Chapter 6

6

On Saturday, Dad and I get up early to take my car to the Sledd Brothers Auto Shop. They promise us the bumper is an easy fix, but with the amount of business they’ve had lately, it’s going to take several days before I get my car back. My parents will have to drop me off at school until then. When the mechanics tell us the estimated cost, I feel weird knowing that Irene’s insurance policy will pay for it.

The rest of the day is devoted to getting ready for the Homecoming dance. Mom and Daphne chirp about it all afternoon, bombarding me with ideas for how to do my hair as if I know what the hell they’re talking about. Finally, Thora takes pity on me and sets up a hair and makeup station in the basement. She hangs my suit on the door for “inspiration,” queues up music on her portable speaker, and brews a fresh pot of coffee to keep us in the zone. Daphne plops down beside her, offering input, and I sit still and silent, letting my sisters take the reins.

Thora and Daphne move effortlessly through Girl World. They speak a common language I’ve never understood, with shimmery words like contouring and bandeaus and bralettes. It’s their birthright, this ability to be like any other girl. I’ve never had the same birthright, and I’ve understood that since long before I heard the word gay.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons I liked Tally: She had no qualms about moving through both worlds. Now I have to straddle the two without her.

I breathe easier when Thora and Daphne agree on a hairstyle and reassure me of how stunning I’m going to look. Daphne hands me a coffee and smiles a giddy, ecstatic smile. Her own coffee looks too big for her little hands, but she takes a practiced sip and smacks her lips together the way Thora does.

---

From the moment I walk into the dance, my heart hurts. All I can think about is Tally and how this should have been our perfect senior Homecoming. I’m so preoccupied that I miss half the things Danielle and Gunther are talking about. There could be a wild bull chasing me down and I wouldn’t even notice.

But speaking of, there’s Irene.

She’s dancing with a group of friends, and she looks genuinely happy, but I don’t care. Danielle, meanwhile, is trying to act like she’s not eyeing the stage every other second. Kevin is up there, bleeding his red guitar, his black twists catching the light above him. He’s dressed in slacks and a button-up shirt, but still wearing his trademark string hoodie on top.

Over by the punch bowl, Charlotte Pascal is making a show of pouring little paper cups for her friends. When one of them shifts to the side, I see a silver flask in Charlotte’s hand.

I catch Gunther’s eye and nod toward the drinks table. He watches for a second, then raises his eyebrows and asks, “Feeling thirsty?”

We sidle up toward Charlotte. Before we can say anything, she speaks to us out of the corner of her mouth.

“It’s only for people who voted for me.”

Gunther side-eyes me. “We both did,” he lies.

“Everyone keeps saying that, and yet that bitch is wearing my crown.” She skirts her eyes judgmentally over my suit. I feel my face flush. “Dollar donation on Venmo,” she says finally. “Title it ‘senior fundraiser.’ Loop around the table and come back at the end of the song.”

Gunther and I peel off to the end of the refreshments table, where we pull up our phones to Venmo Charlotte. There’s been a whole slew of payments in the last few minutes, all of them referencing the fundraiser with various emojis tacked onto the end.

We loop back after the song ends. Charlotte slides two cups down the table, still not looking at us.

“Eugh,” Gunther says, taking a sip before I can. “This tastes like the inside of my mascot costume.”

I swallow some down and feel my throat burn. The taste is definitely nasty.

“Gross,” I say, licking my lips. “That’s way more vodka than punch.”

I never drink—or at least, I haven’t since the party last year—but it feels good to have something to do. The alcohol hits me right when the slow songs come on. Couples are grabbing each other to sway and brush foreheads and make out, and I remember Tally at prom last year, whispering silly jokes in my ear.

I hear Thora’s words in my head again. Was Tally really all that bad? And if she was, why do I feel so sad and lost without her?

I slip away from the crowd without caring where I’m going. The locker-lined hallway is a welcome breath of air, moonlit and empty. I sink to the floor and rest my head against the cold locker behind me.

Impulsively, I grab my phone. Tally’s Instagram Story has been updated with a post from Candlehawk’s Homecoming dance. It’s a snippet of some girl pretending to spank some guy while the crowd cheers them on. Tally’s laughter blares through the speaker, sweet and exultant.

