by Micol Ostow
“Fair enough.” If he wasn’t worried, neither was I. I settled in and unwrapped a sandwich.
(Speaking of loyalties, Pop would not be happy to see this. But he gets more than enough of our business. This was barely a drop in the bucket.)
Thinking of Pop’s made me think of Jughead, which brought me back to our conversation last week. It was cool that he was writing; funny that both of us were doing some of that these days, even if mine were songs and his were stories. It just went to show that even now, when we didn’t spend nearly as much time as we used to together, Jug and I were always, in some way, on each other’s wavelength. I guess that’s what old friends are like.
Oh, crap. In a flash, I remembered two things: First, that Jug and I were supposed to go to Centerville tomorrow, and I wouldn’t be able to. Second, that the reason I wouldn’t be able to was because of my plans with Geraldine. Plans I still hadn’t told my dad about.
Speaking of loyalty … I hated to lie to my dad. So far, things with Geraldine had mostly been lies of omission; I just hadn’t told him what I’d been up to recently. Either he flat-out couldn’t tell that I was being cagey, or he didn’t want to admit it to either of us, to put it out there in way that meant we’d have to deal with it, whether we wanted to or not.
But like it or not, I was going to be away overnight tonight. Dad wasn’t super nosy or in my face, but I needed to account for that. Especially with Mom being gone, Dad was more attentive than ever, trying to make sure I still felt like we had stability at home and stuff. Trying to make sure I knew my parents still loved me, and that he, in particular, was still 100 percent there for me.
It made it even harder to be dishonest, white lie or no.
It was like he could read my mind—spooky, but another check in the “Dad’s there for you” column. He put down his own sandwich and took a quick sip of water. “I don’t think you told me for sure—do you have plans for the holiday? You must.”
My throat went all hot. I had practiced this in my mind a thousand times: what I was going to tell him, how I was going to say it. The best lies (white lies, I insisted to myself) all start with an element of truth, right?
“Uh, Jug and I, we were going to hang out,” I started.
What could be more believable? Jughead and I spent the Fourth together every year. We even talked about meeting up this year, too.
“Independence Day at the Twilight, huh?”
“Yeah. And I was gonna stay at his place. Tomorrow we’ll go down to Centerville like usual. Well, not totally usual. Betty won’t be there.” A fist clenched and unclenched in my stomach while I spoke, misleading Dad, and using Jug for an alibi. Then bringing up Betty for a hat trick. Whatever thread I was holding on to for my loyalty card, it was unraveling pretty fast.
“Right, right. Betty. How’s her internship going?”
There was that twinge again, this time right under my ribs. The thing was, I didn’t know that much about how Betty’s internship was going. We’d barely talked or texted since she left.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. But she was out doing … well, doing her LA thing. And I was here, with music … and Geraldine.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but things change.
But I couldn’t say any of that to Dad. “Um, it’s good. She’s good. She’s having fun.” Knowing Betty, that had to be true. She was great at everything she did, all the time. Why would this be any different?
It’s just a lie of omission, I told myself. A white lie. Barely even untrue.
“Glad to hear it,” Dad said. “Although I miss having her around. You guys make a cute couple.”
I blushed, the curse of being a redhead. “Dad, we’re not a couple; you know that.”
“Could’ve fooled me. I mean, I know that’s your story and you’re sticking to it, but you sure do act like a couple. Spending all your time together. And she obviously adores you. You could do a lot worse.”
“Betty’s amazing,” I agreed. Because she was. Is. She is literally the platonic ideal of the girl next door: beautiful, kind, devoted, smart. It’s not any big mystery why we’re so tight. “But, she doesn’t, you know, adore me. I mean not in that way. We’re just friends. It’s possible for a guy and a girl to be friends, you know.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Dad agreed. “But I’ve also seen the way she looks at you. If you want to play dumb, son, that’s your call. And maybe you’re not looking to take your friendship with her to the next level, that’s cool. But you should just be aware. And, you know, be sensitive.”
