Kasey Screws Up the World (25 page)

Denise’s face slid into an over-exaggerated pout. I matched her expression, hoping my fake pout would cover the real one that wanted to be permanently attached to my lips. She eyed me. “I don’t believe you. You like to hide stuff when it’s exciting.” She leaned back. “So I’m just going to assume—”

The doorbell rang again.

“Oh!” She snapped her fingers in an
awe shucks
manner. “Saved by the bell. You lucky duck.”

I pushed myself up from the table. “I told you. There’s nothing to tell.”

Not anymore.

When I went back in the living room to get the door, Lara watched my every move. She wore a weird grin on her face and I knew that she had heard every word of my conversation with Denise. I didn’t know what that grin meant.
I’m going to tell Denise about Finn if you don’t
. Or:
I’m glad you quit your job this summer.
Or even,
What are you hiding now?

This time when I opened the door, I found Ali Montauk standing on the front steps, carrying a bouquet of flowers and a wrapped box with a ribbon around it. She smiled way too big when she saw me, showcasing her expensive set of perfect teeth. “Oh hey, Kase. Missed you today. Is Lara home?”

Where else would she be?

“Ali?” Lara called out, adding a squee. Ali matched the squee and ran inside.

The two of them proceeded to speak in a foreign language of squeals and mumbles that somehow translated to Ali asking how Lara was.

“This is just a bump in the road,” Lara said. “Doc said I’ll be back to normal in no time. I even set up an audition at the end of the summer.”

“You’ll get it for sure.” Ali outstretched her arm behind her, away from Lara, holding out the flowers to the air. I realized a moment later she was holding them out to me to do something with them.

I could hear Denise bumbling around in the kitchen and the clang of pans banging together.

“I’ll get a vase,” I said, grabbing the flowers from her hand.

“No need. They’re fake.” Ali grinned at my sister. “So they’ll never die.”

I took the flowers and set them on the coffee table next to Lara’s stash of empty bowls. I wasn’t sure what else to do with them.

Ali shoved the wrapped box in Lara’s lap. “Open it. I call it a get well present. Incentive and all.”

I knew I should go back to Denise in the kitchen. Ali was Lara’s friend, not mine. But for some stupid reason, my feet decided to become as useless as Lara’s. I couldn’t move.

Lara opened the wrapping paper with precision, different from her usual style of tearing through it, and I wondered if she was apprehensive as to what she would find inside. I hoped it wasn’t something that reminded her of dance.

It was worse.

Lara pulled out a pair of sparkly five-inch stilettos, the kind that even strippers wouldn’t dare to wear.

“For when your hip heals!” Ali tapped Lara’s cast and Lara winced. Ali missed it.

Denise entered the room carrying a plate of cookies. They looked lackluster compared to her usual baked offerings and I wondered if she’d skipped on the rest of her culinary experiment to get these out as fast as possible. Before she could miss Ali’s visit.

Ali jumped up and hugged the girl she’d just seen a few hours before. “Oh wow, cookies! You rock!” Ali took the smallest of bites, then set the cookie back down on the plate. I felt stupid for scarfing two so fast, I didn’t even have a chance to blow on them to cool them.

“Oh!” Ali did a little hop on the couch, causing Lara’s leg to jolt. Lara grabbed it to steady it. “I forgot to tell you. Birthday party. Second week in August. You better be there! My parents are going away, so, you know. Rager and all.”

Lara glanced down at her leg. “I’ll be there. Without this stupid thing on.”

Ali turned back toward me. “Kasey, you can come too if you want, I guess.”

I noticed she didn’t mention anything to Denise and I had a feeling it was because Denise already knew about it. She’d received her invitation thoughtfully instead of as an after thought.

“The second weekend?” Lara said. “Don’t you have something that night, Kasey?”

She’d made my decision for me. I couldn’t go. “Yeah. Mom made me block that weekend off.” I lied way too easily these days.

“Sucks you can’t go.” Denise offered another pout. A minute of awkward silence followed before Ali excused herself. And Denise left with her.

