by Donna Cooner
“I saw you guys standing by your locker yesterday. You got all soft and mushy in your face.”
I want to deny it, but I can’t. I do like Alex. A lot. I like his thick black hair and his eyes that are only a shade lighter. I like the way his forehead wrinkles into a deep line between his eyebrows when he’s listening really hard. I like his power and grace on the baseball field. Actually, there isn’t anything I can think of that I don’t like about Alex.
My phone buzzes again and I glance down, thinking it might be Alex again. Instead it’s a notification from Worthy that says Raylene’s results will be posted this afternoon. Max looks over my shoulder to read the screen. I try to block the view by turning my back to him.
“Nobody was surprised that Taylor was worthy of Liam, but Raylene and Ross are a bit of a wild card.” He looks over at me. “Don’t you think?”
It’s something I’ve been thinking about, too, but I bury my nose in my phone and try to tune him out. The comments about Raylene make me shudder.
“Oh, don’t act all holier than thou. If you think about it, it’s really a community service,” Max says. “Everyone has an opinion and this app is just letting them share freely. Not in whispers behind backs, but right out in the open.”
I look up from my phone. Max is looking out the window, not at me. “I don’t care about Worthy,” I tell him, but I know that isn’t completely true. I’ve been voting right along with everyone else. Guilt pokes at my insides.
Max keeps talking. “Remember that card game we used to play when we were kids? Concentration? You had to turn the cards over and find a match. It’s the same way with relationships. When you turn over the cards and look, you just know.”
His attitude makes me angry. “It’s not just about looks. Besides, we’re all the same inside. Same skeleton. Same lungs.”
“Yeah, right,” Max says. “You tell that to Taylor. Go tell her that you’re exactly the same as her. See how far that gets you into the popular crowd.”
“I don’t want to be part of Taylor’s crowd.”
Max looks at me like he doesn’t believe me. To be honest, I don’t believe me.
The bus pulls up in the circular drive and screeches to a halt. The doors open and the kids at the front start getting off. After I step out onto the sidewalk, I head to a bench to wait for Nikki. With a quick wave over his shoulder, Max keeps going toward the front doors, passing out his campaign buttons along the way.
I watch the crowd and wait, hoping Nikki is going to be on time for once in her life. All through the parking lot, people trudge between cars and across the grass toward the big brick building in front of them.
My writing brain kicks into gear and I welcome the distraction. Two girls are standing by the flagpole. One wears bright yellow rain boots and holds a pink-and-gray-striped umbrella. The other one, shorter, with dark, frizzy hair, takes a picture as the first girl holds the umbrella in front of her body and twirls it. They trade the umbrella and take turns snapping more pictures. I don’t know them, which makes creating the story even easier. I tilt my head, thinking, and it comes to me in a minute.
The frizzy-haired one’s father has just been transferred to Dubai. She wants to remember the Texas rain and her best friend because all she knows about Dubai is that it is in the desert. Her father’s office will be on the 138th floor of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, and they will live in an apartment nearby. She doesn’t want to go.
I watch as the two girls with the umbrella hug, then walk off in opposite directions, both looking down at their phones.
A guy walks up wearing faded, light blue jeans and well-worn cowboy boots, a phone to his ear. His jeans are long, wet, and frayed at the hem, and his brown hoodie is pulled up over the top of his camouflage baseball cap. I decide he is talking to his mother about her latest doctor’s report. It doesn’t look good and he’s going to have to take more responsibility out at the ranch.
But then my mental storytelling is interrupted by the voices behind me.
Over by the trash cans, two kids huddle over their phones, discussing Worthy.
“Are you kidding? Give me that phone … ” A tall boy with shaggy blond hair grabs at the phone of the girl sitting next to him. She pulls her phone away, laughing.
“She’s just too tall for him,” she says. “That’s why I voted no.”
I groan, dropping my head into my hands. I want to stand up and scream at them all to shut up. When I look up again, I see Torrey Grey walking between two cars. She stops to dig around in her oversized purse, then pulls out a mirror and lip gloss. Holding the mirror in one hand, she carefully applies the lip gloss, then smiles at her reflection.
