“But he wouldn’t know you had anything to do with this,” James explains. “If he’s going to turn you in, it’ll happen regardless.”
“He doesn’t have anything on you anyway,” Danny says. “It’s not like that note had your name on it. Anyone could have written it, right?”
I think.
“Right?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see if it had my name. Or if it was signed.”
“Even with names, anyone could have written it,” Nicole says. “Like a setup. It doesn’t prove anything.”
This is definitely the type of thing that is huge enough to get Gloria’s attention. This would really make her think about the way she treats people.
“Oh!” Danny yells. “And it’s so karma! How Jackson took your note and then he dropped this one? Yes!”
I’m still not completely convinced, though. Wouldn’t I get blamed for it? Half the school saw what happened with Gloria and Steve in the cafeteria. “Okay, but—”
“We’ve got it covered,” James says. “No worries.”
They all look so determined. I know they have their own reasons for doing this, too.
I guess that’s it, then. I wanted to find a way, and here it is. My best friends found it for me.
When I go back to school because I forgot my dirty gym clothes, I see them outside the locker room. Steve has Gloria pressed up against the wall. And they’re kissing. He’s kissing her the same way he used to kiss me.
That’s it. Now I’m way beyond angry.
Because maybe the breakup was all about Steve instead of me being lacking in some way. It’s like Brooke was saying about the whole manwhore phenomenon. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m probably fine the way I am. In fact, I know I am. Wasn’t I a confident person before The Incident? How could I let him change me like that?
Brooke’s leaving for Europe tomorrow. You’d think Dad would take us all out for dinner tonight to say good-bye. But no. He’s still grumbling about how Brooke dissed the whole internship opportunity. So he’s at work, same with Mom, and Brooke and I are celebrating with Chinese food for the second night in a row in front of the TV. Since Sex and the City is Brooke’s favorite show, we’re watching a DVD from season four.
Brooke sticks her chopsticks into my box of chow fun. She goes, “So I finally met a real man.”
I choke on a noodle. That’s, like, the last thing I ever thought I’d hear from her.
She holds up my glass. “Water?”
I grab my glass and glug the water. “You what?” I gasp.
“You heard me.”
“Is this for real?”
“It seems real.”
Um-hmm. I’ve been there.
“Proceed with caution,” I warn.
“Will you just let me tell you?”
So of course it’s this eternal story about how she went out last night with a bunch of friends. They were in this random bar she didn’t even want to go to, and there he was. He came up to her and they talked for a really long time and when he asked for her number, she gave it to him. Which she never does. She always takes the guy’s number instead, for safety reasons.
But she was just so swept away that she gave it to him. And things were going great and they walked outside to leave, and that’s when she freaked out. Because what if he never called her? What if he was asking for her number just to get it?
So he was saying bye, and she was so freaked out that she started walking the wrong way. To go home. And there was something about a bus almost running her over, but I’m not really clear on that part. So now she’s all paranoid that he’ll never call her because she acted like such a goober.
She’s like, “And naturally this has to happen right when I’m leaving for six weeks.”
“Don’t worry. If he likes you that much, he’ll call you when you get back.”
“Yeah, right. Him and his new girlfriend. Arrggg!” Brooke slams her box of fried wontons down on the coffee table. “This is so frustrating!”
“Relax. He’ll call.”
She calms down a little. She looks over at me. “You think?”
“Definitely. It sounds like he likes you for sure.”
“Really?”
“Totally.”
We start a new episode since we pretty much talked through the last one.
“Oh, and thanks for the Cinnabon last weekend,” I say. “Sorry I was so out of it. . . . Did I even say thanks?”
“No. But you’re thanking the wrong person.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t me. I was just getting out of the shower, remember?”
“Then who—?”
“James! James brought it.” Brooke gives me a look like, How dense can you get? “I thought you knew.”
We start watching again. This is the one where Aidan moves in with Carrie and they keep fighting about stupid stuff. I mean, to them, in the moment, it all seems important. But by the end of the episode they realize that those things don’t matter. What really matters isn’t where someone puts their stuff or how much closet space someone is taking up. What really matters is who a person is. And how you feel when you’re with them.
Danny lets us in the back door.
“So what’s the game plan?” James says.
James and Danny went to Kinko’s after school and made one thousand copies of the note. They used five different paper colors. There’s enough for everyone to get a copy on their locker, plus we can put them up around the entire school. We’re naturally at risk for getting in serious trouble, but it’s so worth it.
“Why don’t we split up by area,” I suggest. “Like, someone can put one on each locker, someone can do the halls, someone can do the stairways, and then someone can do the bathrooms and locker rooms.”
“That’s cool,” Nicole says.
