Foiled Page 3

  “Everyone messes up sometimes. Jill—that’s the woman’s name—is fine, and I’m sure she’ll come back again. So don’t sweat it, okay?”

  That made me feel better—still guilty, but better. “Thanks, Devon.”

  Things finally settled down. Jill left, twitching her eye at me and loaded down with on-the-house shampoo and conditioner as well as gift cards for a new manicure and style on the house.

  “Hey, Mickey?” Megan called from the front. She set a box on the accessories counter, took out a pair of scissors, and cut open the top. “Want to put these out for me?”

  “Sure,” I said. I barely noticed the accessories as I took them out of the box. (Okay, that’s a lie. Even in my shame from physically harming a client I noticed how cute the military-inspired striped barrettes were.) As I put them in the case, Lizbeth came up. Karen, who was totally scolding me with her eyes, had finished Lizbeth’s manicure—also on the house. Mom had given away a lot of business today, all because of me.

  “So,” Lizbeth began as she watched me put an old-fashioned tortoiseshell comb in the display case. “That was kind of crazy, huh?”

  “I can’t believe I did that,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m very good at messing things up, but that was a whole new level for me. I feel awful.”

  She smiled a pity smile at me. “She’s fine,” Lizbeth said, picking up a black crystal barrette and inspecting it before I put it in the case. “Seriously. I think she was kind of overreacting.”

  I sniffed. “Lizbeth, you’re too nice. I’m sure it was pretty uncomfortable and borderline scary. I was practically bawling. You, though—you were so good with her. You were the calmest one here. Calmer even than my mom. She was ready to rip my head off.”

  “It’s funny. She mentioned that, too—how calm I was, I mean. Not about the head-ripping,” Lizbeth said. “She said that any employer I get for Career Ex would be lucky to have me because I’m quick on my feet. Or something like that,” she added as if the exact words didn’t matter. Judging by her flushed cheeks, though, I was pretty sure that she was flattered.

  “Did you tell her how utterly excited you are about working at your mom’s firm?” I smiled.

  “Yeah, like, so excited,” she said. “Well, I guess I better get going.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Hey, your nails look really good.” The sheer purple was subtle and looked great against her skin.

  “Thanks,” she said, looking down at them. “See you tomorrow at school.”

  As I watched Lizbeth leave, I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach—it probably had something to do with what I’d done to Jill. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was still messing up at work, and I felt Mom’s eyes on me more than ever. Mom didn’t let screwups work in her salon, and I hoped she didn’t decide I was one of them.

  CHAPTER 5

  That evening, Mom stood before me in the kitchen in classic angry-mom stance: feet set wide apart, hands on hips, scowl on face.

  “Mikaela.”

  Oh, if I had a fiver for every time she called me by my full name.

  “I thought you were done with these sorts of mistakes,” she said.

  The kitchen table was set for a lasagna dinner. On a normal day, I’d be ready to devour half the casserole dish. Today . . . not so much.

  “Mom, it was an accident. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand that, Mickey, but I don’t want word getting around that this kind of thing happens in my salon. Do you understand that?”

  It was like someone hit the replay button: Mom was disappointed in me—again. She was angry with me—again.

  “I know,” I began. “I’ll be more careful and not ever mess up one more time.” I thought of Jill’s twitching eye and oh, brother, the tears started welling up in my eyes. “She’s okay, though, right? The woman—Jill?”

  Mom sighed, shaking her head. “She’s fine, honey. Thank goodness Lizbeth reacted so quickly, though. She was great.”

  Mom sat down at the table as Dad brought over the just-mixed garlic butter.

  “You girls hungry?” Dad asked.

  “It looks amazing,” Mom said, and it did. It’s just that my stomach was in knots from all that had happened. “I was thinking,” she began. I stood, waiting for her to finish with of sending you to boarding school in Switzerland to make sure you don’t ruin my business. Instead she used the toe of her shoe to push out my chair. “Relax, honey,” she interjected. She could obviously tell how stressed I was. “Have a seat. Look at this great dinner Dad made us.”

