The Prettiest

by Brigit Young

  “I’m making sure my best friend is okay!” Nessa pulled Eve in tighter.

  “Okay?” Sophie stood up again. She seemed to tower over them, even from far away. “Okay? No one is okay, thanks to her.” She pointed her finger right at Eve as if she were putting a curse on her.

  “Me?” Eve took a step toward Sophie.

  “Yes, you. Of course you’re okay. You’re the new Thing.” Sophie shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

  “What?” Eve’s gut spoke for her.

  “Don’t play stupid with me, Snow White,” Sophie Kane roared. “I know you wrote the list yourself. Soon everyone will know.”

  Nessa jumped to her defense with “She didn’t—” but Eve surprised herself by cutting Nessa off and speaking all on her own.

  “You think I’m ‘okay’? You think I want people telling me I stuff my bra? You think I like it when someone texts me ‘you’re kinda hairy’? Like, what?!”

  “Geez, Evie, I didn’t know…,” Nessa broke in.

  “Why do you think I dress this way, huh?” She motioned to her brother’s hoodie. “You think I want to be looked at?”

  Even more tears rose back up and leaked out, down her face and onto the front of her clothes. “You think I don’t know this was never supposed to happen?” She tried to hold in a sob, but it forced itself out, anyway. “You think I think I’m some supermodel or something? It’s obviously some cruel joke.” Eve wiped her eyes. “Just please, tell all your friends to leave me alone!”

  And then the only sounds in the room were Eve’s cries and the light pats of Nessa’s palm on Eve’s back, until Sophie groaned.

  “Okay, so you’re trying to say you didn’t put that Post-it on my back?” Sophie jutted a hip out, and her arms guarded her chest once again.

  “What? I was trying to get it off you!” Eve threw her hands up in the air. “What is even happening?” She turned to Nessa. “Let’s just go. Please.”

  “You’re right.” Nessa shook her head at Sophie. “She’s just like the rest of them.”

  “I’m not!”

  At Sophie’s words, Eve and Nessa stopped.

  “Just wait. Let’s say I believe you and you didn’t write it.” She looked from Nessa to Eve and back. “Who did, then?”

  The three of them stood in silence.

  Eve had no idea who wrote the list, but whoever it was, she could feel them with her now, always. It was someone who had looked at her too much. Maybe someone who wanted to mock her. And not just her, but the girls left off the list, too. Someone who didn’t care about their feelings, or about how a number could dissolve into a girl’s skin like ink and never leave.

  “I don’t know,” Eve said at the same time as Nessa began to name names.

  “It could be a girl.” Nessa angled herself against the door. “I’ve wondered that. Hayley Salem?”

  Sophie nodded. “Yeah, yeah, for sure, that’s what I’ve been saying! A girl!” She walked to the piano and leaned against it.

  “And, yeah, probably someone in the top ten.” Nessa took a step toward Sophie. “Someone who would get something out of it, right?”

  “But Hayley Salem would make herself number one.” Sophie shook her head at the thought. “She’s too stupid. She’d make it obvious. She wouldn’t put herself as five. And why would any of them put Eve at the top of the list?”

  “Yeah, good point.” Nessa moved farther inside the room, inching closer toward Sophie at the piano. “And a girl who just wants attention doesn’t get much out of a list that gives Evie all the attention, right?” she theorized.

  “Why would anyone want this kind of attention? Maybe it’s someone who hates me,” Eve muttered, moving away from the door, to stand beside Nessa.

  “So who hates you, then?” Sophie asked, her expression skeptical.

  “Well, did you write the list?” Nessa mimicked Sophie’s hip-out stance. “Because you sure seem to hate her!”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “No, I’m serious. Who hates you?”

  “I don’t know.” Eve pictured each unknown number that had texted her and tried to match a face with the numbers and messages.

  “Weird.” Sophie sighed. “Well, maybe you’re just a random name, and the whole point was to get at me. Lots of people hate me.”

  Was that pride Eve detected in her voice?

  Nessa laughed. “Oh yeah, says the most popular girl in school.”

  “Um, excuse me? Don’t you know that ‘most popular’ and ‘most hated’ go together?”

