Best Friends (Until Someone Better Comes Along) (15 page)

“Dad,” I pleaded. “I'm almost thirteen.”

He looked at me for a long moment as though he was just realizing I wasn't a little kid anymore. “That you are. Sometimes it's hard to believe you're so old.” He looked like he was going to give in and let me sit up front with him like a normal person, but then he jabbed his thumb toward the backseat. “Still, it's my job to keep you safe until you're off to college. So backseat it is.”

I scowled. “Car seat regulations allow a twelve-year-old in front. Especially a
tall
twelve-year-old.”

Dad lifted his eyebrows at me. “Hey, I'm happy to leave you here if you don't like my rules. But you're the one who needs a ride and called your dad.”

He had a point. “Thanks for picking me up,” I said when I'd gotten myself buckled in to the backseat. I'd briefly debated asking him to help me buckle my seat belt—just as
a joke—but figured he wouldn't think it was that funny. He'd probably assume I was trying to be “smart.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “Don't you usually get a ride home with Heidi or Sylvie?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But it was a long day, and I kind of needed some time away.”

“Aha!” Dad glanced at me in his rearview mirror. There was a hint of a smile on his lips. “So your biking request was all just a ruse to get me to pick you up? Or did you actually want to spend time with your old man?”

“Ew! Did you really just call yourself ‘old man'? And yes, I really do want to go biking. I mean, I just need some time away from my friends—not
alone
alone time.” I decided it couldn't hurt to tell him I'd been missing him too. “Anyway, I realized we haven't really spent much quality time together over the last couple years, and I just thought it might be fun to hang out.”

“Thanks for suggesting it,” he said. After a long pause, he said, “I'm sorry we don't spend as much time together as we used to.”

“It's okay,” I said.

Then Dad had to go and get all cheesy on me. He pulled the car to the side of the road so he could turn around in
his seat and look right at me to say, “I've missed our father-daughter dates. A lot. As much as you hated your mother and me for dragging you along to the lake this summer, I think some quality time away did something good for all of us. I mean, when's the last time you picked hanging out with your old man over hanging out with your friends?”

“Okay, old man,” I said, grinning. He was right, but I wasn't going to admit it. “Enough with the emo fest. Let's just hang out without making a big deal out of it, okay?”

Dad laughed. “Okay, okay. But just so you know, I like seeing my cheerful Izzy again. You have such a pretty smile.”

A million smart retorts flew into my mouth, but I held them all in. Because, honestly, it felt good to hear my dad say something really nice about me, instead of something critical. For once, I felt like I'd done something right—just by smiling and making an effort to be nice to my dad. “Thanks,” I said finally, my smile widening. “Now can we move along, mister? People are starting to stare.”

D
ad and I ended up
having an awesome afternoon. Instead of biking, we walked around the lake near our house—it was Dad's idea, so that Coco could come along. We made a stop for ice cream at the little shop near the beach on the far side of the lake. It was the place we used to go to when I was little, where they serve up huge double-scoop cones, with a tiny third scoop right on top—so you get an itty-bitty sample of an extra flavor, just for fun. They even had these little ice-cream-cone-shaped biscuits for dogs, so Coco was super-happy too.

The ice cream tasted good, like summer. While we walked and talked—with a few stops to let Coco take a dip in the lake—I filled Dad in on the weirdness with Bailey and Ava.
He actually had some things for me to try! Most of his suggestions were about watching my tone of voice and adjusting my body language and being vigilant about using carefully chosen words (cue TV commercial background music), but he also had a few other ideas that I was willing to try. By the time we'd finished a second lap around the lake, I had a fully formed plan in my head. Whether it would work or not was another matter. . . .

When we got home, Dad suggested I find Mom and ask her to help me with my big idea. After I told her what I had planned, she seemed really excited that I was coming to her for help. I think it surprised both of us that we actually had a ton of fun getting me ready for the next day at school. By the end of the night, all three of us were laughing so hard I almost forgot how annoying my parents could be most of the time.

