My Little Phony - 13 (5 page)

If he burps in your face, you must replace.

If your photos cover the inside of his locker, he’s a stalker.

If he has an earring, consider disappearing!

If he can’t score a goal, stop, drop, and roll.

If he won’t return a text, move on to the next.

If he’s rude to your mother, go find another.

Rude to your pop? Close up shop.

If he’s a bad kisser, find your inner disser.

If he fails driver’s ed, date his friend instead.

If you catch him in a lie, find an honest guy.

If he has no muscle, time to hustle.

If he doesn’t think you’re funny, the boy ain’t money.

If he’d rather play Wii,
hasta la vista,
baybeeeeeee.

“I have one,” Claire said. “If his eyes don’t match, he’s a good catch.”

“Nice,” Cara applauded.

“How about…” Layne waggled her unplucked brows. “Use a brush, or no crush.”

“No floss, his loss,” Syd giggled.

Claire scribbled furiously.

Bzzzzzzzzz.

The oven timer interrupted their list making.

“Cookies are ready!” Claire tossed her notebook on the coffee table and hurried to the kitchen. Her mom was standing over the wooden butcher’s block, flipping through the paper, her brown bun held in place by a meat thermometer.

Judi Lyons pushed her reading glasses onto her forehead. “Having fun?”

Claire smiled. “Yeah. Lots.”

“I can tell. You’re acting like my little Claire Bear again.” She pulled her daughter in for a hug.

“Moooooooooooom.” Claire wiggled out of her mom’s grasp.

“Sorry. Was I acting like an LBR?”

“Stop,” Claire shuddered at her mother’s attempt to speak Massie.

“What?”
Judi bit her bottom lip. “Does that make you miss her?”

“No,” Claire insisted. “It makes me miss
you
.”

Mrs. Lyons laughed, and then slid the red-and-white-gingham oven mitts toward her daughter.

Claire lifted the holiday-scented cinnamon cookies out of the oven and arranged them on a pink heart-shaped serving tray. Her mother was right. She was feeling like her old self again. No one had criticized her clothing, called her
Kuh-laire,
or questioned her about her friends in weeks. It was more liberating than a skinny-dip in August.

“Did someone order Cinnabon?” Claire bellowed, returning to her friends with a tray full of chewy love.

The girls didn’t respond. They didn’t even look at her. They
were squat-huddled over Layne’s iPhone, distracted by something major. By the look of their intensity, it seemed like more drama than a mere 3G device could deliver.

Claire set the cookies down on the fireplace mantel and hurried over.

“No wayyyyy,” Cara said. “I’m not shaving my head!”

Syd pulled anxiously on her short brown bob. “That look didn’t work for Natalie Portman in
Vendetta,
and it won’t work for me.”

Claire knelt down next to Layne. “What’s going on?”

Syd shot back three feet and cowered next to the fire. Cara clutched a Popsicle stick so tight, it broke in half.

“Nothing.” Layne tried to hide the phone behind her back, but Claire snatched it out of her hands.

Massie:
Heads up! There’s a louse in the house. Y do U think Todd shaved his head? Make sure Claire doesn’t wear Todd’s blue hat. Sleep tight. Don’t let the head bugs bite! /\O/\

Claire whipped off the hat.

“Ehh!”
Syd gasped, scrambling to her feet. “Don’t spray them!”

Cara grabbed her tie-dyed canvas bag and quickly covered her head.

The gummies in Claire’s stomach joined together for a group hug in a gooey show of support. “I don’t have lice,” she cried in a mass of anger and desperation. “And neither does Todd!”

“Then why would May-see say you did?” Cara challenged.

Syd put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, and why would your brother shave his head? It’s obviously not flattering, so…”

“Because she’s Mah-ssie,” Claire explained. “She’s mad that I’m hanging out with you, and she’s trying to scare you away.”

“That’s quite an elaborate plan, wouldn’t you say?” Syd said, stuffing her pop-top clutch with the sewing supplies.

“Not for her,” Layne said, sounding unimpressed by the alpha’s latest scheme. But she was obviously trying to comfort Claire, because even
she
had to admit it was an impressive—albeit demented, self-centered, and malicious—scheme.

Cara rubbed the duffel against her scalp, tending to an itch that wasn’t there. “That’s a lot of trouble to go through just to get back at someone.”

“Here’s a rule,” Syd added, grabbing Cara by the wrist. “If there’s lice in the hair, get outta there!”

Cara nodded, allowing herself to be pulled toward the front door.

“I need a Brillo-bath—stat,” Syd said, with a squirmy wiggle.

“Wait! I promise, no one has lice!” Claire cried.

But her words fell on panic-stricken ears, and faster than she could say, “RID,” her new friends took off.

Hot tears prickled at the back of Claire’s eyes. She felt a heavy arm plop down over her shoulders. “You’re not leaving too, are you?” she asked Layne, her voice shaking.

“No to the way,” Layne said. A smile spread over her lips. “I had lice once, and I happen to love the shampoo. It smells like science camp.”

Claire hung her head. “I don’t have lice.”

“I know,” Layne said simply. “If they believe you have lice, they aren’t very nice.”

Claire linked her arm through Layne’s. “A friend that is true, will stand by you,” she would have said if she thought she could speak without crying. Instead, she tried to inhale the comforting smell of cinnamon cookies.

But that, too, was gone.

