A Match Made in High School

by Kristin Walker

  The first bell rang. Mr. Tambor came in and started banging stuff around on his desk. One of Todd’s buddies waved to him and sat a few rows up.

  I spoke to the floor. “Thanks, Todd,” I said, “for not telling her.”

  He swung around to face me. “Well, you can make it up to me. No! Not with a hand job, which I know is what you’re thinking.”

  “I just threw up in my mouth,” I said.

  He poked me in the arm with the eraser of his pencil. “I want you to come back to the cheer squad.”

  I reared back. “I’d rather give the hand job.”

  He pantomimed thinking. “Hmm . . . tempting as that isn’t, I’ll pass. Look, we have district competitions a week from Saturday, and we need twelve people.”

  “Find someone else.”

  “We tried to find someone else, but they all sucked. And now there’s not enough time to train someone new.”

  “Judith Norton will be out of her cast by then.”

  “Nope. Not until the following week. Besides, Princess, to be honest, some of the girls like you. I don’t get it myself, but there you go.”

  “Amanda doesn’t like me. Amanda hates me.”

  He waved me off. “Amanda doesn’t hate you.”

  “Well, she does a pretty good impression of it, then.”

  “Amanda doesn’t hate you,” he said. “She’s jealous of you.”

  I drew upright and gaped at Todd. “What? Todd, listen. Drugs are bad, buddy. You shouldn’t do them first thing in the morning. Wait until after lunch at least.”

  Todd unzipped his backpack and started putting his pencil and notebook away. “Think about it. Amanda’s programmed to be perfect. She can never let herself show a single flaw. She always has to look perfect and act perfect. Can you imagine how stressful that’s gotta be? I mean, I know for you it’s a stretch, but give it a shot.”

  “You just get funnier and funnier,” I said totally deadpan.

  “But you, on the other hand . . .”

  I pointed my finger in his face. “Watch where you’re going here. . . .”

  He zipped up his backpack and dropped it back on the floor. “You, on the other hand, don’t worry about what people think of you. You don’t give a crap if you look weird or act strange. And I don’t mean those things as insults. I know! It shocks me too. But I don’t. You say whatever you want. You do whatever you want. Amanda sees you and she can’t process it. She can’t understand how you can be so relaxed about stuff. Inside, I think it pisses her off that she can’t be that way too. Be that free. So she takes it out on the source: you.”

  Talk about not being able to process it. Never in my wildest, weirdest, most twisted dreams would I have imagined Amanda Lowell was jealous of me. “If that’s true,” I said, “then I’ve wasted a lot of precious voodoo-doll-making time.”

  Todd snorted. “Something tells me you’ll have no problem finding somebody else to use it on.”

  “Good point. Speaking of which . . .” I reached out and yanked a few blond hairs out of Todd’s head.

  “Ow!” he said.

  “I’m gonna need these.” I tucked them in my pocket.

  Todd rubbed his scalp. “Look, I’ll take care of Amanda. Come on, come back to the squad. You know you want to. Besides, you owe me.”

  “Owe you? For what?”

  He grinned. “The marriage ed budget. I did it and turned it in last week. All by myself. With no help from you. Ergo, you owe me.”

  I had totally forgotten about the damn budget. How bizarre that Señor Shitslacks had done it on his own. “You know, you’re really coming dangerously close to being a nice person,” I said.

  “Thanks for the warning. I’ll remedy that situation immediately,” he said.

  Marcie skirted into the classroom just as the final bell rang. Mr. Tambor yelled, “Settle? Take your seats?”

  I stood up and swung my backpack onto my shoulder. “I’ll think about the squad, and let you know after counseling,” I said. “See you then.” I started walking over to Marcie.

  “Not if I smell you first,” Todd called after me.

  But I didn’t really need time to think about it. Truth be told, he’d had me at “Princess.”

  CHAPTER 24

  SINCE IT WAS TUESDAY, TODD AND I HAD OUR counseling session later that morning. We got to Maggie Klein’s office at exactly the same time. I pride myself on courtesy, so I gestured for Todd to go through the open door first. But he smiled and made the same gesture to me. So I stepped forward to walk through, and so did Todd, shouldering me into the door frame.

