I was there, too, and I saw the whole thing.”

“You couldn't have,” Kelsey said bluntly. “It was dark, remember?”

“Of course she doesn't remember that, because she wasn't there,” one of the others called out. “But I was. Because
I'm
Planetarium Girl.”

Tiffie's friend clasped her hands in front of her. “It was super-romantic,” she said. “See, we'd noticed Riley before the lights went out. It was totally love at first sight for Tiffie, you know? She was just going over to say hi when everything went dark. And, well, the rest is history.”

It was so close to what had actually happened that I was taken aback. I glanced at Riley, who was slowly edging away from both of them.

Meanwhile the other fakers seemed unwilling to let Tiffie's story stand unchallenged. A skinny blonde jumped forward.

“That's not how it happened at all!” she cried. “See, I'd been checking out Riley all day. So I was right behind him in the planetarium, and I waited until it was dark
so I could talk to him without any teachers interrupting us.”

“Get real.” My good pal Kelsey was the next to speak up. “You guys all sound like stalkers. No, the way Riley and I really met in the planetarium was just fate. I didn't even know what he looked like when I bumped into him in the dark; I just knew we were destined to be together.”

“Oh yeah? Then how'd you know to ask him about that band on his shirt?” another girl challenged.

Kelsey's face went as red as her hair. “Oh,” she said. “Um. I, well, uh …”

I was still hanging back behind the rest of the crowd watching the whole crazy scene. When I glanced Riley's way again, I was startled to find him sidling in my direction. He stopped right next to me.

“Can you believe this?” His voice was quiet and he sounded kind of weary. “When I started this, I was just looking for the girl who inspired me to write that song.”

“Well, you're looking at her right here,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. When I saw him blink in surprise, I gulped. But what the heck. It was too late to take it back now. “Like I tried to tell you from
the start,
I'm
the girl from the planetarium.” I kept my voice low so the others wouldn't overhear. Not that there was much chance of that at the moment. The competing fake backstories were reaching a fever pitch. “I'm the one you met that day, even if you don't realize it.”

His mouth twitched into an uncertain smile. “Come on,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “I know you said something like that in your first message, but I didn't think you were really one of
them
.”

“I'm not,” I said. “I don't want to play games; I was just telling the truth. Why do you think I friended you in the first place?”

He shrugged. “I figured you saw that I liked the Beast and were just joking around about the other stuff as an excuse to get in touch.” Shooting a look at the arguing fakers, he added, “I didn't think you were like the rest of them.”

I wasn't sure what else to say. Before I could figure it out, shouts and the sounds of running feet came from upstairs. The faint cries of “Fight! Fight!” got everyone's attention.

The video game girls jumped up. “Uh-oh, wonder what's up?” one of them exclaimed.

“Come on, let's go see!” Was it my imagination, or did Riley seem kind of relieved to have an excuse to rush away?

I frowned, but there wasn't much else I could do about it. Everyone was already racing for the stairs.

Following more slowly, I emerged upstairs just in time to hear the crash of breaking glass. “Take that!” a voice yelled.

A familiar sounding voice. Uh-oh …

I pushed my way forward through the chanting crowd. In the middle of the circle Tommo and Marcus were facing off against each other. Tommo's hair was soaked, and there was a rose petal stuck to his cheek. The rest of the bouquet was lying in a puddle on the rug, along with the remains of what had probably been a pretty nice vase.

“Stay away from her, buddy boy,” Tommo snarled. “She's here with me.”

Marcus danced away, easily dodging the punch as the taller guy took a swing at him. “Oh yeah?” he taunted. “Funny, she didn't say anything about that while we were making out just now.”

Tommo let out a howl of rage and dove at him. Once again Marcus jumped out of
the way, grinning from ear to ear as if he was having a blast.

Britt was there too, of course. She was wringing her hands and calling out for both of them to stop. But I knew her well enough to be able to tell that she was secretly thrilled to have two guys fighting over her.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. Typical. Then I shoved my way forward until I reached her. “Hey,” I said. “What's new?”

“Not much.” She smirked at me. “Some party, huh?”

“Yeah. But I think it might be time for us to make an exit.” I tossed a glance at the guys, who were circling each other like a couple of prizefighters. Skinny, well-dressed prizefighters. “Always leave 'em wanting more, right?”

Britt looked amused. “See? You do listen to my words of wisdom! And you're right—let's get out of here.”

“Right behind you.” I searched the crowd for Riley as we pushed our way toward the door. But he was nowhere in sight.

