“Hey, what about the apples?” Hunter didn’t sound all that serious, though. “I’m the only one who thought about dessert!”
He had a point. But it was pretty clear how this was all playing out.
Game one to Jo.
6.
Given how competitive I knew Chloe was, I expected her to be furious at her loss, to rant and rave about the lack of clarity in Wyatt’s process. But she didn’t bring up the game at all, and she didn’t chime in when Hunter complained about it at lunch. “You’ll just have to make clearer rules when it’s your turn,” she told him, and that was all she had to say.
Having completely flamed out myself, I was more concerned about the upcoming election. Thank goodness it was a quiet week at school, after the study nightmare of the previous week; it meant I could focus on the campaign. Five candidates from our class had gotten enough signatures to run, including the meth chemist from Game Night (whose name was Kenneth Zhang), another guy Chloe recognized as already making a name for himself in the party crowd, and a girl who hung out on the fringes of Chloe’s group of followers. “The two guys will cancel each other out,” Chloe said, “and I can take care of that girl easy.”
The three of us were hanging out in one of the study rooms, talking strategy. We were going to need posters and slogans, and we had to decide whether to coordinate our campaigns or run as individuals who just happened to support each other. “I say we do this together,” Hunter said, and just hearing him say those words, even in the wrong context, made me melt. “We both win together, or we both go down together.”
I thought of a song my parents used to sing along to in the car called “We Both Go Down Together.” I could never tell whether it described a murder-suicide or a suicide pact. Either way, it was not the vibe we were going for. But I wasn’t about to say that out loud. “Totally,” I said. “It’ll be more efficient for making posters, too.”
“Speaking of which,” Chloe said, “what do you think of ‘Hunter and Amina for a Better Future’ as a slogan?”
“Isn’t that a bit much?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hunter said. “Go big or go home!”
I couldn’t fight with that. We decided to use blue and yellow to match the school colors, and we brainstormed ways to incorporate the Better Future theme. “We can do some space-age graphics,” Chloe said.
“Also maybe do something with how the blue and yellow are like the sun in a bright sky?” Hunter said. “To get across how a better future includes improving the environment?”
I liked it. I liked all of it.
What I liked less was finding out what Chloe meant when she’d said she would take care of the girl who was running, whose name was Stacie. Stacie invariably imitated Chloe’s outfits within days of them appearing on Instagram, and one day I’d checked Chloe’s Closet to find Chloe wearing a jumpsuit we’d just seen on a TV show called Fleabag. The jumpsuit was beautiful, sleek and black and way too sexy for school, and it was incredibly difficult to pull off. Chloe photographed her version at the greenhouse, as had become her habit, this time in front of a display of unusual roses: maroon rather than red, with black edges, one of the roses braided into her hair.
Needless to say, not all the imitations of this outfit were nearly as successful, and Stacie did not pull it off. “Jumpsuits aren’t for everyone,” I heard Chloe say, and though she claimed she wasn’t responsible for the hashtag #fleabagfail trending, along with pics of Stacie, I had no doubt she’d made it happen. “This is huge,” Chloe said. “Look how many people are posting about it! There’s no way she can win after this.”
I didn’t like that she’d gone after another girl. I felt bad for Stacie, really, though not so bad I wasn’t secretly relieved that Chloe might be right, that one candidate might have been neutralized. Ken and the other boy had already started campaigning on similar platforms about how to make school more fun; Chloe claimed this confirmed they’d been kicked out of other, better schools, whether for drinking or drugs or other kinds of misbehavior. They were all but running as a team as well, but Chloe was sure their strategy would backfire. “People might want one fun person, but they won’t want two. Two fun people doesn’t even equal one effective person. Worst-case scenario one of them could squeeze past you or Hunter, but realistically, they’ll just split the votes and leave the rest for the two of you.”
