Best. Night. Ever. Read online

  I smooth the bodice of my dress and nod. I’m afraid if I try to say anything, I’ll start to cry. And I don’t want to have puffy eyes and a blotchy face when Kevin sees me.

  Soo-jin touches my father’s arm. He gives her a warm grin, shakes his head a bit, and then points the camera in my direction.

  “Ready?” He adjusts the lens as I contemplate how to stand. Hands at my side? Hands on my hips? I have no idea where my hands are supposed to go.

  I decide to leave them at my sides, and my dad snaps away, with Soo-jin beaming behind him.

  “Look at the time,” Soo-jin says as she glances at Dad’s grandfather clock hanging on the wall. “Are you ready to go?”

  “What about the young man who’ll be taking you? Isn’t he coming to pick you up?” Dad asks.

  “We’re meeting in front of the school,” I say. “He’s getting a ride.”

  Dad frowns. “That’s not very gentlemanlike.”

  Soo-jin laughs. “That’s the way kids do things these days.”

  Dad shakes his head, but Soo-jin has a way of lightening the mood. “It will be fine, Ed. Ellie will have a wonderful time.”

  “I’m sure she will.” My dad gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  “Ashlyn!” Soo-jin calls up the stairs. “Let’s go. You have to be at the Terzettis’ in twenty minutes.”

  “Okay, okay.” Ashlyn sounds more annoyed than usual. “I’m coming.”

  My heart speeds up as Soo-jin pulls her car keys off of the hook near the front door.

  This is it.

  I contemplate throwing my journal into my handbag but decide against it. Tonight, I’m going to live life instead of only writing about it. I take a deep breath and begin the best night ever.

  ASHLYN { 7:02 P.M. }

  “I DON’T SEE WHY I have to be stuck babysitting while she gets to go to the dance.”

  “In English, Ashlyn!” Mom says, jerking her head toward our minivan’s backseat, where Ellie is fussing over that medieval-looking dress she’s wearing. Ugh.

  Ugh on the dress. Ugh on Ellie. Ugh on the fact that Mom and I can’t talk in Korean unless we’re all alone, because she doesn’t want the new Love of Her Life (I like the guy, but still . . . puke!) or my weird stepsister-to-be to feel left out. Ugh on this whole miserable night.

  Ellie is totally quiet when we pull up to the school, but I can practically feel her bouncing back there. It only annoys me more to know she’s so excited. I slouch waaaaaaaaay down in my seat, pretending to text on my phone, but really I’m trying not to get spotted by anyone I know. My closest friends are all very much aware that I’m grounded, of course, because I’ve been texting up a storm all day. But I can’t help feeling like I’m letting the rest of the seventh grade down by not being there to show off any awesomeness at the dance tonight, especially since it’s our first school dance and especially ESPECIALLY after all the hints I dropped about the new look I’d planned to debut. It’s so unfair.

  My mother is still being extra nice to Ellie. I guess it wasn’t enough to give her my grandmother’s headband. Now Mom’s fawning all over her and offering to help her out of the car so her dress doesn’t get caught in the door. I don’t get why my mother can’t see how perfectly embarrassing Ellie is. She’s so . . . awkward. And smart, but not in a cool way at all. She’s your basic year-one Hermione Granger.

  But Mom acts like she’s captivated by everything that comes out of Ellie’s mouth. She’s never listened to me discuss the pros and cons of the Pantone Color Institute’s designated color of the season (peacock blue, for the record) with half the attention she gives Ellie when she blathers on and on about books written a gazillion and ten years ago. Who even knows—or cares!—what a green gable is? And why is my mother so overly interested in Ellie anyway? It’s not like she’s her real daughter. Shouldn’t I come first?

  “Thanks, Soo-jin,” Ellie says in her soft, meek voice. At least she’s not calling her “Mom” like my mother actually suggested last week. I . . . would not be cool with that. At all.

  “Have fun,” I mutter as Ellie exits, because otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it from Mom, who waves at Ellie on the curb for literally an entire eon before finally pulling away. Why Ellie insists on waiting for Kevin outside instead of going in and getting warm is beyond me. Probably some romantic date scenario she has in her head of him showing up in a horse-drawn carriage or something. The girl is loco.

