Finding Me (26 page)

“Why are you going out with that skankasaurus?” Emily scrunched her face and rolled her eyes.

“Can you two keep a secret?” he said. He motioned for them to join him for a private conversation.

Umm. Excuse me!
What was he telling them? Why wasn’t I invited into the circle? Did my friends like him? What if they knew he wanted me? What if they knew I wanted him? Would they still like me?

“Oh my God!” Melissa exclaimed, and glanced at me, smiling. What could he possibly have said that could make Tee react like that? I craned my neck in their direction to try to pick up on their conversation.
Why are they whispering?
I couldn’t hear a thing.

“Okay, we’ll see you tonight,” Emily said. She spun around, smiling from ear to ear. Melissa walked off and talked to Marcus. He was leaning on a locker a couple feet away and talking to some junior guys.

“What’s she doing?” I asked Emily. My lips pursed and brow raised suspiciously at Melissa as she talked to him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Emily said, pulling me by the arm. “Let’s go. We have got to get to the mall today.” I glanced back at Chris. He watched me with those smoldering eyes again.
I’ll never get used to that look.
I turned my attention back to Emily as she rattled off the things we would purchase at the mall.

My heart sank. What could they possibly be planning? Was it wise to assume Chris would have any part in hooking me up with another guy? That was about as likely as Emily shopping at the Bargain Hut for her party outfit.
Not ever gonna happen.
I stayed quiet despite my apprehension. If I objected too adamantly, they would notice right away that something wasn’t right. So I bit my tongue. Hard.

We arrived at Saks on Fifth Avenue in time to get two hours of shopping in before whatever they planned for me tonight would transpire.

Emily swore she’d seen the perfect dress for me to wear tonight. She scoured rack after rack, dragging Melissa and me along like puppets. Finally, she let out a loud gasp.

“I found it!” She jumped excitedly. Melissa and I exchanged glances of amusement. “Oh, sorry.” She straightened her cashmere poncho. “Here, go try this on,” she ordered me with a huge grin.

I looked at the dress. A black, off the shoulder sweater dress with a double buckle belt by Michael Kors. I loved it instantly.

“I don’t need to try it on,” I said, “I love it. You’re right, Em, it’s perfect. Albeit a little too dressy for a movie with my two best friends.” I forced a nervous laugh. I hoped this would draw out their purpose.

“Don’t worry about being overdressed. We’ll have a ball tonight. Trust us, CC,” Melissa said, pushing me on the arm.

“I’ll try.” My stomach knotted.
What could they be planning?
Anything that involved Chris was no small thing.

We went to the register to pay for our things. As I stood in line, Melissa and Emily prattled away nonstop about my party. “We still have to come back to get you the perfect dress for your party,” Melissa explained, “which is less than two weeks away.” My stomach did a double flip. I was trying to forget about the party.
Ugh!

Out of nowhere, the person in line in front of us turned and squealed in my direction. “Oh my God, it’s such a small world. Chloe Carmichael, how are you?” she said. She grabbed me for a hug before I recognized her. Once she released me and I looked at her, much to my amusement, I discovered it was Raja. I wanted to fall on the floor laughing as she pretended to be someone I’d hang with.
Did she think of me as a shallow babble head?

“Hi, Raja. How are you? I haven’t seen you…in a while.” I tried to play along but had to bite the inside of my lip to stop from laughing.
And I thought this day would be awful.

“O-M-G, I’m doing super fine. I’m so excited about your b-day party. I was here picking out an outfit.”

Melissa elbowed me in the side just then.

“Oh, I’m sorry. This is Melissa and Emily. My two best friends. And girls, this is Raja. We met at a mixer at my mother’s office a few months ago.”
Emily’s going to see through her act. She has a sixth sense for fakeness.
A perfect example was that she never really liked Casey. That was why she ditched her so quickly after everything happened.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” said Melissa, extending a hand.

“Hey, girlfriend. Any friend of CC’s is a friend of ours. Can we sneak a peek at what you bought for the big day?” Emily asked, already inching her hand into Raja’s bag.

“Sure thing, girlfriend,” Raja said. She turned in line to reveal an off-the-shoulder silk cheetah print top by Michael Kors and black cigarette pants she was holding.

