Chapter IV

"Abby, if I tell you about something, will you promise not to freak out or make a big deal out of it," Maeve asks.

They're sitting in the asbestos bathrooms at school with their biology texts. "Sure," Abby says. "I mean, is this about why you called off the whole clinic thing? Because I really did think it was a good idea, Maeve."

"Sort of," Maeve says. "But not really. You cannot tell anyone about this. Not even your nan. I don't want this getting around town, okay?"

"Okay, what is it," Abby asks. "You haven't...killed anyone, right?"

"No," Maeve says. She pauses and looks away from Abby. "You know, I really don't think I should tell you this. I barely know you."

"But now I'm gonna wonder what it is, so you may as well tell me," Abby says. "Otherwise, I'll bug you about it until you have to knock some sense in me."

"I just don't know if it's the sort of thing you can handle," Maeve muses.

"Try me."

"I'm pregnant."

Abby stares at Maeve in mild surprise. "I mean...wow. You're...you aren't going to keep it, right? Like, you aren't really religious or anything. I don't know. Are you...going to give it up for adoption or something? Or...you know...get it taken care of?"

"I can't have a baby while I'm in school," Maeve says. "My life...look, there's other stuff going on that means having a baby would make things exponentially worse, okay?"

"That's fair," Abby says. "I wouldn't judge you for not keeping it even if you were rich like me or Aimee. Which, I mean, most people aren't, so if you are, sorry for assuming differently. But...why tell me?"

"The only other friends I have are Aimee and Otis," Maeve says. "And while this is way beyond you, those two would get it even less. Besides, to them, in the back of their minds, even though they're nice, I know they still think of me as Cockbiter."

"Look, I don't know Aimee that well," Abby says. "But considering how nice she's been to me even after all this garbage with Adam, and when I think of what I know about Otis, I feel like you aren't giving them enough credit. Or you're giving me way too much. But, in any case, thanks. For trusting me. I won't tell anyone."

Both girls sit quietly, staring down at their open texts. "So," Maeve asks. "What's going on with you and Otis anyway?"

"Nothing," Abby says. "We talked a little at the party. I got him in touch with some clients. I, um, I'm really not looking for a boyfriend. Boyfriends are one of those things that are great in theory, but not in practice. I'm definitely not looking for anything like that until after graduation. Or maybe ever. I think my expectations are too unrealistic, and I'd be a lot happier as an old spinster with a decent host of sex toys and social acquaintances."

Maeve raises her eyebrows. "Fair enough," she says. "So you're content to just have repressed feelings for him?"

"They aren't repressed," Abby says. "Maybe I could have a crush on him, but I barely know him. Besides, he's not any more interested than I am."

"If you say so," Maeve says, smirking to herself.

The sound of loud footsteps come toward the bathroom, and, sure enough, Otis and Eric run in in an excited flurry.

"We have sex pretzels," Eric announces with a gigantic grin.

"Clients. We have clients," Otis adds, and Abby squeals.

"Do you hear that," she says. "Maeve, it worked!"

"Numerous students have approached me today hoping to secure our services," Otis explains. "And they're willing to pay."

"Keep talking," Maeve says, looking up.

"Actually, that's it," Otis says.

"Okay," Maeve says, hopping off the sink. "This is good. This is really good. So...we're back on."

"This is so awesome," Abby says. "So unbelievably awesome."

"Yes! Yes," Otis says. "But, um, toilet cubicles aren't going to work. I'm not a priest, so I need to see people face to face."

"I thought you didn't wanna be seen," Maeve says.

"Well, yeah, but it's not about me," Otis explains. "It's about them, and it needs to feel like a conversation. Otherwise it's just too much pressure for everyone."

"Okay, okay. Well, Abby will keep doing intake evaluations, and I'll be in charge of bookings, schedules, payments, that kind of thing," Maeve says.

"Great. What shall I do," Eric asks.

The other three teens fumble, trying to come up with something, until Eric finally cuts them off.