“Up for some shopping, Lauren?” My dad poked his head into the den. “Mom and I are heading into the city to check out a new Asian market we heard about. We could stop somewhere for ice cream or sushi or something if you want to tag along.”

I glanced up from my Spanish textbook. “No thanks. I'm not in the mood.”

“But you're in the mood for
estudio del españ
? On a beautiful Sunday morning?” Dad chuckled, gesturing to my book.

“Not really.” I smiled weakly. “But I've got a test on Thursday, and I haven't even started learning the vocab yet.”

“Okay. Far be it from me to discourage you from getting a jump start on your
homework. If I did that, they'd take away my teacher's license.” He winked at me. “We'll be home in time for dinner.”

I kicked back on the love seat and stared at my textbook as I listened to him and Mom get ready to go. They called out one more good-bye, I heard a yowl as one of them chased Meow away from the door, and then the house went quiet.

Maybe I should have gone with them after all,
I thought listlessly. It might have shaken me out of my funk. I'd been in a bad mood all morning. I wasn't usually the moping type, but I definitely was today.

Leaning over my textbook again, I did my best to focus. But the English translations looked just as incomprehensible as the Spanish words. With a sigh I tossed aside the book. What I'd told my dad was true, but I just couldn't concentrate on Spanish vocabulary right then.

Instead I grabbed my laptop, which I'd left on the coffee table, and checked my e-mail. Nothing interesting. I thought about going to Facebook but decided to pass. I definitely wasn't in the mood for a bunch of chatty, bubbly posts about everyone's fabulous Saturday nights.

I stood up and turned on the stereo. My iPod was in the speaker dock, so I scrolled through until I found one of my favorite new songs. Then I grabbed my sketch pad off the coffee table. I'd been working on some designs for prom dresses that
didn't
look as if they'd been designed by a mentally challenged chimpanzee raised in a Victoria's Secret store. But after the third time I had to erase the same neckline, I realized I wasn't going to be able to focus on that today either. Muttering a curse under my breath, I tossed the pad aside, feeling annoyed with myself. Why couldn't I shake off what had happened last night?

“Come here, boy,” I called as Meow Tse Tung wandered into the room, tail at the alert.

I spent the next few minutes lounging on the couch, wriggling a piece of string for the cat to chase. Meow batted at it a few times, then yawned widely and stretched. Jumping up onto the coffee table, he started licking his paw.

I dropped the string and watched him, trying not to think about anything else. After the past few days of craziness, my brain was tired. And where had it gotten me? Exactly
nowhere. Whatever Britt might think, it so wasn't worth it.

My laptop let out a beep. With a groan, I hoisted myself to my feet and went over to check it. It was an e-mail from Facebook. A new message from Riley.

Hey Lauren! Just checking to make sure we're cool. Things got a little weird before u left last night, & I rly hope ur not mad??

I frowned. He rly hoped I wasn't mad? Was that all he had to say after basically calling me a liar? Suddenly I wasn't in the mood for
him
, either. My fingers flew over the keys.

Weird? Is that what you call it? B/c I call it being totally blind 2 the truth. I told u I'm the real PG, & if u don't want 2 believe it that's ur problem. But don't tell me not 2 b mad about it!!!

I paused, letting the cursor hover over the send button. Maybe the response was a little harsh. Was it fair to take my bad mood
out on him? Even if it
was
pretty much his fault… .

Highlight. Click. Delete. But I had to say something, right? I started typing again.

Don't worry. Not mad. All is cool. Rly.

“There,” I told Meow as I sent the new and improved message. “Much more tactful, right?”

The cat stopped washing his paw long enough to stare at me, his long tail twitching. Then, with the equivalent of a kitty shrug, he returned his attention to his bath.

“Typical,” I said, smiling despite my foul mood. “You're just another guy too wrapped up in your own thing to pay attention, huh?”

The laptop beeped again. Riley had written back.

Are u sure? I rly want 2 stay friends w/u no matter what.

I rolled my eyes, suddenly over all this back and forth. What was the point? He'd
made it pretty clear last night that he didn't believe I was Planetarium Girl. Or maybe that he didn't
want
me to be Planetarium Girl. Maybe what he really wanted was someone breathless and giggly, like Tiffie or Chelsea or any of the other assorted fakers. At this point it was hard to come to any other conclusion.

The phone rang. For a second my heart jumped, and I was sure that it was Riley calling to tell me I was wrong about that, that he'd finally come to his senses and realized I really was The One. But when I checked caller ID, I saw that it was only Britt.

“Hey,” I said dully as I picked up the phone.

“What's wrong?” she asked. “You sound weird.”