“Love it,” Emily said. “A girl after my own heart. I love cheetah print, too.”

“That’s awesome. I love everything cheetah print. Here, look at this.” She dug in her large Fendi tote bag. A wallet emerged that was cheetah print, then she pulled out her credit card, which was also cheetah print.
Wow.
Could this get any weirder?

Emily and Raja fell into hysterical laughter and continued talking until it was Raja’s turn in line. Melissa and I threw each other looks of amazement. We didn’t think there was anybody else like Emily out there.

“Hey, Raja,” said Emily excitedly. “Why don’t you come hang out with us tonight if you’re not doing anything?”

“I’d love to. I’ll give you my cell number and you can text me the info on where to meet you,” she said. I tried to suppress my joker-like smile. “It was great bumping into you, Chloe, and nice meeting you, Emily and Melissa. I’ll see you guys on the flip side.”

Okay. That was officially the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. I wondered how much emotional torture I’d have to endure watching her become a Barbie drone. Or was some of that character really her?

“She was totally ultra,” Emily commented once Raja had gone. “The last girl we met from your mother’s job was extremely hocus-pocus,” Emily was insinuating that she was mean, “and was suffering from fashionobia. Raja has great fashion sense.”

Once we arrived at my house, Emily and Melissa ran to say hello to my mother. Though they knew of our differences, they loved her just the same. I guess that’s one reason I loved them so much. Though tough and selfish at times, she was my mother and I loved her, too. Even now, knowing she wasn’t my real mother made me feel sorry for her. She tried, I reminded myself. Repeatedly.

I made my way to my room while Melissa and Emily raced to show Mother the outfits they bought. I would show her the dress I’d purchased once I had it on...fashion was something we both loved. Give us a pair of Christian Louboutins and we were in shoe heaven. These small things, our common ground, were the things I held onto and prayed were enough to sustain our relationship.

I opened my walk-in closet and searched for the ideal location to hang my new clothes. A creak arose from the floor behind me. My heart leaped into my throat. I turned so fast, I tripped over a stray Sergio Rossi boot and fell face-first onto the soft, cushiony carpet. I rolled twice, out of the path of whoever it was, and stumbled to my feet immediately. When I turned around, however, Chris and Raja were on the floor where I had been. They rolled with laughter at my James Bondish maneuver.

“I’ve always wanted to do that. I knew it was the two of you.”
Why’d I do that?
I shrugged my shoulders and stared at the carpet.
Shit. I bet they heard that.

“Sure, Chloe,” Chris said, getting to his feet and helping Raja up. “That was…something. You’re going to have to show me more of those moves someday.”
I’d show him a move, right upside his big head.
He and Raja laughed again, obviously hearing my thoughts.

I exhaled deeply. “You two have to go. My friends are down the hall talking to my mother.”

“No stress, beautiful. I froze time,” Chris said. He stepped forward and moved a stray lock of my unruly curls behind my ear. Butterflies swarmed my abdomen and my heart pounded away at my chest. I craved his touch; without it my heart wouldn’t behave. Or with it, apparently.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Training is what was supposed to be going on, but it seems Chris would prefer another agenda,” Raja said, speaking in her usual annoyed voice.
I preferred the Emily-style voice much better.

“You know I can read your mind. Right?” she said. She narrowed her eyes at me and pursed her lips.

“Sorry.” It felt like my mother reprimanding me.

“I’m not always like this. I’m more like the girl you met earlier. But I don’t want to die, Chloe. I love Phillip and we plan to spend the rest of our lives together. I do not want the rest of my life to be a year.” I glanced over at Chris and my stomach did a free-fall to the bottom of my knee-high boots. I felt sick just thinking about how Chris must feel.
Umm…you mean how you feel
, my snarky subconscious blared in my head.

“I understand, Raja. I’m sorry. I’ll take my responsibilities more seriously. What do you need me to do?”

“Chris wants us to practice the power of persuasion. The key to this power is to believe what you are telling the other person yourself. You take authority over the words. Like what Chris did to you with the green goop,” she said.

“What? That green stuff wasn’t an energy drink?” I asked.

