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  In silence, we watched as Bridgette Josephs navigated the tables with her loaded-to-capacity tray. She took every step deliberately, like she feared she was going to fall. Or like somebody might trip her.

  “I can’t believe that heifer’s actually coming over here,” the superskinny girl whispered. “Maybe this would be a good time to tell her that if she wants to fit into that skirt she’s wearing, she’s got to lay off the tater tots.”

  Another girl said, “And while you’re at it, tell her she should ship that skirt off to a polygamy sect in Utah.” Everyone at the table laughed.

  I shifted in my seat. A fresh layer of sweat coated my skin, and I couldn’t tell whether it was because of the window or ’cause I knew I probably should say something to stick up for Bridgette. She had, after all, dedicated her entire morning to showing me around.

  “Now, girls, play nice,” Mary Jane said, and I was grateful that someone came to Bridgette’s defense. Mary Jane inclined her head, honey-colored curls tumbling around her shoulder. She fingered the dainty cross charm on her necklace, and I noticed her friends wore similar necklaces. “Remember, the Lord loves each and every one of us.”

  A pious energy reigned over the table, and for a moment, I feared someone would stand, thrust her arms into the air, and shout, “Amen!” Instead, Mary Jane smiled sweetly—almost innocently—as Bridgette arrived at the table.

  “Hi, Bridgette,” the girls intoned.

  “Um, yeah, hi. So, Poppy. Want to come over there with me?” Her usually musical voice sounded strained. She bobbed her head in the direction of a table in the corner. “There are some more people I want to introduce you to.”

  I leaned out a little to get a better view of the table. The girls who’d been at their lockers that morning—the ones Bridgette said sang in the choir (not just the regular choir, but the Good News Choir)—sat straight up, grins emerging on their faces as if choreographed. A few boys sat at the table, too, the types whose mothers combed their hair every morning. Then I spotted something I’d never seen before in a school lunchroom: A guy at the far end of their table read a Bible while he sipped his milk. Though I knew I should have an open mind, especially being the new girl, I couldn’t see myself in that scene in a million years.

  Before I had a chance to respond, Mary Jane took my hand in hers. “We’d love it if you stayed right here, Poppy. We’re having so much fun getting acquainted.” Then she raised her big blue eyes to Bridgette. “Maybe tomorrow?”

  Just a few minutes ago, I was hiding out in the bathroom because no one wanted me, and now I felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. It was almost comical. “How about you sit here, Bridgette?” I suggested. “There’s plenty of room.”

  “Actually,” said Mary Jane, releasing my hand to pick up her fork, “that spot’s reserved for Andrew. You understand.” She stabbed a cherry tomato and popped it into her mouth. The spot opposite Mary Jane had room enough for two people, maybe even three; yet obviously no one wanted Bridgette sitting there, including Bridgette herself.

  “I’ll sit with you tomorrow,” I said, repeating Mary Jane’s suggestion.

  Bridgette’s nostrils flared. “Yeah, well, I guess that’s okay. Oh, I almost forgot. I picked up one of these for you in the school store just now.” She handed me a purple rubber bracelet with WWJD? stamped on it. “It stands for ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ Okay, I’ll see you later, Poppy.”

  Bridgette started walking away. I felt relieved to have all that weirdness over with, when suddenly Mary Jane called out, “By the way Bridgette, love your skirt. It’s très chic.”

  Bridgette peered down at her skirt like she’d spaced which one she had on. “Er, thanks. My granny made it.”

  “It shows,” said Nike Model Chick in a way that could have easily been mistaken for a sincere compliment. The girls smiled at Bridgette as she lumbered away and then they cracked up. Why were they being so mean? I thought Bridgette’s skirt was horrendous too, but they didn’t have to make fun of her for wearing it.

  “What was with praising that pitiful skirt, Mary Jane?” the skinny girl asked.

  My thoughts exactly.

  “What?” Mary Jane frowned. “I was just trying to be nice. It’s what Christians do, you know. Y’all should try it sometime.” Somehow, what she’d said made sense. What was the harm if Bridgette believed it to be a genuine compliment?

