by Lara Zielin
“This is fun,” my mom said. “I just want to make the most of it.”
I sat next to her and dug into the ice cream. “So did you ever pine for Dad the way Marianne pines for Willoughby?”
My mom smiled. “Not even close. It was the other way around, really.”
“Yeah?” I’d never heard much dirt on my mom and dad’s premarriage relationship.
“Yes. You know your dad showed up on my doorstep day after day, juggling?”
My spoon clanked against my bowl. “Juggling? For real?”
My mom nodded. “Cross my heart. He was in my advanced economics class and asked me on a date. I said no. So then he said he was going to show up on my porch every night juggling until I said yes.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “How long did you make him juggle?”
My mom wouldn’t look at me. “Thirty days.”
Ice cream nearly went up my nose. “Thirty days? Are you kidding? That’s so long!”
“I know! It’s terrible, isn’t it? But I married him. And we had you. So it all worked out.”
Well. It was nice of her to say that. My mom reached out to tuck some of my hair behind my ear. “You’re such a lovely girl,” she said. “I bet you’d have lots of dates, too, if you’d just—” She seemed to catch herself.
I pulled my head back. “What?”
“Nothing,” my mom said. “You want to get back to the movie?”
“No,” I said. “Tell me. I’d have lots of dates, if I just what?”
My mom took a breath. “I was just thinking you look so nice now without all that makeup on. That’s all. And your skin would glow if you wore brighter clothes.”
My mom couldn’t go five minutes without criticizing me. My temper flared. “I thought you were worried about me banging every boy in the junior class. More dates would add to that, wouldn’t it? I mean, since I’m such a slut anyway.”
“Aggie,” my mom said, her voice switching instantly to principal-speak, “that’s not what I meant. I’m trying to help you. But you’re always pushing me away.”
“You’re not trying to help me,” I said. “You’re trying to help yourself.”
My mom set her ice cream bowl down so hard I thought it would break. “If I only cared about myself, I’d let you run around looking like one of Satan’s minions and not ever say a word. But, Aggie, be logical. I know this isn’t you. The reasons you have for being tough and Goth—they aren’t valid.”
I clenched my hands so I wouldn’t reach out and throw something against the wall. “Oh, and what reasons would those be?” I asked. “Please. Enlighten me.”
My mom stared at me for a second. “This is clearly a protection strategy. It’s also a way to rebel.”
Her words went deeper than I wanted them to. “Good thing you got a PhD so you could figure that out,” I said. “You think the school will give you an award for being principal and mom of the year?”
My mom didn’t even flinch. “Ultimately this strategy will fail you, Aggie. It’s disingenuous to who you really are, and if you’re using it to protect yourself from being hurt, it won’t work. That much I know.”
A wave of pain crashed over me unexpectedly. I fought to keep it from sweeping me away. My mom was right. Since going Goth, I had been hurt—but not by the people I thought could crush me, like Tiffany Holland. Instead, I’d been hurt by the people I loved and trusted. First Neil, now Sylvia.
I looked at my mom and wished I could tell her about Sylvia dumping me. She had been my rock. She was the person who always knew what to do next. Where did I go without her?
“I know how you feel,” my mom said. “I understand what you’re going through. It’s not uncommon for young women your age.”
In the space of a second, I was back to being something out of a textbook.
“Don’t fool yourself,” I snapped. “You think you know me because you studied kids in college or whatever, but I’m not a theory. I’m a person. And you have no clue what’s going on with me. So don’t even pretend.”
I stood up and headed to my room. I thought my mom would try to stop me, but she didn’t. She just stayed there on the couch looking small and wounded. I told myself to be happy I’d rattled her. I told myself I’d won. Except I didn’t feel very victorious when I closed my door and threw myself down on the bed.
Chapter Eighteen
MONDAY, APRIL 20 / 6:48 A.M.
Monday morning, I rolled out of bed and groaned. I dragged myself to the shower and let the hot water run until my skin turned pink and wrinkled.
