All's Fair in Love, War, and High School

"You know, Cassidy, I still remember last year when you wrote me that note. The one that said you were sorry we'd been fighting and you hoped we could be friends. I guess you didn't really mean any of those things, did you?"

  She blinked at me with a stunned expression. "Yes, I meant it."

  "Then how come you're campaigning for my opponent?"

  "Because Amy is my friend too. Besides, she needs my help more than you do. You have lots of friends to help you."

  I held one glue-covered hand out to Cassidy pleadingly. "I need your help more than anybody. I really, really need to win this election. I mean, what does it matter to Amy whether she wins or not? She has the grades to go anywhere."

  "The grades to go anywhere?" Cassidy repeated.

  At first I didn't say anything. I just stood there by the garbage can wavering between reason and hope. It seemed like a dangerous thing to do—to give your opponent information about yourself that could be used against you—but when it came right down to it, I trusted Cassidy. If she understood what was really at stake, if I gave her a good enough reason, she'd leave Amy's campaign and help me.

  "You've always planned on going to a good college, haven't you?" I asked.

  "I guess."

  "Well, so have I, but my grades are only average, and I bombed the SATs."

  She shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other. "You still have next year to bring your score up."

  "I'm going to, but this year I got an eight ten. I need to be president to boost my chances of being accepted someplace I'd actually want to go."

  Cassidy opened her mouth in protest, but I went on before she could. "I know it sounds calculated, but in the long run it's not going to matter to Amy whether she wins or not. For me, this election could decide my future."

  For a moment there was silence between us. I'd put forth my argument on one end of the scale, and I waited for her to put her decision on the other.

  With a shrug of her shoulders she delivered her verdict. "I'd like to help you, but I'm not sure running for president is the answer to your college application problems. I mean, shouldn't you run for president because you actually want to be president?"

  "I do want to be president," I said. "Weren't you just listening to what I said?"

  "No, I mean, Amy is running because she'd like to go into politics one day. She has some good ideas about running the school and doing community projects. She's really organized and stuff."

  I couldn't believe it. I had opened my soul to Cassidy, and in return she handed me an Amy campaign speech.

  I said, "Thanks a lot, Cassidy. I can tell how badly you want to be my friend," then turned and walked away from her.

  When I got home from school, I dropped my backpack on the countertop and opened the fridge. A pan full of something that looked like burned pears in gravy lay on the top shelf.

  Mom sat at the kitchen table helping Andy with his homework. She called over to me, "The creme de poire is for dessert tonight. Don't get into it now."

  As if that were a temptation.

  Why couldn't my mother have been one of those types that baked cookies? When you wanted to drown your sorrows in something, creme de poire didn't come to mind. I pushed aside the pan in an attempt to find something edible. Condiments, soy sauce, pickled anchovies. I didn't even want to ask what she planned on doing with those. I grabbed an apple from the crisper and shut the fridge.

  "Did anybody call for me?" I hoped, I really did, that a guy had called, and I would have a reason to break free of my lousy mood.

  Without looking up from Andy's homework, she said, "Nope. Who are you expecting?"

  "Nobody. I guess I'm not expecting anybody to call me."

  Mom turned in her chair to face me. "You and Brad haven't made up yet?"

  "No. And pigs still don't fly, either."

  Mom mumbled something to Andy about his paper, then stood and walked closer to me. "I'm sorry Samantha, but you'll find someone to take his place."

  "I don't know. It's so hard to find men these days who appreciate feline head-ware."

  She let out a sigh. "You're never going to let that cat incident drop, are you?"

  I took a bite of my apple.

  Mom took a dishcloth from the sink and wiped off the counter beside me. "If you try too hard to get a guy's attention, it just scares him away. Don't worry about it, and things will start to look up."

  Mom loved to give me dating advice. She hadn't been on a real date in twenty years, but she still considered herself an expert on all matters pertaining to relationships. Usually I only half listened to what she said, but today I wanted her to reassure me everything would work out all right. I wanted her to promise me I wouldn't sit home on prom night and have nothing to do but drown my sorrows in strange French cuisine.

