Nevermore

“I’m jealous, you know.”

Isobel’s head popped up, eyes angled toward Nikki, who smiled at her. A sweet and sad sort of smile. Isobel was guarded. “What do you mean?”

Nikki shook her head, her eyes glistening. She swept a manicured thumb at each, then laughed instead. “Everyone’s jealous of you, Isobel.”

Isobel blinked several times, uncertain how to react.

“But I’m jealous because . . . well, because I’ve never known what it feels like to be in love.”

Isobel stiffened. All at once, she ceased to breathe.

“Oh,” said Nikki, laughing. She swept at her eyes again, this time with the knuckle of her first finger, trying to save her mascara. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re not that clueless.”

She laughed harder then, though, Isobel thought, more in an effort to keep from crying.

“I guess maybe you are,” Nikki amended, taking in the stricken look on Isobel’s face. “At least for once I’m not the last one to know something.” She laughed genuinely now, and her mirth was so contagious, the weight of her words so startlingly plain, that in spite of everything, Isobel found that she had to laugh too.

In love. In love with the stoic, the sullen, the eternally morose Varen Nethers?

He would never allow it.

Isobel sobered quickly. Suddenly the prospect of seeing him became terrifying, because she knew it was true and that the only way she’d hidden it from him before was because she had never allowed herself to put her feelings into words. And Nikki, the least perceptive being on this planet, had seen through it all.

“Hey, Izzy!”

Isobel jumped, nearly bouncing off the bench. She and Nikki both swung around.

Isobel’s dad was there, leaning against the fence. He waved her over.

Isobel stood, murmuring, “Be right back,” to Nikki, who remained where she was while Isobel jogged to meet her father. She was glad for an excuse to leave the bench, glad for a moment to recover.

“What’s going on with you guys tonight? You’re choking out there. Major.”

“What?” Was he talking about the squad? She hadn’t been paying attention.

“You guys are losing. Big-time. Haven’t you been watching the score?” He pointed.

Were they really losing? Isobel scanned the scoreboard. Wow. Thirty-one to zero. They were losing.

“Hey, what’s the deal with Brad out there?”

“Brad?”

“Yeah.” He folded his arms over the top of the fence, trying to act nonchalant now that he’d brought up the B word. “Didn’t you see him drop the ball? Have you been sleeping out there on that bench or what? This is the worst I think I’ve ever seen him play.”

Isobel looked around for Brad now. She saw him standing with the team on the sidelines, filling up a cup of water and pouring it down his shirt, despite the chill of the fifty-degree night.

While the rest of the team headed for the locker rooms, Coach Logan, his face purple, stood two heads below Brad, berating him the way a yappy dog might bark at a squirrel up a tree.

“Sheesh. Looks like Coach is really laying it on thick,” Isobel’s dad said. “Hey, Iz, I’m not trying to get in the middle of things here, but maybe you should go talk to him. See what’s going on?”

“Isobel! There you are!”

Isobel turned her head, her eyes narrowing on the blue-and-gold-decked, pom-pom-pigtailed stranger who now bounced toward her along the other side of the fence. Holy cheer catastrophes—it was Gwen.

“Isobel!” she shrieked again, and bounded to a stop beside her dad. She threw her arms over her head, the sleeves of her impossibly huge sweatshirt waggling—no, Isobel corrected as she took note of the yellow T—the sleeves of Stevie’s impossibly huge sweatshirt. Isobel stepped back from the fence to give Gwen an astonished once-over. She’d never once seen her friend in a pair of pants, let alone anything resembling school colors (did Gwen even own a pair of pants?). After closer scrutiny, Isobel couldn’t help but notice a certain familiarity about the Trenton sweats she wore. They looked a lot like the ones she herself had shed earlier in the locker room. And then there were the long pigtails, held up by a set of equally familiar blue and gold pom-pom hair-ties. Suddenly it was easy to figure out where Gwen had been all this time.

“Omigosh, is this your dad? Hey, Mr. Lanley!” Gwen slung one wiry arm around his shoulders.

“Um, yeah,” Isobel began, not sure where Gwen was going with this, “Dad, this is Gwen. She’s, uh . . . she’s . . .” Mentally whacked, Isobel wanted to say.

“I’m the mascot escort,” said Gwen. She flashed her perfectly straight white teeth in a wide grin. “I babysit the mascot,” she added.

“Ah,” Dad began. He twisted to look around as much as Gwen’s friendly grip on his shoulders would allow. “Where is the mascot, then?”

“Oh, he’s around here somewhere . . . molting or something, I dunno. So, Iz, are you coming to my victory party or what? You never answered my Facebook invite.”

“Victory party?” her dad echoed.

All at once, Gwen’s genius dawned on her.

“Ohh,” Isobel chimed in, sounding appropriately glum. “I forgot to respond. I haven’t been online much because I’ve been really busy trying to finish that English project, y’know?

Anyway, Gwen, I don’t think I can go.”

“What?” Gwen deflated, her face crumbling in an instant. For added emphasis, she let her arm slip from Dad’s shoulders, where it flopped against her side. “Why not? Didn’t you get the project done?”

Isobel shrugged. “I got it done. I mean, thanks to Dad. I just . . .” She sent a pitiful glance to her father. Yes, she thought, catching a glimmer of indecision in his eyes. They just had to play it up a little more. “I just don’t know if I can.”

“Oohhhh,” Gwen said, looking between Isobel and her dad, feigning sudden understanding.

“How can you have a victory party if your team’s losing?” her dad asked.

“Wait, we’re losing?” Gwen craned her neck in search of the scoreboard.

“Where’s this party going to be?”

Isobel sprang on her chance. “Omigosh, Dad, for real, can I go?”

“Yeah, Dad, for real, can she go?”

“I just asked where it was going to be—”

“My house,” Gwen said, “all-girls’ sleepover, no guys allowed.”

“Are your parents going to be there?”

“Oh, they’re there right now, setting up the karaoke machine.” Gwen mimed holding a microphone and swayed against Isobel’s father. “Fame! I’m gonna live forever—take it away, Mr. Lanley.”

Isobel’s dad set a hand on Gwen’s offered fist, gently pushing it down from his face. “Who else is going?”

Gwen pointed at the figure waiting on the bench. “She is.”

“Nikki is going?” he asked, looking at Isobel, surprised. “I thought you two were on the fritz.”

“Oh,” Isobel said. She saw Nikki rise from the bench and start over toward them, probably at hearing her name. Thinking fast, Isobel blurted, “We made up.”

“Nikki!” shouted Gwen. “You’re coming, right?”

“What?” she called back, eyeing Gwen’s getup.

“To the party,” Isobel said, nodding, trying to communicate meaning through her eyes. Despite her recent show of perceptiveness, Isobel couldn’t see Nikki picking up the clue phone to get the message. “You know,” Isobel went on, “the party Gwen’s having tonight.”

“You’re having a party?” Nikki asked, studying Gwen. “Hey, isn’t that Stevie’s sweatshirt?”

Uh-oh.

“Dad might let me go now,” said Isobel, nodding again. Lots of nodding.

Nikki’s eyes remained on Isobel’s, searching, things still not fully clicking. “Well . . . okay,” she said