was an artist, and one of her favorite projects was creating huge super-cozy quilts. Uniquely disturbing, super-cozy quilts. Claudia's featured scenes from Hieronymus Bosch's Hell paintings; mine was a Warhol-esque four-panel image of Charles Manson.
I told Claudia everything, though my mouth was still so dry that I couldn't get anything out before going to the kitchen to grab a giant glass of water and a box of Lucky Charms that Claudia and I now munched by the handful. I was almost done with the story when we heard Claude's mom pad downstairs. Claudia stared at me with alarm.
It took me a second, but then I remembered. I was still dressed and made up like the reaper's bride, a fact Lenore—not Claudia's mom's real name; she'd adopted it because she liked the Poe reference—would absolutely feel the need to share with my parents. I quickly ducked my entire head and body under the multicolored Manson blankie and wondered how I was going to pull this off.
"Morning, girls," Lenore said. I felt her move close to me. "Poor thing. Is your stomach still bothering you, Cara?"
Claudia kicked me under the covers. I remembered I'd spent the night in "gastric distress."
"Ohhhhh," I moaned.
Claudia's barely stifled snicker told me I was nowhere near the actress she was, but Lenore seemed satisfied.
"Think we have any Pepto?" Claudia asked her. "I bet it would help her a lot."
"Hmm. Somewhere we must," Lenore said. "I'll look."
Claudia was a genius. It could take forever for Lenore to dig up the medicine. I heard Lenore head upstairs. I raced into the bathroom and scoured my face, then Claudia slipped me pajamas she'd grabbed from my duffle bag so I could change. Disaster averted. And since Mom and Karl knew I'd be with Claudia all weekend, I'd have the freedom to zip off and see Nate whenever he called.
Except he didn't call. Even though we'd spent most of the night practically locked together and I'd specifically asked him to call in my text. Did he not get my text? But even if he hadn't, wouldn't he have woken up and wondered where I was? And if he'd assumed I'd gone home, wouldn't he have wanted to make sure I was okay?
I wanted to call him, but Claudia wouldn't let me. She dragged me into her room, sat me at her desk, and placed the familiar yellow binder in front of me.
"Please open your text to page one hundred and two," she said.
"I don't know what's more disturbing: that you put together more than a hundred pages or that you actually went through and numbered all of them." I got to the page she wanted. "It's a collage of men in combat."
"Flip forward at your leisure."
I did. More collages spread across the next several pages: men playing football, basketball, hockey, soccer; men wrestling; men boxing; men lifting disturbingly heavy weights at the gym; men at Coney Island scarfing hot dogs as a crowd cheered them on.
"You may cease flipping," Claudia said. Clearly she felt her point had been made, but I had no idea what it was. My blank expression must have said that loud and clear.
"A challenge," Claudia said. "Men love a challenge. You have to play hard to get. It's the only way you'll hold on to Nate long enough to get to the next rung of the Ladder."
Or long enough to help him, I thought. I kept that plan to myself. I had a feeling Claudia wouldn't appreciate me altering her masterwork.
Claudia did have a point. If Nate didn't seem that anxious to talk, I shouldn't be either. I'd let it go. I'd wait until Monday.
Chapter Seventeen
It really wasn't fair how long it took Monday to come around. Staying up most of Sunday night to find a Nate-friendly outfit that screamed "How Can You Not Want More of This?" didn't help any, but it was at least productive. I went hot-casual: a black and white striped shirt with a scooped neckline and a chain-trimmed pocket on the chest, plus tight black jeans ripped along the sides in irregular circles.
I left the house as early as I could without filling Mom's and Karl's heads with questions, hit Wegmans, and made it to school right after the doors opened. Remembering Claudia's gladiator images, I did my best to look for Nate without seeming like I wanted anything to do with him whatsoever.
I had no luck, and there was only so long I could wander the halls looking detached and disillusioned.