  "Prom is two weeks from tomorrow," I told her quietly.

  "So why don't you ask someone?"

  "You don't do that for the prom," I said, but suddenly I wasn't so sure. After all, some girls did do the asking if their boyfriend lived in another city, or was an underclassman, or had already graduated.

  I took my apple upstairs and thought about a guy who'd graduated—a guy with dark hair and deep blue eyes who was coming back to Pullman any day now to work in his parents' store.

  Chapter 7

  Josh lingered in my thoughts all weekend. By Monday morning I not only wanted to go to the prom with him, I wanted to honeymoon in Spain with him. The thing about Josh was, he was not only gorgeous, he was gentlemanly. The kind of guy who opened doors for women and was polite to his mother. Last year while I cheered at the football games, I saw him more than once giving his little sister a piggyback ride to the concession stand. How sweet is that? Josh would never leave his date stranded in a parking lot. And even his name had a romantic quality to it. You could passionately whisper "Josh" over and over again without getting tongue-tied.

  I was in such a good mood about this prom possibility, I didn't even get steamed when I walked to my locker and noticed that one of my posters was engulfed by a row of vote-for-Rick posters. They all said the same thing: RICK ROCKS. Apparently he was going for quantity, and not quality. Either that or his spelling was even more limited than I'd supposed. It didn't matter. I still had plenty of time to make more posters, and mine would all be unique.

  After I put my things away, I went and found my friends standing in our spot by the cafeteria. Chelsea was doing her usual nitpicking about peoples' outfits, but just to keep myself in good mental condition, I kept my commentaries upbeat. After each one of Chelsea's critiques, I said, "But I'm sure she's a very nice person anyway."

  Finally Chelsea turned to me and said, "Samantha, stop it."

  "Stop what?"

  Her face tilted down in a patronizing manner. "I wasn't judging peoples' personalities, just their ability to keep basic fashion rules."

  "I have to think positively, or I'll slip up and lose my bet."

  Rachel rolled her eyes and gave a small snort. "You know, there are worse things than going out with Doug Campton."

  "Like what?"

  "Like driving us all crazy with your Little Miss Sunshine routine."

  Aubrie nodded. "If you were any perkier, PBS would drag you away and put you on 'Barney and Friends.' ''

  "They would not." Which just goes to show that you can't please everyone. Last week Logan insisted I could enter an Olympic event in snideness, and now my friends were accusing me of being able to host my own children's show.

  Chelsea elbowed me. "There goes Amy, and she looks like she's dressed to kill—or at least like she killed one of the seven dwarfs to get that outfit. Go ahead and insult her. You'll feel better afterward."

  I shook my head. "I'm not going to do it."

  "Oh, come on," Rachel said. "It's not like we'll tell Logan. You can trust us."

  "No way," I said. "You're the one who said I should go out with Doug. You obviously don't have my best interests at heart."

  Chelsea humph
ed. "All right. If you want to continue with this syrupy sweet escapade, that's fine. Just tone it down while you're around us."

  As if being complimentary was some sort of character flaw.

  Despite what my friends thought, I had to win this bet. I couldn't admit that I couldn't go two weeks without insulting someone—not to myself, and certainly not to Logan. Watching him gloat about it would be worse than going out with Doug.

  Far worse.

  My friends just didn't understand about Logan. They'd come to rely on my scathing commentaries on high-school social life as part of their daily routine. Everything would be back to normal after my two weeks were up. Until then I just had to throw in my lot with Barney the dinosaur.

  I actually repeated the words compliments, compliments, compliments to myself as I walked through the hallways in between classes. I had to do this because I was afraid Logan actually had told people to spy on me, and I wasn't sure who might report my doings back to him.

  Today Logan caught up with me as I went to lunch. He walked along beside me with a smile. "So how's your day going?"

  "Great. Couldn't be better." I picked up my pace, but Logan kept alongside.

