Rotten Apple (15 page)

“No, I told you that’s what
my mother’s
advice would be!” Apple corrected him.

“Well, it didn’t work!” he scoffed.

“I never said it would work! I mean, no one can see into the future. She’s not a fortune teller. She just gives out advice!” Apple tried explaining.

“Well, it was bad advice. I should never have listened to it. I mean, if I had just asked Happy when I wanted to, she would have been going with
me
, not Hopper.”

“Yes, there is something to be said for going on your gut instinct,” Apple said.

“Yeah. I snoozed and now I lose. I don’t even want to go to the dance anymore. I just want the whole thing to be over and done with,” Zen muttered.

Apple felt awful. She needed to make it up to Zen. She needed, more than anything, for Zen to not be mad at her. He clearly blamed her for the turn of events. And rightly so, Apple thought.

“Zen, I have an idea,” she told him, grabbing his arm so he would have to stand still.

“It’s not more advice from your mother, is it?” he asked, bitterly.

“No,” Apple said.

She couldn’t believe she was about to do what she was going to do, but she really wanted to. “Well, it’s just an idea,” she said. “But maybe if you went to the dance anyway and looked good and acted very charming to Happy, she’d spend most of the night with
you
. I mean, it’s just the Valentine Ball. She’s going with Hopper just as friends. You heard them this morning.”

“I don’t know,” Zen said as if he seemed to be considering it.

“Come on! Don’t give up now. You know what I’ll even do for you?” Apple pressed, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

“What?”

“I’ll go as your date. You know, so you don’t have to show up alone. I think you could win Happy back, no problem. She may even think you look chivalrous,” Apple said, trying to get him into the spirit.

This was so not how I wanted this to work out, thought Apple. I wanted to go with Zen, but not like this. Not like this at all. This was not how it was supposed to go down.

But maybe once Zen saw her in another light, he would think of her differently. Stranger things have happened.

“So, will you go to the Valentine Ball as my date?” Apple pressed.

“Thanks Apple, but I think I’ll pass,” Zen said, without taking even a moment to think about it.

God, no one can find out about this, Apple thought. Oh, God, she thought, what if Happy finds out that I knew that Zen wanted to ask her but that I didn’t tell her?

Apple realized, for the first time, that she needed help. She needed to
talk
to someone. She obviously couldn’t go to Happy or Brooklyn. Aunt Hazel, maybe? But her aunt was so crazy, and besides, Crazy Aunt Hazel couldn’t figure out her
own
life.

Sitting together collecting clothes for the next hour was painful. Apple had no idea how to pretend to ignore that Zen had turned her down so cruelly. Zen didn’t
speak much either. Apple knew his mind was on Happy and Hopper. She busied herself by folding clothes.

As she watched Zen walk off after the hour, she thought that volunteering to get closer to him hadn’t worked at all. In fact, now he was just mad at her. Why couldn’t he just like me, Apple thought—why did it have to be so difficult?

As she walked home, she remembered some of her mom’s opinions about the importance of sharing your feelings and asking for advice. She knew she had to take action, because she couldn’t keep leading her life this way. She was even sincerely questioning if
she
, not Happy, was the one who needed a shrink, based on her actions in recent weeks. When had she turned from Good Apple into Rotten Apple?

It pained Apple to even think about it, but there was one person she knew she could ask for help. And that person was so easy to find, at least for Apple—her mother, Dr. Bee Bee Berg.

When she arrived home and headed to her bedroom, Apple locked the door. Apple never locked her door, but this time she needed to. She sat down at her desk, fired up her computer, and created an anonymous e-mail account and a fake e-mail name.

Where should she start? She knew that her mother and Guy preferred to answer the shorter e-mails rather than the ten-page-long ones Dr. Bee Bee Berg sometimes received from distressed, and possibly disturbed, viewers. She also knew that her mom and Guy loved e-mails that included a bit of flattery.

Apple began to type.

