Ms. G. refused to comment, but some speculate that the move was a publicity stunt perfectly timed with the kickoff of the young singer’s first national tour.
I drop the newspaper and let my head hit the table. “I can’t read any more.” Izzy pats my shoulder. There’s nothing she can say to make me feel better, and she has the sense not to try.
Eventually I find the strength to lift my head and stare at the photo beside the article. It shows Solana leaving the Library Center with Grace on her heels. As they both appear to be yelling at reporters, it’s an unflattering shot.
“They’ve got the whole story wrong,” I say.
Rachel pushes my caramel macchiato toward me, and I shake my head. This is a disaster even Starbucks cannot relieve, but at least I have my friends to help me through it. They suggested meeting here early so that we could walk into Dunfield as a united front, but that was before we knew about the article. Izzy’s father discovered it as she was leaving the house.
“Solana had the best intentions, and they’ve tagged her as a diva,” I groan. “Finding out that my soul mate’s a loser and a liar was bad enough, but this is so much worse.”
“Hold that thought,” Izzy says, preparing to read the rest of the story aloud:
The Literacy Gala gave the three top schools a chance to add to their funds through donations from some of Chicago’s most generous patrons. Colonel Dunfield had the strongest program, thanks to promised appearances by Ms. G. and Chicago Bulls point guard, Jordan Peters. This led to a surprise win for a school at which students traditionally miss more classes than they attend.
The event began unraveling when two Dunfield students who pen a popular syndicated column called “The Word” began bickering onstage. Their principal, Alicia Alvarez, tried to intervene, but heckling from the crowd prompted the female half of the duo, Luisa Perez, to flee.
Her male counterpart, Joey Carella, left shortly thereafter.
Mayor Grimsby attempted to get the show back on track by introducing the popular Ms. G., but by that time she had walked, too, taking most of the press with her. Mr. Peters also disappeared.
The show did go on eventually, with special guests of the Turnbull Academy and Warwick Central fulfilling their commitment.
Afterward, Dunfield donors complained that they had supported the wrong school. Mayor Grimsby responded by renouncing Colonel Dunfield’s win and awarding the grand prize—an extended winter holiday—to the Turnbull Academy.
“I hope people will forget one misfire in what was a very successful campaign and remember that Chicago schools have raised nearly a million dollars for literacy this fall,” Mayor Grimsby said.
“Oh, man, we lost the prize too,” I say. “I can’t show my face at school again.”
“That’s what your mother was afraid of,” a male voice says.
Paz is standing over us, wearing a black leather jacket and combat boots. His hair is squished on one side as if he just rolled out of bed.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, injecting as much contempt into my tone as I can. Paz and I haven’t really spoken since he scared Joey off, and while that turned out to be for the best, I still wish he’d stop meddling in my life.
“Your mom asked me to pick you up here and take you to class,” he says. “And don’t give me attitude, because getting up early to visit Dumpfield isn’t my idea of a good time.”
“I do not need a bodyguard.”
Paz crosses his arms. “You might, actually. This vacation was a big deal for a lot of miserable students. Some might want to show you how pissed off they are.”
The attitude drains out of me pretty fast. “Well, maybe I should stay home for a couple of days.”
“Not an option,” he says. “Your mother’s wish is my command, Shorty. So grab your things and let’s get going.”
“Wait,” Izzy says, leaping to her feet. She digs a hairbrush and clips out of her bag and starts putting up my hair. “Rachel, get the rest of the stuff.”
“Izzy, what are you doing?” I ask. “It doesn’t matter how I look if I’m going to be torn limb from limb.”
Rachel pulls out Izzy’s mother’s rabbit fur bomber jacket, a floppy hat, and sunglasses.
“Now, if you could just add a couple of inches to her legs,” Paz says.
Izzy dangles a pair of steep platform shoes. “Done.”
After Paz sends the girls on ahead, I ask, “Is it really going to be that bad?”
