She's With Stupid Read online

  “How come your mom never gave me a crock pot, Em?” Lana pouted, causing her friends to laugh.

  “Because she knew you didn’t have anywhere to plug one in, you goof.” Emilie’s affectionate smile took the sting out of her words. “So, Kate, we were wondering about the cat.”

  Kate blinked twice before shrugging negligently. “I may have accidentally left the door propped open for a few hours last week. And I may have pushed the meddling cat out the door right before I remembered to close it again. It’s possible these things may have happened, but I’m not saying for certain.”

  Lana and Emilie stared at her in shock for a few moments, and then burst into startled giggles.

  “That’s really horrible, Kate!” admonished Lana.

  “What did Will say?” asked Emilie.

  Kate shrugged again. “Eh. What could he say? He’s never home to play with it, so the animal just laid around all day clawing on my walls and getting fur on my furniture. It was supposed to be an outside cat, anyway.” She looked at her friends appalled faces and widened her eyes in a show of innocence. “Cats are plucky. I’m sure the old girl is happy as a lark.”

  Emilie and Lana shook their heads, not sure whether it was okay to find Kate’s lack of remorse over Will’s dearly departed cat so funny.

  “So,” Kate said. “Ethan called.”

  Emilie froze, doing a fairly good impersonation of a deer in headlights.

  After a charged moment, Lana exclaimed, “I didn’t know he was home again! How long is he staying this time?”

  “Forever, I guess. He just got his official discharge,” said Kate. “He, uh, was thinking that he might come over later.”

  Emilie visibly tensed and glared at Kate’s hastily retreating back. “And what did you say to that totally boneheaded idea?”

  Kate remained mum as she slowly returned to the table and set plates of lasagna down in front of them. Then she flopped down into the chair closest to Emilie and warily watched for her reaction to her next statement. “I said that would be nice. He just bought a house here in New Bern, not too far from St. Mary’s.” She paused again to check Emilie’s response.

  When she continued to feign indifference, Kate pressed on. “He bought the Apple House, Em.”

  “He did not!” Lana glanced at Emilie. “That’s the one you like so much, Emmy,” she pointed out unnecessarily. She couldn’t prevent a grin from forming at the flabbergasted expression on Emilie’s face.

  Emilie sat with her mouth open, feeling quite unable to form a response. She didn’t like that house, she adored it. She had been dreaming about living in it since she was a little girl. And Ethan knew that because, before things like responsibility and permanent residences and little girls who loved him had become such a terrifying prospect to the jerk, they had discussed stupid things like where they would live and raise their kids when they grew up.

  They had spend many an evening sitting by the lake and watching the stars come out, while Emilie had gushed about the house on Orchard Lane and told him how much she loved the sweeping circular staircase and the way the house overlooked the thick green woods and pink-tipped apple blossom trees and the wraparound porch that simply begged for a porch swing and a cold glass of lemonade. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen, but Ethan had listened intently to her description of the house and he hadn’t laughed at her once. He had simply kissed her cheek and promised to get it for her someday.

  Her oh-so-foolish heart had always insisted that the Apple House was their house, and Emilie had to suppose that Ethan had known that when he made his purchase. This begged the question, what kind of game was the arrogant ass playing at?

  Kate was talking again, interrupting Emilie’s inner freak-out. “He hasn’t furnished it or anything, and I think he said it needs a little fixing up.”

  Shaken but determined not to admit it, Emilie breathed deeply and tried to squash the rising (obviously hysteria-fueled) rush of hope that was trying to overtake her good sense because she was not, under any circumstances, going to allow herself to start searching for meaning in this. She ruthlessly cut into her lasagna, jabbing it so hard with her fork that the table shook.

  Her friends watched with identical expressions of amusement.

  “Humph,” she cynically told her lasagna. “He hasn’t furnished it because he has no intention of staying there for longer than a month.”

  “Or maybe he’s waiting for the right person to help him decorate it exactly the way she wants it,” Lana said with an innocent smile.

  Emilie gave her a withering look. “Traitor.”

  “I think it will be nice to have him around more often.” At Emilie’s glare, Kate hastily cleared her throat and moved on to another topic. “Now, let’s put that aside for the moment and skip ahead to the main point.”

