It's All About Us Read online

  Okay, enough about Kaz. “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

  All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and relive that kiss over and over. Imagine Callum smiling at me over his Coke and pizza. Hear the sound of his voice in my memory saying “Beautiful” until it echoed.

  And then slide into sleep with his face in my mind and his voice in my ears so I could dream about him.

  Because in dreams you never have to tell a boy to stop.

  To:[email protected]

  From:[email protected]

  Date: September 30, 2008

  Re:Bite!

  Hey L, I called last night but your roomie said you were out. Hot date?

  I got some exciting news. DayStar Comix wants to look at the proposal for DEMON BATTLE.

  !!!!!!!!!

  I’m freaking. The e-mail came this afternoon and I can’t sit still, can’t concentrate. Wish you were here to grab my ankles and bring me down to earth. This is too big not to share and I can’t think of anyone else to share it with. Jon and Aaron are OK but they don’t do the happy-dance thing you do.

  This is definitely an all-time danceworthy moment. Call me.

  xo Kaz

  I didn’t call Kaz until after class on Tuesday. Not because I didn’t want to, but between his classes and mine, neither of us was free until then. And since cell phones were verboten in all indoor common areas at Spencer (like classrooms and the dining room), that pretty much X’d out any opportunities there.

  “This is just so cool,” I said when he told me in excruciating detail about the contents of the editor’s e-mail and the proposal he planned. “Someday you’re going to be as famous as—as Frank Peretti, and I’m going to say I knew you when.”

  “Don’t say that,” Kaz groaned. “You’ll jinx me.”

  “I don’t believe in jinxes. If it’s God’s will, it’ll happen, and nothing will stop it.”

  “You’re right.” I could practically see him rake his free hand through his hair. No wonder it always looked shaggy. “It’s only a proposal request, anyway. The editor could hate it and I’ll be back to square one.”

  “He won’t hate it. The plot’s original, your drawing talent is obvious in every panel, and you’re my best friend. Three reasons it can’t fail.”

  “Number three being the most important one.”

  “Of course.”

  Even half a state away, I could still make him laugh. And he could still make me feel like my opinion was the most important thing he’d hear that day.

  “So enough about me. Tell me about life in the big smog.”

  “The big fog, you mean. It’s good. Biology is killing me, but I’m having fun.”

  “And you’re slaying the guys, from what I hear.”

  What had Gillian said? “Sure I am. Where’d you hear that?”

  “Your mom, your sister. That reminds me. Katie says that if you don’t call her, she’s going to either drive up there or implode.”

  Katie Fedorov had been my best girlfriend since junior high, but after the Aidan debacle, it had looked to me like she wanted to be Homecoming Princess way more than she wanted to be my friend. Which is why I hadn’t spoken to or messaged her since I’d left Santa Barbara.

  “She could e-mail me. She doesn’t need to use you for her messenger boy.”

  “I volunteered. Tiana’s being her usual self. Getting voted Homecoming Queen hasn’t done anything to improve world peace, lemme tell you.”

  Okay, so I’m only human. I could have told Katie that I was a nicer friend than Tiana Montgomery would ever be, but sometimes actions speak louder than words.

  “I believe it. Well, she knows my number. She can call anytime she wants.”

  “Far be it from me to get in the middle of this,” Kaz said. “Homecoming was a total snooze, but I got a slow dance out of it anyway.”

  “With Katie? Is there something there you’re not telling me?”

  He made a sound something like chuh. “I had one dance with her. There’s nothing else to tell.”

  “Kaz Griffin. Katie? I can’t believe it.”

  “Why not? A guy can only carry a torch for you for so long.”

  “Yeah, right. Hey, I need to go, okay? I’ve got this massively awful genetics assignment that’s going to take me all week to finish.”

  “Call if you need help.”

  “No worries. My roomie’s a genius. She’ll give me a hand.”

  “That girl who answered the phone? Jilly something?”

