As soon as we reconvened in Callie’s room, I texted Nuri. Callie got to work uploading first her audio clips, then Vanessa’s, onto her laptop. I flopped down on the bed and shook my phone, like that would make Nuri respond to my text faster. She checked her phone compulsively; this was clearly a power play, making me wait. I could imagine her and Amy right now. “Can you believe her, asking us to cover for her after that fight she had with Christina?” “Ugh, who cares. Tell her you’ll do it just so we don’t have to share a room with her for another night.”
Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly what they were saying. For all I knew, Christina hadn’t even told them about our fight. In fact, she’d probably gone straight to Brian so they could commiserate over what a rotten best friend I—
My phone buzzed. Sure, I’ll just tell my mom you’re in the shower when she checks in. But where are you staying? Are you okay?
I blinked, surprised at Nuri’s concern. I typed my response and tried to ignore the inner voice, which sounded a lot like Christina, nagging me about judging other girls. I’m fine. Crashing in a friend’s room. As soon as I hit send, I winced and added: A girl. No need to fuel any more gossip about Phoebe’s Adventures in Sexland.
Callie’s phone buzzed, too. She checked it, then scowled and rolled her eyes so hard she could probably see her own brain. “Are you kidding me with this?” she muttered.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Look.” She held up the phone for us to see. “After everything that happened earlier … this is all he has to say to me?”
Vanessa and I leaned in to read the screen, which was displaying a text from her dad.
Dad: Do you know where the small pliers are?
Vanessa blinked. “Um. Wow.”
“Dude,” I said. “I’m sorry. That guy is a serious shark-head.”
“Whatever. He’s totally incapable of talking about actual human feelings. It’s not like I didn’t know that already.” Callie tossed her phone on the floor and held out her hand for mine instead. “Can I get those audio clips of random sounds?”
“Sure. They’re labeled in the recorder app.”
“Thanks.”
I kicked off my shoes. Time for a subject change to happier things. “So, who’d you guys talk to? Get any good interviews?”
Callie opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but then changed her mind, closed it, and started typing furiously. I looked over at Vanessa, but she was acting super weird, too—she was curled up in the armchair, hugging a pillow to her chest and staring into space, her eyes super wide and unfocused behind her glasses.
“Um,” I said. “Am I missing something here?”
“What? No! Nothing!” Callie glanced at me with an expression so guilty I almost laughed. “I mean … okay. There is something. Just … please don’t be mad.”
“Why would I be mad?”
Callie tapped a few more keys, then swiveled around to face me. “I went down to Starbucks and interviewed Scott.”
My mouth dropped open. So did Vanessa’s. “You—what?” I sputtered. “Why?”
“Because you said you weren’t going to go and I knew he’d be there, and it’s not like he knows you have anything to do with this project, so I figured it was a good opportunity for you to hear his side of the story without actually having to confront him. The guy clearly wanted to explain himself to you and he deserves a chance, and … well, and I thought if he really does like you, you’d want to know.” Callie paused, giving me a smile that was part teasing, part uncertain. “Even if you’re pretending you don’t care because you’re incredibly stubborn.”
I tried for maybe half a second to look pissed, then shrugged and smiled back. “Well. Maybe just a little.”
Visibly relaxing, Callie turned back to her laptop. “Sooo … wanna hear what he said?”
Well, obviously.
But also, no.
Because I could tell from her slightly smug expression that Scott had said something … well, something. And I’d almost gone down this road with him before. Like last year at IPAC, when a tiny part of me had thought our mutual competitiveness over the snare solo competition was kind of flirtatious, and then he’d gone and hooked up with that Bishop girl. Obviously, Scott and I were better off as buddies. I had accepted this. I still accepted this.
Then, completely without my permission, my brain started replaying the way he’d very gently massaged my palms with his thumbs. The way he’d kissed me, those first few seconds that were really soft and tentative, and—
“She’s blushing!” Callie exclaimed, and I jumped. Vanessa laughed.
I sighed. “Just shut up and play the stupid interview.”
Snickering, Callie turned back to her laptop. A second later, her voice came through the speakers.
“Hey, can you answer a question for a podcast I’m putting together?”
“Um, I’m waiting for someone … but sure. I can talk until she gets here.”
Oh cats. I squeezed my eyes closed and fought the urge to tell Callie to turn it off. He’d actually sat down there and waited for me. I was such a jerk.
His interview was short, but by the time it ended my stupid emotions were all over the place again. I like her. Like, a lot. He’d told a complete stranger that, and he sounded like he meant it, and already I couldn’t help imagining what would’ve happened if I’d gone down there to talk to him.
I’d assumed Scott wasn’t capable of getting feelingsy, but he was. I’d assumed he didn’t like me that way, but he did. I’d assumed he’d immediately bragged to all of our friends about hooking up with me, but he hadn’t.
Christina had been right. About everything.
I exhaled slowly and stared at my knees.
“Wow, you really had no idea he liked you,” Callie said. “So … think you’ll go for it?”