  She looked expectantly at Emilie, who simply stared at her with a purposely blank face. “I’m sorry, was there something on your mind?” Emilie gave Kate a knowing smile and put a forkful of lasagna into her mouth.

  Kate grumbled under her breath as she reached for the bread basket in the middle of the table. “You know perfectly well what I want to know. The entire reason I slaved over a hot oven all day was so I could get you to spill your guts!”

  “Imagery, Katherine,” scolded Lana. “I’m trying to eat here.”

  “And I am forced to point out that the entire point of a slow cooker is that you don’t really have to do anything but throw ingredients in the pot.”

  Sipping her wine, Emilie directed her most annoyingly serene expression Kate’s way. When Kate continued to scowl, Emilie girded her loins and resolved to get this over with.

  “Leo cornered me in my classroom last Friday evening,” she said with a sigh. “He got really weird and kind of mean, and then he was suddenly sobbing on his knees about needing me. In an effort to avoid getting knocked over the head with something heavy and ending up on the eleven 0’clock news, I told him we could be friends. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he won’t stop calling me and telling me he loves me, which would be hilarious if not for the fact that he now gives me the heebie-jeebies. End of story.”

  Emilie summed up with a matter of fact slash of her wrist across her throat, which did nothing to alleviate the looks of concern Lana and Kate were throwing her way.

  “He got physical with you?” asked Lana in an appalled whisper.

  Kate clenched her fists menacingly. “I am so telling Ethan to kick his ass.”

  “Granted, it was odd and a little scary, but he didn’t hurt me,” Emilie tried to reassure them. “He was simply having a nervous breakdown, and I was lucky enough to witness it first hand.”

  “Then why would you tell him you’d be his friend?” Lana’s face seemed to suggest that she was quite certain Emilie had lost her mind.

  “I thought it would calm him down,” said Emilie. “Besides, if you’d seen how panicked he looked, you would have felt kind of bad for him, too.”

  “Doubtful,” Kate said derisively. “Only you would be sappy enough to feel bad for a psycho, Em. You honestly expect us to believe that Frog Boy is going to leave you alone based solely on the promise of your friendship? Do you actually believe that?”

  Emilie looked to Lana for support, but Lana was still giving her that concerned-mom look.

  “I don’t see how he could possibly hold on to whatever crack-pot idea he has of a future for us for that much longer,” Emilie said defensively. “I know I don’t want to be with him anymore, and I have no intention of seeing him again as long as he’s behaving so strangely. Now, I would appreciate it if you’d stop harping on it, Kate. I feel awful enough for getting myself into this mess in the first place.” Emilie morosely shoved another bite of lasagna into her mouth.

  Kate looked like she was about to protest Emilie’s blasé attitude towards Leo’s erratic behavior, but then she surprised everyone in the room by slouching back in her seat and thoughtfully nodding.

 
“Okay. You did stop his trip down Looney Lane Trail before it went too far, and sometimes we do things we don’t mean to do, like make friends with crazies, in the heat of the moment. Who am I to judge?” She shrugged and took a sip of her wine.

  Lana and Emilie stared at Kate, nonplussed by her sudden turnaround. Lana leaned over the table and put her palm to Kate’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay, Kate? ‘Cause I gotta say, you’re wigging me out a little bit.”

  Kate let out a surprised bark of laughter. “What, so now I’m being too supportive? Two minutes ago, I was being too critical.”

  “No, I appreciate supportive-Kate,” said Emilie. “Only, you’re awfully mellow all of the sudden. What happened in the last thirty seconds to so drastically alter your opinion?”

  Swallowing another gulp of wine, Kate smiled sadly. “I simply know what it feels like to make potentially dreadful decisions, and I know how much the ensuing regrets suck.”

  Emilie opened her mouth to inquire about which decisions Kate was referring to, but Lana kicked her under the table before she could.

  “Oof,” grunted Emilie. She glared at Lana. “That hurt!”

  Lana offered her an unapologetic grin. “Oh, sorry, was that your leg?” She turned back to her own half-eaten lasagna and picked up her fork again. “Let’s move on, shall we? How was everyone’s day?”