“Probably not,” he says, pulling the hat over my face. “But if I have to take out a couple of Dunfield dweebs, I’m ready.”
He reaches for my coffee, and I don’t even complain as he chugs it. What’s a four-dollar macchiato between in-laws?
***
“You look like a ’ho,” Paz says amiably, as we turn the last corner and Dunfield comes into view.
“No risk of my acting like one, with you around.”
He snorts. “I talked to Carella, that’s all. If a guy on my crew has his mitts all over you, I feel responsible for making sure he isn’t getting out of line. No one is going to disrespect my family.”
“If Joey’s mitts were on me—and that really isn’t any of your business—it was just as much my doing as his. He was always a gentleman in person, Paz. He only dissed me in print.”
“That was just showing off. Guys are idiots, remember?”
“Now you’re taking his side?”
“I’m just saying that when the column started you weren’t seeing each other, and by the time you were, the tone was already set.”
What is wrong with the world when Paz starts to sound like the voice of reason? “He got a lot worse after we started seeing each other,” I point out. “And he knew by then that his identity would be revealed, which would make the girl he was writing about a laughingstock.”
“Whereas no one was going to laugh at Prince Newshound? I’d kill Grace for making me look like such a sap, and I’m a sensitive guy—practically a feminist.”
I fight the urge to return his grin. “I don’t want to talk about Joey. We’re over.”
“Give him a while to cool off, and I bet he’ll accept your apology.”
“My apology!” I look at him and find the grin has expanded. “That will never happen.”
“‘Over’ doesn’t always stay that way,” Paz says. “I’ll have another talk with him.”
“Don’t you dare!”
He offers me his leather-clad arm as we approach the main staircase at Dunfield. As usual, the stairs are lined with students who can’t bear to enter until the last possible moment. Some of them are smoking openly, although it’s against the rules.
“Isn’t that her?” someone mutters.
One guy steps forward and says, “Luisa Perez?”
Paz stops walking. He is several inches shorter than the thug, but there’s no question, he has presence. “Who wants to know?”
And that’s all it takes. The guy fades back into the crowd, and we continue up the stairs. Paz turns at the top to give everyone a last look and remind them that I have friends with muscle.
After he delivers me to homeroom, however, I’m on my own.
I never thought a summons to the principal’s office could be a welcome reprieve, but today it is. I take my backpack with me in the hopes that I don’t have to return to class. Being expelled would be a reprieve too.
Clattering toward the principal’s office on Izzy’s platforms, I replace my hat and shades, but the few students in the hall seem to have X-ray vision, because heads swivel as I pass. The Luisa Perez who wanted to be noticed was a fool.
“Good morning, Luisa,” Mrs. Alvarez says, directing me to a seat. “Hat and glasses, please.”
I sweep them off and get straight to the point. “I’m sorry about what happened, Mrs. Alvarez.”
She gets straight to the point, too. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Wait it out?” I suggest. “People will forget what happened by next year.
”
“I mean about Solana. She’s taken the brunt of this unfairly, Luisa. I’m sure you realize how difficult it was for her to agree to speak about her experiences.”
I hang my head and stare at the gray carpet, worn thin by so many delinquent feet. “I already called her, but she didn’t pick up.”
“You’ll have to be more creative,” she says. “And I know how creative you can be.” She allows her glasses to slide down her nose and looks over them. “Columnists have to take responsibility for any damage they cause. So I’ll see you back here at the same time tomorrow with a progress report.”
Great, I’m becoming a regular, just like my sister.
By 11 a.m. I’m exhausted, and Izzy’s shoes are killing me. I walked over to Solana’s building and got spurned by the doorman. I returned half an hour later with two expensive cigars for him, which won me the privilege of leaving a box of Donner chocolates and a card full of groveling for Solana. Then I walked to Dan’s to catch Grace as she came in for the lunch shift.