My throat is tight before I can stop it. I tuck my phone away and wipe my eyes. Then I just sit there, trying to make sense of how this happened, how I lost Tally and myself in the same fell swoop.

I’m about to get up when a pair of girls comes clacking down the hallway. They’re swishing in their dresses, whispering sharply at each other. I don’t have time for anyone else’s drama, especially tonight, so I’m about to dash out of there when I catch the sound of a voice I’ve been hearing all week.

“I’m not in the mood, Honey-Belle,” Irene is saying. “I’ve got enough on my plate right now.”

“One dance isn’t gonna hurt you,” Honey-Belle insists. “It’ll be good for you. Come on, you just won Homecoming Queen! You deserve some fun.”

“With the girls you’ve been picking out? Fat chance.”

My heart jolts unexpectedly. Did I just hear right? Girls?

“You’re picky as hell,” Honey-Belle continues. “What was wrong with Madeleine Kasper? She’s one of the cutest sophomores—”

“You know I can’t date a sophomore—”

“Stop being so uppity. There’s someone out there for you. You just need to open your eyes and receive what the universe wants you to have!”

I can’t move. There’s a faint ringing in my chest. It’s bizarre to hear Irene chatting away with her best friend like this—almost like I’m seeing behind a curtain—and I still can’t get over the girls thing. Is it common knowledge that Irene Abraham likes girls? Did I somehow miss that memo?

“I can’t worry about dating right now,” Irene says. She sounds tired. “Mom’s on my ass about paying them back for that stupid insurance deductible, but she still doesn’t know I used my savings on cheer camp last summer. Unless I quit cheerleading and find a job, there’s no way I’ll be able to—”

“You can’t quit cheerleading,” Honey-Belle cuts in. “This is the first time one of us has a real shot at SAOY! How many years until another cheerleader even comes close to that?”

“Tell that to my mom,” Irene says.

“She’ll come around,” Honey-Belle says, kicking a heel up against the lockers. “She knows how important this is to you. Did you tell her about Benson yet?”

“No. What’s the point, when they’re not gonna let me go?”

“But that cheerleading coach wants you, Irene!” I put the pieces together: Benson University is a school in Virginia, and it sounds like Irene might have a spot on their cheerleading squad. “And I know you want to go there, even if you’re trying to act all cool about it.” It sounds like there’s a small tussle and I imagine Honey-Belle trying to smother Irene with a hug and positive vibes.

“You know I can’t go there without a scholarship. My parents would never agree to that when I could go to an in-state school for much less. The Benson coach said she can fight for me if I win something as impressive as SAOY, but what if I don’t?”

“Don’t think like that. You have a real shot.”

“I hope so.” She sounds downcast, defeated. “Charlotte’s already trying to sabotage me. She’s going around telling everyone that even if cheerleading is quote, unquote, ‘a legitimate sport,’ that I’m obviously not a good captain if I’m letting girls fall during our routines.”

“That jealous, snaggletoothed heifer,” Honey-Belle says, and I have to choke back a laugh. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her angry.

“Plus, I can’t figure out whether winning Queen helps or hurts my chances,” Irene continues. “Do people think girls are less athletic when they win a You’re Pretty Award?”

“Absolutely not. You’re a boss. Everyone knows that.”

“Maybe,” Irene says. She doesn’t sound convinced. “I don’t know, Honey-Belle. I have to win SAOY to afford Benson, and I can’t win SAOY if I’m not cheering, but I can’t pay for this deductible unless I quit the squad and get a job.”

“You have to tell your parents,” Honey-Belle says. “Just explain it to them. Give them a chance to understand.”

“They won’t understand, especially my mom. She’ll make me quit the squad and work at her practice to pay them back. She’ll finally have some real leverage to use in her favor.”

Irene’s voice is different than I’ve ever heard before. It provokes a feeling in me that I can’t quite name. It takes a moment to realize it’s sympathy. She has a lot more on her shoulders than I thought. That doesn’t excuse how shitty she’s been toward me, but still. I feel for her.

Irene sighs, Honey-Belle soothes her, and they finally leave. I wait it out for a minute before I follow suit.

---

When the dance ends, it’s collectively decided that the night will continue at the Christmas Emporium. It’s a well-known secret that Grandma Earl students have been hosting after-parties there for decades. Plus, Honey-Belle has a key to let everyone into the Santa room, where the Earl-Hewetts keep their stock of Santa Claus statues that kids take pictures with when they’re drunk.