  I slide up in my seat once we’re on the move. “Seriously, I don’t get why I have to take Ellie’s babysitting job tonight while she has all the fun!”

  “Would you like me to list the reasons, Seo-yeon?” my mom replies. Her voice is all calm and deadly, and she uses my Korean name instead of the American one I chose for myself when I started school. She only does that when she’s genuinely mad. She doesn’t even wait for me to answer before she starts in. “Number one: Because you thought it would be appropriate to post a photo to Instagram of your sister sleeping with topical treatments on her face, earning you the much-deserved grounding. Number two: Because Ellie is a very responsible girl and felt bad about canceling on her regular Saturday-night babysitting job. Do you know she was prepared to skip the dance when she found out Mrs. Terzetti hadn’t been able to find a replacement? That didn’t seem at all fair. The girl’s been walking on clouds ever since Kevin asked her to go with him.”

  Well.

  I have my own list:

  Ellie is not my sister, and she won’t be after the wedding either, no matter what Mom wants to tell herself. I was very fine being an only child and having my mother’s undivided attention, thankyouverymuch.

  Let’s call a spade a spade, as my history teacher, Mr. Feldman, would say. Topical treatments = zit cream. Zit. Cream. And in my personal opinion, Ellie should use even more of it.

  I don’t think it’s fair that I get stuck with bratty kids just because Ellie got asked to the dance. Which I am having serious trouble believing anyway. If she weren’t too goody-goody to lie, I would totally suspect her of making the whole Kevin thing up. I mean, I know Kevin pretty well, and “Kevin + Ellie” does not compute.

  It’s all just soooooo maddening. This night is the worst.

  I ring the doorbell, and Mrs. Terzetti answers right away. “Hello there—come on in. You must be Ashlyn. Ellie has such nice things to say about you!”

  She does? Eww. Why?

  I shrug out of my coat and hand it to Mrs. Terzetti, who says, “The girls are in the kitchen, making s’mores in our microwave. I’m afraid they’re a smidge disappointed about not getting Ellie tonight, but I have no doubt you’ll win them right over.”

  Smiling through closed lips, I walk in the direction she indicates, while behind me Mrs. Terzetti calls, “Girls, she’s here!”

  I’m here. Yippee.

  The twins have their backs to the kitchen door, and their matching leggings-clad butts face me as they kneel on stools at the island. When they spin around, their hands are completely covered in gooey Marshmallow Fluff and melted chocolate. The act of turning so fast makes one of the chairs all wobbly, and the girl on the left shrieks and grabs for me as it gives out under her. All I can focus on are globs of stickiness headed straight for my hair, and I jump back as quickly as I can. That was close!

  The girl falls to the floor alongside the clattering stool. Whoops.

  But I stand by my choices. Not even the $27-a-bottle L’Italy conditioner I got for my thirteenth birthday (the very same kind Teen Vogue model Allandra Esposio uses, I’m just saying) would help with Hair de S’more.

  Mrs. Terzetti comes in just then, and she immediately picks her daughter up and wraps her arms around her. “Hope, baby, what happened? Are you okay?”

  Hope Baby glares at me. “I want Ellie,” she says, sticking out her tongue from over her mother’s shoulder.

  “Me too!” adds the other girl.

  And I want you to have Ellie. Trust me on that.

  “Hope, Charity, we’ve been over
this. Ellie has special plans tonight, so she sent Ashlyn to hang out with you. Anyone cool enough for Ellie to be friends with is bound to be a great babysitter, right?”

  Never have I ever heard the words “cool” and “Ellie” used in the same sentence. Wait until these girls get a little older and piece together that Ellie being available every single Saturday night except this one automatically rules out any possibility for coolness. I’m just saying.

  Mrs. Terzetti releases Hope and crosses the room to dampen two paper towels before passing one to each kid. “Wipe your hands, girls. I’ve got to get going, and I want hugs good-bye that won’t leave stains on my shirt.” She glances down at her sweater. “Or any more stains, I should say.”

  Ugh. They’d better not even think of messing up my outfit. It’s nothing fit for a dance, of course, but I’m rocking my yellow-and-white-striped slouchy shirt over dark-wash skinny jeans and tall boots. Especially with the white crepey scarf knotted oh-so-casually (okay, so it took me twenty minutes) around my neck.

