Pushing Perfect

by Michelle Falkoff

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Alex asked, reading over my shoulder.

  “I don’t know, but that’s the last one I got. I’ll write her back and apologize and hopefully that will be the end of it.” I wrote and apologized and told her about our plan to meet up.

  My phone buzzed with a text notification almost immediately.

  Too late. Couldn’t stand it anymore. Had to talk to someone.

  Tell me you didn’t, I wrote back.

  No choice. Bringing her with me tonight.

  I’d been hoping she didn’t mean who I thought she meant, but as soon as I read her final text, I knew.

  “Was that her?” Alex asked. “Is she mad?”

  “That’s not the problem anymore,” I said.

  “Then what is?”

  “She told someone.”

  “She did what? Who did she tell?”

  I tried to stay calm. Breathe, I told myself.

  “Becca,” I said.

  27.

  The problem with Marbella was that there weren’t very many places for big groups of kids to go. Not if they wanted to have a private conversation, and particularly not if they wanted to talk about how they were going to take revenge on their blackmailer. Too many kids hung out at Philz; the coffee shop I’d gone to with Raj didn’t have big enough tables; and we’d all come to hate the Bayview Diner, which we now associated with all this craziness.

  Thank goodness for Raj, who took it upon himself to figure out a solution. It turned out one of the big chain restaurants on El Camino Real had private rooms you could reserve, as long as you ordered something. We’d have to suffer through terrible inauthentic Mexican food, but at least we’d be alone.

  We arranged to meet at six, driving over in two cars. I picked up Raj and Alex, who reverted to their usual seats; Justin was responsible for everyone else. We rode to the restaurant in silence; for once, Alex didn’t bug me about the radio.

  Justin was pulling into the parking lot just as we were. We waited by my Prius as he got out of the car, followed by Isabel and Becca, just as I’d expected. I avoided looking directly at them, which conveniently allowed me to avoid seeing whatever expression Becca might have had on her face as she looked at me.

  The restaurant was tacky inside and out. The front was painted in yellow and red and green, with giant ceramic cacti flanking the entrance. An overly chipper middle-aged man confirmed our reservation and led us to the back room, which was covered in murals in the same bright colors as the outside. We sat down at the table set for six: I took a chair at one end, Alex and Raj on either side of me, and Isabel sat at the other, surrounded by Becca and Justin. When there had been five of us, I’d felt like we were all in it together; now that we were six, it felt like we’d been divided into teams. I hoped I was wrong about that, but Alex and Raj pretty much wanted to kill Isabel for talking; they weren’t having the same eye-contact issue I was, and their glares were practically verbal, they were so hostile. I wasn’t too happy about it myself, but I understood, even if I didn’t like it.

  Instead of Not-Pinky, our cranky waitress at the Bayview Diner, we had a perky girl with a shiny blond ponytail. She looked young enough to go to school with us, but no one seemed to recognize her, and most Marbella kids didn’t have jobs. At least not during the school year. She set down six enormous glasses of water and two big bowls of chips with sides of salsa and asked if we wanted anything to drink.

  “We’ll start with sodas, and a plate of nachos for the table,” Justin said. “Everyone?”

  We all nodded.

  The waitress gave us a big smile and went off to get our drinks. I finally steeled myself to look over at Becca. She, thankfully, wasn’t looking back at me; she was staring down at the table, which wasn’t like her. I wondered if she was scared. I would be, if I were her. I already was, myself. Just being at the table with her made me nervous. I wondered whether it would rise to the level of panic, whether I’d get that head-throbbing feeling, but something about sitting between Alex and Raj made me feel a little better.

  The six of us waited quietly for our sodas to arrive. Technically Alex and I had been the ones to call for this meeting, but it didn’t feel like we were in charge now that Isabel had brought Becca into the mix. Once the waitress came back with our order and left, I waited for someone to start talking. But the silence continued, broken only by the sound of mariachi music piped through the speakers.

  “Is anyone going to say anything?” Justin asked finally. “I feel like I’m the only one with nothing to volunteer here, so someone get this party started.”

  “Not me,” Raj said. “I’m in the same position you are. Though I’m very curious to hear from Isabel.” He could have cut himself shaving on the sharpness in his voice.

  “Fine,” she said. “You all went off without me and did your little detective thing and forgot to tell me what was going on. So I took matters into my own hands. Becca’s dad is a lawyer, and—”

  “You did not tell Becca’s dad what’s going on,” I said, horrified. I loved Becca’s parents. The thought of them knowing what I’d done was almost as bad as my own parents finding out.

  “I’m not an idiot. I told Becca everything I knew, and then I made Justin tell us the rest once I realized you were never going to call me back. She asked her dad about it as one of those things he likes, that thing lawyers always do, you know—”

  “A hypothetical,” Becca said. It was the first time I’d actually heard her voice in so long, but it was almost as familiar to me as my own.

  “Like he wouldn’t be curious why you were asking,” Alex said. “Seriously. We’re all so screwed I can’t even stand it.”

  “She told him she was doing research for a school paper,” Isabel said. “She’s not an idiot.”

