7 Clues to Winning You

by Kristin Walker

  “Don’t throw me in that batch of sin you’re stirring up,” Ms. Eulalie said. Then she added, “But he do look a sight better than the other one. At least this one’s momma loved him, you can tell. Probably turning over in her grave at this picture, though. I know she passed ’cause she sure enough would’a dropped dead when she found out what he was doing for a living. Even if he do look like a young Sidney Poitier. Oh, my Lord. Mmm-hmm.” Ms. Eulalie folded her hands over and over again and started humming a hymn to the fluorescent lights above us.

  “Right, this one’ll do fine,” Ms. Franny said, sliding the magazine back on the counter. I pulled out my wallet and handed a ten-dollar bill to the cashier.

  Before he took the money, he said, “Um, I need to see some ID.”

  “Oh!” I said, realizing that if I was paying, then that meant I was buying. “No. I mean, it’s not mine.” I swung the ten over to Ms. Franny, who snatched it and handed it to the cashier without missing a beat.

  His gaze slid over to her. “I still need to see some ID,” he said in the same monotone drone as before.

  “ID? Boy, are you blind? Do I look like a minor? I’ve turned eighteen about five times by now!”

  “What about her?” He nodded in my direction again. “She’s paying, so I’m guessing the magazine is … for her.”

  Ms. Franny gestured dismissively at me. “She’s got nothing to do with nothing. She just drives me around and holds my wallet so I don’t lose it because I’m old and crazy. Last time I checked, this was still a free country where someone could buy themselves a magazine if they wanted, which is what I’m doing. So ring it up, young man.” She thrust the ten-dollar bill at him. Ms. Eulalie hummed louder. The two men with coffee lined up behind us.

  The teenage cashier eyed Ms. Franny suspiciously. Examined her wheelchair and blanket. “So you’re telling me that this magazine is for you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “This magazine.”

  “Yes.”

  “For you.”

  “Yes! Are you deaf or something, boy?”

  “It’s just … you’re an old lady.”

  “Old lady? I’ll have you know that for the past fifty years, I’ve been a fully fledged transvestite. Even you couldn’t tell. Now, I’m horny and I want my dirty magazine, so ring the damn thing up!”

  Ms. Eulalie’s humming resounded throughout the store. The men behind us shifted their weight and hid their snickering mouths behind their steaming coffee cups. The cashier’s face turned from white to red faster than a chameleon. I didn’t know whether to laugh or run away. Luckily, he rang up the magazine and handed us the change and receipt faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. We were out of the store in a flash. I got the ladies into the car and we took off, laughing hysterically.

  We pulled into the parking lot at Shady Acres and I parked over by the garden again. I smuggled the ladies inside and redressed them in their nighties. By the time Darlene poked her nose into the room to check on us, I’d returned the clothes to their drawers and everything appeared as though we’d never left.

  “You were in the garden an awfully long time,” she sneered at me as I re-folded the blankets. “They’d better not get sick.”

  “Don’t you go talking about us like we’re not even in the room,” Ms. Eulalie said. She had even less tolerance for Darlene’s disrespectfulness than Ms. Franny had. Darlene scowled as she grabbed the blankets out of my hand and left the room.

  “If I was thirty years younger,” said Ms. Eulalie, “I’d take her out behind the woodshed. I never met a single soul needing an introduction to the business end of a hickory switch more than that woman.”

  “I’d buy a ticket to see that!” Ms. Franny said, and cackled at the mental image.

  I took the magazine and receipt out of my bag and snapped a photo of them with my phone. “Ms. Franny, do you want to write down Darren’s address, and I’ll mail this to him?” I asked.

  “Nah, give it here. I decided we should give this to Coleman Watson and see if it lights his cigar. All those years and he never remarried? Sounds to me like he might be fishing in the other pond. What do you think, Ukulele?”

  “As long as it’s outta this room, I don’t care,” Ms. Eulalie said. “Else I’m going to have to start calling you Frank.”

  I tucked the magazine underneath Ms. Franny’s knitting, at the bottom of the basket. I winked at her. “Let me know what he thinks.”

