Free The Predicteds by Christine Seifert Page B

Lefty?” Josh asks, flexing his left arm. “Or Right-Man?” Neither “bodyguard” looks particularly impressive to me.
    â€œI’m calling my dad,” Brooklyn says, pulling her cell from a giant, metallic-gold purse. She dials while Josh and his buddies snicker. Brooklyn gives a measured wave back at some girls who have just walked in the door. “Lexus,” she screeches while she waits for her dad to pick up her call, “I need to tell you about the Miss Chitlin Pageant. It was a disaster. Daddy?” she says into the phone. She pauses for a moment. “I know you are busy. I know. But this is important. I’m being discriminated on.” She looks meaningfully at an older waitress with a hairnet who is carrying coffee and slices of pie from the display case to a table of diners.
    â€œ Against ,” Josh says, between fits of laughter. “You’re being discriminated against , not on .”
    She waves her hand dismissively at him. By the way she pouts, I guess that Daddy must not share her outrage. “Fine!” she says and slams the hot pink phone shut.
    â€œCan you believe this?” she says to me, as if I am likely to be upset. “My dad is an attorney, and he is going to be so pissed when he understands what happened here tonight.”
    â€œI can imagine. It’s a complete violation of our civil rights!” I realize too late that I’m totally making fun of her, and unfortunately, she figures it out. After a twenty-second delay.
    â€œWho asked you anyway?” Brooklyn demands, her little fake-tanned face scrunched into a pouty frown. “You know, I wasn’t going to say anything, but as long as we’re here, I might as well tell you: I don’t like you the way you flirt with Sam. It makes you look…desperate.” She crosses her arms triumphantly. “And I don’t like the way you talk to all of us. You think you’re better than we are.”
    Sometimes, the truth is hard to admit. So I pretend I don’t hear that last part. I stay focused on the part about Sam. “What? I’ve talked to the guy like, once. How could I be flirting with him? Trust me. I’m not the least bit interested in Sam.” I give Sam a quick glance. He’s standing with his hands in his pockets and staring at the ground. “No offense,” I say to him. “I don’t even know you.”
    â€œCome on, Brooklyn,” Sam says good-naturedly. “Don’t be silly.”
    Brooklyn purses her lips, looks from Sam to Josh to Dizzy to me. “I don’t like you,” she says gravely. “I can’t fake it anymore. There’s something about you. I have a sick sense for these kind of things. There’s something not right about you”
    â€œ Sixth sense,” I say. “You mean a sixth sense. Not a sick one.”
    Josh lets out a howl of laughter. Nobody else dares speak. “Come on, Sam,” Brooklyn says, tugging at his arm. “This place is for cool people only. It’s not for losers.” She seems to be on the verge of forming the shape of an L with her fingers, but she catches herself, perhaps realizing just how lame and outdated that gesture is. I need to close my eyes to keep them from rolling in my sockets.
    I swear, Quiet is twenty years behind the rest of the world.
    Regardless of my commendable restraint, her now-aborted gesture causes me to make another grave tactical error: I laugh. Not just a subtle laugh—a guffaw. It’s not directed at Brooklyn, per se. It’s just me getting a case of the nerves, cracking under the pressure of everything, I guess. Brooklyn puts her hands on her hips and wrinkles her noise as if something smells bed. “That is so rude, Daphne.”
    She’s right. It is. But that doesn’t mean I can stop.
    As everyone gets quieter and turns to look at me, I laugh even harder. It’s something about the way Brooklyn