When You Were Mine (4 page)

Charlie says the thing about being popular is that you can’t push it. Meaning you can get away with a lot but you have to know the line you can’t cross. For us that line is being late, and we never are. Even Olivia, who takes approximately four hours to get ready every morning. I don’t think she particularly cares about being on time, but she’s not one to be argumentative about much.

I’ve had a perfect attendance record since freshman year,
with the one exception of the time Olivia broke her foot and I had to go with her to the emergency room. I go along with the being-on-time because I plan on getting into and going to Stanford next year. I have an okay shot, too. I just need to focus and keep my eye on the ball for this first term. Which means I’ll follow Charlie’s never-be-late rule, even if I have different reasons for it.

Charlie swings into the upper parking lot, and for a second I open my mouth to correct her, but then I remember that we’re seniors now, which means we really do park here. From the upper lot you can see down to the entire school. San Bellaro was named Most Beautiful Campus in some nationwide search last year, and for a moment, sitting in Charlie’s car, I can see why. It used to be an estate, and Cooper House, our school’s main building, is this former mansion. The teachers’ offices are old converted bedrooms, and these Victorian chandeliers hang in a lot of classrooms. Jake wants to raid the girls’ locker room and hang all our underwear, or whatever, from the chandeliers for senior prank this year. Charlie tried to explain to him that the senior prank is not supposed to be played
on
the seniors, but I don’t think he really got it.

The rest of the school buildings are converted guesthouses and garages and even a horse stable. The building behind the quad is new, but it was built to look just like Cooper House,
so you can’t really tell. There is ivy growing up and over all the buildings, and if you look straight down past the soccer field, you can see the ocean. It would be a great place to spend time if it wasn’t, you know, school.

Olivia is already there when we pull in, climbing out of her BMW SUV. It was a gift from her stepdad for her sixteenth birthday. It’s white, and the license plate reads
OLIVE16
. Olivia’s parents sometimes call her Olive. She says she can’t stand it, but I think secretly she loves it. Her family is pretty close. Her mom had two new boys with her stepdad, and Olivia spends a lot of time with her little brothers.

“Heyyy,” Olivia says. She has on basically the same thing Charlie is wearing: skinny jeans, purple ballet flats, and a gray tank top, except Olivia has a bright blue cardigan thrown over the whole thing instead of a hoodie. Her blond hair is up in a ponytail. She looks like she just stepped out of a plastic crate. Total Barbie doll.

The thing no one knows about Olivia is that she used to be chubby, way back in middle school. She lost it all the summer before eighth grade, when she moved here. We didn’t know her then, but we’ve seen some pictures. It’s strange to think of Olivia as being anything less than perfect-looking. But at one point, she was.

Olivia stretches, lifting her arms up over her head and
hiking her shirt, revealing a wide expanse of abdomen. Charlie would call this a power move. Her theory is that we all have one. It’s the thing you do to show yourself off. For instance, sometimes Beth Orden sticks out her chest because her boobs have been sort of above average since the second half of sophomore year.

“Good luck with that,” Charlie says, pointing to her belly button. “Contrary to appearances, we do have a dress code.”

Olivia yawns, rolls her eyes, and hooks one of the buttons on her cardigan.

“Let’s goooo,” she says. Olivia has this habit of dragging out the last word of anything she says. It’s annoying, but the thing about being that beautiful in high school is that your annoying habits don’t matter. Kind of like how it doesn’t matter whether you order a diet or regular Coke at McDonald’s with a Big Mac. In the scheme of things, it really isn’t affecting much. That’s how Olivia’s drawl is. It’s irrelevant, and even if people notice, most of the time they think it’s cute.

“Calm yourself,” Charlie snaps. “It’s still early. Did you get bagels?”

Olivia nods and produces a bag from the driver’s seat. Grandma’s Coffeehouse. Every Wednesday, Olivia has to drop her little brother Drew off at school and swings by the coffeehouse to get us stuff. We all order differently, but we know each other’s
orders by heart. Charlie gets an everything bagel with plain cream cheese, Olivia orders blueberry with butter and strawberry jam, and I get poppy seed with chive cream cheese. Sometimes Charlie and I share, half and half, but rarely.

Charlie opens the bag and passes around our respective orders. Along with my bagel she hands me a piece of gum she’s produced from her jeans pocket. “For Rob,” she says, and winks at me. I look away because I can feel my face start to heat up.

“How is he?” Olivia slides her bag over her shoulder and slams the door.

“How’s Ben?” Charlie shoots back.

Olivia swallows, but then Charlie slings an arm over her shoulder. “Relax. It’s fine. Anyway, Rose has the big romantic news of today. Tell her,” she says, looking at me.

“Tell her what?” I tuck some hair behind my ear. It’s not even eight a.m. on the first day of school, and I already don’t want to be here.

“About the text.”

“He just told me he was back,” I say quietly.

“Oh my God,” Olivia squeals. “You guys are totally together!”

I glance around the parking lot to see if I can spot Rob’s silver Volvo, but he’s always late, so I don’t really expect to see anything, and I don’t. Charlie just smiles and puts her other arm around my shoulder, and the three of us waltz toward campus.

We’re early, of course, but today there is good reason. We can finally take advantage of the senior lounge—or PL, as we call it, because technically it’s the parents’ lounge (they fund the vending machines)—a room off Cooper House that’s reserved for seniors only. The three of us spent some illegal time there last year. In fact, it was the first place I let Jason attempt the bra unhook, but we’ve never been legitimately allowed in. So today is a big deal.

