Puppy Love Page 9

  Also, there were boys. Without a baseball game to save them from the horrors of party planning, the guys showed up, reluctantly, to help out. As soon as they walked in, the Megbots descended on them like vultures on roadkill. I almost felt sorry for the guys, except that I was still on my Not Caring About Boys and the Stupid Girls They Talk To campaign.

  Of course Jack was there. Megan latched on to him the minute he arrived, which was fine with me. As long as he stayed away from me, I could not-like him without a problem. All I had to do was look at him and Megan, think about them laughing at me, and I’d remember why I don’t like him.

  “Tonight is all about decorations,” Megan said once everyone was there. “We decided to do bouquets of red, white, and blue flowers. We can’t afford real ones, so we’re using these cool paper ones that Amber’s mom found at Pier 1. Aren’t they great?”

  Everyone oohed and aahed as Megan poured a bunch of fake flowers out on the table. “And we have this ribbon to tie them up with,” she added, producing three rolls in colors that matched the flowers. “All we have to do is take some flowers and tie them together. Like this.”

  She took some flowers of each color, held them together, and demonstrated tying them in a bow.

  “Okay,” she said, holding her bouquet up like it was an Academy Award or something. “Let’s get busy.”

  It turned out that Megan’s idea of “getting busy” was to go sit on the couch on the other side of the room with the Megbots to do something that wasn’t making bouquets. With the girls gone, the boys lost interest and started talking about sports and whatever else boys talk about together. I really wasn’t listening.

  I picked up some flowers, cut a length of ribbon, and tied up my first bouquet.

  “Nice work.”

  Jack sat down next to me. I didn’t say anything as he picked up some flowers and tried to tie them together. His bow was a mess, though, and he held the bouquet in his hands, staring at it with a funny expression. He looked so helpless that I forgot for a moment that I was not-liking him.

  “You didn’t tie it right,” I said. “Here.” I took the bouquet from him and showed him how to tie the ribbon so that the bow was neat.

  “Got it,” he said. As he took it back from my hand, our fingers touched, like they had that first time when he’d handed me back Rufus’s leash. I pulled my hand away and went back to work on my own bouquets. I was mad at myself for even talking to him, but it wasn’t like I really had a choice. I couldn’t just sit there like a statue all night.

  “How’s Barkley?” I asked him.

  “Fine,” said Jack. “It really wasn’t a big deal, you know.”

  I shrugged. “Not to you,” I told him. “But it wasn’t your paw.”

  Jack smiled. I still wasn’t looking at him, but out of the corner of my eye I saw him push the hair out of his eyes. I couldn’t help it—my heart fluttered a little.

  “They’re really into this whole patriotic thing, aren’t they?” Jack remarked, starting on a new bouquet.

  “I’m not sure they’re actually into it at all,” I said, glancing over at Megan and her friends. “They haven’t done any of the work.”

  “I noticed that,” said Jack. “I sort of thought this would be more of a team effort.”

  “Only if you’re on their team,” I said.

  “I take it you’re not,” Jack said.

  I snorted. “Hardly,” I told him. “I’m afraid I’m not quite up to their standards.”

  Jack laughed. “I think you’re on a team all your own,” he told me.

  I didn’t know what he meant by that. Was he teasing me again? Did he mean I was better than Megan and the Megbots, or that I was just weirder than they were? He didn’t elaborate, and I wasn’t about to ask him. I’d already broken my promise to myself not to talk to him. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking I cared what he thought of me.

  “Look at you two, all busy and everything.”

  Megan was standing behind us, eyeing the bouquets Jack and I had made. “You’re just like Santa’s little elves or something,” she said, putting her hand on Jack’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze.

  “Just like,” I said.

  “Let me help you,” Megan said sweetly, taking the seat on Jack’s other side. “Girls, come on!” she called out to the Megbots.