  “Gillian Chang. She’s here on a music scholarship, but she’s a science geek. I’d hate her if she weren’t so nice.”

  And if I didn’t know what a big heart she had. A big mouth, too, but a shot of honesty now and again wasn’t a bad thing.

  In most cases.

  “She’s nice, yeah. We talked for a while.”

  “Oh?” From what Gillian had said, the conversation was four sentences long. This was interesting.

  “Yeah. She said you’d hooked the most popular guy in school or something. Congratulations.”

  “She has a big mouth.”

  “Hey, it’s me. I’m not some random crank caller.”

  “She doesn’t know that.”

  “Oh, I introduced myself. And it’s not like you were going to get around to dishing the news. Or were you?”

  “There isn’t any news to dish. We went for pizza. No big deal.”

  “Uh-huh. I thought you said you had to go?”

  “I do. ’Bye, Kaz. Good luck with the proposal.”

  “Thanks.” Was it the phone connection, or had his voice deepened a little? “Take care of yourself. They didn’t used to call it the Barbary Coast up there for nothing. I’m praying for ya.”

  He was such a sweetie—whatever the Barbary Coast had to do with it. “For you, too.”

  I hung up and glanced at the clock. Gillian was probably in the practice room. Just as well. I had to figure out how to ask her (diplomatically) to keep her editorial comments to herself. Kaz might be my best male friend, but geesh, he certainly didn’t need to know all the details of my love life.

  A girl had to retain some mystery.

  Not to mention, the less he knew, the less I’d have to feel guilty about.

  Chapter 15

  OKAY, LET ME rephrase what I had said about feeling guilty.

  It’s not that I planned to keep things from Kaz, or that I was going to do things I’d be ashamed of later. It’s just that it felt a little weird to talk to a guy about another guy, that’s all. I mean, Kaz has known me since I wore braces and thought Fendi was something that went on a car. We know each other’s faults and flops. We mope together about the bad things (his parents splitting up) and celebrate the good things (the editor’s request).

  Callum certainly qualifies as a good thing on my side, but still . . . it feels weird, you know? Because under our friendship, under the razzing and the mutual admiration society we have going, I think Kaz likes me. As in, not a brotherly way.

  So because he’s my friend, I’m not going to tell him stuff that might hurt his feelings.

  As I headed back to my dorm room before lunch, I passed one of Gillian’s pink signs on the bulletin board outside the common room on our floor. That’s right, it was Tuesday, so we’d be attempting another prayer circle tonight. Had it really been a week since that first disaster? So much had changed, and was about to change some more. I could feel it in the air, or, more accurately, in the glances people gave me in the hallways. People who hadn’t given me the time of day during my first week had invited me to sit with them at breakfast today. Vanessa’s outer circle—not the triad of terror, but the people who orbited around them—smiled at me. One girl, this gorgeous African-American called Shani, even offered to be my study partner for the genetics module.

  Rumors of my relationship with Callum were clearly not being exaggerated.

  Gillian looked up when I came in. “Hey. You’re in Honors English, right?”

 
; “Uh-huh.” I let my tote go and it hit the floor next to my bed with a thud. “That sound is the essay I have to do on freeing the feminine in Kate Chopin’s short stories.”

  She made a face at the poundage in my poor tote. “Chemistry is so much easier.” She waved at her textbook, which to me looked as thick as a stack of pancakes. Then she held up an assignment sheet. “I have to write an Italian sonnet for Harryman in something called iambic pentameter, and I don’t even know what that is. Plus I don’t speak Italian. Duh. What is she thinking?”

  “An Italian sonnet is a form, not a language.” I grabbed my hair-brush. “I’ll help you with it if you run me and Shani Hanna through Genetics for Dummies before Friday, when this project is due. Gahh. It makes my brain hurt.”

  “Deal,” Gillian said happily. Someone knocked on the door. “Come in,” she called.

