Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [32]
If Bridget noticed the freshmen, she didn’t let on. I climbed up the bleachers to sit next to her.
“You coming with?” I asked Pepe.
He shook his head. “Nah, you go ahead. She’s A-list. I’m still fighting for walk-ons. You tell her I said s’up.”
“Will do.”
And with a complicated, palm-slide-slap-behind-the-back-fingersnap-chest thump-soul-brother-number-one maneuver, Pepe was gone.
“Hey, Bridget, you’re being gawked at again,” I said, motioning to the girls, who were trying—and failing—to keep their cool.
“Am I?” Bridget looked around, uninterested. “Whatever. How come Percy didn’t come over here to, like, say hi or something.”
“Oh, he’s too intimidated by your celebrity,” I said.
“That’s so, like, duh,” she said, watching him retreat. “I don’t know why everyone acts like the video is such a big deal.”
Me neither. Personally, I’d be more than a little mortified to be the subject of false rumors involving a member of a bargain-bin boy band. But you know, that’s just me.
“So have you seen Sara and Manda yet?” I asked.
“Skank and Skankier?” Bridget replied, grimacing. “No. Have you?”
“Not today,” I said. “But I bumped into them at the mall last week.”
“Oh. I’m surprised Skankier wasn’t, like, too busy snaking someone else’s man to go shopping.”
I really wasn’t in the mood to rehash the details of how Manda slept with Burke while Bridget was with her dad in L.A. Christ, it happened two summers ago. Even though Bridget is obviously over Burke, she relishes any opportunity to remind everyone how slutty Manda is. But I was tired of talking about it, and seized this perfect opportunity for a segue.
“Sara seriously downsized over the summer.”
“Bruiser finally lost the fat?” Bridget was so stunned that she temporarily forgot to refer to her as Skank and had regressed to using Sara’s slightly less damning nickname. “Ten pounds? Twenty pounds? Fifty pounds? Like, how much?”
I’ve never been on a diet in my life. I have no idea how much weight would transform Sara from a stout trapezoid into a slender, rectangular shape. And I think my geometric explanation would be lost on Bridget. Math is not her strong suit.
“I don’t know,” I said. “A lot, I guess.”
“You never help when it comes to, like, the important stuff.”
According to her definition of important, I couldn’t agree more.
Bridget stood up, using her pale white hand to shield her eyes from the sun streaming through the window. She scanned the crowd, looking for the newly-skinny Skank. I remained seated and did the same. I found Sara within thirty seconds, but before I got around to pointing her out to Bridget, I discovered something far more disturbing.
“Holy shit! Is that Manda wearing Scotty’s varsity jacket?”
Bridget squinted her eyes in their direction. “Skankier!”
I couldn’t read the name embroidered on the jacket, but from the way Scotty and Manda started plowing their tongues down each other’s throats, I think it was a safe bet that it was indeed Scotty’s wool-and-leather varsity jacket Manda was wearing on this ninety-degree, 10 tanning-index day. Somehow between last week and today, Manda had used her feminine wiles (aka her penile mastery) to nab His Royal Guyness, the Grand Poo-bah of the Upper Crust. Revolting.
“I seriously think I’m going to blow chunks,” I said.
“I thought you didn’t, like, like Scotty anymore,” Bridget said.
“I don’t,” I replied. “I never did like him as a boyfriend. But it’s just so sick that someone who once liked