“Did you get the ladder?” James asks Danny. He had this epiphany at Westville that we should hang a bunch of copies really high up so teachers won’t be able to rip them down. I said how no one would be able to read them that high up, but Danny said it would make a statement. He’s all fired up about how this whole thing’s making a major statement. That and the karma thing. Because Danny knows what Gloria said when Nicole was trying to do that problem in math. And how she humiliated me in front of everyone at lunch. So those fiascos plus skanking around with Steve equals Danny’s unwavering determination to expose the truth.
“No,” Danny tells him. “The janitors were already gone.”
“What about doing classrooms?” James says.
“Bad idea. The teachers will be pissed.”
“Like they’re not gonna be pissed anyway?”
“Yeah, but that’ll make it worse. I like Rhiannon’s idea.”
Nicole gives everyone two rolls of tape. Then we each take a pile of copies.
“Wait!” Danny yells. “Group huddle!”
We scrunch together in a circle. Danny puts his hand out. We take turns slapping our hands, one on top of the other. Then Danny goes, “One, two, three—break!” And we’re off.
I’m in charge of lockers. I tape one copy to every locker, mixing the colors randomly. I was going to alternate the colors in order, but I’ve decided to live a little.
When I get back to my room, I take down every single picture of Steve from around my mirror. I don’t cry. I don’t think about the good times we had when each picture was taken. I just take them down, rip them up, and throw them away.
CHAPTER 15
Friday
FURIOUS IS NOT the word to describe Gloria.
Rabid dog foaming at mouth seeking death as vengeance is a slightly more accurate description.
We all knew she would come after me. And probably turn me in. So when the main office secretary comes on the PA and announces that I have to report to the principal’s office, I’m not exactly the most surprised person in the room.
“Sit down, Rhiannon,” Mr. Pearlman orders. He’s into the dictatorial approach
to being a principal. Because, you know. Being friendly just wouldn’t be more effective.
He indicates a chair.
I sit.
“Now, as you’re probably aware, we seem to have a problem today.”
I wait.
“It seems that someone hung copies of a note Gloria wrote . . .” He rustles through some papers. “Two years ago? All around the building.”
He stares at me for a response. So I say, “I’ve noticed.”
“It also seems that this someone had access to the building after school was officially closed for the night.”
He stares again. What, does he expect me to crack just because he’s staring? Is he trying to make me nervous with his beady eyes and spooky moustache?
“It’s come to my attention,” he continues, “that you might have had a hand in this. Is that true?”
Okay. The plan was that if they came after me, I would deny everything. There’s no way they can prove I did it. It could have been any one of Gloria’s enemies. But what if he knows something else and he’s not telling? And if I say I didn’t do it and he busts out with evidence, I’ll be screwed worse than if I admitted it right away. And if I lie and he finds out, he’ll be wicked pissed and might suspend me. And if anything gets in the way of me eventually getting into Parsons School of Design, I won’t be a happy unit.
“Is that true, Rhiannon?”
I open my mouth to say it. And that’s when James comes bursting through the door.
And he says, “I did it.”
Normally the ivy outside my window is just a bunch of dead branches in a twisty pattern. But now the leaves are thriving. It’s like the ivy has finally come back to life. Just like me.
Nicole flops onto my beanbag chair and says, “I love me some Friday.”
“I feel you,” I say. This week could not have been longer. I’m looking forward to the dance tonight. But I’m not looking forward to seeing Steve and Gloria there. Just because I’m moving on doesn’t mean I don’t still feel hurt.
“Wasn’t Danny awesome?” Danny’s speech is, like, the only thing Nicole’s been talking about for the past hour. And yeah, it was amazing. He’s totally winning the election. But I’m getting over it already. Especially since James was even more awesome.
I swear, the National Honor Society kids get away with everything. Just because James is this physics/calculus/engineering genius and like second in our class and all the teachers love him, he got away with it. It’s amazing. If anyone else even looked at the principal wrong, they’d get detention for a week (citation: inappropriate facial expression). But James barges right into the principal’s office and admits he did it, and they don’t do anything to him. Incredible. But it was still amazing for him to do that. No one told me that was how I wouldn’t get in trouble.
“Yes. Danny was awesome. Now can we change the subject?” I sit down at my desk and open my lists journal. I read over the list I made last Saturday. The one called “Top Five Things I Miss About Steve.” It feels like I wrote this a million years ago. As I read it, I realize that all these things aren’t about who he is, they’re about what we did together. Things that I could do with someone else who will actually feel lucky to be with me.
Nicole’s like, “Can I just say how proud I am, and go you?”
“And add it to the five million times you already told me?” Nicole has not stopped raving about how awesome the sidewalk-chalk thing was. Even though it didn’t work out. That’s not what matters. What matters is that I did it. And in its own way, it rocked. “Okay!”
“So was that the first thing you ever did that wasn’t scheduled in your day planner like a week in advance?”
“No!” I huff. But of course it was. I’m proud of me, too. Proud and mortified.
