If It Makes You Happy Read online

  My stomach roiled, already ready to revolt. I pressed my hand against it, breathing in and out. I could do it. Walk out there and own it. Miss Jepson didn’t spend hours working on this work of art for me to throw up all over it. This dress had been made to be seen. Designed to make me look like a summer beach goddess. I hesitated one extra second before turning the corner at the brick wall and walking outside.

  People gasped when they saw me. Grabbed the person next to them so they would turn around and stare at me too with widened eyes. The bleachers were bursting with spectators on both sides. The overflow stood along the sides and sat on picnic blankets on the ground crowding the cement. No professional cameras, thank God. Sana’s crew must not have been interested, because I’m sure Shelley invited them.

  “Winnie, my goodness!”

  Speak of the devil. “Hi, Shelley.”

  “I knew Miss Jepson had some skill, but this is—”

  “Too much?”

  “No, just unexpected and not at all what my notes said to do.” Ah, so the mermaid look had been Shelley’s request. “This way.”

  An ostentatious throne of thick curlicue gold pieces and purple velvet cushions sat under a canopy at the deep end of the pool. At least I wouldn’t have to sit in the sun. Kara stood on one side of the throne. Dallas on the other—distinctly not looking at me.

  Funny. Everyone else was watching me, but not him.

  I speed-walked, leaving Shelley behind. Another stomach gurgle. Another hard swallow. I struggled to keep my head held high when all of my instincts urged me to lower it, to hide myself.

  Kara met me halfway there, turning and keeping stride. She walked on her tiptoes to whisper, “Breathe. Remember, I got you.”

  My stomach didn’t calm down, but my mind did. Having her there felt like being wrapped in cotton, insulated against hyperfocused, prying eyes. A protective shield to keep me from feeling too much.

  I’m not sure how, but being with Kara always helped me remember how to be myself while in the thick of it.

  Someone in the crowd wolf-whistled.

  “HEY!” Kara stared in the general direction of where the sound came from. “YOU DARE DISRESPECT YOUR QUEEN WITH CRUDE WHISTLES? I WILL FIGHT YOU!”

  “It was a compliment!” I knew that voice. Melodic and powerful, it could only be Shane Brisbane, the vocal pride of Merry Haven. His parents owned a music shop in Merry. They sold instruments and had a side business that employed music teachers. Dallas’s mom had been the one to teach him how to sing.

  We reached the throne, and as I sat, Dallas said, “You’re taking this way too seriously.”

  Kara narrowed her eyes. “Damn right I am. I’m winning this thing. I’m not above cheating, so you better watch out.”

  “Cheating means you get disqualified.” His voice sounded bored. Lifeless.

  “Maybe when peasants do it.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and said, “Watch this.” Raising her hand in the air, she stepped away from me. “I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A FORMAL COMPLAINT.”

  “Excuse me?” Shelley sounded scandalized, like how dare Kara do whatever it was she was about to do even though she had no idea what it was.

  “Pearl diving is biased and unfair.” She raised her voice, shouting now. “I’m four feet and ten inches short. That giant over there is six foot infinity. All volunteers are supposed to have an equal shot of winning the tiebreaker, but he can cover twice the distance I can in the same amount of time.”

  Kara wasn’t actually that short, but she correctly guessed no one would break out a measuring tape to challenge her.

  In the grand scheme of tiebreakers, pearl diving resided firmly in the mild middle. Right in between sonnet recitals and jousting.

  The first person to swim from the shallow end to the deep end of the pool, dive the thirteen feet for a treasure, and present said treasure to yours truly would be declared the winner.

  The problem wasn’t only that Kara was short.

  Dallas had been the Haven High swim team captain. Shelley and her “council” had very obviously wanted him to win.

  “That is super unfair.” Sam stood up—she sat in the front row of the bleachers directly to my right—and hit Winston in the shoulder.

  “Yeah,” he said, standing. “Something should be done to level the playing field.” He said it like a bad actor reading their lines in an infomercial.

