The Sweetest Thing (20 page)

I thought of Adam and wondered if I could switch, too. But I knew I wouldn't even ask. It would hurt Adam's feelings way too much if I skipped out on him before we finished the amphibian life unit. Of course, now that Bennett and his brother had taken off with all the frogs, maybe the unit would be over. Everything was such a mess. But at least I was here now, hanging out with my friends at an awesome party. I just needed to concentrate on that for a while.

“Listen,” I said, “I'm just glad we're not all tearing each others' eyes out. I don't think I could take it if you both stayed mad at me for much longer. I know I messed up badly, but being friends with you really means a lot to me.”

Meredith and Judith nodded. They looked like they knew what I meant.

“I have an idea,” said Meredith. “How about we make a new pinky promise?”

“Oh no, here we go again,” Judith groaned.

“No, let's not make any more rules about guys. That obviously doesn't work. I don't think you can stop yourself from liking someone anyway.” Meredith stuck her pinky finger out at us—it was painted with black and red ladybug polka dots. “Let's promise
instead we'll all work on being better friends. Nicer, more honest, the works. And let's promise to always remember that, even when cute guys are around.”

I nodded. “That sounds good to me.”

“All right,” Judith agreed.

So we linked pinkies and swore on it. And even if it was kind of a silly, little-kid thing to do, I had a feeling we would all keep our promise this time.

Meredith and Judith were both supposed to be home by midnight, but I was in no big hurry to go back to my house to face Feb, who had probably worked herself into some kind of homicidal rage by this point in the evening. So after they took off, I stuck around at Sara-Beth Benny's.

The last party guests trailed out around two-thirty in the morning, wigs on backward, masks in hand, and by then I was totally exhausted. Sara-Beth announced that she was calling a cleaner in the morning, but I still felt like I should help her get the place in some kind of order before I just took off. The place was an absolute mess: half-empty cups of punch sat on all the shelves, tables, and faux-coffin lids; and cookie crumbs, spilled spaghetti, and peeled grapes splattered the already-musty carpets. Plus, a lot of people had taken off parts of their costumes, so random accessories were all over
the place: a feather boa on the mantelpiece, fake nails by the bathroom sink, stage blood, and a rubber arm stump under the couch.

“I'm sorry everybody trashed your house, Sara-Beth,” I said, dragging a black garbage bag around the living room and dropping cups, apple cores, and crumpled napkins into it. “It was a great party, though.”

“Wasn't it?” Sara-Beth flung herself into a decaying armchair with carved claw feet. Dust rose up out of the ancient cushions. “The only thing I'm sorry about is that it's over. The house looked absolutely gorgeous, don't you think?”

I carefully extracted a paper plate from behind a taxidermied raven. As odd and musty as the haunted décor was, of all the styles she'd tried, it really was the one that most suited the house—and her. “Maybe you should just keep it this way,” I joked.

Sara-Beth's eyes widened, and she leapt out of her dusty chair. “Flan, that's an amazing idea,” she gasped. “I can't believe I didn't think of it myself! Oh, this is so exciting! I'll have a haunted house forever. I can just see it now,” she went on excitedly. “I can buy old angels from cemeteries and put them in the backyard. And I'll put a creaky old iron gate out front, with spikes and gargoyles on it, and hang Day of the Dead marionette skeletons in the upstairs windows. Maybe
I can even get some of those paintings where the eyes follow you back and forth! And I'll need to get a hologram machine, of course. Trick mirrors … Think of all the places I'll have to hide from the paparazzi! This is so fantastic, Flan! You're such a good friend. You know me better than I know myself!”

I pulled a maroon wig with bangs out from behind some yellowing lace pillows on the Victorian settee and smiled to myself. Sara-Beth was wrong—even after all the time we'd spent together, she always managed to surprise me. But she was right about the haunted house—it was kooky, cute, and a little bit overwhelming (in a good way), just like she was.

Sara-Beth sank back into the chair with a satisfied sigh, and curled her legs underneath her like she was a very thin, very tall black cat. “So tell me what happened with Meredith and Judith. Did Bennett ever come back and make up for the horrible, horrible way he treated you?”