Snickers walks onto Nicole’s stomach and purrs like an airplane engine. He starts digging his claws into her shirt.
“Ow ow ow!” Nicole tries to pry his claws out. “Get him off!”
“Snick!” I pick him up, his claws still sticking into her shirt. She yanks her shirt back down.
“Can you believe it about Gloria?”
“Only because you were there.” Nicole ran into Gloria in the bathroom and she was actually crying.Like a real person or something. “I almost feel bad for her.”
“Please. That girl is getting everything she deserves.”
“I know but . . . maybe we shouldn’t have done it. It’s just, everything was happening so fast yesterday. I didn’t have time to think.”
“Yeah, that’s the point. You were being impulsive! Isn’t that how you said you wanted to be?”
“Maybe but . . . if being impulsive means ruining other people’s lives, then maybe I should just stay the same.”
“Or maybe you should be who you want to be and stop making excuses.”
I don’t want to get in a fight. I know she’s right, anyway. Which is annoying. So I go over to my iBook and click on my day-planner widget. I have to get my life back on track. Order as an antidote to chaos. Calm after the storm.
“Ree,” I hear from the beanbag.
“Yeah.”
“It’s Friday night. There’s a dance. Can you chill with the anal-retentive tendencies for one night, please?”
Of course she’s right. I’ve been an organization freak my whole life, and where did it get me? I thought I had control over something that went crazy. I thought following a straight road would lead me right to my destination. Like the road would just take me there because I was following all the rules. And if the road curved, I couldn’t be sure about where I was going. But look where it got me.
Maybe it’s time for a detour.
Everybody’s at the dance. Some dances turn out to be lame, but half the school is here. They’re playing some dead house music, though, so not a lot of people are dancing. But then the Gorillaz come on and “Dare” is playing and everyone pours onto the dance floor. All the boys are grinding against all the girls. The chaperones don’t even try to break it up, because how do you break up an entire gym of horny, grinding kids? So they look anywhere but at the dance floor, pretending it’s not happening.
And then Tony starts doing this crazy dance he invented in ninth grade that he busts out at every dance and party. Random people are yelling at him.
“Aw, hell no!”
“Tony! You’ve been with that dance for like three years!”
“He wildin’!”
“Dude! Get a new dance!”
“Try some Chicken Noodle! It just came out in Harlem!”
I like watching everyone going crazy. All free and uninhibited and not caring how they look. Just having fun.
And then I see Jackson over by the snack table. I didn’t get a chance to tell him how sorry I am that he got caught up in the middle of all this. We had a test in English and he bolted after. I feel so bad. Worse than bad. I should go over to him and apologize for being such a loser.
But then he walks toward me and my stomach does this nervous, fluttery thing. Will he give me back my note, or tell me he turned me in?
“If you do this, then we’ll call it even,” Jackson says.
“What is it?”
“Well, um . . .” He looks over toward the bleachers where some kids are sitting. “You know Heather, right?”
“Yeah. She’s my partner in Earth Science.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
“No, I was . . . just checking.”
I wait for him to tell me. He looks miserable.
“Do you like her or something?”
He scuffs his shoe on the floor. It squeaks against the polish. He doesn’t answer me.
“So . . . what do you want me to do?”
“Could you just . . . like . . . go over and say I want to talk to her?”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. And then tell me what she says.”
“And if I do it, you won’t tell on me.”
“Right.”
“And I can have my note back?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Deal.”
Jackson puts his hand out and we shake on it.
“I didn’t mean to keep your note,” he says. “I just did it because I wasn’t sure if you’d help me with Heather without a reason, you know?”
“Oh. That’s okay.”
“Anyway . . .”
“So . . . I’ll go over now?”
“Okay. I’ll be over by the water fountain.”
“Okay. And hey . . . Jackson?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really sorry about what happened. I never meant to . . . I didn’t mean for it to be anything bad against you.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. And, anyway, it got me noticed. Or I think it did.” He looks over at Heather again. I guess she talked to him today or something. Which just proves that even in a bad situation, there’s always a positive side. Even if you can’t see it yet.
An hour later it’s still a blast, with the music blaring and Nicole and Danny doing their corny John Travolta Saturday Night Fever moves, and even James seems into it. But when Steve and Gloria get here, it hits me all over again. I’m just not ready to see them together yet.
Nicole runs over to me. “Do you want something? There’s cookies.”
I just stand there, staring at them.
“Or . . . juice?”
I so want to be over it already. Too bad that can’t happen overnight.
Then someone’s arm is around my shoulders and I know it’s James. It’s amazing how he has this way of knowing right when I need him, even before I do.
“Hey,” he says. “Wanna go?”
“Yesterday, if not sooner.” I glance at Nicole. “Coming?”
“No, you guys go ahead,” she says. “I’m staying with Danny.”
I smile at her. “Oh?”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Ready?” James goes.
“Yeah,” I tell him.