One Tough Chick Page 7

  “Good,” my mom said brightly.

  “Since I’ll be the only one of my friends not working on my talent,” I added, taking pleasure in watching her smile droop.

  I pulled my knees up to my chest and crossed my arms over them. Pepper lay next to me—perfectly calm and sweet.

  “I’m so sorry, Annabelle. I realize how disappointing this all is and I wish I could change things. I would if I could,” my mom replied. “I haven’t been feeling like myself lately.”

  “Whom have you been feeling like?”

  “Annabelle, please …”

  “Oh, wait, I know. You’ve been feeling like someone who’d let down her only daughter.”

  “Ouch,” said my mom. “I’m going to leave you to finish your homework. I don’t need to take any more abuse. Okay?” She kissed the top of my head. She meant it to be comforting but instead it made me feel like a baby.

  As soon as she left the room the phone rang, and this time it was Rachel. “Did you see the website?” she asked without even saying hello.

  “What website?” I wondered.

  “The list of talent show participants is posted on the school’s website. I made it even though I fell off my unicycle and dropped my juggling balls. I guess I exaggerated a bit when I said I’d perfected unicycling. But obviously they can tell I have a lot of potential.”

  “That’s awesome. Congrats,” I said. I headed to my computer feeling hopeful. If Rachel had flubbed her act and still gotten in, maybe just showing up with Pepper would be enough to qualify …

  I pulled up the list and searched for my name. The participants were broken down by grades, and I couldn’t find mine on the sixth-grade list. I checked the seventh- and eighth-grade lists just in case a mistake had been made, but unfortunately it hadn’t.

  “I’m not there,” I said.

  “But everyone’s there,” said Rachel. “How is that possible?”

  “You didn’t hear?” I asked.

  “Hear what? I had to rush to the dentist right after my audition and I just got home,” said Rachel. “You’re the first person I’ve spoken to since I got my braces tightened.”

  I took a deep breath and told her the whole crazy story.

  Chapter Eight

  He Let Her Eat Cake

  Annabelle! How are you?” Claire asked me at lunch the next day. “I’m so sorry about the Pepper mess. It stinks that they didn’t give you another audition. It’s so not fair. And I was thinking—do you want to help me with my fashion show? Because I could totally use a partner. My line is already called Claire with a Flair, but I’m sure we can come up with a way to use your name, too. Annabelle and Claire with a Flair? Or maybe that’s too long.”

  Claire chewed on a carrot stick as she contemplated. “How about A&C Designs? That sounds cool, except I think there’s already a line called C&C and I don’t want us to get in trouble for copyright infringement.”

  I didn’t actually know what copyright infringement was, but that wasn’t really the issue. Claire was a good friend and she was only trying to help. This I knew. But the entire thing made me feel worse.

  “I don’t really know anything about fashion, remember?” I asked. “I can hardly get dressed without you. Plus, I can’t even sew a button on straight, so I think you’d be better off without me.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Claire.

  I nodded. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s just one talent show. Not a big deal at all.” I wish I believed those words myself.

  Emma and Yumi glanced at each other, worried, like they didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t seen their auditions, but they must’ve gone well because they made the list, too. All of my friends had.

  Rachel showed up late to lunch with flushed cheeks and juicy gossip.

  I can always tell when Rachel is super-excited about some news because her face turns red and she starts talking faster and faster. She’s the human equivalent of a windup toy—except she doesn’t run out of juice. Ever.

  It’s all chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter—nonstop.

  At least it seems that way.

  And, of course, today’s gossip was all about the talent show. I’d never escape it!

  “Taylor kicked Nikki and Jesse out of her act because when Jesse moved her lips during the chorus she looked like a fish,” Rachel said.

  “That’s so mean!” said Yumi. “Is it true?”

  “Kind of,” said Rachel. “And also she didn’t dance well enough.”

  “Taylor is so terrible,” said Emma. “But why did she have to kick out Nikki, too? I thought they were best buds.”

