My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours (10 page)

To be honest, I guess my list sort of sucked. I don't know why I thought any of these things would work. There'll be no Tori's Truth-Telling Tips seminars for me to teach anywhere in the near future, that's for sure.

But I can't give up. I'm down but I'm so not out. There is one more thing I can do. I really didn't want to do this though. It's a total last resort. It didn't even make my list, that's how last resort it is.

I have to hypnotize her.

There's this thing I stumbled upon online when I was doing my research the other day—it's called covert hypnosis. Supposedly it's a way that you can secretly hypnotize another person and get them to do what you want without them ever knowing. How amazing is that? You would think people everywhere would be capitalizing on this. According to the Web site, I have to have a good rapport with her (easy since we're best friends), then I have to captivate her attention (I can be captivating when I want to be), and make some suggestions (or in this case, one specific suggestion: Stop lying, Sea!). We'll see if it works.

The final school bell rings and I race to get to Sienna's locker before she does. I see her coming, and when she notices me she stops and looks around. She's probably trying to find a way out without talking to me, but I'm not budging and I know she needs her things. Sea
realizes this too and slowly trudges toward me. Before she can say a word I say, “Sea, I'm really
really
sorry about how goofy I was acting today. I don't know what got into me, but it was a really weird day. I think maybe I was just thrown off, you know? I got in this horrible fight with my mom this morning and it has made the whole day a mess.” Sea and her mom fight a lot, so I know this will get her.

Sienna pops open her locker and begins to load her backpack with books and notebooks. “Oh, I know how that is. Don't worry about it, Tori. I'm over it,” she replies. She finishes gathering her stuff and zips her bag closed.

“Really?” Wow. I completely expected begging to be involved. I'm getting off easy. “Thanks, Sea. You're such a great friend.”

“No prob. I'd better get going. My mom is waiting outside.” She turns to go, but I reach out a hand to stop her.

“Your mom is so nice picking you up from school every day. I wish mine would. But she's always too busy for me.” I try to look sad. “I hate going home to an empty house,” I add.

Sienna shifts from one leg to another. “Um, well, do you want to come over for a while or something?”

“Could I? That would be great!” Omigod, omigod,
omigod! This stuff actually works. I totally just made her invite me over. This is
so
freakin' cool.

“Yeah, let's go,” she says, and I follow her out to her car.

Ten minutes later we're standing in front of Sienna's new tan leather couch in her family room. I haven't been over to her house since she got back from vacation, and it looks fantastic. Her mom has been busily remodeling everything. There is this sort of beachy spa resort vibe going on—lots of marble and rock sculptures with water dribbling down them, big palm trees and wicker baskets and bamboo tables strategically placed about. And, if I'm not mistaken, there is one of those soothing ocean sounds CDs being piped through some kind of surround sound speaker system. That, or I'm losing my mind, because I swear I just heard a seagull overhead.

“Mrs. Baker, everything looks so beautiful,” I say. Sea rolls her eyes, but her mom's face lights up.

“Really?” She puts her hands on her hips and surveys the room like she's looking at it for the first time. I can tell she's pleased with her work. “It's coming along. At least I got rid of that old couch, huh?”

She's talking about the plaid pullout sofa bed they had forever. I think Sienna's dad even had it in college.
It was definitely worn in but it still had charm if you ask me. Sea and I had countless sleepovers on that old thing. It held great memories. Last winter during one of our sleepovers we were messing around with the bed—jumping on the head of the pullout bed so the foot flew up in the air. I jumped a little too hard one time and fell down in between the sofa cushions and the bed. It didn't hurt and actually turned out in a happy ending. I found my Strawberry Shortcake doll I had lost when I was seven while stuck down there. I'd always thought Mom got rid of it in a donation pile or something, but nope, it was sitting under Sea's couch for five years. I probably should have asked Mrs. Baker to look through the couch before ditching it to see if I'd lost anything else.

“Would you girls like some fresh-baked cookies?” Mrs. Baker asks.

I nod vigorously and Sea rolls her eyes again.

“Be right back,” her mom calls, walking out of the room.

