by M. F. Lorson
“We’ve been going over everyone's suggestions for goals,” said Lydia.
“And now it's just you two,” said Christopher, looking up at me curiously.
“I got nothin,” said Ashley, plunking her plate down on the opposite side of the table from her brother.
“Anne?” asked Lydia.
I set my tray down and squeezed into the spot between Ashley and Lydia’s co-conspirator. I wondered how she felt about being bumped to the other side of the table so that Lydia and Christopher can sit knee to knee like any proper couple. I gagged a little bit envisioning his hand on her knee under the table. Not that that was happening, but it could have been happening. I really didn’t know. Maybe I could pretend to drop something and poke my head under to check.
“Anne?” asked Lydia again, her voice taking on a little more edge this time.
I cleared my throat before speaking. I knew I should address Lydia directly, or the whole table even, but I had joined Cassius Society to show Christopher I could think outside of the box, so it was him I focused on as I presented my idea.
“I thought about this a lot since we last met, and there is really only one thing I feel is unfair. Maybe we could push for no uniforms after class. Like in our free time?”
The table immediately jumped on the idea.
“I like it,” said Christopher, subconsciously loosening his tie. “Everyone basically converts to the sloppy version after school anyway. Why shouldn’t we be able to dress normal on the weekends or after class?”
“We can for outings,” said a girl at the end of our table.
“True,” answered Christopher. “But wouldn’t you rather be able to leave our dorm room without the school logo emblazoned on your chest every day?” I loved how he was standing up for my idea. It was that little jolt of confidence I needed to ignore Lydia and him sitting in such proximity.
“Everyone in favor of making decommissioning the school uniform after classes requirement an official goal of the Cassius Society, say aye,” said Lydia. With a vote of five to three, my idea became our goal. To make it official, Lydia slammed her Diet Coke down on the table like a gavel in a courtroom.
I couldn’t help but grin. I had no intention of enjoying being a part of the Cassius Society, but the group has been surprisingly agreeable, even Lydia, who could not possibly like me, all things considered. Excited by the fact that the group chose my idea, I pointed out that the first step to making our goal a reality was to write an official club letter to Dean Thomas suggesting the change.
The table quickly morphed into a sea of eye rolls.
“When was the last time writing a letter got anything done?” asked Lydia. Her tone was polite but firm. She may have agreed to my idea, but she wasn’t going to set aside her role as a group leader to make it happen.
I could have pointed out the many, many times in democratic history that writing a letter made a difference, but I held back, choosing to remind the group that we would look kind of stupid protesting an issue we hadn’t even inquired about. Reluctantly the table agreed to draft a letter. I, of course, got tasked with writing it, which didn’t bother me too much considering I was afraid of what it would say if anyone else volunteered.
With the letter writing business out of the way, Lydia immediately moved on to what to do after the letter failed. She was probably right, but it annoyed me all the same. I suggested a petition but the group immediately declined on account of it was the same idea as a letter and not nearly punk rock enough.
“I think we have to make a statement with the uniforms themselves,” announced Lydia when the group had come to a standstill.
“What do you suggest?” I asked, not sure where this was going.
“I’m thinking total goth makeover,” said Lydia, holding her hands up in front of her like a camera frame. “There would need to be a lot of scissor work, possibly some bleach.” I did not like this idea at all. I was fairly sure that destroying your uniform was against Shelfbrooke student handbook rules. I couldn’t say that, though. That would make me look like a total coward, and that would ruin all the progress I had made toward being all ‘bold’ and ‘independent.’
I wondered what Christopher thought of all of this. For the most part, he spent the meeting doodling on the cover of his notebook. I could ask him if I ran into him again in the woods. My heart did a little tap dance just thinking about it.
Later that day in Senior Leadership, I did my best to ignore the roughly thirty-five sexual innuendos Will referenced regarding the lake house. I wasn’t one bit surprised to find that he thought his invite came directly from me. Having overheard Will mention the trip, Lydia drug Christopher over to join our table.
“I just think it is going to be such a relief to be able to hang out without the faculty looming over us,” said Lydia, tossing a glance at Mr. Croft. The idea struck me as funny because, in the whole of my Shelfbrooke existence, I had been addressed by a faculty member maybe twice outside of school hours. Once because my phone died and Dad flipped out about not being able to get a hold of me and once because I was late getting back before curfew. They were supposed to give you a lecture for that, but I noticed that lecture only seemed to apply to the kids whose parents hadn’t purchased a building or two.
“Heck yeah,” said Will, commiserating with Lydia as if attending Shelfbrooke were akin to a sentence in a juvenile detention center.
I didn’t feel particularly restricted at Shelfbrooke, but I understood not everyone felt that way. If I had to guess, Shelfbrooke wasn’t a choice for Lydia the way it had been for me. Her last name adorned a classroom in the science building much like Brooke Field was the result of a generous contribution from Will’s lineage.
Matching the two of them might not be so challenging, I thought. She wasn’t totally his type. He liked girls with a string of pearls around their necks, not the ink black choker with the amethyst stone that Lydia always wore, but when you put the image stuff aside, she was a total fox. Lydia would be a big score for Will, and maybe she had the right personality to temper him.