I wasn’t feeling nearly as certain. She and I were in my dorm room, having our weekly meeting but without Hunter—he was in charge of the next game, so we decided to let him off the hook, and besides, there wasn’t all that much left to do. We’d put up all the posters and created online graphics that were all over everyone’s social media. Chloe, who considered marketing both an art and a science, had it down. We’d made campaign promises hand-tailored to appeal to the people she perceived as her fellow influencers, placing posters advocating for vegetarian and vegan options near the dorm room of the SPCA president even as we swore, on the poster next to the football quarterback’s room, to keep the vending machines stocked with Cokes and candy rather than the gluten-free energy bars and antioxidant drinks the administration had suggested. I’d worried about being hypocritical, but Chloe insisted it was strategic.
“There is one more thing that would help,” Chloe said, taking hold of a lock of my hair and twirling it around her finger.
“If you say makeover, this meeting is over.” I wasn’t stupid—Chloe had made the occasional comment about my “remarkably consistent” wardrobe, the “natural resources” she felt I was neglecting in the form of my long, unruly hair and reasonably clear skin.
“How about this: we’ll just tweak your normal look, and I’ll put you on the site. I promise I’ll keep it low key, nothing radical. But, you know”—and here she was doing her best to feign modesty, I was sure—“my site does have a lot of followers, even at this school.”
As if I didn’t know that already. She’d won over nearly the whole female population of Gardner before the #fleabagfail incident, and it wasn’t long before everyone started imitating her again, especially since she’d made a point of wearing more user-friendly outfits after that. I groaned, knowing that I was going to give in and knowing that she knew I was going to give in, enraging as it was. “Fine.”
Chloe clapped her hands together with glee. “Excellent! Relocation time.”
I trudged behind Chloe as we walked to her dorm room. I’d never been there—we’d gotten used to being in mine because Brianna was so rarely around, and Chloe’s roommate struck me as someone I would definitely not like. She was the one whose brother had gone to Gardner, who’d given Chloe the download on how things worked around here, and she’d pretty much barnacled herself to Chloe. “Will Lauren be there?” Bad enough to have to subject myself to Chloe’s makeover, but to have Lauren watch would be too much.
“Unlikely.” Chloe opened the door and we went inside. No Lauren in sight. But being in their room was like being in a new place: the two of them had teamed up to make their dorm feel like anything other than a dorm. The walls were painted in shades of pastel—beige, mint green, peach—that I recognized as backgrounds from some of Chloe’s photos, though it had never occurred to me she’d taken some of the pictures in her own room. They’d hung strings of fairy lights just below the ceiling and airy curtains on the windows, and all the bedding matched the walls.
“Did you hire a decorator or something?” I plopped into a peachy-pink armchair. “This place is fantastic.”
“It’s what I do,” Chloe said smoothly, opening the closet to reveal a rainbow of clothes, as well as a full-length mirror she’d attached to the door. “Outfit first, then face. Acceptable?”
“Depends on the outfit,” I said.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
That was the real question, wasn’t it? But the fact was, she was doing this for me. There was nothing in it for her other than the fact that I’d let her be in charge of the campaign; there wouldn’t be enough inf
luence in my role for her to exert any behind-the-scenes leverage, despite her joke about being the power behind the throne. I might not know why she’d decided to do this for me, but my doubt wasn’t about trust. “I suppose.”
“Good,” she said. “Because it’s possible I’ve been planning this day for longer than you know.” She wasn’t flipping through what appeared to be an endless wardrobe looking for something for me to wear; she was digging through bags on the floor as if she had something very specific in mind, which, it turned out, she did.
Chloe emerged from the closet with a triumphant expression and a cardboard box. “So here’s what I was thinking. You’ve got your whole plaid-shirt-black-leggings-red-Converse thing pretty much down.”
I didn’t even have to look to know she’d described my clothes perfectly. Truth be told, I clashed radically with her dorm room. “It’s easy,” I said. “I don’t have to decide what I’m wearing in the morning, and I know I’m going to be comfortable.”
