Chapter 71
After some
debate in the car, Nick and Claire settled on the Dairy Queen, which looked
relatively uncrowded. Ordering two
medium-sized Blizzards, they selected a booth in the very back corner and sat
down, Nick facing the back wall, Claire sitting across from him.
“Mm, this is
just what I needed,” Claire sighed happily, plunging her spoon into her Reese’s
Blizzard.
“Me too,”
agreed Nick, taking a bite of his mint M&M one.
They sat in
silence for a few minutes, enjoying their ice cream, when the door to the
restaurant opened, and four teenage girls walked in. Nick glanced over his shoulder at them, then
quickly looked away and sank low in his seat, hoping they would not notice or
recognize him.
“I think
you’re safe for now,” Claire said in a low voice, watching them over her
shoulder. “They’re too busy talking to
notice you.”
He grinned
sheepishly, feeling like she could read his mind. Then again, he supposed his body language had
given his fears away.
A few minutes
later, the same posse of girls sat down in the booth directly across from where
he and Claire were seated. Trying to
watch them without looking like he was watching them, he observed them to be
high school age, probably around sixteen or seventeen. They were good-looking girls and were dressed
to impress, all wearing tight, low-cut clothes, their hair done stylishly,
their faces caked with too much make-up.
They were apparently deeply involved in a conversation, for they were
all talking animatedly and not paying attention to anything around them as
their voices carried to Nick and Claire’s table. As he played with his food, absently stirring
his Blizzard and watching as the rainbow of colors from the M&M’s swirled
with the green ice cream, turning it to a muddy brown, Nick couldn’t help but
eavesdrop.
“Well, I
think Ava should run for president,” one girl was saying, twirling a french fry
in her French-manicured fingers as she spoke.
“Then I’ll be vice president, and Taryn, you can be secretary, and Elle,
you’ll be treasurer.”
“That sounds
good,” said one of the girls sitting on the other side of the table, “but how
are we going to assure that we all win the election in the fall? Someone told me before school got out that that
bitch Susi and her friends were planning on running this year. I’m sorry, but if I won, and one of them got
on student council too, I’d just die. It
has to be all four of us; then we can have total control over the student
council.” She attacked her little cup of
ketchup, forcefully plunging a fry into it.
“Good point,
Taryn,” said the girl sitting across from her, nodding her head. “We’re just going to have to make sure we
have enough people to vote for us.”
“How are we
going to do that?”
“We’ll do
whatever it takes… bribe them, threaten them, let them sit with us at lunch for
a day… whatever. We’ve got to win at all
costs.”
“Ooh, Ava…
that’s scandalicious all right,” giggled the fourth girl.
Scandalicious.
That was the name of one of Nick’s songs. He sank lower in his seat, watching the girls
out of the corner of his eye, still listening to their conversation. God, they’re shallow, he thought, as
they went on listing people who would surely vote for them for student
council. What he would give to only have
to worry about such petty things as who would be elected as student council
president.
“Oh yeah,
Ashley totally would vote for us. And
what about Laurie?”
“Yeah,
there’s possibilities with her. Oh, and
don’t forget Janelle; she’ll vote for us if I ask her to. I can probably even get her to make some
campaign posters and stuff for us. She’s
better at that than I am.”
“Oh yeah,
speaking of the campaign, we should get somebody to be our PR person, sort
of. You know, they could, like, recruit
more people to vote for us and get the word out that we’re running and stuff.”
“Oh yeah,
great idea, Taryn! What do you think
about that, Elle?”
When the
other girl did not answer, Nick glanced over and found her looking directly at
him. His eyes widened as they met with
hers, and he quickly looked away, turning his whole body to face the wall and
hoping she did not recognize him.
“Elle? Hey, Elle, wake up!” Nick glanced back to see one of the girl’s
waving her hand in front of Elle’s face.
“Sorry,
Emily… what were you guys saying?”
Phew, Nick thought as the girls got back to
their conversation. I guess she
didn’t recognize me.
“Are you
okay, Nick?” Claire asked, and he looked up to see a perplexed expression on
her face. “You’re acting funny.”
“I’m fine,”
he replied quickly, taking a bite of melting ice cream and trying to tune out
the girls. But then the one called Elle
said the thing he had been dreading.