  "Did Mr. Peterson give you the lecture on Freud in sociology?"

  "Yep. Mr. Peterson is, as always, a wonderful lecturer."

  "So, do you think all women really have a deep-seated desire to be men?"

  Only in Freud's crazed and demented world. "Probably not," I said.

  "Then why do you think Freud came up with the theory?"

  I could see the cafeteria. It was only steps away. Still, I couldn't resist answering Logan's question. "Freud obviously hung around too many men."

  "Is that an insult?"

  "Only if you consider the term men to be insulting."

  He looked at me suspiciously, but I reached the table where my friends sat and pulled out a chair for myself. I waved good-bye to Logan with a smile and called out, "Have a great lunch!"

  He walked past the table, shaking his head.

  "Have a great lunch?" Rachel asked. She rolled her eyes.

  I got my own sandwich out of my bag and glared back at her. "You could at least try to be a little bit supportive of my dilemma. Being nice isn't as easy as it looks, you know."

  We all ate silently for a few minutes, and might have done so indefinitely if Rick hadn't stopped by our table. He sauntered up to us wearing a T-shirt that read ANARCHY NOW and grinned benevolently down at us. "Hi, girls."

  "Hi, Rick," I said, because I knew he was really talking to me.

  He ran one hand across his spiky, supposed-to-be-dyed-blond-but-actually-looked-more-like-florescent-yellow hair. "I'm throwing a previctory party at my house on Friday. You're all invited, of course, because I'm a good sport."

  A hundred things I could say ran through my mind, but I didn't utter any of them. For all I knew, Logan had set this up. I said, "Uh, thanks, Rick, but I don't think we'll make it."

  "Too bad," Rick said. "A lot of your friends will be there."

  Chelsea shook her head. "Stop being such a moron and go away."

  Rick put his hand to his chest, as though wounded. "Hey, don't get me wrong. If I could have chosen an opponent, I would have chosen you, Samantha. In fact, I have a good motto for you." He then waved his hand as if he were placing each word on an invisible poster. "SAMANTHA TAYLOR. SHE PUTS THE CAN-I-DATE IN CANDIDATE."

  "Thanks for the help," I said stiffly. "But why don't you stick to your own campaign." And maybe you could come up with a slogan that doesn't involve rocks.

  "Oh, I'm more than happy to help you," he said. "Because I think cheerleaders can use all the help they can get. How about this: SAMANTHA. SHE'S THE SIS WITH THE BOOM BAH."

  I smiled back at him. "How about: Rick—" I almost added, He puts the pain in campaign, but I stopped myself just in time. Then I stared up at him, searching for something that would make sense and wouldn't be an insult. I couldn't think of anything.

  Rick waited for me to finish my sentence for another moment, but when I didn't, he said, "How about Rick. Now that's catchy, Samantha. You ought to go into advertising." He laughed at his own joke and turned away.

  Chelsea shook her head at me. "You sure told him where to get off."

  Aubrie reached over and patted my hand. "I'll say it for you. How about: Rick, he's an ultimate, supreme, pathetic jerk."

  "That was good," Rachel said, "but lacking the Samantha signature umph."

  I picked up a potato chip from my lunch and bit into it viciously. "All I'm going to say on the subject is this: I'm going to enjoy defeating Rick. The umph will have to come later."

  During my English class I thought about the campaign speech I had to deliver to the student body before the elections. I'd stress the need to elect someone responsible. I'd emphasize the fact that school events were not parties, and the student body needed someone without rocks in their brains to be in charge of them.

  But not only did this speech start to sound silly, I began to wonder if it would actually work against me. If I emphasized responsibility, people would start thinking of Amy, wouldn't they? She was one of those students who always had her homework neatly organized in her folder and was never late for anything.

  I needed to emphasize things I was good at, like school spirit and . . . um . . . the ability to represent my school in a good manner. I mean, the student body ought to be embarrassed to elect someone who stuck safety pins through his ears.

