Meanicures (17 page)

“The reason we invited you and wanted to talk was really simple. We just wanted to reconnect,” I said.

Cassidy wrinkled her nose. “Reconnect
what?”
she asked. “You make it sound like we’re lightbulbs.”

“Extension cords, actually,” Taylor said.

I glared at her. Was that helping? That was
not
helping.

Thankfully, Olivia chimed in. “You know, reconnect with you guys, because we drifted apart. Like a sailboat going off course.”

“We felt like we just were kind of, um, on the wrong foot. Feet.” Taylor laughed nervously. “You know, like every time we talked to you, or didn’t talk to you … anyway, it wasn’t good. We thought maybe if we all just got together and hung out, we could make things better.”

“Why do things need to be better?” asked Cassidy.

She really had no clue. This was so interesting. And so awful, too.

Kayley coughed. “We don’t trust anyone who’s that nice to us. Because why would you be that nice without wanting something in return?”

“That’s just
weird,”
I said. “People can be nice for no reason.”

“Not usually,” Cassidy said. “Ever notice how when your parents are really nice, it’s fake? Like, they only act that way long enough for you to agree that you have to do your homework and you don’t care about having the newest iPod. Which is a total lie. They distract you with all this niceness.”

“But we weren’t trying to trick you or get information to use against you,” I said. “We have completely innocent intentions.” Complicated, maybe, but innocent.
I thought, or, actually, Poinsettia thought that maybe if we found out why you were being so mean to us all the time, we could stop being mean ourselves, undo the ceremony, and then maybe we could keep it all from happening again
. But I couldn’t say that to them. “We really just wanted to kind of make things right.”

Cassidy looked at me like she still wasn’t sure whether to believe me or not. That made sense. She’d known me longer than anyone; she could probably tell when I wasn’t being totally honest. “You know what? Let’s get out of here.” She suddenly got to her feet. “I left my wallet in my coat, which is back at the salon, so we only had enough change in our pockets to buy one root beer. Do you think you guys could go get our coats, and bring them back here for us? It’s freezing out there.”

“No. We don’t even have
our
coats,” Taylor said.

“Well, speaking of shoes, do you think one of you
could carry Kayley? She’s getting frostbite,” Cassidy said.

“Sure,” said Olivia. “I can do it. I have to carry my little sister all the ti—” She stopped as she realized Kayley was glaring at her. “Of course,” she added, “Laney’s much smaller than you.
Much.”

“So, will you guys come back and finish the me—the manicure?” I asked. “It’s all been paid for, plus we have tons of snacks, and then there are the gift bags. It would be a shame to waste everything.”

“I guess,” Cassidy said, holding out her hands to admire them again, even with the one missing artificial nail. “She really is good.”

“Cassidy? I wasn’t being phony when we were talking. I meant every word,” I told her as I followed her to the door. “You can always still just show up at my house, any time you want.”

“Yeah, right. Why would I want to?” she replied.

Whatever Cassidy had been willing to share with me before, she was done sharing now. It was like a little window had been opened but now it was closed again.

But now I knew a little bit of what was going on with her. It didn’t explain why she was mean to me sometimes, but it did explain what she had to deal with.

“You know what? It’s impossible to make a dramatic exit around here,” she said now. “You forget your coat, your wallet—”

“And your shoes,” added Kayley.

“And then it starts snowing.” Cassidy shook her head.

“It’s Payneston.” I opened the door and got a wet, fat flake of snow right in my eye. “What do you expect?”

About an hour and a half later, we all had nice, colorful nails (Poinsettia had fixed our broken ones), and people were being a little bit more real with each other. It was like we were in a mean-free zone; they weren’t being horrible, and neither were we.

Everyone gathered around the gift bags on the table as I packed the leftover snacks into my backpack, deciding to leave all the sodas and waters behind for whoever wanted them. I couldn’t let the day end without some kind of official statement, some attempt to finally put this behind us. But I had no idea how to do it. I wasn’t ready for this moment.

