Sources Say

by Lori Goldstein

  Grady had started all of that? He wanted her to be grateful, but all she felt was even more responsibility for the fallout that had landed on Leo’s mom.

  “I’m your secret weapon, Chief. Use me or . . . or someone else will.”

  The indignation on Grady’s face took her off guard in how much it hurt, like catching the tip of a finger in a drawer as it closed. She’d dedicated time to mentoring him. Had she gotten through at all? Or was he still aiming to be like his fame-hungry cousin?

  “I am using you,” she said. “I already said yes to you live-tweeting the election assembly on Friday. Do Snap and Insta too, okay?” He softened, and she added truthfully, “That’s all anyone’s going to pay attention to. By the time my story on the results runs, it’ll be old news. I’m counting on you, Grady.”

  She glanced past him to Ravi, who nodded in encouragement and chimed in, “Me too. Could use some ideas for an election-week cartoon if you’re up for it.”

  Grady thrust his shoulders back. “Yeah, well, I don’t claim to be an expert, but I do have a thought or two.” His phone rang. “Uh, yeah, hey, Mom . . . Yes, I have my retainer, and no, I’m not sending you a pic to prove it.” He shoved his arms through the straps of his backpack and said to Cat and Ravi, “Orthodontist appointment. See you tomorrow.”

  And then, from the hall, came a “Sent, happy now?” in Grady’s signature whine, and Ravi’s face brightened with laughter.

  “I know it’s a bit much,” she said. “But at least he cares. And right now he’s got more connections than I do in the journalism world.”

  “Bo Booker, total gateway to the Pulitzer.” He smiled as he leaned against the table with the ski pole leg. “Paper’s really awesome this year, Cat.”

  She brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Stavros and Jen wouldn’t have made the mistakes I have.”

  “Probably not, but they’d have made others. We’re all learning, Cat.”

  Nerves stirred in her stomach. “But I knew better.” She cared what Ravi thought about her. She cared that this might change that. But lying fit her as poorly as her sister’s loafers. She forced herself to look straight into his eyes. “Those connections I made in the story about Leo weren’t done by mistake. I knew that what I was doing wasn’t what I’d been taught.” She breathed out heavily. “Right. Wasn’t right. And I did it anyway. “

  If Ravi was surprised or disgusted, he didn’t let it show. “Why?”

  “For my sister. I thought that Leo was the one going after Angeline in The Shrieking Violet.”

  “Not a crazy thought. Can’t say I didn’t wonder myself.”

  “Pretty sure now that it wasn’t him.”

  “But you thought it was. I’d have done the same thing if I thought someone was going after my sister.” He gave a wry smile. “My brother, on the other hand . . .”

  Cat appreciated Ravi trying to let her off the hook, but she had to admit the truth to him as much as herself. “I was doing it for Angeline, but I was also doing it for me. I got swept up in the idea of breaking news, so much so that I made news to do it.”

  Ravi was silent for a beat longer than Cat would have liked. Finally, he said, “And you can’t stop thinking about it, can you?”

  She half nodded, half shrugged.

  “You learn from it. You take it with you. Perfect is for landing planes and blending chai, my mom always says.”

  Cat allowed herself to release a small smile. “I think I’d like your mom.”

  “She’d like you right back.”

  Their words were about his mom, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

  He pushed himself off the table. “And to make sure she likes me, I better get to my shift.”

  Except he didn’t head for the door. He looked like he’d stay if she asked him to. She wanted to ask. But not for the paper. And that scared her.

  “Sure, you should go,” she said. “Especially since it’ll be a late one Friday after the election.”

  “Got plans after?”

  “After the election? I’m getting a pass out of last period to start writing, so I’ll have a head start before you and Grady get here.”

  “I meant after we’re done. Got a bowling alley scene in my graphic novel, and I realized I need some research in order to make it authentic.”

  “Bowling alley at a summer camp?”

  “Summer camp has a rakshasa trying to suck the life blood of a bunch of twelve-year-olds, and it’s the bowling alley that you question?”

