Keeping Secrets Read online

  And even though Mrs. Gross says I blew my chances at a scholarship, I know there’s just no way this school can flunk me. I mean, so what if I’ve picked up a bad habit of cutting certain classes. They’ve got an entire folder full of all the good stuff I’ve done, and they just can’t go failing people for a few C’s, some random D’s, and a perceived lack of involvement.

  I’m gonna go to my English class, make up some excuse for not having my Anna K paper, then just sit there and get through it. Just like I did in Mrs. Gross’s office (except for that one unfortunate outburst). Then tonight I’ll go home and write that stupid paper. And when I’m done with that I’ll call my dad and ask him to pay for college. After all, he paid my sister’s tuition, and it’s the least he can do for me since he never pays child support.

  I’m three steps from the door when M runs up next to me and says, “Cool outfit, Alex.”

  I’m wearing faded, old 501 Levi’s that I’ve decorated with paint and rhinestones and they look just like the ones they sell in trendy boutiques for two hundred dollars. I’ve paired them with these three-inch platform sandals I can barely walk in, a white, little-boys’ tank top, and a vintage, pink cashmere cardigan with a capital A embroidered on it. M and I are totally into clothes. It’s a hobby we both take very seriously.

  “Did you write your paper?” She’s peering at me intently but I don’t answer. I don’t even look at her. I won’t incriminate myself. “Oh my god, you didn’t!” She grabs my arm. “Jeez, Alex! What are you gonna do?”

  Sometimes I cannot believe that M is my very best friend. I mean, a little support would be nice. I smile at her brightly, and push into class in front of her, but all the while I can feel her eyes watching the back of my head, judging me.

  As I walk into class, I avoid eye contact, and sit at my strategically chosen desk. M and I don’t sit next to each other. She likes to sit front-row center so she can raise her hand a lot and give correct answers. I prefer to be somewhere in the nether regions of the room, but not too far back. It’s not like I want to broadcast my intent to go unnoticed.

  Everyone around me is nervously shuffling papers and making last-minute requests for the stapler. And when I look around I realize that none of them will ever be made to suffer the humiliation of a parent/counselor conference because they’re the kind of people who do all of their homework, and get good grades, and care deeply about Tolstoy’s use of symbolism.

  I sit in my wobbly chair, hunch over my desk, and stare at the graffiti etched on it. Someone has carved “YOU SUCK” and I’m wondering if I should take it personally. I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but I don’t remember it being there yesterday.

  I rub my index finger over it again and again, as though that will somehow erase it and make it less true, and when I look up, Christine “the Collector” is standing right next to my desk. So I just watch her stand there, arms heavy with papers, acting like this little extracurricular activity of hers is gonna go on her resume or something. She taps her creepy, pale pink, acrylic nail against the stack of papers and says, “We’re one paper short.” She just stands there waiting. “Yup, we’re one paper short.” She doesn’t even blink.

  I glance at the headband she’s been wearing since she was the hall monitor in fourth grade, and then I look right into her beady, preppy, little eyes, but she’s impossible to intimidate, and the only way to get her to leave is to give her something to collect. So I reach into my fake Prada backpack that my sister bought for me in New York and retrieve the short story I worked on all night. It’s about a girl who goes to Paris and meets up with an older, English businessman. It’s titled “Holly Would.” When I hand it over she snatches it, scrutinizes my hand-scrawled mess, and smirks. I’m telling you, she’s a total bitch.

  I sit there frozen, just waiting for Mr. Sommers to sort through the papers looking for mine, but instead he leaves them in a haphazard pile on the upper-right-hand corner of his desk, puts on a Mozart CD, and begins a discussion about existentialism. M eagerly raises her hand and I relax and sit up a little bit straighter, knowing I’m off the hook today. But tonight he will go home, put on his slippers and start grading papers. By tomorrow he’ll know.

