My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours Read online

  Next, we head straight down to the fairy castle, this monster huge dollhouse that looks like an enchanted castle that Cinderella would live in if she was real. And five inches tall. It’s visually stunning, and I’ve always thought it a mad waste that it is locked up under the glass case, where no one can play with it. The castle was always Mom’s favorite exhibit, and she used to say she’d make me a little one someday. But I’m sure she’s forgotten that too by now.

  From watching other people here, I find that most museum visitors are boring and look at everything on one floor before moving to the next. But not us. We go in order of our favorite exhibits to least favorite, so we tend to bounce all over the museum. Dad says it’s good exercise.

  We go up one floor to Yesterday’s Main Street and walk along the brick and cobblestone streets in 1910 Chicago. We window-shop at the old stores, watch a short silent movie in the cinema, and stop at the old-fashioned ice cream parlor for a vanilla cone. Then it’s straight back to the top floor of the museum to see the transportation section.

  I climb aboard the once-in-commission United Boeing 727 airplane, the only real airplane I’ve ever been on, and take a seat. It’s suspended from the ceiling by some super heavy-duty wires, so it’s sort of like we’re flying. Except we’re not moving. There is a real cockpit up front and everything. A minute later Dad sits down beside me and buckles in.

  “So what’s today’s in-flight movie?” he asks.

  I groan.

  “I have to take you on a trip somewhere soon,” he adds, gripping the armrests. “On a real plane. One with an engine.”

  “Engines are good,” I mutter.

  I look out the small plane window into the museum. I wonder if this is like the plane Sienna took on her family vacation to the Keys. I wonder if she saw a movie on it. She didn’t tell me about the plane ride. She hasn’t really talked about anything on the trip that didn’t involve Antonio.

  “Come on, what’s wrong, sweetie?” Dad urges.

  “Hmm?” I raise my eyebrows.

  “Something’s obviously bothering you. Spill.”

  I hesitate. “It’s just . . . Sienna. She changed so much over the summer. Everything is different about her. It’s like I don’t even know her anymore.”

  Everything that has been going on with me and Sea over the past week comes flooding out. Dad doesn’t say a word while I’m talking but listens and nods occasionally. When it’s all out I feel a wave of relief.

  “Well, I’m pretty good with these things, Tor. After all, I majored in friendship in college,” he starts.

  “You said you majored in listening,” I interrupt.

  “I double-majored. But anyway, I think Sienna must be feeling like she needs to be this different, more fantastical person at school for some reason. I think if you get her away from school and somewhere familiar, like, say, the house, then she’ll go back to normal. Why don’t you ask Mom if you can have Sienna for a sleepover or something?”

  “Dad! You’re brilliant!” I throw my arms around his neck and squeeze tight. Of course! She’s only acting like this for other people. She won’t act like this when it’s just her and me.

  “Obviously, darling daughter. One has to be brilliant to keep up with you.”

  10

  “Pop quiz!” Mrs. Wittler announces Monday morning in science class. “Clear everything off of your desk ’cept for a pencil.” Mrs. Wittler’s clothing selection today is a bit more on the lax side than last week’s. She’s wearing a black and silver pin-striped shirt, misbuttoned by one button all the way down, a navy blue lightweight cardigan, and brown poofy pants that taper in at the ankles.

  “Shut. Up,” Daphne says to me. “Seriously? She just gave us a pop quiz last week. What is she starting, another bad habit?”

  Bella snickers and covers her face with her notebook. I grin.

  “Somethingz funny, ladies?” Mrs. Wittler sniffs really hard and rubs her nose.

  “Of course not, Mrs. Wittler,” Daphne replies in a syrupy-sweet voice.

  “Is it abnormally hot in here?” Mrs. Wittler asks nobody in particular, waving a hand in front of her face. Her cheeks are pink.

  No one says a thing.

  “Get out yer pencils! C’mon then,” Mrs. Wittler says.

  The students pass looks back and forth, but everyone clears their desks and takes out pencils.

  “Geez, what does she have, a wedgie or something?” Daphne mumbles. It’s too much for us. Bella and I dissolve into a pile of giggles.

