Queen of Broken Hearts

by Jennifer Recchio

R

  E

  A

  K

  ran down her locker in bright pink paint. Maybe it would have been more dramatic in red, but I worked with what I had.

  I smiled. “Lesson learned?” Translation: Stay in line. You could be next.

  They nodded.

  I hated them a little for their mindless submission. No one challenges me, not really, but sometimes I think someone should.

  The halls were beginning to fill with students by the time I’d cleaned up and reached my locker. Nausea roiled in my stomach. I focused on my election poster to calm it down. My blown up and enhanced face smiled back at me.

  There was something wrong with my poster. I checked it again. My smile was still beaming, my hair immaculate. But the text at the bottom was wrong. Where it should have said, “BIRDIE ANDERS - YOUR QUEEN OF HEART,” someone had taken a Sharpie and changed the ending to “BROKEN HEARTS.”

  I tugged on the taped edges and folded the poster into my locker. Skittle frowned. I hoped she didn’t see the Sharpie. I didn’t know how long it had been there, but the school day was just beginning, so maybe no one had even noticed.

  “I need a new poster,” I said, snapping my fingers at Skittle. “The old one is too boring. I need something with pizzazz.”

  “Pizzazz?” Skittle’s eyes went wide. “But what about the band and the invitations and the decorations?”

  “Skittle.” I put my hands on my hips. “How can I nominate you to be queen after me if you can’t even keep up with this much?”

  Skittle’s chin wobbled. “I can do it.”

  “Of course you can, Skittle. I never doubted you. You need to stop doubting yourself. Now I want that new poster by tomorrow.”

  A little bit of Sharpie on one poster might not seem like a big deal, but I knew better from personal experience. I overthrew the last Queen of Heart with a bit of Sharpie. Well, it was more than that, but that was how I started the dethroning.

  I bit down on my nail then stopped myself. Who would sabotage my campaign? Lightbulb? How did she know about my tactics?

  Annabelle could be helping her. A justified sort of relief slid through me. Annabelle was with me last year when I began the greatest coup Hollywood Hills High School had ever seen. We’d broken into the school after hours just to draw a sharpie mustache on Athena Clark’s laminated face.

  “How will this help?” Annabelle had asked, tapping her size-five boots.

  “I’m showing it can be done. And once people see one line on one poster, they’ll start making their own adjustments. And before you know it, the queen’s dignity is as gone as a retainer left on a lunch tray.”

  By second period, the poster had gained horns and a blackened tooth. By lunch, there wasn’t a single unmarked poster in the school.

  I’d have to face the possibility that Annabelle could be teamed up with Lightbulb to take me down. That could be trouble. She knew my tactics. I turned into the humanities hallway, hugging the wall to go unnoticed.

  Remember the part where I was walking down the hall not quite minding my own business? We’re to there now.

  Someone yanked on my right arm, dragging me through an open doorway. A hand clapped over my mouth before I could scream. The supply closet door clicked shut behind me. I stomped my heel down hard on my captor’s foot. He let out a curse and hopped back from me.

  I knew that voice. “Pak?” My heart rammed into my ribcage. I turned around and there he was, every rumpled, trouble-inducing inch of him. His blond hair was shaggier than last year, his eyes a little bluer. He had definitely gotten taller. Last year, I could almost meet his eyes straight-on, but now I had to crane my head back.

  Pak’s name isn’t really Pak; it’s Painkiller. His parents were the pop star “it” couple when he was born. There was much argument over how to pronounce his name and rumors of drug abuse. Two divorces and five “it” couples later and nobody cares about Pak anymore, no matter how his name is pronounced.

  “Birdie. You look boring. What happened to that red shirt with the tear right—”

  I punched him. Lightly. Sort of.

  “Ow.” He shook his arm. “Geez, did you spend the entire time I was in France weight lifting?”

  “Why’d you come back?” I’m not even sure how he got in the school in a jeans and T-shirt ensemble that looked like it had been mauled by bears. It wasn’t exactly our navy school uniform. Maybe someone mistook him for a janitor.