The next morning, as I got ready for school, I put on some music and danced around my room. My mom had washed Bailey's tank top, the one I'd borrowed at the lake, so I put it on with a cute skirt and a pair of sneakers. Coco watched me suspiciously, her head tucked between her two front paws on my bed.

“Today's going to be a good day, babe,” I said, leaning down
to kiss her wrinkly head. “I might die of embarrassment, but I think it's going to be worth it.” Coco whimpered and put one paw on top of her nose, like she was hiding from something. “It
will
be worth it, right?” My puppy didn't answer, which was probably a good thing. I was sort of worried I was going a little bit crazy. If I suddenly started hearing my dog talk back, it was definitely a bad sign that I was totally nuts.

While I ate breakfast, Mom sat down at the table with me and talked . . . just talked. She didn't criticize, or pick on me, or even get on my case for eating sugar cereal. “Good luck today,” she said as I put my bowl in the dishwasher. I looked at her, and she smiled. “You're going to be great, Izzy.”

When Heidi's mom picked me up for school, I ran outside before she honked and jumped into the car. I pulled my huge gym bag in after me and stuffed it down by my feet.

“What are you wearing?” Sylvie blurted out, poking her head between the headrests in the second row of Heidi's mom's SUV. “Those aren't jeans.”

“Yeah,” I said, shrugging. “I decided not to wear jeans today.”

“We
agreed
to wear jeans,” Sylvie said, obviously annoyed. “Heidi and I totally match, and you totally don't.”

“Maybe we don't always need to match,” I said, trying to
use my carefully chosen words and my carefully practiced tone of voice. “Maybe it sometimes looks a little snobby when we all have a version of the same thing on.”

I heard Heidi's mom snicker in the front seat.

“Or maybe you just think you're better than us,” Sylvie snapped.

“Not at all!” I protested, realizing my plan to not be all matchy-matchy with Sylvie and Heidi was kind of backfiring. I hadn't thought about the fact that they might be upset with me for backing out of our coordinated-outfit plan. That they might think I was acting superior.

“You could have at least told us,” Heidi scoffed. She stared out the window, facing away from me.

I poked her in the arm, forcing her to look at me. “Yeah,” I said, when she finally turned my way. “I should have told you I changed my plan. I didn't think you guys would be that upset. It's just jeans and a T-shirt,” I muttered.

“Or a tank top and a skirt, if you're you,” Sylvie grumbled. “Now Heidi and I just look like we're trying to be twins or something. It's not exactly the same effect if all
three
of us aren't wearing the same thing.”

I rolled my eyes. “No one will even notice,” I said, lowering my voice so Heidi's mom would stop listening in. I could
see her craning her neck, trying to hear what we were talking about. “I just think that this year, we don't need to make such a big show of always doing everything the same. Sometimes I think it looks like we're deliberately excluding people, just to be rude.”

“We
are
deliberately excluding people,” Sylvie said. “And making it clear that
we
are best friends. Unless you're too good for us now?” She looked at me like she was challenging me to agree. “Unless you found someone better than us to be best friends with?”

“It's not that at all!” I said. I was relieved that we were pulling up in front of school, and we had to get out of the car quickly, before the school monitor gave Heidi's mom a warning for lingering too long.

“Look,” I said, when we got out of the car. “We don't need matching outfits to prove that we're best friends, okay? I think sometimes it's probably just a little intimidating. I'm not saying we suddenly need to start sitting with the chess club at lunch, but maybe we don't always have to go out of our way to make other people feel like they're less amazing than us. Okay?”

Sylvie stared at me, openmouthed. “Did you get possessed over the summer or something? Oh my God, that Ava
girl is probably a witch. I knew there was something weird about her.”