  “Girls!” Mrs. Wittler yells at us, and my back stiffens. “That’s strike . . .” She pauses and rubs her bottom lip with her thumb and index finger like she can’t remember how many times she’s yelled at us today. “Let’s say strike two,” she finally says, holding two fingers in the air in a shaky peace sign. “One more and yer outta here!”

  Daphne glares at Mrs. Wittler and mumbles under her breath. “Now she’s an umpire.” I look down at my notebook, concentrating on the swirl of the T in my name on the cover. I can’t get in any more trouble today for laughing.

  I busy myself looking for a pencil. I take out an extra so I don’t have to get up during the quiz and sharpen. I don’t even care about the pop quiz today. I’m in too good a mood. I had a fantastic weekend with Dad, and I already talked to Sea this morning about having a sleepover at my house this Friday night, just the two of us. It’ll be like old times, like the sleepovers we used to have before the summer and everything changed. She said it was a great idea and that she was totally in the mood for a girls’ night. Things will be back to normal in no time.

  Twenty minutes later, the last student has turned in his quiz and we’re waiting for Mrs. Wittler to say something. She’s been sitting up in the front of the room at her lab table, both hands wrapped around her mug, sucking down her coffee and staring off into space the whole time.

  I reach down to pick up my stuff off the floor and hear a rumble and a curse.

  “Oh my god,” Bella whispers. “Did you see that? She just stumbled. She’s loaded!”

  “Kyle Anthony, why’re your things in the middle of the aisle? I coulda got hurt.” Mrs. Wittler is staring down at Kyle with wild eyes, her hands on her hips.

  “But, Mrs. Wittler, they weren’t,” Kyle says.

  “So I’m lying? Zthat what yer saying?”

  Daphne leans over to me. “Look at her eyes. They’re totally red.”

  I squint, studying Mrs. Wittler’s eyes. I guess they are sorta red. I suppose she could have allergies or something too. But I highly doubt it.

  “Open your books to, um, page ten,” Mrs. Wittler says. She widens her eyes and squints a couple of times, like she’s trying hard to focus on the words.

  We open our books to a picture of a plant, and Mrs. Wittler reads the paragraph at the top of the page.

  “Did you hear that?” Daphne hisses. “She totally slurred photosynthesis! I can’t believe she’s drunk again.”

  “Me neither,” I whisper.

  Daphne watches Mrs. Wittler for a second and then leans toward Bella and me. “We have to report her to Principal Brown.”

  “I don’t want to get in trouble,” Bella announces.

  “No. None of us will get in trouble. We can do it anonymously. Wednesday night is pizza night at my house. Come over for dinner and we’ll make a plan,” Daphne replies.

  I smile and nod. Bella gives a thumbs-up.

  I’m running late for lunch on Wednesday. Actually, I’m the last kid in the lunch line, which is never a good thing. It’s hard to take a fruit cup knowing that any one of the hundred kids who passed by it before me could’ve flung a booger into it. I put a plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich and a bag of chips on my tray and head for our lunch table. Sienna is already there chatting with Natalie, Avery, and Maya.

  I catch the tail end of Sienna’s sentence as I sit down. “. . . prefers cherry.”

  “Sebastian likes banana,” I say, confident that there’s a 99.9 percent chanc
e she’s talking about Antonio and not wanting to miss any opportunity of bringing Sebastian into the conversation too.

  “Really?” Sea scrunches up her nose. “Where do you find banana lip gloss?”

  Oh. We’re talking about lip gloss. “Well, I special-order it online. Since he likes it so much and all. I call him my little monkey, heh heh.”

  “That’s so sweet!” Natalie squeals. “I love pet names.”

  Tori — 1, Sienna — 0

  “Do you guys have pet names too, Sienna?” Avery asks.

  “Well, uh . . .” Sea hesitates. “Not really, I guess.”

  “You totally should,” I say. “Not that I’m a relationship expert or anything, but I find it gives us an extra special connection, you know?” If anyone would understand how special the connection with your fake boyfriend is, it would be Sea.

  Sea doesn’t say anything. She looks momentarily uncomfortable and concentrates on her yogurt cup, scraping at the bottom. Avery, Natalie, and Maya start talking about this morning’s dance practice. They’re on the squad together. I briefly try to look interested in what they’re saying, but even I can’t fake that. I wouldn’t know a floor combo from a mambo.