  “I agree!” Kara’s older sister, Junie, stood with her boyfriend on the other side of the bleachers. Junie and Kara looked alike for the most part, except Junie didn’t wear glasses and was taller. “My sister deserves a fair chance to win!” She started chanting Kara’s name and waving her hands to get the crowd to join in with her.

  “You see?” Kara said to Shelley. “The people have spoken!”

  When had she become the crowd favorite? Everyone joined in with chanting her name. Maybe it was like the wave thing they do at sporting events, where once it starts you go along with it for no other reason than groupthink.

  My little revolutionary in her black-and-white polka-dot tankini.

  “Your people have spoken,” Dallas said. “I like your dress.”

  I whipped around, realizing he was talking to me. It had happened so fast, but my face found just enough time to heat up. “Uh, thanks.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  My face shot straight past feeling flushed to inferno. Beautiful!? I met his eyes; shock had to be plain on my face, mouth hanging open and everything.

  Truly, I was a dignified queen.

  But he smiled at me with his head tilted to the side as if I were a painting worth being appreciated in a museum. My heart pounded in my ears while the rest of me forgot how to move.

  “I WILL FIGHT YOU, TOO.” Kara charged toward him, but Shelley stepped in between them.

  “Enough. Kara, while loud and wholly inappropriate, you do have a point. The council did not take your height into consideration when making our selection.”

  “Thank you.” She continued glaring at Dallas, who went back to looking bored.

  “How about a head start? One minute—”

  “Three.”

  “Two. Two minutes and that’s final.”

  “Done.”

  Shelley nodded, walking away toward the shallow end. “Now that that brief interruption is over, we’ll get started.” The woman didn’t even need a megaphone. “Per tradition, the queen will have up to one minute to show favor, if she so chooses.”

  I hated this part. Whoever got that minute would be dubbed the Queen’s Champion—the one I wanted to win.

  I picked Kara.

  The way Dallas looked at me after I chose made me feel like I should’ve said something to him, good luck maybe, but it was against the rules. I watched him go, walking to the shallow end to stand in position. His swim trunks were the same shade of yellow as my dress.

  Kara tapped me twice on the collarbone on the left side of my chest. Our signal.

  “Glasses?” I held out my hand and she handed them to me.

  Volunteers weren’t allowed to wear goggles under the water. I’ve seen pearl diving take up to an hour because no one could find the treasure. Thanks to that failure of a year, there’d been a rule change: more than one treasure would be available—the number of participants plus one.

  “Nervous?”

  “I don’t get nervous. I win.”

  “I know.”

  Did I want Kara to win? I wanted her to be happy. If winning would do that, then yeah, I did. As queen, with my summer (and heart, if you believed in it) on the line, I’d be happy with her.

  If Miss Jepson had asked me what I wanted, instead of asking if I had wanted Kara to win, my answer would have been different.

  The HSR equaled romance. Every year, it almost always had the same outcome. This year was my year. This year was my chance to spend time with someone that I’ve been in denial about wanting, someone who might want me back.

  To Kara, romance was a thing
for other people. A hardcore shipper, she wanted what her faves wanted, and if that was another person, or two, she was all for it to the extreme and back again. “I’m happiest when the people I love are happy,” she had said once. “It’s not hard to figure out.”

  “Other people” included me. And more than anything, I wanted a chance. A chance for the what-ifs to be mine.

  The absolute surety of that wish nearly knocked the wind out of me. I hadn’t really thought about what would happen to Kara and me when we reached this crossroad. We had made easy promises, like I would never date someone she didn’t like and she would always give whoever I chose three fair chances to mess up before declaring them dead to her. It sounded so simple while we whispered the rules between us, writing them down in our Ungirlfriend Book. Kara might not mind someone else in the future, but she had a big problem with Dallas right now.

  Could I have told Kara that I wanted Dallas to win? Yeah. But I knew, felt in the darkest corners of my heart, that she wouldn’t have been okay with it. Making a rule and having to accept it when the time came were two very different things.

  Kara touched the bodice of my dress. “This is really pretty. She definitely went all out this year.”

