Mission (Un)Popular

by Anna Humphrey

  “Right,” I’d overheard Michelle Cobbs say to her friend Bethany, while I was getting my books from my locker. “My aunt lives in New York, so I’m close personal friends with K.wack’ed, too.” In the reflection of my locker mirror I could see Bethany roll her eyes in agreement. “I don’t know if that girl is a lesbian or not, and I don’t really care,” Michelle went on, “but one thing is for sure. She’s a fake. You can just tell.”

  Unfortunately, Em’s outfit choice for the day wasn’t doing anything to divert attention. She was wearing baggy jeans, a tight vintage T-shirt with a picture of Bambi on it, a huge gold belt, and spike-heeled boots. It looked good, don’t get me wrong—like something straight out of CosmoGirl—but she definitely stood out in the hallway full of hoodie sweatshirts and Converse sneakers.

  “Make sure to ask your mom tonight if you can sleep over, okay?” She took a bite of her trademark Whole Foods sandwich.

  “I’ll see if I can find you something to wear.” She glanced at my clothes—a pair of jeans, my Converse knockoffs, and a blue V-neck sweater. I knew I didn’t exactly look runway-ready, but honestly, it had seemed good enough when I’d picked it out that morning. My pants were even long enough. “Also, you’re probably right,” she said, looking out across the yard. “We need to work on making more friends between now and then. What about those volleyball wannabes to start?”

  Michelle Cobbs, Bethany, and their two friends Brayden and Cynthia were coming across the yard. “Hi, Michelle,” Em called out as they got closer—as if they were already friends, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. If Em hadn’t been ignoring me that morning, I could have told her what Michelle had said about her being a fake, but it was too late now.

  “Hi,” Michelle said coolly, glancing at Em’s boots.

  “Oh. Do you like?” With her legs still crossed, Em swung one leg up in the air to show off the spiked heel.

  “Um,” Michelle answered, “they’re definitely tall.” Her friends snickered.

  “Yeah, well, we’re not all lucky enough to have your height,” Em said, in an actually sweet way. “Some of us have to fake it.” You could tell Michelle was taken off guard by the way she stopped chewing her gum for a second.

  “Hey. What size are you?” Em asked. “Want to try them on?” She was already undoing one zipper.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think so,” Michelle answered.

  “You look like a seven. Try!” Em said, holding them up. “They’re Manolo Blahniks.”

  Michelle didn’t really react, but that definitely caught the attention of an eighth grade girl with dark curly hair who was walking past with her group of friends. “Did you just say you had Manolo Blahniks—like from Sex and the City?”

  Em nodded.

  That made Michelle pause. After all, anybody who knew anything about shoes—and even most people who didn’t—knew that those were crazy expensive. “They’re not that hard to walk in. I’ll teach you.” Em held them out to Michelle again.

  “Can I try them on after you?” the eighth grade girl asked.

  Em got up in her sock feet and handed the boots to Michelle.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Michelle said, but she sat down on the bench and checked the label before pulling them on.

  “Where did you get those?” the eighth grader asked.

  “They’re my mom’s,” Em said. “She’s a soap opera actress, so she goes to these fancy parties all the time. Plus, she only wears heels. Even to the grocery store.”

  Michelle finished doing up the zippers and stood, teetering a little.

  “What do you think, Margot?” Em asked.

  The truth was, Michelle was usually so sporty that she looked kind of weird in such girly boots—like she was dressing up as a sexy vampire for Halloween but had forgotten the top two-thirds of her costume. Also, she was already so tall that the four-inch heels made her tower above the rest of us—but since Em seemed serious about inviting them to this party, I could tell that wasn’t what I was supposed to say.

  “They look hot,” I said instead. “Except”—I crouched down and unzipped one boot—“you should tuck your jeans into them.” I’d seen that in CosmoGirl. To my amazement, Michelle bent over, unzipped the second boot, and tried it. And to my even bigger amazement, it looked way better. Even Em seemed impressed.

