Sunny sighs. “My inner feminist wants to boycott a board game marketed to young girls where the loser gets zits. As if the most tragic failure for a young girl is to have normal pubescent skin.”
“Dude, you sound like your mom,” Mercer chimes in. “Yeah, Miss Sarah walked in on us playing this game when we first got it and lectured us for, like, half the night.” She laughs, “She sat there while we played and corrected everything that’s wrong with it. She evenhad us scribble out some of the stuff. You’ll see.” These details make me love Sarah even more.
“How do I win?” I ask, taking this way too seriously.
“I don’t know. We always just play until someone falls asleep or something. It’s stupid, but fun. You’ll see.”
We take turns spinning the wheel and telling silly truths or doing simple dares. Sunny has to do twenty-five sit ups. I have to name one thing my parents won’t let me do. That one is easy: Eat carbs in peace. Mercer has to call a boy and sing him her favorite song, so she calls Troy and belts out the chorus of “Fantasy” until he hangs up on her. We’re all sugared up, laughing loudly, and slap happy now, and each sporting several zit stickers that were awarded on technicalities. It’s Sunny’s turn again and she has to name a movie actress she thinks she looks like.
Mercer shouts, “Ana de Armas!” at the same time that Sunny reluctantly says, “Ana de Armas.”
When I tell them I have no idea who the actress is, Mercer whips out her phone to find a picture. And holy moly, Ana de Armas and Sunny could be twins. They have identical faces—the same bright smiles and full lips, and similar coloring.
“I always get this truth,” Sunny says. “Before Ana de Armas I always just said Salma Hayek.”
“Poor Sunny has to live with the same face as multiple gorgeous Latina actresses. Boo hoo. Your turn, Indie.”
I spin the wheel and it lands on “Put an ice cube down your shirt and let it melt.”
“I’ll just spin again,” I say, since there are obviously no ice cubes in this van.
“Spin that wheel and you get another zit,” Sunny taunts, giggling. “Or we run into the house real quick for an ice cube.”
I already have way more zits than the other girls, so we walk the short path to the Pratt’s back door, snickering and laughing our waythrough the dusky desert. We tiptoe into the mostly dark house and Sunny digs an ice cube out of the freezer. She wastes no time spinning me around and slipping the ice cube down the back of my shirt.
“Aaaaack!” My yell is embarrassingly loud, but I’m warm from being in the van and the ice is so shocking it feels like it’s burning my back. I wail and whine at the contact and the girls shush me.
“Wimp,” Mercer laughs, holding the ice cube in place. I kind of want to punch her.
Joe bursts into the kitchen, “Geez, what’s wrong?!” he hollers in a panic, scanning our faces. His gaze lingers on mine longer than the others, or maybe that’s wishful thinking. Either way, my heart does a bigbump-bump-bumpwhen I feel his eyes on me. I remind my heart that Joe and I are just friends now, but my heart is ignoring me because it remembers kissing Joe really well. My heart also really likes Joe in those gray sweatpants.
He lets out a long, exasperated breath. “Girl Talk? You guys are still doing this?”
“Yup. Your girl is getting the ice cube down the shirt treatment,” Mercer says, pressing the ice cube even deeper. I arch my back and try to scramble away from her, but she’s wily.
“Ouch. That’s not fun.” Joe scans our faces again, and his crooked grin takes over. “From the looks of things, Indie is… not winning.”
The zit stickers! Son of a…
“Maybe for now, but these two are going down,” I say, full of bravado now that the ice cube is shrinking.
He laughs, his dark brown eyes boring into mine. “Well, good luck to you. Glad no one is dying,” he calls over his shoulder as he breezes out of the kitchen. My eyes follow him. When he’s gone I realize that the girls are watching me watch him, but I don’t care. I want to call him back. How can he just walk away like that, like he isn’t wearing those sweatpants for the sole purpose of luring me in? I would follow him around his house if it wasn’t creepy.
It takes five business days for the ice cube to fully melt, and I do the walk of shame back to the van with Sunny and Mercer teasing me. But now it’s their turn. Mercer spins and lands on a spot that says “If you could change one thing about the way you look, what would it be?” but the words are crossed out.
I jump in. “Pffft. That one would be easy for me. My mom has had an ongoing list since I was thirteen.” I laugh, still feeling goofy from our trip to the kitchen.
They both stare at me, but it’s Mercer who breaks the awkward silence. “Girl, that’s messed up.”
Is it messed up? I guess so, but that’s my mother. Perfection is the family brand. And no parent gets it all one hundred percent right, right? Some moms show up late for school pick up, and some moms remind their daughters that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. A tiny voice in the back of my mind wonders,Why is it okay for my mother to be an imperfect mom, but it’s not okay for me to have freckles or eat seconds when I’m hungry?I tell the little voice in my head it’s being a buzzkill and Mercer re-spins.
When my turn comes up again I land on “Call a boy and sing him your favorite song” and my heart stops for a minute before I remember that Mercer already got this one.
“I have to go again since Mercer already got this one, right?” I’m so confident about this that I start to twist the spinner, but Sunny slaps her hand over mine.
“Not a chance, sister. That’s not a thing. Do it, or it’s zit o’clock.” I hadn’t noticed before this moment that Sunny is so ruthless. And smug.
Mercer starts chanting, “Do it! Do it! Do it!”