“He sounds really nice,” Vanessa added.
“Cute, too,” Callie told her. “Even more in person than in that photo. And it’s sweet that you’ve been friends for so long. I mean, I’m sure that makes it kind of weird, like he said, but the good kind of weird, don’t you …” She trailed off, then scooted her chair closer to me. “Hel-lo? You okay?”
Swallowing, I nodded. Then I shook my head. “It’s not that. Scott. I mean. I don’t. Christina … She …” My voice got all cracked and weird, so I stopped talking.
An awkward silence descended. But I couldn’t say anything, not until I was positive I wasn’t going to cry. After several long seconds, Callie stood up and grabbed her purse.
“All right,” she said. “I’m going to raid the vending machines, and then once we have the appropriate supplies, we can talk about it.”
“Doritos,” said Vanessa immediately.
Callie gave her a withering look. “Obviously.”
A few seconds later, the door clicked closed behind her. I sat there, thankful Vanessa wasn’t pressing me to talk. Actually, she wasn’t even looking at me. She was picking at a loose thread on her pillow, her eyes all unfocused again.
“What’s up with you?” I asked.
She stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’ve been acting kind of weird ever since we got back.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks blazed pink. “Um. Well, it’s just … something that happened when I was interviewing … someone.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh yeah? A good something, or a bad something?”
Her mouth opened and closed a few times. Then she smiled down at her pillow.
“A very good something.”
The way she said it was so funny, so sweetly innocent in a way that would’ve sounded fake coming from anyone else, that I couldn’t help laughing. Vanessa buried her face in her pillow, but her shoulders were shaking with laughter, too. I was trying to decide whether or not to ask more when Callie returned with an armload of snacks and drinks.
“Rations for the night,” she announced, dropping a bunch of bags of Doritos on the bed, along with …
Moaning, I nudged one of the bottles of Mountain Dew with my toe. “Seriously?”
“That’s the only kind that was left … oh.” Callie snickered. “Sorry, I forgot about your sordid past with Mountain Dew.”
Vanessa was already ripping into a bag of chips. I wasn’t hungry, but the smell of artificial cheese made me realize I desperately needed therapy in the form of MSG-laden corn products. “Was there anything spicy?” I asked, rummaging through the bags until I spotted a Salsa Verde. “Yes. Mine.”
I leaned back against the headboard. Vanessa propped her feet up on the bed.
“I haven’t been to a sleepover party since elementary school,” she said. “This is fun. As long as neither of you draw on my face when I’m sleeping.”
Callie’s eyes widened. “Did that happen to you?”
“No, to another girl. I didn’t draw on her,” Vanessa added quickly. “The other girls did. And they didn’t use permanent marker or anything.”
“Still sounds more like fun than my sleepover experiences,” I told her. “I think the last one I went to was winter break freshman year, at this girl Jen’s house. I only went because Christina invited me. They spent the whole time painting each other’s nails, so I went downstairs and played Jen’s brother’s Xbox by myself.”
I wanted to find out if you had a good reason for bailing … and hey, you do. Selfishness.
My stomach churned again, and I crammed five chips in my mouth and crunched furiously in an attempt to get Christina’s voice out of my head. Callie reached for a bottle of Mountain Dew.
“I tried having a sleepover once, in middle school.” Her tone was a little too light. “They all called their parents and asked to go home before we could even order pizza.”
“What? Why?” Vanessa asked.
Callie smiled tightly. “Turns out most twelve-year-old girls don’t react super well when they unexpectedly encounter dead warthogs in dark rooms.”
Vanessa’s face blanched. “Oh.”
“I’d be down for a dead warthog sleepover,” I told Callie, and her eyes lit up.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But only if you let me paint their nails. Or, um, hooves, I guess?” She and Vanessa laughed, and I added, “Apparently I’m such a rotten person that I’d be better off hanging out with stuffed warthogs than other girls, anyway.”
Dinosaurs. I’d meant for it to come off as a joke, but instead it sounded self-deprecating and whiny. Callie and Vanessa stopped laughing immediately.
“What are you talking about?” Callie asked gently. I swallowed and wished there was any soda besides Mountain freaking Dew.
“I’m talking about me being a jerk,” I said. “Christina was right. I dumped her. I didn’t think that’s what I was doing, but it was. She always did stuff she wasn’t interested in just to hang out with me, but I wasn’t willing to do the same for her. And I should’ve been because … because she’s awesome. She’s an awesome friend, and I messed up.” My throat felt scratchy, and the spicy cheese powder wasn’t helping. “And now I’ve pulled the same garbage with Brian, too. I suck.”
“I’m sure you can fix it, though,” Vanessa said immediately. “Right?”
“I don’t know. Would you forgive your best friend for treating you like that?”
Vanessa wrinkled her nose. “Well, if that was all my so-called best friend had done, then probably I’d forgive her. But … I mean, you guys have met Soleil, so …”
“Oh god.” I closed my eyes and fought down the sudden urge to laugh. “Yeah, I should probably warn you. I kinda sorta interviewed her.”