  Vanessa Talbot stepped in, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gillian’s face go slack with shock before she turned away to pull her Mac out of her bag.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi, Lissa.”

  Okay, now I knew I’d reached a new social level. She’d remembered my name.

  “I was hoping I’d catch you,” she went on. “This can’t wait until after class.”

  “What’s up?”

  “You probably already know this, but I’m the chair of the Benefactors’ Day charity ball.”

  I nodded. Old news.

  “The day is the big kickoff event to Spencer’s year, so we want to make it perfect. It sets the tone for the whole year, you know? And does so much good for the community. So the committee and I have been working on it since, like, August, but now we’re getting down to the wire and we need more people to help.”

  I nodded again. Made sense.

  “So I’d like to invite you to be on the committee with us.” She smiled in a way that told me I was not only moving up the social ladder at lightspeed—I’d reached the top. “We can really use your contacts in the movie world, and plus everyone agrees on how nice you are and what a good addition you’d make.”

  “Everyone?” Gillian asked from where she sat on her bed, checking e-mail.

  “Everyone who matters.” Vanessa looked her over and turned back to me. “So, anyway, we’re meeting tonight to brainstorm possibilities for a special guest to do the welcome and lead the first dance. Whoever it is gets a nice big contribution to their favorite charity, so we get lots of coverage from their press people. A win-win, right?”

  “Sounds like it,” I said. “What time?”

  “Seven thirty. In the staff lounge.”

  “The staff lounge? How are you going to get in there?”

  “Since it’s a school event, they let the committee meet there. It’s quiet, nobody bursts in that you don’t want to see, and you can spread out. Plus, Dining Services makes sure there’s always food for the staff after a hard day’s work.” She grinned. “So, are you in?”

  “Don’t you already have plans?” Gillian asked me, sounding a little absent as she scanned her mail.

  For a second I couldn’t think what she meant. Visions of Callum and dresses and ballrooms danced in my head—again. Man, those really messed me up. Then I remembered.

  “Oh.” Prayer circle. “But that’s at seven. We’ll be done by seven thirty, won’t we?”

  “I suppose, if not too many people come and we pray at top speed.”

  Was she being sarcastic? Knowing Gillian, the answer was probably yes.

  “Oh, that’s right, you meet on Tuesdays, don’t you?” Vanessa said. “Sorry, but I won’t be there.”

  “That’s too bad.” Gillian didn’t even look up.

  “What about you?” Vanessa smiled at me. “Can we count on you?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Seven thirty. See you then.”

  When the door closed behind her, I glanced at my roomie, who hadn’t taken her gaze off her screen. “That was nice of her.”

  She raised one eyebrow and finally looked at me. “You’re kidding, right? You heard her. She doesn’t want you, she wants what you can do for her.”

  “So? When my mom puts one of her committees together, the same principle applies.”

  “Yeah, but she’s probably up-front about it. She doesn’t have to tell them how nice they are and how everyone likes them before they’ll do something for her. She gives them credit for a little self-respect.”

  “How do you know what my mother does?” I’d worked on a few of her committees, and the fact that Gillian was right was not helping. But I certainly wasn’t going to tell her so.

  “I don’t. I’m just saying.”

  “Sometimes you say a little too much. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I want to help? That it might be fun?”

  “Did it ever occur to you that the only fun those girls get is from making other people miserable?”

  “That’s not true.” Not entirely. “The whole committee is working for a good cause. I’ll get community service credits. We need twenty hours every term, you know.”

  Gillian sighed. “Missing the point.”

  Don’t care. “Are you coming to lunch?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll get something later. Are you coming to prayer circle?”

  “I said I would, and I will.”

  “For half an hour.”

  “Gillian, I’ll stay for as long as I can. What do you want from me, anyway?”

  “Nothing.”

  Yeah, right. “It isn’t nothing. Otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting there looking like that.”