“Ag, don’t be late!” my dad called as I dried off. I rolled my eyes. Not only would I be late, but there was a good chance I might not go to school altogether. I didn’t want to see Sylvia. I sure as hell didn’t want to see Beth. And I didn’t want to face the prom madness that would be inflaming the halls, since today was the day we’d finally vote for the king and queen.
I put on my makeup slowly, taking my time. You have to go, I told myself as I applied lipstick the color of dead leaves. If Sylvia wasn’t the one who hated you and this was someone else, she’d tell you to get your ass to school and act like nothing was the matter. The minute you don’t show up, you show weakness.
God, she wasn’t even my friend anymore and I could still hear her in my head. I wondered if the sound of her voice would fade the longer we were apart. And then, if I didn’t hear Sylvia’s voice, whose would I hear? I could hear my own, I thought, as I pulled on a black T-shirt. Except for the fact that I wasn’t sure what that sounded like.
I was throwing the last of my stuff together when I saw my cell phone blinking. I grabbed it and looked at the list of missed texts. There were twenty of them.
Almost all of them were for the prom, telling me who to vote for. RYAN IZ THE BEST MAKE HIM KNG!!! Or MARISSA MENDEZ DSRVS THE CROWN!! Ryan, Marissa, Tiffany, Ty—it was spam from all the usual suspects. I was going through the messages, deleting them one by one, until I saw a different cluster of texts.
ST. DAVIS CHESS CLUB IS BEHIND SYLVIA NESS! CHANGE WE CAN BLEVE IN!
A few messages down was another.
GIVE SYLVIA A CHANCE! SHAKE IT UP FOR THIS YRS PROM!
I sat down on the edge of my bed. Sylvia had significant prom support at school. The groundswell was real. “Well, strap on a keg and call me a Saint Bernard,” I said, borrowing a phrase my Grandma Lou Belle used to use. I stood up and grabbed my bag. There was no way I was going to miss school now.
I was almost out the door when my phone rang. I half expected it to be Sylvia, since this was around the time we’d text or call each other most days. Instead, I looked at the caller ID and froze. It was Neil.
I snapped open the phone. “What?” I hoped I sounded tough, even though I could swear my heart was melting.
“I need to talk to you. I’ve been texting and e-mailing. Why didn’t you get back to me?”
“Get back to you about what?” I asked, my voice cold. “What could you possibly have to say that I want to hear?”
Neil took a breath. “I want to get back together. For real. No more back and forth. I love you, and I want to be with you.”
I almost dropped the phone. My hands were trembling.
“Are you there?” Neil asked after a little while.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
“Come over Friday. We’ll talk about it. Just you and me. I miss you, Ag. I really do.”
Neil was saying all the right words, so why wasn’t I feeling relief?
“Friday when?”
“Late. So we can be alone.”
So we can be alone or so no one will see us? I wondered. “Um. I don’t know.”
“Aggie, I’m serious. Things will be different after this. You’ll see. I love you so much. Please. Come over. I need to see you.” His voice was velvety and earnest. I closed my eyes and could already feel his arms around me. After getting dumped by Sylvia, the thought of being close to Neil sounded like heaven. If he was te
lling the truth, that is.
“If you’re fucking with me—”
“I’m not. I swear. Just come over on Friday. I’ll see you at midnight. Okay?”
I exhaled. “Okay. Fine.”
“I love you, Ag.”
I snapped the phone shut before I let myself say anything back.
When I stepped through the front doors of school, the energy in the hallways was palpable. I headed to my locker staring at the signs that had gone up, sometime over the weekend, in support of Sylvia. They were everywhere.
DEBATE TEAM AGREES THERE’S NOTHING TO SAY OTHER THAN VOTE FOR SYLVIA!
OUTCASTS UNITE! VOTE FOR SYLVIA NESS!
WHO SAYS QUEENS DON’T WEAR BLACK? CAST YOUR BALLOT FOR SYLVIA!