“I respect that, really, I do.” She was not at all convincing. “I was thinking we’d just go with a dressier version of your everyday look, you know, just a little more polish. That way you’ll read more style icon and less . . .” She passed her hand over my outfit. “. . . grunge-era throwback.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “And you have a plan for this?”
“Of course I do!” Too bad she wasn’t president, I thought. “And it’s not even going to hurt.” She started emptying the box, tossing items of clothing at me so fast I could barely see what she was throwing. “Try them on.”
“Now?” I’d assumed we were strategizing the makeover, not actually engaging in it. I hoped I wasn’t wearing a bra with holes.
“Enough messing around,” she said. “Snap to it.”
I’d gotten myself into this, so I was stuck. But as soon as I looked at the clothes I recognized just how skillful Chloe was, and I knew it would be okay. She’d picked out a red plaid shirt but in a kind of silky, tailored fabric; a pair of slim black pants that fit me like leggings but looked fancy (ponte, Chloe explained), and a narrow black blazer that nipped in just a little bit at my waist and made me look more like a girl and less like a fire hydrant.
Once I was dressed she handed me a pair of red flats that had some sort of padding in the soles. “These are even more comfortable than my sneakers!” I couldn’t believe it.
“Now give me your face,” she said, and I tried not to panic. Makeup wasn’t really my thing. Hair care wasn’t either. But all she did was brush my eyebrows with some weird clear gel, dab a little mascara on my lashes so my eyes stood out behind my red-framed glasses, and hand me a tube of reddish lip balm. “You can do that part yourself.” While I applied the lip balm she braided my hair into two pigtails and then pinned them up, pulling out a few tendrils that curled around my face. One dangly pair of silver earrings and we were done. It hadn’t even taken fifteen minutes.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it,” she said. “Go look.”
I almost didn’t need to bother. I felt pretty much the same, which was the last thing I’d expected after a Chloe makeover. I was as comfy as usual, maybe even more so with the new shoes and my hair out of my face, and it’s not like I hadn’t worn mascara or lip balm before. The only thing that felt really new was the stuff on my eyebrows. Still, she’d done the work, so I went over to the mirror and glanced at my new look.
I had no idea how she’d done it, but I somehow looked exactly the same and completely different, simultaneously. Better, because that was Chloe, but I still felt like myself. “You are, like, shockingly good at this.” It all fit perfectly. It was ridiculous. “Except . . .” I was embarrassed to bring it up, but I couldn’t not. “You know I can’t afford any of this, right?” Everything was expensive, I was sure of it, even if I didn’t recognize the brand names.
Chloe made a “pfft” sound. “It’s all from companies I work with. We just need to mark the post as sponsored by them.”
“Sponsored?” I’d wondered what that meant early on.
“They send me the clothes, they pay me for the post. You get the free stuff. But remember, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” She pulled out one more tendril from my braids. “Now let’s take some pictures.”
For some reason the thought of the sponsored post was far more terrifying than just the idea of being on Chloe’s Instagram, which should have been scary enough. It took hours for us to get the shots right, during which time Chloe literally wallpapered part of her room (I hadn’t realized that was even possible, but apparently there was temporary wallpaper she used for her shoots) and took what felt like thousands of pictures with hundreds of cameras. “I’m a professional,” she’d say, when I whined to ask whether we were done yet. “We won’t be done until this is perfect. You’re just lucky we’re doing this here and not at the greenhouse. Between the temperature controls and the lighting issues we’d have to take like a thousand more pictures.”
“You’re going to make Hunter do this next, right?” I was only sort of kidding. It didn’t seem fair I’d have to go through this agony when he didn’t, even if she’d minimized the pain.
“No one comes to my feed to look for boys,” Chloe said, as she finally put the last camera away. “But you both have interviews with the school paper, so he’ll share that pain.”
That helped a little. “I wonder what he’s going to make us do this weekend,” I said, collapsing back into the armchair. I was so comfortable I didn’t even change back into my regular clothes. She was a genius, Chloe.
“There’s only one way to find out. Let’s get him over here!” She got out her phone and started texting furiously.