  She wasn’t wrong, Eve realized. Weren’t she and Nessa always looking down on Sophie and Brody and their friends? Didn’t everyone assume they were snobby and fake?

  “Yeah, I mean, think about Brody Dixon,” Nessa said, echoing Eve’s thoughts. “He’s literally the last person I want to do this show with.” Nessa took a sharp inhale. “Wait.” She gasped again, and her hands fluttered in the air like she was trying to grasp onto something. “Wait, that’s it!”

  “Oh my God.” Sophie put her hand over her mouth.

  “Of course!” Nessa laughed. She walked up to Sophie, stopping inches apart from her. “Duh!”

  “Of course.” Sophie smacked the top of the piano. “Of course!” she repeated.

  “What?” Eve hurried after Nessa. “You think it’s Brody?”

  “Who else would it be?” Nessa brought out her phone and pulled up the list, the light of the screen creating a glow around her.

  “Do you think it’s him alone or with his friends?” Sophie leaned in toward Nessa, ignoring Eve.

  “Who knows?” Nessa answered. “But you know he put them up to it even if it was his goons. Let’s check the list. I bet all the girls not in the top fifty are people Brody made fun of at some point. Like me. This is the kind of list a straight-up bully makes. A jerk. A jerk who never really gets in trouble for anything he does.”

  Brody had made fun of Nessa in elementary school, Eve remembered. But not in a long time. Right?

  “Wait.” Sophie lifted a hand as if to stop the proceedings. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Why would he do this to me, though?” She broke away from them to go pace by the chairs. “He asked me over to his house twice! I mean, I can show you!” She waved the phone at them. “He was basically acting like we went out. I’m sure you two know that.”

  Eve hadn’t heard that at all, actually.

  “So why would he put me as number two? It’s not like I did anything! I just—” Sophie stopped midsentence and froze.

  A moment of silence passed between them.

  “Is she okay?” Nessa whispered to Eve.

  “Oh,” Sophie said in a softer voice, her eyes elsewhere, toward the piano pedals and then to the ceiling. A light shake of the head and then: “Never mind.”

  “You okay?” Nessa asked.

  “Yeah. I just understand something now.” Sophie flipped around to speak to Eve. “Eve, he asked you to the Halloween dance, yes?”

  “Um, yeah,” Eve admitted.

  Nessa turned to her. “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Before Eve could answer, Sophie continued. She spoke like a lawyer, question after question. “What was he acting like when he asked you?”

  “Um … nice?” Eve looked to Nessa for help, but Nessa said nothing. “I mean, I don’t know, no one has ever asked me anything like that before.”

  “Come on, did it seem like he liked you?”

  Eve thought of Brody Dixon’s face that day as he’d invited her to go to the Halloween dance with him. The whole time she’d wanted to open the locker behind her and cram herself into it as the most awkward moment of her life unfolded. But when she did meet his eye, he looked … normal? Honest? Kind of sweet?

  “Well, I don’t know…,” Eve began.

  “Come on,” Sophie repeated. “What did he say? Tell me.”

  Eve told her how Brody had said they’d have a lot of fun at the dance, how it didn’t have to be a big deal, how it was a shame they never talked, an
d how people didn’t talk to one another because of these stupid separate groups everybody was stuck in. Then he told her it was no pressure and she could just think about it.

  What Eve didn’t say was that she’d never wanted to go out with anyone in her life—that was for girls like, well, Sophie Kane—but the only somewhat-okay part of that horrible day had been when Brody Dixon had looked her in the eye and said, “No pressure.” Even now, thinking of those words let her exhale.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Sophie nearly sprinted back to where Nessa stood. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yeah.” Nessa nodded. “‘Stupid separate groups.’”

  “Explain?” Eve moved to sit on the piano bench.

  Nessa sat beside her. “Brody probably actually likes you.”

  Sophie sighed a loud, long sigh.

  “And he put you as number one,” Nessa went on, “because otherwise—”

  “He couldn’t ask you to the dance if you were a nobody.” Sophie surprised Eve by sliding in on her other side.

  Were they not enemies now?