“She didn't freshly bake anything,” Sea mutters after her mom is out of earshot. “All she does is shop.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing,” I return.

Sienna shrugs. “I just don't see why she's pretending to bake when she probably bought them from some fancy bakery.”

“Homemade, store-made, it doesn't matter to me. They're all little circles of bliss in my belly.” I pat my stomach.

Sea smiles. Because she knows it's true.

I study Sea's face and though she looks like she's okay, I can still see irritation in her eyes. It's interesting that she gets this upset with her mom for pretending when she's doing the exact same thing.

“Want to play Wii or something?” Sea asks, perched on the arm of the couch.

“Yeah, sounds fun.” I take a seat on one end of the couch and my back end feels like it died and went to heaven, that's how soft and ridiculously comfortable the couch is. I close my eyes for a moment, enjoying the cushiony goodness, and I'm startled when Sea tosses the Wii remote in my lap.

She pops in a Star Wars game and we choose our characters. Yoda for her, Obi-Wan Kenobi for me. I've always admired Obi-Wan's lightsaber skills. And he's still the only guy I've ever seen who can pull off a braided tail.

“Remember when we first saw Star Wars—the one with Hayden Christensen as Anakin?” I ask. It was one of our first times in a real movie theater. Dad was still living at home with Mom and me. The theater was almost empty, and he let us sit two rows ahead of him so that we could pretend like we were grownups.

Sea smiles. “Yeah.” She starts our game.

“He was so cute and we both had huge crushes on him. We used to talk about what it would be like to date him,” I add. Sea even ripped a picture of him out of a teen magazine and hung it on the wall in her room. She used to kiss him good night every night.

“I remember. He was always so good to that Queen Amidala. He loved her so much.” Sienna sighs. She has always referred to her as “that Queen Amidala.” Like she wasn't good enough for Hayden Christensen or something.

“Yeah. And we used to say we needed to find a guy like that. A guy who
really
loved us. Remember?” I ask.

“Uh-huh,” Sea replies, moving her small Yoda character through the desert, looking for clones.

She seems pretty agreeable so far. I might as well go for it.

“You can have a
real
guy who
really
loves you, Sea,” I say. I make my Obi-Wan Kenobi cut off two Sand People's heads and hop into his Jedi ship.

“Uh-huh.”

It's working.

“You can have a
real
boyfriend,” I say. I'm pretty proud of myself for how quickly I've mastered this whole covert hypnotism thing.

“Yeah,” she mumbles.

GAME PAUSE
.

Sea turns to me. “Okay, wait. What the heck are you saying?”

Whoops. She looks kind of mad.

“What?” I hope my innocent face is coming across. Though any face other than my guilty one will do.

“What is all this real boyfriend stuff? What are you trying to say?”

Oh, yikes. Not good. Like her Yoda character,
the force in her, strong it is.
“Huh?” I offer. “I don't know. I thought we were talking about Star Wars. What are you talking about?”

Sea hesitates and furrows her eyebrows. She looks confused. “I'm not sure,” she replies slowly. “Never mind. Let's play.” She turns back to the television and unpauses the game.

Phew. That could have been so ugly. I'm never going to try to hypnotize anyone ever again.

Sometimes a good night's sleep makes everything seem different in the morning. Yesterday I was desperate to save Sienna from her compulsive lying self. But today things have changed somehow. So, my best friend is a little colorful. So, she's minorly loose with the truth. Some might call it charming. Even creative. And what's it hurting anyway? There's no damage being done here. If anything, things are better for both of us. The only repercussions from our abundance of lying are that our social lives have expanded. Boo hoo hoo. We have more friends. Isn't that what every girl my age wants? Actually, I didn't think I wanted that; I was pretty happy with it being just Sea and me. But it appears that lots of friends
is
what the average girl wants. And here I am trying to ruin it. Pssh. No more. In fact, I'm going to embrace my fake boyfriend (not literally of course) and really live it up. We're going to have the most
fantastic fake relationship
ever.
Even if our new friends aren't
friend
friends, who cares? It's all about perception anyway, and right now I'm perceived to have an awesome boyfriend and a popular best friend. There is nothing wrong with that.

