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Zora had said both. First, the story had been that they were making out on the pool table, and second, they’d shared a quick kiss good-bye on the way out. The second part sounded like Amanda had gotten to Zora, asking for the change of story. What mattered was that Amanda and Tanner had kissed . . . and it looked like it happened on Zora’s pool table.
Delta wanted to believe they’d shared a quick peck good-bye, and nothing else had happened. She really wanted to. But “making out on the pool table” had a ring of authenticity about it, the kind of thing Zora just didn’t make up out of whole cloth. And anyway, her best friend and her boyfriend shouldn’t have been kissing at all!
But it was Amanda’s fault. She was the one, not Tanner.
“Did Zora say that?” he repeated, indignant now.
“Do you know how it makes me feel to have the whole school know something happened between you two?”
“Nothing happened between us. That’s what I’m telling you!”
“It was something.”
“Jesus Christ, Delta.” He jumped into the Trailblazer, slammed the door shut, and glared at her through the window.
She wanted to take it all back. Pretend it hadn’t happed. Prostrate herself on the ground. Climb in the car with him and make love with him right in front of her parents’ house.
She did none of those things. Just stood by forlornly as he burned away in a chirp of tires and the roar of his engine.
Chapter 2
Zora DeMarco drove Bailey and Carmen to their respective homes. The girls, each in turn, ran into their houses to dump their books, promised to do their homework as soon as they got back, then raced back to Zora’s Mazda. Carmen took the front seat. She always forced the smaller Bailey into the back, but Bailey didn’t seem to mind. She and Carmen were too tight to quibble over such small issues. Zora had accused them of being gay, and they’d just laughed. The truth was, Carmen kind of had a thing for Tanner Stahd—didn’t they all?—and she got all moony-eyed around him, which drove the rest of the Fives crazy, although Delta kind of smiled with indulgence, like she knew she had Tanner and the others could all go screw themselves.
Zora said, “My parents are onto me, so we can’t break into their booze anymore. They took away my phone, too.”
“That’s okay. I can’t drink. My dad can smell it on me,” Carmen said.
“He can’t smell vodka,” Zora said.
“He can smell anything,” Carmen insisted.
Zora would have liked to argue further, but Carmen’s dad was Reverend Proffitt—the Reverend Esau Proffitt—as her father would boom out almost whenever he heard the man’s name. And it wasn’t a term of respect. Zora’s dad thought the Reverend Esau Proffitt was a hypocritical fake. Something about the reverend and a parishioner that none of the adults would talk about. Zora had even gone so far as to ask Carmen what the big secret was, but Carmen wouldn’t talk about her family. She had a brother and a sister, and was apparently the bad seed in between an older angelic sister and a younger, totally sports-mind
ed brother, both of whom had great grades. Carmen was smart enough but didn’t apply herself, so the counselor had said, and she was athletic enough to maybe play volleyball in college, if she had the mind-set, which she didn’t, if anyone had asked Zora. Carmen hadn’t been offered a scholarship like Tanner. She was “exploring her options,” as she was wont to say, which meant she had no plans set for college, like all the rest of them.
Bailey said, “I thought you broke your phone.”
Zora and Amanda were the only ones of their group whose parents had added their daughters’ cell phones onto their family plans.
“I did. That’s why they took it away. It’s just not fair.”
“So, none of us has a phone,” Bailey sighed.
There was a moment of silence on that, then Carmen said, “I have Tanner’s number memorized.”
“Hell of a lot of good that’s going to do us without a phone to call him,” Zora pointed out.
“Why would we call him? He’s Delta’s boyfriend,” said Bailey.
Zora snorted. Well, kinda. She felt a moment of guilt, then said aloud, “So, what are we doing tonight?” Friday evening was looking like an epic fail before it even began.
“Let’s go to Amanda’s,” Carmen suggested. “That’s where they’re going to have the graduation party. I want to see where to stake my tent.”
The parents and teachers had planned a supervised party for the upcoming grads; it was scheduled for a couple of weeks before graduation on the Forsythe grounds, where the kids could all camp overnight. Though Amanda’s parents had agreed to the use of their property, Amanda herself wasn’t all that keen on having the whole class at her place.
“If there are tents, I’m in a tent with you,” Bailey chirped to Carmen.
Bailey’s father was a police officer, Bob Quintar, whom everyone called “Quin.” Some of the kids in their class had tried to call Bailey by the same nickname as well, but she’d shut them down. Quin was her father. “If you call me that, I’ll look around for my dad,” she’d told them.
