Chapter 2
November 5, 2003
Kim bit her lower lip impatiently as she hugged her cell phone closer to her ear. Come on, what was taking Summer so long to pick up? She and Kim were supposed to head to the Caged Bird together, after all, so why wouldn’t she be waiting for a phone call?
“Hello?”
Kim let out a sigh of relief. “Finally! I was beginning to think you and Christian were getting all hot and heavy before the party even started!”
“Yeah, that’s really funny, Kim,” Summer responded sarcastically. “What do you want?”
The question started Kim. “What do I want? I want to know what time we need to meet to head to the party together.”
“Oh, yeah, that,” Summer began hesitantly. “Well, you see, I already told you that Christian and I are going together, and he’s going with Eve and Shannon—”
“That’s fine!” Kim interrupted hastily. “I really don’t mind. I know you said it would probably just be me, you, and Christian, but—”
“Scarlett’s coming along, too.”
For a moment, Kim saw nothing but red. The color rose in her cheeks and her eyes blazed an angry brown. This, in her eyes, was the ultimate betrayal. “Please tell me that my crazy imagination is working overtime and that you didn’t just say you would be going with Scarlett.”
“I’m sorry, Kim,” Summer said timidly in response. “But you know how she and Christian are practically best friends. I can’t just tell him, ‘Hey, Chris, sorry, but you and Scarlett can’t hang out anymore.’”
“I’m not asking you to do that. I’m just asking you to go to the party with your best friend!” Kim screamed into the phone. “God, isn’t it bad enough that I have to go without a date; now, I have to go without my best friend?”
“I’m really sorry, Kim. I totally didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Oh, you totally didn’t mean for it to happen?” Kim mocked her friend. “Well, I totally didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Kim slammed her cell phone shut and threw it on her bed, then fell onto her desk chair in tears. She had slowly begun to feel herself drifting farther and farther apart from Summer as the year had worn on, but this—this was completely unexpected.
“No! I won’t let Scarlett win! I won’t!”
“So, yeah, that’s what’s been going on for the last couple of months?”
Mel stared blankly at Scarlett. It was taking a while for what she said to register in his tightly packed brain. However, the guilty look in Scarlett’s eyes was all he needed to dislodge any doubt he had previously held regarding the scandal in the Midway Prep theatre department.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes impatiently. “Yes, I’m sure. Why the hell do you think I would tell you something like this?”
“That’s a good question,” Mel quickly replied, leaning forward in his chair, “and I’d like to know the answer to it.”
“Oh, so now you don’t trust me?”
“Come on, Scarlett. If you expect me to be able to base a story around one person’s testimony, then…”
His voice trailed off as he waited for Scarlett to begin with her verification, but when he was met with silence, he inhaled wearily.
“Okay, I really need some evidence. Come on, Scar—”
“I overheard Mrs. Willow and Mr. Weldon talking about certain things that have been going on that the public can’t find out about, things that I just told you about,” she finally said.
“And your proof?”
“What do you mean ‘my proof?’” Scarlett snapped. “What more proof do you need?”
Mel laughed in spite of himself. He leaned forward and patted Scarlett on the knee. “You have a lot to learn about the world of the media, darlin’, but that’s okay. I’ll just go on your word for now and start working on getting more concrete evidence. Thanks for trusting me, though.”
As Mel started to walk away, Scarlett grabbed his wrist suddenly and painfully, for him. The scared look in her eye was enough to break Mel's heart.
“Mel, please don’t tell anyone I told you this. If anyone found out, they’d—”
Mel smiled and patted her hand reassuringly. “Yeah, I know.”
“ZEEEKE! Come on, we’re waiting on you!” Gemini shouted up to him from the bottom of the boardinghouse stairs. “Sharon’s starting to get hot, and you know what happens when she starts to get hot!”
Zeke was down the stairs in three bounds, and he looked around anxiously for his friend. “Where is she? She’s not freaking out yet, is she?”
“Well, no, but she’s starting to loosen her pants. Let’s go before she gets any farther!”