Raylene gets out of a car two rows back. “Wait for me!” she yells.
“Run!” Torrey yells back at her. “I’m not getting another tardy because of you.”
Ross and a couple of other football players are hanging out by the front doors watching as the girls run across the parking lot. They are laughing and talking so loudly everyone can hear them.
“Here comes your girlfriend, Ross,” Wolfgang Gines says. “Have you heard the latest blonde joke?”
Ross frowns and doesn’t say anything.
Wolf leans into his face. “What do you call a smart blonde? A golden retriever.”
Wolf punches Ross in the shoulder and Liam laughs hysterically. “I got one. I got one. How do you make a blonde’s eyes light up?”
He waits a beat, then says, “Shine a flashlight in her ear.”
I want to stand up and walk over to them. To make them stop. But I know how quickly their attention can turn to someone else, and I can’t bring myself to get up off the bench. I swallow hard.
Wolf turns and says to the other guys, “I guess Ross is not exactly looking for brains.”
Ross pushes him away and kind of fake punches him in one arm. The book in Wolf’s hand goes flying to the ground. He grabs on to Ross’s shirt and pushes him back against the metal trash cans. The sound is loud enough to cause heads to turn, but when they see it is Wolf wrestling with some kid, they just go back to their morning conversations.
I am sure Ross is dead, but then Wolf laughs.
“Yeah, you’re crazy about her,” he says, leaning into Ross’s face and making his brown eyes go wide for emphasis.
“Shut up.” Ross forces the words through his clenched teeth. The other guys laugh loudly and slap him on the back. And right at that moment, Raylene rushes up to give Ross a big hug.
“Hi, babe,” she says, and gives him a kiss right on the mouth, completely oblivious to the rest of the group. Ross stands there with a totally outraged look on his face, but I can’t tell if he’s mad at Wolf or at Raylene.
After third period, I open my locker door and stare inside at the stack of books and notebooks. I glance to the side and see Raylene and Ross standing over by the trophy case. Just like everyone else, I can’t help but stare. Ross cocks his head to one side, looking into Raylene’s face and stroking her arm. He asks her something and she nods but doesn’t look happy. Her head falls forward, her hair in her face, and he reaches out to brush it back. She looks up at him and gives him a shaky smile. I look away, embarrassed by the intimacy of the moment. The look on Raylene’s face makes my stomach hurt.
“I hear there are some kids starting a betting pool for Raylene. The odds are pretty much fifty-fifty right now.” Kat Lee is standing beside my locker, leaning against the wall and breaking the no-talking-at-school rule. She’s wearing ripped jeans, a black T-shirt, and a smirk on her bright red lips. “What do you think? Is she worthy or not?”
“Why are you asking me?” I ask, pulling out my math book and slamming my locker door with way more force than it needs.
“Because you’re just as bad as the rest of them.”
“I didn’t write any of those comments,” I say.
“You don’t post those horrible comments, you just vote.” Kat’s voice is bitter. “You’re right. T
hat’s not at all the same. It’s not nearly so bad.”
Color burns up my neck, but I don’t say anything.
Kat shakes her head. “What? You seem to be enjoying this Worthy drama just like everyone else.”
She’s right. Finally, I say, “Raylene doesn’t deserve this.”
Kat narrows her eyes at me. “Who knows? Maybe you’re the one behind it.”
I shake my head. “You know that isn’t true.”
“I’m not sure I know anything about you anymore.” She turns and starts to walk away. “Anyway, it’s too late. It has a life of its own now. You can’t stop it.”
In Spanish class that afternoon, Taylor walks down the aisle and smiles in my direction. I know she’s trying to kiss up to me, but I’m not fooled. Once prom is over and she’s crowned junior prom queen, she won’t give me the time of day. At least I’ll have the satisfaction of inventing an amazing publicity campaign. I know my creative energy should be focused on the story contest, but now that I’ve started the prom publicity, I just can’t quit.
Taylor slides into the seat beside me, mainly because it is empty.
