Don't You Wish Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Roxanne St. Claire

  Jacket art copyright © 2012 by Anastasia Volkova

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at randomhouse.com/teachers.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  St. Claire, Roxanne.

  Don’t you wish / Roxanne St. Claire.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-98577-5

  [1. Popularity—Fiction. 2. Beauty, Personal—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction.

  4. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S774315Do 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011049124

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  FOR MY DAUGHTER, MIA KERN, WHO ASKED

  THE QUESTION THAT INSPIRED THIS STORY

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Some days it seems like half the backpacks of South Hills High whack me in the head on their way to the back of the bus. And today, the pain is epic because I had my braces tightened this morning. Each thud shakes my tender teeth, reminding me that I am the loser who sits in the front row of the bus, head positioned exactly at the point where kids step on and turn into the aisle.

  Samantha Janiskowsky. Thunk. Ouch.

  Miranda Beck. Thunk. Ouch.

  Kyle Rotrosen. Thunk.

  Owwwww.

  Now, this last pain is not for the aching gums. This pain is inflicted by Lizzie Kauffman, squeezing my hand in a death grip. That can mean only one thing.

  Sure enough, sandy hair slowly rises from behind the metal plate between us and the bus steps. Emerging like a god from the underworld, Shane Matthews climbs onto the bus, his adorable smile directed at someone behind and beneath him.

  Of course, almost the entire world population is beneath Shane.

  “You got that right, babe. Feast your eyes.” He wiggles his butt, which only makes Lizzie crunch my knuckles harder. It doesn’t matter. All pain is numbed by the sight of him, the object of our every fantasy, the subject of our every sleepover, the man candy we can only dream of tasting in this lifetime.

  Shane Matthews is about to clock me in the head, and all I can do is wait in breathless anticipation.

  Next to me, Lizzie mutters, “Annie, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.” She shifts her eyes as far to the side as they can go without actually getting stuck in her head. I have no such restraint.

  I look.

  And get a navy blue Adidas Velocity II backpack full of history and science textbooks right in the face.

  Yeah, we Googled his backpack brand. We’re that pathetic. I resist the urge to touch my cheek, the closest I’ve ever gotten to actual contact with Shane Matthews.

  Of course, he doesn’t even look to see who he’s hit. Because to him, I am invisible. Annie Nutter—if he even knows my name, which I sincerely doubt—is simply one of the extras to fill the halls of South Hills High, so low on the social ladder that our only job is to admire the beauty, perfection, and popularity of stars like Shane.

  And admire we do.

  A distinctive, throaty (and totally fake) laugh floats up from the sidewalk. Lizzie and I share a disgusted look seconds prior to the appearance of silky platinum hair, gloriously tanned skin—tanned, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, mind you—and a cheerleader’s smile that bares a row of blinding white Chiclet-like teeth.

  Of course Courtney Nicholas is smiling. Who wouldn’t, if you had her life?

  “Nickel-ass,” Lizzie hisses. “Of course he’s flirting with her.”

  Courtney doesn’t carry a backpack—she probably has Blonde Mafia handmaidens who do that for her—but her Coach handbag slugs me as she saunters by. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she did that on purpose.

  But I do know better; I’m not even a blip on Courtney’s radar.

  “Nice move, Court,” a girl behind her says, snickering.

  “Oh, who did I hit?” she calls over her shoulder.

  “Nobody,” the girl says without so much as a sideways glance at my face. “Just move it so we can sit with Shane.”

  Nobody. My face burns, and not from the brush with either the forty-four-dollar Adidas Velocity II or whatever designer bags are going for these days. I certainly wouldn’t know, since they don’t sell them at Tar-ghetto.

  “Don’t sweat it,” Lizzie whispers, pulling me to her so I avoid the final assault of the backpack brigade. “It’s November. Half these kids’ll have licenses and cars by the middle of the year, and we’ll be the only dweeb juniors on the bus. We’ll, like, own this puppy.” She pats the ripped leather of our seat and raises her voice. “Right, Geraldine?”

  The bus driver shifts in her seat to set her meaty face in a frown, but there is a light in her eyes that she saves just for us. Geraldine, whose gravelly baritone and hairy arms make us certain she was a man at some point in her not-so-recent past, has a soft spot for us nobodies. Best of all, she takes absolutely no shit from the posse of populars in the back of the bus.

  We love that about her. Him. Geraldine.

  “Always changes when they pass driver’s ed,” Geraldine growls as she closes the doors. “Just you wait.”

  “So you wanna come over and hang?” Lizzie asks me as the bus rolls over the speed bumps—another slam to my teeth—and pulls out of the school lot. “I don’t have my flute lesson until four-thirty.”

