How to Be Bad Read online

  “So why are you friends with him?”

  “Known him since fifth grade. He let me stay in his house last summer, when I wasn’t getting along with my stepdad.”

  “Huh.” My head is spinning from the beer and the swimming; everything feels floaty.

  “Your friend Mel,” says Marco.

  “What about her?”

  “She with anyone?”

  I shake my head. “Not now. I think she’s got a complicated love history, but I don’t know the whole thing.”

  “Huh.” He shrugs. “She doesn’t seem like the type.”

  “No? How does she seem?”

  “Simple,” he says.

  “Ha!” I laugh. “If you think that’s a compliment, let me tell you why you’re still single.”

  He splashes me. “I meant, simple like honest, not simple minded.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s not like the girls at my school, all attitude and putting other people down. She’s funny, once she gets going. It’s easy to talk to her.”

  He’s right. “Did you know she’s been on safari?” I say. “Like to real Africa, the continent.”

  Marco smiles, wide and open. “I know what Africa is.”

  “Oh, do you?” I say, liking his smile.

  No guys ever smile at me, they never do. I mean, no guy has smiled at me, really smiled at me, in…

  Well, fine, the hot dog guy smiled at me, and that cute guy at the gas station. And also that guy at Waffle House this morning who tried to chat me up while I was on my smoke break.

  But Brady is off smiling at some other girl, multiple girls, and I need that smile from Marco to go on flashing at me the way it is right now.

  “Yeah, it’s the one shaped like this.” He makes an Africa shape with his hands in the air. “Where all the zebras live.”

  “Mel saw a zebra,” I tell him. “With her naked eyes.”

  I get the smile again.

  He’s into Mel, I can tell by the way he blushes when I say the word naked about her. “Her eyes were naked,” I say. “Not the rest of her.”

  “The zebras were naked,” says Marco.

  “Oh, yeah, those zebras are total nudists. The giraffes, too. Would you believe it? There they were on the savannah, just lettin’ it all hang out.”

  The smile flashes. I am so grateful to think about anything but Brady, I set a little goal for myself to get that Marco smile over and over, like getting lights to blink on a pinball machine. “Zebras are so unbadass,” I continued. “We saw this stuffed alligator in a museum—”

  “Old Joe.”

  “What? How did you know?”

  “Vicks. I met you outside that place.”

  Oh, wow. Too much beer. “Okay, Old Joe. So he was naked too, like the zebras, but he was so badass he didn’t look naked, you know what I mean? Like he’s got this hide that’s leather—they make shoes out of alligators—it’s so tough he doesn’t need any protection but his own skin.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But we, people, we kill the gators and make them into shoes and boots and whatever else so we can be protected, you know? Keep our feet safe. Hide our nakedness. We’re a lot closer to zebras than we are to alligators,” I say. “I bet that’s true. Biologically speaking.”

  Marco laughs. Jackpot! “Do you always talk this much about nakedness?”

  I shake my head. “Only when I’m with naked people.”

  “I’m not naked.”

  “You look naked,” I tell him.

  “You wish,” he says.

  And suddenly, it seems clear to me that Marco is Brady is Marco is Brady, because both of them will flirt with other girls when the girl they really want is out of the picture, and both of them will leap on whatever’s nearest that has boobs and a heartbeat, and I was right to break it off with Brady ’cause he’d do just what Marco’s doing, eyeing my chest in my wet T-shirt, only he’d do it to some cheerleader, is probably doing it to some cheerleader right now, and if Marco makes a pass at me, that’ll prove I’m better off without Brady and…

  I slip underwater and swim across the pool, surfacing next to Marco. “Maybe I do wish,” I tell him. “You know, I meant it when I said you could search me.”

  “What?” he asks.

  “Outside the museum. I said you could search me. Like for concealed weapons.”

  “I—”

  “Shut up.” I press my chest up against him and put my lips on his.

  13

  MEL

  OW. OW, OW, ow.

  Obviously, a truck has driven over my forehead. Where am I?

  Flashes from yesterday pop into my brain like a strobe light. Pop: I told Marco I wanted to have sex. Burst: Marco turned me down.

