Landry in Like (7 page)

A
ll day at school
, I was worried about Ashanti having to deal with the funeral — the final good-bye. I noticed Halle staring at me during lunch, but she didn't come over and say anything. Yasmin was talking with her hands and being super loud so all the boys would notice her.

The girls came over to my locker as I was getting out my books to go home.

“Have you talked to Ashanti?” Halle asked.

“Yeah, I talked to her last night.”

“Is she okay?”

I nodded and told her that I was going over there after school. Yasmin narrowed her eyes.

“Okay, well, tell her I'll text her later,” Halle said and they walked away.

I got a weird feeling in my stomach about the way Yasmin had been looking at me. All I could think of was how India had been jealous of me becoming friends with Devon when they were besties first. India had even caused drama, and Devon stopped speaking to me a couple times because of it. I hoped these girls wouldn't do anything like that. At least India had apologized and admitted she was scared of losing Devon, but I couldn't imagine these girls apologizing about anything ever. Yasmin thrived on drama and getting attention, but would she actually try to come between me and Ashanti? I tried to shake off that thought as I walked to the bus line and gave the driver my note saying my mom gave me permission to get off at a different stop.

“Okay, do you know which stop you need to get off at or do you need me to use the intercom when we arrive?” the driver asked as if I was some little kid. I mean, I think at fourteen I knew where I needed to be. As it was, having a permission slip was embarrassing but having her announce to the entire bus that this was my stop, like I was too stupid to know? Total humiliation.

“Um, no. I'm good. I know where it is. Thank you though.”

I got off at Ashanti's stop, and there were a ton of cars by her house. I saw a lot of people going in and out of the house, and I didn't know if I should ring the doorbell or just walk in like some of them were doing. One teenage boy was going in and stopped and stared at me.

“You one of Ashanti's friends?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Come on in,” he said. “She's in the kitchen.”

I followed him in, and Ashanti got up to hug me as soon as she saw me. She introduced me to her aunts and great-aunts. They were all looking through some old binders.

“We're trying to find Grandma's macaroni and cheese recipe,” Ashanti said. “We can't figure out what made it taste so different from any other kind.”

“My mother never wrote a thing down,” her aunt Bette said. “I remember asking her how to season chicken soup and it was all, ‘Bette, you just eyeball it. A pinch here and there and you'll know when you know.'”

“Did your soup turn out okay?” I asked.

“It was so salty my husband told me he thought I dropped a horse's salt lick in it,” she said laughing. “I never got the soup quite like hers. Hoping that recipe's in here, too.”

“Ooh, her chocolate silk pie one is here,” Mrs. Russell said. “She used boxed pudding for it? I feel lied to. She always made it seem like everything needed to be homemade or it was cheating."

“Here we go. Macaroni and cheese,” Aunt Bette said. “However, I don't recognize some of these ingredients. What's Waddell sauce?”

All the women exchanged glances and shrugged.

“Dexter cheese? Anyone know what that is?” she asked.

Ashanti reached over and took the piece of paper. “Maybe those things aren't super important. We can still try to make it, right?”

Her mother nodded. “Sure, we can see if we can recreate it.”

“Well, I don't see how since two of the ingredients are a mystery,” Aunt Bette said. She saw Ashanti's face fall and she cleared her throat. “But we can always try.”

Ashanti got her phone and tried searching for the two ingredients online, but came up with nothing for Waddell sauce. All we found out about the cheese was that they didn't make it anymore.

“I guess that's a bust,” she said.

“Maybe someone will be able to figure it out yet,” I said. I started to say we could ask her family members how they'd describe the taste when she jumped up and ran to the door.

“You guys, I'm sooo glad you came,” she said.

Halle, Maggie, and Yasmin were standing there with three older girls wearing dark pink lipstick.

“Hey, we had to come. We're all cheer sisters now, right? And cheer sisters stick together,” the one girl said.

My heart sunk as they all shared a group hug and did this little cheer chant. I felt invisible.