  “He didn’t ask questions,” Becca said, her voice low. “He just answered mine.”

  “What exactly did you tell him?” I asked. They were the first words I’d spoken to her in over a year, and they weren’t the ones I’d imagined when I pictured us talking again. I’d pictured something more like an apology and less like an accusation.

  “I asked what would happen if a teacher manipulated students into doing illegal things for her. Like selling drugs.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Raj said.

  “I’m not done,” she said. “He told me that what the teacher had done was a very serious crime, and the police and the district attorney would treat it that way. So I asked about the students, whether they’d get in trouble too. He said it was possible, but if they were all under eighteen and they all had basically the same story, then they’d probably be able to make a deal. Probation, maybe, and they could get the record sealed so it didn’t hurt them later.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” I said.

  “And that doesn’t factor in the possibility that she could turn on us,” Alex said. “I don’t think we’re the only ones involved, by a long shot.”

  “You’re not getting it,” Becca said, and I recognized the tone she used when she got frustrated. “You guys are small potatoes here. Nothing any of you did is that big a deal. What she did is horrendous. She’s a teacher, which means she’s a state employee, and she’s in a position of trust. Which she totally took advantage of.” Her voice softened. “She had power over you, and she abused it. I get that you guys all feel bad about what you did, but you didn’t hurt anyone.”

  I wasn’t sure she was right about not hurting anyone. Who knew what kinds of terrible things might have come from what Ms. Davenport had made us do? I’d been lucky that I hadn’t reacted badly to the Novalert, but that might not be true for everyone Raj sold it to. And we had no idea how big this whole thing really was.

  But what Becca said about power spoke to me. She’d said what I was feeling about Ms. Davenport taking advantage of us, only better than I could say it. “I want to get the power back,” I said. “And I think we can do it.”

  “I’m not going to the pol
ice,” Isabel said. “I don’t care what Becca’s dad says about us not getting in trouble. I’m not willing to take the chance. And if you do it without me, I’ll tell them you’re lying.”

  “I get the no cops thing,” I said. “You’ve made that clear from the beginning. But I don’t think we need the cops to get what we want. Becca’s right—what we have on her is way worse than what she has on us. We have the picture of her getting the drugs from Mark.”

  “That makes Mark look worse than her,” Justin said.

  “I thought you didn’t care,” Alex said.

  “I may be pissed at him, but that doesn’t mean I want him to go to jail.”

  “You’re missing the point,” I said. “That’s just one of the things we have. There’s also the texts, and the things we know she made us do, and Alex, you must have something on her whole money thing, right?”

  “It’s complicated,” she said. “But I could come up with something.”

  “And Alex and I have been doing research, and we have some stuff about her family that she might not want to get out. So together, we kind of have a lot. We can use what we know to make her stop doing this. To us, and to everyone.”

  “How?” Isabel asked. “I mean, I’m all for taking her down, you know I am. But I’m not seeing how we do it yet.”

  “We do to her what she did to us,” Alex said. “We send her a blocked-sender text with one of the photos we took the other night and tell her we need a favor. Then we have her meet us somewhere. We lay out what we know and we tell her to stop.”

  “What if she doesn’t listen?” Raj asked. He was picking at his fingernails, like he had in the coffee shop when we’d talked. Raj was usually so confident, it was weird to see him nervous and unsure.

  “She’ll listen,” Becca said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Are we all supposed to go?” Justin asked. “I’m not sure I really need to be part of this confrontation. It might be better to have a smaller group involved.”

  “I kind of want to strangle her,” Alex said. “Not sure I’m the best person for the job either.”

  I looked across the table at Isabel. “You know her the best out of all of us,” she said. “I remember you were her biggest fan freshman year.”

  “Which makes it even harder to think about confronting her now,” I said. “And I’m in her calculus class too.” But she was right that I knew her better than any of the rest of them did. And I wanted to see this through.

  “I’ll go with you,” Alex said. “I can restrain myself from violence. And I can scare her with what I know about the money stuff, if it comes to that.”

  “Thank you.” I felt a sudden burst of affection for her.

  “I’ll come too,” Raj said. “Just to make sure Alex keeps her word.”

  Justin sighed. “Am I the bad guy now? Again?”

  “No,” I said. “You’re right that we don’t need a big group. Three will do it. You guys are off the hook. We’ll let you know when it’s over.”

  “The sooner the better,” Isabel said.

  “We’ll make a plan tomorrow,” Alex said. “No sense in waiting.”

  “Then our work here is done,” Justin said, getting up. He threw a few dollars on the table. “This should cover the soda and nachos.”

  “Dick,” Alex muttered, as he walked away.

  Isabel and Becca got up to follow him. “Wait,” I said. “Becca, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She looked over at Isabel. They were doing a kind of silent communication, like my parents had done, with raised eyebrows and little head shakes.

  Whatever Isabel didn’t say helped me. “How about you give me a ride home?” Becca asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Justin will drive me, Isabel, and Alex,” Raj said, though Justin was already in the parking lot.

  “No way,” Alex said.

  “You’ll be fine,” Raj said. “We’ll sit in the back and you don’t have to talk.”