  I think I’m going to be sick. Literally. I’m upside down on a roller coaster. I lunge over a body in the fetal position on the carpet—Jesse?—toward a waste basket. I dry heave.

  “That’s revolting,” Jesse mutters, pulling a pillow over her face.

  “Good morning, you badasses!” Vicks says from the other side of the bed.

  When nothing comes out, I blindly reach for the glass of water I spotted earlier and down it.

  Jesse pushes herself up. She has crease marks on her cheek. “So can we go already? Or did you want to throw yourself at some other perfect stranger?”

  She knows? Does everyone know?

  “Let’s go,” I say. I can think of nothing I want more than to get out of here immediately. Except brush my teeth. I definitely want to do that. Too bad my stuff is in the car.

  I wobble over to the door, creak it open, find the coast clear, sneak into the washroom, wash my face, pee, and feel sick all over again.

  Hello, hot dog bun. Good-bye, wine coolers.

  Eventually, I start to feel better. I find Crest in the medicine cabinet and gargle a squirt of it with water.

  By the time I get back to the room, Jesse has already made the bed.

  Vicks is rubbing her hands together. “I had a great sleep. Do you want to know my antihangover secret?” Her voice is extra loud and chipper.

  Or maybe it just sounds that way to my broken head.

  “Shhh,” I whisper. I just want to get out of here. Fast.

  “Okay,” Vicks says, smirking. “But you look like you need it.”

  “Don’t you want to tell your boyfriend we’re leaving?” Jesse says to me.

  “Marco? I’m sure he’s sleeping, no?” I’m way too humiliated to ever speak to him again. “Can we just go?”

  Vicks shrugs, and then we sneak through the house, and out the front door. I squint as the brightness spears my eyes. The street is silent, except for the sound of early-morning birds, and the air is cool and dewy. It’s a beautiful day.

  “Oh, crap,” Vicks says, pointing to the car.

  A blue piece of paper flaps on the dashboard.

  “No way,” Jesse says, running over to her car. “A ticket! I got a ticket!” She tugs it free. “Fifty bucks!”

  “What’s it for?” Vicks asks, blinking in the sun.

  “For facing the wrong direction. Mel, this is so your fault!”

  “How is it Mel’s fault?” Vicks says. “You’re the one who parked the car.”

  “We were only supposed to be here for a second! There weren’t any other spots!”

  Could this morning get any worse? I mean, honestly. “I’ll pay for it, I promise,” I tell them.

  “Just like the hot dogs?” Jesse huffs.

  “Let’s just go,” Vicks says. She opens the door and pushes down the front seat. “I’ll sit in the back this time.”

  “You will not!” Jesse says.

  Vicks climbs into the back. “I need to stretch.”

  I take the front seat, and slam the door shut. Is the weekend over yet?

  Jesse starts the car, makes a U-turn, and then hits the gaz. I mean gas. I do up my seat belt. Every time she turns a corner, I feel sick again.

  I expect her to go straight back
to the highway but just before it, she pulls into the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts. “You,” she says to me. “Get us a box of blueberry muffins and three large coffees.”

  I unsnap my belt. “What do you like in your coffee?”

  Vicks is lying across the seats with her eyes closed. “Black. Like nature made it.”

  “Two creams, two sugars,” Jesse orders.

  “Be right back.”

  “But wait, Mel?” It’s Vicks.

  “Yeah?”

  “Make it six muffins, half blue half cran-orange, and then the rest doughnuts. Two glazed twists, two jelly with powdered sugar, and two with chocolate frosting. Nothing with sprinkles.”

  “Okay.”

  “Remember that about the sprinkles. They have chocolate with and without, but the sprinkles are nasty.” Vicks puts on her sunglasses and it’s clear the conversation is over.

  So I do what they say. I am too embarrassed to do anything else.

  There’s no line, so I walk right up to the counter, rehearsing the order in my head. An older woman in a blue apron is saying to a younger one beside her, “I told my daughter in Cocoa Beach that with Harriet fixin’ to hit today, she better pack up the kids and get up here.”