  Pak shrugged and leaned against the cleaning product–laden shelves. “You know how it is with me and glass houses. Or institutions. They threw me out, and I thought, hey, what’s Birdie up to? It’s just like I thought: you got boring again.” He waved a hand at my uniform. “So I figured I’d save you. Again.”

  “You got me arrested. We robbed a bank.”

  “And it was exciting, wasn’t it?”

  “No.”

  I had to look away from his grin. I’d forgotten how infectious it was, and if I smiled right then, he’d take it as forgiveness. Which I was not ready to give. “Go away, Pak. Make someone else’s life difficult.”

  “But no one else is as fun as you, Birdie.” He ran a hand down my arm, sending lightning through my nerves.

  Pak and I are like hydrogen and fire. Not too bad of a problem when we’re by ourselves, but together we explode. See, Pak has all these crazy ideas, but he’d never act on them because he gets so carried away thinking about them. I tend to act first then think later. Well, okay, never. Between the two of us…

  It was fun for a while, then it started getting dangerous, and then, well, then we robbed a bank. If I could have formed a coherent thought, I would have run as fast as I could, but I’d been in love with him since I was thirteen, and he knew it.

  “Birdie.” He leaned forward. I took a step back to avoid breathing his air and losing my head completely.

  “We’re done,” I said. “We’ve been done since March, and nothing is going to change that.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do.” I reached back and found the doorknob. All that was left was to convince my reluctant hand to turn it.

  “Don’t leave me, Birdie.” His fingers grazed my hair. My breath caught—the hitch was too loud. His eyes lit up. “We’ll get it right this time.”

  I could taste his warmth on my lips, inches away, his pounding pulse ratcheting up my own. I turned the doorknob. Air conditioning blasted my knees.

  “Good-bye, Pak.”

  Birdie Tells All

  Episode 1: Part 3

  My mother taught me to lie when I was six. She calls it “acting,” now.

  She started me out small, with a candy bar. Never steal what they’ll give you for free, she liked to say. So I went into the convenience store with a nickel and a lie. I put the Hershey’s bar I wanted and my nickel on the counter.

  “It’s a dollar,” the acne-ridden teenager behind the counter said. His uniform hat was on crooked, and there was an oil stain on his pocket. The whole store smelled like vomit and desperation. It was a tough target, which is why my mother chose it for me. Never practice on easy ones, baby. You need to be prepared for anything.

  “I have money,” I said, pushing the nickel towards him.

  “It’s a dollar,” he repeated. “That’s a nickel.”

  “But—” I thought about dead bunnies until my eyes welled up. “It’s money. For the candy bar.”

  “Look, kid—”

  I burst into tears. My mother stormed over. “What’s going on here?”

  The teenager waved his arms. “I just told her it’s a dollar.”

  “You made my little girl cry!”

  The manager walked over. “Ma’am, what seems to be the problem?”

  “The service here is terrible. Is your cashier on drugs? You let people on drugs work here?”

  “No, ma’am. Calm down.”

  “I just wa—wanted the candy bar.” I sobbed. “I had money.”

  “Just
give her the candy bar, Raymond.”

  I made sure to grab the nickel before I left.

  I took the seat next to Annabelle in Spanish class. She looked at me as if I’d grown five arms, but I’d timed it right before the lecture started, so she couldn’t move. I slipped her my hollow note-passing pen. She raised an eyebrow but took it.

  When she sent it back, my message, Pak is back in town. Meet to talk? was answered with a single word. No.

  But it’s Pak, I wrote back.

  I know it was you.

  I bit my lip. You challenged my authority. I had to.

  You’re messed up, you know that?

  Yes, I knew that. I choked down my pride and wrote back one simple word. Please.

  She didn’t write back. She watched the teacher at the front of the room as if I didn’t exist. Finally, before the bell rang, she nodded.