I sighed. Okay, so my first attempt at modifying my reputation wasn't going well
at all
. Now my friends were getting even worse ideas about Ava and Bailey. And they also thought I was acting
really
crazy, and apparently also believed I think I'm too good for them. This was a disaster.

As we walked into school, Sylvie and Heidi both sulked beside me, looking sort of depressed in their matching jeans-and-T-shirt combos. “Guys, I didn't do this to hurt your feelings,” I said, looking at both of them. Sylvie rolled her eyes. “Seriously. I should have thought to tell you I changed my mind about the matching outfits.”

“Whatever,” Heidi muttered.

I shook my head, annoyed that they were so annoyed that I'd messed up their outfits.
I
was the one who looked like I didn't fit in . . . not them. I didn't understand why it was such a big deal. “So are you ready for tryouts this afternoon?” I asked, while they waited for me to unload my stuff at my locker.

“Definitely,” Heidi said, perking up a little. “Are you coming to watch? You'll cheer for me?”

“Of course,” I said, shoving my gym bag to the bottom of
my locker. I couldn't look at her or Sylvie, since I was keeping a little something from them. Just one teensy detail that I was sure would surprise them later. But not in a bad way—I hoped it would be a good way! Though after the outfit mess, maybe they didn't like my surprises.

I briefly considered telling them about my plan for that afternoon, but I knew they'd try to talk me out of it. And I didn't want anyone to talk me out of it, since it was Part Two of Operation: Reputation Makeover. “I'll definitely be there.”

* * *

The day seemed to drag by, but finally the last bell rang and the time had come for dance team tryouts. As I walked through the hall to my locker after seventh period, it felt like the whole school was buzzing about tryouts.

I knew there would be a ton of people there—both watching
and
dancing—which is why a part of me really wanted to back out of my plan (no one would ever know that I'd chickened out . . . except me and my parents). But I wanted to prove that I could be a good friend, so I was going to go and do what I'd decided to do after talking to my dad the day before.

I was ready to sit in the bleachers that lined the gym and cheer for all my friends.

And I was also ready to dance in front of everyone, even though I knew I'd look like a fool.

On our walk yesterday, Dad had told me that relatability was the biggest key to changing my reputation. Apparently, this was a big public relations and media thing that he sometimes used with their agency clients. Sometimes, he'd told me, when companies started to get a bad reputation, they'd adjust their advertising so it focused on things that would make them more likeable and relatable to the general public.

For instance, in print advertising, a certain company would focus their message on their over-the-top charity donation programs that helped people. Or in their TV commercials, they'd make a point of featuring “regular Joes” who worked in one of the company's stores or in their production plant. The point of this was, I guess, to get the rest of the world to believe a horrible company was less like a giant money-sucking retailer or manufacturer, and more of a place that employed nice, normal people from the local community. The way my dad described it made the whole thing seem kind of sneaky, but I guess it worked. I think my dad is really good at what he does.

The way this whole thing came up was, I'd told Dad that sometimes—maybe—people at our school thought my
friends and I could be a little exclusive and snobbish. I even admitted that some people thought I could be a little bit mean (this didn't seem to totally surprise him). I told him I was hoping to figure out some way to get some of the other kids in our grade—most important, Ava and Bailey—to believe that I'd changed and that I was not actually a horrible person. Mostly, I wanted people to know that I didn't think I was better than them and that I wasn't always looking for ways to embarrass and humiliate other people.

Somehow, my dad had managed to convince me that if I could push my pride to the side and audition for dance team, then I would look like I was somehow more relatable to everyone else. “Let people see your flaws,” he'd said. Dad knew I was a terrible dancer—I'd inherited one left foot from my mom, the other from my dad.

When I thought about opening up and letting people see my flaws, it made me want to puke. I didn't want anyone to know I had
any
flaws, but I knew my dad maybe had a point. So my plan was to go and cheer for my friends—
all
of my friends—as loudly as I could, and then get up there and risk major embarrassment by dancing in front of half the school. How relatable was
that
? Very.