  Three coffees, one black…

  “Uh, yeah,” the younger one says, then turns to me. “What can I get ya?”

  “Three coffees, one black, two fully loaded.” I order the rest, just as Vicks told me to. “No sprinkles,” I emphasize.

  Then I imagine my sister beside me, eyes bulging, asking me if I know how many calories are in a doughnut. “And can I get that?”

  “This?” the woman asks, picking up the bran muffin I just pointed to. The droopy, deflated, beige, fat-free, carb-free, flavor-free bran muffin.

  “You know what?” I say. “Forget it.”

  “No prob.” She turns back to her older colleague. “At least Harriet shouldn’t head up here. I can’t deal with that this year.”

  I reach into my purse for my wallet and realize that I don’t feel my phone.

  Oh, no. I rummage around…come on, come on. Where is it?

  I vaguely remember trying to call Vicks last night during my drunken stupor.

  I must have left it at Robbie’s. And I’m definitely not going back there.

  Damn.

  14

  JESSE

  SOMETHING’S UP WITH Vicks. She’s been hyper all morning, which Mel might think is normal, but it isn’t. Not for Vicks. Not this early, without even half a cup of coffee in her.

  “You talk to Brady last night?” I ask, thinking that might explain her mood. “Is that why you’re such a Mary Sunshine?” I pull into traffic, balancing my muffin on my thigh.

  “Brady who?” Vicks says. And laughs.

  It irritates me, that laugh, ’cause it feels like she’s making fun of me—or maybe making fun of Brady, which is just plain rude since he’s the whole reason for this trip. Kinda.

  Or maybe I’m still put out about how she acted at the party. Drinking and flirting, while Mel was passed out in Robbie’s room after getting into all kinds of trouble of her own.

  So I say, “Brady, your boyfriend? Who loves you and wants to marry you, and who one day in the far, far future you might even lose your virginity to? After you become Mrs. McKane, of course.”

  I didn’t plan on throwing in the “virginity” bit like that—unless maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to remind her—and Mel too—that life’s not one big party, much as they might want it to be. Or maybe I’m just being mean, since I have a pretty big hunch that Vicks and Brady didn’t wait for no wedding vows.

  “Jesse, you’re wacked,” Vicks says. “Do you seriously think—”

  “Do I seriously think what?”

  She doesn’t answer. I glance in the rearview mirror, and she’s scowling.

  “What?” I say. “Do I seriously think what?”

  “That I would take Brady’s last name?” she snaps. “Or anyone’s? Uh, no. Maybe you want to be someone’s chattel, but not me.”

  “Geez, don’t bite my head off.” Now that I’ve stirred Vicks up, I wish I hadn’t. I don’t do so well with fighting, not the out-and-out kind where you actually say what you feel. I glance at Mel, but she’s facing straight ahead and pretending she’s not listening, like La la la, nobody here but me and my good buddy the windshield.

  “And babe?” Vicks continues. “For your info? My ‘virginity,’ as you so quaintly put it, was lost long, long ago. So you can say good-bye to that little fantasy, ’kay?” She waves into the mirror. “Buh-bye! Sayonara! Adios!”

  Well, she doesn’t have to be so sarcastic! My heart’s all poundy, but I don’t know what to do about it, so I chomp off a big chunk of muffin. Then I’m stuck with the mess of it, ’cause I can’t seem to force it down.

  “Jesse?” Vicks says.

  I shake my head. I can’t come up with any words for her right now. Through the speakers, Fergie’s singing all nasty about her London Bridge going down every time her guy comes around, and I say to Mel, “Will you switch the dang song? Please?”

  Mel registers the badness of her music selection and looks aghast. “Sorry,” she says, punching at her iPod. “Sorry!”

  A new song fills the car: Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” My jaw drops, and Mel hyperventilates.

  “No, wait!” she stammers. “Not on purpose. Wait!”

  “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you,” Vicks says, and she’s being unfair, ’cause I’ve shut up and there’s no reason for her to keep going off on me. “Because you freak out about the dumbest stuff. Because you’d have lectured me about premarital sex and how sinful it is. Admit it!”