“I'm the one who needs to apologize, but he won't even talk to me.” I rubbed my eyes tiredly. Thinking of Bennett turned my insides into one big guilty tangle. “Meredith and Judith don't hate me anymore, but he totally does. And he probably should, after what I did.”

“Don't be silly!” Sara-Beth waved her arms, releasing
more dust from the chair cushions. “Bennett's a nice guy, but you deserve so much better. Any boy too lame to wear a costume on Halloween is way too lame for my Flan.”

Thinking of Bennett saving Bogie and then getting trampled in the parade after all the time he'd taken to get his costume ready made me want to cry. I threw the lint-covered paper towel I'd been dusting with into the trash bag and flopped down on top of the cold, hard marble coffin in the center of the room. “I've made such a mess of everything, Sara-Beth. What do you think I should do? Call him? Beg for forgiveness? Just give him some space? I just know he's going to hate me forever.”

Sara-Beth came over and perched next to me on the coffin. “Shh,” she soothed, putting her arm around me. I noticed she was wearing fake black nails that pointed at the tip. “It's all going to be fine. And if he hates you forever, well, that's his loss. You're a wonderful person. So you made one mistake, but you didn't set out to hurt him.” She looked darkly at the wall. “Unlike certain people I've known, who think it's so much fun to tell Conan O'Brien that we were never going out, when everyone knows we had a deep spiritual connection!” Sara-Beth took a deep breath. “Anyway, my point is, you did the best you could, under the circumstances.
It's not your fault that you like Adam better! That's why we have dating instead of some crazy system of arranged marriages that's based on, like, how many goats a guy has. The whole point is to find the person you like the most before you get stuck with some lunatic who tries to control your spending!”

“Yeah, but I'm still not sure.” I dabbed at my eyes with the stained skirt of my princess dress. “I think Adam may just be a crush. He's more of a guy's guy, while Bennett's sweet and smart and understands me. But then again Adam …” I trailed off. “I just wish I knew what would make me happy.”

“Well, there's no reason to get all worked up about it now,” Sara-Beth pointed out. “Before my mom and I split up, she always used to say this great thing: ‘If it's meant to be, there's always tomorrow.'”

“Tomorrow?” I repeated.

“Yes! In the morning, this'll all seem a lot less complicated, I promise. And there's nothing so urgent that can't wait till then.” Sara-Beth yawned. “Everything makes sooo much more sense after a full night of sleep.”

I nodded. “Speaking of which, I'd better be getting home.”

“You're sure you don't want to stay over? There's a bed in the guest room shaped like a Venus flytrap, and
it's super comfy.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Almost
too
comfy.”

“I think Feb will freak if I don't come home.” I hopped down off the coffin onto the floor, landing near the bloody chalk outline of the murdered SBB. “But maybe we can get breakfast in the morning or something.”

Then I groaned and smacked my forehead. I'd completely forgotten it was a school night, and the thought of dragging myself out of bed in less than four hours only to face Bennett and Adam seemed even less appealing than spending the night in a Venus flytrap. “Ugg. School. I think I might have to take a sick day. That is, if Feb'll let me.”

Sara-Beth walked me to the door and I crept down the sidewalk toward my house. I had a big decision ahead of me, boyfriend-wise, but SBB was right—right now I just needed to get home and make it to bed.

Already I was dreading the prospect of a fight with Feb. I was way too exhausted for any more drama tonight, and the last thing I needed was another person screaming at me for all the stuff I'd done wrong. When I walked up the steps to our door, though, I noticed something weird. Not only were all the lights on—that could've just meant that Feb was waiting up
for me, wearing an apron and holding a rolling pin like she was planning on hitting me with it—but music was playing loud enough that I could hear the beat through the closed windows. It was blasting, actually. And pieces of smashed pumpkin pulp were splattered all over the sidewalk out front. What was the deal? Nervously, I started to put my key in the lock. Then I realized the door was already open. As it swung inside on its hinges, I was so surprised by what I saw that I almost fell backward down the steps.

