The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers (7 page)

“Almost.” Liza nodded, then went back to her phone. “Tall Chris put us on the comp list to see some band on Friday night. But it’s like some emo band. And emo-boy-heartbreak tears are hardly worth anything. Whatever.”

Lucy put her hand against her throat.
What had just happened?
“What did you do there?” she said. “What did you do to me?” But Liza didn’t answer.

Olivia flipped on the radio. A song Lucy knew came on and Olivia turned it up loud. Lucy felt her whole body sizzling. Lucy sang along quietly to calm herself. She closed her eyes, the wind blew her hair.
These girls are magic.
If she’d had even the slightest hint of a doubt left, she didn’t anymore. They had power. They could destroy her. Or they could give her everything she wanted.

Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of a bunch of row houses a couple of towns away from their clean, little suburb. The lawns were all bare and the paint on most of the houses was peeling. A woman was pushing a pink baby stroller toward them. As she passed, Lucy realized the woman was no older than Lucy. They got out of the car and walked up to a blue house. There was a guy with a shaved head and a goatee sitting on the stoop. He looked like he was in his forties. He had a can of something in a paper bag.

Lucy could feel the guy on the stairs watching them with sleepy eyes. He gave Olivia a nod, like he knew her. Olivia walked inside. And when Gil passed he smiled and said, “Babybabybaby,” but it was sweet somehow, not skeevy.

And Gil said, “Herbiiiiiee,” and he caught one of her small hands in his big ones and brought it to his lips and kissed it. Gil squeezed his shoulder and then walked inside too.

When Liza was standing next to him he didn’t say anything, just stuck out his brown-paper-bagged can. She grabbed it, raised it up to her lips, and took a long, slow swallow.

Liza handed him back the can. The guy held it upside down and a few drops sprinkled out onto the steps.

“I owe you a beer,” Liza called out behind her.

And the guy, he just opened his mouth and laughed. His teeth were perfect, movie-star teeth, the kind that people have when they have unlimited money to devote to the inside of their mouths.

Lucy stared at the man on the stoop with his dirty hands and his beer can and the sun streaming down on him and his head tipped back and his lovely teeth all lined up in a row and Lucy thought about how Alex would probably have liked to take a picture of him.

Lucy’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Her heart leapt.

She wondered if it was Alex reading her mind!

But it was Tristan.

He’d sent her a photo of a balloon with
GOOD RIDDANCE, FUCKO
written on it in Sharpie. He was smiling next to it, giving a big, cheesy thumbs-up.

When Lucy looked up, the other girls were already inside.

“And oh,” Olivia called out, not turning back, “by the way, this is a test.”

“A test of
what
?” Lucy said. “What am I supposed to do?” But no one answered.

Lucy hovered in the doorway.

Three guys were in the room in front of her looking like they belonged in an ad for surf gear or skateboards. There was one sitting on the couch leaning forward, tan arms wrapped in leather bands, one lying down on the couch with his shoes off, and one cross-legged on the floor, sun-bleached hair flopping in his face. They were beautiful, all of them, and had that ease about them that implied not that they didn’t know what they looked like, but that they knew and didn’t care.

Lucy just stood there blushing.

There was, Lucy had long ago realized, an art to entering into rooms where groups of people were already having fun. One joke, one question, one clever observation was all one needed to cross the invisible line between person-by-the-door and person-in-the-room. This would have been hard for Lucy even on a good day, but then, with the wounds of a broken heart festering inside her chest, it felt completely impossible.

“Oh no, no you don’t!” Gil said sweetly. Gil sat cross-legged on a giant blue cushion on the floor, holding a video game controller. Projected on the wall in front of her, a guy in a silver space suit was fighting a many-headed monster. He was projected so big that he was the size of an actual person. One by one she was making the spaceman knock off the monster’s heads. The screen flashed. The monster screamed and fell off the cliff. The game was over.

“Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeyat,” Leather Bracelets said. “We’ve been trying to do that for like a month.”

Barefoot Lying on the Couch sat halfway up, “JACK! JAAAACK!! You owe Gil a hundred bucks.”

“Damn it!” a voice called from the other room. Lucy realized then that Olivia and Liza were nowhere in sight.

Gil laughed and shook her head.