  “Can’t. I’m going to beg Geraldine to let me off at Walmart.” I raise my voice so the driver hears me. “To meet my mom for a quick shop.”

  Lizzie stares at me. “You’re going to homecoming.”

  “What? How did you get that out of me meeting my mom at Walmart?”

  “I figure you’re getting a dress and holding out on me.”

  I snort. “At Walmart? Jeez, Zie, I know the real estate market is sucky and my mom
hasn’t sold a house in two months and my dad barely makes minimum wage at RadioShack, but even we Nutters have some standards.”

  “Puh-lease.” She gives an apologetic wave. “As if my mom isn’t always broke.” She waits a beat, searching my face. “But you don’t have a date for homecoming, right?”

  As if. “You got nothin’ to worry about, girlfriend. It’s you, me, and the entire season of Degrassi come Saturday night.” I give her a reassuring pat because she truly looks worried. “Trust me, we’re just going to Walmart because my dad needs us to pick up some …” Junk. “Things.”

  Lizzie crosses her eyes. “Your dad needs more things like I need more freckles.”

  My heart squeezes a little, but this is Lizzie, who knows my every secret. Even how embarrassing the mess at home is getting to be.

  “He’s working on an amazing new invention,” I say, the need to defend whacktastic Mel Nutter rising up in me.

  “Really? What could possibly top the button you could press on the toilet-paper thingie so that you automatically get the exact same amount of sheets every time?”

  “The Rip-Off?” I sigh with a mix of amusement and shame. Really, mostly amusement over that one. “Of course he didn’t like my idea for a name.”

  “Even though it was pure genius,” she adds, ever the supportive friend. “The name and the idea.”

  “Sadly, no one in the world wanted the Rip-Off. But this one? He’s being secretive about it, so it might be good.”

  “Whatever happened to last summer’s Flip-Flop Beach Buddy?” she asks.

  “Emphasis on flop,” I tell her, the memory still vivid: a double beach towel with corner holder-downers disguised as flip-flops to keep it in the sand. “Well, nobody wanted that, either, because it really wasn’t much different from a blanket held down by, well, flip-flops. Plus …” I angle my head toward the window. “There’s a serious beach shortage in Pittsburgh.”

  Lizzie nods knowingly, and I love her for not passing judgment on my dad, who is spurred on by his overactive imagination and the desire to invent a household item that will merit a blue-screen TV commercial. The Snuggie. The Ped Egg. The ShamWow. Someday, Mel Nutter will punch the RadioShack time clock for good and own the infomercial world.

  As we near the Walmart intersection, I lean forward. Getting Geraldine to make an unscheduled stop depends on her mood, which seems good enough today. Otherwise, I’ll have to backtrack a half mile, and it’s cold out there. “Any chance you can drop me at the light, Geraldine?”

  She nods, probably listening to our conversation and pitying me. “You bet, Annie.” She shoots a look in the rearview at the noisy kids in the back. “Let’s make it quick and safe, though.”

  “You got it.” I look in her mirror, too, but the angle just gives me a view of my own face, which so doesn’t belong in the back of the bus with the cool kids. Frizzy, flyaway hair that lovely color of a brown paper bag—which would be helpful to own right now, so I could cover the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on my cheek. I try to smile, but this morning’s visit to the orthodontist makes even that feeble effort almost impossible.

  “Sure you can’t ditch the flute lesson?” I ask as I zip my jacket. “Mom’s taking me to Eat’n Park, and you know she’d love to have you, too.”

  “Sorry, I can’t miss my lesson. Have a Superburger for me.”

  “Will do.” I stand as the bus slows, and instantly complaints explode from the back.

  “Why the hell are we stopping here?” The noisy demand is followed by an outburst of rude questions and comments, full of false indignation and snorts of laughter.

  Geraldine ignores the kids in the back and starts to weave her big yellow beast through traffic.

  “Hey!” In the mirror, I can see Shane Matthews stand up, a fist in the air like some kind of blistering-hot freedom fighter. “Nobody gets special treatment!”

  “Especially nobodies,” Courtney adds, easily loud enough for us to hear.

  “This nobody does,” Geraldine shoots back. “Sit down, sweet cheeks, before I come back and make you sit.”

  “Sweet cheeks!” Lizzie looks like she might die.

  I already have. Fire licks up my own sweet cheeks as I stand for the stop. I glance at Lizzie, but she’s already sinking in her seat, so my gaze goes right over her shoulder and lands … on Courtney.

