Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [59]
I was looking forward to a little Marcus-Len intrigue. Marcus may not want us to really be together, but I don’t think it has anything to do with him wanting to be with me. I mean, if Marcus wanted to be with me, I think he would just say something, or do something. Why get Len involved? So I kept waiting for Marcus to do something, anything, when he saw me and Len together. But he did absolutely nothing.
Life around PHS had flat-lined. Boring, boring, boring. I was dying for something to happen to anyone, if not me.
Today I was rewarded with more cranial commotions than one person can deal with. Now I can’t think straight. It’s not like I need my brain for anything else right now, so it’s better than being bored.
It all started, as most scandalous things do, with a bitchy bulletin from Sara in homeroom.
“Ornigod! So you’ve found a new way to vent now that you’re through with The Seagull’s Voice, huh?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“A quote temporarily ectomorphic scandalmonger whose college acceptance will be purchased at no small price by her Mafioso father unquote?”
I laughed. “That’s pretty funny,” I said. “Who said it?”
“You did.”
“I wish,” I replied. “But I didn’t.”
“Omigod! Who else would write something like that? Who else would call Manda a quote pseudo-feminist who has fellated her way into the upper echelons of high-school society unquote?”
I laughed again. “Where did you read this?”
“The e-mail,” she said, in about as close an approximation of a whisper as she can get, which is still an eardrum banger.
I check my e-mail once every day, at night, to see what Hope has to tell me. The fact that I have no interest in 24/7 two-way communication is another prime example of how I was born about a decade too late. Regardless, there had been nothing out of the ordinary in my in-box lately.
“What e-mail? If it’s hot nude pix of Haviland and Rico Suave getting it on, I don’t want to see it.”
Sara shushed me. “The newsletter,” she said. “ Quote Pinevile Low unquote.”
“Bruiser, I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She scrutinized my face for eight loud exhalations. A total mouth breather, Sara can’t even aspirate without being annoying.
“Then why weren’t you slammed?” she asked, finally.
“Why wasn’t I slammed where?”
“In Pinevile Low,” she hissed.
“What is Pinevile Low?” I practically screamed, gathering the attention of the rest of homeroom, even Marcus, who rarely looks up from his notebook, which is brimming with lyrics for Chaos Called Creation, something I know via a secondary source. Len.
“SHUT UP!!!”
Sara looked like she was about to have thirty-six back-to-back heart attacks. After she regained her composure, she said, “I’m going to drop this until I gather enough evidence to prove it isn’t you. I can’t take any chances.”
At this point, I was still convinced it was something lame, or that Sara was messing with me. Yet that didn’t stop me from lingering in my seat long enough after the bell rang to time my exit out the door with Marcus and ask him about it.
“Did you know what I was talking about?” I asked.
“Usually, yes,” Marcus replied. “But in this case, no.”
Then I realized that even in the spirit of making peace with the past, I can’t tell when Marcus is being straight with me. So it was a pointless question, really. I decided to ask a more reliable source.
“Bridget,” I said loudly, getting her attention in the crowded hallway. “What’s with Pinevile Low?”
She shushed me even more violently than Sara. “You didn’t get it?” “I don’t think so.”
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“Listen to me, Jess. Don’t say another word about this until you get home and check your e-mail.”
“So you got the e-mail, too? Why didn’t you say something this morning?”
“Because, like, I can’t,” she said. “I was pretty much spared and I don’t want it to get worse. But, like, that’s all I can say until later.”
“What the hell is going on? Is