Liza walked back in from the kitchen. Behind her was a tall guy wearing jeans and a short, pink bathrobe with frills around the neck. He was holding two frosted martini glasses, both full.

Leather Bracelets looked at the martinis and raised his eyebrows.

“Liza asked for one,” Bathrobe said. “She came in here and said, ‘Where’s my martini?’ Just like a mean husband from the fifties.”

“Dude,” said Sun-bleached. “That wasn’t asking, that was demanding.”

“She’s a demander,” said Bracelets. “A demandstress.”

But they were smiling. What was Lucy supposed to be doing? Whatever it was, she was quite sure that hovering in the doorway was not it.

“Where I’m from,” said Lying on the Couch. He had a slight southern accent. He crossed his legs at the ankles and stretched out his toes. They were very long, like fingers almost. “Where I’m from we just call that a bitch.”

Liza smiled. “Where you’re from, honey, they’ve just started walking upright. I don’t think they’ve gotten around to inventing words yet.” Then she raised the glass in his direction, like she was toasting him and they all laughed. She brought the glass to her lips and tipped it back.

“How is it?” Bracelets asked. The glass was empty. “Was it . . . ?”

Liza wiped a few droplets of liquid off her lower lip with her middle finger. It looked both suggestive and mean. “Vile.” She licked the tip of her middle finger and gave him back the glass.

“Speaking of . . . things,” said Bathrobe. He turned toward the big video screen where the end-of-game sequence was still going—now the spaceman was standing on a pedestal with fireworks exploding behind him while one at a time hot lady characters walked up and tossed their bras at him. Bathrobe shook his head slowly, then turned toward Gil and bowed low. He pulled a fistful of bills out of his bathrobe pocket and held them up over his head.

Gil just laughed. “I don’t want your money, Jackie.”

Bathrobe/Jack shook his fist in the air. “No, no, you have to take it. Otherwise I will feel like a bet welsher. Which is even worse than being broke.”

“Take it, Gil,” Liza said. “Or these assholes will make fun of him forever and the pharmaceuticals he’ll need to get over it will cost
way
more than a hundred bucks.”

Bathrobe/Jack grinned and stuck his tongue out at Liza through his teeth.

“The girl’s right though,” said Lying on the Couch. “We assholes will do that.”

Gil took the crumpled-up bills. “Okay. Okay, okay.” But she was shaking her head.

Lucy leaned her head against the door frame. She did not even need to know what she was being tested on to know that she was failing.

Olivia walked slowly back toward the kitchen. “Come on, Gilly,” she said. Gil got up and followed; so did Bracelets and Sun-bleached and Liza. And then it was just the three of them, Lucy in the doorway, Bathrobe/Jack holding the martini, and Lying on the Couch.

There was paint chipping on the door frame; she picked at it with her pinky. A little flake came off and she pressed it into the pad of her thumb with her nail. It split in half. No one was saying anything. She looked up.

Bathrobe/Jack was watching her. He rubbed the top of his head. “We haven’t offered anything to our guest.” He tipped his martini toward her. Liquid sloshed out onto the floor. “Maybe she wants this delicious handcrafted imbibe-able.”

“Um,” Lucy started to say very quietly. She was staring down at the floor. “No thank you.” But when she looked up, she realized they hadn’t heard her.

“Well, our guest hasn’t even come in the room yet,” Lying on the Couch said. “She’s just been standing at the door watching us. A little creepy if you ask me.”

“She can hear you, B,” Bathrobe/Jack whispered loudly.

“How do you know that? She appears to be mute. Maybe she’s deaf too.” But he was smiling at her. Her heart pounded. “Actually I don’t think she’s mute,” Lying on the Couch/B said. “Muteness is really rare.”

“So you’re saying she just doesn’t want to talk to us?” Jack asked. “Why wouldn’t she want to talk to us?”

“I don’t know,” said B. “Maybe you should ask her.”

Jack reached into his bathrobe pocket and took out a plastic magic wand like the kind that comes in magic sets for kids. Lucy stared at it. Her stomach tightened.

Jack waved the wand. “Speak!”

Lucy pressed her lips together, sure that at any second her mouth would open and words would start pouring out.

He waved the wand again. Nothing happened.

“Um?” Lucy said.