I carefully pick out my clothes, deciding on a light pink cable-knit elbow sweater and brown skirt. I reach up into my closet for the small wooden jewelry box tucked in the corner to the far right. Inside are a few pieces of jewelry I've received over the years from Mom and Grandma and my aunt Kate. There is a birthstone ring, a chunky silver bracelet, and several pairs of earrings. I zone in on one particular item though: a small blue Tiffany box. Inside lies a silver open heart pendant with a pink sapphire at the top of it. Sienna's never seen it and I've never told her about it. I haven't told anyone about it. I haven't worn it anywhere because it's so expensive. I call it Dad's guilt gift (only in my head and not to Dad, of course). I also never wear it because Mom was way royally ticked when Dad gave it to me. I remember her yelling things like “Are you out of your mind? Tiffany for a nine-year-old? You never gave me anything Tiffany.” I figured it would make her angry so I put it away up on my closet shelf and forgot about it. Until now, that is.

“Ready to go, Tori?” Mom yells.

“Yeah. I'm coming,” I respond. I tuck the heart underneath my sweater—I still don't see any reason to tick Mom off—grab my backpack, and head out the front door.

I open the passenger door of the car and climb in.

“Oh, honey, you look so nice. Something special going on today?” Mom asks.

“Nope. Just felt like dressing up,” I reply.

She backs the car down the driveway and into the street. “How are things going at school? I'm really sorry that I've been so preoccupied at work. I've been working on this big project for one of our top clients, and Linda, that no-good suck-up, has been trying to edge me out of my lead position and . . .”

I tune her out. Now that she's ranting, it'll probably last the whole way to school. The good thing is that she never expects me to respond, so I can daydream or think about my own problems. Which, if you ask me, are a lot more complicated than hers.

We pull up to the junior high, and I wave goodbye to Mom. We got here early today and kids are still milling around outside. I zero in on Sienna, Lauren, Anica, Avery, and Natalie talking by the bike rack. I pull the heart pendant out from beneath my sweater and smooth it down so that it's in clear view.

“Morning,” I call cheerily as I join the group.

“Hey, Tori.” Sienna smiles. “We were talking about
Brooks Prep
. Did you see the new episode last night?”

I finger my heart pendant. “No, I was sort of busy last night.”

“Oh, it was awesome!” Sea exclaims. “Darcy broke up with Jacob and—”

“Wait,” Lauren interrupts, putting up a hand to shush Sienna. “Is that Tiffany?”

She points to my necklace and I blush. I didn't even have to try to blush—it just happened. I nod.

“No. Way,” Sienna utters.

“I knew it.” Lauren claps her hands. “My mom gets the Tiffany catalogs and I've been studying them for years. I can always spot a Tiffany. It's really pretty, Tori.”

“Thank you,” I reply.

“Where'd you get it?” Sea asks.

A huge grin spreads across my face. “I was coming over to tell you. It's from Sebastian. We're exclusive now.”

“Oh,” Avery gasps, clutching her heart.

“That's so sweet,” Natalie coos.

“Exclusive? So what does that mean?” Sienna asks.

“It means they're getting married,” Avery cries.

“No, that's engaged,” Anica says.

“Yeah, she's right,” I affirm. “We're not engaged. Not yet, anyway. We could be though. Someday. Being exclusive is like the step before getting engaged.”
And then we'll
have a fake wedding and a fake house and three adorable fake children. But no fake cats. I'm allergic.

The girls look impressed. Sienna looks upset. My guess is she's racking her brain trying to figure out a way for Antonio to top this, and unless he sends a unicorn to whisk her off to Aruba for a rendezvous, he can't.

“I don't get . . . When did this happen?” Sea mumbles. “You were at my house yesterday afternoon.”

“It was after. When my mom and I pulled up to our house, Sebastian was sitting there on the porch steps waiting for me. His mom was in the area for some kind of meeting and dropped him off to visit for a while. He gave it to me then.” You know, this lying thing gets easier the more you do it.