  “Yeah, well lying isn’t exactly advocated in the Bible,” Nike Model muttered under her breath. “And you’d know that if you ever took the time to read it.” A couple of the girls made Ooh noises. Apparently, that had been a low blow.

  “Sweetie, you’ve got too much time on your hands. You need to get yourself a boyfriend,” Mary Jane said, beaming as her tablemates giggled. “Oh, no. They’re at it again.” She aimed her fork at Bridgette’s table.

  One of the guys snapped his fingers and nodded his head while a quartet of girls hummed in what sounded like an impromptu miniconcert. Oh my God. It was Baptist School Musical, live and unplugged. And this was a normal, everyday occurrence? If I had sat with Bridgette, I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face.

  Instead of joining in, Bridgette rested her head in her hand and stared off into space. Or was she staring at Mary Jane?

  The skinny girl peeled the top off her cherry fat-free yogurt and said, “You never want to sit at that table, Poppy. You’re lucky we were here to save you.” If sitting at Bridgette’s table required me to have some kind of musical gift, these girls were actually saving everybody with ears.

  “I’m Whitney, by the way,” Nike Model said. “And this is Ellen.” She swished her wrist to present the superskinny chick. “You’ll have to forgive Mary Jane for neglecting to introduce us. It’s hard being friends with someone so boorish, but somebody’s gotta do it. Besides, she’s the only one of us who already has her driver’s license.” Whitney flashed a teasing grin at Mary Jane, and I could tell these two were tight.

  Mary Jane said, “Yeah? Well, we’re all just friends with Whitney ’cause she’s got a fabulous swimming pool. And parents who don’t care how much we’re over there.”

  The gorgeous blonde’s smile was so lighthearted, so inviting; I found myself automatically smiling back. All that smiling was annoyingly infectious. My cheek muscles ached. I felt I might be getting sucked into their shiny-happy-people world a little too easily. Like I should step back and observe for a while—figure things out—before committing to a genuine smile.

  I swallowed a swig from my water bottle and studied the girls around me. Clearly I’d found myself sitting with the proverbial popular crowd, the ones everybody else despised yet wanted to be. What did they care if I sat somewhere else? I arranged my sandwich, pear, and half of a granola bar in front of me. “So I’m curious. Why did you guys feel compelled to save me,” I asked, “from sitting elsewhere?”

  The girls looked at me like I’d just confessed to being an atheist. “Is there something wrong with giving the new girl a leg up on the social ladder?” asked Whitney.

  Mary Jane glowered at her and then turned her big blue eyes on me. “You looked like you needed someone to sit with, that’s all. Besides, I happen to like you, and I know my friends are going to like you too.”

  To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of Mary Jane. She seemed like someone who, if she ever had the misfortune of getting in a car wreck, would care more about how her hair looked (especially if a news cameraman showed up) than the fact she was all bloody and broken and her fancy car was totaled. Then again, I didn’t see her as someone who’d be sitting in her totaled car all hopeless and wanting to die, which, I was sorry to say, described many of the chicks I hung out with at my old school.

  Two guys set their trays on the table across from us. Mary Jane reached out her hand and the taller one—whom I recognized as one of the guys in the crosswalk this morning—kissed it. I tried to listen as Mary Jane gave me a quick bio on her boyfriend, Andrew, but his friend rivete
d me instead.

  His dark hair curled at his collar. The color of his skin fell somewhere between suntanned and light brown—a big turn-on for pasty-white me—and he had warm caramel-colored eyes. In a fitted polo/T-shirt combo and jeans, he looked casually stylish—like he’d just thrown on whatever hung in his closet and it happened to work. Once again, I was glad I’d sat at this table.

  He must’ve noticed me ogling him, because he grinned and said, “Hey. I’m Gabe Valdez. So, word is you called the preacher’s son a shithead.”

  My mouth stuffed with ham-and-Swiss on rye, I nodded mutely as mortification seeped in. That David guy was the preacher’s son? Why hadn’t anyone mentioned that little morsel of information? Oh, shit. Maybe I would be struck by lightning.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll get over it. I bet he hits on you again any minute now,” Gabe said, and a few of our tablemates chuckled.

