7

 

“How was the party?”

It was later that night, and I was on the phone with Leo, who wasn’t actually at the party, but who had talked to David Cussler, who was.

“David said it was pretty fun, until Alex pushed Becky into the pool with her clothes on, and her cell phone was trashed,” Leo reported. “Then Becky started to cry, and when her brother came to pick her up and found out what happened, he smacked Alex on the back with his lacrosse stick, and Alex got so mad he left the party and just started walking down the street and never came back. Apparently his dad ended up picking him up at the Stop & Shop on Westlake.”

I whistled. Wow, there was a lot of action at these parties. And I was no fan of Alex Mutchnik’s, but walking all the way to Stop & Shop by yourself on a dark night sounded pretty scary.

“How was your cello recital?” asked Leo.

“Horrible,” I answered, without going into details.

“That’s too bad. What are you doing tomorrow? Do you want to meet downtown or something?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I have orchestra at nine, Chinese at noon, and baseball practice at one-thirty.”

“Dang,” Leo said, “I thought I had it bad.”

After I got off the phone, I lay down on my bed and tried to make myself think that it was good I didn’t go to the party after all. I imagined spilling a drink on some fancy rug, and then knocking over a lamp while trying to clean it up.

But then I imagined Cathy Billows trying to cheer me up and help me forget about my clumsiness by dancing with me and holding my hand.

Ugh. The last thing I wanted in my imagination right then was a happy ending.