  I sat down. Maybe she wasn’t going to fire me. Of all the things I thought she’d say next, though, I never thought she’d say this.

  “I was thinking,” Mom said again, “of Lizbeth and your Career Exploration class. I’m happy to see you making so many new friends.”

  “Yeah. I’m glad I’m making new girl friends, too. It’s like Jonah’s cool,” I said, “but he never lets me do his nails.”

  She smiled. “I asked Lizbeth what she was doing for the class, and she said she was working at her mom’s law office, but honestly, she didn’t seem very excited about it.”

  I took a slice of bread and smeared the garlic butter on it. Taking a big bite, I said, “She’s not, but she doesn’t know what else to do. If she doesn’t have something by tomorrow they’ll make her choose from this horrible list of jobs, and she could end up doing something worse than filing papers in some office.”

  “Well, I was thinking,” Mom said, “what if she worked at the salon? You’d have to stay focused on your work there, but wouldn’t that be fun for the two of you?” When I looked at her I saw a little glint in her eyes.

  “Really?” I asked. Not only was I relieved that I wasn’t being shipped off to Europe, but I was incredibly excited about what she was saying. Me and Lizbeth, working together? My mind raced with all the fun we’d have. I loved my job already, but if one of my friends was there, too, it’d be even better! We could walk to work together from school, go to CJ’s on our breaks to get hot chocolate and iced cookies, and be the first to test the new nail polish colors—legally this time, of course. Not long ago I had “borrowed” some new samples and given them to Kristen and Lizbeth. When they went missing, everyone freaked, Mom found out, and I got in huge trouble. But I was past all that now and totally responsible.

  “Be Gorgeous has really taken off,” Mom continued. “We’re busier than ever, and Saturdays are almost more than we can handle. I could use the extra help. What do you think of having Lizbeth do her assignment with us at the salon?”

  A grin spread across Mom’s face. And then, I couldn’t help myself—I sprang from my chair and threw my arms around her neck.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” she laughed.

  “Mom, thank you!” I said.

  “Just remember,” she began, “this isn’t an invitation for you to slack off. If there’s any indication that the two of you are goofing around—”

  “I promise, I swear, I assure you there won’t be!” I said. “Can I please be excused to go call Lizbeth and tell her?”

  Mom said okay, and I took off running for the stairs to my room. As soon as Lizbeth answered I said, “Oh my gosh, guess what?”

  She laughed. “You’ve just been nominated to host your own styling show?”

  “I wish,” I said. “No, listen. It’s about Career Ex.” Lizbeth groaned. “What do you think,” I said, then paused for dramatic effect. “Of doing your assignment . . . at Hello, Gorgeous!?”

  “Wait,” Lizbeth said. “Are you serious?”

  “Totally,” I said. “My mom just told me. So what do you think? You want to? You do want to, don’t you?” In my mind I couldn’t imagine any sane person not wanting to work at Hello, Gorgeous!, but maybe Lizbeth was secretly excited about doing legal stuff with her mom.

  “I don’t know,” Lizbeth said. “I was really looking forward to making photocopies for hours on end.”

  I laughed,
relieved. “So you’re in?”

  “Most definitely,” she said.

  “Awesome,” I said. “We’re going to have so much fun!”

  I told her my mom would call her mom later to work out the details, and when we got off the phone I felt the disaster of the afternoon slip completely away.

  The next morning, after Jonah crashed breakfast like he normally does, we started our walk to school.

  “So,” I said as we walked down the tree-lined street. “How’d Saturday go at the skate shop? They going to let you work there?”

  “Well, it’s, you know . . . ,” he stammered. “It’s a little complicated and, um . . .”

  I had a feeling things at the skate shop weren’t as solid as Jonah had thought. “I thought you had the whole thing locked in?”

  Jonah groaned, shoulders slumping. “I went there and the owner told me that about ten guys had already stopped by looking for a job that was already taken.”

  “I thought it was you who’d taken the job? You said it was all set.”

  “Can we please not talk about it?” he said, tugging on his backpack.