  She turns to me. “Mr. Terzetti had to work tonight, so I’m heading to the movies with some friends. I shouldn’t be all that late. I wrote down our cell numbers on the pad on the fridge, and the girls know them too. They also know how everything runs around here, and they’ll be happy to help you any way they can. Right, girls?”

  The matching brats nod at their mother.

  “Bedtime is eight thirty sharp because we have an early morning tomorrow. That means teeth brushed, stories read, lights out at eight thirty, not just beginning to head up to bed then, okay, girls?” Mrs. Terzetti waits for all three of us to nod, and then we follow her to the front hallway, where she gives her daughters even more hugs and kisses before finally closing the door behind her.

  I pull out my phone and ask the girls, “Wi-Fi password, please?”

  One of them rattles it off, and I wait for Instagram to load. As I do, I glance at the twins, staring gape-mouthed at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Ellie always plays with us the whole time,” one says.

  I raise my eyebrows and smile sweetly. “The thing is, girls, I’m not Ellie. I’m as far from Ellie as it’s possible to get.”

  They narrow their eyes at me, so I try again. Geez, what’s so hard about this? “You two won’t know anything about this kind of important grown-up stuff because you’re only, what, seven?”

  Both of them put their hands on their hips. “We’re EIGHT AND THREE-QUARTERS!”

  “Okaaaaaay. Anyway, there’s a dance tonight that’s a superbig deal, and I’m not there because I’m stuck here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t monitor every second of it on Instagram. So I’m probably gonna be pretty busy. Which means it would be great if you guys could find something to do to entertain yourselves.”

  Hope and Charity look at each other, and Hope’s eyes grow big. “You mean you’re not going to be paying any attention to us?”

  Oooh! App loaded! Omigosh, Mariah’s photo of herself in the green face mask. Hilarious! There’s another picture of her trying on her dress, and I’m 99 percent sure it’s the exact same one Tess was wearing in the picture she put up an hour ago. Holy cow. Those two hate each other. This is gonna be major drama! I need to find Tess’s post in my feed to confirm.

  Charity (or maybe it’s Hope, who can tell?) clears her throat. “Did you hear us?” she asks.

  “Hmm? What? Oh yeah, sure, whatever. Go crazy. Just don’t burn the house down.”

  Okay, now where is that Tess picture?

  RYAN { 7:17 P.M. }

  STREAMERS TEAR EASILY. IF THERE’S one thing I’m going to take away from tonight, it’s that. I’ve made a third rip in a red one I’m hanging when Mariah catches me.

  “I know we’re running crazy behind schedule, but please be careful about tearing those!” she says. “We only have a few rolls, and the gym has to look over-the-top fantastic tonight!”

  From my spot on the ladder, I look out over the gym ceiling, which has a billion and one beams. There is no way a few rolls of streamers are going to cover all of that.

  Mariah is standing at the bottom of the ladder, staring down at her clipboard. She’s supposed to be helping me, but she seems to have moved on to whatever the next item on her to-do list is.

  Right now what I need is tape. Tape will fix the torn streamers. I slowly move down the ladder’s rungs. When I signed up for the dance committee, nobody mentioned I’d have to risk my life on the tallest ladder in the universe. Of course, I only signed up for the dance committee in order to spend more time with Mariah. I thought that maybe, possibly, it would get me out of the friend zone I seem to be permanently stuck in with her.

  I’m halfway down the ladder when a sudden light blinds me. Someone really is trying to kill me, I think, pausing until I can see again. When the bright, flashy things do finally fade, I look over to see a guy holding a camera with a gigantic lens.

  “For the yearbook,” he says.

  I’ve seen him in the hallway, but I don’t know his name. He’s one of the older kids—an eighth grader. Whoever he is, he needs to stop snapping pictures of people on ladders. Someone could fall!

  Before I can tell him that, he takes off running, as if he’s done something he wasn’t supposed to. I look over at Mariah, who is staring after him. That’s it. No more ladders—for a few minutes, anyway.

  As if these decorations aren’t enough to ruin my night, my mom is standing near the refreshments table, talking to one of my teachers. My mom is one of those eager-to-volunteer types who agree to do anything. Tonight that means she’ll be chaperoning the dance. I’m just hoping nobody figures out who she is.

