by Balog, Cyn
We make small talk for another ten minutes, during which time my heartbeat slowly returns to normal. Even as he asks me, “What was the most enriching experience for you in the last four years?” I can’t shake that tiny bit of worry. It’s like I expect him to turn around and say, “Shaken or stirred? Steak fries or onion rings?”
Damn Jess. Damn her.
Ten minutes later he’s ushering me out the door, and I’m frantically searching my mind for some perfect parting remark, but nothing comes, so I mutter a forgettable “thank you” and leave the room.
And now this experience is over, and Harvard has every last piece they need to make their decision. I’m either in or I’m out.
For a long, frightening moment, I stand in the empty halls and consider what it would be like. I’ll be saying goodbye to this school in just a few short months, and if Harvard doesn’t want me…I have nothing. I’ll be a failure, like the rest of my family.
Then I realize I’m being totally silly, because of course I’m getting in. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to and followed every book on Ivy League schools I could find. I’m a shoo-in.
I drive home, still so distracted that I run a stop sign. Thankfully no one’s around to see it.
I’m replaying the questions in my head as I walk in the front door and see my dad with twelve cans of soda lined up in front of him and a notebook at his side. There are dozens of balls of crumpled paper all over the floor.
“Peyton! Thank God. I need your help.”
“Hmm?”
He motions to the stool next to him and I sit down.
“When you drink grape soda, what do you think?” He looks intense, staring at me like I’m going to give him the secret of life and not my take on a fizzy soft drink.
“Jelly Bellies?”
He gives me this “A-HA!” face and writes something down. “Wait…what?” he says, turning back towards me with his face scrunched up.
“Oh. Sorry. I’m…thinking of something else. I guess it makes me think of…” I search the recesses of my mind for something brilliant and life-altering to say, but all I can think is that maybe I should have lied and told the interviewer I had seen the Broadway version of Grease. What if he wanted someone with culture and life experience?
My dad is tapping his pen on the notebook beside him and shaking his leg at the same time. I narrow my eyes and reach out and lift, one at a time, each can in front of him. They’re nearly empty.
“Tell me you haven’t had twelve cans of soda.”
He nods his head, very quickly. “Yes. Twelve. I should have gotten caffeine-free but that could affect the taste, yes?”
I groan. “Yes, but the caffeine could affect your brain. How are you going to think straight?” As if he ever thought straight to begin with. Sometimes I don’t understand how my dad could have descended to this sad low. There are days I want to help him, days I wish I could see him and his business succeed for once. Days where I feel like I’m the parent and I need to guide him on the path to success, even though that’s what he’s supposed to be doing for me. Then there are days, like today, when all I want to do is shake my head at him. When I know that tragically, only one of us is built for success. And that’s usually when I can’t wait until I’m thousands of miles away so I can focus on my own life and forget about that feeling of pity that’s a constant weight in my stomach.
He shrugs and keeps tapping. “I just need one good line. One slogan that will win them over. Who are the current supermodels?”
“Dad, not now.” What if the interviewer expected someone more bubbly and charismatic, and I’d been too bland? Maybe I should have worn something with more personal style, something to show I have great taste.
Oh, crap. I have European History homework. It’s a thousand-word essay and I have precisely two of those words done: Peyton Brentwood, written at the top of the page.
He’s still talking, so I mumble something as I walk away. “Homework,” it might have been.
Or maybe it was “Harvard.”
Chapter Ten
Jess
I open up my gym locker on the first day after mid-winter break, and a folded note flutters to my feet. I take a deep breath. After weeks of waiting, is today finally the day?
I pick up the paper and place it casually down on the bench next to me, then reach for my gym shorts. Though I’m dying to know what it says, Peyton and Bryn are probably somewhere nearby, surveying my every move. I know they want to see the sweat on my upper lip. But it ain’t happening. Nothing to see here, folks.