  “Terribly droll,” I said, and elbowed him in the ribs. I pushed through the door and sat in a chair. He dropped into the other one.

  “Welcome, Todd. Fiona.” Maggie Klein droned. She looked a little worse for wear. Actually, a lot. Her skin sagged at the corners of her eyes. There was no luster in her complexion anymore—it was just drab. And her office smelled like ramen noodles. She’d slowly been slipping in the arenas of fashion and hygiene over the past few weeks. Normally, I’m in no position to criticize anyone’s wardrobe, but even I thought today’s selection of brown sweatpants and a sweatshirt from the Hoover Dam was pathetic. Stacks of those photocopied papers I’d seen before littered the office. I picked up a few at my feet, and just before Maggie Klein snatched them out of my hands, I saw what they were. Copies of the letter from my mom’s campaign. Signed copies.

  “I suppose you know all about these,” Maggie Klein said.

  “I . . . er.”

  Todd piped up and started rifling through a pile near him. “Did my parents send one? They said they were sending one. Actually, they said they were each sending one, so there should be two. . . .”

  Maggie Klein slapped her hand down on the papers Todd was shuffling. “Yes. I got them. Principal Miller has kindly forwarded them all to me.” She tried to straighten a pile, but it slid to the floor, and she just left it down there among the candy wrappers and balled-up tissues.

  “Let’s begin. First of all, I want to let you know that the total real-world cash collected so far is $4,846. With half to charity, right now, each winner would get . . .” She shuffled through the junk on her desk, found her calculator, and started punching in numbers.

  “It’s $1,211.50,” Todd said.

  Maggie Klein huffed and sneered at Todd. Until she hit the equals button. Then her face turned three shades of red. “That . . . that’s, um . . . correct, Todd. . . . Well done.”

  I giggled and low-fived him.

  Maggie Klein slid the calculator back under the mess and composed herself. She tried to do some deep breathing but ended up whistling like a deflating balloon. She slid our marriage ed file in front of her but didn’t bother opening it. “Okay. I haven’t had a chance yet to go over the budget you turned in last week. I’ve been a bit . . . busy. But anyway. I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news. As of today, Todd, you’ve been fired from your job. Luckily, you found part-time work in a women’s shoe store. Your Income Factor has now dropped to 50.”

  Todd said, “Women’s shoe store?” just as I said, “Dropped to fifty?”

  “Interesting reaction,” Maggie Klein said, like we were some kind of perverted science experiment. “You know, often in this situation it is the woman who cares about the drop in income. Whereas the man cares about the drop in status. Well done.”

  Well done? Maggie Klein was an idiot, I decided. Three months of counseling and she had come to the stunning conclusion that Todd was, in fact, male, and I was female. Eu-freakin’-reka. Call the Nobel Prize committee.

  “Unfortunately, since you decided as a couple that Todd would be the sole wage-earner, you don’t have Fiona’s income to fall back on. If you had, half the cash you earned this month would retain the 150 Income Factor.” She raised one furry eyebrow and bobbled her head several times before concluding with, “Something to think about, eh?”

  All I could “think about” was whether or not I should seriousl
y investigate eyebrow waxing, because Maggie Klein obviously never had. She looked like she had a pair of woolly bear caterpillars on her face trying desperately to kiss. How had I never noticed that?

  Todd swiveled in his chair and put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ll figure out a way through this. No! No! I won’t hear of you giving up your passion for carving soap elephants. I know how much it means to you.”

  What the hell?

  Wait. I got it.

  Playtime.

  I glared at him and knocked his hand off of me. “Oh, really?” I said. “You do?”

  “Didn’t I let you go to that soap-carvers convention?” he said, feigning concern.

  “Let me go? I practically had to get on my knees and beg you.”

  “Well, Lord knows you’re not on your knees much. But you can’t say I haven’t been supportive.”

  Maggie Klein butted in. “Okay, Fiona and Todd. That’s enough.”

