by Meg Cabot
But it looked like I was going to have to perform one last act of Jen Greenley niceness.
And I was going to have to do it for him. Even if he didn't realize that's why I was doing it.
"Sure," I said gently. "Sure, I'll go to the Spring Fling with you, Luke."
He had looked excited—genuinely excited—at the idea. Of going to the Spring Fling. With me.
The poor guy.
"Cool!" he said, leaping up from the bench. "Look, I'll probably fly back to L.A. after this. . . ." He meant the ringing phone and steady pounding on the door. "But I'll come back next weekend to take you. To the Spring Fling, I mean. Well, really, you'll be taking me, since it's your school and all, but—"
"I'll look forward to it," I said, smiling at his enthusiasm. It reminded me of the time Jake, his character on Heaven Help Us, learned a valuable lesson about helping the homeless, spending his Christmas at a soup kitchen, then came home to find a mountain bike some rich member of his dad's church had bought for him as a reward.
Because, you know, if you help the homeless, of course someone will buy you a mountain bike. Not.
And then the reporters—because that's who'd been knocking at the door, it turns out. Someone had evidently heard about the near-riot at the mall on their police scanner and called the tabloids—came stumbling around the back of the condo, calling Luke's name and snapping our photo as we stood out there on the deck.
That's when we ducked, laughing, back into the house, and when Luke finally sent me home, with the assurance he'd be back next Saturday night to pick me up at seven.
An assurance that Trina, standing on my front porch an hour later, clearly didn't believe.
"No way," she said. "No way. There is no way you are going to the Spring Fling with Luke Striker. No way."
"Fine," I said. "Don't believe me. But about Steve, Trina. What's it gonna be? Because I'm really tired of cleaning up after you every time you dump him."
Trina's face, which was totally normal one second—well, transfixed with rage, but otherwise normal—collapsed the next. Seriously. She just burst into tears.
"How c-could you?" she wailed. "How could you agree to go to the Spring Fling with him, when you know—you know how I feel about him?"
"Trina," I said. "You barely know him. You're not in love with him at all. You're in love with Lancelot. Or Tarzan. Or worse, the kid he played on Heaven Help Us."
Trina threw both her hands up over her face and, sobbing as loudly as Cara Schlosburg ever had, ran from my porch over to hers. When she got there, she yanked open her front door and ran inside, screaming, "Mom!" in a semi-hysterical manner.
A second later, my own mother came out onto our own porch and said worriedly, "What was all that screaming? Was that Trina?"
"Yes," I said miserably.
"What on earth did you say to her?" my mom wanted to know.
"The truth."
Ask Annie
Ask Annie your most complex interpersonal relationship questions.
Go on, we dare you!
All letters to Annie are subject to publication in the Clayton High School Register.
Names and e-mail addresses of correspondents guaranteed confidential.
Dear Annie,
The only thing my dad is interested in is sports. He never paid any attention to me when I was taking ballet and art and stuff, but now I’m on a sports team, it’s like he couldn’t be prouder of me.
But here’s the thing. I totally hate sports. I only tried out for the team to make him happy. I never thought I’d actually get on it. I stuck with it because I figured maybe I’d learn to like it. Didn’t happen. I hate the practices and I hate the games. I want to quit. The only problem is, my Dad says once you’ve accepted a position on a team you can’t quit, because you’ll be letting the team down. I’m thinking, screw the team, I want to get back to ballet. What’s you’re advice, Annie?
Soccer Sucks
Dear Sucks,
Life’s short. The fact you hate the sport so much means there’s no way you’re playing up to your potential. The team would be better off if you quit and they found someone willing to play with heart. Tell your dad that you know he’s trying to teach you good values, but if you don’t try new things, you’ll never know what you’re best at. And you can only make time for new things by quitting the things you KNOW don’t work for you.
Then prepare yourself for the "I’m-very-disappointed-in-you" speech. But don’t worry. He’ll get over it. When he sees you at your first big ballet recital.
