you?â
âMaybe. Youâre not expecting me to play hostess, are you?â I couldnât believe I was entertaining this.
âYouâre not making any sense. Peter is hosting. I fully intend on being with Peter the whole night, but not as a hostess.â
âI have to stay over your house tonight.â
âItâs cool. Just make sure you donât dress like that.â
We made our way up to my bedroom. âTurn on the hallway light,â I said. âWhy are you so scary about everything?â she asked.
âLook, I said I was never going to go to any of these popular circuit parties again. If thereâs anything to be scared about, itâs that!â
âJust think of it as a favor to Jason.â
âAnd will Roger be there?â
âDonât go there.â
âI think heâs sort of eccentric. I mean, heâs nice,â I said.
âYuck! Heâs like a techie,â she said.
âAppearances can be deceiving. Iâm learning. He could be some undercover hottie,â I said.
Cindy burst into laughter. I sifted through my segregated closet. One side was sexy, with my boyfriend-type gear, and the other side was Iâm-cute-in-my-skinny-jeans-and-fitted-sweatshirt type of gear. I wore the sweatshirt-type gear nearly every day.
âNo jeans, lover girl. Itâs all about the dress. Fluffy at the bottom to leave something to the imagination and super tight at the top. I say that if you can bounce a quarter off your belly, you got to show it off. Itâs all about the waist!â Cindy said.
She wanted to be a fashion editor at a teen magazine. Her sole purpose in life was to tell people how to dress for the season. I pulled out a hot black dress I had worn out with Craig once for our two-week anniversary.
âIâm in.â
I wanted to see Jasonâs face when he saw me in that dress. Though I hadnât forgotten how he hadnât called me that summer. It felt like I was holding on more than remembering. Hadnât he apologized? Too bad. I couldnât just unleash myself and throw myself into his arms.
Chapter 5
âYou are so kidding me,â Cindy said.
âNo, I would never kid about gossip, cross my heart and hope to die. Peter smiled when he found out that you said you were coming. It is a must hook-up,â Jane said.
âPG, of course ⦠for tonight, maybe,â Cindy said, as if she had actually thought about how far she would go. They called Cindy and Jane the Gossip Mafia. Jane had better intelligence sources than the CIA, and Cindy always got the word on corroborating evidence to support Janeâs gossip.
They had met in freshman year when they had both tried out for the school drill team, until they realized that the team did not practice anywhere near the basketball team. Add to that the fact that practice was a grueling three hours each day with social bottom feeders as the boy assistants to the team. It was more than enough to make them ditch the tryouts. They clicked instantly, Cindy says. Me? I was just an innocent bystanderâa friend, if you will. When I hung with them, it was less of the Nia show and more of the circuit news. I used to love it when I dated a boy who was hot on the circuit, but now I was just an observer. People just started calling them the Gossip Mafia. It couldâve been because thatâs how they signed the original morning text messages: B Y G OSSIP M AFIA .
Anyone who was anyone in school got the morning gossip text, and all you did was pray your name wasnât in it. Of course, anyone who replied back to retaliate against any of the accusations of lust and betrayal would only incite more flagrant news about them the following morning and their phone number would somehow get deleted from the forward list. Eventually, word spread not to respond when you received the gossip text, as it could never result in anything pleasant. Jane was sweet, though. She
âMaybe. Youâre not expecting me to play hostess, are you?â I couldnât believe I was entertaining this.
âYouâre not making any sense. Peter is hosting. I fully intend on being with Peter the whole night, but not as a hostess.â
âI have to stay over your house tonight.â
âItâs cool. Just make sure you donât dress like that.â
We made our way up to my bedroom. âTurn on the hallway light,â I said. âWhy are you so scary about everything?â she asked.
âLook, I said I was never going to go to any of these popular circuit parties again. If thereâs anything to be scared about, itâs that!â
âJust think of it as a favor to Jason.â
âAnd will Roger be there?â
âDonât go there.â
âI think heâs sort of eccentric. I mean, heâs nice,â I said.
âYuck! Heâs like a techie,â she said.
âAppearances can be deceiving. Iâm learning. He could be some undercover hottie,â I said.
Cindy burst into laughter. I sifted through my segregated closet. One side was sexy, with my boyfriend-type gear, and the other side was Iâm-cute-in-my-skinny-jeans-and-fitted-sweatshirt type of gear. I wore the sweatshirt-type gear nearly every day.
âNo jeans, lover girl. Itâs all about the dress. Fluffy at the bottom to leave something to the imagination and super tight at the top. I say that if you can bounce a quarter off your belly, you got to show it off. Itâs all about the waist!â Cindy said.
She wanted to be a fashion editor at a teen magazine. Her sole purpose in life was to tell people how to dress for the season. I pulled out a hot black dress I had worn out with Craig once for our two-week anniversary.
âIâm in.â
I wanted to see Jasonâs face when he saw me in that dress. Though I hadnât forgotten how he hadnât called me that summer. It felt like I was holding on more than remembering. Hadnât he apologized? Too bad. I couldnât just unleash myself and throw myself into his arms.
Chapter 5
âYou are so kidding me,â Cindy said.
âNo, I would never kid about gossip, cross my heart and hope to die. Peter smiled when he found out that you said you were coming. It is a must hook-up,â Jane said.
âPG, of course ⦠for tonight, maybe,â Cindy said, as if she had actually thought about how far she would go. They called Cindy and Jane the Gossip Mafia. Jane had better intelligence sources than the CIA, and Cindy always got the word on corroborating evidence to support Janeâs gossip.
They had met in freshman year when they had both tried out for the school drill team, until they realized that the team did not practice anywhere near the basketball team. Add to that the fact that practice was a grueling three hours each day with social bottom feeders as the boy assistants to the team. It was more than enough to make them ditch the tryouts. They clicked instantly, Cindy says. Me? I was just an innocent bystanderâa friend, if you will. When I hung with them, it was less of the Nia show and more of the circuit news. I used to love it when I dated a boy who was hot on the circuit, but now I was just an observer. People just started calling them the Gossip Mafia. It couldâve been because thatâs how they signed the original morning text messages: B Y G OSSIP M AFIA .
Anyone who was anyone in school got the morning gossip text, and all you did was pray your name wasnât in it. Of course, anyone who replied back to retaliate against any of the accusations of lust and betrayal would only incite more flagrant news about them the following morning and their phone number would somehow get deleted from the forward list. Eventually, word spread not to respond when you received the gossip text, as it could never result in anything pleasant. Jane was sweet, though. She
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