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  angel’s choice

  angel’s choice

  LAUREN BARATZ - LOGSTED

  SIMON PULSE

  New York London Toronto Sydney

  If you purchased this book without a cover,

  you should be aware that this book is stolen property.

  It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher,

  and neither the author nor the publisher has received any

  payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical

  events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.

  Other names, characters, places, and incidents

  are the product of the author’s imagination, and any

  resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,

  living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  http://www.simonandschuster.com

  Copyright © 2006 by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of

  Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Karin Paprocki

  The text of this book was set in Cochin.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Simon Pulse edition December 2006

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3

  Library of Congress Control Number 2005938021

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-2524-8

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-2524-4

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4424-0846-3

  For all the girls who have been there,

  and for all the different choices they have made;

  and for Nicole Baratz and Caroline Logsted,

  nieces extraordinaire

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THANK YOU TO MY AGENT PAMELA HARTY FOR BEING SO good to me, and thank you to all the other wonderful people at The Deidre Knight Agency.

  Thank you to my editor Julia Richardson for being a sheer pleasure to work with and for making my dream a reality; and thank you to her assistant Siobhan Wallace and the rest of the terrific Simon & Schuster team. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also thank sister authors Anne Ursu and Gretchen Laskas for introducing me to the marvelous Julia.

  Special thanks to Sue Estabrook and Nicki Thomas for always helping me make my work better than it would be otherwise.

  Thank you to my family and friends, in particular my mother Lucille Baratz, for sustaining me with love and laughter.

  As always, it’s impossible to thank my husband Greg Logsted and our daughter Jackie enough for everything they are, for the better person they inspire me to be.

  PROLOGUE

  august

  6:00 p.m.

  SCHOOL WILL START UP AGAIN NEXT WEEK, AND I AM AT Ricky D’Amico’s end-of-summer blowout. I do not think I was number one on her list of people to invite—I was probably not even number fifty-one—but her next-door neighbor is my best friend, Karin, and she couldn’t very well not invite her next-door neighbor, and once she invited Karin, Karin asked me to stop by.

  Ricky D’Amico has never liked me. First week of freshman art class, nearly three years ago now, she thought I purposefully said something to insult her—I didn’t; it was just a stupid joke—and she has never forgiven me.

  By the time I arrive, walking there from my house two blocks away, it looks like the other fifty people who were on the guest list ahead of me are already there. Many of the guys and some of the girls are clustered around the keg just outside the garage. Ricky D’Amico has the kind of cool parents who say it’s okay for us kids to drink, even though we’re all underage, so long as no one drives and they don’t get busted for giving alcohol to minors. They say so long as we are responsible, there’s no harm in having a little fun.

  It’s only six o’clock, so it’ll be light out for nearly another three hours, and when I look over by the pool area, the late-afternoon summer sun still fairly high in the sky, I see most of the girls hanging around there, red plastic cups of beer in their hands. But none of them are swimming. The D’Amicos have one other rule: no swimming while drinking.

  A couple of kids yell out “Hey!” to me, but no one approaches, leaving it instead for me to decide where I’ll go first. I used to think maybe this kind of thing meant people didn’t like me—well, okay, Ricky D’Amico doesn’t—but lately I think it is because most people are so scared of being rejected. They’re scared that if they act all happy to see you, and come running over like a puppy dog, you’ll be looking over their shoulder trying to find someone better.

  I look at both groups of kids—the one by the keg, the one by the pool—trying to decide where to go first. I recognize all of the girls, of course: Sherry Bixby, the junior varsity head cheerleader; Dawn Peck, who everyone thinks will be a great artist someday and who always wears these romantic gauzy clothes she designs herself; Kirstin Thomas, who is so smart that it scares boys, but who is also so pretty and perky, no one ever leaves her out of anything; and all the other JV cheerleaders, artists, and pretty girls. I size up what they are wearing and decide that I have not done too bad for myself tonight: While I’ll never dress as cool as Kirstin and her crowd, my jeans fit well, with no bulges hanging over the side; my white gauze shirt is acceptable without being arty; even my makeup is right for once, making me look like I care about what I look like, but not too much, while highlighting my dark eyes. I am particularly happy that, despite it being August, there is little humidity, so my long dark hair is not turning into the finger-in-the-light-socket look it’s capable of developing. At least not yet. My heeled sandals make me four inches taller than my usual tiny height, and I am not falling over in them yet, two things that always make me ridiculously happy. And my smile is good—God knows, my parents paid enough for it.

  But even though I feel as though I look good enough to approach the girls at the pool, when I look closer, I realize Karin isn’t there. And when you go to a party where the hostess doesn’t really want you there, it’s always best to locate your best friend first.