Annie
ELEVEN
That dude with the white hair, the one who painted the Campbell's soup cans? Yeah, that one. He said everybody gets fifteen minutes of fame.
Well, he was wrong. Because I got a lot more than a mere fifteen minutes that week after the car wash.
The E! network devoted more than fifteen minutes to the story that first day alone. And you should have seen the various tabloid headlines:
Small Time Town Gets Visit from Big-Time Star
Hunk Undercover!
Luke Goes Local
High School Heartthrob
Stud in Study Hall!
It went on and on. Suddenly, Clayton, Indiana—which you can't even find on most maps—was in the limelight.
Journalists descended upon our little town like those winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. You couldn't turn a corner, it seemed like, without running into Lynda Lopez or Claudia Cohen.
And I'm not going to deny that it wasn't a little cool, at first. Everybody, it seemed like, wanted an exclusive interview with me, the girl who'd shown Luke Striker what it was like to be a real teen.
And when word that Luke and I were going to the Spring Fling together got out, which it did, and plenty fast—I saw Trina on the Style network, telling some reporter, "Yeah, Jen's my best friend. She's going to the Spring Fling with him"—the requests for interviews came rolling in so fast, my dad finally took the phone off the hook.
Because, you know, it wasn't like I could do any of these interviews. I mean, Luke's my friend.
You don't go on TV and talk about your friend.
Oh, sure, when somebody shoved a microphone in front of me as I was getting off the bus to school in the morning or whatever, and went, "Jenny Greenley, was it hard keeping Luke Striker's true identity a secret?" I'd answer them, just to be polite. I'd be like, "No."
Or "Jenny Greenley, can you tell us what you're wearing to the dance?" I was all, "Oh, you know, a dress." (A dress my mom picked up for me at L.S. Ayres, because I couldn't go to the mall for fear of being mobbed by worshipful tweens. Because it turns out if you're going to the Spring Fling with Luke Striker, that kind of makes you a celebrity, too.)
And when I got cornered by this reporter from Teen People, who asked me, "What's the truth about your relationship with Luke Striker? Are you two in love?" I was all, "You know what? We're just really good friends."
Because that was the truth.
But whatever. I wasn't going to sit down for an in-depth chat about Luke with Regis and Kelly (even though, you know, they asked me to, but what—I was going to fly to New York?).
The funniest part about the whole thing was the people at school. They didn't feel the same compunction I did about not talking about Luke to reporters. You should have seen Karen Sue Walters on Fox TV, going on about how Luke had given her tips on her solo in "Day by Day." Yeah, whatever, Karen Sue. I happened to know Luke had said maybe two words to her, and those words had been, "Nice song."
But she was making out like he was her vocal coach or whatever and that this was her ticket to stardom.
Even Mr. Hall got in on the act. He snapped up every interview that came his way and always ended each one with, "And the Troubadours will be performing at the Bishop Luers Show Choir Invitational—that's Bishop Luers—this Friday. Try to stop by!"
Yeah, whatever, Mr. H. I'm sure all of America wants to see the Troubadours warbling out "As Long as He Needs Me
" (I'll Klingon Steadfastly).
Still, it got old pretty fast, the reporter thing. By like the third day, I was over it. I was over Trina's being mad at me, too. She was all, "Oh, Jen's my best friend," to the cameras but totally giving me the cold shoulder in person. It seemed like she couldn't forgive me for a) calling her on the Steve thing, and b) agreeing to go to the Spring Fling with Luke.
There was one other thing she couldn't forgive me for, even though it wasn't my fault. In fact, I had nothing whatsoever to do with it. And that's that Steve—good old dependable Steve—had gotten tired of listening to Trina whine about Luke Striker . . .
. . . and dumped her.
Yeah. Dumped Trina. And told me at lunch—he started eating with us, while Trina stayed in the choir room—that he didn't regret it a bit. He was going to Kwang's Anti-Spring Fling party, and couldn't have been happier to have his freedom at last.
