I shush her and wave them both inside. The first thing that strikes me about Millie’s house is how everything—from the fake flowers to the paint to the throw pillows—matches. Millie is a lavender cotton ball in her matching sweat suit, socks, and headband. It’s like she went online and searched “slumber party outfits” and came up with this gem from a Baby-sitters Club book cover or something.
Amanda is in her soccer shorts and a T-shirt, but she’s barefoot. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her without her platform shoes on, and I don’t want to be that jerk who stares, so I keep my eyes on her face instead, which still feels totally obvious.
“Okay, but real talk,” she says. “He dropped you off. Here. You were in his car. Tell us everything.”
Millie pulls us down the hallway and past the TV room where her parents are watching some PBS series with British people talking in hushed voices about scandalous things like who’s going to serve lord and lady their chilled pea soup.
“Wait till you hear about my pageant-dress fiasco. I hope y’all are having better luck,” I say.
Millie shakes her head and yanks on my hand, pulling me to her bedroom door, which I know is hers because a wooden heart with her name painted in cursive tells me so.
Amanda covers her mouth, stifling her own laughter.
“What?” I ask.
Millie’s eyes meet mine, and there’s a desperation in her I’ve never seen before. She opens the bedroom door, and on a lavender beanbag in all black is Hannah. She doesn’t even look up.
Millie takes my bag and sets it on the foot of her bed. “Okay, sit down.”
I do. Right there on the floor.
Millie sits in this crazy wicker throne chair in the corner of her room. It looks like something out of a retirement home, but oddly enough, it suits her. I wish I could take a picture of her in this huge chair with her matching outfit, ringlet curls, and sloped nose. “You can’t talk about the pageant in front of my parents.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because they don’t know she’s in it,” says Hannah.
With a huge grin plastered across her face, Amanda slides down onto the floor in front of Millie.
“But what about the parental consent form?” It’s more a rhetorical question because I know the answer. I can’t imagine Millie being capable of such deception.
She licks her lips. “I forged my mother’s signature.”
Hannah sits scrolling through her phone, with her lips sealed but smiling.
Millie’s round face crumples a little. Her cheeks tinge an even deeper pink than normal. “I asked them. Back when I first found out you were entering the pageant.”
I nod along with her, encouraging her to tell me more.
“And my mom took a few days to think about it. But they said no. They said they couldn’t have that on their conscience. That I’d get made fun of, and that it didn’t seem like a very Christlike way to spend my time.”
Hannah scoffs.
I roll my eyes at her. Which doesn’t matter because she can’t spare a glance away from her phone. “But what are you going to do? The pageant is next weekend. I mean, you’re going to be in the paper. And then everyone will know.”
Sure, we’d been heckled a few times, but once that paper goes to print, there’s no turning back. People like Patrick Thomas would have good material on me for the rest of our lives.
“I—I don’t know.” She chews the skin around her thumbnail, and her eyes search my face, looking for some kind of answer or something. Anything that might tell her it will be okay.
I see it now. I see now what the stakes are for her and how she wants nothing more than to break out of the delicate little box her parents have built for her. “It’ll be okay,” I say. “It’s going to be fine.”
“I think it’s badass,” says Amanda. “I woulda never thought you had something like that in you.”
“Oh, I think she’s got room in there for plenty,” murmurs Hannah.
That’s it. I am so over her attitude. “What is it with you?” I spit. “Why are you even here? Can’t you just hate on something in your own house?”
“Will,” says Millie.