“He’ll never come to the girls’ dorm,” I said. “He could get thrown out. Besides, I thought he was all busy planning for his game.”
“He was supposed to be, but then there was a soccer thing.” She knew an awful lot about his schedule. I wondered again how often they talked when I wasn’t around. We’d now been at Gardner for over a month, and hookup rumors had already started flying around. But there was nothing about anyone I knew, and that included Chloe and Hunter. I’d thought Jo might be in the mix as well; she was so intriguing, and I imagined both boys and girls would want to make a play for her.
Chloe’s phone buzzed. “He’s on his way,” she said. “Any last things we need to discuss before he gets here?”
So he knew where her dorm room was, too. Unless she’d sent him directions. I had no shot. “Do you think we’re in good shape? I’m not going to die if we lose, but I don’t want to get crushed—it would be so humiliating.”
“You won’t get crushed,” she said, and curled up on her bed across from where I sat. “You’re both going to win, and I’ll tell you why.” She started ticking reasons off on her fingers. “You’re both brainy but you aren’t obnoxious about it. Hunter’s got the good-looking jock thing going for him, and you’d be shocked at how many people will find that to be enough. And you’ve got this kind of dark mysterious thing going on—you don’t care what anyone thinks of you, and yet you’re putting yourself out there to help them. They won’t be able to resist it.”
Her description of me was so far from how I saw myself as to be unrecognizable. “You really think so?”
“Trust me,” she said. “You’ll win, and then you’ll become their dorm mama, making sure everyone’s got enough to eat, no matter what they want. Get a later curfew and earlier quiet hours and you’ll win every year.”
We were interrupted by a quiet knock on the door, and Chloe got up to let Hunter in. He was carrying the remains of a sheet cake that looked like it had been mostly devoured by hand. “I come bearing dessert and a list of new demands from the soccer team,” he announced. “Starting with extended curfew.”
Chloe had been right. She raised an eyebrow at me and I started laughing so hard I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop. “What’s so funny?” Hunter asked, putt
ing the cake on Chloe’s desk and looking around the room. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
So he hadn’t been here before. Relief. “I know, right?” I said.
He was peering at me closely now. “Did you do something different? Is it your hair?”
“Hair, clothes, makeup, the whole bit,” Chloe said. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”
Well, that was awkward. She hadn’t exactly left him a lot of options. “Totally,” he agreed. “Now you just have to decide whose heart to break. What’s your poison?”
“My poison?” All that mattered was that he clearly wasn’t talking about himself.
“You know, girls, boys, whoever.” He snuck a glance at Chloe. I wondered if he was hoping she’d answer the question as well. I’d caught her looking at Jo once in a while, though I couldn’t tell whether she was evaluating her for a makeover like mine or whether she could possibly be interested in something else.
“We’re here to talk survival, not romance,” Chloe said. “Leave the poor girl alone and tell us what to expect this weekend.”
Hunter sat at Chloe’s desk and started eating bits of cake with his hands. “Not a chance,” he said, mouth full.
“You are so gross,” I said. “Let me get a bite of that before you destroy it.” I stood up and scraped at some frosting with my pinkie.
“Match made in heaven, the two of you,” Chloe said, with no idea how much I wanted it to be true. “I wouldn’t touch that cake with someone else’s fingers.”
“Hey, did you hear about Wyatt?” Hunter asked.
“What about him?” Chloe asked, while I continued working on the frosting.
“The weirdest thing. He got this package and had to open it in the office, you know?” That was the cause of Chloe’s followers’ complaints: any time one of us got a package, we had to open it in the main office in front of an administrator, just to be sure no one had sent us anything we weren’t supposed to have. It was the price we paid for attending a school like Gardner. It meant some other student was almost always there to see what you got. “Anyway, it was this stack of books about racism and slavery and stuff. He hadn’t ordered them, and he didn’t know where they came from. It freaked him out.”
How to Pack for the End of the World Page 8