After I finish changing and pulling my oil-black hair into a headband, I pick up the note, pretending to do it almost as an afterthought. I keep my hands as steady as possible when I unfold it, look at it as quickly as I can, and crumple it up, tossing it in the trash. I calmly head out to the gymnasium even though the words, written in Peyton’s bubbly script, make me very nervous:
Do you smell something?
I’ve been expecting a prank for so long I barely went anywhere without checking over my shoulder. I knew after the Harvard interview, this one was going to be a whopper. Peyton lived and breathed competition. She hated to lose. I expected nothing less from her.
I feel a prickling sensation on the backs of my ears as I walk to the bleachers. I climb them slowly, just as I notice one of Peyton’s cronies holding her nose and waving her hand in front of her face. She scowls at me and whispers something to her friend that begins with an “Ew.” I move as far away from her as I can to the top row of the bleachers and then notice, as I turn back to the gym, that most of the three-dozen students in the vast hall are staring at me. Grinning.
The principal might not have figured out our prank war, but everyone in the room has. And I know they’re all rooting for Peyton.
Oh, hell. Is there something on my back? I nonchalantly reach behind, pretending to itch my shoulder blades, but there isn’t anything there. Then, as I’m about to sit, I look up at the scoreboard and see it, in screaming red block letters:
JESS HILL HAS B.O.
I study it for a minute, grinning as widely as I can. As everyone watches, I lift up one arm, then the other, and sniff my armpits. I shrug. “What?” I say, loud enough so everyone can hear me. “I showered last Thursday. Give a girl a break.”
A couple of the guys below me chuckle, and that’s when I catch sight of Dave. He’s not laughing. In fact, he looks a little preoccupied, which is totally not like him. Dave is definitely the carefree type, assuming he isn’t concentrating on whatever sport he’s perfecting.
Then I see Peyton, huddled with Bryn and the girl who had scrunched her nose near me. Peyton’s staring up at me, and she has this blank look on her face. She looks, I don’t know, defeated. Obviously she’d expected me to turn red, to rush out of the gym in tears. But she should know by now that if she wants to get me worked up, she’d have to pull something a little better than that. That one was…well, lame. It seems like even though I keep raising the stakes, Peyton is still determined to play it safe and pull the same old boring, childish pranks. She’s too concerned about wrecking her sparkling Harvard future. And what’s the fun in that? Pranks are supposed to be a thrill. This just proves I’m better at this than her.
I look down at her, defiant, and mouth the words, “Is that all you have?”
She has her mouth in a wrinkled pucker, but it loosens just long enough for her lips to move in the shape of a “Fuck you.”
So, that’s it. That really is all she has.
I can’t help but be reminded of the early days of this prank war, back in ninth grade, when our jokes basically took all of a few minutes to think up. Back then, we weren’t cultivated pranksters. There was no build-up, no anticipation. Of course, as things got more heated and we began to anticipate each other’s moves, we gradually kicked things up.
But this is a definite step back. I mean, how hard was it to sneak into the audio-visual room and program the message into the scoreboard? The j
anitors always seem to forget to lock the room, so at least a dozen times during the past year, a surprise message would greet first period gym class. Usually it was stuff like “T.K + N.M. 4-Ever!!!”—but the point is, it isn’t that hard. It doesn’t require much work, and it’s almost impossible to get caught. In fact, I’d considered using the scoreboard a few times in hours of desperation but always found something better.
Hell, even the first prank ever was better than this. In ninth grade, right after that fateful summer academy, Peyton had this princess air about her. She would look down her nose at the clothes I wore, the bands I listened to, everything. All of a sudden, she had new friends in the honors classes, and she started following them around and acting like them, like she was better than everyone else. Better than me. Monkey see, monkey do. So I found a picture of a chimpanzee in a magazine, cut it out, painted a fake crown over its ears, and stuck it on her locker with the caption, “Princess Peyton.” As her best friend, I thought maybe she’d realize she’d been treating me like dirt and come around. Instead, it backfired. I didn’t think she’d get so worked up as to call me a loser and freak and rip me to shreds in front of her friends at Ken Greeley’s house. On top of all that, the next day, I found a cover of National Geographic taped to my locker, with my picture pasted on the front, half under water, just like the pool at Greeley’s house. The caption said, “The freak! She lives!”