  So I turn my attention to the kids gathered around the keg, and I do not see Karin there, either, but as I draw closer, making my way through the crowd, I do see something that is maybe even better: Danny Stanton is seated in a lawn chair next to the keg, taking it upon himself to keep everyone’s red plastic cups filled.

  I have been in love with Danny Stanton it seems like, sometimes, forever.

  “Hey! Angel!” Danny says, obviously happy to see me. He reaches for another red plastic cup. “Let me get you a brewski.”

  Angel really is my name, Angel Hansen. My mother, who is only forty-two, loved a book called That Was Then, This Is Now by S. E. Hinton when she was a pre-teen. Even though the girl nicknamed Angel in the book isn’t very nice, Mom loved the name and made sure it went down on my birth certificate as Angel, so that no one could ever call me Angela or Angie by mistake.

  “Hey, Danny,” I say, keeping my voice even, not wanting to sound too excited to see him, even though I am.

  When I say it seems like I have been in love with Danny Stanton forever, it is no exagge
ration. Toward the end of freshman year Danny asked me out. Danny is very tall with black hair, and brown eyes that are even more beautiful than chocolate. I was so surprised when he asked me out—it wasn’t like we traveled in the same circles exactly—but he seemed to think I was funny in a good way, and he laughed at all my jokes. We first talked to each other on a Wednesday in mid-June, skipping both our classes for the rest of the day and hanging out in the cafeteria until it was time to go home, when he walked me to my bus. On Friday he had me go over to his house, and while I loved it when he kissed me, I was relieved when he didn’t try for more. On Saturday he had his father drop us off at the movies and we did a little more than kiss, but not much. On Sunday we were supposed to go out again, but then he called to say he’d decided to get back together with his old girlfriend, one of the freshman cheerleaders. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. We’d had a good time together—you can’t miss it when the other person is having a good time—and I even made the mistake of crying a little bit on the phone and getting bitchy a little bit when he said he was going back with his old girlfriend; I was that hurt.

  I hadn’t even known he had an old girlfriend.

  Now, two years later, I am still hoping for a second chance.

  When he said two years ago that he was going back to his old girlfriend, even though I was hurt, I totally understood it. After all, why would someone like Danny Stanton want to go out with someone like me? He was gorgeous, everyone knew he was going to be a great basketball player, he was the most popular boy in school. Even the people who hated jocks liked Danny Stanton. And what was I? I was the unremarkable girl, the girl who wasn’t awful but certainly wasn’t great, the girl who could sometimes crack a decent joke but who mostly just disappeared into the woodwork.

  And still I am hoping for that second chance, because Danny Stanton has never stopped being nice to me, not once, not even when I got all teary and bitchy on the phone with him that one time. Two years later he still acts as though I’m someone sort of special. I know this because, even though he has gone through many girlfriends since that cheerleader freshman year, when we run into each other at parties, he always hooks up with me if whatever girlfriend he is going out with at the time isn’t around. We don’t have sex—I’ve never had sex—but we do a lot of other things. He doesn’t do this with anyone else.

  Karin sometimes says that he uses me, but I don’t believe this. He could have anyone he wants, he could certainly have more variety in his life, so why does he keep coming back to me?

  “Maybe it’s because he’s always drunk when he sees you,” Karin said one time.

  This may sound like a mean thing to say, like she’s saying he only would want me if he were drunk. But Karin is my best friend and I know she is just trying to protect me.

  Just to prove it to her, though, I had her drive me to his house one time last year before I had my own license. It was only two in the afternoon, so I figured he had to be sober.

  “I’ll bet I can get him to kiss me inside of five minutes,” I told her.

  “And that’ll prove something?” she said.

  “Okay, maybe it won’t prove anything,” I admitted, “but it’ll feel good.”

  And he did kiss me, sober, and it did feel good.

  For two years now, I have been telling myself that if I can just get Danny Stanton in the right moment, he will see that the reason he asked me out in the first place two years ago, the reason he keeps coming back to me again time after time after time, is because he is as much in love with me as I am with him.

  Now as I look down at him sitting in that lawn chair, that sweet, goofy grin on his face, I smile back. “Sure. Pull me a beer.”

  I start to drink.

  7:00 p.m.

  Karin finally finds me where I am still standing by the keg, next to Danny Stanton.

  “Hey!” Karin gives me a big hug, the kind of strong full-body hug best friends give each other, sometimes even if they just saw each other yesterday, like it is that good to have the other person in the world.

  I hug her back, hard, so glad she is my best friend. In the process I spill some of my beer on both of us.

  “Sorry,” I say, pulling away.

  Karin laughs.

  “Who cares?” she says.

  I see Ricky D’Amico walk up to the other side of Danny Stanton where he is still seated in his lawn chair, pulling beers for people, her auburn hair startling over a lime green halter top, her legs long in a pair of microshorts that are maybe a total of three inches in length from well below her navel to her crotch, and I think, Ricky D’Amico would care if I spilled a beer on her.

