The Diary of Lexi Ashford (Lexi Ashford: Part One) (7 page)

Wine coolers? Yeah, that’ll work if by wine coolers she means tequila shots.

“This is going to be so much fun. Just no hard alcohol, okay. We don’t want to get too crazy.” She whisks out the door, wiggling her fingers at me.

“You know, I never would’ve thought it was possible, but I think she got even more peppy than when she was a cheerleader,” I say to Mom after Carrie Lynn leaves the loft.

“She seems nice, though.” My mom continues to wipe the goo all over her face, smearing it over her cheeks and eyelids.

“Mom, what is that?”

“It’s a face mask. It’s supposed to give my skin a glittery glow and make me look fifty years younger.”

“You’re only fifty, Mom, so how can you look fifty years younger?” I point out, leaning against the counter. “And it looks like Ghostbusters slime. Where’d you even get it?”

“This lovely young man was going door to door, selling it out of his van.” She eyeballs the bottle. “It does kind of look like the slime, doesn’t it?” She smiles and then breaks out into an off-key version of the movie’s theme song as she continues to lather goo all over her face.

I sit down on the edge of their bed and dig the invitation out of the bag. Despite the heavy amounts of glitter on it—seriously, it looks like a faerie pooped on it—I decide the party might not be too bad. I’ll be back by Sunday and can unpack then start looking for a job first thing Monday morning. Half the stores in the town aren’t open on weekends, anyway.

And Vegas sounds fun. What could possibly go wrong?

Chapter 9

That night, while sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor of my parents’ loft, I dream of sexy strangers with green eyes, dinging slot machines, clouds that rain glitter, crazy-ass zombie gnomes eating my flesh, and baby marshmallow men sprouting from my mom’s zero day old skin. By the time I wake up, I’ve vowed to throw away my mom’s face cream and to start my investigation on Evan Mackay.

The next morning, before I head off to Carrie Lynn’s, I circle some potential jobs in the newspaper and then ask my mom if she still has any of my old yearbooks.

“I think I kept a couple.” She tears her attention away from color coordinating her yawn just long enough to point over at the kitchen. “Check the top drawer by the fridge.”

I dig through the drawer filled with random junk until I find my sophomore yearbook and fan through the pages until I find where Evan Mackay’s photo should be, but he was MIA for picture day. I check the clubs and the index, but nope. Nothing.

“The dude’s a ghost,” I mutter, shutting the book.

My mom starts humming the Ghostbusters theme again. “That reminds me. I need to put on my mask.”

Not wanting to hear her chew my butt off because I threw the mask away the moment I woke up, I grab my bag and bolt out the door, even though it’s early. I have to make a quick stop by Mrs. Timpler’s, anyway, because she’s letting me store my stuff in her garage.

It takes me a total of three minutes to drive there and two more minutes to pile my stuff into the corner of the garage.

“That’s all your stuff?” Mrs. Timpler questions, eyeing over my boxes and bags.

“I’m a minimalist,” I lie.

The truth is I suck with money and planning my future. I’ve just never thought about it that much until recently. I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of gal, and while it’s been a fun ride, it’s depressing seeing your life crammed in a total of six boxes and two bags.

“Thanks for letting me keep it here.” I wave to Mrs. Timpler as I open my car door.

“It’s no problem at all.” She wanders toward my car as the garage door closes. “I owe your mom, anyway, for all that confetti I’ve borrowed over the years.”

I smile, even though I have no clue what she’s talking about, and I really don’t want to, considering I’ve seen what she does with confetti. Then I get into my car and drive toward Carrie Lynn’s.

Since I’m still early, I stop by the grocery store to buy a bottle of tequila. After getting into a very uncomfortable conversation with one of my teachers about what I’m doing with my life, I end up arriving ten minutes late, which is apparently the end of the world in peppy ex-cheerleader land.

“There you are!” She jogs down the gravel driveway toward me as I climb out of my car. “We were getting worried about you! I even called your mom since I don’t have your phone number, but she told me not to worry, because you’re always late.” She places her hands on her hips. “I hate to be a thorn in the behind, but we have a tight schedule to follow, so I’d appreciate it if you could leave the tardiness here in the driveway.”

“Got it.” I pantomime dropping something in the driveway, but the gesture goes over her head. I grab my bag then bump the car door shut. “Quick question, though. Isn’t Vegas supposed to be, I don’t know, a place to let go and be crazy? Do whatever the hell you want? Be carefree? Not follow a schedule?”

