When Marylin got to cheerleading practice on Friday afternoon, she was surprised to see Benjamin Huddle sitting on the bleachers, waiting for her. It was a “What’s Wrong with This Picture?” moment, where you had to look around for what didn’t fit in. Benjamin Huddle definitely didn’t fit into cheerleading practice. He wasn’t an athlete, for one thing. Sometimes a bunch of football or basketball players would stand around and watch the first few minutes of practice before the cheerleading coach, Ms. Wells, shooed them away, and that didn’t seem strange. After all, if it weren’t for the athletes, why were the cheerleaders practicing in the first place? Who would they cheer for?
Not for the Student Government leaders, that was for sure, though thinking about it, Marylin could see how that would be a nice thing. After all, athletes didn’t actually contribute all that much to the school, but the Student Government leaders got stuff for students, like extra parties and more pizza days in the cafeteria. Didn’t that deserve a cheer or two?
But that wasn’t how things worked, and so it was strange to see Benjamin Huddle in a world where he didn’t quite belong. But the strangeness of the situation didn’t keep Marylin from feeling as though she’d just been injected with helium. Every part of her suddenly felt lighter and slightly tingly. When Benjamin caught sight of her and broke into a huge grin, Marylin wanted to snuggle in beside him on the bleachers and inhale the wonderful smell of him, which mostly came from the fabric softener his mom used on their laundry (Downy, which Marylin knew because she’d asked Benjamin the other day and then made her mom go buy some right away).
“What are you doing here?” Marylin asked, trying to keep the giddiness out of her voice in case any of the other cheerleaders were close enough to hear. “I thought you had to go help your mom with her art class.”
“I do,” Benjamin told her. “She’s going to pick me up in ten minutes. So I thought I’d come watch your practice until it was time to meet her.”
“Really?” Marilyn asked, amazed. “You don’t think that would be boring?”
Benjamin grinned. “It’s only ten minutes.”
Marylin couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she just stood there, smiling. She’d never liked a boy this way before, not in a real kind of way that was more than a crush, so she hadn’t had any way of knowing beforehand how much time she would spend with a big, dumb smile plastered across her face. Of course, as a middle-school cheerleader, she did a lot of automatic smiling, but it wasn’t the sort of smiling where her whole face played a part in it. It was strictly lip smiling when she walked down the hall in official cheerleader capacity.
“I also wanted to run an idea by you,” Benjamin said. “I just had a meeting with Mrs. Calhoun about Student Government stuff, and she said we actually have extra money in the budget this year to fund a new project, or to give more money to an extracurricular activity, or whatever. I was thinking we should have some sort of contest. You know, let the students decide how we should use the money. I mean, it is kind of their money, if you think about it. It comes from their parents’ taxes.”
“We could use new cheerleading uniforms,” Marylin said, smiling her best enthusiastic Student Government representative smile. “The ones we have now are getting shabby. It’s bad for school spirit when the cheerleaders look sloppy.”
“Sure,” Benjamin said, not sounding all that convinced. “That could be one of the suggestions students vote on.”
“Or we could just not vote, and give the cheerleaders the money,” Marylin said in a sing-songy, I’m-sort-of-joking-but-sort-of-not voice.
Benjamin shook his head and laughed. “We could. That would make it easier, for sure. But I don’t know. I think it’s better if everybody gets to make suggestions.”
Marylin shrugged. “Maybe. But think about my idea, okay? Because it’s really important to me. And it would make me happy.”
Benjamin reddened and looked down at his shoes. “Okay. Yeah, sure.”
“Let’s get going, Marylin!” Coach Wells called over, and Marylin gave Benjamin an apologetic look.
“I don’t think Coach is going to let you watch practice,” she warned him. “At least not for long. She’s pretty strict about keeping practices closed.”
“I’ve got to go anyway.” Benjamin stood up. “My mom’s probably waiting out front. She’s always early. I’ll call you, okay?”
“Okay,” Marylin said. She watched as he climbed down the bleachers, then called out, “Bye! Call me!”
A tiny seed of worry planted itself in her brain. Was Benjamin mad at her? Hurrying over to the other side of the gym, where everyone was warming up, Marylin tried to shake the idea out of her head. Why would he be mad at her? All she did was make a suggestion.