Ashanti started introducing the girls to her aunts, and I noticed her parents seemed to know the other girls already. Had they been over before?

“Oh, and this is Landry,” she said pointing to me.

Just Landry. Not my best friend, just… Landry. The other girls barely noticed me and continued talking like I wasn't there.

“So you guys have to come to practice tomorrow,” the tall one said. “We're trying the new lift again.”

They all started going on about cheerleading, and I realized I was just going to be standing there alone. My house wasn't that far from Ashanti's and I had walked the distance before, so I told her I had to get home.

“Oh, okay,” she said, sounding distracted. “Thank you so much for coming.”

I went to hug her, but she had gone back to her new friends. Feeling dumb, I retreated and went to the front door.

“Thank you for coming over, Landry,” Mr. Russell said walking over. “Do you want me to drive you home?”

I shook my head afraid if I opened my mouth, he'd hear my voice break. As I walked up the sidewalk to my house, the tears started. I was going to lose her to that group—I just knew it.

I
got
home and saw I had an email from Kendall. She asked if I wanted to come along to the movies with her and her friends. Vladi and Steve would be there, too. As excited as I was to be included with these high school girls, the idea of it also scared me. After all, Kendall told me herself some of her friends could be kind of intimidating. Could I handle it? I wanted to be able to say, “Oh yeah, went on a date with my freshman boyfriend and hung out with my high school friends,” but let's be real. I would probably destroy an entire forest with the amount of toilet paper I'd use after my nervous stomach went nuts.

As much as I wanted to be the cool, popular girl with the high school boyfriend, I was terrified of hanging out with that crowd. But I didn't want to hurt Vladi's feelings and make him think I didn't want to spend time with him. I knew Kendall didn't want to spend the night away from her friends and that's why she was including me instead of just going with Steve, Vladi, and me, but her whole crew thing made the idea of date night that much scarier. I knew I needed to make some new friends now that I saw I couldn't rely on being included with Ashanti's friends, so I went to talk to Mom about it.

“Kendall wants me to go to the movies with her and her friends and she said Vladi and Steve would be there, too,” I said. “It's a group of girls, so not like a date, but I'd actually be less panicky about it if it were just me and Vladi going together.”

Mom stared at me. “Why is that?”

“Well, he's such a nice guy, but those girls are older and… well, Kendall's super sweet, but she's told me some stuff about her friends and they are… a little scary.”

“Scary? What do you mean? Like intimidating or aggressive?” she asked.

“Intimidating. I know you wouldn't let me go with just him and I'm not sure his parents would either, but this whole group thing is…”

“Too much? Maybe you feel in over your head?”

I paused. I hated to admit that — especially to my mother — so I just shrugged.

“I want to hang out with him and people are always hanging out at games and stuff, but his parents are weird about the mall's new rules and there aren't any games right now to go to,” I said. “He did mention going to the library, but that might be super lame—”

“How about you let me be the bad guy on this one?” she said.

“Huh?”

“Well, I'm glad you shared with me how you feel about this, and I don't want you spending time with some group that makes you feel uncomfortable. To be honest, I don't know which makes me more nervous — you on a date alone with a boy or hanging out with older high school mean girls. Let's just say high school girls often act older than they actually are, and I'd prefer you not get in with a group like that.”

“So I can't go then? Is that how you're the bad guy?”

“No, you tell them I said I'm not sure about the movie night, but you could tell
him
I was okay with you two meeting to study at the library.”

“So I can meet up with him?” I asked.

“With rules. First rule is that you cannot leave the library under any circumstance—”

“What if the library catches fire?”

She sighed. “Fine, other than a fire or bomb threat. Second, I want you to stay in the teen area because that area is supervised, and I know nothing inappropriate will go on under the librarian's watchful eyes.”

My mother was so embarrassing sometimes, but I just nodded.

“Third, you will behave yourself in a suitable manner.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“No kissing.”

