“No, of course not. I mean, unless you …”
“I could,” Beth offered. “I mean, I would, if you wanted me to. Of course.”
“Oh, I know you would, of course.”
“But, you know, if you don’t really think it would change anything …,” Beth hedged.
“No, I guess … no reason for us both to go down, right?” Miranda said weakly“! mean, it seems sort of silly, for you to just—out of solidarity, or something.”
“But if you wanted me to—”
“No, only if you wanted to—”
She deserved that month of detentions, every bit as much as Miranda. But then—what was the difference?
Did she deserve for her boyfriend to cheat on her? Did she deserve to bomb the SATs after all her studying? To cry herself to sleep every night? To be screwed over by Adam, by Harper, by Kane, to be left alone? What had she ever done to deserve any of that?
But what had Miranda done, either, other than come along for the ride?
She opened her mouth, intending to say one thing—and then said another thing entirely.
“Okay, I guess I’ll keep quiet,” she told Miranda, who gave her a thin smile. “Thank you.”
Beth had always thought of herself as someone who did the right thing, but now she knew the truth. She only did the right thing when it didn’t cost her anything. She opened her mouth to take it back, but Miranda was already standing up and walking away. Not that it mattered: Beth didn’t have the nerve, even if the alternative meant hating herself.
I’ll make it up to you, she promised Miranda silently. Somehow.
Kaia didn’t know he was there until he’d crept up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She almost knocked over her coffee when she whirled around and realized he had approached her in a public place, in a coffee shop, where anyone could see. Powell was on permanent orange alert at the possibility of anyone seeing them together, and if he’d elected to throw his obsessive caution to the wind, it could mean only one thing: He was losing it.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked, wondering if he’d been following her.
“I needed to see you,” Powell said, ignoring the question. He wrapped his fingers tightly around her forearm and pulled her toward a secluded corner of the deserted coffee shop. She settled into an overstaffed armchair, but he stayed standing, hovering nervously behind her.
“Sit down,” she hissed, disgusted. Where was the cool British charmer she’d pursued, the one with the icy glare and the cocky certainty that nothing mattered but what he wanted? “It’ll be bad enough if anyone sees us together, but if they see you fluttering around me like a nervous boyfriend—just sit down.” She pointed to a chair across from her close enough that they could talk without being overheard, and far enough that he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her, even if he’d truly become unhinged.
“So? What is it?” she asked, when he’d finally sat down and a minute had passed in silence. “What do you want?”
“What are you doing?” he asked, almost sorrowfully.
“What am I doing?” She arched an eyebrow. “Look where we are. What are you doing?”
“You won’t return my calls. I needed to see you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
He let loose a harsh chuckle. “Busy? In this town? No such thing. No, I can guess what you’ve been doing.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been with him, haven’t you?”
“You’ve been watching me?” she said, pretending the realization came as a surprise.
“Of course not.” He laughed, a few bitter barks of noise that contained no humor. “I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
He seemed so honestly disdainful of the idea that she almost believed him; but then, if he hadn’t been watching her, why the righteous anger? How could he be so sure?
“It’s all over town, dearest.You may have some discretion, but your gutter-rat, I’m afraid …”
Reed wouldn’t have spread anything around, he wasn’t the type. But how could she be so certain, she asked herself, about a guy she’d just met? What made her so willing to trust the pizza delivery boy who drove around in a pickup truck, smoked mountains of pot, and never answered any of her questions?
“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re right. Let’s say I was …”
“Cheating on me,” Powell supplied helpfully. It was an odd choice of words, since cheating implied a relationship. And whatever they had—an agreement, an unwritten contract, a mutual disregard—it wasn’t a relationship.
It was sex, nothing else.
“Whatever,” she said, throwing up her hands in supplication. “Let’s say you’re right. What now?”
He looked surprised—maybe by her unruffled expression, which, she hoped, made it painfully clear that she didn’t care what happened next.
“Now? Now you stop seeing him,” he ordered. “We agreed—you want this, you want me, you can’t have anyone else.”
“Fine.” Kaia shrugged.
“Fine?” He raised his eyebrows. Maybe he’d been expecting more of a fight. “You’ll stop seeing him, then?”
“No.” Did she have to spell it out? “I’ll stop seeing you.” She finished her iced coffee in a single gulp and stood up. “It’s been fun, Jack. See you around.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” he growled, grabbing her arm roughly to pull her back down. She shrugged him off. “You think you can just walk away?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s not how it works, Kaia. You want to be very careful about what you choose to do right now.”
It didn’t sound like a desperate plea to win her back.
It sounded like a threat.
As if she’d be scared of some washed-up British bachelor who’d fallen so far, he was hiding out in the middle of nowhere teaching French to future farmers of America. Even if he was the one playing with spray paint in the middle of the night, or jerking off courtesy of his digital camera, it was a coward’s revenge, and cowards didn’t scare her.
“Bye, bye, Jack,” she chirped, and headed for the door.
“This is a mistake, Kaia.” His low, angry voice followed her out. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.”