  “They are, or at least they were, but then Nikki defended Jesse and Taylor got mad,” said Rachel. “Although honestly I think Taylor was worried about Nikki being too good and making her look bad. So the whole ‘siding with Jesse over her’ is probably just a convenient excuse.”

  “So Nikki and Jesse are out of the talent show?” Claire asked, elbowing me. “See, Annabelle. You’re not the only one.”

  “No, they’re still in it, but now they’ve formed their own group,” said Rachel. “And both groups are fighting because they want to dance to the same Lady Gaga song. Mr. Beller says if one group doesn’t volunteer to use a different song, then neither will get to use it, which is just making them fight more.”

  We all glanced toward Taylor’s regular lunch table. She and Hannah were eating in silence and Nikki and Jesse were nowhere to be seen.

  “Banished from the table,” Rachel whispered conspiratorially. “It must be bad.”

  “What a mess,” said Yumi. “Huh, Annabelle?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Are you okay?” Rachel asked.

  My friends all looked at me with sympathy. I could hardly stand it. “I’m fine,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. It’s just one stupid talent show. And it’s not like I need to prove my talent to the world. It’s kind of show-offy, don’t you think?”

  Everyone stared at me with hurt expressions on their faces. I’d somehow managed to insult all of my friends in one fell swoop.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t call it stupid. I guess I need more time to get over it.”

  “I get it. The wound is still fresh. We can talk about something else,” said Claire.

  “Did you hear about that eighth grader who’s in the hospital for trying to swallow a sword?” asked Rachel.

  “Rachel!” I yelled.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I thought we weren’t talking about the talent show.”

  “I’m not,” said Rachel. Suddenly her eyes got wide. “Wait, you mean she was sword swallowing as a talent?”

  “No.” I laughed. “She got super-hungry and decided that a ham sandwich wasn’t going to cut it.”

  “Cut,” said Yumi, clutching her own throat. “Ouch.”

  No one knew what to say after that, so we ate the rest of our lunch in silence.

  I went straight home after school that day even though Rachel and Yumi had plans to make smoothies and short sheet Jackson’s bed. It sounded fun, but I didn’t want to get stuck talking about the talent show the whole time, and I didn’t want them to feel awkward, like they couldn’t mention it around me, because obviously it’s all they wanted to talk about.

  When I got home from school that day I heard voices from the kitchen. This was strange because normally no one is home when I get in.

  And another weird thing? I smelled cake. Ted is an awesome baker. I ran inside and called, “Hi, Mom. Hey, Ted. Is that a cake I smell?”

  I skidded to a stop because my mom? She wasn’t in the kitchen.

  Ted was there with another woman!

  She had frosted-blond hair with dark-brown roots. She wore bright red lipstick and a tight lavender dress, shiny black high heels on her feet and shimmery stockings on her long legs. Sitting on the chair next to her was a giant patent leather purse that matched her shoes. All I could think was, Fancy, fancy, fancy. That
purse was too fancy for our floor. It needed its own chair.

  For a moment we stood there staring at each other.

  I was trying to figure out what was going on. She seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see her. Something in the look in her eye—or maybe it was the shape of her jaw—seemed vaguely familiar. Her large dark eyes, too. I just couldn’t tell why.

  “Um, hi,” I said, because what else do you say when you walk in on your stepdad with another woman? I mean, yes, they were just sitting in the kitchen drinking tea, but still, why were they sitting in the kitchen drinking tea on a weekday afternoon?

  And how come she was using my mom’s favorite cup? It’s blue and it has flowers on it. It was my great-grandmother’s. I never knew my great-grandmother. She died before I was born. But she and my mom were super-close. I’m actually named after her. Well, her name was Anna Marie. My mom took the first half of her name and added the belle.

  The fact that this woman used Anna Marie’s cup didn’t sit right with me.

