Dana laughs. “You mean like you have, Margo?”
Margo can’t believe her friends are going to go there. “Are you saying I can’t decide who I want to be friends with and who I don’t?”
“Of course you can. But everyone knows why, Margo.”
Margo takes a big sip of her milk. It is lukewarm and the cardboard container has a funny smell, but she keeps drinking it down. Once it is all gone, she says, “Okay. I’m not going to lie and say that how Jennifer looked didn’t have something to do with it. It did.” She lets this hang in the air for a few seconds, since some of the pressure to drop Jennifer had come directly from Rachel and Dana. Had they conveniently forgotten that part? Or maybe it was their own guilty consciences spurring their plan along. “But that wasn’t the only reason.”
Margo takes a deep breath and tries to clear her mind, which is suddenly all muddy with feelings and thoughts that she’d kept buried, that she didn’t want to think about. “Jennifer … she used to make me feel bad about myself.”
She steels herself for Rachel and Dana to react, because Margo knows it sounds crazy. How could Jennifer have any power over her? She was the one who left Jennifer. She chose to end the friendship. She walked away.
Dana gently pats her on the shoulder. “We know. And now this is your chance to make things right. To clear your conscience.”
Margo wrinkles up.
Clearly, the girls have misheard her.
Or had she misspoken?
What she’d meant was that those bad feelings were there before she’d ended her friendship with Jennifer. Not something she’d felt after it was over. In fact, looking back, when Margo was friends with Jennifer, she felt like an entirely different person. Insecure. Awkward. Nervous. All those things went away after her friendship with Jennifer ended.
“What’s going to happen after the dance, huh? Are you guys still going to be hanging out? Inviting her to my parties?” Margo already knows the answer, of course. They’d drop Jennifer. And honestly, she can’t wait for it to happen. For the homecoming dance, for everything, to be over. “Maybe it was you guys who made the list. And now you feel guilty about it.”
“Do you think we did?” Rachel asks, dead serious.
“Do you think I did?” Margo answers back, just as intensely.
Dana gets between them. “We know you’re a good person, Margo. And that’s why you need to listen to us.”
“You’re the only one who can come out looking really, really bad here. We’re trying to protect you.” Rachel nudges her chin down the table at Matthew. The boys, all of them, have their heads down. But Margo knows they are listening.
“Don’t let your pride screw this up.”
“Come on, Margo. Let Jennifer go to your party.”
Margo wants to keep arguing, but she is tired. And anyway, it’s not like she really has a choice. Barring canceling the party altogether, Jennifer will be there. Jennifer wouldn’t pass this opportunity up.
arah lifts her arms and arches her back in a deep stretch. Not because she is sore, or tired, or anything like that. She fakes a yawn for the hell of it, mainly because Principal Colby’s office is way too quiet. And also because her breath is just as bad as, if not worse than, her B.O.
She can almost see it, a smog floating out from the armpits of her filthy black shirt and her open mouth, skimming the top of Principal Colby’s tidy desk. Principal Colby lifts her teacup to her mouth and breathes in the steam as she takes a small sip. Sarah bites her lip to keep from laughing. It’s hilarious watching Principal Colby try to pretend like Sarah isn’t as ripe as the Freshman Island ginkgo tree will be in the springtime. Principal Colby doesn’t even set the teacup back down on her desk. She holds it under her nostrils and says, “There have been some complaints, Sarah.”
Sarah is not surprised. She’d spent the day participating in her classes like never before. Volunteering to every question, her hand rocketing skyward again and again and again, unleashing her scent on the room. Teachers caught on quickly, and they tried their best to ignore her. But that didn’t stop Sarah from raising her hand. In fact, it only encouraged her. She didn’t give a shit if she got called on or not.
Sarah is quiet for a minute. She tries to appear contemplative, scratching her dirty fingernail across her cheek, filling the underside with a paste of dead skin. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean, Principal Colby.” The smart-ass tone adds extra bite to her breath.
To think, she’d nearly given up this morning in a moment of weakness.