“You’re blowing off school,” she says when she sees me. “Bad Luisa.”
All things considered, she’s being pretty decent. It must be kind of nice for her to see me in trouble for a change.
“Mrs. Alvarez practically gave me permission,” I say, telling her about our meeting. “I want to call Solana from your cell phone in case she’ll pick up.”
“I already tried,” Grace says, sighing. “We’re both blacklisted.”
“What am I going to do? I have to make it up to her somehow.”
Grace pours me a coffee and slides it across the counter. “You’re creative. You’ll think of something.”
I wish people would stop saying that.
Rachel, Izzy, and I regroup just before 1:00. Since the hall monitor made me doff the hat and shades, I enter the cafeteria to glares and hisses.
“Holy hostile,” Izzy says, glancing around. “Has it been this bad all day?”
“This is nothing,” I reply. “My homeroom class booed when I walked in.”
“Didn’t the teacher stop them?”
“I think she started it.”
I fill them in on the rest of my morning, but like everyone else, they’re out of good ideas.
Someone walks by and deliberately knocks my water so that it spills into my lap. The ripple of laughter proves that everyone really is watching me.
“This is brutal,” Rachel whispers.
It is, but I’m still glad I came back. If I want to graduate, I have no choice but to try to live this down. And as long as no one beats me senseless, I can take the hazing.
“Life was easier when no one except the other ten Luisa Perezes knew my name.”
“Nine,” Izzy corrects. “The one in my homeroom just announced she’ll be using her middle name so as not to be confused with you.”
“Ouch,” I say. “Add that to my two prank calls last night.”
We look up to see Jason Baca and Tyler Milano standing beside us.
“Well, I thought your column rocked,” Jason says. “And I’m sorry it got ugly at the gala.”
I smile up at him gratefully. “You’re the first student to be nice to me today—other than these two.”
“I’ll be number four,” Tyler says. “I enjoyed your column, too. When I designed the Web site for Mr. Sparling I read all of them.”
So that’s why he had copies of the column on his computer. “Thanks, Tyler. I’m sorry I blew it for everyone.”
“We’d never have made the top three without ‘The Word,’” Tyler says.
I stare at him, realizing that I should have stuck with Mr. Fantastic all along. Tyler might not be my soul mate, but he’s a hell of a lot closer to fitting the glass sneaker than Joey is.
As if sensing my thoughts, Tyler adds, “My girlfriend loved your column. But Scoop’s totally cracked me up.”
Okay, so he’s not my prince. But Jason might still be Rachel’s. He keeps staring at her when he thinks she won’t notice. “She still likes you, Jason,” I say. Rachel gives me an indignant look. “Well, you do. And he likes you too. Believe me, there are worse things than parental trouble.”
Rachel looks up at Jason and shrugs. “If he does, he can call me—on my cell phone—anytime.”
They exchange a smile, and Tyler and Jason walk away.
“At least one of us gets a happy ending,” Izzy says.
I point to Mariah approaching with Mac and the Understudies. “Mine is getting more tragic by the second.”
“Well, if it isn’t the famous Newshound, who left the party with her tail between her legs,” Mariah says. “Mac and I worked hard to win that competition, and you ruined it.”
I stand to face her. I deserve crap from some people, but not from her. “If it weren’t for ‘The Word’ and my special guest, we wouldn’t have raised nearly as much as we did, Mariah. And as for leaving the gala, it might not have happened if you’d kept your big mouth shut.”
“I could still call the cops on your sister,” she says, pointing out a bruise on her arm the approximate size and shape of Grace’s hand.
“Go ahead. But Grace never forgets a grudge.”
“The only reason anyone read ‘The Turd’ was to laugh at you and your loser boyfriend anyway.”
At one time I’d have believed that, but not anymore. Somewhere along the line I had gained a little confidence. “Actually, you got a lot out of Newshound’s advice. And I want you to know that I’m still here for you.”
Behind her, Mac and the Understudies snicker.
