Josie doesn't know Mindy very well, so she calls Nic over to confront him about it.
"Is it true Mindy Andrews is your girlfriend?" she demands immediately. Nic starts to say something, but Josie cuts him off.
"Don't get me wrong, this isn't some jealousy thing," she says. "I don't care if you want to date Mindy, but I can't have her texting me and everyone else in school at the ass-crack of dawn saying that I'm some kind of... boyfriend-stealer!" Josie is not a morning person.
"Listen, just calm down," Nic says. "Mindy and I aren't serious! We just hung out a couple of times, we barely did anything, I don't know why she's spreading rumors about us but they're not true."
Josie scoffs. "Mindy is as pure as driven snow, she's not the type to spread things that aren't true. She's heartbroken, Frio, there has to be a reason why."
"It must be a misunderstanding," Nicholaus says breezily. "She obviously thought there was more to us than there is. It's no big deal!"
"It is a big deal," Josie insists, coloring. "Either call her and tell her you're not serious about her, or we have to stop hanging out, because I hate cheaters, and I absolutely won't be party to hurting poor goody-two-shoes Mindy Andrews's feelings. OK? Especially when she's saying crap about me that I didn't even do. This is your mess, Frio."
Nic winces. "All right, all right, I'll call her. Just... quit calling me Frio, jeez."
As he's dialing Mindy's number, he looks hopefully over at Josie. "You're still going to prom with me tomorrow, though, right?"
Josie scowls. They hadn't talked about prom at all. "If you manage to clean this up, I'll think about it," she snaps. Nicholaus rolls his eyes and grumbles, falling silent when Josie sends him a withering look.
As Nic's phone rings, Josie wanders inside to get some breakfast. Finally, after several minutes, Nic calls her name. "It's done," he says. "I think she's pretty mad at you, though."
Josie groans. "This isn't my fault," she grumbles, then sighs. "All right, a deal's a deal. You can take me to prom, I guess. And I don't care if you fool around with other girls, but you gotta make it absolutely clear to them that you're not their boyfriend, or else you can just forget it and I'll go with Jeb Alto instead."
Nic grins. "Nice! How about a kiss?"
Josie smirks. "I'm going back to bed, Frio, you can kiss me tomorrow." She saunters back into the house and makes a beeline for her bed. It is way too early to be dealing with idiot boys, no matter how good they are at kissing.
Several hours later, Josie wakes up to six new angry voicemails from Mindy Andrews. She sighs and wanders outside where her mother is playing Gnubb; maybe Ida will be sympathetic to Josie's predicament.
Or not. "How could you do that to poor Mindy Andrews? You can't just go around treating people like garbage, especially sweet girls like Mindy!"
"Mom, what the hell! First of all, I didn't do anything to Mindy Andrews! Second of all, Mindy may be sweet and good but she's never been anything but rude and a bore at my parties! Third of all, how did you even know?"
"Her mother is one of my oldest friends, Josie, and she told me Mindy is heartbroken, has been crying all day, and it's all because of you!"
Josie scoffs. "It's not my fault! She deluded herself into thinking Nic was her boyfriend, even though everyone knows he's got serious commitment issues because of his weird family, and even though he's the most blatantly flirty boy in school! She can't blame it all on me, all I did was tell Nic to be honest with her so she would stop spreading lies about me!"
Ida narrows her eyes at her daughter. "You are being very selfish, Josie. All you care about is your reputation? What about Mindy? What about her feelings?"
Josie pinches the bridge of her nose, frustrated and upset. "God, Mom, Mindy Andrews's feelings are not my responsibility! I can't control how she reacts! Was I supposed to just let her go on thinking Nic was her exclusive boyfriend while he's also dating me and flirting with practically the whole school? If she wants to blame me and be angry and heartbroken or whatever, that's her problem, not mine!"
Ida just looks at her daughter. "When are you going to start thinking of someone other than yourself?" she asks before turning and walking away.
This is the first time Josie's had a fight with her mother, who's always been rather lax and indulgent in her parenting style. Josie decides she really hates fighting with people she loves.
Desperate for comfort, she calls up Jami Bunch.
"You're not mad at me too, are you?"
She meets Jami at the park. "You know I love you no matter what," Jami says, "but don't you think you could have been nicer about the whole thing?"
Josie is so frustrated she could scream. "How? What am I supposed to have done?"
Jami frowns. "Well, I guess... if you're asking... maybe you could have gone to Mindy yourself? And, you know, not agreed to go to prom with him? Since he apparently was really harsh to Mindy when he broke up with her and didn't ever say anything to let her know he wasn't that into her..."
Josie blows out a breath. "I never thought of that," she admits. "But I want to go to prom with him. Is that such a crime? Just because he's an ass, I'm not allowed to go to prom with him? That's hardly fair. Why am I the jerk?"
Jami shifts around awkwardly. She's a nice girl, and she wants to support her friend, but she really does disagree about this. "Well, you're not a jerk really, but I guess Mindy just thought you would support her rather than keep hanging with him, you know?"
Josie sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. Jami is making some sense, she has to admit it, but...