  “Try walking,” Em said, holding out one arm to steady Michelle, while I took the other side.

  “Oh my God, how do you do this?” Michelle asked, laughing a little as she toppled into Em.

  “Heel first, then toe,” Em instructed. “Small steps. It’s practically the first thing you learn in modeling school. And let your hips sway when you walk. That’s the whole point.” Michelle tried it and got a high-pitched whistle and catcall from Ken, who was watching with George from across the yard. She ignored it, but Em didn’t.

  “Sorry, guys, but she’s way out of your league,” she shouted back.

  Michelle grinned as she sat down on the bench to pull the boots off. “I think I could get used to high heels,” she said, handing them back to Em. “I mean, not every day, but they’re kind of cool.” I couldn’t tell if she felt bad for what she’d said about Em in the hallway, but at the very least, she was pretending it had never happened, which counted for something.

  As the week went on, some of the other people who weren’t so sure about Em also seemed to be coming around.

  “Okay,” George said, turning in his seat when Em and I sat down on Friday morning in English class, “if you can answer these three questions, I’ll believe you: where did Shane Marlowe grow up? What was the name of his first band? And what was the first city on their second North American tour?”

  Em tapped one foot in the air. She had on a pair of tan knee-high boots that had square heels.…Still high, but not as treacherous as the stilettos she’d worn the day before.

  “George?” She hesitated. “Your name is George, right?” He nodded. “Look, I have nothing to prove to you. Anyway, anybody could look up that stuff online. Either believe me or don’t. I don’t care.”

  George seemed to think about that for a second, but didn’t give up. “Like, how well would you say you know them?” he pressed.

  “Put it this way: they came to our house for Thanksgiving last year. Jump.U.P. ate like, all the cranberries. K.wack’ed used to come to my jazz recitals when I was little. Of course, that was before he was famous. He’s got this ring with twelve yellow diamonds in the shape of a pineapple.” George nodded. He obviously knew the one. “Once when he was over, it fell off and we found it between the couch cushions. My dad had to send it back to him in an armored vehicle. To thank us, the next day he sent a plasma TV.” George stared at her in wonder. “Margot met him too,” she said. I looked up. “At a pool party for our modeling class this summer. He stopped by. He’s so nice, right?” She turned to me.

  I nodded. “Yeah,” I added lamely, wondering why she couldn’t at least warn me in advance when she was going to drag me into these things. “And he had a really nice bathing suit.”

  “Now, please,” Em said to George, “I didn’t finish reading the homework chapter yet.” George turned to face the front, and I looked over at her, a little bit baffled, but mostly impressed. I wished someone would give my family a plasma TV.

  Em still hadn’t told me exactly what her dad was planning to send us for the party, but if it had anything to do with SubSonic, and if things kept going the way they had been…maybe it was possible.…Next Saturday. Our party. I took out my agenda, flipped ahead a week, and wrote it in. Then, while the class settled into their desks and Mr. Learner arranged his things at the front, I came up with a new School Year’s resolution. After all, why would anyone settle for being normal when they could Get noticed. In a big way? Things were definitely starting to change.

  17

  I Learn How to (sort of) Legally Acquire a Swamp Water Slurpee

  UNFORTUNATELY, MY newfound kind-of popularity
at school didn’t do a thing to change my bizarre home life.

  “Hi, Margot!” Kathy Malloy—one of my mom’s clients—was stepping out of the tarot reading room when I got home. “I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s school going?”

  “Great.” I smiled. For once it was true. “How was your reading?”

  “The Ace of Wands came up today,” she said. “It’s a good sign. Your mom thinks I’m on the right track with my idea to start a feng shui landscaping and shrubbery business.” She swept her hand in front of her so I could picture the words.

  “I’m thinking of calling it Yin Yang Yard.”

  I had no idea who in Darling, Ontario, was going to buy feng shui shrubs, but still, I was honestly very happy for her…at least until I showed her out, and my mom opened the reading room door and totally ruined my good mood.