“What were you talking to Benjamin about?” Mazie asked her as she pulled a knee to her chest. “You looked idiotically cheerful over there.”
“Nothing,” Marylin said, running a hand through her hair, trying to sound casual. “He was just telling me there’s some extra Student Government money, and I was saying that we should definitely use it to get new uniforms.”
Mazie bent over at the waist and reached for her toes. “You’re sure it’s not because you were talking to Benjie-wenjie? Take my advice, Marylin, and don’t become emotionally attached to Geek Boy over there. Believe me, he’s not your type.”
Marylin tried to smile in a way that suggested this wasn’t a problem at all. “Don’t worry about me. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Are you sure?” Mazie reached back to grab her foot in a hamstring stretch. “Because you looked a little too happy over there, talking to him. Like maybe you’re interested in something besides new uniforms.”
Marylin suddenly had a crazy impulse to tell the truth. I am in love with Benjamin Huddle, she wanted to declare. He’s nice and funny and smart and cute. If you had any sense, you’d be in love with him too.
But Mazie was staring at her with that steely-eyed look that made Marylin feel like she was a five-year-old in a room full of sophisticated teenagers. So instead of declaring her love for Benjamin, she just said, “I don’t get why you care so much. It’s sort of weird.”
Which was maybe the wrong thing to say.
Mazie put her hands on her hips and leaned toward Marylin. “Are you saying you do like Benjamin Huddle?” she hissed. “Because that’s a problem that I definitely care about. It’s my job to care about it.”
“Your job?”
“Yes, my job.” Mazie took a step back and sighed deeply. “You’re so dumb sometimes, I can hardly stand it. Look around you,” she said, waving her arm at the cheerleaders in various stages of warming up. “We all have jobs. Your job is to be pretty. My job is to make sure you don’t mess up and have a geeky boyfriend.”
Marylin stood very still. She felt like she was standing on a very narrow ledge and could fall off if the breeze shifted the slightest bit. The weird thing was, she could feel herself sort of wanting to fall. “Well,” she started slowly, “I guess what I don’t know is, who hired you? I mean, how did you get this job?”
Mazie stared at her. “Watch out, Marylin. You’re about to get in very serious trouble.”
Ruby Santiago sauntered over to where they were standing. “What’s going on?” she asked, smiling even though she sounded worried. “You guys seem kind of stressed out.”
This is the time to act like everything’s fine, Marylin told herself. This is the time to pull yourself together. “I was just telling Mazie there’s money in the school budget for new uniforms. That’s what I was talking with Benjamin Huddle about.”
Ruby’s face brightened. “I am so sick of the uniforms we have now, aren’t you? They’re totally fourth grade.”
Marylin nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I’ve been saying all year. We should start getting input from everybody about what they want the new uniforms to look like.”
“Ruby’s captain,” Mazie said, inserting herself between Ruby and Marylin. “She should decide.”
“Well, me and Coach Wells,” Ruby said agreeably. “But if other people have ideas, I’d love to hear them.” She patted Marylin on the shoulder. “Nice work.”
Marylin shrugged and smiled modestly. “Anything for the squad, right, Mazie?”
Mazie harrumphed, but left it at that.
Marylin trotted over to where several of the cheerleaders were stretched out on the floor and sat down next to Caitlin Moore. “How’s your knee?” she asked Caitlin, whose knee had been hurting for several days now. “Any better?”
Caitlin glanced over at Ruby, who smiled and waved, and then turned and smiled at Marylin. “I’ve been icing it a lot, just like Coach said to. It’s definitely less sore.”
“That’s awesome!” Marylin said, feeling pretty awesome herself. Things with the other cheerleaders had been feeling strained, but now she felt like she was in again. Ruby was more powerful than Mazie, and if Marylin got new cheerleading uniforms, she could probably be Ruby’s second in command. Normally Marylin wasn’t someone who was all that interested in power, but she was starting to see how it could come in handy.
She stretched out her legs and leaned over them, reaching for her toes. Marylin imagined the squad in cute new uniforms, the skirts slightly shorter than the ones they had now, the tops barely skimming their belly buttons. She imagined Benjamin gazing adoringly at her from the stands, and her parents waving from where they sat at every basketball game, two rows behind the home bench, Petey in between them, cheering the cheerleaders. That was Marylin’s favorite part of every game—seeing her family looking like a family again.