"But Mindy Andrews was never nice to me!" she blurts out, wincing at how pathetic the words sound. Jami raises her eyebrows. "I mean... she never liked my parties," Josie mutters. "She left early when I invited her to my sleepover, even though we weren't even friends and I was doing her a favor by inviting her!"
The girls have been walking towards the park fountain, and spot Lyndsey Alvi (her name has changed now that her mother Kaylynn has remarried again) and Josie's Aunt Rain.
"You agree with me, right Lyndsey?" Josie implores after they explain the situation to her. Lyndsey shrugs.
"Yeah, I guess. Personally, I don't like Mindy Andrews much anyway," Lyndsey says. "She's standoffish, and she never shares her snacks with me at lunchtime." Lyndsey has the mooch trait - her mother does a poor job of providing for her, so she often has to rely on her friends for food and money. "Shoot, what time is it?"
Lyndsey and Jami have to run off to work - they both have jobs at the Day Spa - but Josie, who is in both Drama club and Music club and doesn't have time to work, stays behind and hangs out with her aunt a bit.
"What do you think, Aunt Rain?"
"I think a beautiful, talented girl like you should put boys to the side until you're out of school and have a steady job, and only then should you start dating, and only one guy at a time, and also you should wait till marriage to woohoo."
Josie rolls her eyes. "I'm sorry I asked," she snits, and stomps away.
Anyway, prom rolls around and Josie is determined to make things right at school. She will apologize publicly to Mindy Andrews and even chew out Nic Frio if she has to, although she'd really rather not because he is a really good kisser and she does like hanging out with him. She just wants to be friends with everyone, really. Is that so much to ask?
She gets herself ready and gives herself a pep talk as she dances to her favorite album and waits for Nic. He shows up at the last minute and they race off in the limo.
"Of course I'm pleased! Nice going, Mom!" But she's tired and doesn't have the energy to celebrate just now, so Ida lets her go to bed and runs off to find Alexander and tell him the good news.
"I'm assuming you're going to change at the school?"
During the ride, Josie gives Nic a lecture about behaving nicely at the party and toning down the flirting, to give poor Mindy a break. Nic just shrugs. "Yeah, sure, whatever."
While Josie is at prom, Ida sneaks up behind Marlin while he's painting and gives him a tight hug. When he turns, she pulls him down for a passionate kiss.
"Wow," he laughs breathlessly when they finally break for air. "Is something the matter?"
"No," says Ida. "It's just... I love you. Like, a lot."
"Okay... I love you too..."
"And I wanted to know.. well... would you want to get married? To me? I think I want to. I don't want to be apart from you ever again, and I want you... I want you to be my husband. I know, marriage is dumb and weird, and I can't explain it, but I just... really really want you to be my husband. Will you?"
Marlin is overwhelmed with tears and can only nod and hold out his hand for the ring. "Yes," he whispers hoarsely.
"I love you."
"I love you."
~Meanwhile! At prom...
Prom is beautiful, absolutely stunning, but Josie has other things on her mind. She makes her way directly to Mindy Andrews, where she is hanging out with a group of slightly-younger students. Josie's practiced this speech for hours at home, she knows exactly what she's going to say to win Mindy's forgiveness, but the minute she opens her mouth to speak Mindy starts snubbing her. She won't even hear what Josie has to say! Frustrated and, although she'd never admit it, more than a little hurt, Josie finds solace in Nic Frio's arms.
Or more like, his lips. They spend the evening wrapped around each other, alternately dancing and finding dark corners to feel each other up in, only emerging so that Josie can accept her Prom Queen title. She may be having a spat with Mindy Andrews but she knows everybody in school and pretty much everyone calls her a friend, so she's a shoe-in for the crown.
Prom was perfect, should have been an altogether flawless night, but Josie returns home feeling distressed and restless. She doesn't even like Mindy Andrews, but her rejection really, really stings. She can only hope her mother's gotten over being angry at her because she doesn't think she could stand that same rejection from home too.
She comes home to her dad clinging to her mom like some kind of barnacle, and her mom's favorite song playing on the speakers.
"Um... what's going on?" she asks cautiously, following her mother into the hallway. Ida giggles (giggles!) and shushes her.
"Shhhh, I haven't told your grandfather yet, so dont shout or anything, but your father and I are getting married!"
Ida is shocked; she'd fantasized about it for most of her life - her parents together for life, the way a real family should be. But she'd never actually thought it would happen. She's immensely pleased, of course, and all thoughts of their previous fight and Mindy Andrews's rebuffs fly out of her head. Well, mostly.
"Are you pleased?" asks Ida anxiously. Josie smiles and gives her a thumbs up.
Alex is so proud of his little girl. He only wishes Shanti could have seen it finally happen...
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Notes -
A bit shorter, today, I'm having writer's block again. The way I deal with writer's block is to just power through it and not worry about the consequences, so again this chapter might not be as good. It was hard to write >.>
Josie's not actually a jerk, she's just a little selfish and entitled (her family is very rich, after all), and secretly quite sensitive. I love her a lot, she's my baby.
Three cheers for Ida and Marlin!!!
All that over Nic Frio, who doesn't even have a chin. xD
ReplyDeleteI'm with Rain, Josie should put boys aside for a while, and wait 'til marriage for woohoo, of course!
Congrats to Ida and Marlin!