  Guess I’m on her radar now. While she whispers something to Shane, she stares hard at me. Scary hard. Nasty hard. Courtney-on-a-mean-mission hard.

  The whole bunch of them burst out laughing, and Courtney starts poking Shane. “C’mon. I dare you.”

  He looks at her, then at me, then at her.

  The traffic refuses to cooperate, holding me hostage a full lane from the sidewalk.

  Shane steps into the aisle. OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod.

  “I can get out here,” I say to Geraldine, like she’s a cabdriver and I’m in New York or something.

  Evidently she doesn’t hear the raw desperation in my voice. “Are you kidding me? I’ll lose my license if one of Pittsburgh’s finest is watching. You just wait a second, and don’t bother with those morons in the back.”

  But one of those morons is walking right toward me. I clutch the pole, the metal slippery in my wet palm.

  Every single eye on the bus is on him. And me. And him. And me.

  “Hey,” he says, in that low, sexy Shane voice that Lizzie can imitate perfectly.

  Except now it doesn’t make me giggle. It makes me want to throw up.

  “Hey.” I manage the whole syllable without choking.

  “You going to homecoming?”

  My hand slides a little down the pole. “What?” It comes out like a half choke, half squeak. From my peripheral vision, I can see Lizzie’s eyes opening to the size of headlights.

  “Home-coming,” he enunciates like English is my second language. He’s close enough now that I can see his eyelashes. Dark, but tipped in gold. The eyelashes of the gods. “On Saturday night.”

  I somehow clear my throat, and then the heavens open up and so does the traffic. Geraldine hits the gas, and I almost fall down the first step, but cling to the bar as my backpack rolls around and hits me in the chest.

  Could this get worse?

  “ ’Cause maybe you’d want to go with me.”

  Yes. Oh my, yes. It actually could get worse. “Excuse me?”

  I know what’s happening, of course. He’s asking on a dare. As a joke. Behind him, I’m aware of howls of laughter, hands over mouths as the cool kids watch the drama play out.

  And then … I have that thought. That thought no girl in this situation should ever have. Not that any girl should ever be in this situation, but if she is, the very last thing she should have is that thought. That stupid, idiotic, pathetic loser thought of a hopeless nobody.

  What if he’s serious?

  I just stare at him, digging around my Shane-numbed brain and finding … nothing. Forget a witty retort. I couldn’t tell him my name right now.

  “ ’Cause if you need a date …”

  “Yeah?” Did I say that? Why did I say that?

  “My dog’s lookin’ for someone to hump that night.”

  The entire bus explodes with laughter just as the doors open and the sidewalk beckons. All I can do is look at Lizzie as I step down, into the underworld where douche bags like Shane Matthews come from, blood rushing in my head loud enough to almost drown out the sound of Geraldine yelling at him to sit the hell down or never ride a bus in this town again.

  I stand on the sidewalk as the doors swoosh behind me and the bus pulls away. I refuse to turn, terrified that if I do I’ll see Courtney looking out the window, her giant white teeth bared in laughter. In fact, I don’t move for a good fifteen seconds while those words roll over me like Geraldine’s bus wheels. The words about the dog?

  No. The other words.

  ’Cause maybe you’d want to go with me.

  Because for that one insane flash of a magical moment, I coul
d pretend he really did ask me.

  I know, that’s even more pathetic than Googling his backpack.

  CHAPTER TWO

  My buzzing phone pulls me out of the depths of self-pity. It’s Mom, telling me she’s already done shopping, so she’ll wait for me in the book section. No doubt she was ogling some high-end houses in Southern Living or some other magazine that makes her whine about wanting a nicer house. She says she only reads those magazines for work, but, honestly, they’re like crack to her.

  Sure enough, I find her nose-deep in the Mother of All House Porn, Architectural Digest, her frosted hair covering her face. She doesn’t look up, but I hear her sniff.

  “Mom?”

  She shakes her head a little, turning away. Is she crying?

  “What’s the matter?”

  Finally, she looks at me, her face streaked with rivers of black mascara, her eyes red, her lower lip trembling. What the heck? She so isn’t a cryer.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Her hands are shaking as she holds the magazine out to me, saying nothing, as if the pictures and words do that for her. But all I see is some museumlike place with fountains and statues and water views from every floor-to-ceiling window. The headline reads “Living a Flawless Life.”

  “This could have been mine,” she says in a strangled voice.

  Hers? Her what? “Your listing?” I ask.

  “My house.”

  I give it another glance, still clueless. “What are you talking about?”

  “Him.” She flips a page and points to a guy in scrubs, hands on hips, big phony grin. “Jim Monroe.”