  “It’ll most likely kill him,” said Ms. Eulalie.

  “Yeah, it might,” Ms. Franny agreed. “But either way, it’ll make for an interesting dinnertime tonight!”

  “Well, I’d better get going,” I said. “I’m going to meet Tara in a little while for coffee.”

  “Oh, Tara, yes,” Ms. Eulalie said. I’d mentioned Tara a few million times to the ladies. “Tell me, how does she feel about you going to a different school?”

  If I had more time, I would’ve told her that Tara and I were falling out of step a bit. That I was jealous of Melissa. That I was worried that I’d be replaced. But it was already two minutes after four. I’d have just enough time to dash home, upload the picture, get the next clue, and still make it to the Daily Grind on time to meet Tara. I didn’t like to keep the Senior Scramble pictures on my phone any longer than necessary, and I wanted to know what was up next. So instead of telling Ms. Eulalie everything, I just shrugged and tossed off, “She thinks it stinks, but we’re cool.”

  “The two of you have been friends for a long time,” Ms. Franny said, as though she’d read my thoughts. “It’s hard when things suddenly change.”

  “That’s how you know if a friend is the best kind,” Ms. Eulalie added. “If time and miles get between you, yet when you come back together, it’s like you was never apart.”

  I nodded knowingly, although I really didn’t know anything. “Yep. I’m sure we’ll always be friends.” I was trying to convince myself of it.

  I didn’t want to go any farther down this conversation road.

  “Well, thanks again,” I said. “You guys are the best. Ms. Franny, you made a totally believable transvestite. Wait, that came out wrong.”

  Ms. Eulalie started guffawing so hard she clutched the air like she could grab a breath with her hands. When she finally settled down, Ms. Franny shot her the stink eye but said, “Never you mind, Blythe. I know what you meant. I was happy to help, even if we did have to drag that ol’ bag-o’-Jesus along with us.”

  “My Jesus follows me everywhere I go,” sang Ms. Eulalie.

  “Just like stalkers,” Ms. Franny added.

  “Oh sweet Lord, here we go again.”

  I kissed them both and said thank you and goodbye before the quibbling got worse. Outside, I hopped in my Civic and zipped up the street. Instead of going straight through two lights and turning right at a third, I decided to take a shortcut to pick up some time. I veered into the mini-mall and turned down the alley behind the stores, skipping all three traffic lights. I made it home and yanked opened the kitchen door just as Zach was barreling out of it. “Where are you going?” I called after him.

  “Jack’s,” he said. “It’s about to go nuclear in there.” In one smooth motion, he lifted his bike by the handlebars, straddled the seat, and pedaled off. I didn’t even get to ask him what he meant by nuclear. When I got inside, I didn’t need to.

  Mom and Dad were in the family room bellowing at each other about the offers on the house again. I didn’t have time to get into that “pan o’ hot eels,” as Ms. Eulalie would say, so I sneaked through the kitchen to the hallway and bolted upstairs. I locked the door to my room and signed on to the Revolting Phoenix, noting the irony that Luke Pavel had turned out to be revolting after all. I uploaded the picture of the magazine and receipt, all the while praying that Luke wasn’t minding the site and wouldn’t IM me with more charming lies. Luckily, the only thing that came up on my screen was the next clue.

  Congratulations! You have successfully uploaded a val
id picture of item #3.

  Here is your clue to item #4:

  Pennsylvania license plates are everywhere around.

  But only certain license plates are ones that should be found.

  Find a plate for every letter spanning A to Z.

  Snap a picture, then you send all 26 to me.

  Dear God, this was going to take a while. It wasn’t like I could just stand by I-95 and snap pictures of license plates as cars whipped by. I was going to have to keep my eyes open and my phone with me all the time. Especially at home. I didn’t want Dad scrolling through on some snooping mission and finding them. Maybe he didn’t know about the Senior Scramble yet, but it might not be long before he got wind of it. He couldn’t know I was involved.

  I logged off and deleted the magazine picture from my phone. It sounded like the chaos downstairs had calmed down, so I tiptoed to the kitchen as quickly as I could. I hoped to slip out without them seeing me so I didn’t have any more delays on the way to meet Tara.