  “And,” Sophie added, “I think he wanted a replacement. For me.”

  All Eve could say was “Oh.”

  They sat so close that Eve could smell the school shampoo on Sophie Kane’s hair.

  “It all checks out now.” Sophie spoke in a low whisper. “That’s why you’re number one, and I’m number two…” She looked as if she were attempting to work out a math problem in her head. “He’s auditioning his next girl. And trying to hurt me while he does it.”

  “But why would he want to hurt you?” Nessa asked, leaning over Eve toward Sophie.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sophie muttered.

  For a moment, the three of them sat quietly. A loud truck went by outside.

  And then Sophie slammed a fist on the piano keys and Eve and Nessa jumped.

  “Whoa!” Nessa looked toward the door as if someone might hear them and come in.

  “He can’t treat people like this!” Sophie’s voice escalated to a low growl. “Did you know he lives in one of the biggest houses in Glisgold?” Her leg began to bounce as if she’d had too much pop. “He has a game room. And three TVs. Maybe more, actually. His dad’s bedroom? I mean, it’s like its own house. Oh, and he has a dog room! A room where the dog sleeps! And Brody gets everything he wants. And you should hear the way he talks about girls.” Sophie scooted in closer to Eve on the bench, speaking in a near whisper now, as if the worst parts about Brody were a secret. “It’s like if a girl isn’t pretty—”

  “By his standards,” Nessa interjected.

  “Exactly. If a girl isn’t pretty in his opinion, she’s just a waste of time. Unless she’s good at homework or something and he’s on a group project with her.” Sophie put a hand to her heart. “Oh my God, is that why he asked me to study? No. No. It couldn’t be that.”

  Eve reflexively shook her head to signal “No, of course not,” but she didn’t quite know what Sophie was referring to. Brody sounded so much crueler than the boy who’d spoken to her earlier that day. But still, she didn’t forget the Brody of fifth grade, who had once taken her favorite book and thrown it in the mud.

  “The thing is,” Sophie went on, “it’s not like he’s not smart. He is, kind of, but only in that way where your parents have helped you with homework your whole life. And he’s always giving attention to one of my friends one week, and another the next. Yeah, it’s been me recently, but maybe he’s changed his mind again. It was Amina before me! He’s really … He is a jerk. You know what?” Sophie declared. “I despise him.”

  “Well.” Nessa strummed her nails on the top of the piano. “I agree! Evie, do you remember how he constantly called the one boy in fifth grade dance class ‘twinkle toes’?”

  “He was a classic bully back in elementary school,” Eve told Sophie, who had only come to their school in the middle of sixth grade. “Like out of a bad movie.”

  He never got in trouble, though. Eve remembered that part well.

  “Not just elementary school,” Nessa said. “He made a joke about Erin O’Brien’s wheelchair last year, do you remember? Before the show he said, ‘I heard about Special Olympics but never Special Broadway.’”

  “Gross,” Sophie murmured.

  “Yeah!” Nessa nearly hollered. “A little more than ‘gross’!” She put on her theater-trivia voice and continued, “Also, has he not even heard of Ali Stroker, the Tony Award–winning Broadway actress who happens to use a wheelchair? Like, he’s not just mean and macho or whatever, he’s ignorant!” Nessa paused. “I wish I had brought that up when he said it. I didn’t say anything.”

  “Yeah,” Eve agreed. “Me either.” Why hadn’t she said something? Why hadn’t she remembered that until now?

  “He has made every single girl in this school feel horrible,” Sophie said slowly and deliberately. “He can’t keep doing it.”

  “But what do we do?” Nessa asked.

  “Yeah.” Eve shrugged. “What can we do?”

  “Are you kidding?” Sophie turned to them both, a gleam in her angry eye. “We get justice.”

  15

  SOPHIE

  “So what’s your plan?” Nessa asked her.

  Right to the point. Sophie liked that.

  “Wait,” Eve broke in. “The adults back there … they’re trying to work it out. If it’s Brody, they’ll handle it.”

  Sophie couldn’t stop herself from muttering “Snow White” under her breath. Nessa jumped in.