And inside, I was freaking out about it. What if getting your nails done and just catching up
wasn’t
enough? Would I have to swallow fire or make up a recipe for angeled eggs?

Dejected, I picked up my backpack and followed the group to the door, stopping by the front desk to thank Poinsettia. “Help?” I mouthed silently.

She was already way ahead of me. “I like to keep a record of manicure parties. It helps market them to other clients.” She handed out a printed photo collage to everyone. I hadn’t noticed her with a camera, but she’d taken separate photos of us getting our
manicures, and the collage showed all of us laughing and talking and having a good time.

“When did you take these?” Olivia asked.

“Did I forget to mention that I have special powers?” Poinsettia smiled. “Not to mention co-workers. Now you’ll have a memento so you can remember what it’s like to just hang out and be friends.”

“We don’t need a record,” Cassidy scoffed, but I noticed her smile as she looked at the photos.

“Yeah, we’ll remember,” Alexis insisted.

Really?
I thought.
We’ll see
.

“But, uh, do you sell the nail polish, too?” Cassidy asked. “I’d like to take some home, because I’ll probably need a new coat next week.”

Everyone lined up to purchase a bottle of nail polish.

“Thanks so much. And can I make an appointment for a haircut next week?” Olivia asked Poinsettia when it was her turn.

“It’s about time. Shaggy much?” commented Alexis.

Cassidy and Kayley held their hands over their mouths and snickered.

“It’s amazing how often people forget to make appointments. Even you two.” Poinsettia applied a fresh coat of bright red lipstick. “Now, if you’ll excuse me …” She gestured to her next client.

We gathered by the coat rack. “So,” I said.

“So.” Cassidy grabbed her coat from the hanger and slipped it on.

“Nice jacket,” I said to her.

She didn’t thank me.

As we stepped out onto the sidewalk, we looked at each other like we hadn’t just spent the afternoon together, hanging out and having fun. Like that wasn’t allowed. Like we weren’t all holding gift bags from the same event. Immediately we separated into our normal pattern: their three and our three. It was like that was the only way we knew how.

“We have to go,” said Cassidy.

Kayley nodded, adjusting her tiny purse on her tiny shoulder. “Yeah, we’re meeting someone at the movies.”

“What movie?” asked Olivia.

“Um …” Kayley tapped her index finger against her cheek. “I don’t know. Did we decide yet?”

Alexis shook her head. “No. We didn’t.”

“Definitely not,” added Cassidy.

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. What did they think, that we were going to show up at the movies? That we’d follow them around like puppies? Meanicure or not, they were back to their usual selves. Did it matter that I’d sort of reconnected with Cassidy, and my friends had gotten in touch with their former friends a little bit, too?

“See you around?” I asked, turning to walk in the opposite direction.

“Right. I’ll see you!” Cassidy called over her shoulder.

And that was that. We went our way, and they went theirs.

“We have plans, too!” Olivia shouted after them. “Big plans!”

“We do?” I asked in a soft voice, so they couldn’t overhear.

“No, but if they’re going to act like
that
again, like they’re the only ones who can make plans, I am not going to just stand here and take it,” said Olivia. “Anyway. Laney has a soccer game at the park near here. Want to go watch?” she asked.

Taylor and I looked at each other, considering it. “Sure, why not?” I said. “I don’t have anywhere else I have to be.”

“Me neither,” said Taylor.

I started to unlock my bike, then stopped. “You know what? Since you guys are walking, I’ll walk, too. I’ll just come back later for my bike,” I said.

“Are you sure?” asked Olivia.

“Definitely,” I said.

We started down the sidewalk together, walking side by side. Then we put our arms around each other’s shoulders and walked, three across, laughing, giggling, pushing, and leaning our way across town through the snow, which had almost stopped.

The best thing about the meanicure was that if the mean girls were back to being themselves, that meant we could go back to being ourselves, too.

Friends.

The kind of friends you could skip down the street with, side by side, arms linked, not worrying at all about your coolness factor, because you didn’t care what anyone else thought, as long as you had each other.

“Good morning,
everyone. I’m Olivia Salinas with this morning’s update.”

