The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers (6 page)

I
t wasn’t until lunchtime that Lucy finally found Olivia in the senior section of the cafeteria, which Lucy had never been in before. Olivia was sitting at the far corner, leaning back with her feet up under the table resting on the seat across from her. She held a book in one hand and an onion ring in the other.

Lucy walked forward, her stomach in knots. All last year if someone had told Lucy to even set foot in the senior section, she would have been too scared to do it at all. But now, here she was deep in it, standing right there in front of Olivia, and no one seemed to care at all.

Lucy opened her mouth. Without even looking up, Olivia spoke.

“I heard you had a little chat with Liza this morning.” Olivia moved a lock of her white-blonde hair away from her face and glanced at Lucy. Liza, Lucy realized, must be the name of the beautiful one. The one who had been so mean earlier. It seemed strange that she would have a regular person name.

Olivia looked down at the jacket that Lucy was clutching to her chest with both hands. Lucy thrust it out toward her.

“Lumpy suede isn’t really my thing . . . ,” Olivia said. But she was smiling ever so slightly.

“He cried on it,” Lucy said. She was too loud. Olivia’s eyes flashed. Lucy lowered her voice to a whisper. “I was walking back down to the road last night and . . . I saw him crying on his sleeve. And then I was with him in home-room and I thought maybe you would want it because . . . of what you said about tears . . .” Lucy stopped. Olivia stared at her. Maybe this was insane. Maybe it all
had
been a joke. And now here Lucy was standing with some guy’s stolen jacket, not understanding that the joke was over. She felt hot prickles creep up the back of her neck and she watched Olivia’s face. Waited for her to burst out laughing.

Instead, Olivia raised her eyebrows, and in a voice so quiet Lucy could barely hear her, she said, “You know these are useless to you. We can’t fix you with these. It has to be tears you
earned
yourself.”

“Okay,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t think I could use them for me . . . I was just trying to make up for last night. . . .” Lucy looked down. “I thought you might want them.”

Olivia said coolly. “Once we harvest the magic from a broken heart, there is no more. Any additional tears are useless. Which is good, I suppose, because otherwise every time we break a heart we’d have to stand around for a week with a cup. Gil already got the magic from Ethan’s heart when she broke it, which was weeks ago.”

Lucy nodded. “I’m sorry to bother you.” She stepped back, her face burning. What should she do? What
could
she do? She turned to go.

“Wait,” Olivia said. Her voice was a whisper. “Your attempt to help was not particularly helpful. But the effort is endearing. Meet us after school. We like you again,” Olivia said. Lucy could feel Olivia’s smile coursing through her. “For now.”

The rest of the day crept by in slow motion. Lucy went to her bio lab, to her English elective. During her free period she went back to the photo room, and Mr. Wexler showed her how to develop a roll of film. Then European History, Advanced Algebra. In each one she made up vague excuses to explain her absence the day before, and because she was the kind of girl she was, everyone believed her completely and without question.

When the final bell rang, Lucy walked out front. Olivia, Liza, and Gil were across the parking lot, standing around that perfect, baby blue convertible. She started toward them.

Beeeep.

Lucy looked up.

Tristan pulled right up to the curb, window down. He leaned far back in his seat, eyes shaded under a dark brown army hat, looking like he hadn’t gone to class at all, but had in fact been sitting there relaxing all day. One arm was hanging halfway out the window. In his hand was a long pink ribbon at the end of which was a big, shiny Mylar balloon.

“Well, hello there, little lady,” he said. He tugged the string, and the balloon bounced.

“What’s that?” Lucy pointed to the balloon. Written in giant, light blue letters, the same color as the sky,
CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATE.
She raised her eyebrows. “Graduate?”

“Well, they didn’t have ‘Good Riddance, Fucko’ in stock,” said Tristan. “So this seemed like the next-obvious choice. Now hop up in here, little lady. Uncle Tristy is going to take you and this here balloon on an extravaganza of exciting adventures. Yes, that’s right, I said
extravaganza
!” He swooped his arm. The balloon bounced some more.