  Kate walked to the counter and helped herself to another serving. “Mine was pretty uneventful. I got a B on that Chemistry exam, though. Yay me,” she said unenthusiastically.

  Lana looked over at Emilie. “What about you, Emmy?”

  Kate couldn’t resist ribbing her a bit. “Yeah, Em, doesn’t Frog Boy have a habit of lurking around corners, waiting to accost you at any given time? How’s that working out for you?”

  Pointedly ignoring Kate, Emilie turned to Lana. “I did have to sit through a staff meeting after school with Stupid and his lady love sitting directly across from me.” Her lips curled in disgust. “I endured a good twenty minutes of staring from Leo, even though I was making every effort to ignore him and his little blonde Twiglet. Meanwhile, she’s glaring daggers at me, as if I have any sort of control over where the stupid ass points his stupid eyes.”

  Kate sat back down at the table. “What a freak.”

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. What if people at work start suspecting something’s up? I will die of mortification. And what if Clarissa the Twig isn’t quite as dim as she seems? That’s all I need — another nutty person with the emotional maturity of a twelve year old coming after me with a sharpened pencil.” Emilie groaned in horror at the thought of such a scenario coming to pass.

  Lana shuddered in commiseration and patted Emilie on the hand. “I am concerned about the state of education in this county if a whack-job like Leo can happily go about teaching the next generation without anyone seeming to notice that he is a few crayons short of a box.” They laughed at her annoyed expression. “Seriously though,” said Lana. “No one can possibly blame you for any weirdness between you and Leo, right? And since you don’t care about him anymore—”

  “Oh, come on!” interrupted Kate. “She didn’t care about him in the first place — she only wanted to care about him and felt bad for not succeeding.” When Emilie gritted her teeth but did not contradict her, Kate smiled. “Even if Leo hadn’t proven himself to be such a humongous blight on society, you would have come to your senses eventually and ended up in the arms of the man you’re supposed to be with.”

  “If you start spouting that Ethan and Emmy Sitting in a Tree crap again, I’m leaving,” Emilie warned.

  Kate sat back in her seat. “Emilie, Lana and I have talked about this—”

  “Don’t bring me into it!”

  “Traitor,” Kate blithely directed to Lana before returning her attention to Emilie. “We both think that you’re still in love with Ethan. I don’t know how or why, and I know you don’t like it, but it is a fact of life that you are eventually going to have to face. If it helps at all, I really do believe that he loves you too, despite what he may have done in the past to suggest otherwise.”

  Emilie crossed her arms to prevent herself from strangling Kate, and Kate grinned knowingly before finishing her little speech. “However, until you do decide how to deal with the Ethan situation, I see no reason why Twiggy and Leo should get to flaunt their inevitably doomed relationship in front of you.”

  “Meaning?” Lana asked suspiciously.

  Warming to her topic, Kate leaned forward in her seat. “Look, I don’t hate Leo, I just, well, actually I do hate him. Therefore I see no reason why he shouldn’t be made to suffer. Personally, I think Emilie should have a little chat with Twiggy detailing just how creepy her intended truly is, or, if we’re feeling a bit more adventurous, Emilie could lead Froggy on for a minute so that Twiggy sees for herself what a lout he is.”

  Lana shook her head at Kate’s scheming. “What good would that do, besides putting Emilie right back into Leo’s line of crazy-fire?”

  “Are you kidding?!” Kate stared at Lana in exaggerated bafflement. “Frog Boy is in love with Emilie, not Twiggy! Otherwise he would not be so clingy and obsessed. If Emilie wants him to pay for his cheating tendencies, then she is going to have to take him away from Twiggy, thus leaving him miserable and creepy and alone forever after!”

  Kate grabbed their hands, yanking them both out of their seats and pulling them to the center of the kitchen, where she started twirling them around in a wine-addled version of ring-around-the-rosy.

  “Oh, yes. Do it, Emmy,” Kate said breathlessly. “You must — it is your destiny. Break up Leo’s not-so-happy home. Make Twiggy dump his slimy ass. Then reap the reward when Leo comes crying to you for comfort and you instead thoroughly destroy him by kicking him to the curb yourself!”

