Sources Say

by Lori Goldstein

  “Because . . .” Cat scooted to the edge of her chair. “Well, I’m thinking if the election continues to hold people’s interest, then covering it like this—weekly, at the very least, maybe even twice a week until the votes are cast . . . I mean, it could change the whole way the school thinks about the paper. They’d be looking for it. And Grady wanted me to skip the actual printing and just publish this whole thing online. But Stavros and Jen never used our website. And the Fit to Print award has never been won by a digital paper. The Red and Blue has enough obstacles to climb, you know? But Grady’s as persistent as an itch from a mosquito bite, so I did let him upload the stories—but only after they were in print. I gave in and let him set up Twitter and Instagram accounts too. He said they already have more than three hundred followers on each. Do you know, is that a lot?”

  Emmie set down her fork with a clunk.

  Cat cringed. “Oh, wow . . . that was really insensitive to be blathering on about covering the election you wanted to win. I’m really sorry.”

  So neutral was Emmie’s expression that Cat wasn’t sure if maybe she hadn’t actually been paying attention, was on the verge of tears, or was about to lash into her . . . and then, Emmie gave a crooked smile.

  “Should have won,” she said. “But it’s okay. I just thought you might need a reminder to breathe.”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess I don’t have many people to talk to about this, except my gramps.” Cat sounded like a six-year-old. She cleared her throat. “It’s too bad you didn’t win the primary. Your ideas were good. You seemed to know how to do this.”

  “Not well enough apparently.”

  “Welcome to the tsunami that is my sister.” Cat jutted her chin across the cafeteria. “Just look at her. Flipping pancakes on an electric griddle. I’ve never seen my sister do anything in the kitchen except mix cucumber slices into coconut water, but here she is actually cooking at her ‘Vote for an Angel’ gluten-free, dairy-free, taste-free pancake breakfast.”

  “Branded as such with everyone repeating it. Even though it’s lunchtime.”

  “The power of Ask an Angel.” Cat felt guilty by association. She lowered her eyes and noticed Emmie was wearing that string bracelet again. “Good luck charm?”

  “Reminder. Of the place I get to go to every summer—the place that isn’t here.”

  “That must be nice,” Cat said, a bit jealous. “Where’s that?”

  “Leadership camp. I’ve been going every year since I was ten and found my best friends there. We have a group chat to get us through the school year. Hopefully we’ll get into the same poli-sci programs next year.”

  “Politics is really your thing?”

  “Leadership is my thing. Don’t think this is going to stop me. I know where I’m headed, and I know exactly what to do to get there.” She picked up her fork and dug back into her salad.

  So maybe Emmie did have that air of superiority that kept others away, but it was refreshing to find someone who cared about something so deeply.

  Cat lowered her voice. “You’re better off not getting drawn into the drama that is my sister.”

  Emmie’s straight face faltered enough for Cat to see the hurt.

  “Angeline puts Angeline first, always.” Cat’s throat closed around the words. “A race against her, with the crap she’d pull . . . it wouldn’t be worth it.”

  Cat had fallen victim to trying to keep up with Angeline. Something that had ended in the fourth grade. That was the year she’d followed Angeline’s lead and signed up for a starring role in the school play even though the idea of speaking in front of an auditorium full of people made her tremble worse than wading in the ocean after a shark sighting.

  During the first performance, Cat froze. She had to be carried offstage. And Angeline, her sister, her younger sister, had cracked a joke: “No worries, folks, even fraidy cats have nine lives.”

  It was like something had clawed out Cat’s heart. She ran to her mother, to her father, who’d both appeared backstage. She reached her dad first. Cat stood before him, tears and snot and saliva dribbling down her face. He bent down and wrapped a hand around each of her upper arms.

  “Ah, Cathleen.” He sighed. “Better to learn these things when you’re young. Save you trouble when you’re older. Some people’s dreams are beyond their reality.”

  Cat hadn’t known her heart could be ripped out twice.

  Emmie studied Cat’s face. “Certainly, you know your sister better than anyone.”