“That sounds so fun, Tristy. But . . .” Lucy looked up where Olivia, Liza, and Gil were still standing by that car. Gil had her hand raised up to her eyes and she was squinting toward them. When she spotted Lucy, she waved. “I . . . can’t come.”

“Okay,” Tristan said easily, the way he said everything. “Whatcha doing?”

Lucy wanted so badly to tell him the truth. Oh, how much, how very, very much she wanted to. The words were flinging themselves against her cheeks, trying to slip their way out between her clamped lips. Lucy swallowed hard, forced them down. “I’m supposed to do something with them.”

She pointed to where the three girls stood.

Tristan craned his neck to see.

“You are?” He sounded confused. Which made sense. Lucy could not remember the last time she’d had an after-school plan with someone other than Tristan or Alex. It wasn’t that she was a complete social outcast; it’s just that she was sort of invisible. Every so often she’d make a plan with another girl from one of her classes. Usually the plan revolved around doing homework. Once a couple girls from her homeroom had asked her to go shopping but she got a stomachache and couldn’t go. Tristan was basically her only friend.

“Yeah, the short-haired one and I had a class together last year. They asked me to hang out with them after school.” Lucy bit her lip. It wasn’t exactly a lie. But it wasn’t exactly not a lie either.

For a moment they both stared at the three girls standing by that beautiful, old car. It looked like the sun was shining brighter on them than it was on anything else.

Tristan turned back. “That tall one is
mmmf
.” He waggled his eyebrows and stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, a joke imitation of the kind of guy who would do that and mean it. “Wanna do something tomorrow?”

“Yes, please,” she said.

He held out the balloon. “I believe this belongs to you, graduate.”

Lucy turned toward the girls, then looked to the balloon, then back to them. She imagined herself walking up to them with that balloon and started to blush.

Tristan nodded, understood without her saying anything. He smiled. “Have fun, kiddo.”

“Thanks.” She forced a smile back.

Tristan opened his fist. The balloon rose up out of it. “It’s better this way anyway,” he said. “Balloons really hate being tied down.”

Lucy wasn’t sure what to say when she got to the car, so she pretended to cough until they noticed her.

Gil reached out and squeezed Lucy’s hand. A jolt of friendship went all the way up Lucy’s arm into her chest where her empty heart soaked it up.

“I hope your fake cough isn’t contagious,” said Liza.

Olivia gave a sly half smile. She got in the driver’s seat. Liza took shotgun. Gil pulled Lucy next to her in the back.

“Swap time,” Olivia said. The three of them took out their phones and passed them clockwise. Then they started scrolling through each other’s messages.

“Jason M misses you and wants to know your shoe size,” Liza said to Olivia. “Pete wants to make sure we’re coming Saturday. Clarkson says, ‘hahahahahahaha’ with about ten exclamation points. Kyle says a friend of his is having a party tomorrow and that also he is reading a book he thinks you might like and wants to know when he can meet up and give it to you.” Liza turned toward Olivia and rolled her eyes. “And some guy from a three-one-oh number can’t stop thinking about you. Who’s that?”

“Three-one-oh’s L.A.?” Olivia shrugged. “No idea.”

Olivia was looking down at Gil’s phone. “Gilly, Rowan wants to know if he bought you a ticket to visit him in Australia if you’d use it. Jason says he’s sitting next to someone really smelly and that you’re lucky smell-o-texts haven’t been invented yet. Mikey wants to know what you’re up to this weekend and if you like paella. Ethan sent you a heart emoticon, but he did it wrong, used an eight for the top instead of a three.”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Gil said.

“It’s not. It’s ridiculous,” said Liza.

Gil shook her head. “Sammy and Ian F want you to come to a party on Saturday. Evan says he bought you something that he thinks you’ll like and then he wrote a wink face so I guess that means it’s dirty. And Scott called you sixteen times. And . . .” The sound of lightning striking filled the car. “Now seventeen because he’s calling you again.” Gil handed Liza her phone. Liza tossed it in Lucy’s lap.

“Tell him I’m not going to make it this afternoon. Imply that I might be with another boy.”

Lucy looked down.
SCOTT—NOT BROKEN YET
was blinking on the screen.

“It’s a phone,” Liza said. “Pick it up.”

