Push Girl (2 page)

He adjusted his rearview mirror. “My parents? The biggest problem they have is that my dad prefers the Chinese food my mom makes, and my mom’d rather just cook hamburgers all the time.” Curt’s half-Chinese, half-white, all gorgeous, with a magazine-perfect family, which was why I never really brought up my own home troubles with him. He wouldn’t get that my parents hadn’t said anything nice to or about each other for at least two months now. Maybe three.

He peeked at me from the corner of his eye. “What’s bothering you, babe? You know you can talk to me if something’s on your mind. That’s what I’m here for. I can handle the tough stuff.”

“I know.” I chewed on the tip of my thumb as I stared out the window. “Forget it. It’s not a big deal.” I didn’t make a habit of lying to my boyfriend; it’s just that I was scared that if he saw my ugly side—that I sometimes hated my parents for not keeping their fighting to themselves and I wanted to run away every now and then; that I’d once daydreamed for a good ten minutes about pushing Amber, my closest dance friend and biggest studio rival, off the stage so I could dance our duet as a solo; or even that I sort of hated water polo, the sport he dedicated as much time and passion to as I did to dance—that he’d be done with me like last night’s homework. Not that I sat around comparing boyfriends, but because I’d known my ex Jack forever, I’d always been comfortable talking to him about any random thing, silly or serious. With Curt, though, I didn’t know.

It was exhausting trying to be the perfect girlfriend all the time, but I didn’t want to give him a reason to wake up and realize he should be with someone less of a disaster. I’d hoped that he’d reveal something scandalous about his family life to make me feel better about my situation, but it looked like the constant state of war between my parents really wasn’t normal after all.

“Kara.” He tried to sound stern, but his voice gave away a hint of playfulness. “I can tell something’s up.”

“I think my dad is just stressed at work,” I mumbled, still looking out the window.

He moved one hand from the steering wheel and rested it high up on my leg. “But the question is,” he said, rubbing circles on my thigh with his thumb, “are your parents going to be cool with you coming to Rob Chang’s party tonight? Am I going to have to crawl up your trellis and sneak you out? Or are you going to have to throw that long blond hair out the window for me?”

It was a good thing I had tights on under my shorts, or he’d have been able to feel all the goose bumps popping up all over my leg.

“Well, first of all,” I said, smiling, “I don’t have a trellis. And, no, my parents are not cool with me going to the party. But they are fine with me going to the movies with some friends, which is what I told them I would be doing tonight.”

He eased the truck to a stop at a red light and leaned across the center console, nuzzling into my neck. “You sneaky girl,” he said into my ear. “I’m such a bad influence on you.”

It’s true that my world pretty much turned upside down when I started dating Curt. With over four thousand students, Pacific Coastal High School was way too huge to have a “popular crowd.” So it’s not like I was some outcast plucked from obscurity and thrust into high school stardom when my dancing captivated him at last year’s studio fall recital, when he was there watching his little sister. But as soon as the gorgeous water polo captain welcomed me into his life, I found myself invited to parties that I didn’t know happened on the weekends and hanging out with people I’d only ever come into contact with when I waited behind them in the bathroom line. It was pretty unbelievable to kick off my senior year with an invitation to Rob Chang’s back-to-school party, something Past Kara would only have heard about on Monday morning from the people sitting behind her in English.

“You are absolutely ruining my senior year,” I said. Then I giggled. I couldn’t help it. He was nibbling on my earlobe. “Go. It’s green.”

“You know what’s really going to ruin your senior year?” He turned into my neighborhood, and part of me wanted to tell him to flip a U-turn and keep driving around so I didn’t have to go home yet. But I knew I’d have to face the Wrath of Mom for that choice, so I kept quiet.

“You leaving me for Rob Chang?”

“How about me, Rob, and the rest of the varsity water polo team officially nominating you as our Homecoming Queen candidate?”

“What?” I squealed. “Are you serious? Nominations just opened today. You guys have an entire month to choose someone to represent water polo. What if you change your minds?”