“Ha! It worked!” Jack shouted. He thrust the martini up in the air and more of it sloshed out. “I
am
magic. I knew it!”

But in that moment Lucy knew it was all just a joke.

“Well?” B said.

Lucy’s heart pumped blood to her already hot face. “I don’t know,” she said. It was all she could think to say. “I’m sorry. I’m. . .” She didn’t know what to say after that, so she just stood there.

Jack tucked the wand behind his ear. Then he raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Fair enough. You don’t know. I don’t either.” And then they just stood in silence.

A moment later Olivia, Liza, and Gil came back into the room.

Liza grabbed B’s butt. Gil and Olivia hugged the boys good-bye. Lucy just stood there awkwardly until Olivia walked out the door and they all followed.

The guy who’d been sitting on the front steps was gone. His empty beer can was sitting on its side on the pavement and there was a little puddle next to it, as though he had melted and that’s what was left.

“Well then,” Olivia said.

“Well then,” said Gil. She turned toward Lucy and smiled.

“This was such a waste of time,” Liza said. “Except for Gilly’s hundred bucks.” She marched ahead and got in the car. She turned back, stared at Gil. “Which you probably slipped back in his pocket when you were hugging him good-bye just like you did after our last
five
bets.”

“I felt bad!” Gil said.

“You would have made the best pickpocket on earth. If only you didn’t keep getting it backwards.” Liza was shaking her head. “Well, now it was a
complete
waste of time. And just so you know, Lucy”—Liza glared at her—“you got an F.”

“No, no you didn’t,” Gil said. “It doesn’t work like that; you weren’t being graded.” She turned back toward Liza. “Lucy was nervous,” Gil said. “That’s natural.”

“It’s not natural.” Olivia shook her head as she got in the car. “Understandable? Maybe. But not natural. We were not all meant to be so afraid of each other. She was afraid because she’s been conditioned to be afraid.”

“She was
afraid
because sweet wittew baby bunnies are always afwaid,” Liza said. She got in shotgun and stuck her long legs out the open window.

“Liza! You’re being mean.” Gil got in the back. Lucy got in too.

“What?” Liza flipped down the mirror and stared at her excruciatingly gorgeous face. “It’s true.”

“She isn’t one thing or another thing.” Olivia’s voice was calm and low, but there was something in it that made Lucy’s heart beat faster. “People are endlessly changeable.” Olivia turned toward Liza. “You of all people should know that.”

Olivia started to drive.

“But what were you testing?” Lucy said. The wind was rushing around inside the car now and she wasn’t even sure if anyone heard her. She tightened her stomach, spoke louder. “I didn’t even know what I was being tested on!”

Gil turned. “We needed to see where you were starting from is all.”

“And now we know,” Liza said.

“But I had no idea what I was being tested on,” Lucy repeated. She felt suddenly sick.

“So what,” Liza said. “Grow the fuck up. You’ve had like what, fifteen years to prepare for this?”

“It’s not about fair or not fair. Life is what you make it;
everything
is what you make it.” Olivia laughed. “Put that on a poster with a cat! That wasn’t just a test, it was also lesson one.”

“Yes, lesson one,” said Liza. “Have a personality.”

“Did you happen to notice how incredibly hot those guys were?” Olivia asked.

“Yes,” Lucy said.

“They’re used to girls being scared of them or too polite or just fawning. Did you notice how much they all seem to love Liza?”

“It’s not just because I’m hot,” Liza said. “Actually, it has nothing to do with it.”

“It’s because of the sass factor. She makes them work for it and she’s a little mean.”

“So the lesson is to be mean?”

“Not
mean
mean exactly,” Gil said. “There’s a difference between being mean mean and being fun mean. Liza’s fun mean.” Gil paused. “Most of the time.” Liza reached her hand back without turning around and made a grabbing motion. Gil giggled. “Mean mean hurts feelings and that’s not the goal here, fun mean adds a little sizzle to everything and makes all interactions into a game. You toss something, they hit it back. They toss something, you hit it back.”

Lucy blinked.

“This concept should not be new to you,” said Liza. “It’s called flir-ting.” Liza turned toward Olivia. “This is a waste. She’s not going to be able to do any of this. I mean look at her, she’s practically shaking right now. And she doesn’t even know what flirting is! If you really want a fourth we can find someone else. . . .”