  Mom was in the kitchen. “Where are you going?” she asked gruffly. There was no sign of Dad anywhere.

  “I’m meeting Tara in town for coffee.” Strange. I felt like I was lying even though I wasn’t. For a split second, I panicked and thought I’d slipped up, but I hadn’t. Fifth rule of lying: Never forget which is the lie and which is the truth.

  “Be back for dinner,” was all Mom said. She started rifling around in the fridge and pulled out a bottle of chardonnay. “Six o’clock.”

  “No problem,” I said. I heard Dad’s footsteps in the hall. I dashed out the door before he had a chance to corner me.

  When I got to town, I parked on the street near the coffee shop. I was already a few minutes late, but I couldn’t help stopping to take pictures of all the license plates with letters that I passed. I got A, E, and T ones. I knew some letters were going to be easy to find and some would be brutal. Who the heck would have a license plate with an X or Z? I had to hope for vanity plates and luck.

  I opened the door to the Daily Grind and spotted Tara at a small table beside the window. She saw me and waved, and I filled up with happiness. I’d forgotten to miss that. I remembered it now, though.

  “Where’ve you been, girl? It’s quarter to five,” she said. She stood up and stepped toward me, smiling. “You’ve never been late in your life. One week at Ass Grove and your whole world falls to hell, huh?”

  I wrapped my arms around her and let her hug the past seven days out of me. “Pretty much,” I said.

  “Sit. Talk,” she said.

  “Let me grab a coffee and I will.” When I got to the counter, I opted for a hot cocoa with lots of whipped cream and chocolate shavings instead. It was definitely a day for chocolate.

  “Sorry about bailing on you this weekend,” I said, sitting down. “It’s been crazy.” I told her all about canceling the Senior Scramble, but I didn’t tell her that we were taking it underground. I kept that secret locked up in the vault. I did mention Luke to Tara, but not in any particularly noticeable way. As far as I was concerned, he was negligible. That’s what I kept telling myself.

  “So by the third day, everyone pretty much hated me,” I said.

  Tara waved it off. “So what? Who cares what those freaks think about you? You don’t belong there anyway.”

  “But Tara, I’m stuck there, whether I belong or not. You don’t understand what it’s like to have no friends. It wasn’t even ‘no friends’ either, it was ‘all enemies.’ I’m not exaggerating when I say they hated me. And let me tell you, being despised and thought of as a loser? It sucks. It’s awful.”

  “You’re not a loser. Not at Meriton, anyway.”

  “Tara, I’m not anything at Meriton.” Why couldn’t she get that?

  “Well, you should be,” she muttered, circling the rim of her coffee cup with her perfectly French-manicured finger.

  On the one hand, it was sweet that she clung to the idea that I was a Meriton student. On the other hand, it was absolutely no help to me.

  Tara couldn’t comprehend why I would possibly want to gain the respect of anyone at Ash Grove. That’s because she wasn’t on the front lines. She didn’t see that I was in a survival situation. Had she always been that shortsighted? Or had I never noticed because I was that shortsighted too?

  I’d always considered myself a fairly sympathetic person, but maybe I was only sympathetic to certain things I chose to see. Had I ever walked up to any of the so-called wasteoids at Meriton and asked what their story was? Had I ever spoken up when someone in my group started name-calling? Oh, sure, it was so easy for me to brag about being charitable and doing volunteer work, but had I ever done a true kindness to anyone fighting on their own personal front lines at Meriton? Had I even acknowledged those people at all?

  I know Tara hadn’t. She couldn’t, even though one of them was sitting right in front of her. It was no use trying to explain more. I loved Tara, but she was just an oasis; she couldn’t be a healing place for me when it came to this.

  I steered the conversation toward Meriton and listened to her gossip for a while. When a car pulled into a parking spot right outside the window, I noticed its license plate began with a Z. I wrapped up our chat and told Tara I had to run. We hugged and I left, feeling more alone than ever.