Curt pulled into my driveway, turned off his truck, and shifted in his seat so he was facing me. “Don’t be ridiculous, Kara. I’m the captain of the team. You’re my girlfriend. Who else would we choose?” He reached his hand up to my face, running his fingers through my hair; then he leaned over the console again, this time kissing me lightly. “Unless you were planning on breaking up with me sometime in the next month or something.”

I smiled back at him, this gorgeous, perfect boyfriend of mine. “No way, man,” I said. “You’re stuck with me.”

*   *   *

“How was rehearsal today?” Mom’s voice was terse as she banged around in the kitchen, and an obvious tension filled the house. It slammed into me the second I walked through the door. I knew it wasn’t me she was upset with, but that didn’t matter. When she and Dad fought, it had quite the trickle-down effect.

“Great!” I tried to be as peppy as possible to counteract the tension. “Our lyrical routine for the fall recital is really coming together. Christine used me as an example to the other girls, like, three times, and afterwards she talked to me and Amber about doing a hip-hop duet. You know we’ve always wanted to do one, so we’re going to try to throw something together.”

I loved dancing, and it came easily to me, but I worked my butt off at it. I always had. I took as many classes as we could afford and my schedule would allow. I was in the studio on evenings and weekends, choreographing, rehearsing, practicing technique. I helped out in the Small Fry class because I loved seeing the little girls fall in love with dancing the way I did. Seeing them discover that this was their passion, their life, just as I had. And Mom was always there, right beside me. She was a total Dance Mom that way, I think because she never had a passion when she was younger. Now her passion was me.

“Mmmm,” Mom said as she wiped down the counter, staring intently at a nonexistent mark on the granite. I got the distinct feeling she wasn’t listening to me, and I was tempted to start throwing out a bunch of random stuff, maybe a few of Jack’s fun facts, just to see if she’d even notice. But I knew better than to push her when she was like this. If she was zoning out during my rehearsal recap, things must be bad.

The weirdness was dulled somewhat when Logan, our little terrier mutt, bounded in from the TV room. “There’s my little baby dog,” I said, picking him up and hugging him while he licked my face with abandon. “There’s my waggy tail. Mom, was Logan a good boy today?”

“What?” Mom said, still wiping the counter.

I shifted a wiggly Logan to one arm and chewed on the thumb of my free hand, waiting for her to register my question and answer me, but I was met only with the sounds of the towel brushing back and forth across the counter. “Okay, then. I’m going upstairs.” I returned a squirmy Logan to the ground and he jumped up on my legs as I rummaged through the pantry for a protein bar. “I’m going to take a quick nap before I head to the movies tonight.” I was worn out after a long day of school and rehearsal, and I wanted to be at the top of my game at the party. A little power nap, and I’d be good to go.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, seeming to snap out of her thoughts. “What time is Amanda picking you up?”

“I’m meeting her there around eight thirty. The movie starts at nine.” I hated bringing Amanda into my lie, but if I said I was going out with unnamed friends, Mom would want phone numbers and fingerprints and mothers’ maiden names. “Is that okay?”

“It’s fine.” She abandoned her counter wiping and lowered herself into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “Your father should be home by then. He’s picking up a pizza for dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I didn’t flinch at the daggers in her voice when she brought up Dad, or how she had recently started calling him “your father.” I didn’t want her to know that I noticed.

Upstairs, I pushed all thoughts of my parents and their ongoing troubles out of my mind. Instead I took a quick shower, and as I brushed out my long tangle of hair, I wondered what to do about the two texts I’d been ignoring since I left the studio.

Text 1: Amanda Kenyon, my best friend since kindergarten, who was a best friend in title more than practice these days. It wasn’t for her lack of trying, though. It was me. I’d made all these new friends since I started dating Curt, and Amanda and I had started drifting apart. It happened to friends all the time, I told myself, and it didn’t have to be this huge deal. But she didn’t seem to want to let go, and she wasn’t really taking my hints.

She’d texted to see what I was up to.
Well, Amanda, I’m going to Rob Chang’s back-to-school party, and there’s no way I’m asking him if I can bring you. Sorry, but it is what it is.