All she had to do was get those new uniforms. Then everything else in her life would fall into place.
Marylin was surprised to find Kate riding home on the activity bus that afternoon. Kate wasn’t an activities person, for the most part. She was the sort of person who liked to get home as soon as school was over.
“What did you stay after for?” Marylin asked Kate, sitting down beside her. “Did you have Creative Writing Club today?”
“That’s on Tuesdays,” Kate said. “I had play rehearsal today, only we weren’t doing any of my scenes, and so I helped Matthew in the audio lab. He’s doing this whole World of Noise project for extra credit in science. It’s really cool.”
“Is it all noisy and screechy?” Marylin asked, shuddering a little, imagining the sort of noises she hated, like Styrofoam cups being torn apart and microphone feedback.
Kate nodded. “Pretty much. It’s better not to listen to it with the volume up too high.”
“So are you and Matthew still hanging out a lot?” Marylin asked, hoping to get the conversation on a more interesting track. “I mean, are you a thing?”
“No, we’re not a thing,” Kate said, sounding sort of defensive about it. “We’re friends. We have a lot in common.”
“But you wish you were a thing, right?” Marylin prodded. She knew she was making Kate mad, but sometimes Kate’s don’t-make-such-a-big-deal-about-everything attitude got on her nerves. Since when was it against the law to ask your friends if they liked somebody?
“I don’t wish anything.” Kate frowned and looked out the window. “Not everything is about hearts and romance, Marylin. It’s okay just to be friends with people.”
Marylin nodded. “Definitely. But it’s okay to be in love with them too. Even if you’re just friends. I mean, no one’s going to arrest you if you say you’ve got a crush on somebody.”
“Maybe they should,” Kate muttered, but now she didn’t sound so mad. “Maybe it would be a good idea if people talked about something else for a change. I mean, we’re in seventh grade. It’s not like we’re going to meet the person we’re going to marry. So why not just hang out with other people instead of having to put a label on everything?”
Marylin shrugged. “Sure, if that’s what you want to do. But I think it’s okay to like a guy even if you’re not going to marry him. It’s like practicing for when the guy you’re going to marry comes along. And you never know—maybe Benjamin and I will get married someday.” Marylin paused. That thought was a little scary even to her. “I mean, after we’ve dated other people and gone to college and all that.”
“I guess practicing at love is good,” Kate said, sounding like she halfway believed it. “I get that. But being friends is good too. Living your life is good.”
“Right,” Marylin agreed. “We can agree. Both ways are good.”
Marylin leaned back in her seat, feeling pleased that for once in their lives she and Kate had come to a compromise. She especially appreciated it after the past few months of being bossed around by Mazie and the other cheerleaders. She’d almost forgotten what having a real friend was like.
And then inspiration hit her. “I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t you spend the night at my house tonight? We can watch movies and eat a ton of pizza. And we could even do a makeover. Not that you need a makeover! I didn’t mean it like that. But I could show you how to put on just a touch of eyeliner, maybe a little bit of blush. And maybe you could borrow some of my clothes?”
The idea of giving Kate a makeover made Marylin happy. Maybe she was on Mazie’s bad side, but she could still do some good in the world.
“I like my clothes,” Kate said, sounding stubborn. “Besides, all the eyeliner in the world won’t make me beautiful. Which I don’t even care about, by the way.”
Marylin wagged a finger. “But it would turn you into a prettier Kate. And I know you’re like this poet and everything, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be pretty, too, right? Because you are pretty, Kate.”
“Really?” Kate looked at Marylin as though she desperately wanted to believe her. “Do you really think so?”
Marylin nodded. “I know so. So what do you say? Sleepover?”
“Okay,” Kate said, sounding a little reluctant. “I guess.”
Excellent! At last Marylin was going to give Kate the makeover she’d been dying to give her for years. “Listen, after I get through with you, you can have your pick of guys. Just you wait.”
“You know, it’s possible you need professional help,” Kate said, hugging her arms to her chest. “I mean, you’re starting to scare me.”