“No. It was Coke. You believed it because Chris believed it when he sold you on it. The power of persuasion is like being an inventive and appealing salesperson.” I glanced at Chris in awe. How could he do that? He smiled and gave me a wink of encouragement.

“Okay.” I nodded. “I think I can do it.” I crossed my fingers behind my back anyway, for extra luck.

“All right,” Chris said, “prove it right now. Melissa and Emily are on their way to your room. Convince them both to wear matching dresses to your party. Isn’t that some sort of fashion rule no-no?”

“That’s a tough one, but I’ll try my best. I was able to persuade Casey that she had a horrible rash the other day.”

“No trying, you will do it,” Raja said. “The Casey thing was good, but that was one person. This is two people. It’s different. Here, use these on them.” She produced two dresses seemingly from thin air. One dress was forest green, long with ruffles running the length of it, and the other was bright orange with the same ruffles. They both had sequins covering the bodice – identical hideous dresses in two awful colors.
“Ugly” is a nice word to describe these.

Raja pointed as Melissa’s and Emily’s voices entered the doorway of my room. I turned to see Melissa walking over to the open closet door.

I turned back to Raja and Chris, but they had already vanished. It was still a little strange how they could appear and disappear at the drop of a hat. I wasn’t certain I would ever get used to it or be able to reproduce the ability myself.

“What are you doing? We have to go. Come on, go get dressed,” Melissa said, urging me on.

“Okay, I’m going. I wanted to hang up the other things we bought.”

“Don’t worry about it. I can do it. Just go get dressed.” She tore the bags from my hand and pushed me out of the closet toward the restroom.

Emily sat at my vanity applying her makeup. I ignored her for the moment so I could take a quick shower and think of how I could convince my supremely fashion-conscious friends to wear the same hideous dress to my party. The party they’d labeled “the party of the year”. The party everyone we knew would be at, watching what everyone else, especially my two best friends, wore.

Once I’d finished showering and dressing, I assessed myself in the mirror.
Not bad.
I took a deep breath. I couldn’t delay this any longer.

Raja had started shouting curse words at me in my head.

I opened my room door to find Melissa and Emily sitting on my bed discussing how good they looked in their outfits. Melissa had on a cashmere dip-dye sweater and stretch jeans with black pumps, and Emily had on an embossed strap sheath dress in black with black runaway sandals. They were beautiful.

I wanted everyone to be proud of me, but this wasn’t going to be easy. Persuading Casey had been simple, but to do this to Melissa and Emily was something wholly different. I had devised a strategy while I procrastinated in the bathroom. I would win them over without showing them the dresses first. Then once they were eager to see the dresses, I’d pop them out excitedly.

“You look great, CC,” Emily said. She rose from the bed to straighten my belt, and then sat back down to assess me more.

“Speaking of looking great, I have a surprise for the two of you.”
I feel like I’m about to take the SATs.

“A surprise for us?” they said in unison.
How did they do that?
Was someone back there pulling a string?

“Yes. I saw the perfect dresses for the two of you the other day when I was out shopping with my mother. They were absolutely gorgeous and I couldn’t pass on them. I didn’t want some other girls to end up with them so…I bought them. Well, I bought three of them, one for each of us.” They looked at one another, then at me with curious expressions. I held my hands up for them to wait before they protested. “I know that normally we wouldn’t wear the same dress, but these dresses are gorgeous. Everyone’ll be talking for weeks about how good we looked in them. Trust me. I’d never pick out something hideous for us to wear.” I raced to my closet but didn’t go in right away. “I picked out a different color for each of us, you know, so we wouldn’t look exactly the same,” I added. I gave them the thumbs-up signal…with both hands.
What the hell did I do that for?

Melissa and Emily hadn’t said anything yet. They just stared blankly at me. I ran into the closet, grabbed the dresses, and stalked back out.

“They’re gorgeous, aren’t they?” I yelled. I pushed the dresses at them.

“O-M-G, CC, they are,” said Emily. “I can’t believe you lucked out on these.”

“Can I have the orange one? It’s beautiful,” Melissa said. She reached up and ran her hands along the ruffled front of the dress. My heart swelled.
I did it.