CHAPTER Eleven
Instead of heading to my afternoon gym class, I duck into the computer lab. I’m not too worried about getting into trouble. The teacher forgets to take attendance half of the time, and even if he does mark me as absent, I can make something up about having a narcoleptic episode.
There are only a few kids in the lab. One appears to be watching music videos on YouTube. He has headphones on and doesn’t notice me drop into the chair next to him.
My curiosity about Aunt Lydia has gotten the best of me. Maybe Rollins is right and she is just a lonely woman seeking out the family she left behind so long ago, but I can’t help wondering if there was some sort of impetus that brought her to us.
The school’s home page pops up, and I highlight the URL and type in Google. In the search field, I type in “Lydia Homer.” Homer was my mother’s maiden name. Since Lydia isn’t married (that I know of), I’m guessing that’s the name she went by in California. Millions of results pop up. I sift through them, not finding anything especially helpful. There’s a woman living in Missouri by that name, but when I click on her Facebook page, the picture doesn’t look anything like Lydia. Another woman in Idaho. I go back up to the top of the page and narrow my results to California. This leads me to the website of a dog trainer living in San Francisco, but again, the picture looks nothing like my aunt.
Twenty minutes go by, and I find nothing about my aunt. It seems odd that someone could live in today’s world without leaving any tracks on Google. I drum my fingers on the desk in frustration. Finally, the bell rings, and I log off the computer, thinking about how much I’d suck as a private investigator.
After school, I’m standing at my locker, contemplating which books I need to take home with me. Samantha Phillips stands nearby, gazing at herself in her locker mirror with a tube of lip gloss in her hand.
A few feet away, a couple of sophomore football players are huddled together. They keep looking over at Samantha and laughing. When she notices them, she slams her locker shut and strides across the hall to face them. “What the hell are you laughing at?”
I expect the sophomores to cower before her, but one of them looks her right in the eye and says, “Did you have a good time with Scotch on Thursday night? Because I heard you did. In fact, I saw evidence that you had a really good time.” The guy’s friend cracks up.
Samantha turns white. She backs away from the guys, who are now slapping each other on the back and roaring with laughter. Then she turns and runs down the hallway before ducking into the girls’ bathroom.
A debate rages within me. If Samantha and I were still best friends, I would immediately chase after her and make sure she was okay. Now we have this chasm between us. But I have to admit there’s a part of me that still cares about her. Plus, I’m curious about the evidence the guy was alluding to. Finally, I decide to go after her, even though she’ll probably brush me off like she did last week.
I take a deep breath and fight my way down the hall, through the crowd of students all anxious to get to their after-school activities or to just go home. I push the bathroom door open.
I hear the unmistakable sound of Samantha sobbing in one of the stalls. She gasps and stops crying, though, as soon as I walk in. Same old Samantha. She could never let anyone see her wounded.
“Samantha? It’s me, Vee.”
I hear her blow her nose, and then the toilet flushes.
“Sam? You okay?”
She opens the door and steps into the harsh fluorescent light, straightening her skirt. Her eyes are dry, but her cheeks are all splotchy and red. She takes a few steps to the nearest sink and starts to wash her hands.
“What do you want?” she asks, looking at me in the mirror.
“I—I saw you run in here, and I thought you were upset.”
After drying her hands, she turns around and leans against the sink. “Why would you care? Of all people, why you?” The question cuts me to the bone. Sure, we haven’t been friendly in a while, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t matter to me, even after the terrible rumors she spread when I went out with Scotch.
“Why wouldn’t I care?” I ask gently.
“Um, because I’ve been a major bitch to you this last year? If I were you, I wouldn’t even speak to me.” Samantha’s voice breaks, and her façade begins crumbling before my eyes. It’s not that Samantha hates me, I realize. She just doesn’t want to face her own despicable behavior.
“Look, Sam. I was pissed at you for a long time. Really pissed. But I have the feeling you’re going through a hard time. I know you were out with Scotch last week. Did something happen? It might help to talk to someone who’s dealt with him before.”
Samantha looks up at the ceiling and fans her face like she does when she’s trying not to cry. I duck into one of the stalls and grab a bit of toilet paper. Wordlessly, I hold it out to her, like a peace treaty.
She accepts it.
Turning toward the sink, she blows her nose. Then she leans forward and stares at herself while she speaks. “There was a bonfire Thursday night. Everybody was there.” Her eyes flicker toward me. “Well, you know what I mean.”