“Good,” Marylin said, laughing. “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
How long had it been since Kate had spent the night at her house? Marylin wondered as she made up the second bed in her bedroom later that afternoon. Well, there was the sleepover last summer, but Kate had spent the whole time watching TV with Petey. They’d had a sleepover once in sixth grade, with Brittany and Kyla and Emma. That seemed like ten thousand years ago. Marylin had still been friends with Flannery then, which was almost impossible to believe. How had that happened? One day, she’d been best friends with Kate, the next day Flannery had moved in across the street and taken over Marylin’s life.
“Kate’s such a baby,” Flannery had said a week or so after meeting Marylin. “I don’t know how you can be friends with her.”
The thing was, Marylin had sort of been thinking the same thing. Kate seemed like a little kid, and Marylin was ready to grow up. She was ready for makeup and group dates and Seventeen magazine. Kate was ready to spend all weekend watching the Mythbusters marathon and making rubber-band balls. Marylin was starting to feel like she’d sort of outgrown Kate. So when Flannery came along, a year older, a year more sophisticated, a room stocked with Seventeens and Teen Vogues and every color of nail polish imaginable, well, it had seemed like fate to Marylin. Flannery was clearly the next step for her to take.
Now she felt bad for the times she and Flannery had given Kate the silent treatment; in fact, Marylin liked to skip right over that part of her life. She hoped Kate wouldn’t bring it up tonight. Although Marylin did sort of want to ask Kate about Flannery, since the two of them had become friends. Not best friends—these days Kate seemed to be best friends with that girl Lorna—but definitely friends. How had that happened?
Seventh grade was so different, Marylin thought as she slipped Kate’s pillow into a pillowcase. Everyone just seemed to go their own way. Marylin had started it, she supposed, by becoming a cheerleader last spring, but look at Kate. How many years had she eaten at the same lunch table with Marcie Grossman and Brittany Lamb and Amber Colbaugh? And suddenly, just like that, last October she and Lorna had become lunch buddies, sitting by themselves at a small table near the exit, laughing and chatting away.
Flannery hung out with the eighth-grade delinquents, of course. Come to think of it, Marylin had seen Kate sitting with them earlier in the week. She really hoped Kate wasn’t going to start taking drugs. Kate wouldn’t do that, would she? She wasn’t that kind of person. Sure, she was independent and maybe a little rebellious, but you could be those things without living a life of crime, couldn’t you?
Marylin suddenly wondered if inviting Kate to spend the night had been such a good idea. What if Kate had cigarettes and wanted to smoke them in Marylin’s bathroom? She so did not want to go there with Kate. They’d known each other since preschool. It would be too weird if Kate wanted to smoke. It would be like the girl Marylin had known all her life was gone, replaced by a stranger.
I miss Rhetta, Marylin thought, falling back on her bed and staring at the ceiling. But she didn’t just miss Rhetta, she realized; she missed Rhetta’s family. Sure, Rhetta’s parents were strict, but they were also nice and funny and there. Right now Rhetta was bowling with her family and other families from her church. Marylin wondered if she could get her parents to start going to Rhetta’s church. They wouldn’t have to sit together, but maybe on bowling nights, Marylin’s dad could come over and pick up Marylin, her mom, and Petey, and they could be a family together that way. And Marylin wouldn’t have to worry about anyone smoking, because people didn’t smoke when they were doing church stuff.
“Marylin, Kate’s here!” Petey called from downstairs. “I’m going to show her my gecko!”
Please don’t want to smoke cigarettes, Marylin thought, standing up and checking her hair in the mirror. Please just be Kate.
She found Kate in the kitchen, where she was getting a lecture on the care and feeding of lizards.
“Pretty fascinating, huh?” Marylin asked, rolling her eyes.
Kate shrugged. “It is, sort of. I mean, reptiles aren’t exactly my thing, but I get why Petey’s into them.”
Petey beamed. Marylin was pretty sure he had a secret crush on Kate. Probably because Kate was the only one of Marylin’s friends who acknowledged his existence.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Marylin said. “My mom’s going to order pizza in a little while.”
When they got to Marylin’s room, Kate put her bag down on the bed and started looking around. “It’s different in here,” she said. “You took down your Hello Kitty posters. Didn’t you used to say you would always love Hello Kitty, even when you were fifty?”