She shakes her head. “Being carefree is for hippies and those girls who wear those sweatpants that say things like ‘juicy’ and ‘sexy’ on the rear end.”

I glance at the sweatpants she’s wearing that are decorated with ‘Bride to Be’ on the behind, but she simply shrugs.

“Okay, so we have one car we’re taking.” She rounds the back of the biggest SUV I have ever seen. “And this is our driver, Evan.” She gestures at the guy piling bags into the back of the car.

Evan? Sexy Stranger is the driver?

“I’m not your driver, Carrie Lynn.” Evan tosses a bag into the back of the SUV. “I’m just doing your fiancé a favor.”

“Because you’re too nice.” Emersyn Mackay, Ander’s younger sister, and I guess Evan’s, too, drapes her arm around Evan. “But I’m glad you’re going, big bro. God knows what’d happen to me if I went alone with them. I’d probably come back with hair twice the size of my head and addicted to lollipops and bubblegum.”

“What do you mean by that?” Carrie Lynn pops a bubble. “Because it feels like you mean something.”

Emersyn grins wickedly, but doesn’t say anything.

Shaking her head, Carrie Lynn faces me. “Do you know Emersyn? If you don’t, you really should. I think you two will get along great. You have the same odd sense of humor.”

I glance at Emersyn, dressed in black jeans, boots, and a plaid shirt, no glitter or sparkles in sight. “I could maybe see that happening.”

Emersyn skims me over with doubt. “I don’t know. That’s some awfully sparkly eyeshadow you’re wearing.”

I instinctively touch the corner of my eye. “Hey, it’s black.”

“It looks like it’s shimmering,” she says with insinuation.

“It’s just the sunlight,” I lie. The color is called shimmering midnight, but she doesn’t need to know that. “And what about you?”

She looks taken aback. “I don’t have anything glittery, shimmering, sparkling, or twinkling on me. I know that for a fact.”

I give a pressing glance at her clunky boots.

When she tracks my gaze, her eyes narrow. “Dammit, Carrie Lynn, why do you have to put glitter on everything?”

“I didn’t mean to put it on your shoes,” Carrie Lynn protests. “It must’ve leaked out of one of the suitcases.”

Emersyn, Evan, and I stare at a trail of glitter that goes from the bumper to the inside of the SUV where the suitcases are piled. Then Evan reaches in and lifts up a bright pink bag with hearts on it. Glitter leaks from the bottom and floats to the floor.

“Darn it, the bin must’ve leaked,” Carrie Lynn says as she sends a text. “I’ll be right back. Stacey’s having a shoe crisis. Too many shoes, not enough bags.”

Once she’s in the house, I turn to Emersyn and Evan. “Anyone else worried about the bin of glitter she’s bringing?”

“Not as worried as I am about this schedule she has planned.” Emersyn pulls a repulsed face at the glitter. “And how the glitter fits in it.” She lets her head fall back and stares at the sky. “God, I hope we aren’t doing arts and crafts.”

“Me, neither,” I agree. “Unless I’m high. I get really creative when I’m high.”

Emersyn’s lips tug into a tiny smile. “You do that a lot?

I give a half shrug. “Nah. Not too much. Just whenever I hang out with Miss F.”

Her brows drip. “Who’s Miss F?”

“My cranky, old neighbor.” I sigh, feeling homesick for Miss F. and our crazy running-errands-when-you’re-high adventures. “But, anyway, I’ll tell you what. If arts and crafts ends up coming up, I’ll fake food poisoning, and you can pretend you have to run me to the hospital.”

She considers my offer, and then a grin breaks out across her face. “Sounds like a deal. Now, if you could solve the wine-coolers-only problem, we should be golden.”

Grinning, I do my best mafia-come-a-little-closer gestu
re and show her the bottle of tequila in my bag.

“Mad props, city girl.” She snatches the bottle from my bag, throws back a swig, and then offers the bottle to me.

I take a tiny sip, but don’t go too crazy. It is only ten o’clock in the morning, after all—I need to wait until at least lunch time—and we have a long drive ahead of us. I need to pace myself, not get too crazy too fast. Otherwise, I’ll turn into reckless Lexi, and she causes even more chaos than sober Lexi.

Yep, I definitely need to take it easy. The last thing I want to do is end up in Vegas, drunk off my ass. Knowing my luck, I’ll end up in some cheesy Elvis wedding chapel, wearing a weird kitty cat get-up, marrying a guy named Bologna who wears a collection of Smurf doll head necklaces around his neck and sports an athletic cup all the time because, as he says, “To protect his nuts from squirrels! They’re sneaky, little bastards! They’ll get you when you least expect it!”