When Sarah sat down to cereal, her mom offered her a hundred dollars cash to shower, fifty dollars if she put on different clothes. Sarah’s cover for her behavior was that this was an experiment for a school project, which wasn’t even that much of a lie, and she stuck to her story. Do you want me to fail, Mom? Sarah laughed into her OJ and took a big sip.
It startled her that the juice had practically no taste. It could have been water, for all she could tell.
Sarah went up to the bathroom, opened her mouth, and stuck out her tongue. It was covered in a thick, fuzzy film. Like dense forest moss, the kind that covered the rocks of Mount Washington. Only this moss was the color of a dead body — pale and sickly gray.
Her toothbrush hung right there, over the sink. Right. There. It tempted her worse than cigarettes had so far this week. She closed her eyes, ran her tongue over her slimy teeth, and dreamed of how it would feel to foam everything up with some bright blue minty toothpaste. And mouthwash, too. It would probably burn like acid in the best way, sizzling the grit off her teeth and her gums. She’d spit it all into the bright white porcelain sink like wet sand. At least her insides could be a bright, healthy pink again.
She backed up from the mirror and turned out the bathroom light. She couldn’t quit. Not now. Not when she was this close.
But before walking out, Sarah grabbed the dental floss from inside the medicine cabinet. She ripped a few inches of waxy white string and scraped it down the length of her tongue, raking the film up off the muscle like someone shoveling slushy snow off a sidewalk. The act didn’t make her feel any better. If anything, it made things worse. She’d removed the barrier that kept her from knowing what the inside of her mouth tasted like.
Sarah wishes Principal Colby would get on with it. She wants to go back to class. She’s missing a Bio II review. She’s about to say as much when there’s a knock at the office door.
Sarah twists in her seat. Milo stands nervously in the doorway. They lock eyes and she sees the disappointment drag on his face. Red hives have already begun to speckle his neck.
“You wanted to see me, Principal Colby?” he asks weakly.
“Take a seat, Milo,” Principal Colby says.
Sarah knows her mouth is hanging open, and she doesn’t care to shut it. Why has Milo been called down to the office, too? He’s not involved with her plans. He isn’t even her accomplice. This rebellion is her doing. And she’ll be glad to take the credit for it, thank you very much.
Principal Colby clears her throat. “Sarah, I’m going to cut right to the chase here. Why are you doing this?”
Sarah cocks her head. “Doing what?”
“I’m concerned, Sarah. I’m concerned about you.” Principal Colby gives her a pleading look. “This isn’t healthy. You’re leaving yourself open to infection, not to mention that you can’t be comfortable in those clothes.”
Sarah’s not comfortable. But that hardly matters. She gives them both a phony smile.
“Milo, please. I know you care about Sarah. I see you together every day. You don’t want to see her torture herself like this, do you?”
Milo looks at Sarah with sad eyes and his lips part, like he might say something. Like he might actually beg her to give this up. Sarah stares back hard. As hard as she can. A stare that says Don’t you fucking dare.
Principal Colby leans back in her chair. She is not amused. “I’m going to ask you both one simple question.” Her eyes dart fr
om Sarah to Milo and back again. “Are you planning any sort of stunt for the homecoming dance? I know you have both bought tickets.”
“No. I swear, I’m not,” Milo says emphatically.
Sarah shakes her head as well. “Of course I’m not,” she says, though she knows it doesn’t sound all that believable.
“I hope you both are being honest with me right now. I want to make this perfectly clear: If you do cause any sort of disruption, there will be serious consequences. I will not hesitate to suspend both of you.”
Milo looks like he’s about to shit himself, but Sarah curls her upper lip. She finds it funny, in the unfunny way her sense of humor typically skews, that Principal Colby wants so desperately to protect the homecoming institution. There was none of this vigor, this effort, put behind finding who actually made the list. You know, cutting the thing off at the source, like Principal Colby had pledged to work tirelessly for during Monday’s meeting. But all Sarah has to do is skip a shower or five and suddenly she might get suspended?
They get dismissed. Sarah follows Milo out into the hallway.