"It's cool, it's cool. No problemo. I've got lots of things to be gettin' on with, anyway. I'm super busy. Super busy," he says, clearly hurt. Abby winces. "But this is so great for you guys," he adds, forcing a laugh.

"Um, so what does this mean," Otis asks Maeve.

"We're open for business."

As they leave the bathroom, Abby stops Eric. "So, after the swim meet, do you wanna come hang out at my place? My nan has this excellent collection of old magazines that I think would totally go with your aesthetic. Like, you know, inspo beyond Pinterest, if you're, like, interested."

"Okay," Eric says, "did Maeve say no?"

"No," Abby says. "I asked you first. I think you're cool."

"I might be able to," he tells her. "I'll see if I have plans and let you know."

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"Can I take this Marky Mark poster home with me," Eric asks, pointing to a tear away poster of a young shirtless Mark Wahlberg from one of the early 90s Smash Hits magazines strewn across Abby's bedroom floor.

"Sure," Abby says. "Don't know why you'd want it, though. He looks like Adam."

"He does not," Eric gasps. "Are you blind?"

"Then again," Abby says. "My dad met him once and said he was an obnoxious prick, which typically translates to 'good guy.'"

"Your parents can't be that bad," Eric says. "I mean, your dad is a rockstar and your mum is a supermodel. They're, like, elite."

"They also totally don't understand me," Abby explains. "I think it's because I'm growing up rich and they grew up normal. For them, it was easy to make names for themselves because no one knew or cared who their parents were outside their hometowns. And, you know, they wanted to make names for themselves. Meanwhile, I almost wish no one knew who I was. Or, that if people did know, my parents' names weren't the first ones that came to mind." Abby bites her lip. "Like get this: I kind of want to be a DJ. I love music. I make playlists and mashups all the time. But there's no way I'll ever be able to do anything in the music industry without the word 'nepotism' being in the back of everyone's minds."

"Wait, hold up, rewind," Eric says. "You make music?"

"Mashups," Abby says. "Online. I don't post them anywhere but SoundCloud but..."

"Show me," Eric says. "If it's shit, I'll tell you."

"Okay," Abby says. "Let me get my laptop."

Abby moves several vintage copies of Smash Hits and Just Seventeen out of her way before grabbing her Macbook from her desktop and bringing it down to the carpeted floor. After opening up Safari, she pulls up her SoundCloud account, AppleBottomTeam, and streaming her most recent mix, "Smell Up Your Spice Party", a mashup of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Spice Up Your Life," and "Party Rock Anthem" she'd made sometime last year.

"Holy shit, Abby," Eric says. "This is both the best and the worst. It's eargasmic. I love it, I hate it, and most of all, the world needs it."

"I mean, that's hyperbole at best," she says, blushing. "But thanks."

"No, seriously," Eric says. "You could be, like, the next Daft Punk or something."

"I mean, Daft Punk makes their own music," Abby says. "I'd compare my stuff to Girl Talk. Maybe Neil Cicierega."

"I have no idea what those things are, but sure," Eric says. "Holy crap, you have to let me share this on Facebook and let everyone..."

"No," Abby says. "No way. I...I'm glad you like it and everything, but I really want to remain anonymous for a while longer. I mean, I'm already paranoid that the likes I get on SoundCloud are from A&R guys who got ahold of my IP address and want to sign me and my dad in one fell swoop. If it gets out on social media that this is me, I doubt I'll ever get genuine feedback again."

"Fair enough," Eric says, before squealing, "This is so Hannah Montana!" After pausing, he asks, "So, are you at least going to tell Maeve and Otis?"

Abby shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "Maybe Maeve. I don't know Otis like that."

Eric nods. "Mmhmm," he says, "you just know him well enough to talk about dicks and vaginas."

"Oh, not you, too! Maeve's got this idea in her head about her already, and it's perfectly clear that it's making everyone uncomfortable."

"It makes you uncomfortable," Eric repeats. "I'm sorry."

