Getting Caught

by Balog, Cyn

  “How about the Chinese?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What are your feelings on the Chinese?”

  I stare at him for a long moment. This can’t be right. Maybe it’s a test, like they ask you really weird questions and you’re supposed to know about it, like an inside joke or a secret handshake or something. I can actually feel my heart beating and I wonder if he can see my body move the slightest bit with each pulse. I feel like I could slide off the chair and pass out all in one motion.

  “I’m not sure how that is relevant,” I finally say.

  “Miss—” he glances at his paperwork again. “Brentwood, we at Harvard pride ourselves on diversity. Our students must be prepared to encounter a variety of individuals. Each student contributes to your academic career in a different way. I’m merely striving to be certain we don’t admit anyone who would cause friction.”

  “Oh, of course not,” I say, relieved I finally understand something he’s talking about. “I have respect for everyone, regardless of background. I thrive on the challenge of working together with an extremely varied group of peers.”

  He nods, seeming pleased with my answer. I can feel myself sweating now. It’s beading up at my temples and trickling down my neck. I hope he doesn’t notice.

  “You’re on a desert island. Do you bring a bag of Jelly Bellies or a Hulk Hogan figurine?”

  I make a funny noise that sounds like I’m choking, then cover it with a cough. What the hell is he on? Harvard must not realize this guy is ruining their image. He’s like a rogue agent or something. “Um, the Jelly Bellies?”

  He scribbles several more notes. I wonder if I should have picked Hulk Hogan.

  “If you were a character from Saved by the Bell, which one would you be?”

  Saved by the Bell? Maybe this guy is older than I thought. “Uh, Jesse?” She was the one who got good grades, right? I’ve only seen like three episodes, ever, but I think I remember an episode where the girl was flipping out over her SAT scores. That’s familiar.

  “You do realize she’s the one who starred in SHOW GIRLS, right?”

  I sit back in my chair. “Well, that was the actress. Not the character from Saved by the Bell.”

  He writes something down again.

  This is completely surreal. Part of me wants to tell him off because now I’m sure this isn’t what Harvard expects of him. I wonder how many people he’s ruined so far. If this doesn’t go my way, maybe I’ll write to the admissions office and tell them what he’s doing. Maybe they’ll give me a second interview, one where the guy isn’t a total buffoon.

  “Big Mac or Whopper?”

  “Big Mac..”

  “Bieber or Jonas Brothers?”

  “Bieber.”

  “Prada or Gucci?”

  “Gucci.”

  I’m this close to refusing another question, since he really seems to be making a mockery of this interview, but I stop myself. Even if he is being stupid, he can still make my dream come true. I can’t piss him off.

  I look around the room, like something will tell me what’s happening and how this has all spun out of control.

  The interviewer sits back in his chair and adjusts a watch. It looks a lot cheaper than I’d expected. He is a Harvard alum, after all. I bought a fancier watch for my dad at Sears last Christmas.

  He shuffles his papers and something falls out. Before he scoops it up off the table, I see it. It’s a business card.

  For Pet Pantry.

  I sit up sharply in my chair. Pet Pantry is the store in town. It isn’t a chain. It’s a single store. And it’s not anywhere near Harvard.

  And I’m pretty sure I heard that Jess Hill works there.

  I suddenly remember running into her in the hall. And I realize it hadn’t been surprise in her widened eyes; it was fear. She thought she’d been caught red-handed. She’d probably planned to hide in the room before I got here so she could hear my humiliation. But if she really knew me, she’d know I always arrived early.

  I stare at him for a long, silent moment, my mouth slightly agape and my heartbeat ringing in my ears. He shoves the card back into his portfolio, but I can see in his eyes that he knows.

  “That bitch,” I snarl.

  “Uh, what?” he says calmly, like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but his face has a slight red tinge.