Mrs. Boggs, the Spanish teacher, is late as usual. The rumor is she never wears the same dress twice in one school year. Since it’s well past midyear, the suspense is building, and as far as anyone can remember, the rumor is holding up to the scrutiny of all the girls in fourth period.
It’s not her outfits that get my attention. I’m more interested in the story behind the framed photo on her desk. I saw it last week when I went up to ask about the homework assignment. In it, Mrs. Boggs is standing in front of a grave holding a bouquet of purple hydrangeas, and even though Ray-Ban sunglasses cover her eyes, she looks like she’s crying. Which makes sense because she’s at a cemetery and all, but then I notice more. The tombstone has cat statues on top of it and is engraved with the name “Rattenborg.” I wonder who is buried there and what the connection is to Mrs. Boggs, but it seems rude to ask.
“I might have seen that blue dress she wore last Wednesday before,” Mia is saying to Jayla. She keeps fiddling with the tiny silver megaphone around her neck just to remind everybody that she’s a cheerleader. Like we could forget.
Mrs. Boggs’s Spanish class is considered one of the easier electives, and it meets the foreign language requirement for graduation, so all the Lovelies are here.
Raylene is in this class, too. I watch her across the room. She’s sitting stock still at her desk, her phone clutched in her hand, her eyes glued to the screen. She looks pale. She must be waiting for the results to come in. Ugh. I can’t imagine that feeling.
“No, absolutely not,” Heather says. “I write a description of every single dress each period and draw a picture. I have it right here.” Heather reaches into her backpack and waves a pink-striped spiral notebook at Mia. Leave it to Heather to have meticulously recorded each outfit. She has probably written down what everyone ate for lunch, too.
“You’d do a lot better at Spanish if you took notes like Heather,” Taylor tells Mia. Then she and Mia laugh like that’s the funniest thing in the universe because nobody wants to be like Heather.
As usual, Heather is oblivious. “I could tutor you after school,” she tells Mia, and that just makes them laugh even more.
I listen to the conversation but don’t join in. All semester, I watched them trade boyfriends, start fights, end fights, and mostly critique everything—clothes, speech, hair, earrings, shoes, even fingernails. So including teachers in their critical conversations is no surprise.
When Mrs. Boggs finally does come in, five minutes after the tardy bell rings, she’s wearing a blue flowered dress that no one can remember seeing before. Rushing over to her desk, she plops down an overstuffed satchel, then asks Heather Middleton to call the roll. Not surprisingly, Heather is sitting in the front row just waiting for that kind of assignment.
“Did you finish that reading?” Taylor leans across the aisle to ask Raylene, who is trying to hide her phone under the desk so Mrs. Boggs can’t see it. I don’t think Taylor really cares what the response is, because she doesn’t wait for an answer. “I didn’t even get the first page read before I fell asleep. BORING.”
“Probably because you were tired from going to the movies,” Raylene says, still looking down at her phone.
Taylor glares at her. “How did you know I was at the movies last night?”
“You checked in. I’m your friend, remember?”
Some friend, I think, remembering how Taylor voted no on Worthy.
“Oh yeah. I forgot.” Taylor laughs, then reaches into her pocket for some lip gloss. She slathers the pink shiny stuff all over her mouth and then says, “Facebook is so done anyway. Instagram and Snapchat are so much better. I’m definitely going to have more Instagram followers than Jayla by the end of next month.”
“Congrats,” I say.
For some reason this turns her focus to me. “So what’s your new big idea? The promposal videos are cute, but all the same. We need something original.”
Now she’s the expert on internet marketing?
“I have some things in the works,” I say. Taylor’s eyebrows rise and she waits. She knows I’m bluffing.
“Like what?”
“Well … ” My voice trails off and I glance down at the floor to think for a minute. Taylor is wearing a pair of Steve Madden boots that I’ve always admired, and my brain grasps at straws. “Shoes,” I say.
“What about them?” Mia asks, her eyes narrowing. She taps her tiny kitten heels on the tile floor.