“Did I say that?” Marylin didn’t remember ever saying that, but she supposed she could have, especially around fourth grade, when she was Hello Kitty obsessed. “Well, I’m thirteen now, and I’m pretty much over Hello Kitty already. But who knows? Maybe when I’m fifty, I’ll get really into it again.”
“Or maybe when you’re eighty, right before you die,” Kate said, sitting down at Marylin’s desk. “The circle of life and all that stuff.” She picked up Marylin’s ballerina snow globe. “I remember this! Gracie McRae gave it to you in second grade, right before she moved.”
“Because we took ballet gather,” Marylin said, nodding. “Only she was really horrible. She just sort of clomped all over the place. But it was nice of her to give me the snow globe.”
“It’s weird how well I can remember her,” Kate said, shaking the globe and watching the little flakes fall on the ballerina’s head. “She and George Kenley had the same birthday, and George’s mom brought cupcakes with M&Ms on them, and Gracie’s mom brought banana muffins, and everybody wanted the M&M cupcakes. Do you remember that?”
Marylin shook her head. “No, not really. But I remember that she always smelled like peanut butter.”
“See, I don’t remember that at all.”
Marylin plopped down on her bed and faced Kate. “I wish they’d given out yearbooks in elementary school, so we could compare everybody back then to how they are now. Like, I remember Laurie Wochek from kindergarten, and she wasn’t even the least bit cute. She was round and pudgy with two million freckles. But now she’s really pretty. It’s like it happened overnight.”
“I think it’s weird to see Franklin Boyd with zits,” Kate said. “It’s not like they’re that bad, but they just look weird on him. I’ve known him since preschool—what’s he doing with zits?”
“He’s always had a baby face,” Marylin agreed. “Zits seem entirely out of place.”
They lapsed into silence. Was this what it meant to have a history with someone? Marylin wondered. To be able to remember all the same things from preschool and second grade? Maybe. She liked how it made her feel comfortable with Kate, sort of like they were family.
Almost as if she’d read Marylin’s mind, Kate said, “It’s weird to be here without your dad in the house. Because if your dad was here, by now he would have popped his head in the room and said something silly. You know, ‘We’re having barbecued beet loaf for dinner—hope you brought your appetite!’ ”
“Yeah,” Marylin said, her voice catching a little bit in her throat. “He liked to clown around when you were here. When he was growing up, his mom had bad migraines all the time, and he couldn’t ever have friends come over. So it made him happy when our friends were in the house. We don’t know anyone where he lives now, so that’s not going to happen anymore, I guess.”
“Do you think—?” Kate started, then stopped herself.
“What?”
“Well, that your parents might get back together? Because they did hang out on Christmas Eve, right? So maybe they’re thinking about it?”
Marylin looked at her feet. “I don’t think so. The weird thing is they sort of get along better now than before they were divorced. They sit at all the home games together to watch me cheer, and the other night they were talking on the phone and my mom was laughing her head off. After she hung up, she said, ‘Your dad cracks me up,’ and then she sort of looked like she wished she hadn’t said it, like she didn’t want us to get the wrong idea.”
“Maybe they’re starting to like each other again,” Kate suggested. “Who knows what might happen?”
Marylin nodded, swallowing hard. “I just don’t want to get my hopes up.”
The phone rang two seconds later, and Marylin wondered if it might be Benjamin. Maybe he’d thought over her cheerleading uniform idea and decided he liked it. “I better get this,” she said, reaching over to pick her phone up off the desk.
“It might be Benjamin,” Kate said, echoing Marylin’s thoughts again. “Maybe he’s going to ask you to the prom.”
“Like we even have a middle-school prom,” Marylin complained. “All we have is the stupid spring dance. They have a real prom at Githens, did you know that?”
“The news media had not alerted me to that fact,” Kate replied dryly. “I’ll go write my congressperson immediately.”
Marylin ignored Kate’s sarcasm and looked at the phone’s screen. “It’s Mazie,” she reported. “I guess I should talk to her. She’s not very happy with me right now.”
And just like that, the feeling between Marylin and Kate changed. Marylin could feel it. The friendly vibe that had filled the room disappeared.