  Lana laughed as she whirled past the stove, narrowly missing slamming into the fridge. “When did you become so evil?”

  Kate grinned slyly. “What’s evil in wanting Frog Boy to get what’s coming to him? At the very least my plan gives Em the pleasure of breaking Leo’s spirit and gives her closure over the whole sticky debacle. It’s a win-win situation.”

  Emilie laughed as they continued to twirl around the kitchen. “Kate, you are totally batty and I love you for it.” Lana and Kate giggled. “However, while your plan is intriguingly diabolical, I’m afraid we’re going to have to discuss it at a later date.”

  Reluctantly breaking the circle, Emilie grabbed the back of a chair and waited for a wave of dizziness to pass. Her friends did the same. Smiling, Emilie looked down at her watch with regret. “I have to get going if I want to be at that dance on time.”

  Kate looked up from holding her head between her knees as an idea took hold. Emilie placed a protective hand over her heart, not liking that wicked glint in Kate’s eye.

  “A Valentine’s Dance, hmm?” Kate threw Lana a conspiratorial grin. “Will the Frog Prince be there?”

  Emilie gave her a dirty look. “Yes, and so will his Twiglet Bride. It should be a real hoot.”

  “You know, Em, a dance sounds like tons of fun. Doesn’t it, Lan?”

  Lana nodded eagerly and tried to hide her grin behind her napkin.

  “Wouldn’t it be even more fun if Lana and I came with you?”

  Emilie cocked her head, as if to gauge Kate’s sincerity. “There’s no way I’m allowing you to get within fifty feet of Leo or Clarissa, so you can both forget it.”

  With a sigh, Emilie hastily made her way to the living room in search of her purse with Lana and Kate following close behind. Kate grabbed Emilie’s hand as she reached for her purse on the couch, and Lana scooped it up and clutched it to her chest.

  “Pretty please, Emmy?” Lana wheedled, and Emilie was forced to laugh at how closely the two of them resembled naughty kindergartners. “We promise we’ll be good. We won’t do anything to shame you — we just wanna see Twiggy!”

  “Please,” Kate chimed in. “It’s Valentine�
�s Day and your two best friends will be left all alone in a night designed for lovers if you don’t take us to your dance. We’ll be forced to drown our sorrows in wine and brownies.” Kate batted her eyelashes and clasped her hands in front of her dramatically. “You wouldn’t do that to us, would you, Em?”

  Emilie tried, and failed, to contain a grin. They were goofballs, but they were her goofballs. They also weren’t wrong. The dance would likely be a lot more fun if the two of them came with her, if only so that she didn’t have to face the thought of Leo and Clarissa playing kissy-face behind the gym bleachers all by herself.

  Throwing her hands up in defeat, Emilie acquiesced with a smile. “If hanging out with a bunch of smelly eighth graders is your idea of fun, by all means, tag along.”

  She was nearly tackled to the ground by the weight of Lana and Kate throwing themselves on her in a huge bear hug amid gleeful shouts of “Yay!” and “Emmy rocks!” Rolling her eyes heavenward, Emilie prayed for patience and braced herself for another long evening.

  Their laughter was abruptly subdued by a sudden knocking at the front door. Emilie stilled in their arms and stared at the door with dread. She knew Ethan was on the other side of the door — her spidey senses were always on high alert whenever he was within a hundred mile radius, like some kind of sickness for which she had yet to find a cure.

  Flushing guiltily and refusing to meet Emilie’s eye, Kate pulled out of the tangle of arms and moved to open the door. Sure enough, Ethan stood outside, straight as an arrow. He had a smile on his face for Kate, but his eyes were fastened securely on Emilie.

  Kate stepped back to let Ethan in and the four of them stood in awkward silence while Kate and Lana looking helplessly back and forth between Emilie and Ethan, who seemed to be engaged in an intense staring match.

  Ethan was giving off a downright predatory vibe as he took in the pretty picture Emilie presented — she could have stepped out of 1955, with her black sweater set, flouncy red skirt, and sparkly ballet flats. She was even wearing pearls. The Donna Reed look seemed to really do it for him because he was grinning like a love-struck dork.