  “What was that I saw you hand in?” M gives me a suspicious look. “Don’t tell me you actually turned in one of your Richard Branson fantasy stories instead of the Tolstoy paper!”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you.” We’re walking toward the student parking lot.

  “How long do you think you can get away with this?” She looks at me, her face full of concern, mouth twisted with disapproval.

  I lean against her car, give her a bored look and say, “At least until tomorrow.”

  “You’re out of control.” She shakes her head and opens the car door. “You working tonight?”

  I think about how I promised myself I would go home and write my paper and call my dad, and start planning for my future, but for some reason I just shake my head and smile for the first time in two hours.

  “Good, let’s go into the city.”

  We get in the little, red BMW Z3 convertible that her parents gave her on her sixteenth birthday. Tan leather interior, marbled wood dash, shiny spoke wheels: I covet this car, but I don’t resent her for it. We put the top down, crank the stereo, and put on our faux Gucci sunglasses (okay, M’s are real), and head for LA.

  Chapter 3

  M and I have been friends since I moved to Orange County two weeks before my eighth birthday, and I have to tell you that even at that young age I suffered from culture shock. I had come from a nice, middle-class neighborhood where all the kids played together during the summer and anyone’s mom would give you change for the ice-cream truck. Our new neighborhood was totally different. It was all about big houses, big yards, and big gates. There were no block parties, no neighborhood games of kick the can, and definitely no one hawking Popsicles from a musical truck.

  On the first day of school I stood in front of the class, nervously chewing on a strand of hair, as my teacher introduced me as the new kid. Everyone just sort of looked me over and ignored me. But M gave me a big smile and invited me to sit with her during lunch, and from that moment on we’ve been best friends.

  I know that on the surface we seem really different. I mean, M’s family is rich, mine used to be. M is popular, I’m totally B list. M is a perfect, California blonde, in that, long-haired, blue-eyed, lightly tanned, Kate Bosworth kind of way. I’m dark haired, dark eyed, and kind of quirky, in an Alyssa Milano way. M writes all of her essays, I read the books but rarely complete the assignments. M just has this amazing ability to totally compartmentalize her life. I mean, on the weekends she can be pretty wild, but during the week it’s all about homework and student body activities. I’m not as wild as people think, but I just can’t seem to care about school.

  But we definitely have things in common too, like we’re both totally into clothes, we like the same music, and we’re both “gifted.” I mean, we scored the exact same numbers on our IQ tests. We just have all this history together and it’s a pretty great feeling when someone knows you that well and they still want to hang out with you.

  So we end up at our favorite sandwich shack in Venice Beach. There’s this really cute guy who works there that I used to have a mad crush on. But he’s not into me, because he has a mad crush on M. But she’s not into him because she would never date a guy that works in a food stand. She just totally plays him for the freebies. I mean, it’s not like she can’t afford to buy her own veggie rolls, she just really loves the game.

  So she walks up, leans on the counter and goes, “Hey.”

  That’s all she says and he’s grinning like a lottery winner. “What’s up?” he asks, all excited. His eyes flicker to me briefly then rest on M.

  “Well, I’m kind of in the mood for a beer.” She lowers her sunglasses and leans on the counter. I think I saw her flutter her eyelashes.

  He looks around nervously and says, “Okay, but you’ve g
otta show me some ID or my boss will kill me.”

  “But you know me, I’m here all the time,” she gives him her best smile, the one she saves for school portraits and cheerleading tryouts.

  The poor guy just shrugs and I admire him for maintaining some integrity in her presence.

  “Oh, all right,” she says, making a big show of flipping through the stacks of pictures and little pieces of paper in her wallet. “Damn!” she shakes her head. “You know what? I lent it to Ashley Olsen and that bitch never returned it.”

  He totally cracks up and puts two veggie rolls and two bottles of water in a bag and hands it to M, free of charge. I mean, the truth is we do have fake IDs, and pretty good ones too, but who wants a beer at three-thirty in the afternoon?