She squints at them before jabbing me with a long nail. I notice it’s freshly stenciled and that she has reverted to her old uniform of skanky yoga wear. “I would never—never—take advice from you. Especially about relationships. I took another look at your columns last night—”
“I’m touched.”
Mariah continues smoothly, “—and I couldn’t help but laugh at how Mr. Sensitive played you to get between the sheets. But then, if I were you I’d probably be so grateful someone was willing to sleep with me that I’d have been that gullible too.”
At this point Mac intervenes. “You’ve said your piece, Mariah. Let’s go.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s time to go,” she says, backing away anyway. “Better stay out of my face, Coco-slut.”
“Does this mean I don’t get your VIP number?” I call after her.
She offers a string of Spanish expletives that generates a round of applause.
“Put a sock in the whining,” Dan says as I plow through my second slice of coconut cream pie. “I pay you to serve, not complain, and there’s a customer in your section.”
Sighing, I head out front, only to discover there’s a mutiny afoot. While Dan distracted me in the kitchen, someone set up foot-high chocolate lettering on table four that reads “SORRY.” There’s a white rose protruding from the O and dark eyes peering at me over the R’s.
My first instinct is to return to the kitchen, but I realize it’s better to go over there and explain in no uncertain terms who gets sole custody of the diner. If it were up to me, Joey Carella would never taste another Rodeo Burger.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“A large slice of humble pie?”
“We don’t serve that here.”
“Sure we do,” Dan calls. “But you ate it all.”
I glance over my shoulder at him. “Do you mind?”
“Give the boy a chance,” he says.
“I don’t think so.” I turn back to Joey. “All the discount chocolate in the world can’t fix what you did to my reputation.”
“For the record, I paid full price for the S and the Y,” he says. “But anyone with half a brain knows that column was pure entertainment. Have guys come around today looking for a good time?”
“Right now, no one would touch me with the ten-foot pole Scoop mentioned. I’m not ready to saddle up the next mule anyway.”
“You made me out to be a spinele
ss—”
“Eunuch. Your word, not mine, by the way. Maybe the guys thought so, but I guarantee you the girls didn’t. Do you really think making me look easy is the same thing as making you look sensitive?”
He opens his mouth to reply and closes it again.
“You knew it was bad. That’s why you avoided me the whole week before the gala, isn’t it?”
“At least I tried to ask you to come with me. You can’t say that.”
“Maybe not, but at least I portrayed you as a decent, caring guy. You, on the other hand, portrayed me as a slut.”
Joey leans forward. “You’re exaggerating. If I hinted that things were a little hotter between us than they were, it was to get a rise out of Newshound. That’s the dynamic that made our column so popular.” He slumps back into his chair. “And maybe I was overcompensating a little for feeling outclassed.”
It’s a red herring designed to throw me off the trail. “What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t notice me for the first two months I came in here because you assumed I was a dumb dropout. Meanwhile, all these guys you thought were so much better than me were welcome to hang around. Maybe I talked big in my column to make up for that.”
“So you’re saying this is my fault because I’m a big fat snob.”
“No, I’m just trying to explain.” He pushes the chair out for me to sit down, but I ignore it. “In a weird way, I thought the column might even impress you—and make you laugh. I mean, once you got over the spin.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve got a lot to learn about girls.”
“Haven’t we all?” Dan calls, elbows propped on the ledge of the pass-through.
“I was planning to ask Mr. Sparling to run a retraction,” Joey says.
I perch on the edge of the seat for a moment. “This isn’t about my feelings anymore, Joey. It’s about Solana. I made her look bad in the press. She’s just starting out, and it could hurt her career.”
“I know,” he says. “But I’ve got a plan. Get your coat.”
I highly doubt he has a good idea. It’s probably just an excuse so we can pick up where we left off. But I’m not forgiving him. Ever. “I can’t leave. My shift goes till eleven.”
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