Wish Upon a Star Read Free Page B

unavailability and absence from our table for the last few days. As she dropped her platter next to mine, I jumped.
    “Guess what?” Jamie grabbed my arms.
    “What?” I struggled to pull myself out of the doldrums to feign interest.
    “He said yes!”
    “Of course he said yes.”
    “Well, I didn’t know if he would or not, but he did!” She held her hands up to her mouth as though she were holding back a scream. Her eyes were bright with excitement. At first it felt like betrayal. Then something clicked.
    “Who are you talking about?”
    “Deonte, of course!” She slapped me on the arm.
    Deonte. The guy she’d mentioned at lunch a few times.  Deonte, the skater guy. The one who posted the picture of David’s car. The one she’d been crushing on since last year.
    I forced a smile to my lips. “I’m so happy for you!”
    She grabbed me in a huge hug.
    Lacy sat down across from us. “What are we celebrating?”
    “Deonte said yes!”
    Lacy quick stepped around the table to join our hug. I wondered if I could get away with crying and blame it on tears of joy. I didn’t get the chance to experiment because I felt another pair of arms wrap around us.
    Dierdre asked, “What are we hugging about?”
    They all released and stepped back to include Dierdre.
    “I’m going to the Sadie Hawkins dance with Deonte!”
    Dierdre grabbed Jamie’s hands and jumped up and down with her while screaming.
    “What are you going to wear?” Lacy asked Jamie.
    “I don’t know, yet. He doesn’t seem like the type to do a lot of dressing up.”
    “We could try to co-ordinate or something,” Lacy suggested.
    “That could be fun!” Dierdre interjected. “What do you think, Jen?”
    Everyone looked at me. “Yeah, I guess that could be fun.”
    As they discussed colors, types of dresses, what the guys should wear to match and other details, I was stuck in a Charlie Brown movie. Their voices made the wah, wah, wah like the adults in the show. I pictured myself in a yellow t-shirt with the black zigzag design running to kick a football held by Selena who was dressed in a blue dress. At the last minute she snatched the ball away as I kicked, causing me to fly through the air and land on my back. Over dramatic? Maybe. Accurate to how I felt? Definitely.
    I realized my friends were looking at me. “What?”
    “Are you cool with that?”
    Uh oh. They’d asked me a question. “I spaced out. What’s going on?”
    “We’ll all meet at Dierdre’s house to get ready. We’re all going to wear a shade of blue.”
    “Works for me.” I turned to Dierdre. “Want to buy each other corsages?”
    She looked at me funny. “I have that covered.”
    “Oh. What are we doing?”
    “You really were spaced out, weren’t you?”
    Jamie and Lacy looked uncomfortable. My stomach dropped. Whatever followed was going to be bad.
    “What did I miss?”
    “I have a date.”
    *Crack*
    That’s the sound my heart made. Everyone had a date. Except me.
    I tried to put on a happy face. She was my best friend since Kindergarten. ‘Who are you going with?”
    She hesitated.
    “I knew she took it too well,” Jamie whispered to Lacy.
    “What?” I looked at each of them in turn waiting for a response.
    “I’m going with Eric.”
    It took a second for the name to permeate my brain. I couldn’t think of a single Eric in our school except for . . .
    “Longstein?” I half said, half screeched. The enemy? The kid who tortured me in elementary school? The one who sealed our fate as best friends forever?
    “Yeah. I think he’s kind of cool.”
    “No one ‘kind of cool’ pulls hair on a little girl!” I argued.
    “That was a million years ago. He’s grown up since then.”
    I did my best fish impression opening and shutting my mouth as I struggled to find something to say. There was nothing to say. She’d chosen. She was going to the dance with the evil boy and I would be all alone.
    “Jen,” Dierdre called, but I held up my hand as I