“You’re right, Taylor,” I say. “We need something totally different, but still fun. Prom dresses are overdone. Besides, no one wants to show their dress to everyone before the big night.”
“Duh,” says Mia.
But I’m just warming up, and the idea is really starting to take shape. “So … I’m thinking selfie shots of potential prom shoes. We can tag them … ” My voice trails off.
“Fab footwear!” Mia chimes in.
“Sensational slippers,” Raylene says, her eyes focused on her phone under the desk. “Goes along with the Enchanted Evening theme.”
“Perfect,” I say. “We can give out a gift certificate to the shoe store downtown to the pic with the most likes.”
Mrs. Boggs is, as usual, oblivious to our talking as she begins the Spanish lesson.
Taylor taps her fingers against the top of her desk with her pale pink polished nails, her blue eyes gazing up to the ceiling. We all wait. Finally, she says, “I like it.”
It feels like high praise and that I deserve it.
Then Taylor says, “You can announce the winners at the dance. Right before the court is named.”
And just like that, my mental celebration is cut short. Nobody except Nikki knows I don’t have a date to prom yet. “Maybe,” I say.
“No maybes,” Taylor says. “You’ve worked hard on this publicity thing and deserve to share the spotlight.”
Mia nods in agreement. “Absolutely.”
Nikki shrugs and I shoot her a look. We’ll talk about this later.
Suddenly, I hear Raylene’s phone ping with an update.
Everyone looks over at her. I watch as Raylene’s face turns even paler. Abruptly, she stands up and walks over to Mrs. Boggs’s desk. “Can I go to the bathroom?” she asks, holding her stomach for emphasis. “I’m not feeling so well.”
Instantly, Taylor grabs her phone out of her bag. She smiles down at the screen and shakes her head. “Poor thing,” she whispers.
My own stomach drops. Just like that, without having to look at my phone, I know.
So sorry, Raylene!
63% say NO!
You are NOT WORTHY!
Maybe Ross should rethink his choices? Just saying …
I’m still thinking about Raylene and Worthy as Alex drives me to his house after school. How must Raylene have felt when she saw the negative verdict? I almost want to bring it up with Alex, but then he says, �
�We’re almost there.” I feel a jolt of nerves and forget about everything else. I take in my surroundings outside of the car window.
I’m a little surprised at the size of the houses on Alex’s street. I figured he lived in a neighborhood like mine, full of stray bikes lying abandoned on overgrown lawns and ranch-style houses with peeling wood siding. I definitely wasn’t expecting all the landscaping and brick. His house—a two-story with a wraparound porch—sits on a huge, perfectly manicured lawn and is bordered by colorful flower beds full of azaleas and marigolds.
Alex pulls into the circular driveway. “Here we are.”
I follow him up the front steps and onto the front porch to a big wooden front door. I wipe my pink Keds on the thick mat on the doorstep that says: Bienvenidos.
We walk into a huge, open room full of light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The furniture is comfortable, and it all matches in the way I’ve seen in magazines and home design television shows. Three people are sitting on the couch watching My Super Sweet Sixteen on a big-screen television. I recognize Alex’s sister, Isabella, but I don’t know the two older women. I can hear the total cost for the number-one Super Sweet Sixteen Blingest Bash on MTV adding up to the sound of a cash register. Thousands, no hundreds of thousands, of dollars. Izzy’s mouth is open, her eyes glued to the television screen. She sits completely entranced by the sheer outrageousness and wonder of it all.
“You should be brought into the fiesta by a horse-drawn carriage,” the smaller woman on the couch tells Isabella. “It has to be a gigantic entrance.”
Isabella nods, but then the taller woman with the tight gray curls snaps her fingers like she has the best idea ever. “Maybe you should be carried in on the shoulders of some hot guys. You’d be inside this Cleopatra tent thingy on top of wooden poles,” she says. “I saw that once on another episode.”
The shorter woman says, “Maybe the guys should be really muscular so they can carry you.”
“You think I’m that heavy?” Isabella asks in a way that makes it clear she knows it couldn’t be farther from the truth.