Мэг Кэбот - Pants on Fire

Behind it, I found bedlam. Ms. Hayes was screaming at the sound guys, because apparently the hand mikes weren’t working, and we were going to have to use clipons, which wouldn’t work because there was no place near enough to Sidney’s mouth to clip a mike, thanks to her gown’s plunging neckline. Sidney was screaming at Dave, who’d apparently ordered the wrong color tux from Eastport Formal Wear, and the powder blue of his jacket was going to clash with the red of Sidney’s dress. Morgan was freaking out because she’d forgotten her rosin and was going to break her neck on the stage if her toe shoes didn’t stick to it well enough.

And Jenna. Well, something hadhappened to Jenna. I didn’t even recognize her at first. Her piercings were gone, as were the purple streaks in her black hair…which was now a pretty auburn color and was sitting on top of her head in a gorgeous updo, with baby’s breath tucked into it. She’d been stuffed into an empire-waisted lacy dress from Bebe (Sidney had the exact same one, but for day, not pageant, wear) that accentuated her long, pale limbs, and on her feet were a pair of stilettos so shockingly high, they were sinking into the dirt and grass beneath the chair she was sitting on. On her face, she wore an expression not unlike the one hostages tend to wear after being liberated from days of captivity — she looked dazed.

I couldn’t help going up to her and being all, “Jenna? Whathappened?”

Jenna blinked up at me. “Oh,” she said. “Hi, Katie. Yeah. Ambush makeover.”

Shocked, I sank down onto a nearby folding chair. “Your mom?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “My friends. They think if I win, I’ll be in a position to promote their social platform.”

“Running through the streets naked covered in green Jell-O?”

“No,” Jenna said. “Liberating the quahog. They want all quahogs to be able to live free, without fear of being dug up and eaten.”

I said, “Jenna. Quahogs are bivalves. They aren’t capable of feeling fear.”

Jenna shrugged. “I know. But I didn’t want to upset them. And whatever. I want my car back. So maybe this way, I’ll place after all.”

I thought this was still pretty unlikely, given her talent. (Her speech includes the line,I’ve SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It’s a forty-seven-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing, “I’m an Oscar Mayer Wiener.” Pageant judges don’t like it when you mention the V word in your speech.)

“Wow,” I said instead. “Does this mean you found an escort?”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Mydad.”

Still, I stood back up and laid a hand on her bare shoulder to show my solidarity with her plight. “Fight the power, Jenna,” I said. “Fight the power.”

Then I walked over to where Sidney was fighting with Dave just as he yanked off his powder blue tux jacket and threw it to the ground.

“You want me to escort you shirtless?” he demanded, caught up in a rare (for him) fit of pique. “Fine! I’ll escort you shirtless!”

Then he stomped off.

I picked up the jacket and brushed bits of grass from it.

“He can’t escort you shirtless,” I said. “It’s against the rules. Escorts have to be in formal wear.”

“I know,” Sidney said. “Butlook at that thing. It’s hideous!”

“Maybe he could wear it, you know, ironically,” I said. “With a quahog fritter as a boutonniere.”

“Thanks,” Sidney said sarcastically. “Not helping.”

I felt a pair of hands on my waist. I spun around to find Seth, looking gorgeous in a tux of his own — his was black, thank God — grinning down at me.

“Hey, babe,” he said, leaning over to kiss me. “You look—”

“No,” I said quickly, reaching up to grab his face before his lips could touch mine. “You’ll mess up my makeup.”

Except that I was disturbingly aware of the fact that it wasn’t my makeup I was worried about. I didn’t want Seth to kiss me because…

…I just didn’t want Seth to kiss me.

I know. It was insane. But at that moment, the thought of my boyfriend kissing me actually made me feel a little bit, well…

Queasy.

Really! I know that’s a terrible thing to think about a boy. Especially a boy you’ve been seeing exclusively. Well, semi-exclusively.

“Sorry,” Seth said, about messing up my makeup. “You just look so hot.”

My heart lurched. He was just so…sweet. How could I have treated him the way I’d been treating him lately? How?

Even though the truth is that, though Seth isalways going on about how hot I look, he never compliments me on stuff that actually matters. Like, he’s never looked at my photos and gone, “You understand people…just not yourself.” He’s never looked at my photos and said anything but, “Nice. Let’s make out.”

Not, you know, that I ever minded. Until fairly recently.

Oh, God. What’shappening to me?

“See, this is the tux Dave was supposed to get,” Sidney cried, grabbing Seth’s jacket sleeve. “Oh my God, your boyfriend looks so good! What is wrong with my boyfriend, that he has the worst taste in all of the Eastern Seaboard? Seth, you guys went to the shop together. Why didn’t you try to stop him?”

Seth looked confused…kind of like a puppy someone was berating for having peed on the floor. “He thought black would be too hot,” he said. “And he was right. I’m boiling right now.”

“So what?” Sidney shouted, loudly enough for Dave, who was over at the cooler Ms. Hayes had brought along, stocked with Diet Cokes and bottled water, to overhear. “Sometimes you have to suffer for beauty! How do you think I feel when I have my legs waxed? Do you think it feels good? Well, it doesn’t. But I do it anyway, to look good formy boyfriend. Because I love him.”

I had no comment to make about that. I never get my legs waxed, because of the potential for bacterial infection, even at a seemingly clean salon. I used my trusty safety razor instead.

Dave had a comment, though. He went, throwing down the water bottle he’d just chugged, “You know what, Sidney? If you have something to say to me, why don’t you come over here and say it to my face instead of shouting it out for everyone in town to hear?”

Which caused Sidney to go, “Fine, I will,” and stomp over to him.

Seth, having watched this exchange with a quizzical expression on his face, looked down at me and went, “Wow. I guess she’s really nervous about the pageant, huh?”

“I guess,” I said. I was kind of upset about the puppy thing. I mean, that I’d look at my boyfriend’s face and been reminded of a puppy. Who had just peed. That isn’t the kind of thing you’re supposed to think about when you look at your boyfriend. What was wrong with me? I mean, obviously Seth and I hadn’t been the most perfect couple, considering I kept making out with other people (well, okay, one other person…at a time) behind his back.

But I had never thought of him aspuppyish before. You know, cute and sweet and ultimately…well, kind of dim.

“Katie,” Seth said. “Is everything okay? I mean, between you and me?”

Oh my God! It was like he’d read my mind! How’d he done that? Puppies aren’t supposed to be able to do that….

“Between us?” I asked, turning away from Sidney and Dave, who were now arguing in the opposite corner of the tent, while Morgan blubbered away about her rosin and Jenna sat there looking as empty-headed as Katie Holmes. “What do you mean?”

Except of course I knew exactly what he meant. I just hadn’t suspected that he’d noticed.

“Well, it’s like, these past few days, I’ve hardly seen you,” Seth said. “I know you were sick, and all, but—”