This Is Me From Now On

Francesca stuck her spoon in the Triple Fudge Marshmallow Chunk. “Don't you wonder about her? I do. Because she's obviously a deep person. So I can't imagine all she cares about is teaching boring U.S. History to boring seventh graders. Especially in Blanton.”

“Hey, Blanton's not so bad,” I protested.

She ignored that. “You've seen those posters on her walls. She's traveled all over the world. So why is she wasting her life
here
? Unless,” she added dramatically, “she has some dark, romantic secret.”

“Like what?”

She leaned forward, breathing chocolate in my face. “I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone else.”

 

OTHER BOOKS BY BARBARA DEE

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN MY INSANELY REAL LIFE
SOLVING ZOE

 

BARBARA DEE

 

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 

ALADDIN M!X

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First Aladdin M!X edition April 2010
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Copyright © 2010 by Barbara Dee

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Designed by Ann Zeak

The text of this book was set in Lomba Book.

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Library of Congress Control Number 2009928150

ISBN 978-1-4169-9414-5

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For Chris, with love

Heartfelt thanks to my agent, Jill Grinberg, for taking such good care of this book right from the beginning. A majillion thank-yous to my editor, Liesa Abrams, for connecting so strongly with the characters and with me. I'm incredibly lucky to be working with you both.

Thanks also to Karen Wojtyla for putting me on the right track with the first draft, and to Frances O'Roark Dowell for making sure I didn't derail. Helen Silberblatt, thanks so much for all your freelance publicizing—but really for the precious gift of your friendship.

Infinite gratitude to my husband, Chris, for reading every word of every draft, and for making every word possible.

As always, thanks to my mom and dad for endless love and support. And to Alex, Josh, and Lizzy, thanks for . . . aw shucks, just being you.

Sometimes your life just needs a little jolt.

That's what Francesca told me once, and she was right. I mean, she was wrong about practically everything, but she was right about that. Because the more I think about it, the more I look back at all the chaos that happened last fall, it's almost like she rescued me.

Okay, okay. I know that sounds incredibly melodramatic. And I know that mainly she messed things up. Really, really badly, in fact

But let me put it this way: The Thursday late last summer when I first met Francesca Pattison is the last boring day I can remember. I'd spent most of the morning Mother's
Helping and most of the afternoon in my best friend Lily's bedroom, eating Pringles (which I didn't even like) and taking personality quizzes from this enormous stack of magazines that Lily had borrowed from her cousin in New Jersey. “Was I Due for a Hot New Makeover?” Well, maybe. Maybe not. “Was I You Ready for a Steady?” Definitely no. Not even close

The room was totally sweltering, because Lily's dad didn't believe in air-conditioning (“for the environment,” he said, but to be honest I think he was just cheap). And the rotating fan was making this
fwish-fwish-fwish
noise that was starting to make me woozy.

Nisha, my other best friend, opened a magazine. “Here's one, Evie,” she said. ‘Are You Crushed by a Crush?'”

“Did that one,” I said, yawning

“And are you?”

“What? Of course not.”

“What about your crush on Zane?” Lily asked, smiling.

“Gah. I don't even know if I
like
him anymore.”

“Oh, right,” Nisha said. “We totally believe you, Evie. So how about this one: ‘Feel Bad About That Bod?'”

“Also did,” I said. “And I happen to feel great about my bod. In fact, I love my bod, I worship my bod.”

Nisha rolled her eyes. She'd been bathing suit shopping with me a million times that summer, so she knew exactly how I felt about my flat chest and bony elbows. Not to mention my blobby nose and used-to-be-blonder hair. “What about ‘Cheat Sheet: Rate Your Talent for Trickery.'”

“Actually, I think I missed that one. Ask me it, okay?”

Nisha read out loud: “‘You're committed to Saturday night with your BFFs, but the new hottie asks you to the movies. You (a) ask the hottie if your BFFs can join you; (b) tell your BFFs your cousin's in town; (c) call your BFFs at the last minute and say you've come down with the flu—'”

She stopped. “Eww, this is disgusting. I'd
hate
any girl who acted like this.”

“Me too,” Lily said. She leaned across my legs and tickled her smelly old dog, Jimmy, whose giant paws were twitching in his sleep. “So two-faced.”

“But what's wrong with ‘a'?” I asked curiously

“What's
wrong
with it?” Nisha repeated. “Evie, ‘a' would be totally wimping out on your friends.”

“Even if they were invited along?”

“They wouldn't want to be ‘invited along.' You were supposed to be going out with
them.
See the word ‘committed'?”

“Hey, don't attack
me,
Nisha. I'm just saying—”

“You're saying some boy would be more important than your best friends since preschool? Well, thanks a lot, Evie. At least we know where we'd stand.” Nisha's black eyes flashed, the way they do whenever she's mad. But then all of a sudden she grinned at me. “Just kidding,” she said, sticking out her tongue

So Lily threw a magazine at her.

I stood up then and brushed off the Pringle bits that were sticking to my legs. “Okay, you guys. This has been oodles of fun, but I think I'm going home now.”

“But it's only three thirty,” Lily protested.

“Yeah, but I'm tired. And summer's almost over, and we're just sitting here wasting time with these old magazines.”

Lily's eyes looked hurt. “So what would you rather be doing?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “Something crazy and different. And fun.”

Nisha closed her magazine. “You know what, Evie? I think the heat's melting your brain. Why don't you take a long, cold shower, and tomorrow we'll go buy school supplies.”

“
School supplies?
Nisha, that's not my idea of—”

“And afterward we'll go bungee jumping. And hot-air ballooning.”

Lily laughed. “Don't forget white-water rafting.”

“Okay, stop,” I said. “Really.”

“And then we'll go visit Zane,” Nisha added. She winked at Lily like it was all decided

I groaned at that. You have to understand that I loved my friends, even though they knew exactly how to annoy me. Nisha was an expert in teasing and also organizing my life; Lily was an expert in calming me down, even when I didn't
want
to be calmed down. They also knew how to make me laugh and keep me sane, but right now what I really needed was to get out of that sweaty bedroom

So I left.

The second I was outside on the baking asphalt, I was thinking:
Well, Evie, that was smart.
In a few days the three of us would be in total Back-to-School mode, like summer never even happened. I'd left Lily's to do what? Take a ten-minute shower? And
then
what was supposed to happen the whole rest of the afternoon

At least my own house was freezingly air-conditioned. As soon as I opened the front door, I took a deep breath of that dead-cold air and felt the sweat ice up on my legs. Then
I took off my flip-flops and walked into the living room, which was always the nippiest room in the house.

Francesca Pattison was sitting in what Mom calls the loveseat. I didn't really focus on her at first—I was too busy staring at her aunt Samantha. It was one of the few times I'd seen Samantha Pattison in daylight. Mostly my sister and I had just peeked at her late at night slamming the door of a black BMW convertible, and then clattering up her driveway in noisy, high-heeled shoes. None of us could figure out why a thirty-fivish woman with no kids and an obviously amazing social life would choose to live in our nice but extremely nonamazing subdivision. Samantha Pattison was something to talk about when we needed a topic at the dinner table.

And now here she was sipping Diet Snapple with my mom, looking normal and suburban in a yellow flowered sundress and sandals. “So grateful,” I heard her saying as I plopped into a squishy armchair