Kevin drives us since he’s the only one who didn’t partake in the “senior fundraiser.” Gunther takes the front while Danielle and I sit in the back seat, holding Kevin’s guitar case across our laps. Gunther helped himself to another two rounds of fundraiser while I was out in the locker hallway, so he’s giggly and goofy. He won’t stop laughing about how he has to pee.

The Emporium garage is open when we arrive. People are milling about in their suits and dresses, half inside the Emporium, half outside in the parking lot. The air is cool and smells like dead leaves and campfire.

As my friends walk off to survey the Santa statues, I take a moment to drink water and mull over something that’s been fermenting in my brain. It fizzled to life sometime in the last hour, after I overheard Irene and Honey-Belle at the dance. It’s a wild, ridiculous idea, but I can’t shake the feeling that it could be exactly what I need to solve my problems. I mean, didn’t my sisters tell me to fake it till I make it?

I make the decision and march toward Irene before I lose my nerve.

She’s standing with a small crowd of friends who look up as I approach. It’s outside the prescribed social norms for me to seek them out, but right now I don’t care.

“Irene,” I say loudly.

“Yeah?” she says, an edge to her voice. She crosses her arms over her apricot dress and eyes me warily.

“I need to talk to you.” I give her a meaningful look. “It’s important.”

I’ve never been so bold before. But why shouldn’t I be, especially now that I know all her weak spots?

She follows me out back behind the Emporium, where the long-forgotten train tracks are. There are fewer people out here; it’ll be easier to have a private conversation. I scoot onto the track incline and wait as she folds herself down next to me.

“Well?” she prompts.

I tuck my knees up, wrapping my arms around my pant legs like this is the most casual conversation I could imagine.

“I heard you and Honey-Belle talking in the hallway,” I say, looking her square in the eye. “I had no idea you were into girls.”

There’s a flicker of alarm in her eyes, but she sets her expression and gives me a steely look. “Why are you always in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Of course she wants to blame me for her decision to have a private conversation in a public place. “I was already in that lane,” I say coolly. “You’re the one who failed to check if the coast was clear.”

She laughs bitterly. “Clever. Love the metaphor.”

“Right? It just came to me in a burst of inspiration.”

Irene shakes her head and combs her fingers through her hair. For the first time, it reads to me as a nervous habit instead of vanity. I expect her to deny everything, or to threaten me, but her response is something else entirely.

“If you’re planning some sort of payback for what I did to your car, then just get it over with.”

I’m so surprised I sputter out a laugh. “What?”

She searches my eyes. “What do you want, Zajac?”

“Do I strike you as the blackmailing type? That is seriously fucked up. I’m not talking about that at all. I would never out you.”

In the moonlight, her eyes relax the slightest bit. “So what are you talking about?”

“I think we can help each other. How much is your car insurance deductible?”

“What?”

“Just answer the question, Abraham. How much?”

She sets her mouth. “A thousand.”

“Wooooof.” It’s higher than I expected, but still within range for this plan to work. “And how much do you have right now?”

“Not enough. Why do you care?”

“I have a fat wad of cash from my summer job. Enough to cover your deductible.” It’s true: I worked hours and hours at the Chuck Munny Cineplex, the vintage movie theater in town, sweeping up popcorn and watching old films. I’d been keeping the cash as extra spending money, especially since I’m planning to attend college in-state for free, but now I have a much better way to use it.

Irene narrows her eyes. “And why would you give that money to me?”

“Okay, listen.” I clear my throat. This is the part that could either go beautifully or disastrously. Once I put this out there, she’ll be able to put me on blast if she wants to. But I have an instinct that she won’t.

“Everyone at Grandma Earl and Candlehawk thinks my team is a joke,” I say. “That I’m a joke. But you have the clout to change their minds. I want to get the team some attention so we’ll start playing better and beat Candlehawk in the Christmas Classic.” I pause, remembering Tally’s tinny laugh on my phone while I sat by myself in that empty hallway. “And as you have no doubt realized, Tally Gibson did a number on me. I want to make her jealous and I think I know how. The most she’s paid attention to me lately was when she heard I was giving you rides. If she sees me hanging out with you for real, she’ll lose her mind.”

