Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)(45)

“There’s nothing there.”

“I feel like it’s crawling all over me.”

“You’re such a wimp,” she said.

“Only when it comes to spiders.” I shuddered and distracted myself from the sensation of imaginary arachnids crawling over my scalp by focusing on the chicken she was pan-frying. “That smells good.”

“Want some?”

I had leftover pizza in the fridge, but it wasn’t nearly as appetizing as chicken and whatever I smelled in the oven. “I’ll make the salad,” I offered, because I knew Tuba would approve. Anyway, her greens were already rinsed and set out on the counter with a tomato and a cucumber.

As I got out a bowl, I remembered Bryn. All the excitement—and the thought of food—had wiped it from my mind.

“Shit!” I yelled. I looked for my phone. It lay on the floor near the basement door. I turned it over with my toe, checking for spiders, before picking it up. Bryn had disconnected the call. I texted her.

Sorry! Spider incident. You okay?

I waited for a response. Nothing came. I sighed and went back to the salad, setting my phone face-up on the counter so I could see if I got a text.

“Bryn had a date with Emmett tonight,” I said.

Tuba’s six feet of svelte loveliness radiated waves of compassion. She had played the tuba in her high school band, and the nickname had stuck, possibly due to its exquisite irony. She combined the dark Hungarian looks of her mother and the tall rangy build of her German father. I had known her since summer volleyball camps in middle school. She was like a sister to me. So she zeroed right in on the subtext beneath my statement.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I was trying to help but I’m pretty sure I just made everything worse.”

“That calls for some New Order.” She grabbed her phone and switched the music to “Bizarre Love Triangle.” In Tuba’s world there was a song for every situation, even if it meant time traveling back to the early eighties.

I wasn’t really in a position to appreciate her humor tonight. But even though she thought I was being profoundly stupid about Emmett, she still listened to me and gave me emotional support. I filled her in as we set the table—Tuba did stuff like that. I earned a glare by using my fingers to dish the salad, and she brought over chicken and roasted squash. Tuba cooked like a mom.

“Ah! There it is.” She suddenly reached over and plucked something from the collar of my shirt. She held out what looked like a piece of brown fuzz. I leaned closer, and then cringed back. It was my spider, curled up into a protective ball.

“Ew! It’s been on me the whole time. Maybe crawling up my body!”

“It’s just a barn spider,” she said and held it tenderly in her open palm.

“It’s huge! Kill it!”

“I’m not going to kill some poor little spider just because it had the bad luck to land on a spaz. Besides, haven’t you ever seen Charlotte’s Web?” she asked.

“It’ll just come back. Smush it!”

“CeCe, if you want it dead, you have to kill it yourself.” Tuba waited a moment. Seeing that I obviously wasn’t stepping up to the task of smashing that disgusting spider, she went to the door and gently placed it outside.

Tuba and I were just finishing dinner when we heard a knock on the door. Nobody knocked on our door. I got up to open it and found Bryn standing dejectedly in the doorway. On the street behind her, a truck pulled away.

Her expression was frozen into a pleasant half-smile, like she was trying not to cry. “That went well, I’d say.”

“Bryn, I’m really sorry. There was a spider.” I pulled her inside and shut the door.

“You know I really learned something tonight. I should be able to get through a single conversation with Emmett on my own. A single conversation.” She kicked her shoes off as she spoke.

“You want to hang out here for awhile?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s had it with me. It’s over.”

Tuba had taken a bottle of her dad’s J?germeister out of the freezer and poured some into a juice glass. She handed it to Bryn.

“I don’t drink,” Bryn said.

“Tonight you do.”

Bryn took a swallow. “Good lord. That’s revolting.”

“Tell me what happened,” I said. “Maybe we can fix it.”

“Doubt it. He’s really mad. I don’t think it’s fixable.”

“What do you mean? Why would he be mad?” I asked. “Did he tell you he was mad?”

“No. But he watched me like a hawk. Or like one of those owls with heads that go all the way around and eyes that never blink. Like he knew everything.”

“What did he say?”

“He heard your scream over the phone. I told him it was my stepmom’s ringtone and I shut it off.”

Tuba and I exchanged glances.

“Then I tried to ask him my favorite go-to conversation questions,” Bryn continued, “like Red Vines or Twizzlers? Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke? French fries or tater tots? Boxers or briefs?”

“Ugh,” I muttered into my hands. What a nightmare.

“He wasn’t into it,” she said. “He started acting annoyed, like I was messing with him. Then he asked me how I felt about him. So I said the usual stuff.”