  “Now you’re going to get stuck with whatever’s on that list,” I said. “You might end up working for, like, the funeral home, putting makeup on dead bodies.” I shivered. I loved playing with makeup, but that was a bit much—even for me.

  “Actually, that’d be kind of cool. Is that one of the choices?” Which is just what you’d expect Jonah—or any guy, I suppose—to say.

  Later that morning, three homeroom classes gathered in the Little Theater—a small assembly hall at our school—to officially kick-start Career Exploration. When I got there, I spotted Jonah sitting with Kyle—they had the same homeroom so they probably came in together. There weren’t any seats next to them, but the row behind them was practically empty. I sat down and thumped Jonah on the back of the head.

  “Hey,” he said, turning to face me. Kyle did, too.

  “What’s up, Mickey?” Kyle asked.

  For some reason I became tongue-tied. Probably because of that crazy thought I had—you know, the one where I thought Kyle was cute? It made me want to say something clever back to him, but all I could get out was, “Nothing.”

  “There’s your friend,” Jonah said, nodding behind me. I was grateful for the distraction from those five seconds of total awkwardness of Kyle looking at me and talking to me—whatever that was about.

  I turned to see Eve walking down the aisle, her white-blond hair pulled back in a slick ponytail.

  “Hi!” She sat on the end seat beside me. “Are you guys excited? Is it nerdy that I am?”

  “Yeah,” Jonah said, but he was smiling. Those two had a weird something between them. It was clear that they liked each other—as in liked liked—but so far they hadn’t admitted they liked each other. Then again, I didn’t exactly know the rules of how these things worked.

  “Your nails still look amazing,” I told Eve, inspecting them. “Not a single chip.”

  “I’ve been really careful with them. I actually told my mom I couldn’t rinse off the dishes because it might interfere with my manicure.”

  I laughed. “Did she go for it?”

  “No, but she gave me a pair of these hideous yellow gloves to wear, like I was about to handle nuclear waste.”

  Soon, Lizbeth and Kristen came down the aisle. I motioned for them to sit with us.

  “Hey, co-worker!” I said to Lizbeth as she and Kristen squeezed past me in the row. I know it was a dork moment, but I was really excited about her working at the salon. We’d work, but it was still going to be fun.

  “Hello, gorgeous!” she said back as she sat down.

  Ms. Carter, my homeroom teacher, stepped up to the mic. Kristen crossed her arms tightly over her long-sleeved Madras top and slumped in her seat on the other side of Lizbeth. “Good morning, students,” Ms. Carter began.

  “Is she okay?” I whispered to Lizbeth, because I couldn’t help but notice that Kristen didn’t look as excited as the rest of us.

  “Job,” she said back.

  “We’re very excited to start our Career Exploration program and are sure you’ll find many benefits to learning about the real world.” Ms. Carter used air quotes for real world, as if it might not truly exist.

  “Are you so excited about working at the salon?” I asked Lizbeth, keeping my eyes on the stage. Teachers roamed the aisles, looking to fulfill their life’s goal of sending a kid to detention.

  “So excited,” she said.

  This was going to be the best—and easiest—class assignment of all time.

  “Now, we don’t expect you to come up with a career path in the next three weeks.” Ms. Carter chuckled. “But we hope this program will give you a feel for what it’s like to be out in the work force. Remember, you’re just shadowing someone at the job to get a feel for what goes into a work day. Could I get a show of hands for those who have not yet secured a position?”

  I didn’t have to look too far to see some hands go up—Jonah’s and Kyle’s. I could see Jonah’s disappointment in not getting that job at the skate shop just by looking at the back of his head. He loved skating as much as, if not more than, his video games.

  “Great!” Ms. Carter clapped as if this were a wonderful turn of events. “Come up after the assembly and we’ll hand out assignments. And for those of you who have jobs, make sure you get the permission forms signed by your parent or guardian and your new employer no later than Friday.

  “You will give two reports on your work experience,” Ms. Carter continued. “The first report will be a five-page written report you’ll submit about halfway through to show your progress, what exactly you’re doing at your job, and what you hope to achieve. The final report will be oral and will summarize your work experience. These reports together will be the bulk summary of your grade. Now, for those of you who need to choose a job from our list, come on up.”