  As we’re walking away I turn around and I see him looking at her with the most wistful expression. And it makes me really sad. So I promise myself that next time I won’t look back.

  We find a spot on the sand where we can sit and eat and watch all the stoners and freaky people. That’s why we come here. I mean, the shops along the boardwalk are kind of cheesy and the beach itself isn’t so great, but the humanity parade is always entertaining.

  The boardwalk’s pretty crowded today with people strolling, blading, mostly just trying to stay vertical. M takes a sip of her water and goes, “Hey, check out that old guy with the lizard.”

  I follow the direction of her finger and see some guy walking around in a tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt with this huge iguana perched on his shoulder. He’s so weather beaten it’s hard to tell how old he is. “You mean the whacked-out dead head? I think I saw him here last week.” I squint into the sun.

  “Yeah, him. Hey, Jerry’s dead!” she yells at him; that really cracks her up. “Man, I love LA,” she sighs. “You just don’t get this kind of scene back in Orange County.”

  I nod in agreement. We come from a pretty sterile suburban neighborhood, nothing but minivans and jog-bra moms, a library named after a disgraced ex president, three hundred churches, and not one decent place to get a drink. Our trips to LA have become legend at school. Everyone always wants to come with us but we’re very select about who we invite; we usually just hang with each other. My mom probably wouldn’t like it if she knew I was coming up here all the time, so I usually tell her that I’m going to the mall or something. I mean, it’s not like it’s a total lie because we usually do go in shops when we’re here.

  I watch the iguana man weave down the boardwalk wondering where he’s going. He looks so alone that I hope he didn’t hear M making fun of him. Then I tear my sandwich into little strips and throw them to a depraved-looking seagull. He spits out the veggies but swallows the bread, another carbo addict. I close my eyes and lie back on the sand; it feels warm and grainy against my skin.

  I’m on the French Riviera. I emerge from my lavish cabana wearing a tiny black-sequined, string bikini and a very large-brimmed straw hat. This is a fantasy, so of course I give myself amazing cleavage and a rock-hard ass. Next to my lounge chair waits a turquoise drink with lots of plastic monkeys, paper umbrellas, and a big wedge of watermelon hanging on to the rim. I lie on my belly and take a sip. Suddenly, I feel a warm hand creeping along my spine; I lift my Versace glasses and turn—it’s Richard Branson . . .

  “So what do you say Alex?” M asks, interrupting my daydream.

  “What?”

  “You wanna go shopping on Melrose?”

  I sit up and shake the sand out of my hair. “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Chapter 4

  If you’ve never been to LA then let me tell you that it’s not a big city like you probably think. It’s more like a bunch of suburbs connected by freeways and boulevards. Different areas mean different things, like, Beverly Hills is rich but not as obnoxious as the TV show, and Melrose is way cooler than Heather Locklear.

  M squeezes into the world’s smallest parking space and we get out of the car and start walking down the street. Hanging out here is the best; sometimes we see famous people. But we don’t get crazy about it, we act bored like we’re used to it. Just two weeks ago we saw Steven Tyler, you know, that old guy that sings for Aerosmith? Liv Tyler’s dad? I mean, you can’t miss him, he’s all big hair and tattoos, major flamboyance. But when we walked past him we just said “Hey” and kept walking.

  “Oh, I love this store!” M says as she walks into some upscale boutique.

  I take a deep breath and follow behind wondering if she’s gonna have one of her scenes. Every now and then when we go shopping together she’ll glide through the store touching all the merchandise and making comments about how she could buy anything she wants, because Daddy’s platinum card knows no limits. I guess sometimes she likes to remind me of the economic gulf that divides our families, but I try not to let it get to me. Just because M’s parents are like some sort of endangered species still on their first marriage doesn’t mean they’re happy. I know way too much about her family to be upset by stuff like that.

  So I go off on my own and I just sort of meander through the store. There is some seriously cool stuff in here but nothing I can afford. It’s weird, because when I’m with M the salespeople are all over us, but just wandering on my own they totally ignore me.

