Now I was sure she was flirting. But the thing was, I wanted no part of it.
“Actually, I’m not. I’m busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Debate tournament,” I said, enjoying myself. “All weekend, unfortunately. Out of town.”
“You’re not serious.”
I leaned in, closing the distance between us and knowing that I would get away with whatever I said next.
“I’m as serious as a car crash.”
I gave her my most winning smile before heading back to the table.
AS WE WALKED back to my car, I turned around only once. The sun was setting, and the lights strung between the palm trees in the parking lot had just come on. But even in the purpling night, with the glow of hundreds of tiny lights reflected against the In-N-Out window, I could see them sitting there in the large corner booth, the one they’d taken for just the three of them. Their food was finished, but they hoarded the best table in the place as though it was theirs as long as they wanted it.
Not so long ago, I would have been there with them, inhaling a Double-Double after tennis practice, dipping my fries into my milk shake just to make Charlotte squeal in disgust. I would have laughed at Evan and Jimmy’s antics, because we all knew they were only doing it to see how long until I made them stop.
“We’re going to get kicked out,” I’d warn, shaking my head. “They’ll take a mug shot of us in those stupid paper hats and hang it on the wall to shame us.”
And eventually, when Justin Wong came over to pointedly clear our trays, I would have shot him an apologetic look when the others weren’t watching, knowing that we’d been wrong but had gotten away with it anyway.
“Well,” Cassidy said, climbing into the front seat, “that was exquisitely unpleasant.”
“Welcome to the OC, bitch?” Toby offered.
“Let’s just go.” I put on some music, not wanting to talk about it. Arcade Fire was on the local college station, crooning about growing up in the suburbs. I concentrated on the lyrics until I turned back onto Princeton Boulevard.
“Tumbleweed,” Toby noted. “Fifty points if you hit it.”
“In Soviet Russia,” I said, doing a terrible accent, “tumbleweeds hit you.”
“There are no tumbleweeds in Soviet Russia,” Cassidy put in. “But speaking of the KGB, what was up with your ex-girlfriend?”
I laughed hollowly.
“She informed me that I’m upsetting the status quo. And also that she’s having a party next Friday.”
“So are we,” Toby said. “And I can guarantee you, ours is going to be far better, and far more exclusive.”
“It will,” Cassidy assured me. “You’ve yet to experience the undiluted awesome that is a hotel-room party.”
“My single regret in life,” I replied.
“I don’t know,” Toby mused, “that mullet you had in sixth grade was pretty bad.”
Cassidy laughed.
“He’s lying,” I said. “It’s physically impossible for my hair to mullet.”
“Since when is mullet a verb?” Toby grinned.
“Since you started lying about my having one,” I said, turning into the school lot. It was just starting to fill up with cars for that night’s football game.
“I’ll drive Cassidy home,” Toby said, digging for his keys.
“I’m fine,” Cassidy protested. “I don’t know why you’re all so afraid of coyotes.”
“I’m not,” Toby said. “I’m afraid Faulkner’s gonna offer to put your bike in his trunk again, and we all know he’ll kill himself lifting it.”
“You’re an ass**le,” I informed him.
“At least I didn’t have a mullet in the sixth grade!”
14
CASSIDY AND I never told anyone where we’d gone during Teacher Development Day. We hadn’t sworn to keep it a secret or anything, but it felt strangely private, tangled in the things I’d confessed and in the brief moment when she’d pressed her lips against my cheek. Somehow, though, Toby could sense that something had passed between us, and he was less than thrilled about it.
“That’s why I drove her home,” he explained in the lunch line on Friday. “It’s . . . she’s not what you think. She’s unpredictable.”
“Then stop trying to predict that she’ll wreck me,” I replied, paying the lunch lady for my sandwich. “What’s this about, anyway? How well do you even know each other?”
“Biblically, Faulkner. We know each other biblically.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Well, our teams hung out sometimes. We invited each other when we had room parties,” Toby said. “And there are these little flirtations that happen—debate-cest or whatever you want to call it. She’d act like she couldn’t get enough of someone for about a day, and then she’d lose interest completely. She leaves a trail of broken hearts, and she either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care.”
I took my change from the lunch lady.
“That’s the problem? Remind me never to tell you what goes on at tennis camp,” I said, grabbing some napkins.
“I’d make a dropping-the-soap joke, but I sense that the lunch ladies won’t appreciate it.” Toby picked up a Styrofoam container of “General Chicken” and gave it a dubious sniff before handing over some crumpled dollar bills. “There’s something different about Cassidy this year, and I don’t know what’s changed, but I have a bad feeling about it. Now what do you think? Is this chicken in general, or some specific type of chicken they’ve neglected to identify?”