  Suddenly I was surrounded by Megbots. They all talked at once, and the subject was themselves. Specifically, they discussed what they were going to wear to the party.

  “I found the perfect dress,” Megan announced, tossing a badly made bouquet on the table and reaching for some more flowers. “It’s white, strapless, and really gorgeous. I saw it at The Limited. My mother’s taking me to the mall tomorrow night to get it.”

  “It sounds perfect,” one of the Megbots said.

  “It is,” said Megan proudly, like she’d made the dress herself.

  They continued talking about clothes, and shoes, and how they were going to wear their hair. I tuned them out until they were nothing but static in the background. I concentrated on making bouquets, one after the other, until there was a huge pile in front of me. The Megbots each had four or five, while I had three dozen. The boys had maybe three between them, with the exception of Jack, who had made seven.

  I decided that I’d made enough, and got up to take a break. As I walked away from the table, I heard Megan say, “Some people just don’t want to do their share.”

  I ignored her and went over to the soda machine that stood beside the ping-pong tables. I fished in my pocket for some quarters, dropped them in, and hit one of the buttons. When the can of soda rolled out, I picked it up and flipped the top.

  To my surprise, Jack had followed me. “Root beer,” he said, looking at the can in my hand. “No diet 7-Up? It seems to be the drink of choice over there.”

  “What can I say?” I told him. “I’m a rebel.”

  He put his money in and chose a Cherry Coke. “Me too,” he said as he took his soda and opened it.

  I walked over to an armchair and sat down. Again, Jack followed me, taking a seat in the chair across from me. I wished he would just let me be by myself, especially if he was going to make fun of me again. But I was also kind of happy that he’d followed me. Correction—I was happy that he’d left Megan and come after me.

  “So, you find anyone to go to the party with yet?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Haven’t looked,” I said. I wondered why he was asking. Was he thinking of asking me? The thought suddenly occurred to me, and almost instantly I felt my palms start to get sweaty. I’d just assumed that he was going with Megan. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe…I couldn’t even let myself think about it.

  Jack took a sip of his Coke, but didn’t say anything. I noticed his leg was kind of bouncing up and down, like he was nervous about something. He took another drink and cleared his throat. I’d never seen him act that way. He’d always been so cool, like he wasn’t afraid of anything.

  “Can I ask you something?” he said.

  I looked over at him. Was this it? I felt my heart begin to race as I nodded at him. “Sure,” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “I was just wondering—,” he started.

  Yes! I shouted in my head, even before he’d finished the sentence. Yes, I’ll go to the party with you.

  “Jack!”

  Megan was standing up at the table and looking over at us. “Get back over here,” Megan said. “We have to make a bunch more of these.”

  Jack looked back at me. He opened his mouth, and I waited to hear him ask me out. Instead he said, “We should probably go. She won’t stop yelling until we do.”

  He stood up. I waited a few seconds, hoping what had just happened hadn’t actually happened, then got up and followed him back to the table. I knew Megan didn’t care whether I came back to help or not—and apparently Jack didn’t either—but making bouquets beat sitting in a chair thinking about how Jack had just not-asked me out.<
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  “I was just telling the girls that a rose corsage would look great with my dress,” Megan said to Jack. “They have those blue roses now, so it could be in all three colors.”

  The Megbots giggled. I knew full well what Megan was getting at with her “hint” to Jack. She was going to get him to be her date for the party if it was the last thing she did. And I couldn’t think of any reason why she wouldn’t get exactly what she wanted. She always did.

  “I think I’m going to wear my hair up,” I heard Megan say.

  Again I retreated into my own private world. There was no Megan there, no Megbots, no Jack. I was all by myself. My pimply-chinned, boring-haired, never-been-kissed self.

  Suddenly, I stood up. “I’ve got to go,” I said. I couldn’t stand sitting there another minute with Megan making her play for Jack, and Jack totally not seeing how awful she was. Okay, so it was more about being upset that Jack wasn’t seeing how much better I was for him than Megan, but I couldn’t let myself admit that right then. It would have hurt too much.