  Jonah sighed. “Save us a seat in the caf. And maybe an extra plate of fries.”

  As we moved into the aisle to shuffle out with everyone else, we ended up right behind Matthew Anderson and Tobias Woods—Lizbeth’s and Kristen’s crushes, respectively. Last week they were all supposed to be at the same table at a fund-raiser at the country club. Lizbeth’s parents had invited the boys’ families to join them, and she and Kristen (after a small tiff) had been beyond excited about spending a fancy, dressed-up evening with the guys. But it was all for nothing. Although the guys’ parents showed up, the guys didn’t. Now Lizbeth and Kristen were making an extra, pointed effort to totally and completely ignore them. I don’t think Matthew or Tobias noticed, unfortunately.

  I could see the way Kristen’s and Lizbeth’s bodies went rigid when we got behind the guys. Because there were so many of us, it was a slow shuffle out of the Little Theater. I nudged Kristen, knowing she was never afraid to speak up.

  “If you’re still upset about them not coming to that fund-raiser, then just say something,” I said to her. “Just ask what happened.”

  I wasn’t surprised when Kristen, who was always more outspoken than Lizbeth, took my advice. Or maybe she was just tired of wondering why they didn’t show.

  “Hey, Woods,” she said to Tobias, giving him a little shove in the shoulder. He turned to look at her. “I hope you feel good about the choice you made.”

  “What choice, Campbell?” Tobias said.

  She rolled her eyes as if her cryptic talk were oh-soclear. “The fund-raiser last weekend at the country club? You two numbskulls left me and Lizbeth to fend for ourselves while all our parents argued over the best brand of lawn mower, and the band played Michael Bublé. It was the worst night of my life.”

  “Oh, that,” Tobias said. “We were totally broken up about missing Michael Bublé. His fault.” He pointed to Matthew, who was the preppiest guy known to the Berkshires. He wore jeans without a single rip, tear, or bleach mark; leather shoes like my dad wore; matching belt; and a polo shirt. If you lik
ed that type—which Lizbeth did—then he was pretty cute.

  “You guys were there?” Matthew asked, looking at Lizbeth.

  She looked down at her feet but managed to say, “Yeah.”

  “Too bad,” Matthew said. “If I’d known you were going to be there . . .” He stopped himself, then said, “A guy my dad golfs with gave me tickets to the ball game that afternoon. We couldn’t say no.”

  “Sorry, ladies,” Tobias said, “but when the Red Sox call, you gotta go.”

  We all filed through the door and into the hall, making our way toward the cafeteria. I walked beside Eve, who gave me a secret smile at the way Lizbeth accidentally-on-purpose ended up walking beside Matthew, her arm inches from brushing his. We followed behind them.

  “Did you get a good job?” Matthew asked Lizbeth.

  “Yeah, an amazing job,” she said. “I’m working at that salon on Camden Way called Hello, Gorgeous! What about you?”

  “Working at the country club pro shop. I might get to do some stuff on the golf course, too. Tobias scored the best job, though,” Matthew said. Tobias, who walked ahead of them with Kristen, raised his fist in the air. “He gets to be a bat boy for the Sox for their next three home games. Scored it last weekend at the game.”

  “It’s called planning ahead, children,” Tobias said. “Learn it.”

  “And knowing the right people,” Matthew said. “Admit it.”

  “Plus, I’m doubly awesome because of my age,” Tobias said, ignoring Matthew’s last comment. “The MLB says you can’t be a bat boy until you’re 14, but I’m getting an exception because of my awesomeness.”

  “What’s MLB?” Kristen asked.

  “Major League Baseball,” Tobias said as if that were the dumbest question in the world.

  “He has to stay in the dugout,” Matthew told Lizbeth. “But it’s still really cool.”

  When we all got to the cafeteria the guys started off toward their own table, a few over from where I’d been sitting with the girls. “I’ll see you around,” Matthew said.