Doubtful.
Harper had been looking forward to a nice, quiet evening at home in front of the TV, hoping to lose herself in some cheesy MTV reality show—other people’s misery was so much more fun than her own. But it wasn’t to be. …
“Mind if I join you, hon?” Her mother didn’t wait for an answer before squeezing next to Harper on the threadbare couch. Parents could be so inconvenient sometimes.
Harper nodded and tried to hold back a sigh. “Whatever.” She upped the volume on the TV in anticipation of her mother’s inevitable commentary.
“Is that the girl from that show on HBO?” her mother asked, peering at the screen. “Oh, wait, no, she has blond hair. But is she—”
“Mom! She’s a real person, okay?” Harper explained, more harshly than she’d intended. “It’s a reality show. They’re all real. No actors. Get it?”
“No need to yell, dear, I’m sitting right here,” Amanda Grace said dryly, raising her eyebrows. For a few minutes they watched together in blessed silence, then, “Wait, I thought she was dating that other boy? The one with the Mohawk?”
“She was, Mother.”
“But then what’s she doing with this one? And are they really going to—oh! Can they show that on TV? What are you watching?”
“It’s just a show, Mom.” Harper slouched down on the couch, wishing she’d chosen a different channel. Was there anything more embarrassing than watching on-screen sex with your mother?
“Harper, I hope that if you … well, if there’s anything you want to talk about, you know, in that department—”
Correction: Talking about your own sex life—or, at the moment, lack thereof—with your mot
her was definitely more embarrassing.
“Mom, there’s nothing to discuss. Trust me.”
“I do, honey, it’s just—” Fortunately, the scene shifted, and her mother gasped. “Is that vodka? And those two girls, what are they—? Is this really what you teenagers are doing with yourselves these days?”
“It’s TV, Mom,” Harper pointed out, feeling simultaneous twinges of pride and guilt that she’d been able to keep her mother so successfully in the dark.
“Reality TV.”
Harper shook her head. “There’s nothing real about any of this crap,” she argued. “It’s all edited to make it more exciting, and you know they’re just acting up for the camera. No one’s like that in real life.”
Harper flipped the channel over to one of those ‘All Women, All the Time’ stations, hoping her mother would get absorbed by some soapy sob story and forget all about her. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“I haven’t seen Adam around here lately,” her mother suddenly said, still staring at the TV. “Or Miranda.”
Maybe she wasn’t so oblivious after all.
“They’re around,” Harper said softly. She wasn’t about to unload on her mother—last time she’d actually confided in one of her parents, she’d been barely out of diapers—but the temptation was there. There was something to be said for unconditional parental adoration, especially when everyone else you care about has decided you’re worthless and unlovable.
“What’s going on with you these days?” her mother asked, finally turning to her and smoothing down Harper’s unruly hair, just like she used to do when Harper was younger. “You seem … sad.”
Harper shrugged. “You know teenagers, Mom. We’re a moody bunch.”
“I know you,” her mother countered. “I know when something’s wrong. It might help to talk about it.”
“No it won’t.” She knew she sounded sullen and sulky, like a little kid, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Honey, I know high school can be tough—I wasn’t born middle-aged, you know. But you’ve got to remember, it’s not everything. The things that seem so horrible now, they’ll pass.You’ll get through it. Everyone does.”
“Can we just not talk about this? Please?” This was why Harper never told her parents anything. They didn’t get it. Harper knew her mother would probably think she just had some kind of teenybopper crush on Adam, that she and Miranda were just having a little spat that could be solved with ice cream and a smile. Having been a teenager once, a million years ago, didn’t qualify her mother to understand what she was going through—and it obviously didn’t give her any idea what Harper’s life was like, how hard it could be.
“Of course,” her mother said, lifting the remote and flipping through the channels until she stumbled upon a showing of The Princess Bride. “How about we just watch the movie?”
Loving this movie was one of the few things they still had in common. They’d watched it together about twenty times, and had memorized almost every line. Harpers mother switched off the light and draped a heavy blanket over both of them. Harper smiled, letting herself get carried away by the familiar jokes and the sappy but irresistible love story. If only life were as clear-cut as it was in the movies—if only you could slay a few Rodents of Unusual Size, battle your way across the Fire Swamp, slay an evil count, and get what you most desired. It would be an improvement over the real world, where danger snuck up on you and courage was so much more difficult to find.
“Harper?”
“Mmm?”
“You know your father and I love you, right?”
Of course she knew it. But it never hurt to hear it again. She focused intently on the screen and blinked back tears as Princess Buttercup threw herself into the arms of her one true love.
“Yeah,” she murmured softly, leaning her head against her mother’s shoulder. “You too.”
chapter
7
The administration had worked overtime to get everything ready for the governors visit.The press—or, at least, a photographer from the Grace Herald and a reporter from the Ludlow Times—was due first thing that morning to take pictures of the school, which had been sufficiently buffed and shined for the occasion. A selection of high-achieving students had been carefully selected to speak with the reporter, and the crown jewel of Principal Lowenstein’s presentation to the media was about to be unveiled.