  I stand up so fast my chair clatters to the floor. “That fucking bitch.” I’ve never been one to swear, but anger is boiling up so fast I can’t stop myself. “She knows what this means to me. She knows how serious this is.” I shake my head and start backing away from the table. I’m so angry I’m trembling. “You tell her—”

  “Who?” he interjects, still playing dumb.

  “You tell her,” I repeat, louder this time, “that she’s going to regret what she just did. She’d better watch her back, because things just got ugly.” I pause for a moment and take a deep breath, trying to keep myself from throttling him. “Things just got real ugly.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jess

  I let go of the push bar on the lawnmower, adjust a strap on my camouflage tank top, and check the display on my cell.

  Gavin. Butterflies dance in my stomach as I quickly flip the phone open. “Well?”

  “Well,” he says tentatively. “Somebody is not a very happy camper.”

  I let out a breath. “So it worked? Yes!”

  “Not so fast. It did, sort of. She bought it up to a point. But I blew my cover before I could get her to do the Hokey Pokey.”

  I shrug and collapse on the newly mowed lawn outside my house, feeling pure triumph surge through me. The grass is cold, almost frosty on my bare skin.

  I’d spent probably as many sleepless nights thinking up the interview as Peyton did preparing for it. “That’s okay. The point is, she believed it. I wish you could have videotaped it. I would have loved to see her face when she figured it out.”

  “Picture Medusa. But a hundred times meaner.”

  “Really?” I laugh. “Classic.”

  “She was really pissed. I’m surprised I made it out of there alive.”

  I squeal with delight. “Perfect. And don’t worry about Peyton. She’s harmless. The most she’d do is throw a dictionary at you. I’m the one she’s at war with.”

  He’s quiet for a moment. “Exactly. So I don’t think you should come within spitting distance of her for the next decade.”

  “Not possible. She lives next door to me,” I say, inspecting the blue-shuttered bi-level next to mine. Peyton’s stepmom is all artsy, so there are these horrible wire and clay statues on the front lawn of butterflies and gnomes and gargoyles. An ugly “Welcome to our Home” slate under the mailbox has the scariest-looking creature painted on it, and just screams “Stay away!” I think it was supposed to be a caterpillar but looks like the green-skinned ogre of my childhood nightmares. To go with the ogre, their house numbers are surrounded in hand-painted, whimsical flamingoes. And they never mow their lawn. “Lawnmower” is probably the one word that isn’t in Peyton’s vocabulary. “Besides, I’m tough. I can handle her.”

  “Tough is an understatement. You’re downright diabolical.” His tone is reproachful.

  “Oh, please. You have no idea what that girl is capable of. Public humiliation has been her specialty since freshman year. If you were there that day, you wouldn’t feel an ounce of regret. She deserves everything I can dish up, I promise you that.”

  I stare up at the cloudless sky and push away memories of the party at Ken Greeley’s, the cold sneer on Peyton’s face, the way everything turned shimmery when the tears in my eyes pooled over. But even though I can do all that, I can never forget the sound of her cruel laughter as she watched me fall to pieces.

  “Hey, listen. I’m as guilty as you are. All I know is that that girl might need shock treatments to repair the damage. She was that worked up.”

  I sit up and look over at Peyton’s house with a grin, picturing he
r in pure meltdown mode. I might feel the tiniest bit sorry for her—if I didn’t remember the sound of that laughter ringing in my ears over and over.

  The snotty bitch had this one coming. “She’ll recover. Trust me. Peyton always ends up on top. Even if she has to stomp on everyone to get there.”

  When the conversation ends, I toss my phone aside, fall back against the lawn again, and look up at the sky. Five years ago, Peyton would have been by my side, naming all the types of clouds and species of birds. Starting in third grade, we were inseparable, always going over to each other’s house after school for cookies and milk. We’d just veg for hours in front of the TV. If a teacher wanted us to pair up, neither of us had to say a word; it was obvious that we were together. Then, in middle school, she started spending all of this time on lame extracurricular activities and rarely had time to hang.

