This Is Me From Now On (8 page)

“What happened? It looks like a hurricane hit it.”

“Probably the rabbits.”

‘The
rabbits
? You mean they come in here and play dress-up?”

She sighed. “Okay, it was me. I was looking for something, and I lost track. So help me fix it, okay?”

We sat on the floor untangling what we could. Francesca's nails were longer than mine, so she was better at it, and the way she was able to free the snarls by rolling the chains in her fingertips made me think she had done this before. Finally she held up a heart-shaped silver locket on an almost completely knot-free chain.

“Look at this,” she said. “Gorgeous, huh?”

I took it from her. Under the chandelier light, you could see the initials SP and TR inscribed in a fancy, hard-to-read, old-fashioned script: SP. TR.

“Very elegant,” I said. “Does your aunt ever wear it?”

“Lord no. It was a present from Tristan Royce. As far as Aunt Sam is concerned, he can absolutely fry. Ooh, wait, Evie, I think I've got them. Here,” she said, forcing something into my hand.

Immediately I recognized the long, fancy earrings Francesca was wearing at Staples. The golden chandeliers. The Oscar earrings.

“You like them? Try them on. Don't worry,” she added, before I could argue. “They aren't even real.”

She grabbed a hand mirror that was lying around somewhere and held it up for me. I slipped off my own tiny silver hoops that I'd bought at the mall last summer, and slipped on the long, dangly gold ones.

Then I peeked at myself.

I moved my head. The earrings swished.

Plinka, plinka, plinka.

“All right, Evie, now listen to me: You're keeping them,” Francesca said, laughing. “No arguments.”

I took a breath. “Don't be crazy, Francesca.”

“Why not? Aunt Sam has a million others; she won't even notice they're gone. Or care. And, anyway, they look utterly brilliant on you.”

I had to admit they did. They shimmered. They lit up my used-to-be-blonder hair. They made my eyes glow.

But. “They belong to your aunt,” I said. “Besides, I'd never wear something like this. In a majillion years.”

“I know,” she said thoughtfully. “And that's your problem.”

I pretend-laughed. “My problem is I won't wear these earrings? I thought you said my problem was—”

“Your
problem,
Evie, is that you have all these bloody
rules
about yourself. Good earrings and bad earrings. Chocolate chip ice cream and veggie burgers. You know, sometimes your life just needs a little jolt.”

“Oh, come on, Francesca. I didn't say they were
bad—
”

Suddenly we heard a door bang open. “FRANCES-CAAAA,” a loud voice called.

“Help, it's Aunt Sam,” Francesca muttered. “We shouldn't be in here.”

She yanked my arm.

“Wait,” I hissed. “The earrings.”

“No time,” she said. “Just take them, Evie.
Go.
”

She shoved me into the hall. I ran down the steps and slipped my feet into my sandals.

“Where are you, sugarpie?” Samantha Pattison called from the kitchen.

“Coming,” Francesca answered casually.

I snatched my backpack, which I'd left at the front door when we spotted the rabbit. And it was only when I was nearly three-quarters of the way home that I realized we'd never written that letter to Angelica Beaumont's sister.

When I walked into the kitchen, Mom was on her cell, stir-frying some veggies with her other hand. “I completely agree, the mudroom is hopeless,” she was saying. “And my professional advice is, get rid of that wall. Yup. Just rent a bulldozer and knock the whole thing down.” She noticed me. “Dinner in ten minutes,” she mouthed.

I nodded, which made the earrings jiggle. So I immediately stopped nodding.

The kitchen phone rang.

“Just a minute, Caroline,” Mom said into her cell. “Evie, can you answer it, please? Bring it into the living room, take
down any messages, and then immediately go wash up for dinner.”

Yes, Your Majesty,
I thought. I moved an earring out of the way, and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Evie? Where've you been?” Nisha was asking. She sounded worried. “Why didn't you answer your cell? I've been calling you all afternoon.”

“Sorry,” I said. “My cell was in my backpack. And I was at Francesca's but I kind of got distracted.”

“With what?”

“Oh, you know. Talking about the project.”

“Really? Well, you're excused.” She rolled her eyes. I mean, over the phone I couldn't hear her eyeballs actually rolling, but I was sure that's what she was doing. That's how well I knew her. “So how did it go?” she asked.

“Fine, actually. We had the house to ourselves.”

“Sweet.” She paused. “And did she let you try on all her glamorous little outfits?”

“Hey, Nisha, I
like
how she dresses. It's original.”

She didn't answer. Which in a way
was
an answer. Then she said, “And you read the diary? It actually exists?”

“Of course it exists.”

“Well, I'm glad for you, then. At least it wasn't a total waste of time.”

“Right,” I said. I could hear Mom in the kitchen doing her Delightful Laugh. “No, it wasn't.”

“Aaanyway,” Nisha said. Her cell was making a
swooshy
noise; probably she was moving to a Mrs. Guptil–free location. Or trying to. “Have you heard about Kayla? She's going around telling everyone she likes Zane. She says he's, like, the cutest boy in the eighth grade, and that he's quote-unquote sensitive.”

“To what?”

“I don't know. Her, I guess.”

I bit my lip. “I thought she was going out with Ryan.”

“They broke up. She caught him texting Sierra Kaufman.”

“Oh. Well, that's . . . interesting.”