  “So much drama,” Isabel said. “And me and Justin are the theater people. Come on.”

  They all left the restaurant, and it was just me and Becca. “There are a lot of nachos left,” she said. “Let’s stay here for a bit.”

  “Okay.” At first we both just stayed where we were, but it was kind of awkward trying to have a conversation with someone basically sitting diagonally from you. I was the one who’d asked her to stay and talk, so it only seemed fitting that I be the one to move. Baby steps and all that. I switched to Isabel’s chair, so we were sitting next to each other.

  “I’m sorry,” we both said.

  “Wait, what?” I asked.

  “Isabel told me about what happened at Drew’s house. That you had another panic attack. I was so hard on you that night. I should have figured out something was going on besides you just wanting to go home. I should have been a better friend.”

  “You’re kidding me, right? I’d been lying to you guys since the summer before we started high school, ever since I found my first zit. And I was on my third strike.”

  “Your what?”

  “I’d already screwed up twice before. You’d told me not to let you down again. Three strikes.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” Her eyes glassed over with tears. “You were going through something, and I wasn’t there for you.”

  “Because I wasn’t honest. And I was pretty miserable, too. I can’t have been much fun to be around.”

  “It was never about whether you were fun.” She blinked a couple of times, and I knew she was still trying not to cry.

  “But I worried that we didn’t have anything in common anymore. I couldn’t swim because of the whole skin thing, and it made me scared about being with guys.”

  “Which is kind of all Isabel thinks about when we go out,” Becca said, with a little smirk. She didn’t look like she was going to cry anymore, which was good, because if she did I would have lost it.

  “Which is a totally normal thing to think about,” I said. “I made everything hard. I’m working on being more trusting, though this whole Ms. Davenport situation is not helping.”

  “I can’t even imagine.” She took a sip of soda.

  “This is going to sound weird, but I’m glad you know everything now. I don’t have to hide anything anymore. I really am sorry.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I love how both of us were totally convinced it was our fault, but we were both too stubborn to do anything to fix it. Actually, I hate that, but it reminds me of us, when we were us, you know?”

  I smiled. “Yeah,” I said. “I do. Look, I know it’s probably too late, but do you think there’s a chance we could ever be friends again?” I felt nervous even asking, but it was worth a shot.

  “You’re working on the trust thing,” she said. “I can work on the understanding thing. It won’t be easy, and it’s not going to be the same. But I’m willing to try if you are.”

  We both got up from the table and hugged each other, and I felt the pain of missing her all over again, even though she was right there. We’d lost over a year, and we would never get it back.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “Those nachos were terrible.”

  28.

  The next day at lunch, Alex decided that we should have a movie night while we figured out how to lure Ms. Davenport into meeting with us. We agreed that she and I would be responsible for the snacks, and Raj could pick the movie. “PJs all around, this time,” she said. “Can’t have Kara showing up all fancy again.”

  I blushed, thinking about wearing pajamas in front of Raj. Raj didn’t seem all that worried about it, though. “I’ll wear my flannels with the duckies and bunnies,” he said.

  I hoped he wasn’t kidding. I planned to go with leggings and a hoodie, which was what I normally wore to bed anyway. It wasn’t all that different than what I was wearing to school—the leggings were jeans, and the hoodie was a sweater, but it was pretty close.

  I just had to get through one more
day of calculus before everything would be out in the open. I knew things would most likely only get harder, but at least I wouldn’t have this fidgety feeling of hiding stuff all the time, along with the fear that Ms. Davenport would somehow look at my face and figure out what I knew. One way or another, I needed this to be over.

  Today wasn’t that day, though. I sat in class and daydreamed about what we would say to her when the confrontation finally happened. I couldn’t quite decide on the right words, though I hoped they’d come at the appropriate time. Now it was just a matter of deciding what the appropriate time was. That was part of what we were going to figure out tonight.

  I got through class without making eye contact with Ms. Davenport at all, and the rest of the day went by quickly. Alex and I did our junk food shopping and headed to Raj’s house. I felt a wave of guilt as I remembered what had happened there the first time, but I reminded myself that we were well past that now. And Raj was not, to my serious disappointment, wearing ducky/bunny pajamas; he was in a plain white T-shirt and sweatpants, which didn’t make him look any less cute.

  Raj started getting the snacks all set up as Alex and I went straight for the couch, each one of us grabbing an armrest.

  “Movie first, then talk?” Alex asked. “Or talk first, then movie?”

  “I vote talk first,” I said. “Let’s get this mess over with. I made a list.” I got my little notebook out of my bag.

  “Of course you did,” she said.

  “What kind of list?” Raj asked. He brought bowls of chips and M&Ms over to us and set them on the coffee table, then plopped down in the middle. The couch was super comfortable but wasn’t huge, which meant that Raj was just one cushion away, and I felt very aware of how close he was. Last time we hadn’t been sitting next to each other; Alex had sat in the middle. I bet she’d changed her seat on purpose. Ever the matchmaker, even at a time like this.

  “It’s a list of everything we need to do.” I looked down to read what I had written. “First, we have to decide when we want to set the meeting. And where. Then we have to figure out how to send a blocked message—”