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Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone sitting on the curb and I slammed on the brakes. It was Chloe. She was doubled over with her head between her knees and it looked like she was heaving. I put the Jeep in park in the middle of the road—our houses were the only two on the street anyway, so who gave a shit—and ran over to her.
“Chloe! Are you okay?” I crouched down next to her.
She shook her head, keeping it down, the tip of her ponytail dragging through a pile of broken acorns near the curb.
“What happened? Is it the baby?” I asked. I went to put my hand on her back, but wasn’t sure I should touch her.
“Do you … have any … water?” she said between gasps.
“Um, yeah! Hang on!” I ran back to the Jeep and grabbed the half-empty Vitamin Water I’d opened after practice. “Here,” I said, sliding it between her legs under her hair.
She picked it up shakily and lifted her head very slowly. With her eyes closed she took a small sip. Then she took some more. She leaned into my side and soon she started to breathe normally again.
“What happened?” I repeated.
“I don’t know,” she replied. She breathed in and out slowly, like she was testing it out for the first time. “I went for a jog and I was totally fine, but then when I started up the hill I got dizzy.”
“You went for a jog? Are you supposed to do that with the, I mean in your—”
Chloe let out a small laugh. “Charlotte did it in Sex and the City. Her doctor told her it was totally fine because she’d always been a ru
Sex and the City? Seriously? That was where she was getting her medical advice?
“Did you ask your doctor?” I asked her, kneading my fingers together between my knees.
Chloe sat up straight. Her eyes flashed angrily. “I’m not go
“Okay, okay!” I said, raising my hands. “I was just asking.” I licked my lips and looked down at her belly, which was starting to push out a little bit. “Maybe you’re just nervous about tonight or something and it stressed you out.”
“Maybe,” she said, slumping. “I mean, I’m definitely scared out of my mind, so it’s possible.”
She drained the rest of the Vitamin Water and handed me back the empty bottle. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“So you and your parents are coming over at eight, right?” she asked hopefully.
I nodded, my heart pounding all over again. “We’ll be there.”
Chloe blew out a sigh. “I can’t believe we’re finally going to do this.”
“Me neither,” I said.
I turned my head to look into her eyes and she looked right back at me, completely determined. I hoped I looked the same way, but I had a feeling I looked how I felt.
Like I would do anything to be anywhere but here.
ally
“What do you think? Will people be comfortable buying coffee from a face like this?”
My dad turned to look at me. Faith had painted his face with all shades of gray, radiating black veins out from around his eyes and coloring his lips black as well. He was the perfect zombie.
“What? Is something different?” I joked.
He got up from his stool and made like he was going to give me a big smooch, and I shrieked and ducked away. A few of the Harvest Festival patrons saw us and laughed, probably thinking we were a carefree father and daughter, just having a good time at the school’s a
But tonight was the night. Chloe and Jake were finally going to tell their parents. Tomorrow, I could be pla
“Thanks, Faith,” my father said, finally giving up on painting me with his face. He handed her a five-dollar bill and told her to keep the change. “I’ll see you for di
“I’ll be there,” I replied, retaking my seat at the face-painting booth.
My dad waved and disappeared into the crowd.
“Your dad is so sweet,” Faith said, watching him go. She was standing next to my chair, wearing ski
“Yeah. Thanks for that,” I said, fiddling with the set of wax crayons in front of me.
It was nice that my dad had shown up to support the Drama Club’s Harvest Fest booth, something my mother, who worked at the school that was two hundred yards away, hadn’t bothered to do. She was, of course, out with Gray somewhere doing wedding stuff. Sometimes I felt as if Jake had replaced me with Chloe and my mom had replaced me with Gray. It was a good thing my dad didn’t have a girlfriend or I might have started to feel like a seventh wheel.
“Does he know? About Jake and Chloe?” Faith asked.
My heart squeezed tightly in my chest. I felt like I’d been lying to both my parents for weeks. But was it really lying if you just weren’t telling them something?
“Nope.” I sighed.
“Okay, what is your deal?” Faith demanded, slamming the lockbox closed. “You just sighed three times in a row.”
“Just wondering how, exactly, Mr. Appleby is going to execute my boyfriend,” I said lightly, resting my chin on my hand. I had a ghost painted on one cheek, and made sure to keep my fingertips away from it so it wouldn’t smudge. “Is he more of a gun person or a knife person?”
Faith clucked her tongue and reached back to check her braided bun, adjusting a bobby pin near the base. “And they call me a drama queen.”
“Aren’t you even a teeny bit worried?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over some girl who was shrieking about her win at the dart booth. “I mean, that man is scary.”
“Okay, yes.” Faith sat down next to me and straightened our tools on the table. “I can’t even imagine how they’re dealing. But no one’s actually going to strangle Jake, right? I mean, Mr. Appleby isn’t certifiable. Just … intimidating. And besides, he forgave your father, right?”
Somehow her logic was not improving my mood. Part of the reason Mr. Appleby had been the first Crestie to forgive my dad for losing scads of money was because he was the only one smart enough not to invest with my dad, or so I assumed. My guess was Jake wasn’t about to get the same kind of leniency. I was about to sigh again, but I caught myself just in time. Kids from school crowded the football field, gathering around the kettle corn booth and clamoring for the next shot at the strongman test. There were some younger moms there with their kids in strollers, most of whom had already dropped a buck for balloons, so colorful orbs bobbed around everywhere. It was festive in that quaint, autumnal Orchard Hill way.
I stared out at the happy faces surrounding me and couldn’t help feeling the tiniest bit jealous. This was my senior year. My last Harvest Festival. Potentially my last fall in Orchard Hill. Shouldn’t I be having fun instead of obsessing about my boyfriend and the girl he’d gotten preggers?
“This sucks,” I muttered, picking at a piece of lint on my cords.
“Well, we’re not making any money being depressing and pouty,” Faith said. Then she stood up, plastered on a grin, and started shouting. “Face painting! Two dollars! Two dollars to be transformed into a totally original walking piece of art!”
Faith was just roping in a second grader and her mom when A
“Wow, you’re in the spirit,” I said flatly.
A