"It doesn't bother me," Abby says, blushing. "I'm...perfectly ambivalent to it. But Otis clearly wants no part of it. I, uh, squeezed his hand as a platonic gesture, and he pulled it away because it was sweaty. And when these clients mistook us for a couple, he was all too happy to let them know we weren't. Maybe it's me, maybe it's relationships in general, but it's obvious he's not interested, so really, all the speculation is pointless. And furthermore, I'm not looking for a relationship anyway. So, um, there's that."

"Okay, as someone who has known you for three days but can translate word vomit, there is a lot there beyond what you just said, but for right now, I'm gonna count the SoundCloud account as all the tea I need for today and just let it rest," Eric says. "But...if you ever wanna talk about the situation brewing between you and Otis, I'm definitely down."

"It's not a situation, but okay," Abby says. "Anyway, do you think if I got a perm, I'd look like '80s Kylie Minogue, or just a very tall poodle?"

Eric scans Abby thoughtfully. "Tall poodle," he says. "Your hair is mostly fine. You've just gotta keep it out of your face a bit more. Right now, you look a bit like Sissy Spacek in Carrie. Pretty, but kind of homeschooled."

"You can look homeschooled?"

"Definitely," Eric says. "Now, I'm not promising much. I'm not the gay best friend who's going to swoop in and turn you into an Untouchable, innit? I just think you could try to part your hair differently. Like to the right instead of right down the middle."

"Maybe," Abby says. "I don't know. I mean, that sounds so simple."

"You're an attractive, thin blonde white girl with legs up to her neck," Eric says. "Sprucing up your appearance is not exactly something out of an home makeover show."

"Oh, come on," Abby says. "I'm not exactly a clone of my mom."

"No," Eric says. "But your mum is so perfect, it's disgusting. She slays, but she also belongs in one of the Men in Black movies."

"Mom doesn't even eat McDonald's fries," Abby says. "I really doubt she's human."

"Not the fries! I can understand being vegan or vegetarian, or having taste, but McDonald's fries are food of the gods. What's wrong with her?"

"She's afraid of having a pimple," Abby explains. "Meanwhile I eat what I want. I'm not sacrificing my tastebuds for looks. Eventually everyone looks the same, and I'm not waiting until I can't digest fast food to consider it."

"How are you so wise and such a dumbass at the same time," Eric asks. "Wait, don't answer that."

"Anyway," Abby says. "Hate to kick you out, but I gotta call Adam. After the whole broken urn thing, his dad's probably gone nuclear."

Abby escorts Eric downstairs and promises to see him at school the next day, before calling the Groffs' house phone.

"Hi, Mist-Headmaster Groff," Abby begins, unused to the new title she is meant to use for Adam's father. "May I please speak to Adam for five minutes?"

She hears Headmaster Groff sigh wearily into the receiver, as if weighing his options. "I suppose," he says. "Adam," she hears him yell. "It's Abigail." Even after twelve years, he still insists upon calling her by her proper name, something even her nan doesn't do.

Soon enough, Adam is on the other end. "Oi, No Cups," he says. "Heard you're playing secretary for Otis."

"I do intakes for clients," Abby says. "So, yeah, I guess..."

"But you're a virgin," Adam says. "You can't be listening to stuff like that."

"Virginity is a social construct," Abby strikes back.

"Whatever," Adam says. "You get no ass. It's downright pitiful."

"Isn't your dad still in the room?"

"Oh, shit," Adam says. "You're right." He hangs up on Abby, and she pushes her phone aside.

What to do now, she thinks.

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Abby wakes up fully clothed in a cold sweat at midnight from an accidental evening nap on the floor. She's used to regular fantasy encounters every night – Tom Holland and Harry Lewis are regular players, although she's also had steamy dream hookups with a young Mickey Rooney, Cole Sprouse, and even one she would really forget involving Henry Bowers, the racist bully with the mullet from It. The problem with this dream isn't that it was about Otis – it's that the dream was decidedly not steamy.