  I left as quickly as I could, knowing that everyone was watching me. I didn’t stop until I was on the club’s front steps. Then I called my dad on my cell phone and asked him to come get me.

  While I waited for him to get there, I looked up at the sky. I could see the Little Dipper. Then I found Orion. Like I said before, my dad has taught me a lot about the stars. I even have a favorite constellation. It probably isn’t much of a shock that it’s Canis Major, the Big Dog. And my favorite star in Canis Major is Sirius, the Dog Star. It’s the brightest star in the sky, even brighter than the sun. It takes something like eight years for the light from Sirius to reach Earth. That means that I was five years old when the light I was looking at now had started on its way through space. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.

  Looking up at Canis Major, I did something I hadn’t done since I was a kid. You know that old nursery rhyme about wishing on a star? That’s what I did. I wished on the Dog Star. Only I can’t tell you what I wished. Not yet. If I did, then it wouldn’t come true.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ugh, I thought as I looked at myself in the mirror. I look like a wedding cake.

  I was at the mall looking for something to wear to the Fourth of July party. After being mad for the past twenty-four hours, I’d decided that not going to the party would make Megan happy. She’d think she’d gotten Jack and chased me away. And I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction. She might have Jack, but I could still show up and have a good time. Besides, I really did want to see the fireworks and everything. There was no reason something as dumb as a guy should get in the way of that.

  So far, though, I wasn’t having any luck. I took the dress off and hung it up alongside the four other dresses I’d tried on. None of them looked right. They either made me look like I had the biggest butt in the world or, like the wedding cake dress, there was way too much going on with bows and ruffles and stuff.

  Why, I wondered, didn’t they make dresses for girls with normal bodies?

  And it wasn’t just my body; it was everything. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which I liked because it kept it out of my face. But it was so blah-looking. And I don’t like fussing around with makeup either. I mean, who has time? Besides, Shan swears that makeup gives you major zits, and I was already starting to get another one on my chin. I poked at it, even though I know that’s the perfect way to make a pimple become ginormous.

  Besides the hair and face, there were my nails, which were cut really short because you can’t have long nails when you work with dogs. And my clothes, well, let’s just say I dress to be comfortable, not to impress anyone.

  I left the dressing room and tried to find something else. As I pawed through the racks of dresses, I wondered if Megan spent as much time not-liking me as I did not-liking her. She sure seemed to put a lot of effort into making me feel bad. But why? I didn’t see what she got out of it. She was already basically the most popular girl in our class. The Megbots thought she was the Queen of Everything. Why did she have it in for me, who wasn’t the queen of anything? I didn’t get it.

  I gave up on the store and walked out empty-handed. It seemed like it was going to be a useless trip. There was no dress in the world that was going to make me feel better about going to the party.

  I fully intended to go straight home, but as I passed by the window of The Limited, something caught my eye. One of the mannequins inside was wearing a white dress. I stopped and looked at it. White, I thought. Strapless.

  I knew immediately that it was the dress. Megan’s dress. The most perfect dress in the world. The one she had spent most of the night before talking about.

  She’d been right about one thing—it was gorgeous. To make matters worse, I knew just how she’d look in it, and that made me jealous. Looking at it, I had to admit that I would give anything to look good in a dress like that.

  Why don’t you try it on? said a voice in my head. A slightly evil voice.

  It was a stupid idea, I knew. The dress wouldn’t look right on me. I just wasn’t the glamorous type. I wasn’t Megan with her skinny legs and blond hair.

  Go on, the voice prodded me. It can’t hurt.

  I hesitated another moment, then walked into the shop and headed for the dress rack. I found the white dress. There was only one left in my size. Before I could talk myself out of it, I took it into a dressing room. A minute later I was looking at myself in the mirror.

