by Marnie Lamb
After Burgundy had taken the photo, Lynn and I said our goodbyes and exchanged hugs with all the girls. When Chanel disengaged herself from my hug, I noticed her looking right at Jason. I said quickly, “I really wish we didn’t have to go. It’s so early.”
She pulled her eyes back to me. “Yeah, it’s crappy when your parents won’t let you stay out late. I’m so lucky I don’t have a curfew.”
“You don’t have a curfew?” I asked in disbelief.
“No,” she said, smiling. “My mom lets me stay out as late as I like. She doesn’t care.”
“I can’t believe you danced with him.” I exhaled. “Imagine. Brett Filburn touched you.”
Lynn gave a little sigh and rested her head on my shoulder. “I know.”
The evening had been unbelievable. Like winning an Oscar. Maybe now, after all these months of worrying and planning, my life is finally going where I want, I thought.
When Morgan dropped me off at home, I waved goodbye until they were out of sight, and then used my key to let myself in.
“Hello, Hilary,” said a voice from the top of the stairs.
I gasped. It was my mother. The skylight illuminated her so that she floated in her loose nightgown like a ghost. Even though the hall was dark, I hugged myself, before I remembered I’d removed all traces of my costume at Jason’s.
“How was the movie?”
“Oh, fine.” I waited, hoping she’d leave so I could go upstairs with the bag holding my outfit, a bag I’d have to stash deep in my closet. After a few seconds, she smiled and said, “I’m glad you had a good time. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I called, as she disappeared from sight. Then I snuck upstairs like a pirate with stolen booty.
-15-
Ms. Cool
It wasn’t until I came to school Monday morning and Burgundy and Tiffany invited me to sit with them at lunch that I realized what hanging with them at the dance meant. All weekend, I was in a daze, thinking that Friday night had been some elaborate dream and I’d awake to find myself smack in the middle of geekdom. But my worries were for nothing. Burgundy and Tiffany’s invitation meant I’d been accepted as their friend. I was one of them, a member of the cool group.
I was so happy I wanted to hum, something I never felt like doing. In art class, I asked the others how their Friday night had gone.
Seeing me smile, Kallie smiled too and replied that it was a bunch of fun, I should join them next time.
I asked Chu Hua how she liked it. “It was great,” she said. “Marcia braid my hair, and it look so beautiful.”
I raised my eyebrows and looked at Marcia, who also joined the smile club.
Chu Hua said, “We play Jeopardy, but it’s hard. I know the answers to two questions, maybe. Kallie, she knows all the answers.”
“Yeah, I can believe that,” I said, laughing.
But when Kallie started to follow me to the caf for lunch, I had to tell her I was meeting someone else. She looked surprised — I always sat with her when I wasn’t sitting with Lynn. When I told her who I was having lunch with, her face fell. I shook it off and went to sit with the cool people.
I don’t think ham and pumpernickel ever tasted as good to me again as they did that first lunch with Chanel. When I sat down, everyone said hi to me, including the guys. Then Chanel complimented me on my sweater (one of the new ones I’d bought at Fashionisteen). Burgundy and Tiffany agreed that the sweater was amazing.
Later, they asked my opinion about Over the Big Top. Of course I hadn’t seen the movie, but that didn’t matter. They’d asked me what I thought of it.
“I think Damian Sámos is really hot,” I said.
“See!” exclaimed Burgundy to Chanel. “I told you so.” Turning to me, she said, “I’ve been trying to convince her he’s hot, but she won’t believe me. I’m glad someone’s on my side, Hil.”
“Damian Sámos is so out,” Chanel said, sighing. “I haven’t been interested in him since at least July. Now Mark Vanous, he’s different. He’s so cool,” she moaned.
Mark Vanous was a pop singer. You probably won’t remember him because he only ever made one CD. Then he got hooked on drugs, was sued for plagiarism, and ended up a destitute door-to-door pet food salesman in Iowa. But at the time he was really in. His CD had just come out a month earlier. I marvelled at how Chanel could keep up with the latest trends. It’s a real talent, I thought.