  “Buy-in comes in the little details even more than the big.”

  “And you’ve just been hired as my editor.” He paused. “So, Friday?”

  She weighed the options: spending a Friday night watching Natalie Goldberg snuggle up to Ravi or spending a Friday night watching Tartan bounce off the walls. “I-I, sure, yeah, okay. Maybe I’ll see if Emmie wants to come.”

  “Oh, then I’d need to make it a reservation for three, so let me know.”

  Three? Because otherwise it would just be . . . the two of them?

  So much ran through her mind and jumbled her stomach that she did the only thing she could: she gave him a thumbs-up.

  * * *

  Cat walked the halls, using the silence that came after-hours to think. Corridors and classrooms empty, no bathroom doors creaking open, no fluorescent overheads buzzing, just the hum of the HVAC. The only exception was the gym, where after-school practice led to the squeaking of sneakers and the gushing of water through the pipes in the adjacent locker rooms. Usually she thought about her next article or what Northwestern would be like. Rarely about a boy. She didn’t have time for it. Now she realized she also didn’t have the stomach for it. Because hers was roiling at the idea that Ravi had kind of asked her out. And that she kind of wanted to go. But what was the point? It was senior year, and they’d each be off to separate futures soon.

  She rounded the corner, and the thrum of activity spilled from somewhere new: the auditorium.

  “I stand here?” Leo called from one side of the stage.

  Ms. Lute turned around from the voting booth she was constructing out of a large cardboard box and a cloth curtain. “Left, Leo, figured that’d make it easier.”

  “Uh-huh,” Leo said with a lack of enthusiasm.

  Angeline made her way to the right side of the stage, notecards in hand. She tensed when she saw Cat hovering in the back.

  But Ms. Lute waved her in. “Great! We could use another set of hands.”

  From the side of the stage, Emmie trudged out, her arms weighed down by a box with more curtains and long rods sticking out the top.

  Cat’s thoughts of Ravi were momentarily replaced by wonder.

  Red, white, and blue streamers curled around the arms of the chairs running along each aisle, blue umbrellas speckled with the star stickers Angeline had always wanted hung upside down from the ceiling, mini flags sprouted out of buckets of sand all along the front of the stage.

  “It looks amazing in here,” Cat said.

  Ms. Lute beamed. “What did I tell you? People care when someone makes them. And that someone’s been you, Cat. Excellent work. I’m sure the Fit to Print judges will be just as impressed as I am.”

  A snort from Leo, which drew a glare from Angeline. A glare she then directed at Cat.

  Ms. Lute handed Cat a roll of tape. “We need another box. I’ll be back.”

  Emmie grabbed a small spade and dug into a bag of sand. She filled a bucket and passed it to Cat, who stuck in a flag from the pile on the seat behind them.

  “It’s big of you to help, Emmie, considering.”

  Emmie reached for more sand. “One has to believe in the system or it falls apart. Voters speak, all we can do is listen.”

  “But was it the voters?” Cat asked. “Ms. Lute’s wrong. I didn’t make people care, the Frankengirls
did. Our candidates owe them. And so do I. I’d have had nothing to write about without them.” Which made her feel like real live clickbait.

  Onstage, Ms. Lute drew her hand up from her stomach to her throat. “Enunciate, candidates, enunciate.”

  Cat considered all that their new government teacher had done to engage the students. “I’m glad for Ms. Lute though. She’d have been crushed if the election were a dud.”

  “Dud might have been better than these two,” Emmie said. “Did you hear Leo’s speech?”

  “No, I only just got here.”

  Emmie frowned. “It’s all over the place. No consistent platform. I bet you his mom’s speechwriter’s going to take a crack at this later.”

  Cat’s stomach lurched. “Didn’t you see my retraction? I jumped the gun. The facts weren’t there.”

  “Just because you didn’t have them yet doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” she quipped. Then, more quietly, she said, “I believed in her. I thought Mrs. Torres was someone we could believe in.”