My matchmaking plotting was put on hold, however, when I overheard Lydia suggest that she and Christopher meet at the library after dinner. Christopher politely declined, saying something about needing to condition for lacrosse.
“Yeah, you do,” said Will interrupting their conversation to poke Christopher in the gut. “I wasn’t gonna say anything, bro, but you could stand to get in better shape.” I almost laughed out loud. If Christopher were in any better shape, he could forget lacrosse and just score a modeling contract, but Christopher didn’t refute the claim. Instead, he used it to reinforce his excuse for not hanging out with Lydia.
I didn’t want to be that crazy person who thought everything was about her, but I wondered if by conditioning he meant running, and if by running, he meant in the woods with me. Friends could run together, right? There was no harm in that.
Chapter Fourteen
The weeks between the start of Lydia and Christopher’s relationship and our weekend at the lake house seemed to creep by at a snail’s pace. I thought I would feel bad seeing them together, but the more time that passed, the less it bothered me. If they were super in love, if he couldn’t stop raving about her, or the two of them spent every moment they had canoodling in the common room, then I would probably have felt differently. But I could see the boredom in his eyes, and I couldn’t ignore the fact that he looked my way more often than he should have.
I wasn’t the only one that noticed his behavior. Lydia wasn’t dumb. She saw that there was unresolved tension between us, and she did her best to stamp it out without being outright mean to me. Her method was simple. She pretended like I wasn’t there. Even when the Cassius Society met, and it was her official duty to facilitate group conversation, it felt like I was invisible. I tried to speak up and make my presence known whenever possible, but she was quick to cut me off or turn the group's attention in another direction. It was like she was afraid
Christopher would fall in love with me if I spoke too much. I wished that were the case. If it were, I’d never shut up again. I would just keep babbling until he belonged to me for good.
The longer it took to get to our weekend away, the worse I felt about our plan. Initially, there was no Lydia to complicate things. It was just supposed to be me winning back what was mine in the first place. Now there were others involved, feelings that would potentially be hurt. I tried to tell myself it would all be okay because Lydia and Will would end up together too, but I knew that was just me making excuses for my guilty conscience.
At our final Cassius Society meeting before the lake house, Lydia waved a piece of parchment paper in the air.
“Our request for no uniforms after hours has been officially denied,” she declared, pointing to the neat, inky signature of our dean at the bottom of Shelfbrooke stationary. “The time has come to stop playing nice and start plotting.” Her voice was full of fire, and her eyes blazed with anticipation. I watched Christopher out of the corner of my eye. His lips twisted into a smirk. He liked the fired up version of Lydia. Anyone could see that.
“We will meet in the common room Wednesday morning to alter our uniforms,” said Lydia. “Everyone,” she looked at me pointedly, “should plan on being there.” Beside me, Ashley nervously chewed on the straw from her smoothie. I knew what she was thinking. This was going to get Christopher in trouble. It was going to get all of us in trouble.
At the end of our table, a freshman hollered out ‘woot-woot,’ and I lowered my head. If only ducking my eyes would prevent the rest of the dining hall from looking my way. I could imagine the giggle bursting from Rachel’s lips, knowing what was to come. Usually, I would be over there giggling beside her, speculating what kind of ridiculous shenanigans the Cassius Society was about to engage in.
“I can swipe some materials from my beginning sewing class,” said Henrietta.
My stomach dropped. It made me nervous when Ashley pilfered single serve puddings. Supplies from a classroom was a whole other level. I was going to need a full bottle of TUMS to get through the week between now and our demonstration.
I thought about asking how many uniforms they planned to alter but bit my tongue instead. I didn’t want to make any clarifications; that way, I could bring just one and act like I didn’t know otherwise. Maybe, I thought, I could fein a sudden case of the flu just before class that day. Surely, taking a hacksaw to my uniform was rule-breaky enough to impress Christopher without actually having to wear the thing. I had a bad feeling that it wasn’t. Especially after listening to him join in on the conversation for once. He boldly suggested the boys all shave their heads in solidarity. I really, really did not want him to shave off his beautiful dirty blond waves, but saying so would not only be inappropriate, it would also quell the excitement, and boy-oh-boy was everyone excited. Everyone but Ashley and me.
Later that night, I knocked on her door.
“It’s open,” she called from within. Ashley was sitting on her bed, her tablet beside her along with the cliff notes for Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I remembered reading that one last year as a junior. Pretty dark and broody, but all the classics were. I snagged a seat at her desk, propping my elbow on the back of the chair and resting my head on my forearm.
“You aren’t gonna do the uniform thing, are you?” I was pretty confident I already knew the answer, but I asked her anyway to get the conversation going.
“Definitely not,” said Ashley. “I’ve still got a whole year here. I’m not interested in making any enemies on the staff. Besides,” she admitted, “I kinda like the uniforms. The whole school girl thing suits me.”
I laughed because she was totally right. Ashely looked like she fell out of the pages of a cross-gender version of A Separate Peace.
