Puddin'(52)

“Y’all,” says Millie, seemingly unaware of the brick wall of silence and the fuming chubby Dolly Parton wannabe in the corner. “This is Callie.” She touches my arm gently, like she’s an adult introducing me to a classroom of hyenas. “Callie, this is Ellen, who you know.”

I nod.

“And that’s Amanda.” She points to a gangly girl, spread out on the floor with a small plastic tub full of nail polish bottles. Then she motions to a light-skinned black girl with swoopy bangs and two long braids like Wednesday Addams. “That’s Hannah.” Ah, yes. Horse Teeth. “And—”

“Willowdean,” I say far too sweetly. If this is how it’s gonna be, then I’m ready. I put up the most valuable self-defense mechanism I’ve accrued over the years: sugary Southern manners so sweet they bite.

“Hello, Callie,” Willowdean says from where she sits perched on the arm of the couch, overenunciating each syllable like she’s spitting out each letter.

I swear, this girl brings out the best of the worst in me. “Be careful up there,” I say. I turn to Ellen. “I’d hate to see Mrs. Dryver’s lovely furniture get ruined from somebody cracking the arm of the couch. Furniture can be so delicate.”

“The furniture,” says Ellen sharply, “is just fine.”

Hannah whistles low as she shakes her head and scoots closer to Amanda to claim a dark shade of purple polish.

I grin. “Good choice,” I tell her. “It really reflects the whole angsty thing you’ve got going on.”

I can feel Millie’s eyes on me, but it’s too late.

Amanda, who seems to be the most mellow of them all, looks up at me from behind heavy-lidded eyes and snarls.

Willowdean throws her hands up. “What are you even doing here?”

“Callie is my guest,” Millie says, her tone even.

“Well, maybe she should learn some manners,” mumbles Willowdean.

Ellen claps her hands together in an effort to defuse the situation. “I’ll show y’all where you can put your bags.”

We follow her to her room, which I remember from our stint as friends. Her corn snake is coiled on top of a rock beneath a sunlamp in his glass case.

I shiver. The one time I had spent the night here with Ellen, the week before the pageant, I lay awake all night, thinking about that snake slithering up the blankets. No thank you.

Millie drops off her bag and then follows Ellen back out into the hallway.

“Be out in a minute,” I say as I drop my bag on my bed and pretend to rifle through it.

“I’ll be right back,” I hear Millie say from the other room.

I look up and find her standing in the doorframe. She opens her mouth a few times, like she’s about to talk, but then thinks better of it.

“I should go home,” I finally say.

Millie steps into the room and closes the door behind her. She takes a deep breath and presses her fists into her hips, like she’s channeling Wonder Woman—just a fatter, pastel version. “You don’t have to be like this,” she says.

I’m a little too shocked to even speak. I didn’t know she had it in her.

“You don’t have to be like this,” she says again. “Every time you say some rude, biting thing, it’s a choice you’re making. And you don’t have to make that choice. I’ll be honest. I don’t understand much about you or the life you used to lead, but what I do understand is what you just felt. Walking into a party full of girls from school and immediately knowing that you are the outsider.”

I hoist my bag up on my shoulder. “I’m just going to go outside and call my mom.”

“No, you aren’t,” says Millie, her hands still on her hips. “Being the fat girl—yes, I call myself fat, and I know you do, too,” she tells me. “And just so you know, that word doesn’t have to be mean. No offense, but it’s people like you and all your old friends who make that word hurtful. Anyway, being the fat girl my whole life has never been easy, but it gave me a way thicker skin than you’ll ever have. So I know that life sucks, but I just basically gave you a buffet of friends out there, and all you did was show everyone why they shouldn’t even waste their time.”

I could do three things right now. One, I could break down and just start sobbing. Really, I could. I’ve had a shit week, and being told off by Millie Michalchuk is just the turd cherry on the shit sundae. Two, I could storm out of this house and call my mom. Or hell, I could just walk home if I had to. Or three, I could suck it up. I could go out there and treat this gathering of the losers as an extension of my job at the gym—something I just have to power through. And maybe it won’t be so bad. If anything, it will buy me goodwill at home. I hate to admit it, but I guess it’s less than awful to be out on Saturday night, even if the company is less than desirable.

Besides, if that’s the best cattiness Willowdean can muster, she wouldn’t survive a day as a Shamrock. And Ellen . . . well, I might as well show her what she’s missing.

I let my bag slide off my shoulder, and it makes a thud sound when it hits the floor. “All right. Let’s do this.”

Millie busts out into a grin so wide you can barely see anything but teeth. “Perfect.”

I’ve gotta say, I have girl time down to a science. Between dance classes at Dance Locomotive, dance team in middle school (we were the Lucky Charms. Duh), and the Shamrocks in high school, I have always been on the top of every slumber-party guest list. And on a scale of one to ten—ten being pro level—this slumber party is a solid four.