  “Oh, Margot,” she said, “while you’re babysitting, could you help the girls pack some toys to bring in the van for the trip to the Finklemans’?”

  “We’re going to the Finklemans’?”

  “Yes,” she said, like she was surprised I didn’t know. “For the reunion tomorrow.”

  “That’s not tomorrow!” I couldn’t even hide the horror in my voice.

  “It’s always two weekends after Labor Day,” she answered. “I reminded you yesterday.”

  “You didn’t remind me!” I whined. “You so did not.”

  “Well,” she answered apologetically, “I meant to, then. I’m reminding you now.”

  “What if I have plans?” I didn’t, actually, unless you counted window shopping online for new pants and high-heeled boots. But I still didn’t want to go.

  Every year Bald Boring Bryan’s family has this big reunion picnic in Blumeford. They roast an entire pig with the head still on. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it. Also, Bryan’s mom, Dotty, has T-shirts or ball caps specially made for everyone, and we have to wear them so we don’t hurt her feelings. Last year’s T-shirt said “It’s Fantastic Being a Finkleman.” I almost died. Plus, everyone just spends the whole time going ga-ga over the triplets…marveling at the way they know how to clap their hands or roll a ball, like they’re the first babies on earth to attempt such feats of amazingness. And nobody ever knows what to say to me besides, “How’s school, Margot?”

  “Plus, I have so much homework. I have a five-hundredword essay due on Monday. And anyway, remember how much fun we had last year?”

  Dotty had basically forced us to eat pieces of pig by saying it was a delicacy and that she’d bought it fresh from a hog farmer she went to high school with.…And, since we hardly ever eat meat, and also because it was disgusting, it was enough to make my mom and me both throw up in the Porta Potties.

  Mom’s forehead wrinkled. I held my breath, waiting for it. This would, of course, be the part where she’d tell me we had to try our best to be good sports about it, because it meant a lot to Bryan. For some reason, though, she didn’t bother.

  “Okay, Margot,” she said. “If you really feel you’d rather stay home and do your homework, I understand. You don’t have to come with us.” The doorbell rang just then—my mom’s next tarot client.

  “Really?” I said, but I didn’t actually want her to answer that, so I quickly added, “Thanks,” then backed out of the room quietly. I even waited until I was safely out of her sight before doing a little victory dance.

  The next morning, as Mom and Bryan got the triplets ready, I lounged around in my pajamas, window shopping online and enjoying the morning. An hour later, I heard the van pull out of the driveway. According to the clock on my computer it was only 10:15. I couldn’t believe they were going already. But what I couldn’t believe even more was that they hadn’t said good-bye.

  I muttered under my breath as I stomped to the front window to watch them pull out. Nobody even looked up or noticed me standing there. They braked just before the street while Bryan adjusted the rearview mirror, and my mom turned to say something to the triplets. She laughed, pushed a button on the radio, and they drove off.

  This just went to prove my point: I wasn’t part of Bryan’s family. Not at all. And since the day Bryan showed up, I was barely part of my own family. No wonder Mom had been so quick to let me stay home. She didn’t want me there anyway.

  I sulked into the living room, where I watched an infomercial for a miraculous food dehydrator that could dehydrate anything: meat, fruit, vegetables. They even showed how you could make your own raisins out of grapes. How convenient is that? When it ended I wandered into the kitchen, ate some Organic Oaty-O’s, and put the bowl in the sink. I went to the window. I looked out. I watched a bird landing on different branches. I half squashed an ant that was crawling along the windowsill, then felt terrible and tried to nurse it back to health by giving it drops of water to drink. I accidentally drowned it, then gave it a decent burial in a potted plant. I took a shower and did my ten-step hair routine. Then I bleached my mustache, holding my breath practically the entire time for the smell. When I was done, I sat on my bed, picking at one of the butterflies on my quilt and looking at the clock, waiting for the numbers to change. When I’d watched four full minutes go by, I decided this was dumb and grabbed my house keys. If there was nothing to do at home, I could at least leave, even if I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going.