Apple reread the e-mail. Then she gulped, hit the Send key, and closed down her computer. Okay, that was done. And then, like in a nightmare you suddenly wake up from, Apple could barely catch her breath. Wait—did she sign herself “Apple” on the anonymous e-mail she sent her mother? Oh, my God. She was an idiot! Apple restarted her computer, which seemed to take hours to reboot. She bit her nails. She already knew, in her heart, what she had done. She typed in the password to her new e-mail account, clicked on Sent, and scanned immediately to the bottom of the message. There it was. Right after signing “Bigmistakegirl,” there was also her
real
name, standing out as bright as Christmas lights.

How could she have let this happen? Breathe, Apple, just breathe. What are the chances that her mother, or Guy, would ever actually read the e-mail she had sent? After all, they received hundreds of e-mails a week. The only reason they had probably opened Happy’s so quickly was that she had written in the subject line that it was from Apple’s friend. Breathe, Apple, just breathe. She felt like she was holding her breath, even though she knew she was actually inhaling and exhaling. Maybe there was another girl out there with the unfortunate name Apple. But what were the chances of that? God, if only her name had been Anne or Jane or something normal she wouldn’t be so worried. Apple hated herself. She couldn’t even send a fake e-mail correctly. She needed help in more ways than one.

pple walked around the house aimlessly. She opened and shut the fridge door a dozen times. She flipped through old magazines. She had no idea what to do with herself—she felt restless, and like jumping out of or peeling off her skin. It had been three days of what had seemed like nothing less than torture. Every time she saw her mother, Guy, Hazel, or her father at home, she looked for signs that they had found out what she had done. Just yesterday, her father had stared at her strangely, Apple thought. But all he said was, “You know I love you, kid, right?”

And when Crazy Aunt Hazel said, out of the blue one evening, “I know what you did, missus!” Apple had felt her stomach do a somersault. It turned out Crazy Aunt Hazel was only complaining that Apple had finished the carton of her aunt’s favorite ice cream.

Though Apple was paranoid, and was watching her family like a hawk, everyone in her house seemed to
be acting totally normally, at least as normally as usual. She knew she should get outside and go for a walk—anything to get her away from her computer. She could walk down to Market Mall and look at clothes, but she had never felt so unattractive in her life, and she couldn’t imagine even having the energy to try anything on. No, not even shopping would make her feel better right now. There was only one thing Apple wanted to do.

It was as if another person had taken over her body as she walked zombie-like upstairs to her mother’s office.

She logged on, slowly typing out the letters P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D.

She scrolled down. The inbox seemed bottomless. Every day, it seemed, there were more and more e-mails from the lovelorn. No wonder her mother and Guy were always so busy. Heartbreak never took a vacation.

Apple scanned the From column, her heart pounding, and saw that the e-mail from her—from Bigmistakegirl—had been opened. I knew it, thought Apple. I just knew it—my mother read it already and maybe she even started to respond.

Apple was freaking out. Guy and her mother must know that
she
was Bigmistakegirl. They weren’t stupid.

She clicked on Draft and saw two paragraphs that someone—her mother, or Guy—had written in response. Her eyes scanned quickly over the words, trying to make sense of them. But Apple couldn’t focus. She had to think. She inhaled deeply.

Suddenly she heard heels clicking across the floor downstairs. Shit, thought Apple. My mother is home!

“Apple!” she heard her name being called. “Apple? Are you home? You left your jacket lying on the floor in the hallway, and all the lights are on down here.”

There couldn’t possibly be a worse time for her mother to show up. She hadn’t finished reading the response to her e-mail! She needed to know what her mother’s advice was.

What should I do? thought Apple frantically, jumping up from the chair, looking desperately at the screen. What should I do? She couldn’t read while hearing her mother’s heels clicking closer and closer.

She heard her say, “Apple? Are you here?”

I know! I’ll just forward my mother’s response to my account, thought Apple. That way I can read it later from the privacy of my own room. “Apple?” her mother called out again. “What are you doing up here?”