  “Hi, Annabelle. How was school?” asked Ted, as if the scene in our kitchen was completely normal. He was dressed in a suit—like he always wears to work, but his red tie hung loose around his collar and he wasn’t wearing shoes. Ted never wears shoes in the house, which is normally no big deal, but seeing him in his socks with this woman seemed wrong, too intimate somehow. Especially since he had a hole in one toe. Who was Ted exposing his big toe to, anyway?

  “Fine.” I looked away and felt like disappearing.

  “Can I cut you a piece of cake?” asked Ted.

  “Um, no thanks,” I said, thinking no way am I going to eat cake in front of this strange woman. Ted saw me looking at his friend, or whatever, and he smiled.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot that you two have never met. Annabelle, this is Jason’s mother, Patricia.”

  “Oh, hi,” I said—not saying what I was really thinking, which is this: That’s why she looked so familiar. She’s the mother of Ted’s son. In other words—this is the woman Ted was married to before my mom.

  That meant Ted and his ex-wife were having cake together. I breathed a sigh of relief. And this was immediately followed by a bout of panic because wait a second … What was she doing here? And why were they having cake together?

  As far as I knew, Ted and Patricia got divorced ages ago and they’d never hung out before. Yet she’d called here the other night and now they were spending a lot of time together. Were they getting back together? What would I do if they were getting back together? Why else would they be here eating cake?

  And not just any cake but vanilla cake with pink frosting and not just on top. This cake had three layers. Like it was Valentine’s Day or something. Why were they eating Valentine’s Day cake?

  I guess Patricia saw me staring at her plate because she said, “Would you like a slice, Annabelle? Ted is a wonderful baker, but I guess you know that.”

  “I do,” I said.

  She smiled at Ted. “I miss your baking.”

  “Sweet of you to say,” said Ted.

  “Where’s my mom?” I asked pointedly.

  “Oh, she’s out,” said Ted. “She had some errands to run.”

  I couldn’t believe my mom was out running errands while Ted was hanging out at our house with his ex-wife. I wanted to ask if she knew about this reunion, or whatever it was, but I felt too awkward to do so. Anyway, what if the answer was something I didn’t want to hear?

  Because it’s entirely possible that she didn’t know. That they were meeting in secret.

  “I’m going upstairs,” I said, hurrying off, since sticking around seemed unbearable.

  Pepper and I played fetch in my room for a little while and then I put away my tennis ball and tried to focus on my homework. Unfortunately, there was too much going on to focus on English homework, so I called Oliver instead.

  “Hey!” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Not much. I’m trying to finish some homework before my art class tonight.”

  “Cool,” I said, thinking about Ted and Patricia downstairs. I could hear her laugh. She sounded kind of like Jason. This made me almost like her, but also not. I should’ve stayed downstairs, pulled up a chair, reminded Ted that he had a new family now. Defended my poor mom, who wasn’t even around to defend herself.

  Patricia’s heels must have been five inches tall. My mother never wore heels.

  “Are you okay?” asked Oliver.

  “Huh?” I asked. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m sorry I’m kind of distracted. Something weird happened.”

  “What?” asked Oliver.

  “Well, not totally weird. Just a little. And maybe it’s nothing,” I replied feebly. “Actually, I don’t know what it is.”

  “I’m confused,” said Oliver.

  “Me, too. I came home and found my stepdad having cake with his ex-wife,” I said.

  Oliver was silent at the other end of the line. “What kind of cake?” he asked eventually.

  “Vanilla with pink frosting. In our kitchen! And she’s dressed up all fancy, in shimmery stockings and tons of makeup, and she told Ted she missed his baking.”

  “Whoa. Do you think your mom knows about it?” asked Oliver.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to tell her?” he asked.

  “I should, right?”

  “Probably. Or you could ask Ted what she’s doing there.”

  “Just ask him?”

  “Sure,” said Oliver. “Why not?”

  It seemed so simple—too simple. “Maybe,” I said. “I should go.”

  “Okay, see you later,” said Oliver.

