Tidings of Great Boys (21 page)

“We’re not talking about my mistakes, Lindsay. We’re talking about what you’ll do about yours.”

“I don’t know. What d’you want me to do—field the calls from the reporters and explain?”

“No, goosey. I want you to go up to your friend Shani and tell her what you’ve told me.”

“I need to give her a day or so to cool down.” I could talk to her tomorrow, while we were cleaning and decorating and had
work to distract us.

“No. You’ll do it tonight. The ball is Thursday, and half the guests will have seen
London Calling
. You need to have it resolved by then. That poor girl is going to need all of you to stand by her.”

What could I say? That an angry Shani was more than equal to it? Given a horde of reporters and a ballroom full of curious
guests, I’d put my money on her any day.

“All right.” That was vague enough to make him let me go.

“See that you do it, lassie,” he said as I left. “You don’t have so many real friendships that you can afford to waste them.”

I set my jaw as I stalked down the corridor to the kitchen stairs. Hmph. What did he know? I had flocks of friends. But with
them, I hadn’t made the kind of mistake that would provoke an international incident.

Not lately, anyway.

IF I DIDN’T GO to Shani and do as he asked, Dad would know about it by breakfast. He’d turn sad, disappointed eyes on me,
and if there was anything I couldn’t stand, it was Dad’s disappointed face. Not that I hadn’t been on the receiving end of
it a number of times. But do you like knowing you’ve let down the one person on earth who still thinks you’re the best thing
that ever happened to him?

Right. I don’t, either.

I heard voices on the other side of the door when I knocked. They hushed immediately, which wasn’t a good sign.

“Shani? It’s Mac. Can I come in?”

“I’m in bed.” Her voice was muffled by the closed door.

“I need to talk to you.”

“You’ve done enough.”

“Shani, please. I don’t want to say this from out here in the corridor, but I will if you make me.”

Someone who wasn’t Shani murmured, and the door opened.

Gillian.

I brushed past her to see that Shani was in bed—or on it, at least. They’d been watching something on her Mac. “Did Danyel
send a Happy New Year video?”

“That’s none of your business.”

I sighed. Okay. They weren’t going to make it easy for me. With a glance at Gillian, who was guarding the door like those
dogs you see in pictures of Chinese temples, I said, “Can I have a word? In private?”

Gillian crossed her arms and stuck out a hip. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Must keep temper
. “I’ve done nothing to hurt
you
.”

“That’s only a matter of time.” She held four fingers in the air. “So far you’ve ditched Lissa before you even knew her, put
Carly in danger of a stalker and tried to steal her boyfriend, and now embarrassed Shani and gotten her into trouble in front
of a whole country.” With all the fingers down, her hand made a fist. “I can only imagine what you’ve got in store for me.”

“I didn’t mean to do any of those things. And what’s this about ditching Lissa? That’s ridiculous.”

“She means when Lissa came here last year with Gabe, negotiating to use the house for a set,” Shani said. “You went off on
your horse so you wouldn’t have to meet her. What happened to your horse, anyway?”

“She’s in winter stable.” I had to resolve this. Had to get my so-called friends back on my side. We had work to do. “And
I have no memory of that day at all, if it even happened.”

“Are you calling us liars?” Gillian said with a dangerous glint in her eye. She glanced over my shoulder, as if judging the
distance she’d have to throw me out the door.

“Don’t be dramatic. I came in here to apologize to Shani. I don’t need you mucking things up.”

“Me?” She really knew how to act the wronged maiden. Broadway didn’t know what it was missing. “I’m not the one dishing the
accusations here.”

“For someone who’s supposed to be a Christian,” I shot back without missing a beat, “I’m not seeing any signs of forgiveness
or understanding.”

Gillian flushed, but I couldn’t tell if it was from chagrin or fury. “There has to be repentance before there’s forgiveness.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing, you carnaptious cow. What else do you think an apology is?”

“Stop it, you two.” Shani sounded exhausted. “I can’t stand it when my friends fight. Say what you came to say, Mac, so I
can watch Danyel.”

Gee, how to make me feel utterly welcome. “I found out how
London Calling
got that princess video. I sent the wrong clip to my friend Carrie by mistake, and she put it up on YouTube. The band got
hold of a copy and made a song out of it. The television people have an eye on things like the “most watched” lists, and that’s
how it got on their radar.”

“It never left your computer, huh?” Gillian looked triumphant, as though she’d suspected it all along.

“It was a mistake. I’ve owned up to it, I’ve confronted Carrie about it, and now we’re not friends anymore.”

“No big loss.”

I hung onto my temper by a fraying thread. “Maybe not to you, but we’ve been tight since we were little. I’ve known that lot
my whole life, and since I plan on spending the rest of it right here, losing her means losing a friend in my future, too.”

“You have us.”

I whirled to see Carly and Lissa in the doorway. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough.” Carly crossed the carpet to give me a hug. “I’m sorry about Carrie.”

“I’m not,” Gillian told her. “Anyone who could sell a friend down the river for a few comments on YouTube doesn’t deserve
her.”

“Are you always this merciless?” I asked.

“Only when people mess with my friends.” She propped her right hand, still fisted, on her hip.

“Are you including me in that number?” I demanded. “Do I need to apologize to you, too?”

“Ease up, Gillian.” Lissa took the fisted hand and shook it, and Gillian’s fingers loosened slowly. “We need to stick together
on this one. Shani needs us all. Save this mad-on for when we really need it.”