  In history, Skittle slipped a note onto my desk. Picked up your dress! Should I proofread your speech? My pencil stilled. Speech? Oh, no. That couldn’t be tonight. What’s my schedule? I wrote back.

  After class you’re going to the broadcasting department to record your speech for the announcements tomorrow, then you’ve got appearances at debate club and cross country before your fitting for your party dress, then homework and bed by ten so that you’ll get to school by six to preview the announcements. Remember?

  No, I hadn’t remembered. I stopped myself from biting my pencil eraser. I could wing the speech, reschedule the dress fitting, and pay Payne to do my homework. With a former best friend to be dealt with and a conspiracy to uncover, I didn’t have time for things I could delegate.

  I’ll record the speech, then you can make my appearances for me. You already know what to say.

  Skittle fiddled with the paper like she was about to write something back, then just nodded instead.

  The purple dress Skittle picked up for me was a little too tight, but I thought it would work for my half-minute campaign platform speech.

  I slipped into a chair in front of the camera. “Can we do this fast? I have somewhere to be.”

  “Just a minute, Birdie.” The adviser, Mrs. Larue, held up a finger. “The students were thinking of changing the format this year.”

  “Changing the format?” I swallowed.

  Songbreeze strode into the room, adjusting a microphone headpiece.

  Mrs. Larue smiled. “You know, like an interview instead of a speech? It’ll be more interesting.”

  “Of course.” I checked my reflection in the camera to make sure my smile was still in place.

  Songbreeze settled into the chair across from me, with the air of a raptor about to learn how to open a door and slaughter the hapless victim hiding behind it.

  “And, rolling!”

  No, no, I’m not ready yet.

  “First question. How do you feel about being called the queen of broken hearts?”

  “I—”

  “There’s been complaints that you’re not following through with the promises you made in that big speech you gave the night you were elected. You do remember the speech, don’t you?”

  “I—”

  “And what do you think about the rumors of new competition?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, hadn’t you heard those? Someone else is throwing their hat into the ring. She thinks she can take down the queen of broken hearts. Response?”

  The red light blinked at me. “Stop calling me that.”

  “Calling you what, broken—”

  “Stop it!” I pushed my chair back. “You set me up.” I turned to Mrs. Larue. “They set me up. Can’t you see they set me up?”

  Mrs. Larue squinted at me. “Are you okay, Birdie? Do you need some air? Camera fright is perfectly natural.”

  “I’m not— Stop rolling!” I snatched up my purse. “I can’t do this today.”

  I needed to get the tape. I needed to get the tape before the whole school saw me ambushed by Songbreeze. I grabbed the camera.

  “Birdie!” Mrs. Larue tugged on my arm. “Don’t hurt the equipment!”

  I jammed buttons until a side popped open and I snapped the tape out. “I have to go.”

  “Birdie!”

  I pushed out of the recording studio and into the empty hallways.

  I dug a blond wig out of my backseat and pinned it on before going into Cheesey’s. Cheesey’s is a combination gas station and pizza place that I go to for three reasons. One, no one famous goes there. Two, because nobody famous goes there, no one looks for anyone famous there. Three, it’s the only place where you can buy a greasy hunk of pizza for sixty-nine cents.

  Actually, with my purple dress, heels, and blond hair, I kind of looked like a movie star. Or a hooker. I spotted Annabelle sitting at the table beside the trashcan. That might sound like the worst table, but you have to understand, it’s the only table. She was wearing dark sunglasses that covered half her face and holding a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup that was almost white.

  I stepped up to order. There was never a line. I’d never seen the boy behind the counter before. I figured he must be new. His nametag read “SAM” in bold print, but somebody had added “ANTHA” in pen. “I’ll take a hunk of pizza and a diet Coke.”

  “Two bucks,” he said, not looking up from the register. His black hair flopped over his dark eyes.

  “It was a dollar seventy-nine last time.”

  “Inflation.”

  I hunted down eight quarters in my purse and tossed them on the counter. “Just give me my pizza.”