Hanging over the front doors of the school, hidden by a white drop cloth, was the principals pet project: a giant billboard, labored over by the art teacher and his most talented students. It would soon welcome the governor to town—but now, in an almost as important moment, it would serve as the face Haven High would show to the world.
Principal Lowenstein allowed herself a moment to dream—thanks to the governor s star power, the local story would be picked up by the state press, perhaps even nationally syndicated. The paparazzi were everywhere, and you never knew what might excite the tabloids. She suppressed a smile, imagining her face staring back at her from the supermarket checkout aisle. She would be seen all over the country for what she truly was: a capable, zealous administrator destined for greater things.
Specifically, destined to get the hell out of this dinky town and take on a real school, a place where the students cared about more than football scores and truck engines, and the teachers actually understood the material they were supposed to teach.
Proud grin firmly planted on her face, Lowenstein waved to the reporters, posed for their flashes, and pulled down the drop cloth.
And because she was so intent on staring into the camera, she was the last to see it.
The art department had gone above and beyond, pulling a campaign photo of the governor riding a horse, and blowing it up so he appeared to be galloping toward the doors of Haven High. In large type, the caption beneath the image read—or was supposed to read—HAVEN HIGH WELCOMES OUR GOVERNOR——THE BEST INTHE WEST!
It was a masterpiece of administrative banality—or would have been, had someone not snuck beneath the drop cloth, pulled out their spray paint, and made a few … minor changes.
The governor was now truly riding the horse—as one imagined he might ride his wife. The new caption: HAVEN HIGH WELCOMES OUR GOVERNOR—THE BEST LOVER IN THE WEST!
It was juvenile, lame, inappropriate, grotesque and, all in all, a reasonably accurate representation of everything Haven High stood for.
The reporter scribbled madly, and Principal Lowenstein smiled uselessly for the camera, no longer looking forward to her front-page coverage. Welcome to Haven High, she thought dejectedly, where dreams come to die.
Everyone in school that day was consumed with the question of who had pulled the prank. Everyone except Beth, who had only one thought in her mind: Who would the winner be?
That morning in homeroom, she, Harper, and the other contenders had traipsed down to the principal’s office and read their speeches into the PA system. Beth assumed no one was listening—the mornings gossip was too fresh for anyone to take a break and actually pay attention—but she still felt a tiny thrill having her voice piped throughout the school, knowing that soon people would be voting on whether or not they’d been suitably impressed.
Beth wasn’t thrilled with her speech, but even in her nervousness she could tell it was better than anything anyone else had to offer. Harper’s, especially—from the grammatical errors to the logical inconsistencies, to the blithe suggestion that school be made several hours shorter and students be allowed to choose their own subjects of study—Beth was sure she couldn’t lose.
Still, she didn’t like waiting.
The announcement came in last period, toward the end of French class. Normally, Beth detested sitting through those forty-seven minutes, feeling Jack Powell’s eyes upon her—it forced her to remember the day he’d kissed her in the deserted newsroom, a moment she’d been struggling for months to forget. She could, if she allowed herself, still feel his hands gripping her body, and the flic
ker of fear that she wouldn’t be able to push him away. It made her feel dirty, and somehow trapped, as if a part of her were still stuck there with him, in that cramped, dark room.
But today, she’d been too distracted by worries about the speech to pay much attention to Powell, and that, at least, was a blessing.
“Attention, students.” As the PA speaker crackled to life, Beth looked up from her desk. This was it, she knew it. Just as she knew without looking that, three rows back, Harper was watching her.
She looked, anyway.
“Students, I’m pleased to announce the results of our speech contest,” the principal announced, sounding distinctly happier than she had that morning. “All the submissions were quite impressive, but after tallying the votes, we have a clear-cut winner.”
Beth held her breath. Harper continued to stare.
“The student selected should report to me after school, in order to discuss the arrangements for the speech.”
Beth tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and tried to look calm, as if none of this mattered.
“And the student selected for this great honor is … Harper Grace.” Beth felt all the breath leak out of her in a loud sigh. She felt like a flat tire, empty and ready to crumple. Behind her, she knew, Harper was still watching. Only now, she’d be smiling.
“I hope you’ll all join me in congratulating Ms. Grace on her accomplishment. I know she will represent the school with honor and—if you’ll pardon the pun—grace.”
No one laughed. And no one applauded, or whistled, or did anything to make it appear they thought this was a big deal. Which, Beth supposed, it wasn’t—except to her.
If she’d only turned in the other speech, the good speech, this wouldn’t have happened. If she hadn’t cared so much about following the rules, she wouldn’t have lost. She was sure of it.
Harper, after all, never followed the rules—and she always won.
Harper caught up with her after class. “Why so glum?” she asked brightly. Beth tried to walk faster, but Harper picked up speed as well, refusing to fall behind. “Oh, don’t be a sore loser,” Harper chided, her voice saccharine sweet. “Your speech was good … or at least better than mine.”