The Julian Game Read Free Page A

“But I’m an incredible liar, too,” she added. “You don’t want to be on my bad side. I can get people to believe anything.” There was something empty in her face as she told me this. A lack of . . . emotion, maybe? Conscience?
    “At least you’ve got a bad side,” I said lightly. “Good people are so boring.”
    She smiled, that tiny uptick. That sister smile. “Are you bad, Raye?”
    “Sometimes.” I looked her straight in the eye. “Sometimes I’m treacherous.”
    She burst out laughing. If the mood had been intense, it wasn’t now.
    Later, I’d always think this was the moment where it started. Ella’s challenge. My answer. What we’d really meant, and what we’d unleashed in each other.

four
    “So Uncle Freddie sent not one, not two, but three install ments of Midnight Planet from London for us on Saturday night,” Natalya informed me excitedly in homeroom at the end of the day. “If we watch them all, we’ll be as caught up as anyone in the U.K. How cool is that?”
    “Oh . . . great.”
    “Raye, you are coming over tomorrow, right?” she asked a minute later. “As per usual?”
    I swiveled my head to examine my Chemistry notes. Sometimes I felt a touch mortified by my friendship with Natalya. Maybe it wasn’t personal—maybe any best friendship would have been too intense for me. Last year, I’d hung in a relaxed, loosely defined group, but Fulton didn’t have anything like that. Its selective social circles were knit by girls who’d hit the slopes and the shore and played on the same teams together since kindergarten. The cliques were fixed and impenetrable, nothing loose about it.
    Whereas Tal and I were friends because she was an outsider and so was I. Period.
    “Paging Raye for confirmation on tomorrow night?” Tal asked, louder.
    “Sure, I guess,” I relented. Anyway, Dad and his girlfriend were counting on it. It went unspoken that Saturdays were their night to be free of me.
    Fridays had a way of making me self-conscious about everything I’d be excluded from over the weekend, but I listened in on what was happening anyway. Not only did I now know about Lindy’s party, but I’d also overheard that Sadie Nufer, a junior, was throwing one. Another group of juniors was planning to hit the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie at the Ritz, and some seniors wanted to check out an exclusive dance club on South Street.
    Fun, fun, fun. All this activity, and I wasn’t part of any of it.
    At last bell, I hit the library to finish all my weekend homework assignments. It was dark by the time I got home on the late bus. Dad’s girlfriend, Stacey, was in the kitchen, heating soup and blowing her nose. Usually Stacey reminded me of a spaniel—small and playful, warm dark eyes, always happy to see you. Today, between her mangy bathrobe and bad-hair-day frizzies, she looked more like a shelter dog. “Your dad’s still at the store,” she told me, with a sniffle. “Tal’s called the landline twice; she says she has a burning question about her Renaissance Art project. Oh, and another girl.”
    The name on the scratch pad read “Ella Parker” plus her phone number.
    “This girl? Ella Parker? Called me?”
    “Yip.” She blew her nose. “She did.”
    I walked upstairs. Was this a joke? But even as I envisioned the Group sniggering on the other end of the line, my fingers pressed the numbers like a trail of bread crumbs leading to Ella’s ear.
    She answered on the first ring. “Let me guess, Raye’s cell? Thanks for getting back.” She sounded friendly. It didn’t feel like a joke. “Look, can I come over tomorrow night?”
    “Come over where?”
    “Your house?” Then she laughed as if I were already delighting her with my company. “Sorry. Do you have other plans?”
    “Not exactly, but . . .” I stared over the banister into the living room. Noooo. Ella Parker couldn’t come over to my house. Not tomorrow night or any other night. It was too shabby