“Hey, Emily…
don’t look now, but you know the guy that’s sitting over there? Is that Nick Carter?” asked Elle in a whisper
that still managed to carry over to Nick’s table.
Oh God, he thought with a groan, as all four
heads turned in his direction.
“Oh my God,
you guys, that is him!” hissed one of the others. “He looks awful!”
“I know…
that’s so sad… look at what’s happened to him…”
Nick could
feel his face burning scarlet with humiliation.
Meekly, he chanced a glance at Claire to see her face reddening too, but
somehow, he sensed her flush was from anger, not embarrassment. He noticed her eyeing the girls’ table out of
the corner of her eye, a frown distorting her features.
“You know, we
can hear you over here,” Claire said loudly as the girls kept on whispering
about him. At her words, all four of
them stopped, their heads whipping in Nick and Claire’s directions, their
cheeks turning pink as guilty expressions washed over their faces. They exchanged glances, but said
nothing. “You know, if you’re going to
talk about someone behind their back,” Claire went on angrily, “at least do it
where they can’t hear everything you’re saying!”
“S-sorry,”
stammered the one called Ava. “We didn’t
mean anything bad… we’re big fans of you, Nick.
We were just wondering if that was really you.”
“It’s me,”
Nick said flatly.
“Um… you
think we could get your autograph?” Ava asked hopefully.
Claire’s
mouth dropped open, and she stood up.
“No, you can’t have his autograph!
What the fuck is wrong with you little twits? First you insult him, then you ask him for
his autograph? Leave him the hell
alone!”
“And who the
hell are you?” Ava asked, her eyes narrowing coldly. “His girlfriend or something?” She gave Claire the once over, her eyes
traveling up and down her body, her lips contorting into a disdainful sneer.
“She’s my
friend,” Nick spoke up, not about to let Claire fight his battles for him, “and
it’s none of your business anyway. Come
on, Claire, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Standing up abruptly, he snatched his half-eaten Blizzard and stalked up
to the front of the restaurant. Claire
grabbed her ice cream as well, and as she started to follow him, she
mysteriously stumbled, and the cup of ice cream flew out of her hand, managing
to bounce right off Ava’s chest and fall into her lap. As Ava screamed in horror and knocked the cup
off, Nick saw a trail of sticky, dripping ice cream running all down her shirt,
leading to a puddle of it her lap.
“Oh my God!”
she screamed. “This outfit was brand
new! What the fuck is wrong with
you?!”
“Whoops, sorry,”
Claire replied with mock sincerity.
“Clumsy me.” With that, she
turned on her heel and marched to the front of the restaurant, where Nick was
staring at her in utter shock.
“I can’t
believe you did that!” he exclaimed as soon as they had burst out the door,
Claire laughing hysterically.
“I know! I’m evil, aren’t I? I’ve never done anything like that before!”
“Jesus, we’re
never going to be able to come back here!
First you practically cuss out some teeny, and then you drop ice cream
all over her? They’re gonna have Wanted
posters with your face plastered all over this place!” Nick cried, trying to
sound serious, but failing miserably as he began to laugh out loud, tears
filling his eyes as he pictured the expression on that girl’s face. “God, Claire, that was so fucking awesome!”
She smiled,
but as they got into the car, she said, “God, I feel kinda bad… I mean, that
was really mean… I wasn’t really thinking, I just… did it.”
“Hey, don’t
feel bad, that girl deserved it.
Besides, it’s just ice cream, it’ll come out, won’t it? It wasn’t even chocolate,” Nick assured her
as he stuck his key into the ignition.
“Hey, you
better hurry up and drive,” Claire commented, glancing over her shoulder. “I keep waiting for her little posse to come
out and chase us down.”
“Well, they
ain’t gonna catch us in this baby,” Nick laughed, revving the engine of his
sporty, black BMW and whipping out of his parking space, tires screeching as he
put the car into drive and took off.
“We’re
fugitives now, baby!” Claire shouted as they sped down the highway.
Adrenaline
pumping through his body at the excitement of their “getaway,” Nick threw back
his head and laughed, pressing his foot to the floor and feeling the car
accelerate swiftly and smoothly. The
yellow light at the intersection ahead put an abrupt stop to their adventure
though. “Damn,” Nick muttered under his
breath and dutifully put on the brakes as the light changed to red.