How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend

  Erin took the pen and clipboard, blushing, then signed Wilson’s sheet. I hoped she choked on her gum.

  I turned and walked back toward the school. I wasn’t about to stick around here and let Wilson steal people from me. As I went toward the door, I heard the rest of their conversation.

  “What time is your party?” Ginger asked.

  Wilson laughed. “That depends—what time did Giovanna say her party was?”

  “Seven thirty,” Ginger said.

  “Then seven thirty it is.”

  Chapter 7

  All the rest of the day it was the same. Wilson had suddenly transformed into Bickham High’s own personal Don Juan. Wherever girls congregated, he was there, shoveling on the flattery, and in love with everyone he looked at.

  I couldn’t get anyone of the female gender to even look at my petition. It was ridiculous. I mean, after all, this wasn’t a modeling contest. We weren’t voting on some sort of escort service. This was student body president. And besides, Dante was as hot as Wilson, only in a less footbally, more Italian way.

  The girls of Bickham should have seen right through all of those “You look great. Did you change your hair?” comments. I mean, we’re girls. Of course we’ve changed our hair. That’s what we do.

  By lunchtime, the latest gossip centered on who Wilson would take to prom. He hadn’t asked anyone, but suddenly a lot of junior girls thought they should go dress shopping just in case.

  I still managed to get fifteen signatures, but these consisted mostly of geeky freshman boys who seemed far too happy to be invited to a party at my house. Several of them asked for my phone number.

  I hoped Dante appreciated what I was doing for him.

  Raine got people from the track team to sign. Charity hit up people from her church, and Daphne—well, Daphne was able to garner an easy fifteen signatures from junior guys who all wanted to date her.

  After school, while Dante and I riffled through the refrigerator for snacks, Dante ranted about Wilson’s tactics. “He purposely set out to sabotage my party. The guy is a total—” He glanced at Skipper, who sat eating Cheez-Its at the table. “S.O.B.”

  “What does S.O.B. spell?” Skipper asked.

  “Sob,” I said. “It means to cry.”

  Skipper’s eyebrows scrunched together like she still didn’t understand, but she popped another Cheez-It into her mouth instead of asking more questions.

  “You know who else is a sob?” Dante asked. “Jesse is a total sob. He invited the whole basketball team to Wilson’s party. He invited the entire second period biology class. He even invited my friends. I’m glad you broke up with him.”

  I fingered the grapes in my hand, not hungry anymore since the subject of Jesse had come up. And to think he’d told me he was going to use good sportsmanship. If this was friendly campaigning, what exactly was Jesse’s definition of the unfriendly variety?

  Dante took a package of lunch meat out of the fridge and tossed it on the counter. “We’ve got to stop Wilson from ruining our party. Let’s change the date of ours.”

  “How would we let everyone know our new time? We’re not sure who’s coming as it is. We invited a bunch of people and are only hoping some of them show up.”

  “Then we’ll have a better party.”

  I popped a grape into my mouth. It was sour, of course. I ate it anyway. “Better than a heated swimming pool? Better than at the mayor’s house? While we’re passing out potato chips, Wilson will have his party professionally catered by some French chef named Jacques.”

  “Then we’ll ruin Wilson’s party somehow.” Dante ripped open a lunch meat package, folded up a piece of ham, and ate it without the bread. “Do you know anyone from your days in detention who could take care of the job?”

  “Take care of the job how?”

  “I don’t know. We could set fire to his lawn ornaments or something.”

  I let out a grunt and waved one of my grapes at Dante. “You might have forgotten this, but I’ve already spent more than enough time talking to policemen. If you’ll remember, I’m on probation.”

  “I know, I know. I was kidding.” His eyes got a far-off look, and his voice slowed. “Still, I like the idea of a few of those potted palms going up in smoke. I mean, if you put trees in little bowls on your lawn, you’re just asking someone to torch them.”

  “Don’t do it,” I said. “You might want to apply for something someday—like, say, college or a job—and tree-torching would look bad on your police record.”

  This was something I unfortunately knew too much about.

  Dante threw a couple of slices of ham on a piece of bread, then reached back into the fridge for the mustard. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’d planned on being the family delinquent, but you’ve already taken that title.” He spread the mustard on his bread slowly, his humor, even his sarcasm, suddenly gone. “But I still don’t want to let Wilson get away with it. He’s turned our party into a contest. It’s like the voting isn’t secret. Everyone has to choose this Saturday who they support.”

  I didn’t answer for a moment, because Dante was right. Still, I felt the need to say something, to somehow make it all better.

  Dante and I have been looking out for each other for a long time. Mostly these days I feel like I’m looking out for him, but it didn’t used to be that way. When Dante and I first started kindergarten, my parents had to make sure we went to the same class, because I refused to talk to the teacher. Dante had to speak for me for half the year.

  I leaned against the countertop and surveyed my brother. “Just because they go to Wilson’s party doesn’t mean they’ll vote for him. And maybe we can think of something—you know, something legal—to help our cause.”

  Dante slapped the top piece of bread on his sandwich. “Do you suppose Dad and Gabby would let me hire a band?”

  “Have you even asked them yet if you can have the party?”