  I shrugged and kept chewing, covertly scanning the lunchroom for the preacher’s son. He was stooped over a table between ours and Bridgette’s, and when he noticed me, he waved his cell phone in the air. A second later a beep-beep came from inside my backpack. Sure enough, David somehow had gotten my cell number and texted me: Will you be my French tutor?

  I don’t take French, I replied, against my better judgment.

  Me neither.

  “Who’s that you’re texting?” Gabe asked. “Your boyfriend?”

  I shoved my phone back into its designated pocket. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Well, I’m sure lots of boys round here will be thanking their lucky stars,” Mary Jane said, and I shifted in my seat under the heat of eyes and smiles and nods.

  Thankfully, the spotlight shifted soon afterward, and I just sat back and listened. Ellen and a couple other chicks seemed to be practicing their German on one another. Everybody else fired off news, gossip, and G-rated jokes. Gradually, something admirable shone through their superficial popular-kid facades. They seemed happy to be alive, eager to be out and about. Not worried about whether or not they’d get good enough grades on their report cards or if they’d get into a good enough college. I had a hunch they didn’t stuff earbuds in their ears and hide out in their dark bedrooms picking and prodding at their ever changing emotions. And though my gut told me to run and take cover, I was intrigued just enough to stick it through, at least until lunch ended.

  “Hey, y’all. I have a great idea. Let’s go swimming after school,” Mary Jane said.

  “Shoot.” Whitney frowned. “They’re fixin’ to put in a new filtration system, so we can’t. Besides, I think the garden club is meeting at our house tonight. Oh, Poppy,” she said, facing me. “You should tell your mother about the garden club. It’s kind of a big deal here in Pleasant Acres.”

  “Okay.” I could mention it all I wanted, but Mom wouldn’t join. She’d say it was a waste of time.

  Mary Jane tapped her fingernails on the table. “How about shopping, then? You in, Poppy?”

  “I’d love to go,” I said, more than a little shocked at myself. But maybe I did want to hang out with these girls. Or at least give it a shot. But then my memory clicked in. “Shit, I can’t. I have to help my mom unpack some more boxes and then write an essay for Mrs. Oliverson’s class.” Besides, Bridgette might be upset if I didn’t meet her in the library to work on the essay, like we’d planned.

  Mary Jane jutted out her bottom lip, instantly switching from beautiful to adorable. “Oh well,” she said with a subtle toss of her hair. “Maybe next time?”

  “Sure, okay,” I said, telling myself not to get my hopes up. She probably only invited me because I happened to be sitting next to her. She had to see that we had absolutely nothing in common.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What a day. My meeting with the dean turned into a five-act play, complete with lengthy intermissions whenever her son called.” Mom shook her head, clearly annoyed. “You didn’t have to wait long, did you?”

  “An hour isn’t that long when you consider the average American woman lives seventy whole years,” I said, slinging my backpack into the backseat and clicking on my seat belt.

  “Good.” I looked out the window, strumming my fingers on my knee to break up the silence. Finally, Mom pulled up the driveway. I hopped out of the Volvo and slammed the door. “So tell me, how did your first day of school go?” Mom asked, following me in the house.

  “The kids are actually pretty cool. Maybe I won’t have to slit my wrists after all.”

  She patted my hand and then laid hers on top of mine. “I’m glad you’re making friends. Now tell me, how were your classes?”

  Ah, yes. For Mom, education came right after water, food, and shelter and before, well, everything else. An education meant we wouldn’t have to depend on a man to make ends meet. In Mom’s book, depending on a man equated with licking dog poop off a mildewed sneaker.

  “My classes were fine,” I said.

  “Your teachers?”

  “Fine.”

  “Did you get quite a bit of homework?”

  “Not too much.” I raided the fridge for a Dr Pepper and cracked it open.

  “You know I expect you to make excellent grades at Calvary. Your last report card was inexcusable.” She pressed her lips together.

  “Just because I made a few B’s here and th—”

  “And a D.” She stopped sifting through the mail and looked at me. I took a huge, frustrated gulp of my pop. Then I slung my backpack over my shoulder and practically ran to my room. After turning on some music, I dumped the contents of my backpack onto the bed. But try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mom and how she felt the need to keep bringing up my grades. I stormed back to the kitchen, where I found Mom reading the newspaper.