A talent I’d have to develop. As Chanel’s friend, I knew I had certain responsibilities. I couldn’t wear any old thing or listen to any old CD. So one evening, Lynn came over and went through my clothes with me, banishing anything that smelled of geek to the deepest recesses of my closet. Unfortunately that didn’t leave me with very many clothes.
“You’ll just have to buy more, Hil,” said Lynn, when I told her this.
“But it’s so expensive.” I already had to set aside money for CDs, movies, and lunches from the caf (because you just couldn’t eat a bologna sandwich and drink juice from a box in front of Chanel Winters and expect to be taken seriously).
“Yeah, but you want to be Chanel’s friend, don’t you? Well, this is what it takes.”
So I went after school one day and took more money out of my account. That didn’t leave me with much in the bank, but it would be Christmas in less than three months, so I was expecting some money from my grandparents. Money that would go directly into the Keep Hilary Boles Cool Fund.
My spending soon paid off. I really felt like part of the cool crowd, and not just some wannabe, when I could debate the merits of Mark Vanous versus Damian Sámos or when Burgundy said my pants made my butt look hot. So it was all worth it in the end, I thought.
I couldn’t believe the difference being part of Chanel’s group made. I was suddenly a person. People who’d never looked at me before started talking to me. Jimmy kept “accidentally” running into me. I knew this attention had something to do with the way I looked and with my new friends, but it’d been so long since anyone other than Kallie had been interested in me that I didn’t care why people were interested. It was enough that they were.
Besides, I didn’t think people were only interested in me because of my new clothes. When I became part of Chanel’s group, I stopped thinking of myself as a blob. I remembered something my mom had said. “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.” People have noticed that I believe in myself, I thought, and now they like me and believe in me, too. It was so simple. I couldn’t believe it’d taken me this long to figure out the secret to social success. So I began smiling and talking to these people, and their responses made me feel even better. I was perfectly happy.
O.K., not perfectly. A few things were bothering me. One of them was named Heather Banks. After the dance, she started having lunch with us. The first time she sat down, I flashed her a friendly smile, but she gave me that same look she’d given me at the dance, only more heavily seasoned with disgust. After that we ignored each other. She still hadn’t apologized for calling me a pig, even though once when Tiffany was complimenting me on my sweater, I looked right at her. Fortunately, because she was in Lynn’s homeroom, she only ate with us twice a week. But still, it ruined my appetite.
Then, sometimes when I was walking down the hall, this gang of guys would look at me, smirk, and whisper to each other. The first time it happened, I was flattered. But soon, the way they looked at me made me feel like I’d felt when Kallie’s dad asked me to pose for him. I wondered how Chanel felt when guys looked at her that way. It didn’t seem to bother her, but I wondered. It soon got so that whenever I saw these guys, I’d pull my skirt down so it covered more of my legs or duck my head and scurry past them, but that only made them laugh.
But my biggest problem was Kallie. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I didn’t want to be her friend because she wasn’t cool enough, and I was worried about how to get rid of her. Well, my problem was the opposite. She didn’t want to be my friend because I was too cool.
She no longer returned my smiles, and she didn’t seem happy to see me. It’s true, I wasn’t paying as much attention to her as I used to. I hadn’t been over to her house in weeks, and I never sat with her at lunch anymore. But Chanel wanted me to sit with her, and how could I say no? After a few days of this silent treatment, I began to feel angry with Kallie. How dare she be mad at me for finding other friends when she’d done the same?
One day I caught her staring at me as I was standing in line at the caf, her eyes like laser beams. So after school I confronted her.
“I don’t know why you’re so jealous of my friendship with Chanel,” I said, in a superior tone. “You made other friends.”
She looked at me as if I’d told her three plus two equalled four. “Jealousy is the last thing I feel about your friendship with Chanel, Hilary,” she said. She walked away.
I started to feel guilty. Maybe I had been neglecting Kallie. I decided to do something for her, but I wasn’t sure what.
