Angeline donned her Ask an Angel smile and shifted to showcase her better side. “First day. Embrace it and don’t forget, flut—”
“Flutter your wings!” the girls cried in unison.
Her signature phrase.
The one she ended every video with, the one that brought out the corny she loved in Leo, who’d flap his arms like a seagull on speed when she said it in front of him.
In front of him now in her place was Tad Marcus, singlehandedly the offensive line for the football team, who strutted up to Leo and high-fived his good hand—the one not in a sling. Guilt and remorse rose inside her like bubbles in a shaken bottle of seltzer, and she fought to shut it down, blinking away the burning behind her eyes. Before anyone saw. Before anyone videoed Ask an Angel losing it in the Acedia parking lot.
She moved slowly, giving Leo time to enter the school and put distance between them. But Tad, whose white skin had gained a layer of freckles thanks to the summer sun, stood before him, gesturing wildly. Probably telling a joke she was the butt of or that her butt was in. Knowing Tad, probably both.
Tad was the king of “tics”: narcissistic, misogynistic, and anticlimactic (at least according to Riley’s intel from Tad’s girlfriend, Tamara). He towered over the Torres brothers, and when his voice rose as if coming to a punch line, he slapped Sammy squarely between the shoulder blades, knocking him forward about a foot. Leo’s dimple disappeared along with his smile as he set a hand on Sammy’s forearm and gave a quick squeeze that Angeline swore she could almost feel.
The group was blocking the doorway, and Leo stepped back to allow others to pass, including Emmie Hayes, shoo-in for valedictorian, lover of causes and fundraisers, and student council something or other. Her strawberry-blonde hair skimmed her shoulders with each purposeful step of her no-nonsense flats. She’d paired them with a wrinkle-free, short-sleeved blouse and straight-legged trousers (on point only for working an afternoon catering job at the yacht club).
Right before Emmie reached the door, Leo pressed his hand against it, opening it, just like he’d done for Angeline a thousand times. Car, house, school, movie theater. Riley said she wasn’t supposed to let him. Feminism and all. But Angeline saw it less as him thinking she was weak and more that he wanted a way to show everyone, not just her, how much he cared.
Emmie gave Leo a curt nod as she entered the school.
Tad pursed his lips and tilted his head to check her out from behind. He shoved a thumbs-up in Sammy’s face, and Emmie whipped her head around just as Leo clamped his fingers over Tad’s, pushing them down so she wouldn’t see.
Typical.
Angeline had never liked him. But Leo being Leo meant he gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. Even Tad Marcus.
Which said a lot.
Which said everything.
About what Angeline had done.
Too much for even Leo to forgive.
Angeline nervously spun the silver claddagh band on her right hand. A traditional Irish ring, it had belonged to her grandmother. Angeline liked to think the two hands winding around weren’t just holding the heart topped with a crown, but were her grandmother’s hands also holding her. The symbols represented love, loyalty, and friendship, and the ring was a centuries-old way of defining one’s relationship status. Married women wore it on their left hand, unmarried on their right. And the unmarried had a choice: the point of the heart facing toward the hand meant the wearer’s heart was taken and she was in a relationship, away, the opposite. Angeline slipped off the ring and reversed direction, returning it to her finger with the tip turned out.
She swallowed hard and aimed for the side door.
As her open-toed bootie (see the official Ask an Angel review in my “Boot Up!” video) landed on the sidewalk, a beanpole of a kid with ghostly white skin barreled into her. He lifted his head of dark curls from the phone it had been buried in.
“And that’s news to you” spilled from the speaker—the catchphrase from one of the local Boston news stations that made Cat’s eyeballs roll so far back in her head, she risked losing them.
“Sorry,” said the obvious freshman with an unfortunate first-day-of-school pimple on the end of his nose. “Cousin.” He held up his phone.
“Your aunt, the tablet, must be so proud,” Maxine Chen deadpanned in that strong, dry tone Angeline knew as well as her own.
The kid cocked his head, studied Angeline, and his eyes widened behind his gigantic, black-framed glasses. “Aren’t you—”
“Flutter your wings!” Maxine motioned him along with a twiddle of her fingers.
He frowned, and Angeline gave a weak smile before he walked away.
“I do have an image to keep up,” Angeline said.
“Not for a freshman.”
“For everyone. I’m everyone’s best friend, sister, and girlfriend all rolled into one.”
“Definitely the first two for me. For the third . . .” She tapped the ocean wave pendant on her necklace and gestured toward Tad Marcus and his girlfriend across the front lawn. “She’s more my type.”
“Of course she is,” Angeline said. “She’s an ‘a.’”
“An ‘a’?”
“Tamara,” Angeline said. “Lana, Zoya, Pamela . . . you do realize you only date girls whose names end in an ‘a’?”
“Huh.” Maxine’s forehead creased, and she ran her tongue across the “oh-so-berry” gloss on her lips—an Ask an Angel favorite. Maxine was Chinese American, third-generation, and she had her dad’s wide smile and her mom’s smooth black hair, whose ends she dyed a different color every three months. She’d traded in the summer pink that matched the stripes on her surfboard for a bright electric blue. “We’ve both got a thing for vowels, then? Since you’ve only dated boys with names ending in ‘o.’ Well, boy, singular.” Angeline winced, and Maxine quickly switched gears. “How about we both shake things up this year? Now that the administration’s finally stamped yes on my Girl Coders Club, maybe we’ll develop an Acedia dating app?”
Under the marquee, Tad hugged Tamara while simultaneously checking out a pair of freshman girls nervously shuffling to the entrance. Tamara had light brown skin and short, dark hair that let all the focus be on the petite features of her face. Too pretty, too nice, too everything for Tad.
“Or maybe we concentrate on us,” Maxine said. “And make our every day epic.”
“Here for that.” Angeline tucked her arm through Maxine’s and headed into school for the first day of senior year. “Bring it.”
3
When Cat Comes Down with Election Fever