Geri Lynn, though, didn't seem as happy about her decision to give her own soul mate the heave-ho. It wasn't that she was unhappy about having broken up with Scott. It was more like she was unhappy that Scott wasn't more upset about it. Every time I saw her, she started asking me searching questions about Scott. Did I think he liked someone else already? Because she had the feeling he liked someone else, and that's why he hadn't protested at all when she'd dropped the hammer on him. Didn't that mean he must like someone else? Had he said anything to me about it? Not that she cared, but . . .
The truth was, back before that day at Luke's place, I might have coddled Geri along. I might have been all, Why, no, Geri Lynn, he hasn't said anything to me. But I'm sure he's still hurting from the breakup. If you miss him so much, why don't you call him and ask him to come over? You two were so great together, you should really get back together.
No way. Now I just went, "You know what, Geri? You broke up with him. It's over. Move on."
Geri's eyes got all big, and she looked like she was going to cry, so I had to apologize afterward (even though I still didn't say I thought they should get back together).
But she didn't try to talk to me about it anymore. Which was such a relief.
But it was the thing with Cara that really got everybody talking about me. I mean, at first it was just Trina. You know, complaining to anyone who would listen that ever since I'd gotten asked to the Spring Fling by Luke Striker, I'd "changed."
Then, after what I said to Geri about moving on, she started in on it, too. What's wrong with Jen? Is Jen okay? She's acting so strangely. . . .
Nobody came right out and said it in front of me, but I knew it was happening. Voices fell silent whenever I walked into the ladies' room, a sure sign I'd been the topic of conversation.
And at the lunch table, people steered far from the subject weighing most heavily on everyone's minds Luke Striker.
The only person at school who treated me at all normally anymore—well, besides Mr. Hall, who still yelled at me about my jazz hands—was Scott. Scott went on being the same old Scott, taking over whenever he didn't like what I was doing with the layout of the paper, helping me pick out which Ask Annie letters to print, making fun of whatever book I'd most recently loaned him, offering me bites of his homemade tortellini with four-cheese sauce at lunchtime.
Scott was still just . . . Scott.
Even my parents were treating me differently I don't know if it was on account of knowing I'd been invited to a school dance—the first time this had ever happened—or if it was who had invited me. In any case, suddenly they started treating me as if I were closer to their age than to Cal's or Rick's. For instance, my dad asked me when I wanted to go down to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get my learner's permit, something he'd never once brought up before, for fear, I'd always been sure, that he might actually have to get into a car with me behind the wheel.
My mom, meanwhile, surprised me by saying one morning over her corn flakes, as if I were a friend of hers and not her daughter, "I wish you'd ask Cara Schlosburg to go to the movies or something with you, Jenny. Her mother was telling me at the Y yesterday that Cara's been very down lately. She even asked her parents if they'd look into getting her a transfer to the girls' military academy over in Culver next fall."
Military academy! Cara? I was shocked. I mean, I didn't blame Cara for wanting to go to school someplace where people wouldn't moo at her.
But military school? Clayton High is bad, but not as bad as military school.
Or was it?
All I knew for sure was that, if it was, it wasn't going to be that way for long.
I knew I didn't have any time to lose, so I didn't procrastinate. I walked up to Cara at lunch the very day my mom mentioned the Culver thing and asked, "What are you doing after school today?"
Cara had been nibbling on a lettuce leaf, pretending that was all she was going to eat for lunch. I knew, of course, that she had a locker full of Little Debbie snack cakes and that she'd be chowing down on them as soon as she thought no one was looking. I'd walked by and seen her doing it.
She looked up at me and went, "Me?" Then she glanced behind her, as if to make sure I was really speaking to her and not someone else. "Um. Nothing. Why?"
"Because I need to talk to you about something," I said. "Can I come over to your house?"
She looked as shocked as I'd felt when my mom had dropped the bomb about Culver. A wave of guilt washed over me when I realized that I was probably the first person—ever—to ask Cara if I could come over to her house.
"You want to come over to my house?" Now Cara looked suspicious, as if she thought I might be playing a trick on her. "What for?"
"I told you," I said. "I need to talk to you about something. What bus do you take?"