“Moth-er, seriously. I'm not going to kiss anyone in the library. Gross.”

“I do not feel good about this,” she said. “However, you were upfront with me about the situation so I feel that I should extend some trust to you, but don't push it, kid.”

I texted Vladi about the library thing, and he wrote back that was even better because we could get together on a week night. Then he asked if I was free to meet tomorrow. Wow, I hadn't expected him to want to hang out quite so soon. I asked Mom, and it seemed like she did the same weird swallowing thing I did because she choked on her tea.

“Oh, I guess. I can't take you until after five though, and I don't want you driving with high school boys,” she said.

“I could see if we could meet at the smaller library that's near Hillcrest. I can walk to that one from school.”

She frowned. “I don't want you walking alone from there.”

“I could see if his friend would drop him off at my school and we could walk together.”

“Oh, I'm hating this idea more. You and him unaccompanied with no adult supervision, and I have no way of knowing if you will go to the library at all,” she said.

“What if I text you a picture of me standing in front of the library?”

She shook her head.

“Mom, you promised. Don't you trust me?”

“I guess the only way to know is to let you go and do this. However, you need to realize if you disobey me at all on this then the trust will be gone and I will never let you do anything like this again.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“Landry, it's easy to get talked into things — even things that don't seem so bad — by older kids and boys, so you have to be able to set boundaries and say no.”

I promised I would follow her rules.

“This will be a huge test for us. I'm counting on you. And I might take off work early to come spy, just so you know.”

I texted Vladi that my mom was on the fence about it and had a bunch of rules. I think there was a little part of me that was hoping he'd say forget it, but instead he asked if he could call me. He rang me a second later.

“So what are these rules?” he asked.

I told him about the whole distance to the library thing.

“Steve could drop me off at your school.”

“Okay, but we have to walk there. Mom would kill me if I got in the car with Steve.”

“Does she know you've driven with him before?” he asked.

“Not quite.”

“Ah, okay. All right, we walk from Hillcrest to the library then.”

“And we have to stay in the teen section or else she'll have, like, nine cows or something. And she'll know if I step one toe out of that section. Don't ask how. She'll just know.”

He laughed. “That's my mom right there, too. She knows stuff she wasn't there for and couldn't possibly be aware of, but somehow she just knows.”

“Is this going to be completely lame, or are you okay with it?”

“If I get to see you, then it's cool. To be honest, when Kendall said she was bringing her friends along, I was not looking forward to it. I hate being around those girls. She's cool, but some of her friends are, like, drama central. So this will be better and plus, we can talk and stuff. There's a coffee shop in the library on the main floor. It's not near the teen section, but could you ask your mom if that would be okay?”

“Hang on. I'll check.”

I ran into the living room and told my mom about the coffee shop.

She stared into space.

“What? Yes or no?” I asked.

“I'm thinking… well, it's not in the teen area, but it's small so nothing could happen there. I guess that whole library isn't all that big so… okay, you can leave the teen area.”

I told Vladi she was fine with it.

“Cool. Okay, so I'll see you tomorrow after school then. Can we meet by the city bus stop that's on the end of the street by your school?”

We got off the phone and then it hit me. Vladi was going to see me in my stupid Hillcrest uniform, and it was too late to borrow one of Ashanti's cute school sweaters. Oh well, I'd have to do the best I could. I texted her later to see how she was doing and told her about my almost-sort-of-date with Vladi.

Ashanti:
That is awesome! What are you wearing? Do you want me to bring you that baby blue sweater of mine you look so good in? You can change into it before you go off to meet him.

I wrote back that she was the best friend a girl could ever have then reached over to set my alarm an hour early so I would have plenty of time to get ready in the morning. Then I stared at the ceiling daydreaming about my date with Vladi. I checked my phone and realized an hour had passed. Well, it wouldn't be good for me to show up all tired looking, so I changed my alarm setting to getting up only forty-five minutes early. I figured an extra fifteen minutes should help.