  Sea scoops up the last bit of her yogurt and examines my lunch tray. “Hey, it’s pizza day and you didn’t get a slice. Are you on a diet or something?”

  “Me? Diet? When have you ever known me to reject food? Nah. I’m having pizza tonight at Daphne’s, so I thought I’d skip it for lunch.”

  “Oh. You’re going to Daphne’s?” Sea blinks at me, and her bottom lip pouts out.

  She’s jealous. Sheesh. I feel bad now. Like I shouldn’t have other friends or go anywhere without her or something. Which I guess I could sorta see. She is the reason I have the new friends.

  “It’s not like we’re friend friends,” I say, trying to make her feel better. “I mean, I don’t know them very well or anything. I would totally rather hang out with you, but you said you had that Skype date with Antonio tonight, right?”

  Sea looks confused.

  “You told me this morning that you and Antonio were going to watch a movie and chat at the same time over Skype. Remember?” Oh my god, there’s no date. Well, duh, logically I knew there was no date since Antonio is fake and all, but ugh, sometimes this real boyfriend/fake boyfriend stuff gets so confusing. I forgot Antonio wasn’t real for a moment.

  “Oh, yeah, you’re right. I almost forgot,” she says.

  Oh, man. She didn’t even remember that she had an online date tonight. Now she’s going to be sitting home alone feeling bad while I’m having fun with Daphne and Bella. I need to give her an out so she can come hang out with us and forget this fake date nonsense.

  “Sea, maybe Antonio and you can do your date on another night? That way you can come with me. It’ll be fun!” There. That was very nice of me. Very mature. I pretended Antonio was real and I’m giving her the chance to break her fake date and hang with us rather than admit she’s been lying about him since day one.

  Sienna thinks about my offer, then finally replies, “Nah. I better keep my date. I really miss Antonio, and I know he’s been looking forward to our date too.”

  I try to smile, but in my head all I can hear is Argh! She is so frustrating with this stuff.

  11

  “Thanks for the ride, Mom,” I say as we pull into Daphne’s driveway. Her house is a small brick split-level with lots of big oak and maple trees in the front yard. The kind I used to climb up into on spring afternoons and read a book in until the sun went down. When I was much younger, of course. I’m too old for tree-climbing now.

  “No problem, sweetie,” Mom replies. “It’s good to see you making new friends.” She puts the car in park.

  “Um, whatcha doing?”

  “Coming in to meet Mrs. Mason, of course.”

  “Mo-om,” I groan. “Don’t embarrass me.”

  “When have I ever embarrassed you?” she asks.

  I raise one eyebrow and stare at her, not blinking.

  “All right, all right, I won’t embarrass you. Come on.”

  I follow Mom up Daphne’s cracked sidewalk and hang back while she rings the doorbell. I turn around and stare up into the leaves of a giant maple tree. They’ll be turning a pretty orange soon. The tree reminds me of the time when Sea and I were in fourth grade and were at my house making leaf rubs. We collected all kinds of leaves and sat at the kitchen counter with colored pencils and pieces of paper. We put the paper over different leaves and colored over them with the pencils, lightly, until the imprint of each leaf appeared on the paper.

  Sienna was looking out the window and said she spotted the perfect leaf at the top of our old maple in the front yard. I don’t know what was so special about it—they all looked the same to me. But she had to have it. We went outside, and I watched Sea climb to the top of the tree and snatch the leaf from its branch. And then proceed to freak out. Her face went pale and she hugged the branch closest to her. At first I giggled because she looked so darn funny up there. But soon I realized she wasn’t playing and wouldn’t be coming down on her own.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I did the first thing that came to my mind. I climbed up there after her.

  “Sea, come on,” I said when I reached her. “I’m right behind you. Start making your way back down.”

  “No! I can’t move. We’re too high,” she said.

  “Sea, you’ve got to move. We can’t live in this tree forever. Well, if we were squirrels we could. But even then we’d have to climb down for nuts. Unless you made me do the nut gathering. Though I don’t want that kind of living situation where I’m the one doing all the work. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Tori!” Sea yelled in a shaky voice. “Don’t make me laugh. I’ll lose my grip.”