  I was shocked. The dress actually looked okay. No, it looked better than okay. It was beautiful. Even with my boring hair and short nails it made me look, well, almost pretty. I couldn’t believe it. Me. Pretty.

  Buy it! screamed that desperate voice in my head.

  I looked at the price tag attached to the dress. It was expensive. Really expensive. I don’t think most of the clothes in my closet added together cost as much as that dress. It was way more than I’d planned on spending. There was no way I could buy it. I started to take it off.

  Megan would die if she saw you in this, said the voice.

  I stopped and looked at myself again. I imagined Megan rushing into the store, all set to plunk down her mother’s credit card, then seeing that her dress was gone. Then I pictured her face when I walked into the party wearing her dress. She would die. I was sure of it. And thinking about that made me strangely happy.

  But it was so expensive. I looked at the price tag again. The thought of spending that much money on a dress made me sick. Then I thought about Megan again. First she’d be mad when she couldn’t wear the dress she wanted. Then she’d see me in it at the party.

  And Jack would see you in it too, the voice said.

  I took the dress off in a hurry and put my own clothes back on. I had to have it. Yes, it was expensive. But I had the money I’d earned from working at Perfect Paws. It was enough to buy the dress. I would have to spend almost all of it, though. Was it worth it?

  It was. This wasn’t just about making Megan miserable. This was about finally having my own chance to be the beautiful one—the winner.

  I took the dress to the register and set it down. The woman behind the counter picked it up. “Good choice,” she said. “It’s a stunning dress. What’s the special occasion?”

  Ruining Megan Fitzmartin’s life and making Jack McKenna fall in love with me, I wanted to say. Instead, I smiled and answered, “A party.”

  “Well, you’ll be the prettiest girl there,” the woman said as she rang up the dress. When she told me the final cost, I handed her practically all my money.

  The saleswoman put the dress in a fancy dress bag and gave it to me. “Have fun,” she said.

  “I will,” I told her.

  I took the bus home. The whole way, I thought about how I was going to show Megan up. I imagined every detail, from the shocked look on her face when she saw me to the way I was going to look at her, say, “Nice dress,” and turn my back on her so she could see me walking away in the dress
she really wanted. It made me feel good. A little queasy, maybe, but excited nevertheless.

  Back at home, I took the dress out of the bag and hung it on the back of my bedroom door. I lay on my bed and just looked at it. And the longer I looked at it, the less happy I got. I know. I know. I said how excited I was about getting Megan’s dress. And I was. For a while. But the longer I stared at that dress, the more I realized that I wasn’t really showing her up; I was behaving exactly like she would.

  It had all seemed like such a good idea at the time. And if I were a different kind of person—a person like Megan or any of the Megbots—I probably would have never felt bad about doing it. But I wasn’t like them.

  I knew what I had to do. I had to take the dress back. As much as I hated to do it, I had to return it. I got up and started to put it back in the bag. Just then, though, I heard my mother calling me from downstairs to come help her with dinner. I’d have to return the dress the next day. Running my hands over the silky fabric, I gave the dress one last look before going downstairs.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, I put the dress back in its bag and took it with me to the shop. I hung it on the back of a chair in the storeroom where we keep the shampoo and put a towel over it so that my mother wouldn’t see it. I knew that if she did, she’d see how beautiful it was and make me keep it. And I couldn’t tell her that I’d only gotten it because I didn’t want Megan to have it.

  I only had two dogs signed up for day care that day. Because of the Fourth of July weekend, a lot of people were going out of town and taking their dogs with them. Only Walter and Wendell were coming in, and just for baths. I was actually happy to have so little to do. It gave me time to organize the shop, which I hadn’t done for a while.

  Then, like a dark cloud rolling over the perfect summer sky, Megan came in with Tallulah. When I saw her I got incredibly nervous. I looked around, thinking for some reason that I’d left the dress lying around in plain sight. But it was safe in its bag in the other room.