“When would that be?” Carly wanted to know. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“I’d like to know that, too,” Shani said from the depths of the canopied four-poster. “Can I sue that band or something?”

Lissa shook her head. “That video was posted on a site that’s public domain.”

“But it was private. I could sue that Carrie girl, maybe.”

“What for?” I only sounded a little bitter. “Jealousy? Stupidity? Besides, she doesn’t have a bean to call her own. Her dad’s
a grocer, for Pete’s sake.”

“Just a thought. Always looking out for a secondary income stream.” Shani subsided. “So go on about what might happen.”

“The tabs are already calling,” Lissa said. “I bet it won’t be long before they show up here.”

“I hope they don’t block the drive,” Carly said. “I’m expecting a lot of deliveries tomorrow.”

“You’ll be lucky if that’s all they do,” Lissa told her. “What if they disguise themselves as delivery people to get inside
the house?”

Shani, who had been sitting cross-legged on the bed, slid over to sit on the edge of it, as if preparing to escape. “Great.
Ambushed by caterers carrying Canons.”

“We have cannons,” I said helpfully. “In the armor room downstairs. Pistols, too, though I don’t think they’re loaded.”

Carly leaned over. “One
n
.”

“Oh.” Then a thought occurred to me. “Has anyone told Rashid?”

“What for?” Shani wanted to know. “It’s not like he’ll loan us Farrouk and Bashir to check people’s IDs at the gates.”

“No, I meant does he know this is happening, with the video and all?”

“I hope not,” Shani whispered. “I really, sincerely hope not.”

W
E NEED to get serious here.”

We all looked at Carly. “This isn’t serious enough?” I demanded. “We’re covering every angle we can.”

“I don’t mean about that. I mean we need to clear everything up among ourselves first, and then we can move on and deal with
the rest of it. And that means we pray.”

Lissa and Shani exhaled, as if this was the idea they’d been waiting for all along. Me, I wasn’t so sure. Especially with
Gillian standing there looking like a single crosswise word would unleash Massively Cranky Warrior Woman, who would proceed
to stomp me into the Turkish carpet.

“I’ll start,” Lissa said.

I blinked in surprise. Gillian always started things off at prayer circle, not Lissa. But maybe she needed to be prayed
for
tonight.

Maybe I did, too. As Lissa’s clear voice laid out the situation for the Lord, I closed my eyes and tried to—as she might say—go
with the flow. Carrie’s little dig about my Christianity still hurt, like a paper cut on your finger that stings no matter
what you try to do to protect it.

So, okay, maybe I wasn’t the kind of card-carrying Christian Carly was. Or Gillian on a normal day, when she wasn’t being
a pit bull. But I’d been baptized right here in the house chapel, hadn’t I? I went to church with Dad when he gave me that
look on a Sunday morning. I was a good person, fundamentally. Sometimes the externals didn’t match up, like when I was annoyed
with people and treated them badly. And, yeah, I wasn’t above cribbing the answers to tests from my schoolmates if I could
get away with it, or being seen with the right people at the right clubs even though I couldn’t stand them in real life.

Were those crimes? Would they get you kicked out of the Christian club? What did being a Christian
mean
, exactly? And more important, how was it going to help us now?

“Father, please put Your hands around Mac and Shani and Gillian tonight,” Carly said quietly. With a start, I realized Lissa
had finished and I hadn’t heard a word she said. “We all need Your help to get us through the next few days, especially if
we have to deal with reporters. Thank You for giving Shani a friend like Gillian, who really cares about her and wants to
protect her. But thank You for giving her a friend like Mac, too. You’ve put her in the camera eye a lot, so she has experience
with this kind of thing, just when we need it. She’s sorry she made a mistake, Lord. We all are. Help us to forgive each other
so we can move on to helping Shani. Amen.”

Bless Carly. There was a reason all of us loved her. She was like the soft heart in the center of our group. The one who had
the guts to keep things real and pointed in the right direction when they got all in a
boorach,
as the country people would say. A mess. Like now.

Shani’s prayer was a desperate mumble that I hoped the Lord heard, because I sure didn’t. I caught Rashid’s name, and our
names, and that was about it.

Silence. Dead air.

That meant they were waiting either for me or for Gillian. When Gillian didn’t move or speak, I opened my mouth. Any prayer
of mine would probably just bob uselessly about on the ceiling, but someone had to say something.

“Father, I know You’re not used to hearing from me,” I said awkwardly. “About me, yeah. But from me, no. So if You can find
it in Your heart to listen, here’s what I need. I need to be friends with Gillian again. I need to help Shani, since I bunged
everything up in the first place.” My lips began to tremble, and I tried to rush words through them. “And I need You to know
these girls are the best friends I could ever have. If it’s You that’s put me in their way, then thank You.” My voice began
to spiral out of control and I knew I wouldn’t last. “Please help them all forgive me. Amen.”

Silence.

Sniffle.

Gulp. Sniffle-sniffle.

More silence.

And then I was engulfed by a pair of strong arms and a cloud of Vera Wang perfume. “Forgive me for not trusting you, and for
being such a
mo guai nuer
,” Gillian said in my ear, and burst into tears.

To this day, I don’t know if she was speaking to me or to God.

But it doesn’t matter one bit, does it? Because both of us heard. And did.