“I dare you not to answer,” Kate said. “I dare you to say no to Mazie Calloway for once in your life.”
“You don’t understand,” Marylin said. “That’s not how my life works.” She held the phone up to her ear. “Hey, Mazie!” she said in her best, cheerful middle-school cheerleader voice, a huge smile plastered across her face for good measure. “What’s up?”
“Me and Ruby are about to go to the mall and get mani-pedis,” Mazie announced. “You’re coming with us. Ruby’s noticed that you don’t really seem to be keeping up your appearance lately. You’re getting sloppy.”
Marylin was taken aback. She’d just done her nails two days ago! “Maybe I had a bad day on Wednesday,” she said, trying to placate Mazie. “But I did my nails that night, and I’ve worn preplanned outfits every day this week. I don’t think that’s sloppy at all.”
“Ruby thinks you should come,” Mazie said. “She is captain of the squad.”
“Well, I can’t,” Marylin said, doing her best to sound sorry about it. “I’ve got—stuff.”
“Are you going over to your dad’s tonight?”
“Um, yes, uh-huh,” Marylin said. She was suddenly very conscious that Kate was listening to the conversation. “That’s right.”
“So why did you tell Ashley to pick you up at your mom’s house in the morning?” Mazie replied in a gotcha! tone of voice.
Marylin scrambled for an answer. “My dad’s bringing me back later.”
Kate leaned toward her and whispered, “Do you want me to talk to her?”
“Who’s that?” Mazie sounded scandalized. “Is that Kate Faber? What is she doing there?”
Marylin panicked and said the stupidest thing in the world. “She’s just dropping something off.”
Kate stood up. “That’s right,” she declared in a loud voice. “And I’m leaving now.”
“Mazie, I’ve got to go,” Marylin said, wildly waving at Kate to stay put. “I’ll call you later.”
“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Mazie told her. “You better be ready.”
Marylin could hear Kate stomping down the stairs in her big black boots.
“I really can’t,” she told Mazie. “I’ve got—”
“Yeah, I know, you’ve got stuff. Well, get unstuffed. I mean it, Marylin. You’re crossing the line. You’re totally out of control.”
And with that, Mazie was gone.
The door slammed. Kate was gone too.
Marylin walked over to her desk and picked up the ballerina snow globe. This was it. This was when she had to make the decision. Mazie wasn’t going to let her straddle both sides of the line forever—in fact, she wasn’t going to let her straddle both sides of the line for ten more minutes. Even if Marylin delivered new uniforms to the squad every season, even if she got on Ruby’s good side and became the second most powerful girl in the school, Marylin was going to have to choose, cheerleading and popularity versus everything else—Benjamin Huddle, Rhetta, Kate, Student Government.
Marylin turned the globe over and shook it up. Gracie McRae. She’d been the worst ballet dancer in the world! Marylin wondered what she was like now. Had she gotten pretty? Was she still nice? Was she a cheerleader? A jock? No, probably not a jock. You had to be a lot more coordinated than Gracie McRae to be a jock. Maybe she was one of those girls who spent their Friday nights baking cookies for the homeless shelter. Marylin had always assumed those girls—Rebecca Levin was one, Isabelle Burkett was another—baked cookies because they didn’t have anything else to do. You could be sure Mazie Calloway wasn’t going to call them up and see if they wanted to go to the mall for a mani-pedi.
But as she watched the snow drift down through the water and land on the ballerina’s tulle skirt, Marylin wondered if Rebecca and Isabelle—and maybe Gracie McRae, for all she knew—baked cookies because they were good people. Really good. Not fake-smile good, not good so that everyone would like them good, but good because they had good hearts. Because they really wanted to help.
Marylin put the snow globe down on her desk. She’d spent her whole life having to choose sides. Flannery or Kate? Mazie or Benjamin? She’d had to choose who to talk to in the hallways, who to pretend she hadn’t seen. She had to choose who to smile at, which boys to say hi back to.
And in second grade, walking home from ballet with Gracie McRae, when Gracie had asked if she wanted to hold hands, Marylin had had to choose whether she wanted everybody in their class to think she was friends with the girl who stomped across the floor like a rhinoceros.
“My hands are cold,” Marylin had told Gracie, quickly shoving her fists into her pockets. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Gracie had said. “I don’t mind.”