Gemini took Zeke’s hand, then grabbed Sharon and took off for her car. Zeke barely managed to get Sharon into the back seat and into the passenger seat himself as Gemini revved the engine and took off down the street.
“Hey, you wanna slow down there, Earnhardt?”
“Yeah, you say that now, but we’re going to be late!” Gemini yelled above the roar of the engine. “Besides, I’ve got to find Rusty. He wasn’t at his house, and I’m getting kind of worried.”
“I’m sure he’s just out with Bobo,” Sharon said, trying to push back the blonde hairs flying wildly about her face.
“I swear, I wish he’d just shoot that monkey! I really think he enjoys spending more time with it than he does with us!” Gemini growled angrily.
Zeke turned to her, his curly chestnut brown hair blown over his eyes. “So what if he does?”
Gemini only acknowledged Zeke’s statement with a glare, then turned her eyes back to the road just in time to see a group of skaters racing across the road. She swerved just in time to miss them, but sent an unbuckled Zeke and Sharon flying about the car.
“Hey, there!” Zeke complained.
Gemini stuck her head out of the window and yelled back at the kids, “Get out of the road, you damn idiots!”
“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll take that well, Gem,” Sharon sighed, rolling her eyes, crossing her arms, and leaning back in her seat.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you guys that Luc’s meeting us at the Caged Bird. He’s going to hang out with us tonight,” Gemini said.
Sharon shot forward in her seat, suddenly awakened by the awful news. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Serious as a heart attack, babe,” Gemini said. “I talked to him earlier today.”
“And you’re just now remembering this?” Sharon retorted. “Yeah, why don’t you just let me out of the car right now?”
“Oh, come on, Sharon. Give the guy a break,” Zane said.
“Yeah, you give me a break, Zeke. If Luc’s hanging out with y’all tonight, then I guess I’m going to have to find another group to hang with.”
Gemini narrowed her eyes as Zeke and Sharon continued arguing over the young Frenchman. She saw a familiar object off in the distance, so she picked up her speed to get closer to it. Soon, she confirmed her suspicions.
“Guys, is that Rusty?”
Sharon and Zeke stopped bickering long enough to look out of the tinted windows.
“I don’t know, I can’t really tell from here,” Zeke said.
“It is! Wait ‘til I get my hands on him!” Gemini yelled, pulling over to the sidewalk where Rusty was walking slowly with Bobo trailing behind him. She rolled down Zeke’s window.
“You have five seconds to get in this car before I back up and run you down.”
* * * * *
“It’s great to have you back, Randall. Now I finally have someone who will laugh senselessly at my jokes.”
Randall smiled at his shaggy-haired friend. “Yeah, well, someone has to do it, right?”
Mason grinned and took another sip of his club soda. “True, true. Now, you’re going to the party down at the Caged Bird tonight, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Randall promptly replied, and there was something sinister in the way he said it. However, Mason, completely oblivious as usual, did not catch it.
“We’re having a LAN party in the basement afterwards, and I know you won’t want to miss that. Matt said he’s ready to bring it, but I told him he could never stand up to the Dangerous Duo.”
“Oh, we’re dangerous all right,” Randall grinned. “You know you don’t even have to ask.”
“Great!” Mason exclaimed, relaxing back onto his bar stool. He motioned to the bartender. “Another club, please? On the rocks, if you don’t mind.”
“You sound like a pro,” Randall chuckled. “So how has MP been in my absence?”
“I tell you, it’s been mad crazy, this last year especially.”
“And Kim?”
Mason was taken aback by his question. He looked towards the ground as he always did when he was unsure of himself. “That’s an odd question. Why do you ask? Better yet, why do you care?”
“You’d think I wouldn’t seeing as how she was the one who tried to kill me, wouldn’t you? Oh, Mason, I’m full of surprises; you’ll learn that soon.”
Mason could not miss the wild flash in Randall’s blue eyes this time. He nervously looked down at his empty glass and was relieved when the waiter came over to fill it. It was a diversion, a diversion from a situation that Mason knew would become volatile in no time flat.