My house looked like a bomb had exploded right in the middle of it. A disco ball dangled crookedly from the light fixture in the living room; half-empty boxes of pizza lay on the floor; Pabst Blue Ribbon cans sat on the bookcase, the top of the TV, and the back of the sofa. One crunched under my Lucite-clad foot as I stepped inside.

The noise almost knocked me over—a guy dressed as Marilyn Manson was standing at the top of the stairs accompanying the already deafening music bursting from our stereo speakers on his trombone. I figured Noodles was upstairs somewhere, probably hiding out under my bed in terror, barking frantically like he'd completely lost his mind.

And I couldn't believe the sheer number of people packed into our downstairs. Philippa was chasing a now-shirtless Mickey around a corner into the hallway;
David, one of my brother's oldest friends, was pouring a pumpkin-colored drink from a cocktail shaker into a juice glass, and Liesel and her ex-boyfriend, Arno, were snuggling together in our brown leather chair like nothing had ever kept them apart. And there was Patch, looking more like himself he had all week, sipping a beer and nodding at a tan surfer-type guy, who was talking emphatically and making wavelike motions with his hands. Plus, there were about a million people all over the place I'd never seen before in my life: a girl with raccoon eyes and a tight Prada dress waving around a Chinatown kite shaped like a fish; a guy with asymmetrical hair and an eyebrow ring doing the funky chicken by himself; a six-foot-tall woman dressed up as a glittery cowgirl in five-inch heels, fake eyelashes, and a cowboy hat made entirely of sequins.

But through all the chaos my eyes latched onto the most shocking sight in the room: Feb, wearing a bronze, metal-plated Roberto Cavalli dress and black Jimmy Choo stilettos, dancing wildly on the coffee table.

I must've stood there in front of the wide open door for a full minute before Liesel noticed I was there and tried to shout hello over the din. Then there was a kind of ripple effect around the room, and it
seemed like pretty much everyone turned around at the same time and screamed, “Hi, Flan!”

For a moment I felt stunned, but all of a sudden I felt really, really martini-glass-throwing mad. I had been going crazy dealing with Feb's insane over-protectiveness, and then she turned around and threw a huge party the minute I was out of the house? And on a precious “school night,” no less. I slammed the door shut behind me, then, pushing past a couple wearing togas and laurel leaves, shouldered my way up to the middle of the living room.

“Hey, Feb!” I yelled, tugging at her heavy skirt. It felt like chain mail.

“Flanny!” she shrieked exuberantly, jumping off the table like she was wearing sneakers instead of skinny heels. “I'm so glad you're here.”

“What's going on?” I demanded as the aqua fish kite sailed over my head.

Feb clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh no, you're mad at me. Don't be mad, Flanny! What happened was Liesel and Philippa and Mickey were at Sara-Beth's Halloween party—which I was not invited to, by the way—but apparently the place was swarming with all these loser Kermits. So, anyway, Patch told them they could come on over here, and then they invited their friends, and their friends
invited their friends, and, well …” She flung her glitter-covered arms out and teetered slightly on her heels.

I crossed my arms and scowled at her, although it's hard to stay mad at Feb when she's in a good mood.

“Oh, Flan,” she said, dropping her arms again. “I'm so sorry I've been so terrible these last couple weeks.”

“Umm …” What was I supposed to say?
No, you haven't been? It's okay?
“Does this mean you're going to stop now?”

Feb laughed loudly and ruffled my hair. “I quit my internship.”

“You did? Really?”

“Yeah! My friend came back from her sick leave, and I was like, sayonara.” February almost knocked my tiara off my head as she waved good-bye to the imaginary law firm. “Whoops.” She giggled. “Seriously, though, the minute I walked out those doors, I was like, I am so never going to do that again. Or anything like it. They trick you into thinking it's the real world with the fluorescent lights and the paper cuts and the alphabetizing you can never get straight. But I just kind of wilted in there.”

I started to smile a little. Feb had a special, very annoying way of “wilting.”

“Which got me thinking—I don't want you wilting, Flan. I really don't. I mean, I ran out of that law firm so fast I broke my heel, and I don't want you running away from me like that.” Her big blue eyes started to look a little watery.