Marylin rushed out into the hallway. “Kate!” she yelled from the top of the stairs, even though she knew Kate was already out of the house. She ran down the steps two at a time. “Kate! Come back!”
Kate was standing on the front porch, her overnight bag at her feet.
“Why?” she asked Marylin, and Marylin was shocked to see that her eyes were filled with tears.
“Because,” Marylin said, trying to catch her breath. “Because I need someone here with me when I tell Mazie no.”
“Oh,” Kate said. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and picked her bag up. “Okay. I can do that.”
“I know,” Marylin told her. “That’s why I asked.”
The two girls sat on the front step and waited. Marylin kept expecting Kate to change her mind, to stand up and tell her to forget it, she was going home. But Kate just sat there, writing invisible words on the sidewalk with a twig.
Ruby’s sister, Marta, was driving the white SUV that pulled up to the curb in front of Marylin’s house. Leave it to Ruby to have an older sister who seemed happy to drive her wherever she wanted to go, Marylin thought. No wonder she ruled the school.
As Marylin pushed herself up from the stoop, one the SUV’s tinted windows slid down and Mazie’s face appeared. “Get in the car!” Mazie yelled. “The salon closes in forty-five minutes.”
“I’m not going, remember?” Marylin called back in what she hoped was a cheerful, oh-I-guess-we-have-a-tiny-misunderstanding-but-that’s-okay tone. “I’m—I’m staying here with Kate. She’s spending the night.”
“You are insane,” Mazie groaned. “Kate Faber is not coming with us, Marylin. That’s out of the question.”
Marylin expected Kate to say something, but Kate just kept writing stuff nobody could see on the sidewalk. She didn’t even look up. Marylin was on her own.
“I’m not going with you either,” Marylin said. She walked halfway down the front walk to the car. “I already have plans. I told you that.”
Ruby Santiago’s face appeared at the window next to Mazie’s. “Then why are we even here, Marylin? You’re wasting our time.”
“I told Mazie on the phone I couldn’t go,” Marylin explained, flashing her best middle-school cheerleader smile at Ruby in hopes it would make her think of brand-spanking-new cheerleading uniforms. “I can’t just abandon my neighbor to get a mani-pedi.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said, and disappeared back into the car. “Let’s go, Marta.”
Marylin could feel Mazie’s glare from ten yards away.
“Expect a text from me later!” Mazie yelled as the SUV pulled away from the curb. “This isn’t over, Marylin!”
Marylin watched until they’d disappeared around the corner, then went back to the front porch. “You were a ton of help,” she said, sitting down next to Kate. She pulled the twig out of Kate’s hand and snapped in two. “Thanks a lot.”
Kate shrugged. “It wasn’t my fight. But you handled it pretty well, even if you called me a neighbor instead of a friend. I thought that was sort of weird and possibly insulting.”
“I was just trying to make a point,” Marylin insisted. “You’re not just anyone. You’re someone I grew up on the same street with.”
“Uh-huh,” Kate said flatly. “Well, I’ll let it pass. I mean, like I said, you did pretty well for you.”
“Wow, what a compliment,” Marylin said, throwing the pieces of Kate’s twig into the grass. She knew she ought to feel good about doing the right thing, but mostly what she felt was doomed. Nobody said no to Ruby and Mazie. Nobody.
Uniforms, uniforms, uniforms, she chanted to herself. New uniforms would make everything okay. She turned to Kate, determined to keep things positive. “You don’t want to give each other mani-pedis, do you?”
“Uh, I’m not sure that’s really my thing,” Kate said, but then she shrugged. “But sure, okay. Do you have any black polish?”
Marylin rolled her eyes. “Sure. I have a whole closet filled with black nail polish. It’s just my style.”
The two girls stood up. Kate brushed some pieces of grass off the back of her pants and said, “It could be your style. You could start a whole goth cheerleader thing.”
Marylin just nodded and smiled, pushing Kate toward the front door. Everything was going to be okay. She’d get the squad new uniforms, and everyone was going to love her. She’d paint Kate’s fingernails a nice shade of raspberry and show her how awesome pink could be. All she had to do was keep smiling. All she had to do was keep pretending that everything in the world was fine.