"Number thirty-five," Cara said. "It leaves from school at three ten. But—"
"See you at three ten," I said. And I turned around to go back to my table.
"Wait a minute." Cara's face was slowly turning red. I guess because she was starting to realize how many people had been observing our conversation I am, after all, going to the Spring Fling with Luke Striker You could say that I attract a certain amount of attention from my peers everywhere I go. "Are you sure . . . are you sure this isn't some kind of mistake?"
"I'm sure," I said. And walked away.
I had to skip my after-school Register meeting in order to fit Cara into my schedule, but I figured the paper could get along without me for one day Cara, I knew, needed me more.
As soon as I got to her house, I saw that my job was going to be easier than I'd imagined. That's because it turned out Cara lived in a totally normal house—not a trailer, with moonshine-mixing parents, as was rumored—but a blue-gray split-level with white gingerbread trim and potted geraniums along the driveway.
Mrs. Schlosburg, who greeted us at the door with a plate of still warm-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies (Cara had obviously called ahead to warn her mother that she was bringing home a guest), was an attractive woman in a Talbots sweater—no missing teeth, no pack-a-day habit, as had been rumored—who went out of her way to make me feel welcome I should've figured as much, seeing how she belongs to the same aquasize class set my mother does. She kept asking me if there was anything I wanted—anything at all—and letting me know I was totally welcome to stay for dinner.
I could perfectly understand Mrs. Schlosburg's enthusiasm. Being the girl-next-door type, I am very much a favorite among the parental set. It's sickening but true.
But Mrs. Schlosburg had no idea that it wasn't the girl next door she was dealing with. Oh, no.
The first thing I did when Cara showed me to her room—which was every bit as frilly as my own—was fling open her closet door and pull out all the capri pants that I found hanging there.
"What are you doing?" Cara asked curiously.
"I once told you to be yourself," I said. "And you told me you don't know who that is. Well, I'm going to show you. Go wash your hair."
Cara just stared at me. "But—"
"Go get in the sho
wer."
"But—"
"Do it."
Somewhat to my surprise, Cara did as I told her. I had to hand it to Luke. For a guy I couldn't figure out to save my life, he'd sure figured out me. I was a natural born leader. It was like in my blood or something.
I was still going through her closet, nibbling on the chocolate chip cookies Mrs. Schlosburg had brought me, when Cara emerged from the bathroom in a towel, her hair curling damply around her face.
She looked from me to the mounting pile of clothes on her bed.
"What are you doing?" she wanted to know.
"These you may wear to school," I said, indicating the things I'd left hanging in her closet. Most of them were what my mom would call fashion classics—some button-down shirts, a jeans skirt, a few sweaters, a couple of pairs of flat-front khakis—darker shades only—black jeans, a pair of Nike's, some clogs, a cute pair of platform sandals, and a few A-line skirts.
"These," I said, gesturing to the three-foot pile of capri pants, miniskirts, halter tops, cargo pants, and low-riders—clothes my mom would have labeled as trendy—"you should really give to Goodwill. I know Courtney and those guys wear clothes like these. But just because something is in style doesn't mean it's right for you. It's more important to look good than to look fashionable."
Cara stared at me. "But isn't that the same thing?"
I could see we had a long road ahead of us.
After that, it was time to work on Cara's hair. I had spent enough time around Trina—who dyes her own locks every chance she gets—to know what a difference mousse and a few well-placed highlights could do. I decided—since Cara said she didn't know—that she should go auburn. Not red. Nothing too flashy. Just a deep, interesting, Mary-Jane-from-Spider-Man auburn.
I hadn't come armed only with beauty products, of course. I knew I couldn't just give Cara a makeover and call it a day. I had also brought over some of my favorite books and DVDs, including the later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of Cara's problems had always seemed to me to be that she wasn't the world's best conversationalist. You can't blame her, really, since the only people she ever hung around—not that they ever actually spoke to her, but whatever—were girls like Courtney Deckard, who talk more about things—apres sun cream, the Zone—than ideas. Boring.