  “She is—at least, I think she is.”

  “Well, the system will decide, won’t it?”

  Step Aside, Mary Shelley, a New Victor’s in Town!

  See what I did there?

  No, of course you didn’t.

  You’re Acedia. Acedia.

  Lucky you can tie your own shoes. Though half of you still use the bunny ears method (yes, we see you, and no, it’s not cute).

  Anyway, we digress.

  We’re back from that early grave you believed us to be in, and we’re SHRIEKING because we have news!

  Quick, grab your phones and text “I Want to Know” to the following number, and an automatic ten-dollar charge will be billed to your phone.

  1-800-I’M-JOKING!

  And . . . digression.

  So what’s this news? What’s this about Mary Shelley and Victor?

  It’s sure as sugar not your student council prez victor, because neither candidate deserves your vote. They’re complete and utter frauds. Betcha already knew that, didn’t you? You just got caught up in smooching on germ-infested posters and hollering insults and making noise out of the sheer and utter boredom and drudgery and monotony of high school.

  (Could we use more adjectives?)

  Our StuCo election is indeed a microcosm with our candidates being just as full of crap emojis as the main players.

  Now just what are you getting at, Dear Violet, Dear Violet?

  See for yourselves and click here.

  For those with fingers still lazy from the hazy days of summer or internet connections from the Jurassic era, we’ll spell it out for you:

  SCENE: INT. HOUSE ON THE CLIFFS. SUMMER

  We pan down from the oh-so-original nautical chandelier to the it-cost-eight-thousand-dollars-to-get-this-lived-in-look sectional where a pair of drooling dudes whose lives will be defined by that pigskin they tossed in high school sit.

  We are in the living room belonging to a Miss Maxine Chen at the end of the summer.

  You heard us. Yes, it’s THAT party.

  Let’s zoom in closer, shall we? And up the volume.

  Because that right there is someone——not in the frame, aside from his occasional thumb over the camera lens, but audible as a seal off Lighthouse Beach——shoving pizza down his gullet and saying: “That’s how I’d do it. Take Acedia’s hottest chickadees, gimme a little of this, and ooh, ooh, ooh, a little of that right there, and, oh yeah, that, and that, and double to get a set of THAT, and boom, my dream girl. A perfect ten. Up high, bro!”

  Two hands high-fiving, barely caught at the edge of the screen.

  END SCENE

  Shriek with me, folks!

  Origin of the Frankengirls wallpaper in our school!

  It’s just a voice, you say? It is.

  But it belongs to Tad Marcus.

  Who we talked to.

  After Tamara, his girlfriend (excuse us, ex-girlfriend), borrowed his phone without his knowledge (PSA here, folks, always use a passcode!), discovered this video, and sent it straight to us.

  “We were having fun,” Tad Is Rad said. “It was a stupid joke. Those damn apple pie balls. They should really have a warning label.”

  (They do.)

  “But I swear on old Slothy that I had nothing to do with those posters.”

  Putting aside that swearing on a stuffed animal carries as much weight as Angeline Quinn’s Harry Potter butt cheek, when asked who might have been responsible, Rad Tad denied it was anyone on the football team.

  “We care about girls too much to do that [bleeped] up [bleep]. We’ve got cheerleaders, man. You seen a pissed-off cheerleader? Not pretty. Well, I mean, dude, usually still are, but like, yeah, not something you want your balls anywhere close to.”

  So who else could it be, you ask? We did too.

  “Torres was there,” Tad the Rad (or is it “Rat”?) said.

  Leo Torres? Student council presidential candidate?

  “Yeah, Torres,” Tad the Rat said. “He’s smart and got that access to his mom’s designer or printer or whatever, right? Just saying, might be worth looking into.”

  Huh. Might be. So we did.

  Now, lazy fingers and Jurassic internet, this time GO, GO, GO to that link.

  Watch.

  Again.

  Do you see it?

  No?

  Oh, come on. You can lead a horse to water . . .