I held my breath as I sat in homeroom, watching the television screen mounted to the wall. I crossed my fingers. I drummed my new, shiny silver fingernails against my desk.

“You feeling all right, Madison?” Ms. Thibault asked, pausing beside me.

“Sure. Just, uh, wondering what Olivia will say,” I said. That, and Poinsettia had told me that tapping my fingers on hard surfaces might help my nails grow.

Ms. Thibault laughed and put her hand on my shoulder. “I think we
all
are, at this point.”

Everyone who’s listening, that is
, I thought.

Olivia looked into the camera and smiled. “What a weekend. Did everyone have as good a weekend as I did? I hope so.

“Okay, first things first, the schedule for the upcoming week is as follows,” she began. “It’s our last full week before Thanksgiving break, so there’s a lot to
pack in.” She ran through the list of events, games, and club meetings. She didn’t add anything extra. Everything seemed to go according to plan; she read the student council news, which wasn’t much, and she didn’t insult anyone.

As she wrapped up, she said, “On a personal note, this reporter would like to apologize for being rude. I’m sorry that I’ve said some things I regret. Please, please join us this afternoon to save the endangered animals. We’re off to a great start. You’ve seen the T-shirts. We’re temporarily out of stock on those, but we’re planning the Christmas dance-a-thon. It’s never too early to start your pledge sheet. So please come! Have a great day, Panthers!” She smiled genuinely at the camera before the screen went dark.

“Well? Did she do all right?” Ms. Thibault asked me.

“Bo—ring,” said Justin.

Bethany patted her mouth. “Yawn City.”

“Um, I think that’s probably the last time we’ll be hearing from Olivia for a while,” I said.

“Too bad,” said Bethany. “At least she made things interesting and unpredictable for a while.”

“Don’t forget Madison,” said Justin. “The rrrrain in Mmmmaine stays mmmmainly—”

“Don’t remind me!” I put my hands over my ears.
“Please!”

The rest of the day seemed to continue the shift back to normal. At lunch, Taylor was carrying Kayley’s books for her because Kayley’s wrist was still sprained.
She wasn’t looking where she was going, so she tripped and fell, twisting her ankle. Now they were even.

Not only that, but when Taylor fell, she got the crowd’s applause and teasing, instead of Alexis, who made it across the cafeteria without dropping her lunch tray for the first time in days.

When classes let out, I headed to the gym, as promised, to meet Cassidy and talk to Ms. Throgfeld about joining cheer mid-season. I didn’t think she’d take me, so it wasn’t that much of a risk to appear that I was willing. It was a gesture. Maybe a risky one, if Ms. Throgfeld took me up on it right there on the spot, but I was having one of my brave moments.

Besides, I didn’t think Ms. Throgfeld would do that. She wasn’t that spontaneous of a person. Anyone who had turned her back on cheer the way I had didn’t count for much in Ms. Throgfeld’s book.

It took a minute after I walked in for Cassidy to notice me and come over.

“Wow. You’re really
here,”
she said, looking slightly uncomfortable. She glanced over at the seventh and eighth graders who were working out without her.

“I said I would. I’ll try it, anyway.” I shrugged. “If you guys really need me.”

“Yeah, well. Your skills are probably not up to par at all,” said Cassidy.

I smiled. The old-new Cassidy was back. “I know. I’ll work extra hard, though.”

“Hey, Ms. Throgfeld! Madison wants to be the bottom
of the pyramid!” She turned to me. “You don’t mind, right?”

I saw Ms. Throgfeld looking over at the two of us, forehead creased in confusion.

Maybe, when I was desperate to be friends again, at the beginning of the year, I would have jumped at the chance to be the bottom of the pyramid, to do whatever Cassidy wanted. But I wasn’t really feeling like that anymore. We were going in different directions. That was the way it would be from now on. Cheer wasn’t “me” anymore, it was her. I was okay with that. I didn’t have to put myself in a low, painful, pyramid-supporting position anymore, even if Alexis and I were the same, perfectly matched height.