Things went downhill pretty quickly from there. I refused to let Peyton have the last word, and I pranked her right back.
I look up at the scoreboard again. I still can’t figure out why she did something so petty and simple. Our rules quite clearly require that we outdo one another. Technically, I could tell her that her little prank doesn’t even count. No way is it better than my Harvard interview. But to do that, I have to actually bring up the Harvard thing to her face. And I’m not sure I want to do that.
So I’ll let this one slide. Besides, being the prankster is much better than the pranked, so why give her the opportunity to do two in a row?
“Hey, Stinky,” a deep voice calls, snapping me into reality. Dave is climbing the bleachers, two at a time, coming toward me.
I dig deep into my brain, trying to think of something halfway witty to say. “It’s Miss Stinky to you.”
He grins and plops down next to me, making himself comfortable. “Sorry. Miss Stinky.”
“Better. So what’s up, Switzerland?” I’m trying to be cool, but I’m sure it has to be obvious I’m overheating. Dave is sitting next to me, like, an inch away. And meanwhile, I have an audience. Peyton and the rest of the Pep Squad are staring at me, mouths partially opened, as if they’re watching an episode of General Hospital. It makes me want to squirm, but I force myself to sit still.
“Mr. Switzerland,” he corrects, leaning over, elbows on his knees, just as relaxed as ever. “Thought we could be partners again.”
I can’t close my mouth. Is he serious? “Why?” escapes before I can think.
He shrugs. “Just… I don’t know. You want to?”
“Um…” I clamp my mouth shut. I really hadn’t expected another interaction with him until I was toothless and so brain-dead from the Alzheimer’s that I didn’t know my own name. “Depends. What’s today’s lesson?”
He gives me a guilty look. “Not sure.”
“Liar.”
He laughs and runs his hands through his sandy blond hair. “Okay, okay. It’s wrestling. But I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s not possible in wrestling. And you’re, like, three of me.”
“Come on. None of my buddies are in this class, so we’ll probably end up together anyway. Like last time. I’m just trying to break the ice.”
“So you won’t feel bad when you break my neck later on?”
He grins. “Something like that.”
“Okay, it’s a deal. But don’t be surprised when I kick your ass,” I say, feeling a little less nervous. But then the butterflies come swarming back when I realize I’m going to be spending the next few minutes rolling around on a mat with Dave Ashworth.
Oh, God.
My head starts to pound along with my heartbeat, and I look over and see Peyton glaring at me. Still. I’d been crushing on Dave years ago when Peyton and I were friends, and back then, she always encouraged me to talk to him. He’ll like you, honest he will! What’s not to like? she’d said. But I never could bring myself to string two words together in his presence; I knew all I would do is stammer like an idiot. And now Peyton’s looking at me with an expression of pure disgust. As in, Score, Jess—after ten years, you finally got him to talk to you. At this rate, you’ll probably have your first kiss when there’s a colony on Mars.
Miss De Frisco demonstrates the first move and has us all pair up, and when I stand next to Dave I feel like a midget. He has to kneel down. I crouch behind him and try to wrap my arms around his chest, but my hands won’t meet in front. I have to come in so close to him that my chest is against his back, my cheek pressing against his shoulder.
I know I’m going to get creamed, but suddenly I’m struck with another thought. “You are still Switzerland, aren’t you?” I whisper in his ear.
He glances over his shoulder at me and cocks his head. The look is irresistibly hot. “Trust me,” he breathes.
“Then, game on,” I say, right before Miss De Frisco’s whistle blows.