  He shrugged, picked up his sandwich, and took a bite. “I’ll get around to it.”

  “Don’t you think you should do it soon?”

  “I’m sure it will be soon.” He took another bite, and then I guess because I kept staring at him, he added, “I have a system. I’m waiting to ask Gabby at a time when I know she won’t turn me down.”

  “When is that?” I didn’t believe such a thing was possible, but if it was, I wanted in on it too.

  He ignored me and wandered toward the kitchen door. “We should get a head count of all the people who are coming, so we know how much food and stuff to buy. Ask around and see which of the people that you talked to will be here.”

  “Right,” I said, but I dreaded the thought. I mean, what if no one came?

  The next day at school as Charity and I walked to our first period class, Dante came up beside us. “Get this. Wilson is telling people if they sign my petition they can’t come to his party. Two people came up to Brandon today and asked him to cross their names off my list.”

  Charity let out a gasp. “That’s terrible.”

  “Plus, Stephen only got four names and he’s out sick today. Or skipping, but anyway, I’m eight names short.”

  Right after he said this, we walked past a guy who lives down the street from us. “Hey, Gibbs,” Dante called to him. “Can you sign my petition?”

  The guy shrugged and frowned. “Sorry, I already signed Wilson’s.”

  “That’s okay,” Dante said, but as soon as the guy was out of earshot, Dante swore. Charity swatted him. She’s trying to break him of his swearing habit through the gentle persuasion of smacking him whenever he does it.

  The muscles tensed in his jaw. “You think this is easy?” he asked her. “Here, you collect some more names.” He held the paper toward her, but she didn’t take it.

  “Sorry, but I got most of my names by telling people that my daddy would ask them to speak in church if they didn’t sign.” She let out a sigh. “I can only threaten so many people.”

  Dante shook his head.
“My dad’s an accountant. I have no leverage.”

  We continued to walk through the flow of students. Dante rolled up the petition and tapped it against his leg as his gaze darted back and forth through the hallway. He looked like he wanted to club someone with it.

  Charity kept glancing at him. She shrugged and said, “Well, you could always act like Wilson and shamelessly flirt with some girls.”

  “Right,” he said.

  “Come on, let’s see you strut your stuff. Put some of that Italian charm to good use.” Charity pointed to a group of three girls standing by a locker. “There’s some sweet young things, go convince them that you’re the man they want.”

  Dante tilted his head at her but kept walking away from the girls. “Does your father know you talk this way when he’s not around?”

  She smirked at him. “Coward.”

  I tried to stop their argument by holding out my hand to Dante. “Give me the list. I’ll get some names.”

  Dante shoved the list in my direction without looking at me. His eyes narrowed as he considered Charity. “I can’t believe you, of all people, would tell me to use people like Wilson does.”

  She tilted her chin downward and gave him a crooked smile. “Oh, give me a break. I knew you wouldn’t do it. You don’t know how to be charming.”

  His head jerked back as though she’d smacked him again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  I raised my voice. “So when I get eight more names—do you want the petition back during school so you can take it to the office, or should I bring it home?”

  Dante still didn’t look at me. “I know how to be charming.”

  Charity laughed, like it was funny.

  “You want charming? I’ll show you charming.” He took the list from my hand and walked over to the drinking fountain where a couple of girls stood talking. They looked like easy enough targets. Freshmen. Maybe sophomores, but you could tell by the way they dressed that they wanted to be older. Well, either that or the expiration on their makeup was tomorrow and they were trying to use it all before it went bad.

  I didn’t want to stop. My trig teacher gets into a snit if we walk into class after the bell rings, but how could I keep from watching? Besides, Charity had firmly stopped. She leaned up against a locker with no apparent sign of ever moving again.

  We watched as Dante smiled at the girls, leaned toward them, and laughed at something one of them said. Which was weird to see, because hey, this was my brother. It’s hard to think of brothers as having a romantic side, since to us sisters, they are simply half-disgusting creatures who leave their dirty socks lying around, snore on the couch, and never clean the bathroom.

  The girls laughed back at whatever Dante had said. One of them tilted her head and looked shyly up at him.

  He handed her the paper and a pen. I could imagine him saying, “Have you lost weight lately? Have you changed your hair?”

  How gross. “If he starts acting like Wilson now,” I told Charity, “I will hold you personally responsible.”

  She let out a huff and sent an angry glare in Dante’s direction, which was totally uncalled for, since she’d been the one to call him charmless in the first place. And then it hit me. Charity liked Dante. Why else would it tick her off that he was over there flirting with those girls?

  Every memory I had of Charity and Dante together suddenly shifted. Things that had never made sense before became clear. I leaned against the locker next to her. “You know, next time you should be more specific and tell him who he’s supposed to be using his charm on.”

  One of the girls took the pen from Dante’s hand and wrote something on the paper. Charity tore her gaze from them. “What do you mean?”

  “Tell him he’s supposed to be charming you.”

  Her eyes widened, and then she let out another huff. “Why would I want that?”

  Maybe I’d been wrong. “Never mind,” I said.