  They watched Angeline pose with a group of the Frankengirls who had stuck Post-it notes on every limb, torso, forehead, and butt cheek.

  “Frankengirl this,” they shouted together as their phones captured them.

  Cat cocked her head. “Is that like a protest or something?”

  “Or something,” Emmie said. “Watch, it’ll become a meme by tomorrow.”

  “Fulfilling one of her biggest bucket list items.”

  Emmie laughed. “Would you want to hang out sometime?”

  Cat thought of Ravi and his tight circle of friends. Cat’s were in college, Emmie’s were online. Maybe they could fill in the gap for each other.

  “Definitely,” Cat said. “Have you been to Harbor Books?”

  12

  When Angeline Does the Math

  17 DAYS TO THE ELECTION

  Angeline jammed her foot on the brake, and the hatchback lurched. “No way.”

  Cat braced herself against the dash. “Did you almost kill something? Aside from me?”

  “That has to be against the rules.” Angeline slammed the gas pedal and careened into Acedia’s parking lot, the three-foot-tall halo designed and installed by Sonya swaying on the car’s roof.

  “Angeline! That’s it, I’m driving tomorrow.”

  “Whatever. Just look.” Angeline could barely see straight. On the front lawn of the school, the ten-foot-high marquee that the previous day had advertised the Friday-night football game against Acedia’s biggest rival instead cheered on Angeline’s.

  “In like a Lion: Vote for Leo and Feel the Pride.”

  “Not the best slogan, I grant you,” Cat said. “But ‘A’ for effort.”

  Angeline glared at Cat. “I’m reporting him.”

  “One, you can’t even be sure it’s him. Leo’s whole campaign has Tad Marcus written all over it. Two, even Gramps could see that. Pretty safe bet Principal Schwartz is in the know.”

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “Oh, come on, Angeline, we both know you’d be relieved if Leo won. No matter what I tell Mom, she’ll give you a pass, like always.”

  “For as much as you wear it, martyr’s still an unattractive look for you, Cat.” Angeline left the car running and snatched her bag from the floor by Cat’s feet. “But be sure to take a picture for your newspaper.”

  Who the hell did Cat think sent the Frankengirls to her stupid newspaper? People were reading The Red and Blue because Angeline had made it worth reading.

  “Not even a thank-you. And I’m the selfish one,” she muttered as she stomped past six-foot-high devil horns on Tad Marcus’s truck and toward Leo’s latest Battle of the Exes stunt. Leo’s fear of heights meant this was all Tad, Leo had minions, or both. “Feel the pride, my ass.”

  Leo had taken his ridiculous stance about no rules just to be contrary to her.

  Good grades, team captain, liked by everyone, without a mar on his record, and not even a beer at parties, Leo was the picture-perfect son. He embodied all the respectable qualities his mom needed to complete her image as a female politician who had it all. And image was all it was. Leo ranked at the bottom of her priority list, which was why he poured his time into making sure his little brother, Sammy, never felt the same.

  Except now he had something else to do: get back at Angeline. And he was listening to Tad Marcus to do it.

>   Angeline put her back to the marquee and marched past the statue of Major Mushing. Her head deep in her phone, she clicked to Leo’s Instagram feed.

  A picture of his message on the marquee had nearly four dozen comments. She quickly divided that by his number of followers and—

  No freaking way!

  His engagement rate was off the charts.

  Fake accounts?

  Had to be.

  Anger fueled her into the school. She scrolled through the comments on Leo’s post, recognizing a lot of the male names: jocks. Football team, baseball, track, tennis, and, naturally, lacrosse. Even benched because of his shoulder, Leo had them.

  The girls commenting on the post looked to be mostly freshmen. Fourteen-year-olds swooning over his dimple and Muppet hair.

  Leo had found his base.

  Whatever. She had hers. Her speech on the Frankengirls and her #MoreThanOurParts posts since had secured the girl-power vote, which meant her followers had to outnumber Leo’s. Emmie had said whoever had the masses behind them would win.

  Whether they—whether she—wanted to or not.