Not one of them was in Sylvia’s handwriting, which told me she’d probably never started campaigning for queen. The support had just simmered on its own from people who thought it was time to crown someone who wasn’t skinny and pretty and popular.
Jess found me in the hallway and just about ran me over. “Okay, so you won’t believe this. You just won’t.”
“What?”
“Marissa Mendez has a black eye.”
I arched a brow. “What from?”
“From Tiffany Holland.”
“What? How do you know this?”
Jess smiled. “Well, first of all, I saw her. And oh man, is her eye six shades of disgusting. Then some people near my locker were saying it happened because Tiffany finally found out Marissa was screwing her boyfriend. I guess they had it out over the weekend at Jefferson Talbot’s.”
I slowed my pace. Jefferson’s. He’d had a party, and I hadn’t been there. It made sense, I supposed. Now that Sylvia and I weren’t friends, I wouldn’t have an in to his parties. And even though I knew neither Sylvia nor I were really his friends, the reality of it smarted.
“Well, let the divas in the school duke it out,” I said, reaching my locker. “What do we care, right?”
“That’s just it,” Jess said. “The divas are duking it out. It looks terrible. It’s sad and desperate, and who wants to vote for that? If there wasn’t already enough support for Sylvia, there will be now.” She paused for a second. “What’s your deal? I thought you’d be happy. Sylvia could actually win this.”
“Yeah, well, Sylvia sort of hates me right now,” I said. “It’s hard to be happy for someone who tells you to stay away from her.”
Jess’s face fell. “Are you serious? When did this happen?”
I shrugged and grabbed a few books. “She told me last week that it wasn’t the best time for her to be hanging with the principal’s kid.”
Jess’s blue eyes widened. “What? Why?”
“I have no idea. She also told me she didn’t appreciate how I’d talked about R—” I stopped short before I said his name out loud. Sylvia might hate me, but there was no way I was going to blab who her baby daddy was.
Jess leaned in. “Talked about who?”
“No one. Never mind.”
Jess eyed me. “You sure about that?”
“Yes. Leave it alone.”
“Okay,” Jess said. “Consider it left.”
“See you in fencing later, okay?”
Jess nodded. “Sure. See you.”
Chapter Nineteen
MONDAY, APRIL 20 / 8:20 A.M.
The pressure cooker of my emotions all but exploded when Mr. Otts handed out the prom ballots.
“Okay, same drill,” he said, walking between seats. “Out of the six people on the prom court, pick one male and one female for king and queen. If you write down two people of the same sex, or if you leave one of the lines blank, your vote will be disqualified.”
He dropped the prom ballot onto my desk. It was orange. It was rectangular. With two blank lines on it. The same kind of paper Sylvia had been pulling from her car last Friday.
Fitz kicked my shoe. “Are you okay?” he whispered.
I shook my head. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t speak. What the hell was going on? How had Sylvia managed to get her hands on an entire box of blank prom ballots? And more importantly—why?
“Come on, Winchester,” Mr. Otts said. “Let’s do this. I need your vote.”
I scratched two ‘X’s onto the paper and dropped it into the bag. Mr. Otts moved on, weaving in and out of seats, collecting strips of orange paper.
I put my head in my hands and tried to breathe normally. There wasn’t a reason on earth I could think of for Sylvia to have a box of orange prom ballots that didn’t include cheating. And if that were the case—if Sylvia was somehow screwing with the election—I couldn’t just let it slide. Not while everyone else was campaigning and trying to win the election on the up and up. I hated being such a Girl Scout about the whole thing, but what Sylvia was doing wasn’t cool—and it wasn’t right.
I gathered my thoughts and sorted out my options. I couldn’t tell my mom, that was for sure; otherwise, everything Tiffany Holland had ever said about me being a principal’s bitch would be true. But I could still tell someone about seeing Sylvia with all the blank ballots, right? Or I figured I could also confront Sylvia about it directly, or I could tell myself it was just a stupid prom and I should let it slide.