  Karin laughs again, reminding me why she is my best friend when she adds, “I’ll only spill some on myself eventually anyway. Thanks for saving me the trouble.”

  Even though Karin is prettier than I am, with short dark-blond hair streaked with gold and honey, in a boyish cut that somehow makes her look even prettier, blue eyes like the best of the blue paints in art class, a figure she doesn’t have to worry about, and a sense of style that is original without looking forced; even though she is smarter than I am, a sure thing for Yale where I’m only an if; even though she is more popular than I am and even Ricky D’Amico kind of likes her … none of that matters. She is my best friend because she always makes me feel as though she has always liked me, will always like me, for me. She never makes me feel Less than in any way.

  Karin takes a beer from Danny Stanton, then she grabs on to my hand, tugs me toward the pool area.

  “Come on,” she says, “let’s go where the action is.”

  But I perform what Mr. Davis in physics class would call an equal and opposite reaction to her action: I resist.

  “What?” she says.

  “I just think I’ll stay here for a bit,” I say.

  “Why?” she says.

  My back is to Danny Stanton, meaning he can’t see my face when I give my chin a little move upward, raising my eyebrows a bit, like I’m trying to say, “Behind me.”

  “What?” Karin says again, confused.

  Frustrated, I mouth the two words that are pretty much the most precious to me in the world: “Danny Stanton.”

  Now it’s Karin’s turn to be frustrated.

  “Aren’t you ever going to give that up?” she says.

  “No,” I say, “not ever.”

  “Well,” she says, dropping my hand, “when you come to your senses, I’ll be over by the pool.”

  I turn back toward the keg and am surprised to see Danny sitting there alone now.

  “Hey,” he says to me again, more quietly than before, as though he’s just seeing me tonight for the first time. “It’s Angel Hansen.”

  “That’s me,” I say, feeling kind of dumb even as I say it, but then realizing it doesn’t matter how dumb I sound because from the looks of Danny’s lazy smile he’s already well on the way to being pretty drunk.

  Danny reaches out suddenly, grabbing on to the same hand Karin tugged on just a few minutes ago. He studies my hand like it’s the most interesting thing in the world, rubbing my fingers with his thumb. Then he puts his beer down next to the lawn chair and squints up at me, shading his eyes with the same hand that was just holding the beer. “You know what I like best about you, Angel Hansen?” he says.

  I’m so surprised by his words, by the important sound of his words, I just shake my head dumbly.

  “It’s that you don’t care at all,” he says.

  “And that’s a good thing?” I say, puzzled.

  It’s as if he doesn’t hear me, though. “You don’t care about what I do at all, do you?” he says. “You never did. If I stopped playing basketball tomorrow, if I broke my leg tomorrow and could never play again, you wouldn’t care about that at all. You never cared about any of that.”

  I open my mouth, but before I can say anything, he adds, “You only ever cared about me.”

  “I … You —” I get no further.

  “I … Y
ou —” Ricky D’Amico, coming up on the other side of Danny, mimics me cruelly with a laugh. Then she does exactly what I’d like to be doing right then myself: She settles her butt, covered only by that Band-Aid breadth of shorts, down onto Danny’s lap, drapes her arms around his neck possessively.

  I don’t even see it happen. I just feel it, as Danny slowly lets go of my hand, my hand left holding nothing.

  Ricky D’Amico lowers her head, plants a series of kisses on Danny’s neck, then looks up at me, a triumphant gleam in her eyes as Danny’s arms rise up and encircle her.

  “Didn’t you realize Danny’s here special for me tonight?” she says. “Don’t you have somewhere else you need to be , Angel?” she says. “Aren’t you supposed to be over by the pool with Karin?”

  In a way I am surprised I give up so easily, but I tell myself that I will get another chance on another day, another night.

  Still, I take my time drawing myself another beer from the keg, take my time walking away, take my time conceding, just long enough to hear Danny say in a hazy voice, “Hey, Angel, where you going?”

  And maybe, I think, this is another reason why Ricky D’Amico has always hated me: She’s a little bit in love with Danny Stanton too. Well, isn’t everybody?

  8:00 p.m.

  “Hey!” shouts Tim O’Mara, practically in my face. “Can you believe we’re going to finally be seniors this year?”

  Tim O’Mara is one of those guys who is not really a dork—I mean, he got invited all on his own to Ricky D’Amico’s end-of-summer blowout, right?—but who will never be at the top of anyone’s A-list either. It’s because of things like this, the way he says, “Can you believe we’re going to finally be seniors this year?” The other guys, guys like Danny Stanton, can get rowdy all they want to and have it still sound cool, but when Tim O’Mara does the same thing, there is something just a little off about it, something a little too loud, a little too eager.