Then suddenly I had it. I’d give Marcia a makeover.
At first, it seemed like a pretty wild idea, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I mean, I figured that even with some changes, Marcia was never going to cause a stampede, but at least she wouldn’t be the butt of everyone’s jokes. If I’d improved so much, so could Marcia. And who better to give her pointers than someone who’d made the transition from nerdy to cool?
I spent that evening brainstorming. The first thing to do would be to get rid of Marcia’s smell. Though I’d never noticed she had a smell, and I’d been a lot closer to her than any of the cool people had. But I figured if Chanel and Brett said Marcia smelled, it must be true.
So the next day, when we were all sitting around waiting for art to begin, I started talking about beauty products.
“I just bought this great strawberry soap,” I said, looking at Marcia. “I have an extra one. I’ll bring it in and you can try it. It would do you good.”
Dead silence. Kallie’s eyes were like snakes’ tongues shooting streams of poison at me. Chu Hua looked confused. Marcia pressed her lips together firmly and stared at the table. No one spoke for the rest of class.
So much for the makeover scheme. Things were pretty awkward between Kallie and me after that. When I came into the caf a couple of days later, I saw the three of them sitting in their usual spot. Kallie was telling a story, waving her arms wildly and making faces. Everyone was laughing, even Marcia.
I had the same feeling I’d had when Kallie had invited me to her house the night of the dance. Except this time it was so powerful it hurt, like a steel hand grabbing my organs and wringing them out like a dish towel. Then I saw Burgundy standing in line, and I felt like I’d been injected with a pain-numbing drug. I went to stand beside her, ignoring the dirty looks I was getting from other people in line.
“Hey,” said one guy angrily, “you’re butting.”
“Tough,” I snapped.
Burgundy and I smiled at one another.
But if school was exciting, the weekends were a drag. They weren’t filled with parties and shopping trips like I’d expected. Sure, we went to the movies, but mostly Chanel was busy modelling. I wondered when she was going to invite us to her house. It was too cold to swim in the pool, but we could play tennis. I pictured myself hanging with the cool girls (minus Heather Banks), eating chocolate fondue, and painting my toenails while we watched a Damian Sámos movie.
But it never happened. One day in homeroom, I hinted to Chanel that I’d heard a lot about her house and I’d really like to see it.
Her smile was tight. “We’re redecorating. We haven’t invited anyone over for months, right Burgundy?”
“Right,” said Burgundy, with an expressionless smile.
Since there didn’t seem to be any chance Chanel would invite me over before the redecorating was done, I didn’t have much to do on the weekends. I couldn’t be bothered to use the stationary bike anymore. Now that I’d been accepted into the cool group, I didn’t think I needed to exercise. And homework didn’t occupy much of my time. By now I was used to the amount of work I had to do, and I could get it done more quickly. It was weird, but pretty soon I began to look forward to school. At least there I could see my friends.
And then there was this thing with my mom. It started the day after the dance, when I came down to breakfast and she smiled and told me again that she was glad I’d had a good time at the movies.
That’s when it happened. I had a revelation. My mom had feelings. And not just feelings of anger or disapproval. See, before the dance, I’d thought of my mother in one of two ways. As a wicked witch whose sole purpose on earth was to prevent me from getting what I wanted. Or as a maid, useful for doing laundry, packing lunches, and occasionally giving good advice.
But when she looked so happy and so unaware of how I’d lied to her, I realized she really cared about me. I thought of all the times she’d helped me with school projects and taken me to the library so I could borrow Nancy Drews and baked treats for me even when it wasn’t my birthday or Valentine’s Day. And more recently, when she’d helped me organize my soiree and given me the box of chocolates for Lynn. I’d never expected to feel this way, but I felt guilty. Not only for lying to Mom, but for the way I’d treated her these past few months. I wanted to do something to make it up to her.