Chapter Eleven
Peyton
The plush carpet in my bedroom no longer feels good on my bare feet. I think they might be raw from all the pacing.
Dave should have been here twenty minutes ago. What’s with guys? Can’t they be punctual?
Bryn is sitting on my bed, her leather sandals kicked off and her miniskirt-clad legs crossed in a rather unladylike position. I can actually see her green and pink polka-dot underwear. She’s leafing through a copy of Cosmo, her bright purple fingernails turning the pages. She upgraded from Seventeen last year and can’t stop talking about all the scandalous topics. “Seriously. Do you really think there are twelve types of orgasms?”
“Ew,” I say. “I’m so not talking about that.”
She shrugs and keeps flipping. I wonder if maybe she should be reading Ten Steps to More Natural Makeup instead of the orgasm article. Today she’s wearing fake lashes. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen fake lashes on anyone other than a supermodel.
She leans over on one elbow and starts to pull the gum out of her mouth in one long stringy piece, and then she shoves it back in. Sometimes she can really grate on my nerves.
“You seriously have to hide in the closet when he gets here,” I say.
“I know, I know.” She waves a hand in the air dismissively. “Ooh, you should put this on your wall,” she says, ripping a page out of the mag.
I roll my eyes, thinking there’s no way anything in that magazine would go on my wall, when I see what she’s holding out. The girl in the picture has hair the same shade of blond as mine, but hers is straight and silky. And she’s wearing a Harvard hoodie. She’s too perfect to be a student, probably just a model, but unexpectedly, I like it. I shove it into the frame of the full-length mirror next to my bed. Even with all of Bryn’s personality quirks, she always manages to surprise me—in a good way. “Thanks.”
She nods and turns back to her magazine when the doorbell rings.
“Closet!”
She jumps up and takes the magazine and my rolling computer chair with her. I have a small walk-in, with a light fixture and everything, so she sits down in the middle and is flipping through the magazine again when I close the door. I wait a moment to be sure that I can’t hear the smacking of her gum.
Then I rush out of my bedroom and take the stairs two by two. Tina is walking into the entry just as I arrive. “I got it,” I say, and she turns and heads back to her art studio without a word.
When I open the front door, Dave Ashworth is standing on the other side, wearing a gray Green Day concert T-shirt and
a baggy pair of dark blue jeans. He looks good, even though he’s not my type.
But I know someone whose type he is. And that’s why this is going to work so well.
I grab him by the shirt and yank him inside the door so quickly his eyes bug out. I poke my head out the door and glance over at Jess’s house. It looks empty. Whew.
“Whoa. Jeez.” He smoothes out his newly wrinkled T-shirt as if I just ruined his prized possession. He must have actually gone to the Green Day concert instead of buying the tee at the mall.
Ugh, seriously. Green Day? He has more in common with Jess than I thought.
“I told you, Jess can’t see you. You were supposed to go to the back door.”
“Hey, at least I drove my mom’s minivan. Whatever this is, it better be worth it. If the guys catch me in that thing, they’ll never let me live it down.” Standing in the entry way like that, his arms crossed over his heavily muscled chest, he seems huge.
I want to point out that his beat-up Nova isn’t that much better than his mom’s minivan, but I don’t. “Trust me. This is important. She would have recognized your car and then it would have ruined everything.”
I can tell he wants to ask what this is all about, but I don’t want to explain where my stepmom can overhear. “Come up to my room real quick.”
He shrugs his broad football player shoulders and follows me up the stairs. It feels weird to have him in my house. Every time I’ve ever seen him outside of school was at his house, where I tutor him in math. Even that’s a little bit weird. I’m not even sure anyone at school realizes we see each other outside of those halls.
I glance at the closet when we walk into my room, but it’s still shut. I close my bedroom door once Dave is inside. My parents don’t have any rules about boys. Probably because I’m the model daughter. Or maybe it’s because I’ve never had a guy over to the house, so they’ve never had to make any rules.