“So you’re quitting?” Lara asked as I grabbed the plate full of cookies from the coffee table to bring back into the kitchen where I could devour the rest in peace.

I nodded at her, then held my breath. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. A thank you, maybe.

Instead she simply said, “Good.”

Later that night, I bit into the pizza my parents had delivered. I sat alone in the kitchen while the three of them ate in the living room. I could hear them laughing every now and then. Just as I was about to throw out my paper plate and retreat to the solitude of my room, Mom came storming into the kitchen. “You quit?”

“I—” I wasn’t sure what to say. I couldn’t read her deadpan expression. I meant to tell her the truth, but instead I said, “I was let go. They were overstaffed and since I was an alternate last year, they didn’t need me.”

Mom nodded once. “I know you were looking forward to working there this summer.”

I straightened in my chair, hoping she was about to commiserate with me, swipe away my tears like she used to do when I was a little girl. Or maybe she’d give me a compliment to push me forward once again, like she always did when Lara didn’t do well at an audition.

“But now your dancing won’t always be a reminder to Lara.”

Really, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I always knew my mom didn’t care about
my
dancing. I just hadn’t realized she didn’t care about me at all.

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Ali
said…

That’s right. Your invitation was only out of courtesy. Too bad you didn’t stay away from the party out of courtesy.

“KASEY,” ALI CALLED TO me in the hallway. This seemed to be her favorite past time.

I pivoted to face her, eyebrows raised. “Let me guess. You hate me?” I pumped my elbow through the air. Several students laughed with me. “What do I win?” My new idea to help Lara, Denise, Lonnie, and even Ali gave me the confidence to stand up to her. There was something so invigorating about helping someone who didn’t deserve it. I finally had the upper hand over her.

She stomped toward me. “You made me sound oblivious and insensitive on your blog yesterday.”

“Your point?”

That earned a clap and a few hoots from the onlookers.

“I’m not.” She outsplayed her wrists as if that revelation was obvious. “I thought long and hard on what would be the perfect give for Lara. Stop making me look like a bitch.”

“Don’t request something that’s impossible for me to achieve.” I stalked away to the sound of her scoffing. I didn’t have time for her anymore. I had an appointment to make.

Before I even had a chance to knock, Ms. Bell, the Guidance Counselor, waved me into her room.

“What can I do for you, Miss Fishbein?” Her hair had been slicked back into such a rigid ponytail, not a strand moved as her head bobbed.

“I know we do Career Day in the spring, but doesn’t it make much more sense to do it in the fall?”

She folded her arms over her desk. “Most students apply for summer internships in the spring, so there isn’t really a need to do it in both seasons.”

I set a piece of paper in front of her, which outlined my ideas. “It does if we also invite alumni. There are plenty out there looking for jobs right now.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” She squinted at the paper. “Alumni can call me at any time and I’m happy to help them in their job search.”

I shifted in my seat. She was making this difficult and this was supposed to be the easy part. “How many of them call?”

She hesitated for a moment. No matter what she said after that pause, I knew the truth. Not many. “Let’s back track a little.” She slid my paper aside. “Are you worried about not getting a job? I know it’s a stressful situation, leaving here, not knowing where you’ll end up.” She offered me a sympathetic smile, one that made her look more like a student than my superior. Though her age had something to do with that as well. “But perhaps you should focus on college applications instead.”

Considering my list of future career aspirations, I
was
actually worried. It seemed my options were limited to Stalker aka “Fake C.I.A. agent,” Disowned Family Member aka “Homeless,” and Hot Mess aka “Reality Show Contestant.”

“If it’s cost you’re worried about, I have a list of scholarships…” She pointed vaguely behind her toward a bulletin board covered in stapled packets of paper.

“That’s a good idea,” I said. If I made her think this was her idea, she might even believe it. “Colleges should be a part of it too. This way students can decide where to apply, maybe even do on-the-spot interviews.”

She tapped a finger to her pink frosted lips. “I guess that would have been useful when I was in school.”

Those were the magic words. I leaned in closer to her desk and set the paper back in front of her. “That’s only part of my idea…”