Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls (2 page)

Anyway, Rachel and Sam went together for a week, and then he got bored with her and started going with
me.
It was so not a big deal. It’s not like I stole him. No one dates for more than a week in seventh grade anyway.

Before the end of the year Sam’s family moved to Los Angeles, which is probably just as well. But the point is that Rachel totally freaked out over the whole thing, claiming that
/
snatched her boyfriend. That’s where the whole war started.

Hello? It was seventh grade! Who cares? But if she was going to start trouble, I wasn’t going to take it lying down.

I guess it all got a little bit out of hand.

 

“Listen.” I sighed, pleading my case to Daisy and Charlie. “I’ve tried to bury the hatchet with Rachel many times and it just doesn’t work. She’s the one with the issue. And in case you don’t recall, may I remind you of the fishy little episode she pulled with one of our friends from the sea—”

“As if you’d ever let us forget,” Charlie cut me off. “Never mind that it was over two years ago.”

I started to protest, but Daisy placed a warning hand on my knee.

“Brace yourself,” she said. “The dreaded ones approach.”

I watched in horror as Rachel and Marisol headed toward our table, then put on my hardest drop-dead face. I may not be the most popular girl in school, but I make up for it by being pretty intimidating when I want to. Marisol and Rachel just wanted to stir things up. Well, they could try their hardest, because nothing was going to faze me tonight.

“Hey, guys,” Rachel said sweetly when they got to our booth. Marisol stood by her side with her trademark fake-shy smirk.

Of the two, only Rachel was openly evil, but sometimes I thought that quiet little Marisol was the truly scary one. I don’t trust people who pretend to be shy. You can just see the wheels turning in their heads as they plot all their sneaky little schemes.

“Hey, Rachel,” Charlie replied. “What are you guys up to tonight?”

I scowled at him. He’s so friendly that he can’t help being pals with everyone. Traitor.

“We’re here for the show. I’ve been into the Many Handsomes, like, forever,” Rachel said. “Since way before anyone else heard of them.” She turned to me just in time to catch me rolling my eyes. She gave me a mean, squinty grin. And although I tried very hard, I couldn’t suppress a small, sarcastic snort.

Rachel’s eyes were stony. “Lulu,” she said snarkily, “don’t you have, like, a dermatologist’s appointment you should be at or something? You’ve had that zit on your jaw for like a week now.”

I felt my face flush. I didn’t think anyone had noticed my zit—I’d been doing such a good job of covering it up!

“You should be so lucky, Rachel,” I fumed. “I’d rather have a huge, rancid zit than be cursed with a face like yours.”

An ominous cloud darkened Rachel’s eyes, and Marisol glanced nervously at her friend to see how she would react. In the end they couldn’t think up a comeback.

Both girls turned tail, making a beeline for the front of the stage. In my mind, I chalked up another point for myself. No one gets the best of Lulu Dark.

“Very charming, Lulu,” Daisy grumbled after they had gone. “Can’t you just ignore them?”

I tried to look contrite, but it’s really not my strongest suit.

“Hey!” I protested. “They were the ones picking on me!” My friends paid no attention.

“I’m going to get another cup of coffee,” Charlie said. He got up and mussed his hair self-consciously, looking both ways to see if anyone was checking him out. Daisy and I both saw him do it. We exchanged a glance.

“What?” Charlie asked.

“Nothing,” we said together, stifling giggles.

“Charlie’s such a social butterfly,” I whispered when he was out of earshot. “He just wants to see and be seen. It’s probably the reason he goes through girlfriends so fast. He can’t help being a flirt.”

“I think he gets it from his mom and his sister,” Daisy replied.

She was right. Carly and Genevieve Reed are the reigning social queens of their respective age groups in Halo City. Carly, his mom, is always throwing these huge charity benefits, which are really just excuses for all her socialite friends to buy new gowns. His sister, Genevieve, on the other hand, skips through the downtown haunts of the well-heeled, abusing cocktail waiters and leaving a trail of broken hearts, unpaid tabs, and stubbed-out Capris.

I thought about it for a second. By all rights Charlie should have turned out to be another bratty trustafarian. But instead he’s a nice guy to the core.

“Have you noticed that it’s been sort of a while since Charlie’s dated anyone?” I asked.