  It was a nice day, so I walked to the park at the end of my street, thinking I’d swing on the swings. But when I got there, there were all kinds of little kids, and I would have felt too stupid, so I just kept going.

  Then I thought I could go to the coffee shop. But I realized I’d only end up thinking about Erika and feeling depressed, so I kept walking. As I approached downtown Darling, the bungalows and tacky split-levels gradually gave way to nicer brick houses, until I was solidly in rich people territory. Eventually I realized I was going in the direction of Lakeshore, where I’d probably meant to go all along. Soon I was strolling past towering stone mansions with perfect lawns and three-car garages.

  The turret house was the biggest of the big—right on the corner of Lakeshore and Miles Crescent. My heart started beating a little faster as I walked up to the giant wooden door and reached for the bell. I waited for it to finish singing its elaborate doorbell song, half expecting a butler in a suit to answer, but instead it was this lady who looked about ten years younger than my mom, wearing a regular-looking white bathrobe—Em’s mom, obviously. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting—big hair, tons of makeup, and a huge tumbler full of gin, maybe?—but if I hadn’t already known, I never would have guessed she was a soap star.

  “Yes?” she said, as if my existence was inconveniencing her.

  “Um. Hi,” I answered. “I’m Em’s friend. Is she here?”

  “Oh.” Her face got friendlier. “I thought you were a disadvantaged child selling chocolate. Come in.” She stepped aside. The hallway had marble floors, stained glass lamps, and two giant arrangements of real flowers. If I had been selling chocolate (I glanced down at my dirty discount-store shoes and frayed jeans. Did I honestly look that disadvantaged?), this would have been a good place to come. They obviously had cash.

  “Emily,” she called up the massive, curved staircase. “You’ve got a friend waiting.” She ran one hand lightly over her hair, then looked me up and down.

  “So, you go to Emily’s school?” she said. “Is she fitting in there?” It was such a strange and direct thing to ask that I wasn’t sure how to answer at first. Did she want Em to fit in, considering I was the kind of kid who went there? “She’s making friends,” I said. “She’s definitely got a way with people.”

  “Well, that’s one way to put it.” Em’s mom smiled coolly. “Emily!” she called again.

  Em came down the stairs a few seconds later. Her hair was sticking out in about twenty different directions, and she was wearing sweatpants. She looked surprised to see me. “You just dropped by?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “No. That’s cool.�
�� She shrugged. “That’s so small town.”

  I shrugged back. “You never gave me your phone number.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Right. Well.” She hiked up her sweatpants, which were falling off her hips.

  “Emily, those look awful. I thought I told you to throw them out,” her mom said.

  “They’re comfortable,” Em shot back, returning her mom’s stern look with identical green eyes.

  “Give me a sec, okay?” she said to me. Her mom turned and walked into the next room without saying good-bye, and Em ran back up the stairs, leaving me in the huge hallway alone. A minute later I heard the sound of Em’s feet on the stairs. The baggy sweatpants had been replaced with dark-wash jeans and a tight black sweater. Her hair was completely styled in its usual perfectly messy way. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Go where?” I asked.

  “Wherever that’s not here.”

  I glanced into the other room. “Should we tell your mom we’re going out?”

  Em shrugged. “She’ll figure it out when we’re not here.” She noticed the look of surprise on my face. “Oh, fine.” She yelled very loudly in no particular direction: “Debbie. We’re going out.”

  “Have fun,” her mom shouted back.

  Em locked the door behind her, then looked at me. “Pick a direction.”

  “Okay. North,” I answered.

  “Great,” she said. “Which way is north?”

  “No idea,” I admitted.

  “How about this way, then?” Em turned right, and we started walking.

  “So,” I said when we’d walked for a while, “your mom kind of looks like you.”

  “Ew,” Em retorted.

  “I mean, except that she’s old.”

  “She’s not that old. And she still looks good. I mean, she has no trouble getting parts. But she barely even looks like herself anymore. Half of her is made of silicone.”