“She can’t do that, you know. She can’t suspend me for not taking a fucking shower.” When she looks up, she sees that Milo is already halfway down the hall. “Milo! Wait up.”
“I have to get to class,” he says, and keeps walking.
“Why are you being so bitchy?” She grabs his arm, forces him to slow down.
“Because I just got called into the principal’s office. I’ve never been called into the principal’s office before.”
She groans. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me. And I’m not sure I want to go to the dance anymore.”
Even though Sarah hadn’t wanted Milo to come from the beginning, it pisses her off that he suddenly wants to bail on her. “Why? Because I’m not going to be in a pretty dress? Because you’re embarrassed to be seen with me? Because I don’t want a corsage like Annie would?”
He wraps his arms around himself, that defensive posture he had on his first day of school. “What does Annie have to do with anything?”
“I feel bad for you. You had this beautiful girlfriend in your old town, and now you’re slumming it with me. I’d be depressed if I were you, too.”
“I don’t get why you’re acting like this.”
“Do you remember on Monday when you said the so-called pretty girls are the ugly ones? Well, you obviously don’t believe that if you dated a girl like Annie.”
“Yeah, Annie was pretty, but that’s not the only reason why I liked her.”
“Oh! You guys were soul mates, then?”
“Shut up, Sarah. She was nice, okay? Which is more than I can say for how you’ve been treating me lately. I’m not going to get suspended because you’ve got an ax to grind. I never wanted to go to the dance in the first place. I hate dances.”
“I hate dances,” Sarah says back, her voice rising.
“So why the fuck are we going?” It isn’t a scream, but it definitely is the loudest Milo has ever spoken to her. His voice is stretched thin, frayed. He drops his head back as far as it will go. “I think this whole thing is a stupid idea.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
“I know. That’s sort of how we operate. You’re the one who gets to call all the shots, have all the opinions. But I’m telling you anyway. This. Is. Stupid.”
“You think I’m having fun, Milo?” She picks up some strands of her oily hair and lets them fall. They are heavy with grease. “You think this feels good?”
“Not really! Especially if your stank is any indication.”
Sarah takes a step back. Her legs feel unsteady. In a way, she knows she’s been testing him. Making sure, before she let herself completely fall for him. She realizes this now, as he fails. Fails miserably.
Sarah quickly puffs back up. “Screw you, Milo. You know what? Don’t go to the dance with me. See if I give a shit!”
Sarah’s not sure if Milo hears her. He’s already stormed off. Down the hall, around the corner. Gone.
If she wants to do this, she’ll need to not think about Milo, about Principal Colby, about anyone. She’ll just need to push through. And that is something Sarah is good at.
s with everything difficult in her life, Abby avoids dealing with the reality of her unsigned Earth Science progress report until the last possible minute, which is why she finds herself sitting in the last stall of the girls’ bathroom after school, waiting for the hallway noise to die down.
It is her own stupid fault. She should have shown her parents the progress report last night and begged for their mercy. Only, Fern was always within earshot, and it would have been too embarrassing for Abby to confess how much the homecoming dance meant to her, as well as admit that she was failing, in front of her sister. Knowing Fern, she’d probably burst in and tell her parents about the list, and then they could all lecture her on how dumb it was for her to feel good about being on it and how her priorities were completely screwed up.
But there was something else, too. Abby is scared. Scared to be in trouble, scared to be grounded, scared of the disappointed looks her parents were sure to give her.
And the disappointment is exactly why Abby is avoiding Lisa, too. The plan had been to meet at Bridget’s car right after school and head to the mall to go homecoming dress shopping. Instead, Abby is hiding in the bathroom. She’s hoping Bridget will run out of patience and force Lisa to leave without her. Lisa is going to be mad, but Abby just can’t stomach buying her perfect homecoming dress until she knows that she can actually go to the dance. It would be too sad having it hang unworn in her closet or, worse, taking it back to the store. She’d rather not have the dress at all.
Abby hears the bathroom door open. She pulls her feet up.