  “It’s okay if you don’t win.” I tried to keep my voice even. “They set you up to fail. I won’t be disappointed or anything.”

  My hands started shaking—from the betrayal or from keeping a secret, I didn’t know. She wrapped her hands around my wrists, looking up at me. Her entire body was a constellation of freckles. I stared at her shoulders, down her arms, to her hands.

  “It’s okay. If I don’t win, I’ll still go to all of your events. I’ll be right there, every time. Concentrate on me and we’ll get through it.”

  Oh Jesus. She wanted to win for me. She wanted to win to help me and would spend her whole summer following me around during Royal Engagements just in case I needed her. I bit my lip, and my face started to hurt from trying to not cry because I was selfish and terrible and a liar.

  I had to tell her. I had to.

  “See you on the other side.” Kara skipped all the way to her spot, playing the part. Her way of boasting about being chosen as my champion. Even from where I stood, I could see the smug smile she aimed directly at Dallas.

  I sat on my ostentatious throne of lies. Shelley handed me an air horn and stopwatch.

  “Count down and press here.” She explained it as if I had never seen either one before. “Whenever you’re ready. Remember to project, and it’s only a two-minute head start. No cheating.”

  I did it quickly to get people to stop looking at me. Kara jumped in while the crowd cheered her on. She had just made it to the deep end, treading water to catch her breath, when the stopwatch beeped. I blew the horn for a second time.

  Dallas didn’t move. He continued sitting at the edge of the pool.

  The crowd began to rumble in confusion, not knowing who to watch, him or Kara. What was happening? Had he changed his mind about winning?

  Disappointment sliced through me, quick and vicious. Had I been wrong? Was he upset that I’d picked Kara to be my champion? I explained everything to him. He should have known I would! It shouldn’t have been a surprise.

  “What is he doing?” Shelley asked me as if I would know.

  “Why does everyone keep assuming I know what’s going on with him?”

  “Is he dropping out?”

  “I don’t know!”

  He didn’t speak to anyone or look anywhere in particular. Why bother to show up if he didn’t plan to compete? My jaw began to hurt from clamping it shut to combat my nerves. Was this just some elaborate prank to get my hopes up so people would laugh at me, make fun of me later? Dallas was kind. He wouldn’t. He would not do that to me.

  “Blow it again.” Shelley snatched it out of my hand because I didn’t move fast enough and did it herself.

  Dallas held up a hand, but remained sitting.

  Shelley would burst a vein if she didn’t calm down soon. “Why isn’t he participating?”

  “Woman, if you ask me one more time.”

  Kara held on to the wall, breathing hard. The swimming, the diving, and the searching had already worn her out. Thirteen feet was a long way down for someone not used to it. Had she been able to make it to the bottom at all?

  I couldn’t help Kara. I didn’t know what Dallas was doing. Overwhelmed, I stared at my hands. The white stopwatch had continued to count the seconds and minutes because I had forgotten to press the button. A single minute had barely passed.

  A minute. My hope bloomed back to life. Dallas was waiting an extra minute before starting. He was giving Kara the three-minute head start she’d originally asked for! Sure enough, at three minutes and one second, he dropped his hand and dove into the pool. He cut through the water effortlessly, all clean lines and smooth strokes.

  Dallas dove and surfaced a few times before clinging to the wall himself to take a break. He turned back, staring at Kara just as she dove back in. He matched her, diving as well.

  A few people in the crowd stood up to see better. I couldn’t help it—I did, too. A flash of red and yellow seemed to cluster together under the water—her hair and his shorts.

  Kara broke the surface, gasping and turning and swimming to me. My heart leaped into my throat—she’d found a treasure! The crowd exploded with noise, standing up and shouting, telling her to hurry and swim faster, chanting her name.

  Not a single drop of disappointment touched me. I wanted Dallas to win—even wallowing in hope and shame, I could admit that—but Kara would never be some second-rate consolation prize. I tried to run to the edge to meet her, but Shelley held me back.

