The International Kissing Club (4 page)

“Cell phones away, everyone,” Ms. Vogel said, her honey-blond ponytail bobbing back and forth, her bright overexaggerated smile beaming like she was still leading cheers at a pep rally. “Boys and girls, I need your undivided attention.”

Cassidy and Izzy snickered. Ms. Vogel had graduated from Paris High School six years ago. This was her first school counselor position out of grad school, and at twenty-four, the former head cheerleader was all of seven years older than the students, so calling them “boys and girls” was a little condescending, to say the least.

The projector turned on, blaring the words “Broaden Your Horizons” across the pull-down screen.

“Have you ever thought about what it would be like to live somewhere else?” asked Ms. Vogel.
Only every day of my life
, Cassidy thought.

Ms. Vogel flipped the slide to a collage of pictures of American-looking teenagers laughing and hanging out in front of Buckingham Palace, beneath the Eiffel Tower, listening to mariachis, taking pictures of the Taj Mahal.

“How about another
country
? Becoming a foreign exchange student
could give you the opportunity to travel, to learn about a different culture, or perhaps even become fluent in another language.”

In her peripheral vision Cassidy saw Piper sit up in her seat and lean forward, hanging on every word coming from Ms. Vogel’s lips.

The next slide: kids sitting outside on a green lawn listening raptly to an Asian teacher.

“For ten weeks you can go to school …”

A picture of a Hispanic family having dinner together, laughing, an American boy at the table with them.

“… live with another family …”

A shot of Buddhist monks holding lit candles in their hands, praying.

“… learn about different cultures …”

The last slide was an American girl dressed in a beautiful sari, dancing at a festival.

“… you could see a different way of life, be a different person.”

It actually sounded pretty awesome to Cassidy. She’d take any one of the places in those pictures. Just imagine: ten whole weeks away from Paris, Texas, with its small-town ways and its small-minded people; a whole semester in a place where no one knew her, her mom, or their whole sordid family history—because even though Cassidy empathized with Piper’s ordeal, she had really only been suffering a few months. Cassidy had been a walking scandal her whole life.

She glanced down the row, past Izzy, who was checking her phone surreptitiously under her desk, and Mei, still bent over her chemistry textbook, to look at Piper. From the far-off look in Piper’s eyes, Cassidy could tell she wasn’t the only one ready to blow this pop-stand town.

The lights came back on, warranting a collective groan from the class.

“Do you have any questions, boys and girls?”

One hand went up in the front. “If I go to Sweden, can I live with a family that has twin daughters?” Jackson Grosbeck asked. The guys all snickered appreciatively.

Ms. Vogel pursed her perfect bow-shaped mouth and froze Jackson
with an obviously oft-practiced glacial stare.
Brrr.
Germaine had some serious competition for ice queen of Paris High.

“Any
real
questions?” she followed up. “If anyone would like more information on placement as a foreign exchange student, there are brochures in the box or you can come see me. But you need to hurry if you want to be placed for the spring semester.”

Having lived in the same small town her whole life, in the same house, on the same street, and gone to school with the same kids since pre-K—which was pretty much the story for every one of the kids in this room except Izzy—Cassidy’s only question was, Where did she sign up? But coming from a single-parent household meant your vacation was to Papa and Memaw’s leaky fishing cottage on the Texas coast, where you avoided tar balls, seaweed, and red tide—the highlights of the so-called Redneck Riviera—and not ten weeks on the real one in Europe.

Oh, well. She’d already spent almost seventeen years in Paris, Texas—what was another two? And yet, Cassidy couldn’t help but think that if she did have the money, she’d sign up for one of those trips in a heartbeat, and spring couldn’t come soon enough.

After school, the girls ended up at Yogurt Worxx to rally Piper, who needed the extra encouragement. Yogurt Worxx wasn’t that much closer to school than the Dairy Queen, but Izzy liked it because, as she was always saying, it was more urbane. Plus, it had fewer calories. Not that watching her weight concerned Cassidy much—she spent too many hours running drills up and down the basketball court for it to matter. She descended on the toppings buffet as if it were her last meal on death row.