  I’m praying she won’t let anything slip about my crush on Mariah. I try not to talk to my mom about it, but for a couple of years now she’s annoyed me with comments about “my little friend,” using a knowing mom tone that makes me cringe. Yep, moms seem to just guess these things.

  “Where are you going?” Mariah asks, glancing at the empty ladder as I step onto firm ground. I wince. She would choose now to start paying attention to me.

  “I need clear tape,” I say. “Streamer repair.”

  Mariah squints at the ceiling, probably noticing that my streamer work is far from done. I figure there’s some Scotch tape in the school office. If not, we’ll be in trouble.

  “Mariah,” I say, standing directly in front of her. “Chill.”

  I know it sounds crazy—telling someone to chill out about streamers—but that’s exactly what it takes to calm her down. She takes a deep breath, and right in front of me she seems to go from a big ball of stress to the happy-but-in-charge Mariah I’ve always known.

  Without warning, Mariah yells, “Chris!” at the top of her lungs. Chris is one of the committee members; actually, he’s the only other guy on the committee besides me. They always have a hard time tracking down guys to help out, except for me, the guy who signed up because he has a crush.

  Chris appears from out of nowhere. Mariah grabs the streamers from my hand and holds them out to Chris before pointing at the ladder. “Could you help us out and finish the streamers, please? We’re going to get tape.”

  And that is how I end up walking to the school office with my best friend–slash–major crush less than twenty minutes before the dance is supposed to start. I have no doubt Chris can get the streamers hung, especially since I saw some girl come running over to help while we were walking out, but as head of the dance committee, surely Mariah has better things to do than go to the office with me. Could this maybe, possibly, mean she’s starting to like like me? A guy can hope.

  “Would you help me?” Mariah says as we walk, looking at me with big, sad, pleading eyes. “Leif’s going to be here soon, and I have to make myself look awesome before he arrives. Can you cover for me with the decorations?”

  “Leif?” I ask, swallowing around the big lump in my throat.

  “Yes. Leif. My date.” She avoids my eyes.

  Okay, that lu
mp is even bigger now. Since when is Mariah interested in Leif? Actually, it’s not a huge surprise that she didn’t tell me. For some reason, she never talks to me about crushes and stuff.

  There’s also the fact that I spent half of first period yesterday listening to Tess talk about how excited she is that Leif is taking her to the dance.

  “Wait a second,” I blurt as we round the corner to the office. “Leif is your date?”

  When Mariah looks at me, she’s frowning. I instantly realize that my words came out wrong. She thinks I’m saying she isn’t pretty enough to go out with the guy all the girls want.

  “I mean, it’s just—” I start to say.

  “What?” she interrupts.

  I look over and see the worry in her eyes, and with a sinking feeling realize that I put that worry there. Mariah may be an “overachiever,” as my mom calls her, but she’s also one of the most sensitive people I’ve ever known. She cried for an hour and a half when she didn’t make it into Heart Grenade.

  No way can I tell her that Tess thinks he’s her date. But I don’t want her to be upset, and I especially don’t want to be the person to make her cry. She’ll find out about Tess eventually.

  See, Tess is Mariah’s biggest rival. The two of them have competed in almost every contest since second grade, when Mariah won the spelling bee and Tess stomped off.

  So I snap my mouth shut, then shake my head. Move along, nothing to see here.

  “Anyway,” Mariah says, “wait until I change into my dress. It’s going to totally wow him. My mom thought it was so adorbs that I had my first dance date, she let me buy something brand-new.”

  The sucky thing about having a girl best friend is that she talks about things like clothes and hair and makeup sometimes—stuff that I couldn’t care less about. Mariah isn’t like that usually, though. When she starts going on and on about girly stuff, I just focus on how cool she is. Not only does she have a soft, round face and dark shoulder-length hair that perfectly matches her big brown eyes, she’s also the nicest and funniest and best person I know. She has an amazing personality, and her smile can light up a room. Not to mention, she has the biggest heart. She’ll spend most of tonight trying to make sure everyone has a good time . . . when she isn’t making googly eyes over her date, that is.