Shayla popped into my room, one towel around her body and another one around her showered hair. She jumped on the bed next to me.
“Whatcha shopping for?”
I tried to shut the laptop, but she was fast.
“You caught me,” I said with a sigh. “But we can’t talk about it, because I swore I wouldn’t bore everyone with the LA stuff.”
She glowered at the screen and chided me, “I hope you didn’t find the you-know-what, because he was under eighteen, and that makes it child-you-know-what and very illegal.”
“Gross! I wasn’t looking for the actual film.”
“That’s too bad, because here it is.”
I screamed. “Delete it! Gross, gross, gross. Get it off my computer!”
“Calm down. They don’t have the video, just stills. Like those blurry screen-caps. Hmm.” She chuckled. “Chandler Boink.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Hmm.” She kept clicking, riveted to the screen.
“Shay, how do you feel about Dalton right now? Like if we didn’t know him, and you were just a regular girl again, watching the show with your friends? Do you think his career is f**ked because of this?”
“He plays a moody vampire, Peaches. He’s not Meryl Streep.”
“So, you don’t think it matters?”
“Oh, it matters. I don’t care how fast you run, you never outrun something like Chandler Boink, starring in Pizza Delivery Sluts Love Anal.”
I fell back on the bed and grabbed a pillow to cover my face as I screamed.
Shayla said, “I know, right? Why did it have to be anal? I mean… it’s p**n , so there’s always anal, but why did it have to be in the title? Poor Dalton.”
From under the pillow, I asked, “How many girls did he screw?”
Shayla patted my foot. “Just one, baby. Just one in this movie, and I’m sure that’s it. You were definitely the second girl he slept with, ever.”
I yanked the pillow off my face and blinked at her in disbelief. “Really?”
Shayla smirked and shook her head. “No, not really. For a girl genius you sure are dumb sometimes.” She laughed. “Really, Peaches, he’s probably slept with more girls than a year has days. You’re better off without him.”
I hugged my arms around my body. “What about him, though? Is he better off without me?”
Shayla raised her eyebrows and gave me a serious stare.
“He’s coming to Beaverdale,” I said. “There’s no Keith here to protect me from Dalton’s charms.”
“His charms?”
“And his penis.”
“And his bumpy chest.”
“But mostly his charms,” I said, stifling a giggle.
“Right. Because it was his charms you were blowing when you guys trespassed onto the Weston Estate.”
This time, my giggle would not be stifled. Dalton had taken me to the hot spring of local legend, and I’d played mermaid for him. Just thinking about how good it felt to be na**d outdoors with him, touching each other in the dappled sunlight… it put a smile on my face. Even running na**d through the woods with some shotgun-wielding maniac on our heels was making me grin, now that some time had passed.
Shayla asked, “What would Keith say if he found out you went back to Dalton?”
“I don’t know what he’d say, but I can picture the hurt look on his face.”
“Would he consider it cheating? Are you guys dating long distance?”
“No, Shay. I told you. We never were dating. We were just doing a mutual rebound thing, to unbreak our hearts.”
She made a popping sound with her mouth.
“You’re right,” I said. “Unbreak our hearts sounds ridiculous out loud.”
“Maybe Keith is the guy for you. I’ve never heard one bad thing about him.”
“He puts parsley in smoothies, and he made me go to the gym.”
She shook her head. “In that case, you ought to press charges for cruel and unusual treatment.”
I glanced over at the heart-shaped mylar balloon tethered to my night stand. It had been a gift from my family, but looking at it made me think of Keith, and how he’d phoned me the night I returned home from LA, exactly when I’d needed him. That was just so like Keith, to do the sweet, sensitive thing to show he was thinking about you.
“I miss Keith,” I said. “He’s in Italy now, doing something with his life.”
“And you’re here with me. Poor you.”
“He’s riding around cobblestone streets on a little scooter, I just know it. Ugh, the Italian girls are going to be all over him. He’ll have to beat them away with a breadstick.”
“Breadsticks,” Shayla said, rubbing her stomach. “I’m so hungry, I could eat tofu wieners.”
Just then, Golden called out that she was done in the shower, and I could take my turn.
Shayla looked down at my laptop, frowning. She clicked, then typed furiously for a moment, then frowned some more.
“What is it?” I asked. “More bad stuff about Dalton?”
“Yeah.”
“Was there a Pizza Sluts sequel?”
“No.” Her voice was high and strained, almost like she was asking a question.
I tried to grab the laptop from her to see, but she yanked it away and clicked the button at the bottom to pop out the battery.
“You’re killing me!” I wailed. “Now I need to know what you read! I’m burning with the heat of a thousand suns to know what it was!”
“Too bad. I’m hungry for pancakes and bacon, and… it was nothing at all. I just took the battery out so you’d have your shower and we can all go eat.”
I got up and started toward the bathroom, giving her a squinty-eyed look to let her know I didn’t believe her.
“Fine,” I said. “Murder my laptop. I’ll just ask Dalton when I see him.”
“Maybe you should give him some space.”
“We’re friends now. Friends help each other in crisis.”
“Yes, but…” She stood up and flicked at the heart-shaped balloon, which had lost some helium and now floated three inches below the ceiling. “Get in the shower before I go Low Blood Sugar Godzilla on your ass.”
Heeding her warning, I rushed off to do as I was told. (You don’t mess with Low Blood Sugar Godzilla.) The other girls had gone over the five-minute limit, and my shower was on the chilly side, but the cold water woke me up, and I’ve always liked how goosebumps make your skin feel tight.