  “Well, don’t go and do that. I’m underneath you and you’ll squash me,” I said.

  “Tori!” Sea let out a small giggle.

  I reached my hand up over my head. “Come on. Grab my hand. You know I have the grip of an orangutan so I’m not going to fall. I’ll help you down.”

  Sea considered this and then nodded. “Okay, but don’t let go.” She peeled her left hand away from the branch and reached down. I grabbed it.

  We proceeded down the tree. It was really difficult considering her position right over my head, but I never let go of her hand and we didn’t fall. And once we were on the ground, Sea swore she was never climbing another tree for as long as she lived.

  “Tori!” a giddy voice squeals.

  I turn around, startled. “Hey, Daphne.” I break into a big smile.

  “Are you coming in? Your mom is in the living room talking to my mom. You were just standing out here, staring at my tree.”

  I shrug and follow her inside. “Yeah, I like trees.”

  Ten minutes later I’m sitting cross-legged on Daphne’s pink bedspread in her bedroom. Giggling. It’s funny how comfortable I am here with them when only last year they never would have talked to me.

  “Oh, you loved it!” Bella says, playfully slapping Daphne’s shoulder.

  “I did not,” Daphne says, indignant. Then suddenly she breaks out in a grin. “Okay, you’re right. I loved it!” The three of us are laughing now. “You would too, though! Don’t lie!”

  “Duh,” Bella returns. She’s referring to earlier today when Joshua Neville tripped in the library and landed right in Daphne’s lap. Joshua is an eighth-grade foreign exchange student with a fantastic French accent. Most of the girls think he’s cute, but he just keeps to himself. I don’t think his English is all that great.

  “So how are we going to expose Wittler?” Daphne asks, getting down to business.

  “We could wait until the next time she’s drunk in class, ask for a hall pass to the bathroom, and go get the principal,” I say. “Then she could see for herself.”

  Bella shakes her head. “Nope. I don’t want anyone finding out we snitched.”

  “But they won’t,�
� I protest.

  “Bella’s right,” Daphne agrees. “People will put two and two together and know it was whoever left the room last. No, we have to give Principal Brown proof but without her knowing it comes from us.”

  “Like an anonymous letter?”

  “Yeah,” Daphne says. “But not a letter. She might not believe a letter. We have to give her good, solid proof.”

  I cross my arms and think. “If only we could figure out how.” The room is quiet, and I can hear the numbers on the old digital alarm clock on the nightstand flip.

  Daphne suddenly sits up straighter, a grin spreading across her face. “Bella, your brother still works at Anderson’s Groceries, right?”

  Bella nods.

  Daphne rubs her hands together. “I think I’ve got it.”

  12

  I pull back the living room curtains and peek out the window for the tenth time in the last five minutes. Sienna’s mom should be dropping her off any minute now for our sleepover. Mom’s in her room reading a book. She’s been really great. She bought all of our old favorite things—frozen pizza, potato chips and dip, and a roll of cookie dough. Yeah, I know Sea hasn’t been eating anything but bird food lately, but once she sees our old favorites I’m sure she’ll cave in and have some. I also pulled our favorite Lindsay Lohan DVDs off the entertainment center shelf for us to watch. Sea and I love Lindsay’s old movies but would never admit that to anyone else. I figure it’s one more thing to remind Sea that I am her best friend and I know the real her. Dad’s right—tonight everything is going to go back to real: pre–Keys vacation, pre–hair extensions, and pre–fake boyfriends.

  I peek out the window again and see Sienna’s mom’s shiny new Beemer pull into the driveway. “She’s here!” I yell to Mom, and swing open the door.

  Sienna gives her mom a quick kiss on the cheek, jumps out of the passenger door, and runs up my front walk. Even though we’re just having a girls’ night, Sienna looks completely adorable. She’s got her glossy hair up in a high pony, and she’s wearing hot pink and black layered tees and black yoga pants with some pink lettering on the butt. I’m wearing my dad’s Art Institute of Chicago T-shirt, circa 1980, and a pair of his old flannel boxers, circa I didn’t care to ask. They are comfy, and I found them in the back of his old dresser drawer like six months after he moved out.