  “You have to sit! She has to come to you!”

  I glared at her, but did what she said. My hands squeezed the arms of the chair so tight I could feel the fake gold remolding around my grip. I didn’t dare blink or take my eyes off of Kara.

  “There he is!” Shelley damn near shouted next to my ear. I would throw up on her if she didn’t get away from me soon.

  Dallas hadn’t surfaced, but a bright spot of yellow trailed Kara under the water, dangerously close to passing her.

  Kara tried to lift herself out of the pool—and failed. Arms too short and body too tired, she fell back into the water. She didn’t try again, instead turning and swimming for the stairs not too far away.

  “Oh no.” I gasped. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

  Dallas had no such problem. In one smooth move, he pulled himself up and out of the water. He didn’t run, reaching me five seconds before Kara did, and presented his treasure to me: a fake pearl bracelet with a weighted bright red plastic heart attached to it.

  FAM-BAM-MAJAMA

  Winnie: Update: Kara lost.

  Mom: Oh no! Is she okay? I know how much she hates losing.

  Winnie: Shelley tried to make them shake hands after I crowned Dallas and Kara kicked him instead so I’d say she’s a little upset. Just a little.

  Mom:!!!!!!

  Dad: Do I need to come down there?

  Winnie: It’s not like that Dad.

  Dad: If Kara doesn’t like him there must be something wrong with him.

  Winnie:… I never said Kara didn’t like him.

  Dad: She’s all mouth same as you. You said she kicked him. He must have done something. Or will do something.

  Dad: Send me his parents’ number

  Winnie: DAD NO

  Dad: I’ll get it from my mom. Don’t test me child

  Mom: Charles calm down. If something was wrong Winston would tell us.

  Winston: call his parents

  Winnie: DON’T LISTEN TO HIM

  Mom: Winnie. Phone number. Now.

  Winnie: WHY ARE Y’ALL LIKE THIS

  Eighteen

  The lighting in megastores always creeped me out. Maybe it had to be brighter than the wattage the Creator of the Universe intended for the sun so customers could see all of the discount slashes on price tags. O
r lack of slashes in my case. I wasn’t cheap. I was practical—fiscally conservative minus the Republican agenda. I knew the value of a dollar and how far I could stretch that into one hundred pennies.

  The day was for Kara anyway. She placed a toaster, a waffle iron, a hand mixer, and a set of mixing bowls in the cart. “I decided just to go on and get new stuff, so I don’t have to worry about packing and shipping my babies.”

  “How practical.” Retail therapy wasn’t a myth. Whenever Kara’s emotions got the better of her, she shopped. Or I shopped and mailed her presents.

  I had a photo shoot coming up soon with Dallas—the symbolic kickoff to Royal Engagements—and I didn’t want Kara to feel left out. Whenever I had to spend time with Dallas, I’d make sure to spend time with her first. On the same day. No excuses. The perfect primer for my impending confession.

  Nothing would change between Kara and me. I’d show her that before she could even think it. Perfect plan was perfect and not for me. At all. I didn’t need convincing that this could work out between the three of us. Nope.

  “This is a pretty lamp.” Granny held it up, admiring the refracted crystal surface. She had declared a cease-fire on the silent treatment. It wouldn’t last, which hurt more than I wanted to admit. Her joy stemmed from the running, from the dieting, and one of those was about to go soon.

  Well, soonish.

  I wasn’t quite ready to willingly give up her smile.

  “Pretty expensive,” I said. “I’m sure the dorm will have built-in lights. The pictures on the website had them.”

  Kara and I had been assigned to the brand-spanking-new student tower funded by the hundreds of extra dollars slid into student fees all of the students who had attended before me had been forced to pay. “Renovations,” they had called it. “Suites” replaced dorms.

  I could see why they were trying to sugarcoat the reality that housing (rent) alone would cost $10,000 a year per person, when we’d be shacking up with two other girls. Between the four of us, that was enough money for a down payment on a nice house.

  Whatever.

  We hadn’t met our future roomies yet, but knew their names and student emails.