  With a sigh, she pushed her notebook aside. “I just think you should put your prayer life ahead of your popularity, that’s all.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my prayer life.” Okay, so last night I’d been so wrapped up in my evening with Callum that I’d completely forgotten about thanking God for it. But I’d make up for it. I would.

  Besides, how could the Lord not know how thankful I was?

  “My prayer life is a completely different thing from coming to prayer circle. That’s a—an event.”

  “So what’s Carly or some other kid going to think when you cut out halfway through to go do something else?”

  “They’ll think I went to do something else. They won’t overanalyze it like you are.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What, you think I’m making some kind of statement about where God lands on my priority list? That’s stretching it, Gillian.”

  She’d gone back to reading her mail. She sure must have a lot of it. “Whatever.”

  Look on the bright side, I thought as I stalked downstairs to get lunch by myself. At least she didn’t say that stuff in front of Vanessa.

  I’d never have lived it down.

  IN ROOM 216, the thing with the pins in its eyes had been replaced with a clay map of Middle Earth. Everything else was the same, with the exception of Vanessa and the rest of them, who, as promised, had not shown up.

  At ten past seven, Gillian gave me a casual glance that didn’t fool me one bit. “Think Callum will show?”

  “He’s not one of those people who does the passive-aggressive control thing by being late. If he was going to come, he’d be here. We should get started. I only have twenty minutes.”

  The door opened and I couldn’t help it—I sucked in a breath and my heart rate spiked, until Carly stepped in, along with Shani and the sophomore who had been stalking Gillian the other day at lunch, plus a tall, thin kid I vaguely remembered hanging out in the Physics lab. He closed the door behind them all.

  “Am I late?” Carly asked.

  Gillian shook her head, and I tried to look as if nothing had happened. “No. You’re all just in time. And very welcome.”

  She introduced us to the newbies, and the tall guy turned out to be Lucas Hayes. No wonder I’d seen him in the lab. He was rumored to be competing in the Physics Olympics or something.

  Yeeks. Geeks. The things they did for fun.

  Then the door ope
ned again and Callum stepped into the room.

  Would I ever get to the point where he didn’t take my breath away? I hoped not. Because seeing him was like Christmas morning, every time.

  “Hey.” His gaze held mine, like something out of a movie, and I couldn’t look away.

  “Hey. I’m glad you came.” Not so romantic, but true.

  He broke our connection and glanced at the others as if he’d just noticed them. “Actually, I came to get you.” He smiled at me, then at Gillian.

  “For the committee meeting?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait a minute,” Gillian objected. “It’s only quarter past. We haven’t even started.”

  “You guys go ahead.” Callum held out his hand, and I took it as I spoke. “I’ll catch up with you after.”

  And we were out the door. As we walked down the hall, I said, “Tell me Vanessa didn’t send you. Are you on the committee?” He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy you’d find on the phone, flushing free stuff out of corporations and hitting up the Junior League. He didn’t strike me as the kind who’d let Vanessa use him as a messenger boy, either.

  “Nope. I just wanted ten minutes alone with you.”

  Before I could recover, he swung me into an empty classroom. I had enough time to take a breath before his arms went around me and his mouth came down on mine.

  W.

  O.

  W.

  I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him back, hanging on like a drowning woman as I fell into the dark behind my closed eyelids. I lost vision, hearing, speech . . . everything except that kiss.

  Finally Callum pulled back a little and rested his forehead on mine. He was breathing like he’d just run a mile, too.

  “Wow,” he said. I smiled, although he couldn’t see it in the dark. “I should get you to where you’re going.” He sounded as if he didn’t mean it very much.

  “Do you have to?”

  “No, but Vanessa’s pretty serious about her committee. I don’t want to lose body parts.”

  I chuckled. “How’d you know where to find me?”

  He opened the door, and we stepped out of our bubble of sensation and feeling and back into the real world of paneled hallways and donor plaques.

  “I called your room from the common room. When I didn’t get an answer, I saw one of those signs and remembered it was Tuesday.”