  “Bye,” I said, hanging up.

  When I got downstairs Patricia was gone and Ted was in the kitchen cutting up vegetables for a salad.

  “Where’s your … um … where’s Jason’s mom?” I asked.

  “Oh, she left a while ago,” said Ted. “Want to peel some carrots?”

  “Sure.”

  He handed me the peeler, and we worked side by side in silence. Oliver was right—I should ask Ted what Patricia was doing in our kitchen. And part of me wanted to but apparently not the part of me that actually controls my mouth, because I didn’t say a word.

  If Ted was going to leave us for Patricia, he wouldn’t have been out in the open about it, right?

  Did people leave their wives for their exes?

  Why would they have gotten divorced in the first place?

  She didn’t seem anything like my mom. She had long fake nails. Her eyelashes were coated in mascara. My mom is a simple eye shadow and neutral lipstick kind of gal.

  And right as I was thinking that, my mom walked through the door, loaded down with shopping bags.

  “You need help?” asked Ted.

  “No, this is everything,” said my mom.

  “What did you get?” I asked.

  “New jeans,” she replied. “My old ones were getting a bit snug.”

  She and Ted shared a smile. Then she walked up to him and kissed him on the lips.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  Ted looked at me and smiled. “It was fine,” he said.

  He didn’t mention Patricia in that moment or for the rest of the night, which seemed like a bad sign.

  But even worse than that, I didn’t mention her, either.

  Chapter Nine

  it’s Electric!

  Mr. Beller asked me to stay after class on Friday, and I figured he was going to scold me for Pepper’s behavior, which is not something I was exactly surprised or excited about. I just hoped I didn’t get detention or anything because it wasn’t my fault my dog acted crazy.

  Maybe I should tell him about how Pepper didn’t have time to warm up, and how I’d had no idea he’d get stage fright. Would he be sympathetic? It’s hard to tell. I didn’t think Mr. Beller was a dog person. He seemed too fussy. He didn’t seem like a cat person or a hamster person, either. Cute furry animals were probably not his thing. Goldfish seem
ed too friendly, and I couldn’t imagine him taking care of a frog or a turtle. Probably, he was more into cacti. The dry, prickly plant certainly fit his personality.

  This is what I was thinking as I walked to his desk, my shoulders already slumped in disappointment and embarrassment.

  Mr. Beller wore his usual surly expression. Even his voice sounds surly. If he were a woman he’d be named Shirley, and everyone would call him Surly Shirley, except only behind his back.

  “How’s your dog?” Mr. Beller asked.

  I cringed. “He’s fine, now, totally back to normal. And he’s never behaved that way before. I’m so sorry. If I had any idea that Pepper would spaz out like that, I never would’ve brought him to school.”

  Mr. Beller’s features twisted up into a funny expression—one I’d never seen before; one that seemed the opposite of surly.

  Then he really surprised me. My cranky English teacher? He let out a huge belly laugh.

  “You should’ve seen the faces on those girls in the dance troop when Pepper came running. You’d have thought they were being attacked by an army of hungry polar bears. It was hilarious!”

  His eyes got squinty and his face turned red and his whole body trembled as he tried to contain his laughter. Soon he was giggling but clearly trying not to. He reminded me of a stout teakettle about to boil over.

  It seemed kind of mean to laugh at Taylor and her crew, but if I removed my personal stakes from the situation I had to admit—it was probably funny seeing them scramble.

  Was this why Mr. Beller asked me to stay after class? So we could laugh together?

  It was odd, but at the same time nice. Certainly a relief, and how cool to see a different side of him.

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  “No,” said Mr. Beller. “Sorry. I just—no, I can’t help it.” He let out another laugh and then coughed a few times, and suddenly he was back to his usual self. “Okay, so I was talking to the talent show committee, and we’ve decided to try something new this year. Shake things up a bit with some student judges.”

  “Student judges?” I repeated. This sounded interesting.