  “Sure thing, Miss Demanding.” He glanced up. His jaw dropped. “Whoa, overdressed much?”

  “I was doing an interview. You know what? It’s none of your business.”

  He pulled a slice of pizza with a pool of grease around it out of the slightly heated glass bubble, then set a slightly cooled bottle of soda beside it.

  “I said diet.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I liked Keith better. What happened to Keith?”

  “Fired for stealing from the drawer. And I’m pretty sure I like the other customer better than you, which is saying something, since her only words to me were ‘Buzz off.’”

  I wanted to shove my pizza in his face, but that would have been a waste of perfectly good pizza, so I settled for my best glare paired with a smile and a “Thanks, Samantha.”

  “It’s Sam!”

  I grabbed my already soggy Styrofoam plate and bottle of Coke and walked off to sit beside Annabelle. It really wasn’t that far away, but I picked the seat facing away from him to make my point.

  “You can’t even meet me here as yourself?” Annabelle said, waving her hand at my wig. As out-of-the way as Cheesey’s is, I still couldn’t risk someone from school seeing me with Annabelle.

  I took a bite of pizza. If there was anything more delicious than this on the planet, I hadn’t found it yet. It was totally worth the five times it had given me food poisoning. “I felt like being Lola.”

  “You look like a Roxanne. In a bad way.”

  I took a swig of Coke. “I saw Pak this morning.”

  Annabelle shook her head. “I thought he was in France.”

  “So did I.” I chewed my pizza.

  “Are you getting back together?”

  I shook my head.

  Annabelle rapped her black fingernails on the table. “Is he re-enrolling?”

  I swallowed. Grease coated my throat. “Don’t know.”

  “Is he planning something?”

  “Don’t know. I only talked to him for a few minutes. He called me boring, and I left.”

  “You are pretty boring these days. When you’re not stabbing your friends in the back.”

  “About that.” I tore the edges of my Styrofoam plate. “You wouldn’t happen to be plotting against me, would you? Writing on posters, starting nicknames, running for queen, that sort of thing?”

  Annabelle’s lips pursed. I wished I could make out her eyes behind the sunglasses
. “Of course not. You’re the one executing evil plots with your oh-so-funny paintings. Why would you even— Is someone Birdie-ing you?”

  I drew my back straight. “My name is not a verb.”

  “It is in golf. Spill, Birdie.” She leaned forward, animated for the first time. “Is it a takedown?”

  I chugged my Coke.

  Annabelle whistled. “Someone has the balls to take down Birdie Anders. This is the best thing that’s happened since Arrested Development got new episodes.”

  “This is my life, Annabelle.”

  “No, this is high school. Get a grip, Birdie. It’s not like it matters.”

  A year ago, I was sitting at that same table (Keith was working) beside Pak when he asked, “What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever stolen?”

  “A house,” I told him. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m already impressed.”

  I smiled, bubbles rising in my stomach. It might have been happiness. Or food poisoning.

  “What would be bigger than stealing a house?”

  “A skyscraper?”

  “You’re thinking too literal, Birdie.” He took my hand, making my head do spinny circly things. “What if we pull off something really cool, like one of those casino heists in the movies?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think we have the skills to pull that off.”

  “We’ll start small, then. What about a bank?”

  I swiped a leftover cupcake from the fridge when I got home. Only chocolate could cure the mess in my head right now. I could hear Mother and Rob arguing again in the living room.

  “But the Bahamas are terrible this time of year,” Mother said. They never yelled when they argued. Mother only displays emotions that strong when she’s lying, and Rob is just too suave.

  “Think about it,” he said. “You, me, the beach. It would be a romantic getaway. With rings.”

  I gagged on my cupcake. There was only one way for this to end, and it wasn’t well. I crept across the floor until I could peek into the living room. They were standing next to each other, Rob rubbing Mother’s arm. He tried to catch her eye but she stared past him, her flat expression fixed in place.