I shrug. A bonfire with a bunch of cheerleaders and football players sounds kind of like the ninth circle of hell to me.
“Scotch asked me to go with him. I don’t know why I said yes—I guess I was still a little mad about you going to the dance with him last year. It’s like I had to prove something to myself—that he wanted me. Or something. It was dumb. Anyway, I chugged, like, four beers. And then I started to feel sick. I puked in the weeds, and Scotch held my hair. He was being really sweet. I remember getting in the car with him to go home, but nothing after that. When I woke up, I was propped against my front door. He just left me there, I guess . . .”
Sam stops for a moment and then looks at me in the mirror. “Vee, I didn’t have any underwear on.” She crosses her arms over her chest and starts to cry. “I looked everywhere and couldn’t find them. On Friday morning, I heard some guys talking about how Scotch was saying I slept with him. And that he had proof.”
I stand for a moment, not really knowing what to do. I can count the number of times I’ve seen Samantha cry on one hand. Even when we were best friends, she liked to pretend that she was invincible. I remember when her older brother had an emergency appendectomy, I went to visit Sam at the hospital. Her eyes remained dry the whole time I was there. I kind of wanted her protective shell to break, so I could be there for her and comfort her. But now that I have the chance, I feel totally lost.
“Holy shit, Samantha,” I say. My words feel stupid and worthless, but they seem to break through to her, just the same. She holds her arms out to me, and I bridge the gap between us to give her a long hug.
“I just wish I knew what happened,” she whispers.
“I know the feeling,” I say, thinking back to my own encounter with Scotch. To this day, it sickens me to know that he was alone with my unconscious body. He could have done whatever he wanted if Rollins hadn’t burst into the locker room.
Samantha pulls back and looks me in the eye. “I’m sorry about that night.” She doesn’t need to say which one. We’re both thinking back to Homecoming last year. I confronted her after the dance, accusing her of watching Scotch drag me down to the locker room. She never knew how I knew. The truth was I slid into her and saw the whole scene through her eyes. She never denied knowing about what happened to me, though. And she never apologized. Until now.
“I was so angry with you,” she says. “You knew how much I liked him. I—I kind of felt like you deserved what happened. And now I know I was wrong. No one deserves that. No one. I’m so, so sorry.”
Looking into her eyes, I know that Samantha’s being genuine. She feels terrible about what happened to me. Just like I’m sick over what happened to her.
“He’s an a*shole,” I say simply.
She backs away from me and takes a deep breath. “That’s an understatement. I just wish there were some way to get back at him.”
The wheels in my brain start turning. I remember a novel I read once in which a girl pretended to make out with a guy in his car. She waited until he was completely naked, and then she stole his car, leaving him to walk home in the buff.
Lightbulb.
“Hey, Sam. I have an idea.”
She sniffs. “What?”
My scheme is still not fully formed in my head. Of course Scotch wouldn’t believe Samantha or I would want to get together with him—not after what he did to us. We need someone else. Someone Scotch would like. A cheerleader.
Regina.
I clap my hands together. “Come over after cheerleading practice. Bring Regina. I have the best plan ever!”
“Does your plan involve supergluing his privates to the wall?”
I laugh. “No. It’s even better.”
She smiles, but I can sense there’s something more she wants to say. She shuffles her feet, looking as though she’s searching for the right words. “Hey, Vee?”
“Yeah?”
“I never did thank you for what you did for me during the fire. I know that you risked your own life, trying to pull me out. I don’t know if I’d have been able to do the same thing.”
I study her face. It feels good to look at her and recognize the girl I see looking back at me. “You would have. I know it.”
She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tonight.” She crosses the bathroom and puts her hand on the door, getting ready to leave.
“Wait a sec,” I say. “I’ll make sure those guys are gone.”
I duck my head outside, and sure enough, the two boys have disappeared. I motion for Samantha to follow me, and we return to our lockers. I grab my backpack and hoodie and then turn to find Samantha standing in front of her open locker door, staring at herself in the mirror.
“I can’t go to practice. All the girls will be talking about what I supposedly did with Scotch.”
I grab the tube of fuchsia lipstick from the shelf in her locker and hand it to her. “Of course you can, silly. You’re Samantha Phillips.” She takes the tube from me and holds it for a moment, feeling the weight of it. She uncaps it, swipes it across her lips, and returns it to its place on the shelf. As she presses her lips together, I think that only Samantha Phillips would have the balls to wear lipstick in such a bright shade of pink. She slams the locker door.