I wasn’t stupid. Obviously I wasn’t going to tell her about the dance. If I did, I’d be grounded so long that by the time I left my room Chanel’s grandchildren would be redecorating. Instead I started being nice to her. I showed her all the new clothes and CDs I’d bought. I told her about how I was sitting with Chanel and her friends at lunch and how nice they all were. She smiled and said she was glad I was feeling better about junior high, which made me wonder how she knew I was feeling bad in the first place.
One Saturday, Mom said she needed to go downtown to buy some kitchen supplies and pick up something for Mrs. Carruthers (you remember, the old lady down the street). I was surprised because I didn’t know my mom was that close to Mrs. Carruthers. But I agreed to go because it was a chance to be nice to my mom. I let myself be dragged to kitchenware stores and tried get into the excitement of the search for the perfect mortar and pestle. Pleased, Mom said she’d take me to the Eaton Centre and buy me a cheeseburger and an ice cream cone. After lunch, we went out into the warm October day and began walking up busy Yonge Street. Cars honked and country club ladies barked orders into cell phones. We meandered past older couples and let frazzled moms wheel strollers around us as we stopped to gaze in store windows.
I’d just stopped to stare at the flashing blue-and-pink Limit sign, thinking how cool it would be to buy clothes at the Yonge Street Limit, when a throaty voice said, “Please miss, if you can spare some change.”
I turned around. A man wearing several layers of clothing brown with dirt was slouched against a storefront window. His face was so red and chapped I couldn’t tell his age, it might have been anywhere between forty and seventy. His hand shaking, he held out a torn baseball cap with a few coins in it. My gaze shifted from the people walking by, faces blank, eyes looking straight ahead, to the man’s bulbous nose and grimy, wolf-like beard. The ice cream began forcing its way back up my throat. I grabbed a lamp post for support and shut my eyes. Where was…
“There you go,” said a voice. I opened my eyes. Mom was handing the man a five-dollar bill. The ice cream settled down.
“Thank you very much, God bless you, miss,” croaked the man.
Mom turned to me, and I said quietly, “Can we go home now?”
“Of course, Hilary,” she said, her forehead wrinkled in concern.
On the way back to the car, it seemed like we passed 200 people leaning against buildings, holding out caps, tins, or bare hands, people I’d never thought about before. As we drove home, I chewed my lips. Marcia and her mom were on welfare. I knew that meant that the government was giving them money because Marcia’s mom didn’t have
a job. But what if the government stopped giving them money? Then they’d be out on the streets like that homeless man. I pictured Marcia and her mom sitting on a street corner, Marcia trying to sell her paintings for a few cents, no one from school even bothering to look at her…
And to think I’d made fun of her for not having money. That was way worse than the people walking past the homeless man. It was like spitting in his face and knocking him over. I had to set things right. I didn’t care what Chanel or Kallie or anyone else thought, only Marcia. I had to apologize to her, before it was too late.
On Monday morning, I went straight to Kallie’s locker.
“Kallie,” I asked, “where’s Marcia?”
“Gone,” she said curtly.
Oh my God! It had actually happened. Marcia really was living on the streets!
My face must’ve shown my shock because Kallie said, more gently, “Her mom got a job in Vancouver. They packed up their stuff on the weekend and left this morning.”
I suddenly remembered what Lynn had said about Marcia’s mom. Could it be true? If so, what kind of a job was she getting in Vancouver?
“But I thought Marcia’s mom was a … you know,” I said, out of the corner of my mouth.
“No, I don’t know,” said Kallie sharply. “But whatever it is, I’m sure she’s not one. Her brother’s friend is starting up a new business, and he needed a secretary, so Marcia’s mom’s going to work for him. Marcia told us about it at lunch on Friday. She was pretty excited.”
“I had no idea.”
“That’s because you never eat with us anymore.” She studied my amazed face and said, “I thought you’d be relieved. Now you don’t have to worry about sitting with a ‘smelly loser.’ And that’ll make things easier for you.” She looked at where Chanel and her friends were gathered around Chanel’s locker.
My face felt hot and I said quickly, “Well, I’m not relieved. I wanted to apologize to Marcia for all the times I was … you know, mean to her.”