“Okay, do I have everything? Purse, earrings, fabulous dress—yeah, I think I’ve got it all,” Shannon said, hastily grabbing her light jacket and heading towards the door to her bedroom.
“Why do you need a jacket tonight? It’s practically six hundred degrees outside?” Eve asked, lightly tugging at Shannon’s jacket.
“For the same reason that you have that wrap, that’s why,” Shannon said, pulling her jacket back into its position across her arm. “Come on, we want to make an impression tonight just in case certain people are there tonight.”
“Like Allan.”
Shannon stopped suddenly. The months of pain and anguish all came flooding back to her with the utterance of that one word. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the memories, but it was almost too much. She took her time before turning to look Eve squarely in the eye, and when she did, her look was fierce and malevolent. “Don’t you ever mention his name again.”
Eve was wise to back off from the cold, heartless voice. “Anyways, we need to get going if we’re going to get there early.”
Shannon’s cheery disposition quickly returned. “Oh, no, no, honey! We’ve got to be fashionably late, and I do mean fashionably late.”
“Come on, now. Christian and Summer are going to be waiting on us, after all.”
“Well, they can wait a couple of minutes longer. I have to take care of some emergency business.”
“Which would be?”
Shannon looked incredulously at her friend. “Why, the last minute lipstick application, of course. Duh, Eve. Sometimes I think you really are losing touch with your femininity.”
Eve laughed and picked up her own makeup bag. “Why, I think that you’re completely right. Be that as it may, however, we need to go, so let’s go!”
Shannon carefully placed her makeup pieces back into her bag and sighed. “All right, all right. I’ll go, but when Lisa Murray’s makeup looks better than mine, guess whom I’ll be going after? Yes, Miss ‘Let’s Go’ Eve.”
“You do that…but as we’re walking out the door, okay?”
Kim was surprised by the knock on her door. She removed her face from her tear-stained pillow and stood up. She brushed back a few loose strands of her dark brown hair, wiped her eyes, then made her way towards the door.
“Who is it?” she called.
“Haduken!”
“Richie!” Kim screamed, then flung open the door. The mountain of curly light brown hair was all the verification she needed that her long-time friend was back in town. She threw her arms around her old friend, making his glasses crooked, and began crying anew.
Richie fixed his glasses then patted Kim affectionately on the head. “Wow, why can’t more women have this reaction when they see me?”
“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it’s you. I thought you’d still be away in class,” Kim said.
“Class, schmass. I go where I want to go when I want to,” Richie said, crossing his arms in a Superman pose and narrowing his eyes.
“Sure you do, sweetie. Especially in that wonderful ’85 Chevy of yours, eh?”
“Hey, don’t make fun of the Queen, Kim! Just don’t even go there!”
Kim laughed for the first time since she had talked to Summer earlier. “God, you don’t know how much I needed you to come, right now.”
“Ah, problems in the fairyland of teenage girlhood? Well, have no fear, Dr. Rich is here!” Richie exclaimed, pulling Kim out of her room towards the lounge at the end of the hallway.
He sat her down on a couch, sat down in the seat next to her, pulled out a pretend notebook, and lowered his glasses. “Now, what seems to be the problem, Miss Kim?”
Kim giggled, then sobered. “It’s Summer.”
Now Richie really was confused. “Summer? What does she have to do with anything? I thought you were best friends?”
“Would you let me finish?!”
“Oh, sorry,” he said, returning to his psychologist role.
“It’s like she doesn’t like spending time with me anymore. She’s always hanging out with Christian and his friends now, and one of them happens to be Scarlett. Do you remember her?”
“I remember how you set her backpack on fire when she accidentally put it in your band locker.”
Kim shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, well—she deserved it! Anyways, Summer seems to like hanging out with them more than she likes hanging out with me.”
“Well, Christian is her boyfriend.”
“Yes, but she’s my best friend! Now, I’m both boyfriend-less and best friend-less. It sucks, Richie! It really sucks!”