“You don't even care?”

“Why should I? Kayla can like whoever she wants.”

“Okay, Evie. I just thought you'd want to hear about it before school tomorrow.” Nisha sighed. It sounded like a tornado in my ear. “So you're meeting us in the morning, right?”

“Actually,” I said quickly, “can you wait a few minutes if
I'm late? I need to return something to Francesca first.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

“It's kind of a long story.” I suddenly felt warm, as if I'd shoplifted the earrings and just felt a security guard's tap on my shoulder.

But apparently Nisha wasn't in the mood for a long story. “I don't know,” she said slowly. “Because if you're going over to Francesca's in the morning, won't she want to walk with you?”

“I guess.”

“So maybe we should just meet you at school.”

“You sure? I'll be really quick, I promise.”

“It'll just be easier. I'll tell Lily.” Then she hung up.

I went upstairs, surprised and hurt that my best friends were refusing to wait for me, even if (and we didn't know this for a fact) Francesca would be tagging along. Plus, I really didn't appreciate hearing all that stuff about Kayla and Zane. And why was Nisha obsessing about my Attic Project? It felt like she almost
wanted
the diary to be a fake. Which was incredibly weird of her, and also unfair. Because she had that amazing scrapbook; why should she even care about the diary?

So it was perfectly okay that I'd lied to her about seeing
it, I told myself. Even though technically I didn't even lie: all I said was that the diary
existed.
And I had no reason to think that wasn't true.

But by now it was starting to bother me that we hadn't written that letter to Isabel Beaumont. How exactly had we lost track of it? I tried to think about the long afternoon, how one thing had just led to another, like a rabbit scampering around a big, empty house. I couldn't let Francesca mix me up like that, I scolded myself. Not if we were going to be partners on this project. I had to stand up to her, make sure we got focused. And I would. Starting tomorrow.

I locked myself in the bathroom and stared in the mirror. I swished the earrings. I shook my head. I nodded like crazy.
Oh yes, Zane, I'd love to go with you to the movies on Saturday. Yes, Fudge Caramel Whatever is MY favorite flavor too!
The earrings still went
plinka plinka plinka
, but in the privacy of my own bathroom they just looked wrong. I didn't think they were
bad earrings
, I told my reflection in the mirror. It's just that they were all Hollywood starlety, and I was more of a mosquito-in-amber sort of person.

So I slipped them off, wrapped them up in some toilet paper, and immediately washed my hands for dinner.

At seven the next morning I rang Samantha Pattison's bell. It was one of those obnoxious Big Ben chimes that took, like, thirty seconds to shut up, and I was terrified it would wake the whole street. But finally Francesca opened the door wearing a purple satin bathrobe.

“Evie,” she said, squinting in the sunlight. “You're so early.”

“Sorry. I wanted to give you back these.” I forced the toilet-paper wad of earrings into her hand.

She blinked at them. “Oh, you didn't have to. I told you, Aunt Sam has thousands—”

“I know,” I interrupted. “They're really, really nice. But I felt funny about just taking them like that. Thanks anyway.”

She shrugged. “Come in. I need to get dressed.”

“Thanks, but I'll just wait here.” Probably I was overdoing the Standing Up to Francesca routine, but I was thinking that if I went into Samantha's house, we'd start chasing rabbits or something, and then somehow we'd forget all about Morning Homeroom.

About five minutes later she showed up at the door wearing lime green biking shorts, black patent-leather ankle boots, and a short, white zebra-patterned jacket trimmed with black fur. Immediately I imagined another
snarky comment from Nisha. “Don't worry, it's faux,” she said, fluffing up her collar.

“I wasn't worried about that,” I said truthfully. “But aren't you kind of boiling?”

“Maybe a tad. Oh, well. We'll just have to find another lawn sprinkler—”

“Gah.
No,
Francesca.”

“Only kidding! My God. You take everything so seriously.”

“Not everything,” I insisted.

We started walking, and I yelled at myself,
NOW! SAY IT NOW. DON'T LET HER GET YOU DISTRACTED!
So I added, “But can I say something? I
am
really serious about our Attic Project. And I'm a little upset we never wrote that letter yesterday.”

She gave me the semi-dazzling smile. “Oh,
don't
worry, Evie. I took care of it last night.”

“You mean you wrote it? By yourself?”

“Uh-huh. Aunt Sam has the most brilliant stationery.”

“That's great,” I said, wondering how paper could be brilliant. “So what did you write?”

“Oh, lots of stuff. It was late at night, I really don't remember.”

“But you asked about the diary? I mean, that she should send it?”

She stopped walking. “You don't believe me, do you?”

“I believe you,” I said carefully. “But I think I'd like to see the letter. I mean, because it's my project too, right?”

“Of course. But it's already in the envelope. Sealed.”

“Well, we can unseal it, can't we?”

“Fine,” Francesca said, frowning. “If you insist.”

She unbuttoned a pocket of her zebra jacket and handed me a small, stamped envelope the color of spearmint Trident.

I handed it back, feeling incredibly ashamed of myself. Angelica Beaumont was real, her sister Isabel was real, and Francesca had written a real letter. Her writing was worse than Ashley Scavullo's, which meant I'd better type up the project myself, but I was sort of expecting I'd have to, anyway. “Sorry about your mom,” I said, only because I couldn't think what else to say.