  “Evie,” Nessa said as they all stood up and faced one another in a triangle under the dim lights. “Did you hear those adults out there? They have no idea what our lives are actually like. And they are a mess! Just bickering among themselves.”

  “Exactly!” Sophie jumped in. This Nessa girl saw the situation for what it was.

  “And Brody Dixon can’t go around making people cry in choir rooms,” Nessa continued. “Choir rooms are for the majesty of song. For joy! This sucks, what he did.”

  “I’m gonna ignore that you just said ‘majesty of song,’” Sophie had to say.

  “You’re right,” Eve relented. “I just want this to go away.”

  “Good.” Sophie felt herself begin to focus. “Because we’ll need you. Before we can get justice, we’ll need proof he did it. Here’s our strategy.”

  Like she did when she led school projects, or led the Sophies, she made the decisions and gave assignments. They needed hard evidence, so Eve’s job was to make Brody think she really liked him back, to get him vulnerable, and then maybe get his phone password, or look on his laptop, or ideally even ask him sweetly about the list and record his answer. Then they’d bring the confession to Principal Yu. But to achieve this, Eve would need a total makeover. He may have wanted Eve as number one, but she needed to act like number one if Brody Dixon was going to go out with her long enough for them to catch him. Sophie understood this, even if Eve didn’t.

  And Sophie was obviously the expert in how to look like number one, so she’d teach her.

  “And then I can get my old life back?” Eve Hoffman asked her.

  “Sure,” Sophie said. What was her old life, anyway?

  “But you’ll have to be the actress for a little while,” Nessa told Eve with a grim expression on her face.

  “I’ll be at your house this weekend,” Sophie decreed. “I’ll text you.”

  “I’ll create a group text. I’ll call it”—Nessa paused for dramatic effect—“the Choir Room Trio.”

  Sophie grimaced at the name, but she moved on.

  She declared that Nessa could use her position as the other lead in The Music Man to watch for any whispered bragging about the list and any signs of weakness. As for Sophie, well, she was the captain. She’d manage the plans and, in the meantime, welcome Eve into the Sophies. The task was enormous. But she’d make it happen.

  They heard a commotion in the hall. Assembly was ending.

  “Let’s get justice.” Sophie made
a beeline toward the exit.

  “Justice,” the two other girls repeated.

  Sophie threw the doors open and headed off.

  * * *

  Justice. Sure. There was justice involved. The justice of her being back in her rightful place as number one. The place she’d earned. Did little Eve Hoffman deserve to be there? Not a chance.

  As the bus rolled down Greer Road in the rapidly darkening evening, she pressed her forehead to the glass of the window and watched the landscape of Glisgold go by. Police department, fire department, Santa Maria Parish, Harmony Chapel, a big sign that read WE ALL SIN, JESUS SAVES, two McDonald’s restaurants, and a couple of outlets. The bus flew by her mom’s diner, and Sophie tried to catch her mom’s silhouette in the windows’ reflection, but all she could make out were groupings of families, warm and seated, probably waiting for her mom to bring them a meal.

  She wondered if Brody Dixon’s dad had ever eaten at the diner and ordered a meal from her mom. She wondered if Brody had been there, too.

  He really was a jerk. If she could talk to her mom about this, her mom would say Brody was just like her dad. Not that her dad was rich, or was used to things going his way, but he wanted things to go his way, and that was what he cared about most. And her mom said that, for her dad, if things weren’t going his way, he just left. Like how he’d been tired of Glisgold and had given up his job in town and taken up a touring gig playing bass for his old band. She’d never forget the fight her mom and dad had, going on two years ago now, as he packed his bags. He came every few weeks, for holidays and stuff, but less and less.

  And she’d never forget the way Brody had pretended to laugh it off when she hadn’t kissed him back, but how he’d been planning something awful.

  The bus neared the edge of town. As an old lady stepped off it, carrying several tote bags filled to the brim with who knows what, she gave Sophie a stare of concern, maybe, or disapproval. Sophie looked away.

  She used to think of Brody as just … the boy who came with being at the top. Like the nude heels that go with a mint green dress. But maybe there were other options. Something funky or Christmasy, like red flats—a random boy in the school who no one expected she’d be with.