“Um, yeah!” Apple called back. “I’m up here!”

Her mother climbed the stairs and entered the office.

That was too close, thought Apple. She didn’t turn around to face her mother.

“I was just, um, using your computer because mine has a virus and kept shutting down,” Apple stuttered at the screen. Her face felt like fire. She felt faint.

“Well, hurry up then. I need to get on it. Do you think you need another computer? We can go out this weekend and buy one for you,” her mother said, sitting down on a nearby chair and kicking off her shoes. She began massaging her feet.

“Thanks, that’s okay. I’m sure it will work out. I’ll just be a minute,” Apple said.

She clicked on to the Sent page to make sure she had forwarded the e-mail to her account. But something seemed wrong. Apple looked more closely at her mother’s response, which she thought she had forwarded. Why in the To line did it show Happy’s name and e-mail address? Oh. No. No. No. No. No. NO!

“Oh my God,” screamed Apple.

“What? What is it?” her mother asked, jumping off her chair and racing over. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Her mother looked over Apple’s shoulder at the screen.

“What are you doing reading the letters to the Queen of Hearts?” she asked, flabbergasted.

“I was just … I was just …” Apple couldn’t form a complete sentence. Her mind was on what else she had just done. How had she accidentally forwarded her letter and her mother’s response to Happy? She knew it had been because she was so flustered to hear her mother come in, along with the fact that she had been thinking about Happy. She must have typed in Happy’s name instead of her own.

Then her mother started yelling at her, like she had never heard her mother scream before.

“Apple! Are you reading my mail? Apple, I asked you a question,” Dr. Berg demanded. “That looks like one of my responses! Answer me right now, young lady! I’ve told you before that you have to respect readers’ privacy.”

Apple couldn’t take the pressure anymore. She couldn’t take one more thing going wrong in her life.

“Yes, Mother! I was. You caught me. I was looking at your private e-mails, and I’ve been doing it for weeks,” she screamed, getting out of the chair and slamming her hand on the table. It actually felt good to let it out. At least for a split second it did.

“You
know
you’re not supposed to do that! And just how did you get in, anyway?” her mother yelled.

“Because your password is
password!
Everyone in this house knows that!” Apple yelled back.

“Wait.
You’re
the Apple who sent me that question! My God, I thought there was another Apple out there. I was even going to tell you about it. It was
you?
YOU?” her mother gasped, slapping her hand on her forehead. “It was YOU! I cannot believe this,” her mother said, sounding bowled over.

“Yes, fine! It was me! Me!” Apple said, holding up her hands as if to say, “I’ve been caught!”

Dr. Berg grabbed her daughter by both shoulders. “Apple, you’re grounded!” It was the first time Apple’s mother had ever used that sentence. “You are
grounded
. I’m mortified, just mortified by what you have done to your friend. And, as a professional, I’m also mortified that you would take advantage this way. Not to mention that I’m also mortified, as your mother, that I raised a daughter who would think any of this was okay.”

“I don’t care! My life is over anyway,” Apple screamed, escaping from her mother’s hands.

Oh, God, Happy would see not only her mother’s response, but also every word Apple had written
to
her mother—everything she had done. And her stupid, stupid name. Yes, Apple’s life was definitely over. O-V-E-R.

She stormed away from her mother, who was now sitting on a chair, resting her hands on her head and her elbows on her knees, as if she was suffering from a very bad migraine. Apple took the stairs down two by two to her bedroom, and slammed the door.

She searched frantically for her phone. She had no idea if her mother was about to come down and take away all her electronic gadgets. She wasn’t sure exactly what her mother meant by her being grounded, since it had never happened before. She couldn’t find the phone anywhere. God, she really was turning into her crazy, totally disorganized aunt Hazel, who lost her home phone—in her home—for days sometimes. Apple finally found her cell phone in her bag.

She pressed down hard on the number 1 key, the speed dial to Happy.