“Today wasn’t too bad, right, Piper?” Cassidy asked, coating her mixture of birthday cake, tart green apple, and island banana froyo with Cap’n Crunch, strawberries, and white chocolate chips. “I really only heard an oink or two, and I shut those down pretty quick. Piper?”

She glanced over to see that Piper was planted facedown on her notebook at their usual table by the window.

“Think about it this way, Pipes,” Izzy said around a mouthful of blueberry granola and plain yogurt, “there’s only seventy-one more shopping days till Christmas vacation.”

“Sixty-eight if you don’t include Thanksgiving break. Come on, Piper, have some iced chai; nonfat, just how you like it. You know you want to.” Mei swirled the drink on the table next to Piper’s triple-pierced ear.

Piper finally sat up and shook her head, oblivious to the L-shaped indentation the corner of her notebook had pressed into her forehead. Cassidy bit her cheek to keep from smiling, while Mei looked away and Izzy allowed herself to get distracted checking her phone again. Because if Piper knew, this pity party would go till long after dark and they all had homework to do.

“I’ll never make it that long, y’all. Never.” She sagged in her chair. “It’s like … like … I’m drowning in a vat of Germaine’s venom. I’ve got to get away from this town. It’s the only way.” She exhaled a woe-is-me breath with silent-film-star expertise.

“Okay, take it down a notch, drama queen,” Cassidy teased, eliciting a mock bite-me glare from her best friend. “Where you gonna go? Even if you transfer to North Lamar or Chisum High—which you aren’t—it wouldn’t change anything. They’re not far enough away to make a difference.”

“No, but this is.” Piper unrolled the paper she’d been clutching in her fist and put it on the table. It was one of Ms. Vogel’s brochures.

“France?” the other three said in unison, staring at the picture of the Eiffel Tower. It looked just like the one that stood on the outskirts of town, only this one didn’t sport a cowboy hat on top.

“You’re not going to France, Piper,” Cassidy said. ‘
Cause nobody’s leaving here without me.

“Why not? Think about it. I could go to Paris, the
real
Paris, and study French and art and drama—”

“Which you study here,” Izzy pointed out.

“But I wouldn’t have to hear any oinking or smooching sounds or see Germaine’s smug face for an
entire
semester. It would be heaven! And maybe by that time there’d be a new Internet sensation and everyone would stop focusing on my pig-kissing exploits.”

“Let me get this straight: you want to go all the way to Paris,
France
, to get away from Germaine?” Mei asked incredulously.

“You can’t do that,” Izzy protested. “She’ll think you’re running away.”

“It
is
running away,” Cassidy said. Not that she could blame Piper. They all knew that Germaine—as bad as she was—was only half of Piper’s problem. When it came to tormenting Piper, her mom was nearly as bad as the Wicked Witch of the West. As much as it sucked to be poor, Cassidy knew that her own mom would do anything for her. Of course, that kind of devotion could be almost as stifling as the town’s low expectations of her.

“You can’t let Germaine win,” Mei insisted.

Piper stared at her in disbelief. “She
has
won. The girl made me kiss a pig and turned me into a laughingstock in front of the entire country. Do you know how many fans the Kiss the Pig fan page has on Facebook?” When no one answered, she continued, “Over
three million
!”

“Still. If she thinks she’s won, it will only get worse.”

“Really, Mei? Worse? Tell me, please, exactly how do you think it’s possible for things to get
worse
? Today even the lunch ladies had it out for me—they served bacon cheeseburgers and I’m pretty sure I heard one of them oink.”

Mei’s lips pinched together and she didn’t answer. Cassidy knew it was because she couldn’t. Cassidy had seen Germaine the Mundane at work for four years, and she knew nothing could top this. She glanced down at the tiny white scar on her middle knuckle, the one that had connected with Germaine’s once-perfect nose and caught on one of her vampire fangs—oops, she meant teeth. It had
so
been worth the three stitches.