  I took a quick breath and she looked up expectantly. “That D was in volleyball, Mom. I had to do an overhead serve and make it land in a plastic crate for hell’s sake. Can you do that?”

  “That little D you don’t seem to care about counts toward your cumulative GPA, the same as your other grades. You’re too smart to make anything less than a 4.0, Poppy. I’m just saying . . .”

  “Interesting, because I could’ve sworn you were saying I’m a huge disappointment or any other variation of the same theme.” I crossed my arms and inclined my head.

  “That’s not fair, Poppy,” Mom said, folding the newspaper in thirds. “It’s my job as your parent to encourage you to reach your full potential. You’re unbelievably smart and I have no doubt that if you apply yourself here at Calvary, you’ll get your pick of universities and careers and—”

  I always wondered whether I really was brilliant like she insisted, or if she suffered from delusions of progeny grandeur. But I really wasn’t in the mood to take another of her IQ-type tests. “Have you ever stopped planning every detail of my life long enough to ask what I want?”

  “Fine, I’ll bite. What do you want, Poppy?”

  The doorbell rang, and instead of waiting for my answer, Mom made a beeline for the door. I veered off to the living room and peeped through the curtains, figuring it was another neighbor bearing a casserole. A cream-colored convertible VW Bug was parked in the driveway. Diagonally.

  When Mom swung open the front door, I was surprised to see Mary Jane and Whitney on my front porch. Their beautiful faces instantly lit up. Somehow, the duo looked even more chic in this après-school light. “Hi! Is Poppy here?” Mary Jane asked in her sweet Southern drawl.

  Mom blinked a couple of times and then smiled. “Yes, she is. Come in.” I didn’t blame Mom for being stunned. They were a far cry from the crowd I hung with back home.

  “You must be Mrs. Browne,” Whitney said. “I’m Whitney Nickels and this is Mary Jane Portman.”

  “Nice to meet you. And please call me Emily. Now, did you say Nickels . . . ?” Mom looked at Whitney thoughtfully. “Is your mom taking classes at Kinsley by chance?”

  “That’s right. She suddenly got the crazy notion to finish her college degree
.” Whitney leaned over to sniff the lilacs on the hall tree. Yesterday, I picked them off the bush in the backyard and arranged them in a mason jar. I doubted Mom even noticed them until then.

  Mom said, “I have the utmost respect for your mother. This morning in my class, she mentioned she couldn’t do it without your help.”

  Whitney shrugged. “It’s no biggie. I just tend to my little sisters when she has studying to do.”

  “Well, I sure was glad to hear she had a daughter Poppy’s age. We were going to arrange for you two to meet each other, but it seems you’ve saved us the trouble. So, have you started thinking about college yet?”

  I rolled my eyes so Whitney and Mary Jane could see I was in no way responsible for Mom’s totally lame (yet regrettably predictable) behavior. “Can’t you wait till the third date to ask that question?” I muttered under my breath.

  Without missing a beat, Mom launched into the Cliffs Notes version of the lecture I’d been hearing since I hit puberty. And yes, she somehow found a way to segue from “You’ve reached that special time in a girl’s life when she needs to start using deodorant” to “You’ve reached that special time in a girl’s life when everything she does or doesn’t do impacts her future college application—and hence her entire future.”

  “I know you think it might be a little premature,” Mom said, “but it’s getting more difficult to get into a good one. In fact, today I signed Poppy up for an SAT prep course at Kinsley. Maybe you two can join her. As of this morning, there are seven places left in the class.” The girls nodded politely, which seemingly ignited Mom’s hostess manners. “Can I get you girls a drink? I have some freshly brewed iced tea.”

  “No, thank you,” Mary Jane said. “We’re just wondering if we can kidnap Poppy for a couple of hours and take her to the mall. Would that be okay with you?”

  Then, as if Whitney was somehow fluent in Mom’s language, she tagged on a: “We’ll have her home in plenty of time to do her homework.”