  I spot these really cool jeans, they look old and faded and used, and it’s amazing how much it costs to buy jeans that someone else has trashed. I take them over to the mirror and hold them against my own, and I run my hand through my hair even though it looks okay. I have pretty decent hair, I mean it’s long and dark and wavy, kind of like Alanis Morissette’s before she cut it, but my nose is perpetually shiny. I discreetly rub the back of my hand over my nose and adjust the position of the pants.

  “Brilliant!”

  I look up and there’s this really cute guy smiling at me. He’s got that kind of messy, brown, Hugh Grant hair, cool clothes, and he’s carrying a big shopping bag with the name of this store on it. And I think I heard an accent.

  “You like them?” I ask.

  “You should get them,” he says, nodding.

  “So I guess you’re not from here,” I say, “Are you British?” I clutch the jeans tightly against me. He’s so cute it’s making me nervous.

  “English,” he says.

  “Do you know Richard Branson?” I blurt out before I can stop myself. God, why did I do that?

  “I met him at a party once. Why? Do you know Richard Branson?” He looks at me and smiles.

  “Me? No. But I’d like to.” I can feel the heat rising to my face. “What’s he like? Is he nice?” I ask, noticing how his blue eyes crease up a little bit in the corners when he smiles and wondering how old he is. Definitely not as old as Richard Branson, probably more like twenty.

  “Wait a minute.” He laughs. “I don’t even know your name and I’m already competing with another guy?”

  “Oh, I’m Alexandra, but I go by Alex.” I smile nervously.

  “Alexandra the Great,” says M as she walks over eyeing the Brit with interest.

  “And your name is?”

  “M. Just M.”

  “Well, I’m Connor, Connor Firth.”

  He said “Firth” in a way that sounds like “First” and I’m wondering if I’m supposed to know him or something since he gave his first and last name, like maybe he’s famous. But it’s not familiar so I assume that’s just how people in England introduce themselves. You know, like all proper and everything.

  We shake hands all around, mine are always so sweaty, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Well, what are you guys doing?” he asks.

  M holds up a stack of clothes she’s been carrying and goes, “Uh, shopping?”

  It sounds kind of rude and I cringe when she says it, but Connor just laughs and goes, “Well, there’s an opening at a gallery down the street. I’m headed there now. Would you care to join me?”

  I watch M drop the stack of clothes on the nearest rack and go, “Okay.” And the way she just said that and the way she’s looking a
t him, gives me this awful feeling that she’s really gonna go for him and then I won’t stand a chance. I mean, M is beautiful and rich and funny and smart. She’s a hard act to follow. And even though I found him first, it definitely won’t matter to her. She’s used to getting what she wants.

  Chapter 5

  So we’re walking down the street toward this gallery, with Connor in the middle and M and I on either side, and M is walking all lopsided, like she keeps losing her balance and has to bump into him or grab on to him, but I can totally tell she’s doing it on purpose. And it makes me wonder if she really does like him, or if she figured out that I might really like him, and so then she decided to like him just because of that.

  When we get to the gallery it’s filled with all these trendy people sipping apple martinis and checking out all the other trendy people. The Moby CD they’re playing is practically shaking the art off the walls and as I look around I’m pretty sure M and I are the youngest ones here. I mean, everyone else looks like they’re pretty sophisticated, you know, like they’re in their late twenties or something.

  M really gets into this scene. She doesn’t know anything about art but then again neither does anyone else. As long as you hold a cocktail, keep circulating, and make really vague comments, no one can tell.

  So she’s standing really close to Connor now, like she’s his date and I’m just some dorky tag-along, and then she squeezes his arm (again) and goes, ‘‘Connor, do you think you could get us some wine or something?”

  He looks at both of us and says, “Sure, any preference?”

  And M (still touching his arm!), smiles and says, “Oh, chardonnay please.”

  Connor looks at me and goes, “Alex?”