"Girls night this Friday?" asked Sasha as Ginny and Mel sat down at the lunch table the next day at school. As weird as it had been initially to have guys sitting with them in the cafeteria, the girls were used to the presence of Roman and Carl by now. They were even able to talk as naturally as they had before the advent of the men.
"If I wear a bra can I come?"
"No, but you can go away now dressed as you are," Melanie shot at Dez, who had appeared at her shoulder out of nowhere. "Besides, it's not girls night. We always have it on the second and fourth Friday and the third Saturday."
"This Friday is the second Friday," Carl chipped in.
"He's right," Boo affirmed, giving her boyfriend a kiss on the cheek.
"Why, do you have plans?" Ginny asked Mel.
"Maybe."
"You never have plans."
"I do sometimes."
"You're like the queen of not doing things or doing things spur of the moment. You don't plan."
"Maybe I feel like shaking things up."
"What are you doing on Friday?"
"I have derby, geeze!"
"Oh."
"Yep, exactly the reaction I was expecting. Big surprise I didn't want to tell you."
"Derby won't take all night," Sasha interjected before Ginny could respond. "The game ends at what, like nine? Just come over after you're done."
"Can't we have girls night on Saturday?"
"We're going out," said Boo and Carl at the same time.
"Wait, are we going out on Friday?" Dez asked, his face screwed up with the effort of trying to remember.
"In the words of the immortal Cher, as if!"
"Well, if it isn't Dez, who is it?" Ginny asked. "Wait. I can't even believe I'm asking. It's Cozette. Of course it's Cozette. You two are going sky diving or to Disneyland or to the moon because Cozette's the greatest person since Audrey Hepburn. Handy with a shotgun Cozette. Mysterious, Japanese and French speaking Cozette."
"She asked if I wanted to hang out yesterday and I thought everyone would be busy so I said yes."
"And you just forgot a tradition we've been doing for five years. Are you bored with us, Mel? Is that it? Is Cozette way more exciting than eating boring food and hanging out with your boring old friends?"
"Whoa, take it down a notch, blondie," Sasha interrupted before a fight broke out. "It's just one night. It's not like she's going to lock Mel in her basement and keep her there for fifty years."
"And I thought you were cool with Cozette since she set you up with Frankie," added Boo.
"'Cool' with Cozette does not extend to letting her steal my best friend!"
"Dude!" Sasha flicked a grape at Ginny's head. "Would you stop harping on Cozette? I had coffee with her. She's fine. She's cool. She's chill. You know who isn't cool or chill and is giving herself an ulcer for no reason? You. So take a deep breath and count to ten or whatever. And Mel? Maybe you could come to girls night after hanging with She-Whose-Name-I'm-Sick-of-Hearing?"
"Yeah," conceded Melanie.
"Everyone good?"
Everyone nodded and became very interested in their food. After the tension had mostly gone, Roman turned to Carl.
"I'm so glad I'm not a chick," he said conversationally.
"Yeah, we just have to date the crazy instead of actually being crazy," said Dez sagely.
"Go away, Dez!"
XXX
Melanie found herself looking forward to Friday more than she was willing to admit. If Sasha or Ginny asked why she was grinning, she would quickly shrug and attribute it to some stupid thing Charlie had done. She wasn't exactly bored with her usual friends, but the fact that Cozette had singled her out—Cozette who could have hung out with anyone in school or town or even state—well, it was flattering. It made Mel both excited and a little nervous.
Thankfully the extra energy translated into extra blocker power and the Derby Dolls totally wiped the floor with the Crashing Pumpkins. Unfortunately, Mel also took an elbow to the eye from Splat Benetar in the last run. By the time Cozette was finished with the music and met her at the door of the warehouse, the skin around her left eye was already starting to blacken.
"So what are we going to do?"
"I thought we'd go back to my place and put some ice on that shiner," the new girl replied. "And then we're going to do something that isn't a contact sport and doesn't require perfect vision."
"Were rugby and sharpshooting really on the agenda?"
"Well I hadn't ruled them out entirely until I saw that hit." Cozette grinned and led Mel to her white mo-ped. "Are you okay with taking the Vespa?"
"Yeah, of course."
"If you sling your bag on your back, could you hold mine in your lap?"
"No problem."
"And I don't have Frankie's helmet, is it all right if you wear your derby helmet? I don't want Bone of Arc kicking my butt for getting your head split open."
"Yep."
After putting her gear on, Mel swung her leg over the back and lightly placed her hands on Cozette's sides as the older girl strapped on her helmet.
"You're gonna wanna hold on tighter than that," she heard as the engine revved up. "I'm kind of a speed demon."
She wasn't kidding. By the time they reached Cozette's house, Mel was clinging to her more tightly than she had clung to anything in her life.
"Geeze," she said as they got off, shaking slightly. "And I thought Charlie drove fast."
"Speed feels different when you're inside a car. Are you hungry?"