  I thought about this for a while, but couldn't come up with a way of putting it into a speech that sounded good. Somehow, you just didn't say, "If elected, I promise to work hard, promote unity, and never put sewing equipment through parts of my body."

  So after a while I just thought of all of the things I'd say to Rick after he lost the election. In my fantasies I was condescending and aloof. The only problem was, no matter what I said to Rick, his reply was always the same. He shrugged and said, "I don't care that I lost. It was all just a big joke anyway."

  And that really summed up the situation with Rick. He didn't care. Everyone knew he didn't care, and I shouldn't waste my time worrying about him. Chances were he'd get tired of this whole charade before elections and drop out of the race, or be suspended from school, or, at the very least, give a really stupid campaign speech in which he promised to sell whiskey in the cafeteria and fire the teachers.

  Rick wasn't my problem. Amy was. She was my only real contender in this race, and both she and I knew it. I couldn't afford to forget this again.

  After English, I headed toward my next class. I had just walked up the stairs when Doug appeared at my side. He clutched a couple of books in one hand while simultaneously swinging his arms in a way that made me wonder if his books would, at any moment, go flying into the air. "Hey," he said to me. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

  "At the moment, biology." I didn't slow my pace.

  "Ahh, biology. I have that first period." He nodded his head knowingly. "There's just nothing like learning about the caribou mating habits to get your day started." And then, right there in the hallway, Doug let forth this sound from his throat that sounded halfway between a yodel and a gorilla being strangled.

  Everyone in the vicinity turned to stare at us. I walked more quickly, grasping my books against my chest as though Doug might have just been overcome with insanity and any moment now he would either pounce on me or climb up the lockers and try to fly.

  He grinned, oblivious to all the hallway attention still focused on us. "That was my caribou mating call."

  Oh. How romantic. Exactly how did he want me to respond to that? Was I supposed to yodel back or shoot him?

  I kept walking quickly. "What class do you have now?" And shouldn't you be going there instead of trying to attract caribou?

  "Math."

  Dang. It was in the same direction as biology. That meant I had several more minutes of conversation time with Doug. Time in which he could put on other hallway p
erformances. Time in which he could ask me anything.

  Did he know I didn't have a date to the prom?

  Think. Think. Think. I needed to say something, anything that wouldn't give him the opportunity to lead the conversation in that direction.

  "Math," I said cheerily, "math is a good class. You can't get enough of math."

  He let out a grunt. "I can." And he trained his gaze on my eyes. "I can think of a million other things I'd rather do."

  Oops, that sentence could lead anywhere—like to us standing together in front of the prom photographer.

  "Well, of course math isn't the funnest thing. Really, when you come right down to it, English would have to be my favorite class. Mrs. Mortenson is such a good teacher. I mean, she knows all about theme, plot, symbolism—who knew books were so involved?"

  As long as the topic stayed on school, I was safe, and I was prepared to talk about school nonstop, without breathing if necessary, for the rest of the walk to my class.

  "You would think you'd get enough of books at your job."

  "My job?" He knew about my job? What else did he know about me?

  "Logan said you work at The Bookie with him, right?"

  "Right."

  Logan told him about me. How nice. I would have to thank Logan for this the next time I saw him.

  Doug glanced blankly around at the lockers as we walked. "It must be a boring job. Sort of like working at the library. You have to be quiet all of the time." Now his gaze turned back to me. "I bet you can't wait until your shift is over, and you can cut loose and have fun."

  And there we were again, heading away from school topics and going places where you wore corsages.

  "I like my job most of the time. It has its problems, but then all jobs do. And of course, working with Logan is the biggest—" I stopped myself before I added the word problem. I couldn't let any insults creep out of my mouth and find their way back to Logan. Instead, I smiled as though I was simply trying to find the right adjective and said, pleasure.

  Doug cocked his head. "Working with Logan is a pleasure?"

  "No one stacks and shelves the way he does. It's one of his best talents." With the same smile still plastered on my face, I added, "You'll have to ask him to arrange your locker for you sometime. Really. He'd love to do it for you."