For as long as Apple could remember, Happy had been number 1 on her speed dial. Pick up, Happy, pick up, Apple willed in her head.

“Hello, Apple,” she heard Happy say, after it rang twice. Apple could tell, by Happy’s tone, that all was not cool. Apple took a deep breath.

“Hi, Happy. Listen. There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Apple said. She felt faint, and her heart was pounding a million beats per second. It was the exact same feeling she used to have when old Zen passed her in the hallways. But this was worse—way worse. She felt desperate. What was it her mother always said? Something about the truth being the best way to get out of sticky situations?

“And what would that be?” Happy asked in a snarky tone. Of course, Apple’s last hope of explaining
before
Happy saw the e-mail had collapsed. Happy had been carrying around her BlackBerry like it was glued to her ever since she and Zen had started e-mailing each other. All Happy’s e-mails were forwarded to her BlackBerry. She had probably got the e-mail one second after Apple had sent it by mistake.

“Okay,” Apple said, swallowing. “Well, an e-mail was sent to you that was not supposed to be sent to you.”

“Really?” Happy said the way she would to a three-year-old. “Do explain.”

Apple suddenly felt exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept in months. She was tired of playing games. She was tired of lying. With one hand, she wiped away tears that had formed like big raindrops. “I know you read it,” she said. “I can tell by the sound of your voice.”

“You’re right, Apple. I did read it,” Happy answered.

Apple felt miserable. She needed to make things right again with her best friend, at any cost. Though Apple dreaded confrontation, she knew she couldn’t avoid it now.

“Can I explain, please?” Apple pleaded. “Please, just let me explain.”

“You can try,” Happy said, sounding bored. Apple could imagine her sitting there filing her nails.

But she felt a surge of hope. If Happy would at least let her explain what had happened, then maybe she would understand and forgive her. Maybe she’d understand that, like Dr. Bee Bee Berg always said in her show, one should never underestimate what heartbreak
can do to a woman. And Apple was going to tell the truth, finally. That should count for something.

“Well,” she began, “I had feelings for Zen. Actually, I’ve had a huge crush on him for, like, two years. I never told you. I never told anyone. It’s like you guys always call me—I’m the Sponge. And I didn’t want to jinx it. Crazy Aunt Hazel always talks so optimistically about her men the second she meets one, and it always ends in disaster. I didn’t want that to happen. And I didn’t want you to think that I was pathetic for liking him for so long and not telling you about it. And what if he never liked me? I don’t want to end up like Aunt Hazel, hurt all the time. But then you started liking him, and I was torn. I know what I did was awful. I know I should have told you right at the beginning. I know I shouldn’t have tried to sabotage your relationship. I didn’t want to—I just couldn’t help it. One thing led to another and it got completely out of hand. I never meant to hurt you, Happy. I would never do that. You’re my best friend. You know that,” Apple said, choking out her last words with tears.

There was a pause.

“If you liked Zen so much, why would you want to hurt him?” Happy asked. “That’s what I really would like to know.”

“I didn’t want to hurt Zen. I didn’t want to hurt him at all,” Apple professed.

“Well, you did,” Happy said.

“No, I didn’t. I know he still likes you. That hasn’t changed. That never changed.”

“I know he does,” Happy said. “Trust me, I
know
he still likes me.”

“See?” Apple said, getting excited. Maybe it would all work out. Maybe Happy wasn’t that mad, after all. Now that she knew that Zen still liked her, maybe everything would be fine. Maybe Happy wasn’t that pissed off. She still had the man—this was just a little bump in the road of their friendship. All friendships had bumps in the road, didn’t they?

“He’s pissed too,” Happy said.

“Oh, I know he’s pissed because he’s not going to the Valentine Ball with you. But I’m sure he’ll still show up and you and him can still spend the dance together. I’m sure Hopper won’t mind. He’ll understand,” Apple said, her mouth becoming drier and drier.

“No, he’s not pissed at that. Well, he
is
pissed at that, but he’s also pissed at what you did,” Happy said.