It’s not like I was embarrassed of her; Amanda was great. We looked about as opposite as possible: me, tiny, pale, and blond with a dancer’s body; and her, dark skin, long braids, and tall, like I wished I were. But our shared past made us pretty much personality twins, and I really did have a blast every time we were together. She didn’t know any of these people, though, since she spent most of her time lately in the school’s video production studio or working at the movie theater at the mall. She’d be bored out of her mind at this party, and I’d end up having to hang out with her the whole time. Honestly, if I were going to babysit on a Friday night, I should at least get paid for it.

Text 2: Jack Matthews, my ex-boyfriend. Jack and I were together from eighth grade to the summer after sophomore year. We’d always liked each other, and there was no big dramatic scene when we broke up. It was totally mutual; I thought we should break up and he agreed. I had my dance stuff, after all, and he got elected to Student Government, so it was a perfect time to pull the “moving in different directions” card. I’d say that Amanda should take a lesson from him in accepting change and moving on, which would have been convenient because the two of them were next-door neighbors and practically besties, but the thing is, recently Jack had started texting me pretty regularly. There was no real point to his texts—they were mainly fun facts or super-cheesy inspiring quotations. (Yesterday I got
YOU MISS 100% OF THE SHOTS YOU DON’T TAKE—WAYNE GRETZKY
) But still. I kept telling myself that Jack and I were doing the whole exes-as-friends things really well, and that his silly texts were totally innocent. But, at the same time, I wasn’t telling Curt about them, either.

Today, I decided to ignore Jack. Sometimes I replied with a fun fact or quotation of my own or asked how Student Government was going, but I wasn’t lying to Mom about wanting to take a nap before I headed out for the night. Rehearsal wore me out today.

Ignoring Amanda wasn’t an option, though. I didn’t want to have a full-on convo, so I replied with
GOING TO A PARTY WITH CURT
. After a few seconds of consideration, I added a:-) to the end and hit Send.

I plugged my phone into the charger and flopped down on my bed. Logan jumped up next to me and snuggled up into my armpit. “I’m going to have the best night ever, Little Lo,” I said, stroking his fur. “Now, what should I wear?” I tried to start planning my outfit, but I slipped off into my nap before I even had a shirt picked out.

CHAPTER 2

I’d like to say it was the smell of pizza that gently lulled me from my nap, but that would be a lie. It was the yelling, and it’s more like it shoved me out of bed with cold hands.

“I already told you, go out and get a job if you’re so miserable!”

“I never said I was miserable. Stop putting words in my mouth. I just said I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I haven’t worked for seventeen years.”

“Volunteer. Work part-time. Do something. Anything!”

“Well, Kara doesn’t need—”

“Don’t do something for Kara. Do something for yourself. I swear, you have no life of your own. You have no identity anymore. I don’t even recognize my wife. What happened to your personality?”

This was bad. I pulled the pillow over my head to drown them out, but it didn’t matter. It’s like they were in my room, yelling at each other on the edge of my bed. Logan gave a whimper and burrowed his fuzzy butt under my covers.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but she hasn’t needed you in a long time. She can even drive herself to dance and school now.”

“So, you just think I’m completely useless, don’t you? It doesn’t matter that I keep the house clean and make meals and—”

“Of course I don’t think that! You’re not even listening—”

Since the pillow wasn’t working—nothing could drown out the deluge of swearwords that were flying back and forth like daggers now—I decided to give it up. It was time to get ready for the party, anyway. I blasted my music as loud as I could without making it obvious I was trying to tune them out, and I did my best to ignore it all as I put on my makeup. It was no easy feat, because this had to be the worst fight I’d ever heard my parents have. They usually went out of their way to keep from fighting where I could hear them so clearly; I wondered what had happened to make them just not even give a single eff anymore.

I stared at myself in the mirror, zoning out as I tried to plan my escape from the house. It was going to take some James Bond–level sneaking to grab a piece of pizza from the kitchen and creep out the front door without drawing any attention to myself. I was daydreaming up an elaborate plan that involved using Logan as a distraction when the sound of the front door slamming made me jump. I hurried over to my window right in time to catch sight of my dad’s SUV backing out of the driveway and peeling off down the street.