“Jeez, Dad.” What was with the “very special episode” talk? I didn’t need a reminder from anyone about how to behave with Betty. She wasn’t, like, a “girl” that way, that needed to coddled. That’s what’s so great about her—or one of the things, anyway. Betty’s like a guy friend, like a best bud—only better.
Dad put his hands up flat in a “back off” gesture. “All right, all right. Point taken. You and Betty are one hundred percent platonic. The platonic ideal of platonic. Just friends.”
“Just friends.”
“So …” He got a devilish look in his eye. “You’re a red-blooded American teenage boy.”
“Yeah?” I was wary.
“It’s just, if Betty’s not the one … there’s gotta be someone else, right? I can’t imagine you’re just sitting up there in your bedroom playing video games all alone, like a monk.” He gave me a look. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you heading out at night after dinner.” My mouth opened in surprise, but he didn’t let me get a word in. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get on your case, Arch. You think I wasn’t the same way at your age? Sneaking out the back door when my parents weren’t looking so I could meet up with girls?”
“So you could meet up with Mom?” It was no secret he and Mom had been high school sweethearts, even if these days, those hearts were a little more beat-up, worse for the wear.
“Sure, Mom.” He smirked.
“What’s that look?” Did I want to know? This whole man-to-man thing with my dad was a little much.
“I was no monk either, Arch. There was your mom, and there were some other girls here and there. What can I say?”
What couldn’t he say? What hadn’t he said? This little gossip session was getting a little too up close and personal.
“So?” He looked at me, expectant. “Where is my erstwhile son going at night, when he disappears out the door? Who’s the lucky lady?”
I flashed to Geraldine, sizing me up from behind those heart-shaped sunglasses as I trudged along the side of the road. Geraldine, in the backseat of that same car, later.
Geraldine, this morning in her house, sunlight streaming through the windows, lighting her up from behind.
“Come on, Dad,” I protested. “It’s not like that. No lady. I’ve just been running. Coach Clayton was real specific about us needing to stay in shape over the summer.”
Dad raised an eyebrow. “Running. Sure.”
“Running.”
“You know pouring concrete is as good a workout as any of the Bulldogs’ll have in the off-season.”
“I know,” I said, grateful to be off the topic of girls. “Speaking of—” I jerked my head in the direction of the trailer door.
“Yeah, yeah, go get back to it—before I’m accused of blatant nepotism,” Dad said, smiling. “Will I see you before you go to Jug’s tonight?”
“Uh, maybe?” Geraldine and I still hadn’t finalized our plans for meeting up.
“I’m glad you’re staying there,” Dad said, almost like an afterthought. “Jughead could probably use a friend right now, what with FP—” He stopped abruptly, as though he just realized he was taking the conversation in a direction he hadn’t planned on.
“What with FP, what?” I asked. What was my dad not telling me?
“Never mind. I’m just rambling. You guys have fun. Let me know how Jug’s doing.”
“Will do,” I said, wondering why my dad would be
curious about Jughead’s state. Wondering what it was he wasn’t telling me.
I guess I wasn’t the only one telling little white lies these days.
Not a lie, I corrected myself. An omission.
Dad was omitting things, hiding things from me.
It didn’t really sound that much better.
BETTY
By all accounts, Veronica Lodge is an intelligent, confident, raven-haired—and silver-tongued—beauty, mistress of all she surveys as a sophomore sophisticate at the tony NYC Spence Academy. The daughter of Hiram and Hermione Lodge—yes, those Lodges, magnates of Lodge Industries—this pampered sub-deb seemingly holds her universe in the palm of her (well-manicured, natch) hand.
What’s your vision of the ideal high school it girl? We promise you, Veronica has it all: Brains? Check. Beauty? Check. A bottomless bank account, a #rideordie #girlsquad of similar “haves,” and the choice of any male suitor who suits her fancy?
Check. Check. Check.
Rumor has it Veronica “Ronnie” Lodge once bought out the entire shoe section at Saks so no other student could sport the same stilettos she was rocking (I guess girlfriend’s never heard of Zappos?).