Someone enters the stall next to her. After a few quiet seconds, Abby hears a couple dry choking coughs. And then a few retching gags. There’s no vomit, and Abby wonders if maybe the person is choking.
“Hey,” Abby says, climbing down off her toilet perch. “Are you okay?”
The gagging stops. “Abby?”
Abby steps out of her stall. The door to the other stall swings open. Bridget leans her head out. She looks pale.
“God,” Bridget says lightly. “This is embarrassing!”
“Should I get the nurse?”
“I’m okay.” Bridget pushes her hair off her face. “Something I ate at lunch didn’t agree with me. Anyway, I’d go home and crash but Lisa’s so excited to go dress shopping … and we’re kind of out of time. I don’t want to let her down.”
Again Abby finds herself comparing Bridget to her sister, and Fern comes up way short.
Bridget hurries over to the sink and starts washing her hands. “You’re still coming shopping with us, right? I hope I haven’t scared you away. I swear it’s nothing contagious. Please don’t say anything to Lisa. I don’t want her worrying. Please.”
Something feels weird. Maybe it’s how fast Bridget is talking. Or that Bridget wants her to keep a secret from Lisa. But she smiles back at Bridget. “No, of course. I won’t say anything.”
“Thanks,” Bridget says. When Bridget reaches for a paper towel, Abby notices her hands trembling. “You’re the best.”
Abby walks outside and sees Lisa sitting on the trunk of Bridget’s car.
“Hey! Where have you been?” Lisa asks.
“In the bathroom. I saw your sister … in the hallway.” It doesn’t feel good to lie to Lisa, but Abby did promise Bridget that she wouldn’t tell. “She’s going to be a few more minutes.”
“Oh. Okay.” Lisa offers a hand to Abby and pulls her up on the trunk. “Listen to this great idea I just had! I think we should both buy a dress for the homecoming dance and another cute outfit to change into for Andrew’s party.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, unless you want to stay in your dress all night. But I’m thinking we’ll be more comfortable in jeans.” Lisa bites her lip.
“I hope Candace and those other sophomore girls don’t go. I can see them being total bitches to us, because we’re, like, moving in on their guys. Also, I hear Candace wants to kill every pretty girl on the list because she’s so jealous.”
“Oh.”
Lisa snaps her fingers in front of Abby’s face. “Hey, I was only kidding about Candace.”
Abby takes a deep breath. “Look. I can’t go shopping with you and Bridget.”
“What? Why not?”
Abby fidgets with the zipper on her book bag.
“Come on. Tell me. I’m your best friend.”
Abby opens her bag and hands Lisa the blue rectangle. Lisa doesn’t recognize it right away, smiling as if it were one of the notes Abby wrote to her. It occurs to Abby that Lisa is confused because she has never gotten a progress report before. “I have to get this signed tonight,” Abby explains. “And my parents are going to kill me.”
Lisa gasps. “Crap. Okay. Well, you’ll probably get in trouble. You might not be able to go to the football game or Andrew’s party. But your parents have to let you go to the homecoming dance!”
“Except I know they won’t. They don’t care about dances. They care about this stuff. And they told me at the start of high school that I’m not allowed to get any more progress reports.”
“Abby! I don’t want to go to the dance without you!”
Abby doesn’t want Lisa to go to the dance without her, either. Her mind spins. “I guess … I could sign it. You know, pretend to be my mom.”
“Yes! That’s a great idea! I mean, Mr. Timmet will never know. How would he know?”
He wouldn’t. “And then I can try hard for the rest of the semester. I could even ask Fern to tutor me.” Really, she would.
“I say go for it. What have you got to lose at this point?”
It is nice to have a friend who wants her to go to the dance almost as much as Abby herself wants to go. Lisa isn’t at all jealous that she’s the prettiest freshman. She sees it as a good thing, a thing to be proud of.
Abby takes one of Lisa’s pens, because hers are all pink or purple. After practicing a signature that looks nothing like her own, she signs her mom’s name with a little flourish on the dotted line. She says, “I feel better already!”