“You’ll have to leave Cassius Society if you don’t participate,” I warned. “Not that you seem all that dedicated.”
Ashley shrugged. “I would much rather spend my Tuesday lunches with my actual friends. Babysitting Christopher is getting old.”
“Speaking of,” I said. “What if we get in real trouble? Didn’t you say Christopher is on academic probation?”
“That is exactly what I am worried about,” said Ashley with a groan. “Quitting the club doesn’t bother me. Watching Christopher lose his spot at Shelfbrooke over something stupid does.”
I grimaced, profoundly aware that if I hadn’t come up with the uniform goal, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “Christopher is talking about shaving his head. He obviously isn’t even close to being concerned about the consequences.”
Ashley crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her head back on the wall behind her. “I’m hoping for a miracle at the lake house,” she said, her voice small and tired sounding.
I, too, was hoping for a miracle. The problem was I was the one who was supposed to make it happen.
“I don’t see how Christopher and I getting together is going to prevent him from participating in the demonstration.”
“If he and Lydia break up, he might not do it,” said Ashley hopefully.
“Maybe,” I mumbled.
“Let me rephrase that,” said Ashley, locking eyes with me. “If he and Lydia break up and you ask him not to.”
I thought about our plan. How I’d spent the last three weeks trying to get Christopher to see me as the kind of girl who breaks the rules, asking him not to join the demonstration would be like going back to square one all over again. But then, what was the point of all this effort if Christopher got himself expelled anyway?
“I can try to talk to him,” I offered. “But I can’t promise it will change his mind.”
“After the lake house,” said Ashley. “You two haven’t spent enough time together for him to really listen. Right now he’ll just want to do it that much more if you tell him not to.”
I nodded in agreement, but I wondered if that was true. I hadn't told anyone, and obviously he hadn’t either, but Christopher and I ran together almost every night. It wasn’t like we planned it. I never said, ‘Hey, same time tomorrow?’ or anything like that, but we found each other in the woods each evening.
Chapter Fifteen
Rachel, Ashley, and I filed out of Stratford Hall. Rachel and I each lugged a huge suitcase and a cosmetic carrier. Ashley, true to herself, carried just one backpack, though the zipper was practically bursting it was so full.
“It is only two days,” said Ashley eyeing our bags.
“Sure,” said Rachel. “But there are important details to consider. We are going to be spending the entire weekend in a co-ed unsupervised cabin. It’s not just two cute outfits. You gotta have cute pajamas, a cute swimsuit for the hot tub, a hairdryer, the works.”
I nodded in agreement. “All necessary.”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “I have all of those things but the hairdryer. And besides, Andrew has seen me late for school on a no-time-for-the-make-up day. He’s happy to see me, period.”
“Yeah well,” said Rachel. “Charles has not seen me in my natural warthog morning state, and I would like to keep it that way.”
Ashley snorted. “Warthog?”
I smirked to myself; if only she knew. There was a reason Rachel never left the room until she was a finished product. Contouring like that didn’t do itself!
At the sound of another rolling piece of luggage scraping across the cobblestones, the three of us turned to greet Lydia who was headed down the walkway to where we stood. She joined the group with a shy smile. It occurred to me for the first time that this was not going to be a relaxing weekend for her. Rachel and I had been close for years, and Ashley had seamlessly joined our duo in a way that felt like we had been waiting for her all along. Lydia, however, was going solo this weekend without her usual comrades flanking each side. I felt bad for her, knowing half our plan for the weekend was to separate her from Christopher when Christopher was the only r
eason she was coming along anyway.
After a few awkward moments, we were all relieved to see Christopher and Will exiting the dorms. Will was on the phone barking directions to his driver in a not-so-friendly tone. There were a lot of reasons I didn’t like Will, but I had to admit, inviting him had benefits. One of which was that he had his own personal driver. Neither Rachel nor I had a car and borrowing one from Rachel’s parents would raise questions about where we were going for the weekend. Seeing as how they had no clue we were camping out at their lake house, asking for the car was a big no-no. It would have been tricky business getting there without Will. Maybe I could try to be nicer to him on this trip.
Will’s driver pulled up to the curb. He looked like a member of the cast of the Sopranos, like he had put human remains in large bodies of water more times than we wanted to know about.
“About time, Tony,” said Will, tapping his foot impatiently as Tony loaded our luggage into the back of their eight-passenger van. Will said they usually only used it to take staff to and from functions, but his father made an exception for the weekend. I could hardly wrap my mind around the idea that Will’s family had a house staff large enough to necessitate a van. Like what was a staff for them? Did they have a butler? A maid? A nanny? What else could you possibly need and how could you possibly need all of those things at one time, anyway?
We began to pile into the van. I planned to sit by Rachel in the very back, but Christopher was already there. I pulled back awkwardly, assuming that Lydia would want to sit by her boyfriend. Only, she surprised us all by asking to sit up front with the driver.
“I get car sick,” she said, “And the windows in the back don’t open.” Taking her cue from Lydia, Rachel made a big stink about how she too got carsick, and would I mind sitting in the back, at least for the drive there?