Few are willing to go on the record saying anything against dear old Ronnie, but, then, why should they, when The Lady herself has been known to laughingly self-identify as “a shallow, toxic rich bitch who ruins everything in her path?”
Okay, then. #Sorrynotsorry.
Daddy Dearest has been known to play it fast and loose with the wolves of Wall Street, but so far, rumblings from the underclass aside, no charges have stuck. And while, by all accounts, Veronica excels at basically everything she puts her mind to (seriously: the girl can sing, dance, and quote high literature at the drop of a straight-off-the-runway hat), we’re told she has a special aptitude for math: aka a head for business.
Why settle for simply inheriting your parents’ business when you could dominate it instead? The future of Lodge Industries may well be female.
Dear Diary:
Two hours and countless Google rabbit holes later, and this was as far as I’d gotten with my story on Veronica Lodge. The girl was inaccessible to the highest degree, so instead of relying on the proverbial horse’s mouth, I thought I’d do a little digging of my own.
But there just weren’t any bones to be found.
Truly, this Veronica sounded terrible—a benevolent dictator who thought her looks and her wealth entitled her to run roughshod over other people’s lives, wants, dreams. But those who didn’t want to be her or be with her were downright terrified of her. No one outright said it anywhere, but a little bit of poking around on the Spence student forums made it abundantly clear.
(BTW—creating a fake handle for those boards? That was so easy, even Nancy Drew herself would’ve been bored by the process.)
There were open letters about bullying—one horror story in particular about some poor girl being forced to drink gutter water, which in NYC had to be next-level gross—but none went so far as to name names. It was easy enough to connect the dots when you read months’ worth of letters and columns back to back, piecing together the periphery players and trying to find the common thread.
The real dirt was on Hiram Lodge, who was some kind of Wall Street tycoon. Back last spring, he ran some kind of investment deal that a bunch of financial consultants were calling Bernie Madoff levels of shady. But again—no one had gone fully on the record, and so far, nothing had interfered with the Lodges’ comfortably padded life of luxury. Her personal Instagram was locked, and her public Instagram was cluttered with heavily curated shots of clothing racks at Barneys, Bendel’s … what looked like a private fitting with … Christian Siriano … for the Met Gala??? Yup, followed by a shot of a custom-designed pair of coordinating #JimmyChoos, which I didn’t know real, not-movie-star people actually wore.
She got her hair and makeup done by Paul Podlucky on the Upper East Side, along with Kendall Jenner and the other Estée Lauder models, and she used to work out at Tone House before she decided it was too crowded and had her father build her a personal spin studio in their apartment. She and Taylor Swift were spotted sporting ironic matching manicures in the front row at Nanette Lepore at last year’s Fashion Week. She was asked to be a guest judge on Project Runway: Junior with Ariana Grande, but she demurred because she had plans to be at Necker (you know, Richard Branson’s private island) that week. Where she was—wait for it—“unwittingly” snapped in a candid lip-lock with the male Hadid.
So what was there to say about the girl that she hadn’t already said herself?
Well, I’d never know, anyway. Not the way my afternoon was going.
Rebecca had teased the idea of getting out of the office early, what with the holiday and everything. But the air in the place had changed since “Backpack-gate,” and even though she, Cleo, and I were basically sitting at our respective desks watching metaphoric paint dry (or in my case, concocting third-party “interviews” about a pathologically elusive subject), I certainly wasn’t going to raise the issue again.
Cleo … Glancing over past the bullpen toward the reception desk, I found myself wondering again: Could she have been the one who planted that stuff from the closet? We were, actually, supposed to be a “respectful environment,” like Rebecca had said. But I knew as well as anyone: Girls don’t always play that way. Had I made an enemy of Cleo, somehow? Enough so that she’d go out of her way—like even endangering her own reputation at the website—to destroy me?
I couldn’t think of anything I might have done to get on Cleo’s bad side. But some girls don’t need an excuse. Didn’t all those stories I dredged up about Veronica Lodge basically say as much? Maybe that was the first hard lesson I’d have to learn as LA Betty.