True story. Not about the marriage part, but about the guy named Bologna.

I met him during a strange night when I somehow ended up drunk in the park, wearing a cardboard box and talking to a tree about my life problems.

“I have to pee,” Emersyn announces. “I guess I better go now, since the first scheduled bathroom stop isn’t for another three hours.” Grumbling under her breath, she hikes up the driveway toward the house.

“So, how’s Veronica Mars doing?” Evan asks as he lightly chucks the pink bag back into the trunk.

“She’s doing great.” I hold my finger and thumb an inch apart. “I’m this close to figuring you out. I even found your photo in the yearbook. You were pretty photogenic, if I do say so myself.”

“That’s funny because I’m pretty sure I was purposefully absent every year during picture day.” He folds his lean arm across his chest and stares me down, doing that freaky, unblinking thing again. “And I wasn’t photogenic at all. Never have been.”

“Yeah, right. Have you seen yourself?” I pause, realizing what I said aloud, and then quickly add, “Okay, okay. I looked in one yearbook and couldn’t find a photo of you. I thought I’d go out on a limb, though, because I didn’t think you’d be MIA in all of them.”

“Well, I was, and for a very good reason.” He chews on his bottom lip, looking lost in deep thought, and it just might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Then he shakes his head, as if clearing his thoughts, and slams the back of the vehicle shut. “Keep tryin’,
Lex
. I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually, or maybe you can just ask my brother since the two of you seem so close.”

“We aren’t close.” Although, if I had my way, we’d be dirty texting each other already.

“Really? That’s weird since I spent all last night listening to him talk about how much he likes you and how he really wants to ask you out, but he’s too worried you’ll say no.”

“
Really
?”

“Yep, right after we painted each other’s toenails and braided each other’s hair.” He shakes his head before heading to the side of the SUV.

“Not all girls do that!” I yell after him, but he merely chuckles and slips into the driver’s seat.

Grr.
Damn him. Why won’t he just tell me? It’s so frustrating, yet at the same time, I find his desire to torture me very sexy.

“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” Emersyn stops by my side, giving me a quizzical look. “You look sexually frustrated, like you’re about to dry hump the car.” She steps back. “Should I give you two a minute or what?”

I tear my gaze off the SUV. “Your brother’s got me frustrated. I can’t figure out who he is. It’s driving me bananas.”

She crosses her arms and cocks a brow. “You still haven’t figured that out?”

“He told you about that, huh?” I ask and she nods. I grimace. “I feel bad about it, but it’s not like I was Miss Popular in high school. I probably wouldn’t recognize a lot of people.” Lie. I’ve remembered everyone I’ve run into so far, but I’m not about to admit that and make myself look more like an ass.

“Yeah, I remember, kangaroo shirt girl.” The hardness in her expression softens as I cringe. “Okay, I’m going to do you a favor as one ex-dork to another. When you’re trying to remember Evan, picture him as your mother’s worst nightmare. He was so Emo back then. I’m serious, like, really mopey, and he used to lock himself in his bedroom and spend hours writing depressing poetry.” She rolls her eyes. “He had really badly dyed black hair, wore eyeliner, spiky collars, bracelets, chains, and had a ton of piercings.”

It clicks. Well, sort of.

“I know the guy you’re talking about, but that guy’s name wasn’t Evan.” And I know I’m thinking of the right person because there was a total of one Emo kid in Fairville. “His name was Silver.”

“Yeah, Silver is Evan’s middle name. But he went by it in high school because he thought it fit his”—she makes air quotes— “ ‘tortured, misunderstood soul.’ ”

I process what she just told me. Silver—or Evan—and I used to talk a lot during chemistry class. Or, well, I did a lot of talking while he worked on our assignment and nodded his head a lot. I was never quite sure if he was listening or if he just had some weird, constant muscle spasm in his neck.

“All right, ladies, who’s ready to party like it’s 1999!” Carrie Lynn cheers as she and her four friends walk out of the house. They’re wearing the same pants as Carrie Lynn, only the butts of theirs say ‘Bridesmaid Bitches Posse.’ And they’re all sporting tiaras. “You girls remember Lexi Ashford, right?” Carrie Lynn says to them when the five of them reach me. “She went to school with us. She’s the one who wore that shirt with a horse on it all the time.”