Puddin'(55)

I continue on with a few more items on my list before handing the show over to Bobby Espinosa from student council so he can do the Pledge of Allegiance and our daily moment of reflection.

Afterward, I’m buzzing with energy. If ever I doubted that ditching Daisy Ranch for broadcast journalism camp this summer is a bad idea, all it takes is one morning of announcements to remind me of the exhilarating buzz I get from just this little thing. Compared to this, reporting the news live on television must be pure adrenaline.

After Bobby heads back to class and Mrs. Bradley tasks me with some filing to fill the rest of my free period, she rolls on her chair over to me with her legs crossed. “That was awful sweet of you to have Callie over with your friends on Saturday night.”

“Oh, we had a great time!” And it’s not a lie. I don’t think. . . . Mrs. Bradley and I don’t talk about much else besides the weather or little bits of teacher gossip, but with Callie working at the gym, we’re sort of in new territory.

“I don’t want to go on making excuses for her,” she tells me, “but it’s been hard for her lately.”

“She’ll be fine,” I promise her. “I don’t know Callie very well. Not yet. But you raised a fighter, Mrs. Bradley.”

She smiles faintly. “Maybe too much of a fighter.”

“Excuse my change of subject, but I am just dying to know. What shade of lipstick is it that you wear?” I’ve always found something about Mrs. Bradley’s lipstick a little bit intoxicating, and now that the application deadline for broadcast journalism camp is approaching, I’m having to think seriously about my audition tape, which means putting the finishing touches on my on-camera look.

“Oh, baby,” she says, holding her hand over mine. “Revlon Certainly Red 740. I swear if I ever get a tattoo—which I’m too chicken to ever do—it would be this little tube of lipstick.” She pulls it from the pocket of her skirt. “It’s been everywhere with me. The year the Shamrocks won State when I was just a young thing. Every date I’ve ever been on. High-school graduation. Two weddings. Three baby births from two different daddies. Divorce court. Far too many funerals.”

She holds the tube out for me to examine, and I take it in my hand. A black tube with a gold strip around the center.

“I tell you,” she says, “love comes and goes, but lipstick is forever.”

Something about her words makes me feel all swoony inside. “It’s just the perfect shade,” I tell her. “But what will you do if they ever quit making it?”

She laughs, but it comes out like a guffaw. “Die, of course.”

I chuckle.

She shakes her head. “I’ve got my babies to live for, I suppose. I would survive.”

I hand the lipstick back after jotting down the number, name, and brand on a scrap of paper. We both go back to our filing and our usual talk of the weather and teacher-lounge politics.

As I’m leaving, she tugs me once more by the hand. “Don’t take this as me asking you to be friends with my Callie, because trust me, she would hate nothing more than me interfering in her personal life. But just know that I wouldn’t be opposed to y’all girls getting together again.”

I nod confidently. “Me too, Mrs. Bradley.”

As I’m walking to second period, dreaming of AP Psych with Malik after lunch, I see Callie from across the hall and wave. She stands in front of her locker with her backpack slung over one shoulder, and she’s wearing a pair of leggings and an oversized tank top that says GO CLIMB A CACTUS. To say it’s on brand would be an understatement.

She grins and nods back, and for a minute I’m surprised. I guess deep down I thought that when we finally did acknowledge each other at school, she would ignore me. But she’s not, and it puts a lightness in my step.

And then I hear it. Oinking. Quiet at first, but then louder. Closer.

My stomach drops and my legs turn to concrete, like I’m having a nightmare and instinct says to run, but my body is frozen. I suck in a breath, hoping that somehow I will just disappear.

“Hey, fatass,” says Patrick Thomas. I don’t even have to turn to know it’s him. “Have you thought about life as a phone sex operator? You keep doing those morning announcements all sexylike, and I might forget what you look like long enough to trick myself into thinking you’re hot.”

I stop. It’s always been the oinking. I expect that now. And the name-calling . . . well, it’s vulgar, but it’s not new. But the way he just . . . he just made me feel like a piece of meat.

My gaze meets Callie’s. I’m not waiting for her to rescue me or something like that, but for a brief, desperate moment, I’m hoping against hope that she’ll say or do something. Just so that maybe I’ll know she’s not the same girl who’s played along with the oinking and name-calling since grade school.

She doesn’t look away, and her expression is fierce. But she says nothing. She does nothing.

So I do.

I spin on my heel. I refuse to let this guy ruin my day.

“Good morning, Patrick,” I say in my most preciously polite voice. “How are you doing today?”

His vicious expression falters, and all that’s left is surprise.

The guys around him roll their eyes and brush past him, but Patrick Thomas is left standing there in front of me all alone. And he’s completely disarmed.