Just then, another option presented itself when Jefferson Talbot showed up at our door. He was the student council representative who was supposed to round up all the ballots for counting. He seemed like the right person to mention this to. Not a teacher, but not just a random student, either. Of course, I had no clue what I’d say to him, but I still had a couple seconds to figure that out.
After Jefferson left, I dashed over to where Mr. Otts was sitting. “Can I have the bathroom pass, please?”
“Sure,” he said, barely looking up. I grabbed the laminated square and trotted out of the room. I caught a glimpse of Jefferson turning the corner at the end of the hallway and broke into a jog to catch up with him. I was almost to the end of the hall when, of all people, Sylvia came from out of nowhere and barreled into me.
“Jesus,” she cried as our torsos crashed. I stumbled, and Sylvia fell.
“Oh my God,” I said, thinking of her baby. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, getting to her feet. As she did, her oversized army surplus bag, stuffed to the core, spilled its contents. A mess of smaller bags—all of them glittery with faux fur—and orange ballots scattered onto the floor.
“What the hell,” she said, sweeping up the ballots and bags. “Watch where you’re going.”
My chest hurt from where we’d smacked together. I watched her scrambling for a second before my brain clicked into gear.
“What are you doing with those?” I asked.
“None of your damn business,” she replied, still not looking at me. Once she had collected all the orange paper and the bags, she stood up and started walking away.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing her arm, “where are you going?”
She shook me off. “Don’t touch me.” She finally met my eyes. Her expression was a mix of fear and anger; her whole body was trembling.
“Sylvia, what’s going on?” I lowered my voice. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she said. Her chest was heaving. “You never saw me here, got it? If I hear you ever tell anyone about this, I will come after you and beat you until you’re paralyzed. Understand?”
A revelatory white light exploded in my head. I suddenly knew why Sylvia didn’t want to be friends with me. She was stuffing the prom’s ballot boxes so she could win the election, and she was worried that, if I found out, I’d tell my mom on her.
“Whatever you’re doing,” I said, “just stop it now. It won’t work.”
“What won’t work, Ag? You think you know something?” She started walking away again.
“Sylvia—”
She cut me off by flipping me the bird, then turned the corner and disappeared.
Without wasting another second, I ran the other way and tried
to catch Jefferson. Sylvia might threaten to beat me senseless, but I couldn’t let her go rigging the election. I wove through hallways and peeked into classrooms until, finally, I spotted Jefferson in Mrs. Wagner’s office, handing off several bags of ballots.
“Hey!” I cried. “Wait!” I didn’t make it in time. Jefferson stepped out of the office and closed the door.
“Can I do something for you?” he asked.
“The ballots,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “You can’t let Mrs. Wagner count them.”
Jefferson studied me. “Excuse me?”
“They’re wrong. I think they’ve been tampered with.”
He gave me a small smile. “You think our electoral system has been compromised? I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”
“Cut the shit,” I said. “I’m serious. We need to go look at the ballots. I think Sylvia Ness swapped them out just now.”
Jefferson’s smile vanished. “You don’t say.”
“I do say. I just saw her in the hallway with a mess of orange paper. I don’t know, but I had to tell someone. I mean, I saw her with a box of blank ballots last week, except at the time I had no idea they—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Jefferson said, putting an arm around me. “Easy there, Tex. It’s no big deal. I’ll go in and talk to Mrs. Wagner, if you want.”
I squirmed out from underneath his arm. “You will?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll go in and make sure the ballots are legit. You head back to class. If you don’t hear from me, assume everything is on the up and up.”
“And if I do hear from you?”
“Either way, my guess is that you won’t hear dick. If I go into that office and it turns out things aren’t on the up and up, then this school is going to get whipped into a conspiratorial frenzy faster than you can say coronation.”
I nodded. It all sounded right. But then Jefferson just stood there with his hands in his pockets—rocking on his heels like everything was so chill—and I suddenly had the feeling that Jefferson was really good at making people believe things were under control even when they weren’t.