They were at some kind of dance in the auditorium. The song "A Daydream Away" by All Time Low played in the background as Abby danced close to Otis, her head resting on his shoulder. She felt him run his fingers through her hair. "Abby," he whispered into her ear. "I think I'm falling in love with you." He placed a quick feather-soft kiss on her lips, and Abby felt her heart soar. She could see and hear fireworks. Her foot popped, damn it! This peck on the lips blew every orgasm she'd had out of the water, and it made her feel warm inside.

To Abby, this is downright disturbing. Not since Rod Goldfarb has she had feelings like this. She hasn't been innocently crushing on anyone since she was thirteen. As a preteen, having a crush left her an emotional wreck, but it was also somewhat exciting. At sixteen, it's just plain terrifying. She never wanted to feel this vulnerable again. But here she is, feeling compelled to run to the recording studio her dad set up in the basement of Nan's and start making a cassette tape of cheesy love ballad covers dedicated to Otis.

But Abby isn't going to do that. She made a tape for Rod Goldfarb and consequently became the laughingstock of the fifth grade. She is a rational young adult now, and isn't going to repeat her mistakes.

Right?

...

Right?

"There she goes

Ooh, just like an angel..."

Abby's made a mixtape. A real, physical tape that she's written Otis's name on. But this time, she's been smart with it. She's buried it inside a box of old stuffed animals she keeps in the attic, placed the box inside an old fashioned trunk with a key, and hidden the key inside her underwear drawer. Nothing can possibly go wrong, because not only will Otis never see the tape, but not another living human soul will. Especially not Adam, who is far too dumb to possibly discover where the tape might be hidden, and if he does put it together, will just happen to become a victim of death by Segway late of 2012.

And also this time it's just a mixtape. Yes, a physical mixtape, which is still way too over-the-top, but not nearly as bad as Abby pulled out an acoustic guitar and went full 'pick-me-girl' at ten.

Still, what is she going to do at school tomorrow? Maybe she can lie to everyone else, but she can't keep lying to herself – she has a crush on him. This isn't just some case of inconvenient teenage lust. A crush is a lot more difficult to get rid of. All Abby can do is consider laying low – maybe there won't be any intakes tomorrow, and in that case, she won't really have to talk to Otis, and maybe she can just lay low. Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. Just stick to hanging out with Adam, unless a work thing happens. Otherwise, she will not look at Otis Milburn.

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The first thing Abby does at the morning assembly is look at Otis. She catches him staring back at her and they both turn red and look away.

"Oi, No Cups," Adam says, sitting next to her. "You're not going to bail on Hell Night for your new loser friends, right?"

Hell Night is an annual event held at St. Agnes', the school where Nan Hammond was a guidance counselor before retiring. It's essentially a poor man's version of Fright Nights at Thorpe Park with a ham-fisted religious message. Every room in the main hallway is retooled in some way to replicate some hideous fate brought upon victims by the wrath of God. While neither Nan nor Abby are particularly fans of the hypocritical and conservative nature of the school that employed the former, Hell Night is pretty fun in its own twisted way. And now that Abby finally lives in Moordale, she and Adam happily volunteered to be scareactors, as it appeals to the sadist in both of them.

"No way am I blowing off Hell Night," Abby says, "and they're not losers."

"Good," Adam says. "Now stop staring at new kid so hard. It's creepy."

"No more creepy than your plan to pick up a St. Agnes girl," Abby snaps back.

"No, it's hot," Adam says. "I can corrupt them."

"You made it creepier," Abby says. "Congrats. Anyway, I heard the theme this year is Biblical Plagues, and I'm really hoping we get to be boil victims."

"Nah," Adam says. "Locusts."

"Whatever," Abby says. "Just don't fuck up again before Halloween, because there's no way I'm going into a Catholic school alone."

"There's no way my dad'll ground me from going," Adam says. "He thinks spending some time at St. Agnes will be a good influence on me."

Abby sighs and rolls her eyes in disgust. "He would."

"Anyway, don't get caught up in any weird after school sex clinic shit Friday, because that's when they're having the first meeting in the parish basement," Adam says.

"You remembered a scheduled meeting," Abby gasps. "Color me shocked."

