The next day at lunch Blaire and Elise were busy, again. I wondered if the rest of the year was going to play out like this, us hardly seeing each other.
I headed toward the food carts and out of the corner of my eye I saw a fast-moving object headed my way. It was actually a fast-moving person—Trina.
“You want to go off campus for lunch again?”
I looked at my phone, the texts from earlier confirming that all my friends were indeed otherwise occupied. “Yeah, that sounds fun.”
“Let’s take your car.”
We got burritos at Café Rio and ate there, like we did last time. When we pulled back onto campus there was plenty of time to get to our next classes. We walked through the parking lot. I held a half-full soda cup, and listened while Trina explained to me what an all-ages club was and why I should go with her to one that weekend. That’s when I saw Blaire and Elise exit the library together. Like they had just spent lunch in there. Elise even held a brown lunch bag that she crumpled up and threw in a trash can as they walked by it. I pulled out my phone to see if I had missed a text about them getting done early. There was nothing on my phone.
“You okay?” Trina asked from next to me, and I realized I had stopped listening to her.
“Yeah. Fine.” I swallowed a lump that was trying to form in my throat. I ducked my head a little, not sure if I didn’t want my friends to see me or if I didn’t want them to know that I had seen them.
When I showed up for study group the next night, it was the first time I’d seen my friends since they’d gotten together at lunch without me the day before. Had they been purposely leaving me out all week? Having meetings without me? If so, why?
“Maddie!” Elise called when she saw me. Her excitement was so genuine that my suspicions became more of a mild doubt. Maybe they had just both randomly shown up in the library, unplanned.
I swung my bag onto the table. “I’m not late, am I?” I asked, checking my phone. It was only five minutes to seven.
“Of course not,” Blaire said, giving me a smile.
“But you usually come with treats,” Elise said. “Where are our treats?”
I laughed. “So you appreciate them after all.” I was avoiding the Mini-mart and the lady who wanted me to mail her a check for … how much did she expect me to give her, anyway? Millions?
“Treats?” a deep voice said, and I jumped. I hadn’t seen him there at first at the corner of the table. Mason. Why was he here?
“Hi,” I said.
“Do you know Mason?” Elise asked.
“Yes, how do you know him?” My voice was laced with disbelief and I realized too late that it sounded offensive. “I mean, I just didn’t know you knew each other.”
“We met at your party,” Elise said.
“Oh. Right.”
“Are you getting us treats?” he asked.
“No, I sometimes do.”
“Oh.” He went back to reading his graphic novel. Blaire would’ve killed me had I ever invaded the study space with anything other than core subjects.
I slid into the open chair next to Elise.
“Did you do anything fun today?” Blaire asked me.
“No. Laundry.”
“You haven’t hired someone for that yet?”
I laughed even though I was kind of tired of those jokes. I was getting them constantly.
Blaire pointed to the colored chart in the center of the table. “I’ve divided the night by subjects. Right now we’re working on math. If anyone has any hang-ups they’d like to discuss as a group, those will take place in the last quarter of each hour.”
We knew the drill. It was a method of group studying we did about once a month. But Blaire still felt the need to explain it every time. The only problem with this method was that I’d already done my math for the day after school. I’d gotten ahead of myself.
I bit my lip and pulled out the only homework I had—Government. I would participate in the group discussions for math when everyone was finished with theirs.
“What’s that?” Blaire asked. She was like a hawk, narrowing in on my book right away and ready to swoop it away from me.
“I finished math.”
Elise looked up from her paper but didn’t say anything.
“We just got the assignment today,” Blaire said.
“I know. I did it after school. I didn’t know what method we were doing tonight. Sometimes we do flash cards, sometimes we do mock quizzes, sometimes it’s free-form. I wasn’t sure.”
“I told you on Monday.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Yes, we were sitting in the library discussing today and I said—”
“She wasn’t in the library with us,” Elise interrupted, and I wasn’t sure if it was to defend me or to accuse me.
“You were in the library Monday, too?” I asked. “You all said you were busy.”
“Oh.” Blaire’s indignation left just as quickly as it came. “I should’ve texted you about the method. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Didn’t that prove they didn’t purposely leave me out? If they had made some sort of secret plan, Blaire would’ve known not to bring it up now.
Mason put his book down. “Can we get treats now? I’m hungry.” He said it to me, like I was going to run to the store that second and bring him back something.
“Let’s get pizza,” Elise said.
That was a new suggestion and I looked at Blaire to gauge her reaction. She’d always been pretty no-nonsense about study time. She barely tolerated my candy. I wasn’t sure she’d tolerate a big greasy pizza in the middle of all our precious books.
“Yes, I second that,” Mason said.
“If Maddie is providing, I’ll eat pizza,” Blaire said.
“Me?” I asked.
“You just dubbed yourself the treat provider,” Mason said. “So now you must provide treats.”
“Okay, I can buy some pizza. We’ll have it delivered, right?” Or did they all expect me to go pick it up, too?
“For sure. I’ll order it,” Mason said, whipping out his phone.
Apparently there were fancy pizza joints in town where they must’ve charged by the pepperoni slice. It’s the only way I could explain how much the guy at the door wanted me to pay for the pizza. I’d never paid more than fifteen dollars for a large pizza in my life. But Mason must’ve had amazing ordering skills or maybe I’d heard the guy wrong.
“How much?” I asked.
“Sixty-three, forty-one.”
“Sixty-three dollars?”
“Yes,” he said.
“For one pizza?”
He pulled the receipt off the top of the pizza warmer he held and said, “You ordered two large specialty pizzas, breadsticks, and two bottles of soda.”
“There are five of us.”
The guy smiled. “Yeah, that’s a lot of food.”
“Do you take credit cards?”
He nodded and I handed mine over.
“You’re that girl, right?”
“What girl?” I asked, hoping he didn’t really know who I was.
“The lottery girl.”
Great. He did. “Um … ” Could I say no? “Yeah.”
He pulled the pizzas out of the bag. “Does this mean I get a big tip tonight?”
I gave a little chuckle. It was a joke, right? He ran my card through the square on his phone and then held it out for me. There was a place where I could add on a tip. Twenty percent would’ve been about twelve bucks. I put in twenty dollars and handed it back.
He didn’t try very hard to hide his disappointment. “Your drinks and breadsticks are in the car. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” I took the pizza to the kitchen and set it on the counter. “Mason, there’s more. Be a stand-up guy and go get it.” I tried to keep the snarl out of my voice when I said it.
Mason jumped up and disappeared out of the room.
“Was he voted on, too, in the library this week?” I asked, and then bit my tongue, instantly regretting letting that out.
“You don’t want Mason here?” Elise asked. “It’s Mason Ramirez, Maddie. Mason wants to hang out with us.”
I sighed. “Yes, that’s cool. I’m sorry. The pizza guy made me mad.”
Blaire was at my side and said under her breath, “I didn’t vote for him.”
I smiled, glad I wasn’t completely going crazy, and grabbed a slice of pizza. This was why people bought expensive pizza, I realized after my first bite. It was amazing.
Mason came back with his armful of food and drinks, and Blaire got cups and plates down.
“Who is the best person ever?” Mason asked, filling his plate. “That girl right there.” He pointed to me, his mouth already full.
Blaire nodded her head. “It’s true.”
And just like that, the night turned around. Mason ended up bringing a lightness to the group that made study time more fun and less structured. And maybe the food helped, too. It was the best eighty dollars I’d spent in a while.