Chapter #43Garner Gossip by: Seuzz   You need to catch Kelsey alone, and that most likely means setting up an appointment with her: She is so organized and so self-important that she practically needs an executive secretary to help her run her life.
A hard wave of resentment inundates you. Ever since those fucked up cheerleader tryouts— But that's one of Jessica's thoughts. You push open the door to the restroom: You'll have time to review the Garners' vexed relationship with Kelsey Blankenship while fixing up your face.
The girls' bathroom smells nicer than the boys', but isn't much different. It's empty, which is a relief, for you want to be alone. You set the bag on the edge of the sink, unzip it, dig past the books and the blank mask—you should bury that more deeply so no one finds it—to the little makeup kit. Then you look at yourself in the mirror.
Okay, not as bad as you thought. Those worry lines will go away if you just relax. You close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, and force the muscles in your face to unclench. You roll your neck and shoulder. I am Jessica Garner, you chant to yourself, and I am a very lucky girl. I'm going to go home and I'm going to see my parents and I'm going to have a fun, relaxing time with my sister and my iPhone while I do my homework and listen to music and—
In that much, at least, there's not a lot of difference between your life and Jessica's. You're only sure you'll get a lot more texts between now and when you go to bed.
Speaking of texts—
Your hand goes instinctively to the phone, to check if any new ones have come in, but you pull it back and return to the mirror. Your face is much clearer, and the blotches have retreated, but you cover them over with a little more makeup. The mascara is in good shape. You put the necklace on, turning the clasp to your throat so you can watch yourself work it in the mirror, and now it goes together easily; you turn it right side around and step back to gauge the effect. Very nice. A present from an aunt on your sixteenth birthday. Eva got one with a purple stone instead of a blue one; bastard-Marc got a wad of cash.
You turn your head this way and that, and pull out a hair brush to straighten out some of the curls. Your hair is naturally very curly, just like your siblings'. Marc keeps his so short that no curls show; Eva lets it go long in ringlets; you keep it just long enough that curls will form, and you curl them more tightly with a permanent so as to give you a sassy, Italianate look. Your green eyes are very bright, and your lips settle into a quizzical smile when you're done. Now if you could only manage to run into Alec Brown in the hallway—
You flinch as a spasm of lust wrenches your innards. You close your eyes and suck down a deep breath. Jessica has it bad for him. Well, that's none of your business, and it's not like you'll be here long enough to run any risks. Stay away from any party scenes and don't get hammered like you did last Friday when you—
You pause with your hand on the door. Oh, Jesus. You really fucked things up for Hannah, didn't you? Guilt seeps out of the lining of your stomach as you open the door and set off to find Marc and Eva.
* * * * *
The traditional daily game of rock-paper-scissors puts Eva in the back seat, you in the front passenger seat, and Marc in the driver's seat for the ride home. Your idiot brother doesn't bother to hide his satisfaction at getting to man the steering wheel, and splays arms and legs while grinning. You get revenge by pulling up music you know he hates. But he only sniggers and nods along to the beat.
His cheer seems inversely proportional to Eva's grumpiness. She's huddled in the back with her phone. She's not mad at you—at Jessica—just as Marc isn't pleased with you. But it's your fault that they are both in this state.
Eva, like Jessica, is crossways with Geoff Mansfield, and is crossways with most of his friends too, which means she is crossways with many of the people that she hangs out with and considers to be friends. That would be Brooke Galloway and Rachel Burton and Deanna Showalter among the girls, and Martin Gardinhire, Anthony Kirk and Ricky Golia among the guys. Kelsey and Amanda Ferguson, curiously, are keeping out of it, and Lisa is also trying to keep neutral, but it's put a lot of stress on everyone. It all has to do, of course, with that very weird assault that Geoff made against the girls and against Marc and his date at the municipal library last week. The Garners want to know what the hell he was doing, naturally; and, equally naturally, Geoff has disclaimed any knowledge of what they're talking about. The Garners' conviction that he did something, and is guiltily foreswearing any knowledge of it, has left them furious with him; and his vociferous denials—backed, it must be admitted, with testimony from Gardinhire that he and Mansfield were together that night—have split the normally tight-knit AP group.
That's not what you were intending when you used Mansfield's face to stage that attack: You thought it would get him in Dutch with the Garners, but you didn't foresee that he'd have the rest of his friends on his side, putting the Garners in the wrong. Not that you have a lot of love for Eva and Jessica, but you do like them better than Mansfield, and wish that your raid hadn't gone awry that way.
The crisis has had an odder effect on Marc. Like his sisters, he hangs around with the AP crowd; unlike them, he has another set of friends he can fall back on, and after swatting Mansfield around—
Your lips twitch involuntarily at the memory, and you hide the smile by looking out the window.
Jessica was utterly mortified when she heard, but it's the one delightful bit you can find in the mess. The day after the affair at the library, Marc went looking for Geoff, cornered him, demanded an explanation, threatened him when he didn't get it, and after his sisters also started meeting resistance from the AP crowd Marc hustled Geoff out behind the school and hit him a couple of times, putting him in the dirt. That's left Marc persona non grata with everyone else in that cluster—including with Kelsey and Amanda and Lisa—but he's reacted to his banishment with a kind of fey cheer. He's been hanging out more with his soccer teammates, and with some of the football players and wrestlers. That's alright, you suppose, but Jessica knows her brother well enough to recognize the dangerous light in his eye, and the brittleness in the grin that he's been constantly wearing since the day he knocked the snot out of Geoff Mansfield—
That grin is in place as he swings around now to face you. "We still on for tomorrow night?" He's stopped at a light, so he glances back at Eva.
You glance back too, but she doesn't raise her head, so you answer on her behalf. "Sure, as long as you're still good for the money."
"Give it to you when we get home. Oh, have you decided who we're going to run into at the show?" He snickers.
Again, you glance back at Eva; she is still concentrating on her phone. "Kelsey and Anthony," you say. There's been no sisterly consultation, but Eva doesn't gainsay you. You hope she heard.
"Perfect," says Marc, and shifts in his seat in a manner that you, as a guy, recognize is meant to accommodate a swelling erection. "How about we make the dinner and movie thing a regular outing, but for real? I'll keep paying for them."
"That'd be nice, I guess," you say. You're very tentative—
For Eva has something to say. "You two can have a brother-sister night out as often as you want. Just cover for me while I go out and get fucking wasted at some—" Her voice breaks, and she breaks off.
That's the other crisis afflicting her that you're responsible for. No one says anything the rest of the drive back.
* * * * *
The Garners live in the western part of town, not far from the river. Their mom is a realtor and their dad a home-builder, so there's enough money for a two-story, three-bedroom house, plus some attachments You get out of the car at the same time as Marc, but you let him swagger on into the house while you hang back to wait for Eva. When she doesn't emerge from the minivan, you put your head in. "If you want me to kick his balls through a goalpost, I will."
"I don't. Want. Anything," she snaps, and with a spasm of fury shoves her phone away and struggles out of her seat out of the back seat. But she's not pissed at you, particularly, so she lets you fall in beside her as she heads into the house. "Except for everyone to shut the fuck up.
You'd like to put your arm around her in a sisterly way—or more—but you keep your hands to yourself. "Who were texting with?"
"Hannah."
Ah. The third person whose life you've wrecked. No wonder Eva was keeping to herself in the back seat.
You're only supposed to be in this body long enough to get a copy of Kelsey Blankenship into a mask. But there's a chance to do that tomorrow. Maybe you should take some extra time here to repair some of the damage you've done.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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