  I didn’t miss a beat. “Oh yeah? And what about Bobo? Six weeks I spent working on him. Six weeks. And you—you used him to wash your ass!” I buried my face in my hands and pretended to sob.

  “Fiona! Todd!” Maggie Klein barked.

  Todd threw his hands in the air. “One time! One time I make a mistake, and you never let me forget it.”

  I wheeled around to counter Todd, but he had this hilarious look of exaggerated hostility on his face. It was too much. A guffaw gurgled up my throat. I pressed my lips together to stifle it, but it shot up through my nose and I did that backward-snort thing. That put Todd over the edge and he dissolved. We both cracked up uncontrollably.

  Maggie Klein was not as amused. She pushed up her stretched-out sleeves and crossed her arms. “Very entertaining.” We kept laughing. She settled back into her chair. “You two should audition for the school play.” We laughed some more. “All right. That’s enough.” We finally settled down. Maggie Klein pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed deeply.

  Just then, we heard Mom on a bullhorn again outside. Apparently, this protest was going to be a daily thing. Mom shouted, “Hey, ho! Hey, ho!” followed by the rest of the parents: “Marriage ed has got to go!”

  Maggie Klein flew to the window, pulled open her blinds, and snarled. She literally snarled like an angry dog. I’d never heard an adult do that before. Only a bratty, cranky toddler once. Her hands trembled. Then so did her voice. “Ou-ou-our time is up for today.” She crossed her office in two steps and swung open the door. “Do your budget. Write in your journals. Goodbye.” We’d barely gotten through the door when she slammed it.

  “That was your mom outside, wasn’t it?” Todd said. “I recognize her from the picture in the paper.”

  “Yup,” I said, steeling myself for the impending volley of insults. But none came.

  “Cool. So, did you decide about the squad and districts?”

  I couldn’t believe that one, he hadn’t given me any crap about my mother, and two, I was about to forfeit my chance to escape global-size public shame. “Fine. I’ll do it,” I said. “Hell, I’ve got the contact lenses already anyway.”

  “As long as your motives are clear,” he said. “See ya at practice, Princess.”

  “Not if I smell you first, Señor.”

  CHAPTER 25

  AFTER SCHOOL, THE BULLHORNS FINALLY DIED DOWN. I was walking to practice, enjoying the cavernous silence, when I heard my name called from the other end of the hallway. Johnny Mercer was walking toward me. I felt a warm little stir inside me, I guess because of what Mar had said at the mall. I mean, it’s not every day you run into someone who wants to “bang you, bad.” Even though I was pretty sure that wasn’t true in Johnny’s case. Especially after shooting him down at the bonfire.

  The sound of his black boots echoed in the hallway with each step and got louder and louder the closer he came. As he strode up, he stared at me with his deep-set hazel eyes. His cheeks glowed with the pace he kept, and showed the faintest trace of rough, new facial hair.

  “Hi Johnny,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  In one smooth move, he swung his backpack off his shoulder and set it on the ground. He unzipped it and pulled out my iPod and speaker set. He stood up and flipped back the hank of tousled hair that had fallen over his eye. He handed me the equipment. “Here. I got these back for you.” He hoisted up his backpack, zipped it, and slung it over his shoulder. He lifted his chin at me. “Well, see ya.”

  “Wait!” I said. I touched the arm of his black leather jacket. I stood on tiptoe for a second to look up into his face. “Johnny. Wait. Listen, thanks for these. And I’m sorry for being such a bitch at the bonfire. I was just in a really bad mood.”

  He ran his fingers through his honey-colored hair and that same piece fell over his eye again. “No biggie. See ya.”

  “Johnny—”

  “I gotta go, Fiona. ’Bye.” He stalked away down the hall. I watched him the whole way until he turned the corner. The warm little stir inside me congealed into a cold ache. One thing was for sure: Johnny Mercer definitely did not want to bang me. Hell, he didn’t even want to make small talk. Mar must’ve been wrong. Or maybe I’d just been so harsh at the bonfire that he couldn’t get past it. Either way, it sucked.

  I thought about Johnny the whole way down to the locker room. About everything he’d done for me. How often he’d stood up for me. How many times he’d been there to make sure I was okay. And I felt this overwhelming sense that I’d lost out on something. Or lost something. Of value.