Lucy lifted the phone to her ear. Hit
TALK
. Her palms were already sweating.

“Hel—” she started to say.

“Oh, thank
God.
” The voice coming through the phone was deep, not a boy’s voice but a man’s voice. “I’ve been calling you and calling you. Did you get any of my messages?”

“He-hello?”

“You’re still coming this afternoon, aren’t you?”

“This isn’t . . .”

“Sorry, sorry. That came out wrong. I don’t mean to sound demanding . . .” The voice paused. “It’s just that I planned something special for this afternoon and I wanted to make sure you . . .”

“Um, this isn’t Liza.”

Pause.

“Oh.” The voice coughed. “Who is this?”

“This is Lucy, Liza’s . . .” She paused. “I’m Lucy. Liza wanted me to . . .” Lucy looked down at her lap; she could feel them watching her. “Liza wanted me to tell you that she can’t make it this afternoon.”

“Tell him about the other guy,” Liza whispered.

“Oh.” There was a long pause. “God. Okay. Right. I should have figured that maybe. Uh, what’s she doing?”

“I don’t know. She just said that she can’t make it. She’s . . .” Lucy felt her heart squeezing for whoever this was. “She’s sorry.”

“Oh,” he said. “Um. Oh. Well. Okay. I left her a voice mail and emailed her and stuff too, but I’m not sure if she got it. I think my phone’s been weird and you know how unreliable email is and everything. Can you tell her that I left her voice mails and that I’ll call her back again later?”

“Okay.”

“Promise me you’ll tell her that?”

“I promise.”

“Did she get the bunny cake?”

“I don’t know.”

“The orchid?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did she like the singing telegram? I wasn’t sure if she was one of those people who was scared of clowns or not. . . .”

“I don’t know.” Lucy could feel Liza glaring at her. “I’m sorry.”

“Sure,” the voice said. He sounded crushed. And then, “Hey, did something happen with her mom again? Is
that
what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Lucy said. “I . . .”

“Tell him about the other guy!” Liza hissed.

Lucy looked down.

“Give it to me.” Liza reached out and grabbed the phone. Then she pressed what looked like a blue ice cube against Lucy’s neck. Lucy felt a sudden intense coldness in her throat.

“. . . think she’s out with some friend of hers, Justin something. I don’t know. Tall, muscle-y, do you know him?” Liza said into the phone.

Lucy stared and her mouth dropped open.
Liza was talking in Lucy’s voice.
Lucy tried to speak, but no words would come out. She brought her hand to her freezing throat. Liza continued. “She said she’ll be back late. I’ll tell her you called though. Byeeeee!”

Liza hung up.

“There,” she said.

Olivia turned toward Lucy. “I’m really so sorry, sugar lump, that should not have happened.
We do not use our magic on our potential sisters
.” Olivia looked at Liza.
“
Liza
will not do anything like that again.”

“What?”
Liza said. “She was messing it up!” But she sounded like a little kid arguing with her parents when she knew there was no point in trying to fight.

For a second the car was silent.

“So what did he say to you?” Liza asked.

Lucy opened her mouth. She felt her heart trying to pound its way out. Sweat sprung out all over her body. Her throat was still so cold. She couldn’t speak.

“Liza!” Olivia said sharply.

Liza reached out and tapped Lucy’s throat again. Lucy felt a melting and then her words came. “He wanted to know if something happened with your mom,” Lucy said. Her hands were shaking.

What had Liza done to her?

“He
what
?
”

Lucy flinched.

“How the hell does he even know . . .” Liza shook her head. She bit her lip and looked out the window. “Anything else?”

Lucy was breathing in tiny little gasps. “He-he also a-asked me to tell you he called and texted and would call you tomorrow. He asked if you got the flowers he sent and the . . .”

Liza shook her head. She laughed. “God, how pathetic.” She looked at Lucy again. “Who told you to tell him I was
sorry
? Do
not
tell a guy that I said I am
sorry
unless I
tell you
to tell him I said I was sorry. What’s
wrong
with you?”

“I’m sorry, I . . .”

Olivia glanced at Liza. “Is Scott ready?” Her words were laced with meaning.