  The unraveling began when she went away to some stupid summer academy for over-achievers. That was the summer my parents went through some trial-separation thing…back when we were a real family, before they looked at me like I was a disappointment. They expected me to go to all these weird therapy sessions with them. Maybe it’s because avoidance is my coping mechanism, but those sessions were just hell. Who wants to be part of lame family therapy when the real problems have nothing to do with you?

  I tried all summer to get in touch with Peyton, sending a zillion letters. Write every day, my ass. She didn’t send a single one. She didn’t call, either.

  And then when she came back, I got it. I’d been replaced. Bryn Samuels was new in town, and they’d met at that stupid academy.

  I should have known. Peyton wants the best of everything. Once she realized I wasn’t ivy-league, pep-squad material, she tossed me in the ditch and drove off.

  I cringe, thinking of that day at Ken Greeley’s. When she invited me to that party, I decided to give her one last chance—why give up on so many years of best-friendship? I vowed to tell her that I didn’t hate all those hobbies she had—I was scared of them, scared of being left behind.

  But what I got instead was a rude awakening. When I got there, they were all hanging out around the pool, giggling, and I heard my name, the voice drifting through a row of bushes. Someone said, What a loser. She dresses like the captain of the Salvation Army. And everyone laughed. I thought to myself, “Peyton can’t be there. If she was, she’d defend me.” But that was when I caught a glimpse of her curly hair and saw her face. She was seated next to Bryn, laughing just as loud as the rest of them. That was the day I decided I never, ever wanted to be part of their crowd again; in fact, I wanted to be the opposite of whatever they were.

  I was going to leave Ken’s house without saying a word, but when I spun around I smacked right into Grant, Ken Greeley’s best friend. The commotion was enough to alert Peyton to my presence.

  She called me over to their little group and for some stupid, pathetic reason, I walked up to her. Maybe I thought she was going to have an explanation for what was going on.

  But she didn’t. She just looked at me, smiled, and shoved me into the pool. Everyone laughed and taunted me, and the tears quickly mixed with the chlorine until I could barely see where I was going well enough to climb out.

  And since I’d walked the mile to Ken’s house, I had to walk back home like that, sopping wet.

  So as far as I’m concerned, a girl who can be that two-faced got everything she deserved. Hell, today’s little performance was nothing compared to what she should have had coming to her.

  I push the mower into the garage as a silver Mercedes pulls into our driveway. My mother slides out of the passenger seat, her frosted blond French twist still as perfect as always. I’m convinced it’s not real hair, just a helmet, because I’ve never seen it any other way. She has blood-red lipstick and a smart business suit even though it’s Saturday. My mom does not own weekend wear. In her warped language, jeans and T-shirts don’t compute.

  Her mouth is hanging open, and I realize at that moment she hasn’t yet been introduced to my new hair. Unlike my mom, I change my color almost weekly. This is, obviously, not the only area in which we differ.

  I fluff my platinum spikes, like a beauty queen. “Like it?”

  She rolls her eyes and scowls. “Jessica, I’d hoped you would have grown out of this by now.”

  “No, but it should grow out in about three months,” I say, like a total smartass.

  She sighs. “You have such a pretty natural color. Many girls would kill for it. Why ruin it?”

  “Why not?” I mutter, wiping the blades of grass from my knees.

  She inspects the lawn. “Thanks, hon. But it’s Saturday. Isn’t there something you’d rather be doing?”

  She means, I don’t know, a pep rally or a drive-in movie or whatever social activity was popular when she was my age. I think she would have been happy if I sat around with a bunch of stoners passing a hash pipe as long as I wasn’t home, again, on another Saturday night. And yeah, maybe I did spend most, if not all, weekends in my bedroom, but it wasn’t like I was planning the next Columbine or anything. I just hadn’t found any company that was as interesting and fun to be with as my own. It seemed like everyone got caught up in high school, and all I wanted to do was pretend it didn’t exist.