  “Where Is the Love” by Elvis Costello replaces “Let’s Get It On.” I know this song. Penn played it in his car once when he was giving me and Vicks a ride. It’s sad and beautiful, all about truth and forgiveness and looking deep into your own heart. Not that I’m in any mood to appreciate it.

  My voice is pinched when I say, “Maybe yes and maybe no, but we won’t ever know now, will we?”

  “Oh, God,” Vicks says, like I’m wearing her out. Like I’m the problem here, when she never gave me a chance. Never even tried saying, “Brady and me…and it was special…and I know it goes against your faith, but Jesse, I am in love with this boy!”

  “Let’s just drop it, all right?” she says.

  “Fine,” I say. She might not know it, but I could tell her a thing or two about “where is the love.” Could tell her how my gut says Brady’s one of the good ones, so different from R.D. and Mama’s other losers, who never in a thousand lifetimes would kiss her all sweet at the movie theater and say “anything for my girl” if she asked him to refill the popcorn tub right at the most exciting part.

  “Anyway, I don’t know why you’re playing all innocent,” she mutters, still carrying on. “I asked you to go to Planned Parenthood with me.”

  “Which you know I couldn’t, because all that place does is—” I break off, realizing that any talk of teenage sex and immorality is just going to bear out her own position.

  It’s with a sinking feeling that I realize something else. I guess maybe she did try to tell me about her and Brady. Okay, fine, she did. It was before the actual deed (at least, I hope it was before the actual deed), but by asking me to go with her to that place, she was bringing up the subject, one friend to another.

  And what did I do? I shut her down and we never talked about it again, not in any true way.

  “At best you are a cruel coward,” Costello sings in his woeful way. “At worst you are a worthless hypocrite.”

  I peek at Mel. I need to know how she’s taking this. She’s in a scrunched-up ball on the vinyl seat, iPod clutched like a Teddy bear, and I can tell from her expression that she thinks I’m a jerk.

  “It’s not that big a deal,” Vicks says. “It’s just sex.”

  Whatever. I accelerate to pass a white Pontiac, and Mel’s coffee sloshes onto her
fancy shorts, which is just great. Now she’s got even more reason to hate me. Only all she does is curl up tighter and hide the stain with her hand. Why? ’Cause I’m Freaky Religious Girl, apparently. Freaky Religious Girl who isn’t worthy of being told secrets and who terrifies spoiled rich girls in their million-dollar shorts.

  There’s something sticky in my hand, and it’s the remains of my durn muffin. I scowl and peg it out the window.

  15

  VICKS

  STUPID ME, STUPID Brady, stupid beer.

  I am so unbadass right now.

  Just bad bad bad.

  I am a bad person. How could I be such a wench to Jesse? And last night—ugh. Mel is the nicest little person and I go hurling myself at the guy she likes. What kind of a friend does that?

  Thank God Marco pushed me away and jumped out of the pool, or I’d have a whole lot more to regret right now.

  I am not drinking any more beer for at least two months. Beer is not my friend.

  Beer made me not a friend to my friends.

  Beer made me not my own friend.

  I wonder if I’m still a little drunk. That would explain me, maybe. I know I should tell Jesse to turn around, to head back home to Niceville, since I don’t have a boyfriend anymore, but somehow I can’t bring myself to say it.

  My phone vibrates, and adrenaline shoots through me. I’ve ignored two calls from Brady this morning already—because of course, now that we’re broken up, the guy remembers my number. Well, he doesn’t get to talk to me just ’cause he suddenly wants to.

  I hesitate before opening the phone. I don’t want it to be Brady.

  No, actually, I do. I do.

  I don’t.

  I do.

  I check the name. Unknown number. Could be Brady calling from a hall phone, or a friend’s cell, couldn’t it? I answer. “Hello?”

  “Vicks, it’s Dotty from the Waffle.”

  “Hey, Dotty.” Why is she calling me? She never calls me. She must have got my number from the staff sheet. “What’s up?”

  “That’s Dotty?” says Mel, turning around from the front seat. “Did Abe find a sub for me? Ask her if he found a sub.”