“What?”
I opened my eyes, fully expecting Vanessa to be furious. Instead she looked mildly terrified.
Callie, though, bounced up and down in her seat a little. Apparently our podcast project was helping distract her from the fight with her dad, because she looked fifty times peppier. “Oh my god, what’d she say?”
“You can hear it for yourself,” I said. “Apparently she’s dating one of the actors from Wonderlandia. Marty Green?”
Vanessa sat up straight, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Uh, no. She is definitely not dating Marty Green.”
“Secretly,” I added. “She said he’s her other boyfriend. They met at a convention last year, and—”
“Yes, they did,” said Vanessa. “For like fourteen seconds. In an autograph line. She wrote this huge fangirly blog post about how his eyes were so big and his hands were so soft.”
I grinned. “And I’m guessing they didn’t keep in touch after?”
“Unless you count the time when she tweeted something about the show and he retweeted it?” said Vanessa. “Definitely not. I mean, she didn’t shut up about that for like two whole weeks. Believe me, if Soleil were hooking up with the Five of freaking Spades, I’d know about it. The entire internet would know about it.”
“So she’s a pathetic liar,” Callie said.
“A pathetic, delusional liar,” I added.
Vanessa kind of shrugged, and Callie added, “You’re better off without her. You know that, right?”
Blushing, Vanessa ducked her head and grabbed another bag of chips. “I guess. It’s just … Yeah, she’s not who I thought she was. Not at all. But even without the oops-we’re-not-really-dating part, it still sucks losing a friend, you know? It’s not like I have all that many.”
She sounded like Callie had earlier: a little too nonchalant. Callie must have sensed it, too, because she nudged Vanessa’s foot with her own.
“You might have lost one this week,” Callie said. “But you gained two.”
I smiled. “Cheesy. But true.”
“Hey, it’s after eleven,” Callie said, scooting back over to her laptop. “Should we listen to the rest of these clips and see what we’ve got to work with?”
“Start with Vanessa. Apparently she got a very good something,” I added, waggling my eyebrows suggestively.
Callie’s face lit up. “Oh, really? From who?”
Vanessa squeaked something unintelligible and went back to hugging her pillow like it was a life raft. Callie turned back to her laptop. “Well, these clips are all labeled. Let’s look at who you interviewed.” After a second, she cleared her throat. “Bernice? Who’s that?”
“From your convention.” Vanessa told her. “That woman with the two boars, you know …”
“The Humping Boars Queen?” I exclaimed. “Aw, does she want to mount you, too?”
Vanessa responded by throwing her pillow at me. I caught it and tossed it on the floor. “I don’t think that’s the right one,” I told Callie.
“Next one is Jillian Brow … Broz … zos … yeah.”
“Pageant mom,” Vanessa said, looking slightly more composed. “I feel sorry for her daughter.”
“I feel sorry for all of those girls,” Callie murmured. “Let’s see, then you interviewed … oh, hey, Merry!”
“Oh, good call interviewing them,” I told Vanessa. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to …” I stopped, because Vanessa’s face was quickly going from red to nuclear. “Um. Callie.”
Callie spun around in her chair, and her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh.”
“What’d they say?” I leaned forward eagerly, but Vanessa shook her head, mute.
“Did you get a secret out of them?” Callie asked. Vanessa nodded.
“And that secret was the very good something?” I pressed. Another nod.
Callie arched an eyebrow. “And would that very good something by any chance have to do with you?” Pause.
Nod.
“Ha!” I yelled, thumping my fist on the bedspread in triumph and smashing my chips in the process. “Merry likes you!”
“So can we still use the clip?” Callie asked teasingly. “Or is it not suitable for younger audiences?”
“Oh my god, nothing like that—no!” Vanessa said, curling up into a little ball. “I didn’t even tell them that I …”
“Like them, too?” I supplied, and she nodded again. “Well, what did you say?”
“I don’t even remember. Something gibberish. Then I freaked out and ran away.”
“Aw,” Callie said. “I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think. Let’s listen.”
“Oh god. Fine.” As Callie opened the clip, I returned to attempting to drown my guilt in spicy powdered cheese.
But for the first time all day, I felt hopeful. So far, this IPAC had sucked in about a zillion different ways. I’d royally screwed up with Brian and Christina, and very possibly with Scott, too. I’d met Callie and Vanessa, though, so the convention wasn’t a total bust. Sure, we barely knew each other. But I’d confessed all my friendship screwups, and they still seemed to think I was worth keeping around.
A strange thought occurred to me. Back in my room, Christina was probably having a similar evening with Nuri and Amy, eating junk food and laughing and griping and just … hanging out. Thinking about Christina made my chest ache worse than ever, but it also made me smile. If I could bond with these girls I’d only just met, maybe there was a chance I could fix things with the one I’d known since sixth grade.