  All right, here’s a clue:

  The hand?

  High-fiving?

  Jutting out of a lime-green sweatshirt.

  Now, who do we know loves himself some lime-green sweatshirt?

  Ah, now you got it.

  (Maybe you’ll move past those bunny ears yet, Acedia!)

  So you may be wondering why, just why Leo Torres would be compelled to turn this drunken rambling into reality.

  One word: the election. (Okay, so that’s two, but one main word, and . . . digression.) Torres needs you to vote so he can win. Because those were his mommy’s orders. Yup, that’s right, Acedia, your very fearful potential leader was acting on orders from his congressional hopeful mom to follow in her size seven footsteps and enter political life. That’s why he’s running. Not for you, not for off-campus lunches or straws or whatever else he’s been spouting. He doesn’t actually want to win. But he promised he would. And though he lies, he’s loyal, or so sources say.

  He likely didn’t count on his ex, Angeline Quinn, being showered with hearts and fist pumps for her “impromptu” speeches.

  Or did he?

  Before we paint #HotheadQuinn as an innocent bystander, let’s cue up a couple of Ask an Angel videos.

  Hmm . . . here we have Natalie Goldberg prominently displaying her mom’s macerated seaweed facial. Natalie’s, like, a five-degrees-of-separation influencer in her own right at Acedia, bursting with connections to students able to cast their votes.

  M’kay . . .

  What about this? Have you seen who’s liking Ask an Angel lately? Both YouTube and Insta?

  None other than mega influencer Evelyn’s Epic Everyday. Rumor has it, Miss E is inviting baby influencers to something of a help-me-help-you scenario. And who’s strapping on training wheels?

  None other than our Quinnie.

  But only if she follows her own mommy’s orders and does something other than slap poo on her surely silicon-implanted cheekbones.

  Who knew mommies had such power?

  Not us.

  So, let’s review . . . Battle of the Exes? We thought they were duking it out against each other when all along perhaps it’s been them against us. See exhibit QT. Our “cuties” getting cozy on Lighthouse Beach less than a week ago. In the height of the election. Which mea
ns we’ve been fool enough to swallow exactly what they’ve spoon-fed us: Frankengirls. Conspiring to drum up interest in this farce of an election.

  SHH! For harbor’s sake, don’t tell anyone.

  Don’t tell anyone any of this.

  ’Tis our secret, m’kay?

  31

  When Angeline Breaks the Rules

  3 DAYS TO THE ELECTION

  This.

  Is.

  Not.

  Happening.

  Angeline let go of the honey section she’d been weaving into her ombre braid in front of her locker as Sonya stopped reading. The horror on the faces of Sonya, Riley, and Maxine must have matched her own, and a hollow sensation gripped Angeline’s stomach.

  “A hypocrite,” Angeline said. “This makes me look like a total hypocrite.”

  Maxine grabbed Sonya’s phone out of her hand and scanned The Shrieking Violet article. “I can’t believe he’d do this to you. I mean, you practically saved his life.”

  Angeline had never stopped believing it was Sammy, despite Leo insisting it wasn’t. Any lingering guilt for pushing Sammy to do this vanished.

  “It’s not Leo,” Angeline said, wondering why Leo was still letting Sammy use his phone, which gave him access to that photo of the two of them.

  Maxine huffed. “You cannot keep defending him.”

  “I’m not.” And then her breaths shortened. “Wait, did that say . . .”

  Baby influencers.

  Help-me-help-you.

  Training wheels.

  Her lungs seized, and her head swam with dizziness.

  Sonya leaned forward. “Breathe, just breathe.”

  Beside her, Riley placed a hand on Angeline’s shoulder. “From the diaphragm.” She tucked her blonde hair behind her ear, pleased with herself for maintaining a straight face.

  Angeline tried to ground herself by zeroing in on the slats of her locker, but her eyes refused to focus. “Evelyn,” she whispered.

  “No one believes this garbage,” Maxine said. “Get on your Insta now and call this trash out.”