  CHAPTER 16

  I WALKED THROUGH THE NEXT FEW DAYS IN FULL-ON zombie mode. You know when you go from home to school and home again and it’s not until you’re lying in bed that night that you finally realize you have no idea how you got there? That was my general state of being for the rest of that week.

  There were a few landmarks. My parents decided to sell to the yuppies. Dad finally relented when they came back with an offer to close quickly on the sale. We’d be moving on April Fools’ Day. What a joke.

  In Senior Scramble news, I found twenty-four of the twenty-six letters on license plates. I still needed Q and X. Cy and Jenna had found them all by Wednesday. They were rocking the scavenger hunt. They told me their screen name was sid&nancy, and according to the stats and Luke’s updates on the website, they were in first place.

  That was about the full extent of my interaction (or lack of) with Luke Pavel. He kept trying to talk to me, but I dodged him every chance I got. I bumped into him outside the cafeteria again one day, but I plastered on ye olde lady look and pretended I was extremely busy and important. I didn’t want him to know he’d rattled me. I didn’t want to let on that I knew what a manipulative player he was. Probably was, anyway. I mean, all signs pointed to it. I even saw his slutty girlfriend accost him again Friday after school in the parking lot. It was so undignified. Luke must’ve thought so too because he ducked his head and wouldn’t let her kiss him in front of everyone.

  As far as Tara went, I texted and e-mailed her as usual, even though things weren’t exactly “usual” between us. We made plans to go shopping with Veronica, Cerise, and Melissa at the mall on Sunday at four, though. I was looking forward to playing make-believe normalcy with them.

  Even so, that Sunday afternoon I was running late yet again. I’d been chasing down a car whose license plate said XTRA SXY. I finally got the picture in the parking lot of that same convenience store that sells the porno mags. Coincidence? I think not.

  I decided to take the shortcut through the alley behind the mini-mall on my way to meet the girls. I wheeled behind the buildings, and as I neared the back of the grocery store, an enormous black garbage bag shot out of a Dumpster and crashed to the ground in front of my car. I hit the brakes and slammed into my seat belt. Before I had a chance to wonder what kind of animal could possibly be throwing bags out of the Dumpster, a person’s head popped up.

  Luke Pavel’s head.

  I swear to God, this guy had some kind of evil cosmic tether to me. Only, this was in my neighborhood, not Ash Grove. He was the trespasser now. A flood of anger rushed through me and provoked this sinister desire to get back at him for toying with me when he had a girlfriend. I grabbed my phone, zoome
d in, and snapped a perfect picture of him Dumpster-diving.

  Eat that, Luke-Luke-who-makes-me-puke. Now who’s got an embarrassing picture? I saved my fine example of photographic skill, tossed my phone on the passenger seat, and glanced up to see Luke staring at me and waving. Waving me over.

  What choice did I have? Even in the throes of rage and vengeance, I was trained to remain civil and polite. Dignity, Blythe. Dignity. Besides, I was insanely curious.

  I got out and strolled as far as my front bumper. I shaded the glare of the slanted afternoon sun with one hand. I stuck the other hand on my hip and struck an assertive pose. I said nothing.

  “Blythe! Perfect timing. Can you give me a hand?”

  I had always found it difficult to say no to someone who’d asked for my help. I recognized that this made me a perfect mark for scam artists and machinators, but I couldn’t stop myself. Nevertheless, I didn’t walk over to Luke right away. “A hand with what?” I called, without moving an inch.

  “There’s a whole case of eggs in here, but if I throw them, they’ll break. Can I hand them to you?”

  “You want to hand me filthy, rotten eggs out of the garbage?” I dramatically eyeballed my adorable green linen capris and matching wedge heels. “I don’t think so.”

  Luke sighed equally as dramatically. “They’re not filthy or rotten. They’ve just reached their sell-by date. They’re good for at least another week.”

  “So?”

  “Can you just take them? I’m standing in something soggy.”

  I reluctantly sauntered over to him as slowly as possible. He lifted down a case of about sixteen dozen eggs, which I took—touching as little as possible—and set on the ground. The case was still completely enveloped in plastic wrap as though it was right from the egg distributor. I didn’t understand why it was in the garbage. “These eggs aren’t even unwrapped.”