Well, I know one thing for certain: LA Betty isn’t going down that easy.
THINGS I KNOW ABOUT CLEO:
1) She wears cool glasses
2) She has super-shiny hair
3) She’s basically never said more than a few sentences to me at a time, and those sentences were usually things like, “There’s cake in the break room,” or “Rebecca wants those yoga sock samples, like, right now.” To which I responded, “Oh! Thanks,” and “Sure!” respectively.
Look, everybody doesn’t have to love everybody all the time. It’s fine. Maybe some people think I’m a goody-goody, or too plain-Jane. I’m for sure not an LA hipster.
We’re not all going to be besties. But in the few weeks I’ve been at Hello Giggles, I couldn’t think of anything I might have done to get on anyone’s bad side, and certainly not Cleo’s in particular. Mostly I just do my coffee runs, keep my head down, file what needs to be filed, and pray that maybe, just maybe, I’ll eventually be given a real assignment.
And then today, I was.
Hmm.
Not just one assignment, either. The wallpaper and the Veronica Lodge profile.
I mean, I knew it wasn’t because Rebecca had suddenly seen some great promise in me. I happened to be in the right place—a mostly deserted office—at the right time. Who are we kidding? But, I don’t know—if Cleo had writing aspirations of her own, maybe my sudden jump up the editorial ladder was a threat.
It was the best explanation I could come up with.
Was Cleo waiting for a byline of her own? Did she want it so badly that she was willing to plant evidence in my bag to frame me?
And if so, what would she do next?
Look, I’m a lover, not a fighter. But whoever went through my stuff threw the first punch. Whatever happens now is just self-defense.
Including, for example, going through Cleo’s files to figure out if—and why—she’s out to get me.
Her phone was the obvious choice. But she was attached to it like it was a life-sustaining organ. She even took it with her to the bathroom. (Side note: gross.) After about an hour of low-key stalking her movements throughout the office, I learned that the hard way.
I was putting the fi
nishing touches on my Veronica Lodge placeholder piece—clearly, it wouldn’t be done until I got a freakin’ quote from her highness herself, but something was better than nothing, and this was going to have to do for now—when I finally saw her shiny, shiny hair cascade over her shoulders as she pushed away from the reception desk. She hadn’t so much as twitched in her chair in the last sixty minutes, so this felt like a moment to seize. She vanished to the bathroom. I couldn’t tell if she’d brought her phone with her.
Rebecca was back in the conference room, poring over layouts or something “manage-y” like that. So she wasn’t around to see me being decidedly disrespectful of my coworker and her personal space. Bonus. I crept toward the reception desk with my own phone and a thumb drive in my pockets. (Nancy Drew would never embark on an investigation unprepared, and neither would I.)
Papers were scattered everywhere. (For a digital workplace, we generated a ton of printouts. Being analog and retro was kind of on-brand for our team. Honestly, if I came in one day to find Rebecca writing copy longhand with some insane feather pen, it wouldn’t shock me one bit.) I grabbed my phone and took pictures of anything and everything—I had no idea what might end up being a clue.
I only had a few moments, but from what I could see it was mostly press release samples, marked-up with red pencil and bright Post-it flags. Okay, nothing to do with me. Before today, I wasn’t trusted with drafting anything so official as a press release. They didn’t even usually circulate to my desk. Her work ID was there, too, the sharp angles of her cheekbones staring ahead at the camera intently.
I shivered. Cleo had never been warm and fuzzy. But with the possibility of being a target in her sights, that severe expression felt way more ominous. I snapped a picture of her ID. I had no idea what I’d use it for—to find out precisely when she’d logged in and out of the building? Who cared?—but it was more information. That was comforting.
“Do you need something, Betty?”
I jumped. Very stealthy. I’d been wrapped up in getting pictures of Cleo’s desk and hadn’t heard her come back from the bathroom. Total amateur hour. Nancy Drew would be ashamed.