Irene hikes her eyebrows. “So you want to pay me to hang out with you?”

My heart thumps wildly beneath my suit jacket. “I want to pay you to date me.”

There’s a swell of silence.

Then Irene laughs into the cold air. “Date you?” she says shrilly, like I’ve just suggested the craziest thing in the world. “As in, pretend to be your girlfriend? You’re not serious right now.”

“I absolutely am.”

“Is this some kind of Can’t Buy Me Love fantasy?”

I’m momentarily stymied. “You know that movie?”

She rolls her eyes. “God, you really do think you’re unique,” she says under her breath. “You’re telling me you actually want to pay me to make you more popular? You do realize that’s not a thing anymore, right?”

“Bullshit it’s not a thing. Or are you telling me the cheerleaders and basketball guys have been showing up to my practices out of the goodness of their hearts?”

“So you’re trying to use me.”

“I’m manipulating a situation so we both benefit. You need the money if you want to keep cheerleading and win SAOY. This might get your mom off your back, don’t you think?”

She breathes. I can see the wheels turning in her head.

“So you do want to out me, in a sense,” she says flatly. She sounds the least bit vulnerable.

This is the part I was worried about. “Only if you want to. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who lets others determine her narrative. If you want to do this, great, we’ll announce it however you want to. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I’ll walk away and never bring it up again. I won’t even tell my best friend.”

She wraps her arms around her calves. “I wouldn’t care if you told Danielle.”

I blink. “You know that my best friend is Danielle?”

She stares at me like I’ve grown another head. “Yes? Everyone knows your best friend is Danielle. I voted for y’all for ‘Class Inseparables,’ for fuck’s sake.”

I’m at a loss for words. I was sure she knew nothing about my life—at least not until we got in that fender bender. “Oh. Well … I voted for you and Charlotte Pascal.”

Irene snorts. It’s the first time she’s appreciated one of my jokes.

“You should know that I don’t take coming out lightly,” I say delicately. “But I do think you can use it to your advantage, especially when it comes to getting more votes for SAOY. People are all about the queer trend right now. They’d bottle our hormones and sell them if they could.”

Irene side-eyes me. “You’re more cynical than I realized.”

“It’s true, and you know it. What would you have to lose?” I hold out my hands like I’m offering her the world on a gold platter. “You already won Homecoming Queen. Your cheer routines are amazing, minus the little mishap last night, which I’m guessing only happened because you were distracted with worrying about having to quit cheerleading. And now you can push boundaries by not only being the first cheerleader to win SAOY, but by openly ‘dating’ a girl in the months leading up to it.”

“Do you think I’m not pushing boundaries already?” she asks sharply. “How many desi cheerleaders do you know?”

I shrug, trying to play it cool. “Just you, I’m pretty sure. So why not go big or go home?”

She purses her lips. “For how long?”

“Until we play Candlehawk in the district championship in February.”

“Four months?”

“It’s not as long as it sounds,” I insist. “Look, if you can get your squad to cheer for us, it’ll have a huge effect on our playing. We’ll beat Candlehawk in the Christmas Classic, and then we’ll ride that high straight into the championship, by which time you will surely have snagged a nomination for SAOY.”

She shakes her head stubbornly. I have no choice but to pull out the big guns.

“Or…,” I say innocently, “you could quit cheerleading for four months while you work off your debts to your parents. Not sure that would help you win SAOY, though, which means you’d have no shot at going to Benson.”

I feel shitty about leveraging her dream, but I need her to say yes. My heart is almost beating out of my chest at this point.

Irene runs her finger along her mouth, thinking. “Will you give me the money up front?”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t tell anyone we’re doing this?”

“Not if you don’t.”

She smooths her bottom lip again. It’s actually very distracting. “I can’t believe I’m considering this.”

“Neither can I,” I admit. “But I also can’t believe you’ve converted me into a secret cheerleading fan who will probably vote for you for SAOY. I guess this is just an unprecedented week.”

She looks at me, her eyes twinkling the tiniest bit. “Fine,” she says, extending her hand for me to shake.

I grip her warm, soft palm and squeeze. A rush of excitement shoots up through my arm. This is the first thing to go right in a long, long time.

“How do we start?” Irene asks.

“You got your car back from the shop, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I smirk. “First step: You drive us to school on Monday.”