“Kiwi Strawberry?” suggested Dylan.

Massie shook her head. “Landon once told me kiwis make his lips itch.”

“Well, then you could scratch his lips with yours!”

“Eww!”
Alicia tossed a fuzzy slipper at Dylan’s head.

“Candy Cane?” Kristen called out.

“Then he’ll think she’s trying to cover up bad breath.” Alicia turned toward Massie. “I mean, not that you would be.”

“Cayenne Pepper?” Dylan asked.

“Too hawt to handle!” Massie joked.

Kristen squinted at a green tube. “This looks like mold.”

“Toss it,” Massie instructed. “I never liked the Caesar Salad flavor.”

“Okay, what about Passion Fruit!”

“Or Vanilla Bliss.”

“Vanilla
KISS
!”

“Ha ha,” Massie said drily.

She’d awoken that morning with a smile on her face. Two sets of fresh footsteps had led away from the guesthouse, meaning she’d successfully defriended Claire the previous night. But then she’d received a text from Landon, reminding her that it was T-minus three days until their first lip kiss, and
her heart had plummeted faster than Tiger Woods’s career. Now she and her friends were standing in front of Gloss Row, a glass-encased wall of her closet that contained her entire lip gloss collection, trying to decide which gloss would be most effective for kissing an older man.

Alicia pushed her dark hair off her shoulder. “We should play gloss tarot to see what the kiss will be like.”

“What’s that?” Dylan asked.

“Massie closes her eyes and picks a gloss from her collection,” Alicia answered. “Then whatever flavor it is, it’ll tell her something about what the kiss will be like.”

Massie rolled her eyes, but Kristen and Dylan nodded eagerly.

“Where’d you learn that?” Dylan asked.

“My cousin Nina went to this psychic last weekend who said that if you have a question and you concentrate on channeling the energy of the question out into the universe, you can tell your fortune with almost anything.” Alicia shrugged.

Massie was about to make a crack about Alicia’s cousin’s brain being out of the universe, but a wave of kiss-anxiety hit her, so she closed her eyes and plucked one of the glosses from the pile.

“MASSIE!”

Massie’s eyes flew open as Claire burst into her bedroom. She wore ripped, straight-leg jeans and a blue-and-yellow striped waffle tee under a fleece vest. She looked ready for a day of hiking—or arguing over the bargain bin at T.J. Maxx. “I. DON’T. HAVE. LICE.”

Massie smirked. “I never said you did. I just asked
Layme
why she thought Todd had to have his head shaved.”

“All my friends left because of you!” Claire put her hands on her hips. “You were trying to ruin my party.”

“Puh-lease.” Massie rolled her eyes. “The only thing that ruined your sleepover was frizzy hair and bad music.”

Massie and Claire glared at each other, while Alicia, Dylan, and Kristen exchanged nervous glances. The tension was as thick and goopy as expired nail polish.

“Well,” Massie said finally, “I hate to add
insect
to injury, but do you know what
this
sleepover has in common with the Oscars?”

Claire didn’t speak or move a muscle. She stood there, arms crossed, unblinking.

“What?” Dylan said finally, clearly trying to release the tension.

“It’s only for the A-list!”

With that, Claire turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

“Wow.” Dylan breathed. “She was totally
bugged
out.”

“I take my hat off to you, Massie.” Alicia fake-curtsied.

While the Pretty Committee continued to joke, Massie rested her forehead on her window. Outside, Claire was stomping her way back across the snow-covered lawn. The Pretty Committee continued to joke, and Massie knew she should feel triumphant. She had bombed Claire’s sleepover into oblivion with one fake lice-infested snow hat. But as Claire kicked the snow-Cam, Massie’s pride melted into something more akin to regret.

Sure, Claire didn’t know anything about footwear or fashion. She had no idea how to pick a deep conditioner or a facial scrub. But unlike the rest of the PC, she was an experienced lip-kisser with nearly a year of practice, and she would never judge Massie for being nervous about kissing an older guy. Had Massie just alienated her only hope for helpful lip-to-lip tips?

“Hey, Mass,” Alicia said. “What flavor of gloss did you pick?”

Massie snapped back into focus. She looked down at the gloss in her hand. When she saw the writing on the tube, her cheeks flamed like a bonfire doused in lighter fluid.

“Spaghetti Bolognese,” she mumbled. Laughter filled the room.

Massie bit her lip and didn’t even bother to try to laugh along with her friends. Because if she didn’t manage to figure out how to kiss like a ninth-grader—and soon—she’d be dead meat.

Saturday afternoon, Claire crossed the threshold of Sweetsations Candy Shoppe, with Cam and Layne at each waffle-shirt-clad elbow. Immediately the scent of sugar coated her every pore, buoying her spirits like a surfboard in the waves.

“Better?” Cam nudge-asked her.

“Much,” Claire answer-nudged back. When Cam had stopped by her house that morning to drop off a new mix CD before soccer practice, she’d felt sadder than the last LBR to be picked in gym class. She and Layne had been brainstorming revenge plots against Massie, but they kept coming up empty-handed. Cam had taken one look at Claire’s face and announced he was taking her and Layne to Sweetsations, a new buffet-style sweet shop where they could get all-you-can-eat candy for $14.99 a pound.

“For you.” Cam handed Layne and Claire each a wooden tray, and they got in line behind a seven-year-old with jelly stains down his back.