Read All the Way for Free Online Page A

Carmen was in the mood to play a different kind of game, and I came out the big winner for the evening. And when I say “big” winner . . . or should I say wiener? . . . you all know what I mean. This page isn’t called Joey’s Joint for nothing!
    But hey—I know how to share. Feel free, boys, to give her a call. No one ever called me selfish.
    Needless to say, I was in shock. I mean, total, utter, shock. Was he Satan or something?
    The phone rang, jolting me out of my stupor.
    â€œI can’t believe this,” I said, seeing Ariel’s caller ID. “I mean, is he totally insane? How can he write that stuff when nothing happened last night?”
    â€œNothing?” Ariel sounded like she wasn’t about to believe that .
    â€œNothing!”
    Ariel was silent.
    â€œOkay, I kissed him a lot in the backseat of his car, okay? But that was totally it. I mean, totally. When he tried to feel me up, I pushed him off and got out of the car and freaking walked all the way home from the lake !”
    â€œOh my God,” Ariel said. “So he’s . . . what? Just trash-talking you to make Molly jealous? I mean, why would he do that?”
    â€œWhat do you mean why? It’s just what you said—to make Molly jealous! Duh!” I practically shouted the answer at her. “Sorry . . .” I forced my voice back down to a normal human register. “I’m a little upset. This is the first date I’ve had all year. Why the hell did he have to go and write crap like this about me?”
    â€œThat’s Joey,” Ariel said. “He never does anything in a small way.”
    â€œUnbelievable. And he actually seemed nice last night,” I moaned. “Until he went all King Kong on me in the backseat. We were having a good time . . . I thought.”
    I guess Ariel didn’t know what to say, because she was really quiet. I got the feeling she thought I was a fool for expecting someone like Joey Perrone to treat me decently.
    â€œWhat am I going to do?” I asked her.
    â€œTell everyone you know to spread the truth about what really happened,” Ariel suggested.
    â€œUh, right. So let me know when you’ve got that done,” I said. “Because you and Gina are about it.”
    Ariel was quiet for a minute. “Look, don’t you sit next to Isabel in English? What if you told her that Joey’s just lying? Maybe she’d tell Molly, and then it would get around that Joey was just making it up . . .”
    â€œMaybe,” I said, but I doubted it. The way Isabel was shooting daggers at me last night, I doubted she’d want to help me clean up my rep.
    Right then I got call waiting from Rachel, so I hung up and went through the whole thing again with my best friend. It was weird, though. Rachel didn’t seem to have any good ideas at all about how to handle it. How could she? She didn’t know Joey or Molly or anyone at my new school.
    â€œI’m going to call him,” I said after we’d hashed it through a few times. “I mean, I can’t just let him say this stuff and get away with it.”
    â€œYou go, girl,” Rachel said. “Call me back right after.”
    I ran downstairs to our kitchen—another disaster area, thanks to the renovation—and found a phone book so I could look up Joey’s number. Then I went back upstairs, locked myself in my room, and dialed his house.
    â€œHello?” It was a little kid, a girl. Suddenly the thought of Joey having an innocent cute little sister made me feel like he’d not only trashed my reputation, he’d somehow damaged her life as well. I felt sorry for her.
    â€œUh, hi. Can I speak to Joey?” I asked.
    â€œHold on,” she said politely. Then I heard the phone drop with a clunk, possibly on the floor, and I waited for what seemed like five whole minutes. Finally he picked it up.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œJoey, this is Carmen,”