Crossing his legs, he angled his body away from us. We were officially beneath his notice.
It was much less painful to be snubbed as part of a group, I reflected as we made our escape. It also helped to know that the person doing the disdaining was a total prig, as opposed to a friend you’d had since childhood.
Not that I aspired to become a connoisseur of such things.
Dear Diary,
The purpose of the Scoundrel List isn’t to point out the obvious villains: guys who steal your inheritance or lock you in a tower or invite their mistress to move into the guest room. It’s about finding the ones who conceal their treachery behind a smiling façade. That’s the kind of nefariousness you have to watch out for.
M.P.M.
Chapter 15
As the flies and mosquitoes had vanishedwith the coming of cooler weather, forgotten and unmourned, so too did the memory of Mall Guy dwindle in the following weeks. There were plenty of distractions: homework, helping the twins with play prep, trying to keep track of Arden’s many and varied afterschool commitments. The only lingering sting was my unspoken worry that the incident reflected poorly on my judgment. Fortunately my friends were too generous for recriminations, placing the blame squarely on Will (whom we did not mention by name).
One afternoon when even Arden had no extracurricular obligations, the four of us met in the parking lot after the final bell for another excursion. All I knew about the agenda was that it involved food, followed by what Arden termedhousekeeping. Which was almost certainly code for something far more enticing.
“I’m feeling salty,” Arden announced as she fastened her seat belt.
“Also the title of my memoir.” Lydia tapped out a rimshot on the dashboard.
We drove to the less picturesque part of town, where our destination proved to be McDonald’s. I could practically hear my mother’s squawk of horror.
Arden slowed the car to a crawl as she negotiated the narrow lane between parked cars. “It’s packed.” Her shoulders had hiked until they nearly bracketed her ears.
“The good McDonald’s is always crowded.” Lydia pointed through the windshield. “What about over there?”
“Are you kidding? I’d have toparallel park.”
“I don’t see anything else,” Terry murmured as we rounded the building.
A second later, Arden stepped on the brake. “Oh no.”
“What?” Lydia asked.
“That’s Aaron Masterson’s car.”
Lydia leaned forward in her seat to inspect the offending vehicle. “Crap.”
He was on the Scoundrel List as a card-carrying Willoughby, the faithless paramour fromSense and Sensibilitywho forsakes Marianne for being poor, then gets maudlin about how she was the perfect woman once she finds someone better to marry. Aaron’s version was showing up whenever his ex-boyfriend (whom he had dumped) went out with a new guy. Apparently he thought it was romantic to stare longingly at the person whose heart he had broken, when in fact he was being a fickle jerk.
“I told Thomas I would be extremely disappointed if he got back together with him,” Lydia said, trying to peer through the windows of the restaurant.
“She did,” Arden confirmed. “It was intense. I was shaking in my boots.”
Lydia gave a modest shrug. “I do what I can.”
“Okay, but we can’t go in there now. He’s even worse if there’s an audience.” Arden gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
Terry nodded. “A lot of sociopaths have an exhibitionist streak.”
“What’s option B?” Lydia half turned in her seat, directing the question to all three of us.
Arden lowered the volume on the stereo. “It can’t be pancakes. That’s late-night food.” Not for the first time, I was amazed by the arcane knowledge my friends possessed.
Seconds ticked past. When it appeared no one else was going to speak up, I cleared my throat.
“I know a place.” But was it the right kind of place? I tried to think of a way to describe it that wouldn’t raise their hopes too high. “They have angled parking.”
