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“It’s not,” I said. “My mother is making me write it early, because she doesn’t trust me anymore. Like she ever did.” I wished Harper hadn’t asked. I hated the bitter sound of my voice. “What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you would help me buy a car.”
I waited for Harper to explain what the hell she was talking about. When she remained silent, I said, “What?”
“Remember my cheapskate granddad’s birthday present for me?” she asked. “The use of his car? Well, he’s taking it back. Now that he’s dating, he’s using his car more. I need it more too, because I’m getting photography jobs on weekends. I told him he couldn’t take back my birthday present. He gave me a thousand dollars basically to leave him alone.”
“Nice!”
“Yeah. And I have a thousand of my own saved up, so I’m going to buy a car tonight. I have one picked out, and I looked up the blue book value. All I need is you.”
“Why me?”
“Because your mom made you haggle for your own car.”
“But you should haggle for your own car,” I pointed out. “That’s why my mother made me do it, so I’d have that adult experience under my belt and I wouldn’t get taken to the cleaners later.” At least, that’s what she’d said. Actually, she’d made me do it because she’d brought me up in a comfortable suburban environment, and periodically she decided she needed to toughen me up by throwing me to the sharks.
“Why in the world would I do that when I have you?” Harper asked reasonably. “You’re so much better at hanging tough than I am. You’ll get me another two-fifty off.”
“Harper.” I sighed. “You’re basically telling me I’m your bitch friend.”
“Kaye, I would never tell you that.”
I rolled my eyes so hard that Harper could probably hear it through the phone.
“Spin it however you want,” she said, “but come pick me up.”
Truthfully, I was glad to have an excuse to get out of the house. Dad was back from Miami, but he wrote a lot on weekends, so he wasn’t available to save me from homework by inviting me to watch football with him or taking me out for ice cream. My Saturday had been full of nothing but my disapproving mother and research on Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage. Mr. Frank had a thing for white male protagonists who whined and waffled.
Which made me angry all over again at Sawyer. Until the past week I would have said he was the least likely guy in the world to seem to want a girl, then back out.
He’d never had a problem like that with girls before. He had a problem only with me.
Fifteen minutes later I cruised into the parking lot behind the B and B. Stepping into my car, Harper flashed me her wad of hundreds, which I told her was very gangsta. We chatted about the football game last night and Brody’s stellar performance. Finally I asked, “Why aren’t you with Brody tonight?”
“He went out with some friends,” she said, seemingly fascinated with the scene out her window, the parking lot of the movie theater.
I glanced where she was looking. “There’s Chelsea’s car. She must be at the movie with DeMarcus.”
“With Tia,” Harper corrected me.
“Really?” I asked. “I wonder why Tia isn’t with Will. It must be another girls’ night out.”
“Must be,” Harper said vaguely, as if she was thinking about something else.
“We’ll probably be done with your car about the time Tia and Chelsea get out of the movie. We should come back by and show them.”
“Okay,” Harper said absentmindedly.
Well, I had a question that would wake her up. “Do you think Tia and Will are doing it yet?”
Harper huffed out an embarrassed laugh. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“Anytime I ask her about sex, she thinks I’m calling her a slut.”
“That’s because you are calling her a slut,” Harper pointed out.
“I am not. I may have intimated in the past that she would get in trouble involving herself in such casual escapades with—” I stopped, realizing what I was about to say.
“Sawyer,” Harper finished for me.
I felt all the blood rushing to my face.
To gloss over the uncomfortable moment, Harper hurried on. “I haven’t asked Tia, but my sense is that she and Will haven’t done it. They’ve done everything but. There’s a lot of other stuff you can do if you’re really into each other.”
“It sounds like you speak from sexperience.”
She laughed self-consciously. Bright pink spots appeared on her cheeks, noticeable on her porcelain skin. “I guess. I never expected dating someone I loved to be so . . .” She held up her hands. “Free. Dating Kennedy, I felt strapped down. Brody makes me feel good, and like there are more possibilities, bigger ones.”
I envied her. But I supposed that’s what she got when she and Brody were dating after a long, vague friendship, unlike the intense baggage that plagued Sawyer and me.
We reached the used car lot and peered into Harper’s clunker of choice. The salesman didn’t bother to come out of his little building to help two teenage girls. We obviously didn’t have the money to buy anything. I understood now why my mother always dressed professionally in public. I should have gussied up tonight and made Harper do the same, but always doing everything the right way was too much hassle. I wanted to be seventeen sometimes, even if that meant doing things the hard way.