Daisy shrugged. “I guess. Maybe he’s just . . .”

She paused, distracted, then giggled in bewilderment. “Lulu, check out that girl in the corner.”

I turned around and immediately hooted. About ten feet away from us a bored, mean-looking girl in
sunglasses
leaned up against the wall. She whipped out a bottle of nail polish and began painting her nails.

“What is she doing?” I asked, totally confused. “Why would anyone come to a packed club just to work on her manicure? And is she for real with those sunglasses?”

“Good questions,” Daisy said. “Maybe she’s an albino with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Or perhaps she’s an employee of Sally Hansen, the nail polish company.” She tapped a finger on her chin, taking the issue very seriously. “That doesn’t explain the sunglasses, though.”

“Maybe she
is
Sally Hansen!” I mused. “She’s wearing the sunglasses because she doesn’t want to be seen by her adoring fans!”

“You know, I always wondered who Sally Hansen really was,” Daisy said, slipping into her own universe. “I’ve often thought she might be the illegitimate daughter of Estée Lauder—abandoned on some church doorstep in Wisconsin and taken in by Norwegian immigrants.”

“Well, if that
is
her, we should make friends.” I giggled. “Maybe she’ll give us free polish.”

“Better that than Wet ’n’ Wild,” Daisy decided. “But I wouldn’t count on being best buddies. She looks kind of, um, forbidding.”

At that moment Sally Hansen looked up from her nails and glared right at us. Daisy and I quickly averted our eyes, studying our coffee cups like they were the most fascinating things in the world.

Whew! Nearly caught mid-mockery. That was a close one.

I swirled my mug around, watching the black stuff inside slide back and forth. Sometimes I think my coffee would taste better if I put milk and sugar and all that junk into it, but my dad taught me from a young age that to do that would be wrong. I took a final, bitter swig.

“Did Charlie say that he was going to get me more?” I asked.

“He didn’t mention it,” Daisy answered.

I realized that Charlie had actually been gone for a while. “Where has that boy gotten to?” I wondered aloud.

“Bathroom, maybe?” Daisy guessed. But for some reason I didn’t think so.

“I’ll bet you anything that Berlin Silver has him cornered. She’s just itching for a date with Charlie.”

“Definitely,” Daisy said, making a face. “You should see how she stares at him in study hall. Like a wolf about to devour a helpless little lamb. Or a puppy. A
beagle
puppy.”

“I’ll go see if he needs rescuing.”

“You do that,” Daisy said.

I pulled my purse onto my lap and snapped it open. It was my favorite purse—a fake Kate Spade that I bought from an extra-shady bootlegger on the corner of Roxbury and Flower Avenue. I’d had it for two years, and the way I was attached to it, I can’t even tell you.

It had a garish, tacky, pink-and-yellow flower pattern and a hot pink strap. I loved it precisely because it
was
a phony and because—with its ridiculously over-the-top design—it looked like no other bag in the world.

I grabbed my lip gloss from inside and slicked on a new coat. Then I tossed the bag over my shoulder and made my way through the crush of the crowd.

When I found Charlie, he was pushed up against a wall by the bathroom, and what do you know: Berlin Silver was leaning in close, making doe eyes at him. Her sparkly tube top was pulled up just enough to reveal the silver tattoo on her hip bone. It’s a shark, and Berlin is obviously very proud of it. She makes sure to wear skimpy clothes that show it off just so everyone knows how hard-core she is, even though I suspect that she’s secretly kind of a pushover.

I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the din of the opening band, but I could guess: she was telling him about how cool she was, or how rich her dad is, or about the genius design of the aluminum can. When it comes to conversation, Berlin Silver is kind of predictable.

“Charlie,” I said with a breezy smile, squeezing in between the two of them. “How did I know I’d find you talking to Berlin?”

He grimaced sarcastically. “I don’t know, Lulu. Maybe your famous x-ray vision?”

He turned to Berlin with an apologetic slant to his eyebrows. “Lulu Dark can see through walls, you know. She knows everything that goes on in Halo City.”

“Gee, Lulu. You’re, like, a superhero,” Berlin cooed, glancing down at her own cleavage and sneakily adjusting her tube top.