  But she’d maybe, sorta already sent in the boot camp deposit so . . . onward.

  Besides, being president had to be less time-consuming than this damn election, which was eating into the hours Angeline usually reserved for responding to comments on Ask an Angel. She’d skipped breakfast that morning to squeeze in a few “flutter your wings!” and now her stomach growled at her. She headed for the cafeteria, assuring herself that in just a couple more weeks, it would be all over, and she could go back to normal life.

  Normal life without Leo, which wasn’t yet normal life.

  Leo hadn’t spoken to her since the day of Cat’s interview. Instead he’d been strutting around school in that sling she wasn’t entirely sure he needed, letting Lush Curls carry his backpack and Doe Eyes feed him and for all she knew wipe his damn ass.

  He was enjoying this.

  Playing up the whole Battle of the Exes.

  Humiliating her.

  She deserved the breakup, fine, sure, whatever.

  But he was making their entire relationship look like a joke. Like it wasn’t serious. Like they hadn’t been in love.

  Like they weren’t still.

  Her rapid breaths slowed.

  Because . . . because he wasn’t.

  With the person Leo was becoming, she shouldn’t be either.

  But she was. And that might be what bothered her the most.

  She took a deep breath, from the diaphragm, knowing how proud Sonya would be.

  Outside the cafeteria, a crowd had gathered by the table usually selling egg sandwiches and bagels. A sign hung from it:

  TORRES CAMPAIGN DONUT BREAKFAST*

  *Actually during breakfast hours.**

  **Dudes do math better.***

  ***Who do you want managing your student council budget?

  Dudes do math better? What a hypocrite! She’d tutored Leo in calc all last year.

  A fire now burning in her chest, she whirled around to capture both herself and the sexist sign when she saw Leo inside the lunchroom, talking to prospective voters. He’d traded in his lime-green sweatshirt for a white button-down and crisp navy shorts. The outfit they had bought together at the start of the summer.

  Angeline had picked it out for him to wear to his mom’s outdoor fundraiser in the harbor—one of the few times Angeline had accompanied him to one of his mom’s events. He’d insisted it was a Saturday night in the summer and they were a package deal.

  “I look like a snob,” Leo had said when he’d exited the dressing room.

  “Says the boy who plays lacrosse,” she joked.

  “But I get to carry a big stick.” He had reached for her and erased the distance between them. “Well, two.”

  Angeline groaned but let herself relax into the one place that slowed her down. Leo’s body was warm and smelled like the ocean they’d swum in that morning. With it being early summer, the water temperature had hovered around sixty degrees, but they’d dove in. They knew how to warm each other up when they got out.

  Leo had curled his fingers into her long hair, tucking in the beach rose he’d picked for her. “You know why I play, don’t you?”

  “Your mom thinks the football team looks cliché.”

  “Fine for a Republican, but not a woman advocating to abolish ICE. Want to show the country deportation and immigration in a new light? A kid with Venezuelan grandparents playing lacrosse in a beach town? Let’s all get together and roast marshmallows around the campfire. Eliza Torres brings us a better tomorrow!” He made light of something Angeline knew wasn’t, out of a need to protect himself. He then swung Angeline so they both faced the three-paneled mirror. Him behind her, legs and torsos glued together, her brown hair, not yet ombre, a shade lighter than his. Angeline could see him from nearly all angles; she hadn’t known to imprint it on her brain then. He’d brushed her hair back, rested his chin on her shoulder, and met her hazel eyes with his dark brown ones, the mixed feelings he had about his mom ever present. “So besides the fact that lacrosse happens to be the fastest game in the world to be played on two feet, no clue why I play?”

  “You thought since it had a stick it was some form of baseball?”

  “Nice try, but more Viktor Krum.”

  She drew her freshly threaded (in an on-camera tutorial) eyebrows together.

  “Freshman year, I heard you telling Maxine about your crush on him. Seeing as how I couldn’t conjure up a Quidditch field at Acedia . . . figured lacrosse was as close as I could get.”