"Almost always."
"Good. I'm starving. How do you feel about stir fry?"
"Never met a stir fry I didn't like."
"Perfect."
The girls let themselves in the front door and through the house to the kitchen. The whole house was comfortable, but there were boxes every here and there as if the family hadn't decided if they were going to stay in Paradise for sure. After turning the light on, Cozette immediately went to the freezer and got a bag of peas, which she tossed to Mel.
"Is this all we're sticking in it?" the taller girl asked.
Cozette laughed as she pulled a wok out from a cupboard.
"Those are for your eye. I couldn't find an ice pack. I mean, unless you want an all-pea stir fry?"
"Oh, duh. Sorry."
"No need to apologize." She continued to bustle around the kitchen, grabbing a knife and cutting board, vegetables, and some already cooked rice.
"Can I do anything?"
"Yeah, can you grab that oil from this cupboard? I can't quite reach it."
"This isn't so different from hanging out with Ginny and Boo and Sasha," said Mel as she took the bottle and handed it to Cozette. "I'm always on giraffe patrol with them too."
"Giraffe patrol?"
"You know, getting stuff down from high places. Unless Ginny's feeling stubborn. Then she'll climb on counters and stools just so she won't have to ask for help."
"Sounds about right. Do I dare ask how she felt about us hanging out tonight?"
"Well she hasn't cursed you and your future offspring that I could hear, but she's hasn't talked to me all day either."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. We're due for a big fight, we have them all the time. If it hadn't been about this it would've been about something else."
"That doesn't exactly make me feel better, but I guess I'll take it." Cozette poured the vegetables she'd been chopping into the wok and listened to them hiss as they hit the oil. "Do you know what happened with her and my brother? I set them up hoping that they might end up together and maybe she'd chill about the whole you and me thing, but I haven't seen them together since then."
"Pears," said Mel after thinking for a second. "I think they were painting pears? Or he was teaching her how to do art?" She frowned. "But that was like two weeks ago. And she hasn't mentioned him lately. Has he talked about her?"
"Frankie doesn't really talk about girls. We're tight, but he's still my brother, you know? I don't want to think about someone getting it on with him."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Even seeing Charlie hold a girl's hand is enough to make me puke."
"Totally." Cozette stirred the rice into the vegetables. "This should be done in a few minutes. Can you grab some bowls from there" she nodded to a cupboard "and some forks from there?"
Melanie did as she was told and the girls headed to Cozette's room with their steaming bowls of stir fry. She wasn't sure what she expected the room to look like—perhaps cluttered with foreign objects and torches maybe?—but as soon as she walked in she knew it fit Cozette perfectly. Like Sasha, the girl had a mirror and barre in one corner and a queen-sized bed that was neatly made. A bookshelf held books like The Baghavad Ghita and Crime and Punishment. There were indeed foreign-looking objects scattered here and there, like a tribal mask hanging over her desk and a sari draped over the back of a comfortable chair.
"There's less stuff than I thought there would be," Mel remarked, sitting on the floor.
"That's the perk of moving zillions of times." Cozette perched cross-legged on the edge of her bed. "You lose a lot of stuff in the process. 'You can't take it with you' applies to moving and death. This is everything I thought I absolutely couldn't leave behind."
"I have so much crap I should probably just burn my house down."
"You can't have that much stuff."
"You don't even know. I still have assignments from like first grade. Not just shoebox dioramas either. Like, stupid math quizzes and handwriting exercises."
"Wow. I wish I had some of the little things from when I was younger. I don't think I even have the shoebox dioramas."
"Trust me, it isn't worth it," said Mel wryly. "The fact that I still couldn't spell 'delicious' until fourth grade is forever preserved for future generations. And you better believe that Charlie hasn't forgotten."
Cozette laughed and Melanie liked the feeling it gave her in her chest. For the next few hours, they talked about nothing and everything, music and school and all the places Cozette had lived and if there was life on other planets and why sharks looked so dumb and terrifying at the same time. It was so easy to talk to the new girl. She was disappointed when she looked at her phone and saw that it was ten to midnight and that she had six text messages, five from Sasha and one from Boo.
You gonna be joining us any time soon? (10:15 p.m.)
Seriously though blondie's losing her shit. (10:48 p.m.)
I haven't seen her this passive aggressive aggressive since that time you beat her in Monopoly. (10:50 p.m.)
GET YOUR ASS HERE (11:16 p.m.)
BRING NEW KID IF YOU MUST BUT GET HERE NOW (11:30 p.m.)
Hey, Mel, are you still coming? (11:33 p.m.)
"The gang wants their giraffe back?"
"You got it. Can you drop me off at Sasha's?"
"Mais oui. And this time I'll go more slow."
"You don't have to do that."
"I want to. So I can have more time with you."
Melanie didn't answer, just grinned, enjoying the fluttering she got in her stomach.