Olivia is babbling about how her little brother stole and hid her book bag this morning and how her mom promised her a new Tod’s tote this year but she
still
hasn’t gotten it.

“Can’t you just get it yourself?” Charlie asks, looking annoyed.

“That’s not the point,” Olivia says, and stops talking.

By the time we make it to the PL, it’s ten after seven, which means we have a full thirty minutes to spend here before assembly.

The PL has windows on three sides and an entrance that connects to what we call the breezeway. It’s a walkway from inside Cooper House to the lower courtyard, where, since it’s California, we generally have lunch all year long.

There are three vending machines against the fourth wall. One has coffee and cappuccinos and things like that, another has water and juice, and the third has snacks. Charlie punches
in some numbers and hands around bottles of San Pellegrino. Charlie only drinks sparkling water. It’s her thing.

Another one of Charlie’s theories is that it’s important to have “a thing.” It makes you stand out. She calls it your seven, because that’s her favorite prime number. Meaning it can’t be divided, just like the thing that makes you
you
can’t be separated. For instance, Olivia’s seven is that she always has some item of purple on, even if it’s just her key chain. Olivia wants her seven to be her hair, because she loves her hair, but Charlie says purple is way more interesting. My seven is that I don’t drive. I mentioned to Charlie that that’s sort of a negative thing, but she just brushed me off. “It makes you stand out,” she said. “It’s awesome.”

I didn’t get my license until my seventeenth birthday, which means I might as well have waited until forty. It’s not that I don’t like responsibility. I love responsibility. I’m a good student. I’m organized. I’m a good friend, most of the time. But driving freaks me out. Big-time. The possibility of an accident just seems so close. I mean, these massive metal tanks zooming around trying not to crash into each other? I could never shake the feeling that by driving I was taking someone’s life in my hands. So I’ve just never done much of it.

My parents still bought me a car, though. An old white Camry off a colleague of my dad’s who was moving. I think they thought it might provide some incentive for me to want to get behind
the wheel. It didn’t work. Every time I sit in the driver’s seat, my hands sweat and my heart starts racing. It’s weird, I know. I’m a
teenager
, for crying out loud. Driving is supposed to be the thing I love the most. Freedom, escape, independence. I get it, trust me. But for me it’s way less excitement and way more terror.

There are a few seniors sitting on a bench near the right-hand windows. A girl named Dorothy who has been called Dorky since, like, the sixth grade, and Len, which is shocking. I don’t think he’s ever been on time to school. Plus, also, isn’t he supposed to be kicked out? Charlie’s rumor mill isn’t always ironclad, but it’s usually at least grounded in 10 percent truth.

“Hey.” I wave to Dorothy. Len gives me a smirk, like I’ve just singled him out for a personal greeting.

“He is such a disease,” Charlie whispers to me. Then she looks up and announces, “I’m shocked they didn’t expel you.”

“Who, me?” Len uncrosses his arms. They fall to his sides, revealing a purple T-shirt with a yellow lightning bolt down the front. Another thing about Len: He always wears long sleeves, even in the summer. It’s bizarre.

He tilts his head, and a brown curl swings down onto his forehead. He’s got this mess of curly hair that makes him look part mad scientist, part high school dropout. I think the only redeeming feature he’s got is his eyes. They’re big and blue and round, like gemstones stuck right in there.

“Why would they expel me?”

“Because you are a leper,” she says. “You’re, like, infecting this place.”

Len’s eyes flit from Charlie to me. “What do you think, Rosaline?”

It’s not like Len and I speak regularly or anything, but he’s got this habit of calling me by my full name. It’s so patronizing. He can’t even address someone without being annoying. Definitely his seven.

“I don’t really have an opinion,” I say. “Because I don’t really care.”

Charlie and Len look at me, impressed.

“Helloooo?” Olivia is waving a hand over her head, trying to get our attention about something. She’s talking to Lauren, who is on the student activities committee with us—or SAC, as we call it. We had AP English together last year, and she lives a few doors down from Rob and me. I volunteered us to take her to school last year, but Charlie said it was out of our way. Which is ridiculous, of course, but not very surprising.

“You can see my
bra
,” Olivia squeals, holding out her bottle of sparkling water to us as evidence. It’s currently spraying all over her tank top, and Lauren steps to the side, presumably in search of drier ground.

“Not a bad way to kick things off,” Len says.

“You’re nauseating.” Charlie grabs my elbow and drags me over to Olivia. “He makes me feel dirty,” Charlie says. Olivia raises her eyebrows, and Charlie clarifies, “Not in a good way. Like I just showered in fish oil.”

“You’re going to make me lose my bagel,” I announce, even though I still haven’t consumed a thing.

“Watch that,” Charlie says, reaching over to cap Olivia’s water. “So what’s the deal with you two, anyway?”

“Who?” Olivia fans out her tank top.

“My brother?”

Olivia stops, drops her shirt, and takes a huge gulp of sparkling water. “Three months,” she squeaks out while swallowing. It surprises me. I figured they were getting close this summer, but this means they were together at the end of school. Before Rob even left.

“Three months?” Charlie’s face is turning red. You can tell because she gets these little splotchy marks where she isn’t wearing a lot of foundation.

“Yeah, but it was the summer,” Olivia bleats. “You know, we weren’t really around.”

“What are you talking about, ‘we weren’t around’? We were at the beach together, like, daily,” Charlie says.

Olivia scrunches up her lip. “I like him,” she says.

“At least we know they’re not sleeping together,” I offer.