  She blinked, as though trying to erase any emotion from her large blue eyes. “It would never work out between us. I’m not sixteen yet. Besides, he rides a motorcycle. And he likes it.”

  Nope, I wasn’t wrong. I smiled even though she looked cross and miserable. Half the time the girls Dante brought home were total idiots. Like in their zest for body piercing they got carried away and accidentally pierced a few necessary parts of their brains. Charity would be good for him. “Motorcycles aren’t so bad. Well, you know, if you never look down.”

  Dante walked back to us with an extra bounce in his step. He smiled, folded a ripped piece of notebook paper, and slipped it into his jeans pocket.

  “Did you get her signature for your petition?” Charity asked.

  He handed the list back to me. “Nope. She’d already signed Wilson’s, but she did give me her phone number.”

  Charity shook her head and walked toward class again. I glared at Dante for her. I mean really, why would he want an underclassman who applied her makeup so it looked like she was testing paint swatches on her eyelids?

  Guys. I turned my back on Dante and walked down the hallway with Charity.

  “Arrivederci ragazze!” he called after us and then laughed.

  I didn’t try to get any signatures in trig class, because I barely made it through the door as the bell rang. This caused Mr. Ragolski’s snit level to rise by several degrees, and I knew I’d get in trouble if he caught me passing the petition around.

  Still, I needed to come up with eight signatures for my brother—and this because I had tried to keep Dante and Charity from fighting, which goes to show you that I should mind my own business or I should try to set them up.

  I wasn’t sure which.

  After lunch I went to Honors English. It used to be my favorite class, because reading doesn’t seem like homework to me. It’s more like entertainment. Well, except for Hemingway, which could be used to hypnotize lab rats into semi-conscious states.

  Unfortunately, Jesse is in my English class. So is Wilson. I’d been doing my best to avoid talking to Jesse in class, except for those times when he and Wilson were loudly discussing whether I was going to eat sandal-wiches or meatloafers.

  Sometimes it felt like we hadn’t broken up at all, and this teasing was the same kind of flirting we used to do. At other times I wanted to grab Jesse’s boots and give him a head start on eating them.

  As I walked to my seat, I glanced at Jesse. He sits two rows over from me. My gaze lingered on his broad shoulders, his jawline, the curve of his lips. I wondered if he’d already asked Bridget to prom. I wondered if he’d ever kissed her. Daphne probably knew the answer to these questions, but I didn’t have the heart to ask her.

  Mrs. Pembroke stood by her desk talking to a couple of students. She waved one hand around explaining something. I couldn’t tell what, but judging from her motions it may have had something to do with directing an orchestra or guiding a plane safely onto a tarmac.

  Mrs. Pembroke is a good teacher. Whenever we discuss books, she always takes our thoughts and opinions seriously. How many teachers do that? Most have their own opinions, and the whole point of class is for them to tell you their opinion and then grade you on it.

  Of course, part of Mrs. Pembroke’s attitude comes from the fact that she wants to be a writer and so is looking for reader feedback. She always asks us what we liked and disliked about a story. What was our favorite part? How would we improve the plot if we could?

  We’re sort of like a room full of teenage consultants.

  Wilson, I noticed, was busy talking to a girl in the back of the room. No doubt campaigning. I decided to be a politician myself and scooted closer to the guy who sat in the row between Jesse and me. “Hi, Bill.”

  “Howdy.” He glanced at me, then returned his attention to a paper he was writing.

  Bill is a nice guy, despite the fact that he’d done a lot of eye rolling whenever Jesse and I had leaned over his desk to talk to each other. Really, he was probably reli
eved that Jesse and I had broken up so he didn’t have to be in the middle of us anymore. I smiled at him anyway. “Have you signed anyone’s petition for student body president yet?”

  “No. Why? Are you running?”

  This, I noticed, turned Jesse’s head. I pretended not to see him. Instead I gave Bill my most lilting laugh. “No, not me. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have the courage to run against Wilson. With his popularity, money, and connections—well, hardly anyone else stands a chance. But my brother, Dante, really wants to see things change. He’s tired of the same old clique running the school. Would you like to help us by signing—”

  I didn’t get to finish. Jesse leaned on the other side of Bill’s desk. “A clique doesn’t run the school. Student council does.”

  “It’s the popular clique,” I said. “Every day you can sit and watch them all cliquing away—”

  Jesse cut me off. “They put in their own time, working hard to plan dances and fund-raisers—”

  “But not memorials. They do whatever they want, and they couldn’t care less about the rest of us.” I put the petition on Bill’s desk. “We can send a message to the elitists at this school by voting for Dante.”

  Jesse let out a grunt. “Elitists? You think Wilson is an elitist?”

  “If the Prada shoewear fits, then yeah, he should wear it.”

  Bill looked at the petition, then glanced at the back of the room, where Wilson and his latest conquest were laughing at something. He gulped and didn’t sign. “I . . . uh, think Wilson and Dante are both great guys,” he said.

  Jesse’s eyes narrowed at me. “I suppose you think I’m an elitist too.”

  “Well, I didn’t until you totally blew off Dante.”

  “I didn’t blow off Dante. I started campaigning for Wilson.”

  “You invited Dante’s friends to Wilson’s party.”