  And I wanted it back.

  But for now, I faced a different sort of atonement. I popped in my contacts and slunk into the gym. I was not looking forward to apologizing to Amanda. I tried to hide behind the bleachers, but Simone Dawson spotted me and skipped over.

  “Fiona! I’m so glad you’re back.” She gave me a hug, but I just stood there like a moron, because I hadn’t been expecting it. When I finally realized what she was doing, I went to hug her back but she’d already committed to detachment. So I ended up in one of those awkward half-hugging/half-patting maneuvers—the trademark move of sociopaths and germophobes.

  “Thanks, Simone,” I said.

  “Oh! Your glasses are gone! Did you get contacts? They look great! Are they tinted ones?”

  “Uh, yes, yes, thanks, and no, they’re clear.”

  “That’s your natural eye color? Oh, they’re such a rich brown!”

  “Thanks, Simone.”

  “You could really make those pop with the right shadow and mascara.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But it’d be kinda hard to see if I popped my eyeballs.”

  Simone giggled. “Fiona, you are so funny.”

  “Funny-looking,” I said.

  Simone giggled some more. “Oh, you are not.” She grabbed my hand with both of hers and walked backward as she dragged me forward. “Come on—everyone’s glad you’re back.”

  Yeah, right. I was so sure Amanda would do a spontaneous backflip at my return. But when I got over to the group, she didn’t yell or swear or storm off or anything. She actually acknowledged my existence in a nonhostile fashion.

  I cleared my throat in an overexaggerated way and said, “Listen, I want to publicly apologize to Amanda, and to everyone, for my schizoid wig-out at the pep rally. I had temporarily left Planet Sanity, and some absolutely a-hole Fiona clone was in my place being a total jerk.” I looked at Todd. He crossed his arms and didn’t crack even the smallest smile. I sighed and said, “Okay, it wasn’t a clone. It was me. I was the jerk. I said some really crappy things and I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about screwing the pooch on Catch the Fever, too. I hope nobody got hurt. Physically. Or otherwise. And . . . that’s it.”

  Everyone watched Amanda for her reaction. She stood there for a second and then nodded once to me. She clapped her hands and said, “Okay, let’s start with Eagle Pride,” and the squad fell into formation for practice. I found my spot on the floor and we got to work.

  As much as I hated
to admit it, Amanda had been right about getting contacts. Not only did they not fall off my face like the glasses did, but I could actually see better. So I made it most of the way through the drills and routines without inflicting too much bodily harm. Okay, I accidentally elbowed Tessa Hathaway in the boob, head-butted Takisha King, and stepped on Simone’s fingers. But that was all in one cheer. Other than that, I mostly just fell on my own ass.

  At one point, they were trying to teach me this jump called a Russian, or toe-touch, wherein a human person, starting from a standing position, is theoretically supposed to jump straight up in the air, spread her legs out, flashing her coochie to all the world, reach for her toes in midair—with her legs still spread, mind you—and then land back on the ground, ostensibly on her feet. That last part was where I was having trouble.

  I could jump up and spread ’em, fine. But by the time I got anywhere near my toes, my butt was already on the mat. I wasn’t getting enough vertical lift, as they say. Whatever the hell that meant. Sounded a little too much like aero-physics to be cheerleader-speak.

  “You need to tighten your abs, squat, and spring from here,” Takisha said, slapping my thighs. “Not your chest. Here. Your hams and quads.”

  Hams and quads were two muscle groups with which I’d become painfully familiar since starting cheerleading. Also, my lats, delts, biceps, triceps, abs, glutes, and whatever malevolent muscles are responsible for shin splints. I think they’re called Beelzebubiceps.

  “I’m springing! I’m springing!” I insisted. Demonstrating that fact, I squatted like I was about to pee over a public toilet, clenched every muscle in my torso—and regrettably, also in my face—burst up into the air, splayed my legs out, slapped wildly at my shins, and then crumpled onto the floor in a crooked heap.

  “I think that was actually better,” Simone Dawson offered meekly.