"Yeah, I remembered," Adam says. "This is how I'm gonna get a new hot Catholic school girlfriend who'll make Aimee so jealous her head'll explode. And you're my in, so you have to be there. Just stay out of my way once I pick a girl, cos God knows you're the exact opposite of a wingman."

"See, just when I start to rethink calling you A-dumb, you go and say some shit like that."

As assembly ends, they get up and rise from their seats. "Hey," Eric calls out from behind them. "Hey, Abby. Otis wants to tell you something."

Abby stops, her heart pounding. What if he can tell how I feel, she thinks. Just by looking at me? "Be cool," she whispers to herself, and Adam, still lingering nearby, snickers.

"Not a chance, lukewarm hamburger," he says as Eric catches up to them, dragging Otis behind him.

"Um, what's up," Abby says. "I, uh, Maeve didn't, uh, direct me to any intakes yet today, and everyone who met with me directly, I immediately debriefed you on yesterday, unless I forgot something, in which case, I'm awfully sorry. Um, did I mess up? Am I, like, fired?"

Adam, wanting to include himself in this latest verbal calamity, mimicked an fighter jet crashing and burning behind Abby as noisily and violently as possible.

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Otis blurts. "You're perfect!" He begins to go red, and then says, "This is just a misunderstanding. I, uh, don't have anything I want to tell you. Eric is playing some sort of prank, and we're both very sorry for wasting your time. I'm going to go now." With that, Otis sprints out of the auditorium as Eric shakes his head.

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In English, Abby realizes Maeve isn't here today, which leaves her wondering where she might sit at lunch, seeing as Adam is on litter duty. Normally, she'd choose to sit with Otis and Eric, but she's too afraid she might start staring at Otis' lips or humming All Time Low under her breath or giving herself away in some other manner. So she "cleverly" lies and says she has to study for Geography when she's really sitting in the back of the cafeteria with a smutty Kerrelyn Sparks vampire novella. The early Christmas story about a sexy former Texas rodeo man turned vampire soap star seems guaranteed to cleanse her palate of sweet Otis Milburn and put something totally implausible and unobtainable in her mind.

And, hey, it's still a better love story than Twilight.

She quietly munches on some greasy French fries (crispies? Chips? Taters?) and pages through the story, getting to a particularly smutty part just as a group of shadows appear behind her.

"Ooh, what's this," Ruby says, snatching the book out from behind the textbook. "A Very Vampy Christmas. Sounds scandalous." She is, of course, accompanied by Aimee, Olivia, and Anwar.

"Give it back," Abby says. "We've regressed from bad Disney Channel movie to terrible 1980s after school special."

Ignoring her, Ruby clears her throat, getting the attention of students at the surrounding tables, including Otis.

"Guys, listen to this," Ruby says. "'He spread her moisture around the sensitive folds, then tasted her. She jolted, raising her hips into the air. Sweet Mary, he was the greatest vampire lover in the world. She spiraled out of control. His tongue continued to torture and delight her, feast on her and devour her. She screamed when the climax shattered her..."

As Ruby initially begins reading out the smut, Abby is too embarrassed to stand up for herself, especially considering Otis is staring right at both of them. It's only when she looks down at Ruby's shoes that she gets an idea. She takes the soft drink that's on the table and tips it over so it splashes all over her Manolo Blahniks. Abby's jeans and Vans also fall victim to the spill, but she isn't particularly bothered by the collateral damage; she just wants this horrific moment to end.

"Oops," Abby says. "You really shouldn't bother me. You know how I am with sugary drinks; so clumsy."

With that, she gets up and heads out of the cafeteria towards the library, until Aimee stops her.

"I didn't know books could have stuff like that in them," Aimee says. "Can I borrow that when you're done with it?"

"Uh, sure," Abby says. "I'll see you later." She looks over her shoulder to see Otis looking for her, and picks up the pace. Maybe he feels sorry for her, maybe he's mad she blew him and Eric off, but either way Abby doesn't want to find out. Why did she have to get this involved?