The Grump I Despise (When In Waverly 3)

Norah

My favorite place in Waverly is the bookstore. What’s not to love? I’m surrounded by beautiful books, it smells amazing, and hanging out with Hannah is like a breath of fresh air. I’ve decided that, besides my sisters, she’s my new best friend whether she likes it or not. My family is so meddlesome, especially when it comes to my health and finances. It’s nice to have a friend who wasn’t around last year and didn’t see me when I was at my absolute worst. It’s nice to know that my family has my back no matter what and that they’ll love me through the hard times, but sometimes I need someone who isn’t trying to coddle me.

I’m perusing the shelves with my sisters, Madeline and Layla, and Hannah pops over to talk to us when she isn’t busy at the register. They’re chatting about guys, and honestly, it’s the last thing I want to listen to. I’ve been around teenagers all day, and all they seem to talk about is physical attraction to the opposite sex. Can’t we just talk about how cute otters are, or how delicious tacos taste, or how beautiful Paris is? Why does it always have to be about attractive men?

And anyway, Madeline has a boyfriend. She shouldn’t be sitting here gushing over other men! “What would Chad say about you talking about guys like this?” I ask in a terse voice. Both Madeline’s and Layla’s eyes widen momentarily. Layla gives me a questioning look, but Madeline looks ready for a good round of verbal jousting.

“What crawled up your butt and died?” she asks.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know! You’re so moody today! Are you PMSing?” she shouts.

“Madeline, we’re in public,” I say through gritted teeth. I look around to see if anyone’s watching us. There’s a woman poking her head around the shelf to see what all the fuss is about. She has some of the biggest hair I’ve ever seen, and her makeup is atrocious. She really needs to tone it down with the eyebrows. They give her a perpetually shocked expression, and no one’s eyebrows need to be that big or dark. They look like giant caterpillars sitting on her face. She sees me looking at her and then scoots back around to the other side of the bookshelf.

“I don’t care. So, what is it? Was your doctor’s appointment bad on Saturday?”

“No, it went fine,” I answer. “I just really don’t want to talk about men right now.”

“I see. Are you having man trouble, then?” Madeline asks, determined to get to the bottom of my mood.

“Well, sort of. It’s Colby,” I say. I’m about to explain how he helped me on Saturday and how I can’t stop thinking about it and wondering why. It was so out of character for him. He even left my clothes on my desk for me this morning, and they were clean and folded. They felt so soft and smelled so good. He must have used fabric softener. I never bother to do that. I’m choosing to ignore the fact that my unmentionables were in there. I’m sure I’ll never be able to face him again without thinking about it.

After I saw my clothes on my desk, I felt pretty bad about the prank I pulled in his room. Not bad enough to go and apologize, just bad enough to not go gloat in his face. He cornered me in the workroom and demanded to know how I got into his classroom. But I’d never throw the janitor under the bus like that. I can’t give away my secrets.

“Why are you blushing?” Layla shrieks. “Oh my gosh, you like him! I knew it the moment I saw y’all together at the coffee shop!”

“Who?” Hannah asks as she breezes up to our little cluster.

“Your brother!” Layla says, sounding way too excited. But she’s got it all wrong. The girl has not been listening to a word I’ve said about him. What does she not understand about the words loathe, disdain, hate? All words I’ve used to describe my feelings toward Colby Stuart.

“No, no, no! He just drives me insane!” I tell Hannah. I can’t have her getting any ideas about my relationship with her brother. “We have a long history of driving each other insane, actually.”

“Oh, please, do tell,” Hannah says with a mischievous grin on her face. I go into a long-winded spiel about our high-school rivalry. I even tell her how I covered his classroom in sticky notes early this morning. It looked like color exploded all over his room, and judging by his bright-red face when he ambushed me in the workroom, it was a very successful prank.

Hannah clutches her rounded belly and laughs, drawing the attention of the poofy-haired woman again. I had forgotten how nosey some people in this town could be. Even worse than my family. At least my mom and dad aren’t listening in on random strangers' conversations. I narrow my eyes at the woman to let her know I’m onto her eavesdropping ways, but that only seems to bolster her audacity. She’s not even trying to make it appear like she’s looking at nearby books anymore.

“I used to do stuff like that to him all the time. I’ll have to give you some ideas to use. And you have to promise to tell me all about it—and send me pictures.” We huddle together as I pull out my phone to show her my work from this morning when the woman breezes by us, and I swear a cloud of perfume is following in her wake. Gross, it sort of smells like potpourri. I thought potpourri died with the nineties.

“Excuse me, Hannah. I could use some help,” she says in a syrupy-sweet voice that isn’t fooling anyone. Hannah opens her mouth to respond, but the woman cuts her off when she turns to me and says, “Oh, you’re Norah, aren’t you?” Madeline and Layla both shudder and take a step back from her. Hannah looks like she’s ready to throw punches at the woman. I can’t even blame her. Something about this woman just grates on my nerves.

“Um, yes, I am.” I want to lie and say I’m not, but it’s obvious the woman knows exactly who I am.

“I’m Shandi Freeman. I’m sure you’ve heard of me,” she says with a smile that’s about as fake as a three-dollar bill. Yep, I’m getting really weird vibes from this woman.

“Uh, no. I haven’t.” Her smile falls instantly, and she runs her hand along the hair at her temple. Is she supposed to be someone special? Because she looks really offended. I’m not trying to be rude, but why would I have heard of this woman, who looks at least fifteen years older than me, in a microscopic town that I moved away from over a decade ago?

“Well, I sure have heard a lot about you and your sudden move back to Waverly. Talk of it has caused quite the stir in town, but no one seems to know why you’ve moved back. There’s some speculation that you’ve gotten yourself into some trouble with the law,” she says. I cannot believe what I’m hearing. People are seriously gossiping about why I moved back? I didn’t know I needed some crazy reason to move back to my hometown. I grew up here. My entire family is here. There’s nothing intriguing about that. Of course, that’s only half the reason I moved back, but my current financial struggles are no one’s business but my own.

“Why don’t we go see what you need help with now, Shandi?” Hannah says diplomatically. She ushers the woman I now know is Shandi away, but she turns and mouths ‘sorry’ to me before disappearing around a corner.

I am stunned. I’ve never encountered someone so bold and rude and utterly clueless in my entire life. Does she not see that prying into people’s personal lives is wrong? Or maybe she does know and just has no consideration for other people’s feelings. She seems like the type who thinks she’s the main character of everyone else’s story, so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she feels like she’s entitled to all the gossip.

“Well, you’ve survived your first Shandi encounter. Now you can face anything,” Madeline says.

Today is already off to a rough start. I slept through my alarm this morning and woke up ten minutes before I was supposed to be at the school. My mom barged into my room, asking if I was feeling okay and why I was still in bed. Even after I assured her that I was feeling perfectly fine, she still fussed over me, pressing her hands to my cheeks and forehead to check for a fever until I batted her hands away and rushed her out of my room so I could get dressed.

There was no time for a shower or anything. I threw my hair into a wild bun on top of my head, grabbed whatever clothes were closest to me, and ran out the door. I did have the wherewithal to brush my teeth, but I think I forgot to put on deodorant. Hopefully, yesterday’s application will get me through the day. If I keep my activity down and don’t sweat, it should be fine.