I couldn’t decide why I was suddenly so annoyed with Berlin. Maybe I was just mad at her for being such a snob to Daisy. Unlike Charlie, I’m not easily wooed by people who are mean to my friends.

“I
am
like a superhero,” I told Berlin. “But I don’t see through walls. I see through people.” I gave a half smile, half scowl, and Berlin withdrew a little, taken aback.

“Don’t listen to her, Berlin,” Charlie said. “She’s just in a funk.”

Berlin laughed long and loud, even though Charlie hadn’t said anything particularly hilarious.

She sort of sounds like that woman from
The Nanny
when she laughs,
I decided. On the other hand, I’ve been told that my laugh sounds like whale song, so maybe I’m not one to talk.

“Whatever,” Berlin chirped. “Don’t worry, Lulu, I know you didn’t mean anything.”

I was about to tell her I
did
mean it, but Charlie had already grabbed me by the purse strap to drag me away. The Many Handsomes were busy setting up their crap, and Daisy was beckoning from the spot she’d staked out at the edge of the stage.

“Lulu,” Charlie said as we elbowed our way toward her, “just for tonight could you try not to live up to your reputation as an überbitch? Why can’t you just be the nice person that I know you are?”

“Sorry,” I retorted, “but what’s with this crowd? First Rachel and Marisol pick on me, and then Berlin acts like she’s your girlfriend. I feel like I’m at a convention for the obnoxious. And when in Rome, right?”

“Whatever.” Charlie sighed.

The thing is, I knew he was right. Sometimes it’s just easier for me to be mean because it’s so much worse to be defenseless. Around here they put ketchup on nice girls and serve them for lunch. That’s one of the only valuable things my mother taught me—before she moved to California to be a C-list starlet.

Even so, I didn’t want Charlie to think of me as an “überbitch”—or even the regular kind. I don’t know why I cared what he thought. It just mattered. He was so innocent, like a little bunny rabbit. He didn’t understand why it was sometimes safer to be like a porcupine instead.

“Where’d you find him?” Daisy wanted to know when we got to the stage.

“Berlin was hoping Charlie would propose marriage,” I teased. “She was practically slobbering over the thought of a make-out session in his dad’s jet.”

“Give her a break,” he said. “She’s just trying to make friends. She’s the same way with you, isn’t she?”

I had to give him that one.

“I just hate that Berlin tries so hard,” I decided. “I mean, she’s so freaky. Can’t she make friends like a normal, non-deranged person?” When I got to the end of the sentence, Daisy’s eyes had widened at me. She was tight-lipped, shaking her head in a tiny little
no.

“What?” I said. “You hate her a lot more than I do.”

Her expression grew more dire. I swung my head around . . . and found Berlin. She was standing right behind me—her eyes wide and her mouth formed into the
O
of surprise. Our eyes met, and she looked like she was either about to cry or kill me.

“Oops,” I said halfheartedly. She turned and walked away.

Ugh! I felt terrible. Why did things like that always have to happen to me? I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. I was just saying the first thing that popped into my head. I barely even meant any of it.

We watched as Berlin stalked her way through the crowd, knocking over at least a few drinks as she went. She was almost at the door when she stopped, reconsidered, and turned around. Berlin made her way over to the corner, where Sally Hansen was standing, still working on her manicure. She appeared to strike up a conversation.

“Whoa,” said Daisy. “I guess weirdos stick together.”

But Charlie wasn’t having it. “I don’t see what’s so weird,” he said. “You guys shouldn’t—”

Luckily, before Charlie could launch into a full-on lecture, the band launched into their first song. It was this totally kicky number with hand claps and lots of
la la las
. I’m a sucker for anything with
la la las
, and when I started dancing, I was instantly in a good mood again.

After the first song I took a second to look at the band—and almost lost it for real. The Many Handsomes lived up to their name, and the lead singer was the best of all of them. He was tall and sinewy and totally jacked, with black, wavy hair, blue eyes, and tan skin—like the statue of David if he wore tight jeans and a black tank top. He was playing his guitar with revved-up gusto, biting his lip, veins and muscles popping.

I leaned over to Daisy and did my best to whisper, even though we were right by the speakers. “Who on earth is that singer?”