  Angeline spun around. “You started playing lacrosse because twelve-year-old me once had a crush on a fictional athlete from Harry Potter?”

  Leo gave a sheepish smile.

  “But you’re really good,” she said. “You made varsity sophomore year.”

  “Fast learner,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck.

  She’d pushed him back. “Wait. You learned to play lacrosse for me?”

  “See, Ang, the thing is, you inspire me to do things I thought I’d never do. Play lacrosse. Eat raw fish. Be supremely happy.”

  Was he supremely happy now?

  Angeline positioned herself just inside the entrance to the cafeteria and snapped a photo of Leo’s sexist donut sign.

  She had a hard time imagining him agreeing to it let alone coming up with it. But he’d done one or the other. Both sucked.

  A roar of laughter broke out at a table where Tad and a bunch of guys were huddled together.

  “Hey, Leo, check it out,” Tad said, stepping back to make room.

  A square donut box lay open like a stage backdrop.

  “Frankengirls good enough to eat!” Tad lifted his hand to high-five Leo.

  Éclair legs and cruller arms and donut hole heads and extra white icing glopped on the upper half of Boston cream pie torsos, like breasts topped with pointy pink sprinkles jutting out from the centers. One creation had a rubber band attached to a toothpick sticking out of its munchkin head—a halo. A croissant split in two made a pair of angel wings. It rested a giant scone foot on top of a pile of crushed strawberry-filled donuts, their red jelly oozing out like blood, and that fire burning in Angeline’s chest exploded. Tad or no Tad, Leo was in charge of Leo. And he was turning this—her—into a joke.

  She might not particularly want to win, maybe didn’t even need to win, but she wanted and needed something: to beat Leo.

  She snapped a photo just as Tad’s hand met Leo’s. Just as Leo faced her, recognition dawning . . . of Angeline, her phone, this moment . . . captured.

  And about to go viral.

  * * *

  Acedia Red and Blue @TheRedandBlueAcedia • 10m

  Breaking News: Sugar and Spice, All’s Not So Nice for Quinn Camp
aign, a special online report: http://www.achsma.com/redandbluenewspaper #AcediaHigh #Frankengirls #Donuts

  12 retweets 55 likes

  ***BREAKING NEWS***

  Sugar and Spice, All’s Not So Nice

  for Quinn Campaign

  by Cathleen Quinn, Editor in Chief

  A donut breakfast sponsored by student council presidential candidate Leo Torres backfired this morning when he was seen enjoying a re-creation of what’s known in the school as the “Frankengirls.”

  “Sprinkle nipples,” Maxine Chen, senior, said, holding up her phone. Displayed on her screen was the Instagram feed belonging to the second candidate for student council president, Angeline Quinn. At the top was a photograph taken before first period of donuts arranged to resemble the female form. “This is what Leo Torres thinks of girls at this school. How’s this for something sweet, Torres: LGBTQIA+ Alliance and Girl Coders Club officially endorse Angeline Quinn for president.”

  When informed of the endorsements, Quinn was pleased but said bigger issues are in play.

  “This is supposedly a new era for women, but still this ‘boys will be boys’ culture exists here at Acedia. As evidenced by the administration sitting on its thumbs and not reprimanding even a single person involved. Perhaps it has something to do with Friday night’s game?”

  Quinn’s insinuation that no action had been taken against the male students clearly seen in the Frankengirls pastry photo because they are first-string football players has been gaining strength online.

  With comments pouring in, Quinn’s Instagram post has become a bastion of #MeToo versus male privilege.

  Pigskin matters more than being in a woman’s skin! #MoreThanOurParts

  Playing with your food stopped being cute ten years ago, you sickos.

  Can’t these chicks—sorry, I mean, ladies—take it as it’s meant: flattery, pure flattery.

  Quick! Someone eat the evidence! I’m in for half a Goldberg!

  Such comments continue to appear. For every outraged sentiment there is a matching one suggesting that not only are the girls in the school overreacting but that Quinn is pandering, taking advantage of the moment to secure votes.