  “Yes, thanks. I would much rather be selling crack to schoolchildren. But it’s a Saturday, so the playgrounds are empty.”

  She sighs. “What about Peyton? Why don’t you two do something together?”

  This hopeful suggestion just perfectly shows how out of touch with reality my mother is. Obviously the growls I constantly throw in the direction of the Brentwood home and the fact that Peyton hasn’t set foot in our house in years hasn’t tipped her off to the war we have going on.

  I grimace but don’t look up from the bag of grass clippings I’m unloading. “Why don’t I sell my body on Main Street for a buck an hour?”

  She gives up trying to have a civil conversation with me, since we haven’t had one of those in forever, and trudges inside. That’s just when I see a flash of red on the street, slowing to a stop outside the Brentwood’s. It’s Peyton’s vintage VW bug. The princess is home from the biggest ass-kicking of her life.

  I quickly dodge under the garage door so she won’t see me. I want to see whatever remnants are left over from the reaction Gavin witnessed. I want to behold those blotchy cheeks, those tear-filled eyes. I want blood.

  I wait for the door of the car to open, for the princess to step out into the sunlight, where I can finally see those things. But it never happens. From here, all I can make out are two hands, clenching the steering wheel, unmoving. I imagine her going inside, telling friends and family that it wasn’t a real interview. That it was a misunderstanding.

  I wish I could be a fly on the wall for that.

  Because this is war. And all is fair.

  Chapter Nine

  Peyton

  Although I’ve never actually hyperventilated, I feel dangerously close, like my chest is tightening up and my throat is closing in. My pacing has turned so frantic it probably resembles a Nazi march, my legs stiff and swinging out in front of me. I shake my head. I must not think of Nazis. Not this time. That interview was fake. Fake.

  My nerves are getting the better of me as I recall the absolute bewilderment of Jess’s prank interview. The memory seeps into my conscious mind and makes my stomach do the kind of flip-flops I’ve only seen on televised gymnastics. My palms are sweating, and my wool sweater, with a button-up blouse underneath, seems unreasonably stifling.

  I regret wearing this plaid skirt, too. I wonder if they’ll think I look like an immature schoolgirl, like I don’t have the kind of sophistication Harvard requires. I would have worn the same fancy slacks as the last interview, but I didn’t want the karma to rub off on me.

  I want to kill Jess because last time, I wasn’t this nervous. I’d felt semi-prepared, like there was a real chance I could pull off a great interview. Now I’m expecting somet
hing really bizarre to happen and send me into a panic.

  Not to mention, I feel a little bad about the tiff I got into with Bryn three hours ago. She assumed she’d be by my side once again. But everything about the last interview screamed bad karma, and I couldn’t stand the idea of her presence. She’d acted like it was some sort of personal attack, but honestly, I just wanted to make things as different as possible so I could concentrate.

  The door behind me opens, and a man in a Harvard blazer and expensive black slacks steps out. He looks way more credible than the last guy. “Miss Brentwood? I’m ready for you.”

  I take in a gulp of air and try to walk confidently to the door, even though my knees are so wobbly I feel like a newborn calf. All I can see is the door in front of me, as if bright white light is shining out and it’s the Promised Land.

  When I get inside, it looks a lot more official than the last time. The table in the center of the room has a stack of papers on it, some upside down. There’s a placard that says Phillip Voight, Admissions in front of his chair, and a glass of water beside the empty one meant for me.

  I suddenly have dry mouth and want to guzzle the entire glass, but as I sit down, I only sip daintily at it, as if table manners alone are going to get me in the door.

  “Miss Brentwood, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Your application was of particular interest to me. I once played Danny Zuko in Grease.”

  I smile. “It’s a great musical. We have a wonderful cast.”

  “Have you ever seen it on Broadway?”

  I shake my head. “It’s been on my to-do list for quite some time, but I haven’t had the chance to visit New York.”

  “Perhaps if you’re accepted, you can make a weekend trip down to the city. Between studying, of course.”