He was way over the boundaries. And besides, did I mention that I had to walk home from the lake ?â
âYeah, that sucks,â Rachel said. âWhere is that lake, anyway?â
âFar. Miles.â
She was quiet for a minute, and I knew what she was thinking: I was back to square one for a prom date.
âI know,â I said. Rachel and I were so close, we didnât even have to talk half the time. We had some kind of freakish telepathy going on. âBut maybe this will work out better than you think. I mean, maybe now that Iâve been seen at the game with Joey, Iâll be on other guysâ radar screens, and someone else will ask me out now, you know?â
I was thinking of one guy in particular: Tyler North. Iâd been into him since the first day I walked into Mrs. Raymerâs English class, but I donât think he knew I was alive. At least he never seemed to notice me until Saturday night. Then I saw him checking me out at the donkey basketball game.
âItâs a definite possibility,â Rachel agreed. I could almost hear her nodding.
âThatâs what Iâm hoping,â I started to say, but right then I got call waiting. âHang on . . .â I clicked the Flash button on the phone. âHello?â
âOh my God, Carmen,â a voice said on the other end of the line. âOh my God.â
It took me a minute to even figure out who it was. Ariel. She didnât sound like herself, she was being so dramatic.
âWhat?â I had no idea why she was so upset.
âOh my God. You havenât seen it?â she asked.
âSeen what? Whatâs wrong? What are you talking about?â
âJoeyâs Joint! Itâs all about you,â she said. âAbout what you guys did last night.â
I sat bolt upright in the tub. âWhat do you mean, what we did?â
âJust read it,â Ariel said. âOh my God. Heâs such a jerk! I canât believe heâd use you like that, and then write about it, too.â
I was dripping wet, with bubbles all over me, and I had Rachel on the other line. My heart started pounding, because from the tone in Arielâs voice, I knew this wasnât going to be good. Joeyâs Joint was famousâeveryone at school read it all the time. So if heâd written something about me, it was definitely going to affect my life.
âHang on. No, never mind, Iâm in the tub, Iâll call you back,â I said to Ariel. Then I clicked over to Rachel. âSorry, that was Ariel. Apparently Joeyâs written about me on his blog. Iâve got to get out of the tub and go see what it is. Call me after you read it,â I said.
I had to repeat his web address three times before Rachel finally let me go.
Then I rinsed my hair quickly and climbed out of the tub. I wrapped myself in the fuzzy fleece robe my mom gave me for Christmas and padded down the hall to my room.
My computer is slow to boot up, which nearly drove me crazy. Finally the page, Joeyâs Joint, came up on my screen.
Unbelievable. He had a picture of me on it! Where on earth did he get that?
Oh, yeah. It was cropped, but now I recognized it. It was an old yearbook photo from Woodward Baines.
Under the picture the caption read: All the bases, all the time.
Oh. My. God.
The rest of the entry went like this:
Subject: An Ass-Kicking Night
Yo! Donât look now, but thereâs a new hot piece on the market, and Iâm the lucky stud who sampled it first. Yeah, yeah, I know Iâm not supposed to screw and tell, but can you blame me?
Last night was the first night of the rest of my life. Life without you know who, who seriously wonât be missed. Can I help it if the rest of the school wants to put out for me?
If you were at the game last night, you know it was hard to tell the teachers from the other asses on the court. Was Brenda riding that animal or the other way around? Anyway, lucky me,