The Revenge Artist - Philip Siegel Page 0,23

lay a truth bomb on you. Jay didn’t dump Bari because she’s a Red Sox fan. He didn’t dump her because she messed with his fantasy football.” Val swirls her coffee with a spoon before taking a giant gulp. “He dumped her because she’s a bitch. They can get past everything else, but not that.”

Ouch. She wasn’t calling me one, but I felt secondhand burns. “If she was that, then why did he go out with her?”

Ding. Her phone goes off again. I start to wonder why she doesn’t just put it to silent while we chat. Maybe she’d rather listen to a ding than her friend.

“Eventually, the real Bari came out.”

I’m not used to Val being so blunt. A part of me wonders how much of this is really referring to Bari.

Ding. Ding. Two messages in quick succession. Val tries to ignore it and be present.

“Sorry.”

Ding.

It’s Chinese phone torture.

“You can answer it.”

Val spins around, her back toward me, to read it. Since when did texts become a secret? Is this a person from her “study group”?

“Everything okay?” I ask.

She wears a stoic expression, but I detect a faint redness to her face that wasn’t there thirty seconds ago. “Dottie being dotty.”

I don’t challenge her. Not like I’ll get a straight answer.

We sit there for a moment that stretches into an eternity of silence. Not the normal friend silence. This time, I’m trying too hard to think of what to say.

“How are things with the boy?” Val asks me. “You hardly talk about him.”

Because I don’t want to make things even weirder between us. “Well.”

“That’s it?”

Here’s where I tell her about the I Love You. Here’s where I unload about Fred applying to Bartlett. Cut to us overanalyzing every word for the next three hours.

But the words won’t come out. My brain keeps wanting to say it, but my mouth knows better. Things between us already feel shaky. I don’t want Val to feel even more like a third wheel. I can’t have us drifting apart when this is our last year together. We have to end on a high note, and I can’t jeopardize that.

“That’s it.”

***

Fairfax is the kind of place a girl can get lost in en route from school. It’s one of those drugstore chains that is slowly morphing into a megastore. Each time I go in there, they’ve branched out their inventory. Last month, it was canned goods; last week, they began carrying fresh fruit—well, fruit shrink-wrapped in plastic. Still counts.

I stroll through the Halloween section, which is decked out with cobwebs, costumes, and candy. It’s fun-size candy, so the calories don’t count, right? Besides, after the craziness of the past few weeks, I could use a chocolate binge.

A hand beats me to the half-price mini-Twizzlers.

“It’s all yours,” Wade says. It’s a cloudy day out, yet his sunglasses still rest on his head.

Wade’s shopping basket is overflowing with all of the good stuff Fairfax has to offer. Wade’s dad is some high-up executive with the chain, so he never has to pay. Fresh-baked cookies (they have a bakery now?) intermingle with car magazines which rub up against hairstyling paste. Yuck on so many levels.

“Thanks.” I take the bag of Twizzlers from the shelf and instantly feel ridiculous for buying them. I was just browsing, but now I’m locked in. I stroll into the skin care aisle and pray that’s the last I see of him. I’m always awkward in these situations where I run into classmates outside of school. We would never say hi in the halls, so what do we do here? And the fact that he’s dating my old friend who no longer talks to me only makes me walk away faster.

I continue up to the cashier and wait in line. I thumb through the one-dollar items, proud of myself for resisting their temptation.

“Hello again.” Wade. Again. In line behind me. “I’m not stalking you. This is pure coincidence.”

Before I can answer, Huxley joins him. Despite being inches away, she succeeds admirably at pretending I don’t exist. I mean, it’s a master class in freeze-out. No accidental eye contact. No glares or giveaway facial reactions. No awkward chitchat with Wade.

Wade wraps his arm around his girlfriend. Girlfriend. Wade and Huxley. They still feel like a mismatch to me.

I glance at his basket, and the face cream and styling paste stare back at me. Steve never used any of that stuff, I’m assuming. He seemed like the type to splash water on his face and