Silence stretched among the four of them, and with every second that passed Piper seemed to grow more agitated. Obviously she’d expected her friends to be more enthusiastic, and after everything Piper had been through in the last couple of months, Cassidy couldn’t leave her friend hanging.

“I think it’s a great idea.”

“You do?” Piper gave her a broad smile of relief; Mei and Izzy just looked confused.

“I do. Getting away from all this would totally rock. After a few months in France, everything will look better.” In fact, the more she thought about this exchange thing, the more kick-ass it sounded. And not just for Piper …

“But what about Germaine?” Izzy protested. “We still have another year of school after this to live through. If she believes she was able to push Piper out of the country, think what she may plan for the rest of us; she’ll be unbearable!”

“Not necessarily,” Cassidy said carefully, the plan coming together in her head. “Not if we all go, too.”

Mei and Izzy stared at her like she’d spoken rooster. Piper clapped and squealed.

“Really? Y’all would go with me? Then it wouldn’t be just about me running away, it would be like we’d planned this all along: a worldwide adventure to broaden our horizons, to experience indigenous cultures, to—”

“Yeah, right … ‘cause our parents are just going to let us go jet-setting around the globe to save Piper from Germaine. No way.” Izzy snorted.

“Well, obviously we can’t sell it to them like that. We’d be going to school, too,” Piper argued. “There are tons of places in these brochures.” She reached into her hot-pink Poppy purse and pulled out a stack. “We could go anywhere we wanted.”

“We can’t just take off.” Mei shook her head. “What about school here? And the SAT? I’m taking it in March.”

“Shouldn’t life be about more than just the SAT, Mei?”

“Sure. After we’ve rocked it, Piper. But even then, life shouldn’t be all about avoiding embarrassment, either. No matter how much Germaine sucks.”

Cassidy was barely listening to any of them anymore, the possibilities buzzing through her as her gaze scanned the fan of brochures. What if she
could
get the money? She knew a trip like this was expensive—certainly more than her mom could afford working at the hospital lab. And Cass’s after-school job at the dry cleaners three afternoons a week wasn’t going to cut it, either.

There was another option. But she knew it was one she shouldn’t really consider, since it could seriously damage the tight relationship she had with her mom. The problem was, now that she’d thought of it, Cassidy found she couldn’t give it up. Not if it meant there was even the slimmest possibility she could go on the trip.

“I’m going,” she said. Mei and Izzy turned their shocked gazes to her. “Why wouldn’t I want to?” she responded. “It’s only
the
thing we’ve imagined doing every day since we were kids, right?”

“When we go away to college, of course,” Izzy said. “But not in the middle of junior year.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan for you guys, Izzy, but we all know that’s probably not going to happen for me.”

“You’ll get a scholarship, Cass; there’s not a women’s basketball coach in the country who wouldn’t want you,” Mei said.

“And if it doesn’t happen, y’all will be gone and I’ll still be here at Paris Junior College, hanging out at Dairy Queen, since I won’t have you to drag me to Yogurt Worxx because it’s more urban.”

“Urbane,” Izzy said with a smile.

“Whatever. Maybe this is my one chance to get out of town before I’m stuck here forever.”

“Jeez, Cassidy. Don’t you think we’ve had enough drama around here lately?” Izzy asked.

“I’m not saying y’all have to go, too—live and let live—but maybe
Piper’s right. This could be a good thing for all of us. Let’s at least consider it.”

She sifted through the pamphlets. “Look, Mei, here’s one for China. You could go and find out all about your heritage and learn Mandarin. Think how impressive
that
would look on your MIT application. And Izzy, you could go to the rain forest.” Cassidy handed her a brochure for a school in Costa Rica. “You could actually help save some endangered tree frog or something instead of just writing articles about recycling for the school newspaper.”