Richie’s eyes lit up. “Well, suck it will no more! I have just the cure for you, and when you get it, you’ll never have a worry again in your life! Guaranteed!”
* * * * *
“Mel! Oh my gosh, is that you?”
Mel turned around sharply at the sound of the familiar voice, and his light brown eyes lit up when he recognized the bright face and long golden-brown locks of his friend Chloe. He ran up and hugged her, then put his hands on her shoulders and began examining her.
“Hmmm, well, you seem to be okay, but you never can tell what those Kansas folks do to you just by what you see on the outside.”
“Oh, just stop it, you!” Chloe laughed, playfully pushing away Mel’s arms. “Oh, wow, it’s so good to see you again, though!”
“As it is to see you! Man, I was really beginning to think you were never going to come back. Weren’t you gone for, what, a month or two?”
“Haha, Mr. Wise Guy, why don’t you try three weeks? It was long enough, I’ll say that much.”
“Oh, it was, eh?” Mel said suspiciously, raising his eyebrow and examining her expression. “What secrets and scandals did you get into on the rolling Midwestern prairies?”
Chloe hesitated for a moment, realizing just how close Mel was to the truth. Luckily for her, she managed to catch herself just before Mel really started getting suspicious. “Plenty enough, you know that.”
“Ah, that’s my girl!” he laughed. He ushered her to an empty table in the near empty book café Jax’s, then looked at her admiringly. “So have you seen everyone else yet?”
“Well, I’ve seen Shannon and Eve, and I talked to Christian and Summer a little while ago. I can’t wait until we’re all together again at the party tonight. This is going to be so much fun!” she squealed, clapping her hands together in ecstasy.
“Oh, I know. It’s going to be a riot and a half.”
“So what’ve you been up to? I heard you’re busy trying to get into some high-sounding university halfway across the world.”
Mel smiled and looked down at the table. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. I don’t know; I’d like to think I can get in, but—well, I guess I won’t know until about six months from now. But hey, I don’t even want to worry about that now. I’m just focused on getting this summer started with all my buddies! I have a feeling that this summer is going to be one we remember for a long, long time.”
“So are you just going to sit there and not say anything?”
Rusty looked over at Gemini, hoping for a response, but he was greeted only with silence. “God, what’s your problem?”
Gemini finally broke the silent treatment. “Does that monkey have to sit on my leather interior?”
“Hey, Bobo has needs to!”
“What on earth does that have to do with anything?” Gemini demanded. “It’s a monkey, Rusty. A damn monkey, at that!”
Rusty put his hands over Bobo’s ears. “You know, Bobo has feelings to, and right now you’re just shredding them into pieces.”
“Yeah, well, I wish I could shred it to pieces.”
“Why are you being so mean?”
“Because I’m tired and I’m read to go to the party!”
“That’s no reason to take it out on us!”
“Remember whose car you’re in, buddy!”
“GUYS!” Zeke boomed over the fighting. “Let’s stop all of the stupid fighting and get to where we’re going, which is…”
Gemini zoomed into a parking spot that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Right here. Now, would you please get the monkey out of my car.”
Rusty mumbled an expletive under his breath and waited for Zeke to push the back seat up. When he and Bobo were out of the car, he said, “I’ll gladly thank you never to give us a ride again.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll thank myself never to give you a ride again,” Gemini said.
Sharon sighed and followed Bobo out of the car. “I hope all of tonight’s not like this.”
Zeke smiled and threw his arm around her shoulder. “It won’t be. We’re going to have the night of a lifetime. I can feel it.”
Sharon suddenly smiled and picked up her step to be in time with his. “You know, I can, too. I don’t know what it is about tonight, but I really feel like it’s going to be monumental. So let’s get inside so we can start the fireworks now!”
A black-robed figure watched the four friends enter the trendy establishment together from behind the corner of the building, then turned away. A quiet yet menacing laugh escaped its dark attire.
“Oh, there will be fireworks all right. The question is, whose going to be the one who gets blown right out of this town? I guess it’s time to see…”