THE RANGE ROVER
Thursday, October 8th
7:38 P.M.
Rush hour traffic was worse that usual.
Or maybe it just seemed that way because Massie’s mind was speeding and the Range Rover was not. Through her tears, red brake lights blurred like they were being examined through a shifting kaleidoscope.
Is loyalty too much to expect from a best friend? How about honesty? Or . . . loyalty!
“You already said loyalty,” Isaac, her driver, kindly noted.
“Oh.” Massie sniffled, realizing she must have been talking aloud. “I just can’t believe she’s friends with Layme!”
“What’s wrong with Layne?” Isaac’s caring blue eyes found hers in the rearview mirror. “Claire thinks the world of her.”
Massie curled up against the door. “Nawt the point.” She pinky-dabbed a mascara-booger and wiped it under the tan leather seat. “The point is, she never told me.”
“What would you have said if she had?”
“Well, we’ll never know now, will we?” Massie sniffled.
Isaac snickered, not quite buying it. “So are you upset that she and Layne are friends or that she didn’t tell you?”
The car inched forward.
“Both.” Massie wiped her cheeks. “And the fact that Layne is stealing my friends. And that she likes Dempsey. And that she’ll probably get him now that she has Claire and Kristen on her side. And that I’m supposed to know everything about everyone and I didn’t know this. And that being excluded from a secret makes me an LBR, especially since the secret was about me!”
“Massie,” Isaac began with that tone he saved for his “things will be better in the morning” lectures.
“Whatevs,” she cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” With you! she added silently.
Massie speed-texted Alicia.
Massie: ? r u doing? 
She took a deep, calming breath while she waited for a response, thankful that she could mask her despair behind an emotionally ambiguous font and a smiley face.
Alicia: Homework. 
Massie tried Dylan next but got no response. And then Claire who—shocker—was IM-studying with Cam for the third night in a row.
Gawd, was nothing sacred? She swatted her BFFWC key chain as if her pitiful loneliness were all its fault. Hadn’t they pledged “PC support, day or night”? And wasn’t now night?!
Massie leaned forward. “Rivera estate,” she muttered weakly.
Isaac craned his neck to face her. “Don’t you have schoolwork?”
“Yeah,” she breathed against the window. “Social studies. And I need Alicia’s help.”
Mrs. Rivera greeted Massie warmly, almost like she’d been expecting her. “Alicia is in the dance studio.” She gestured toward the back garden with a perma-tanned arm, the smell of freesia sprinkling off her like fairy dust.
“Doing homework?”
She ran her long red fingernails through her damp dark hair. “I doubt it.”
Adrenaline prickled Massie’s spine like a bee sting. Something was off. She could tell. And it rubbed her like an itchy label in a new sweater.
Denying her instincts, Massie hurried outside as if nothing was wrong. As if she and Alicia hadn’t been fighting all week. As if pretending everything was normal could actually make it that way.
Jingling along the flagstone path, Massie was feeling little and sad. Almost flulike. Her head throbbed. Her eyes burned. And her stomach was closed for business.
Swollen from crying, yet out of tears, she was driven by the primal need to be comforted by her best friend. To have her sorrow validated. To hear from someone other than Bean that Kristen was two-faced; that Dempsey would never like Layne; and that in a billion years, Alicia would never do anything that backstabbingly backstabbing to her.
If Massie could just hear those things, her alpha spirit would soar once again and Isaac would be right. Tomorrow would be a better day.
Festive whooping from the song “Live Your Life” escaped through the open windows of the garage-size dance studio. Alicia had obviously finished her homework. Meaning, she’d be able to focus 110 percent on Massie.
Ignoring the DO NOT DISTURB sign, Massie thumb-pressed the iron handle. But the door was locked. “Leeesh!” she called over Rihanna’s pinched robotic voice. But the song was too loud.
“Leeeeesh!” She slammed the heart-shaped knocker.
The music stopped suddenly. The sound of feet scrambling across the hardwood floor was as unmistakable as the shush-ing.
Ehmagawd! A surprise party!
Had the Kristen betrayal thing been part of the setup? Had Dylan been told to ignore her call? Had Claire been supposed to say she was IM-studying with Cam? Was Isaac in on it too? That had to be the case! Nothing else made sense.
Massie fumbled around her GREEN IS THE NEW BLACK tote in search of gloss, cheek stain, and Alicia’s dance studio key.
Ha! Who’s gonna be surprised now?