“You’re right. I am.” She gives me a shaky smile and then turns to head to the gym. I watch her walking away, her head held high.
Samantha, Mattie, and Regina show up a little after five.
Mattie does a belly flop onto my bed, and Samantha perches shyly on the rocking chair in the corner of my room. It feels so strange to have her in my bedroom after more than a year. Mattie keeps giving us curious looks, no doubt wondering why I invited Samantha and Regina over.
Regina wanders over to my desk and sits down. She picks up a framed picture of me and Mattie on the beach and sighs. “Is this at Lake Okoboji? My parents took Todd and me there every summer when we were little. We had so much fun.”
I gently take the picture out of her hands. “Did Samantha tell you guys what Scotch did to her?”
Mattie winces. “What an a*shole.”
I examine Regina’s face, looking for confirmation that she’s disturbed enough by Scotch’s actions that she’ll help us with my plan. She scowls. “Yeah. I can’t believe he’d do something like that.”
“Well,” I tell her, “if you help us, we can get him back.”
“What can I do to help?”
“We’re going to teach Scotch a little lesson. And we need your help.”
“Why me?” Regina asks.
“He likes cheerleaders,” I say. “Obviously he’s not going to go for me or Mattie. He knows we both despise him. And he’d be too suspicious if Samantha came onto him, after what he did. We need someone younger, someone he’ll think he has the upper hand with . . .” I look at Regina, thinking how perfect she is for the part. Her hair is long and soft, falling around her face in light brown curls. Her heart-shaped face is bare except for a hint of lip gloss and mascara. She looks so innocent. Scotch would never suspect she’d be a part of a plan to take him down. “All we need you to do is ask him to take you to Lookout Point tomorrow night. Say you’ve been admiring him all year long, and you’d like a chance to get to know him better.”
Regina blushes. “I can’t say that.”
“Sure you can,” Samantha cuts in. “Just call on your inner vixen.”
“My inner what?”
“Your inner vixen,” Samantha says, tossing her hair. “It’s what I always do when I’m feeling less than confident. I ask what my inner vixen would do. She always gives me the courage to be the strongest woman I can be.”
“So what’s the rest of the plan?” Mattie asks, anxious to get back to business. “Regina gets Scotch up to Lookout Point, and then what?”
“All Regina will have to do is get him up there. Then she’ll get out of the car and find Samantha, who will be waiting by the old pavilion. I’ll take care of the rest.”
The three girls stare, waiting for me to go on.
“What are you going to do to him?” Mattie demands.
“Get him naked and leave him stranded.”
“How are you going to get him naked?” Samantha demands.
“You just leave that up to me,” I say mysteriously, thinking about how easy it’ll be to slide into Scotch, undress him, toss his clothes off the side of the cliff, and then leave him to find his way back to town, naked as the day he was born.
Scotch will get just what he deserves.
I wander into the hall, heading for the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth before bed. Mattie is downstairs with my dad, watching MythBusters.
I notice that my father’s door is standing open. I see a shadow moving inside. It’s certainly not my dad, whose laughter I hear booming from below. It has to be Lydia.
I tiptoe right up to the threshold and peek around the corner. Lydia is standing before my father’s bureau with her back to me, but I can see her reflection in my mother’s antique mirror. She’s got the top drawer open and is sifting through his underwear and socks.
What exactly does she think she’s doing?
In awe, I watch as Lydia retrieves a small velvet box from the drawer. She holds it reverently in her hand for a moment, caressing it with her eyes. Then she lifts the top and looks inside.
It’s my mother’s wedding ring.
My father has kept it hidden away in his drawer for years. Sometimes, when I was younger, I’d sneak into his room and pull it out. I even put it on once in a while and danced around the house, pretending to be her. My mother.
But what could Lydia possibly want with my mother’s ring?
And how did she even know where to find it?
I duck out of the room and lean against the wall, my heart pounding. I don’t know what Lydia is doing in our house. I don’t know what her intentions are. But I swear to myself that I will find out.
I hear a drawer slam shut inside the room, so I race down the hallway. I casually act as though I’m coming out of my room and heading to the bathroom when Lydia comes out of my dad’s room and shuts the door.
“Oh,” she says when she sees me. “I was just putting away some laundry.”
She beams at me, and all I can think is that I’ve never seen a more fake smile in my entire life.