Yeah, a 50 percent time share on a new Escalade provides a classic lesson in sacrifice. I wish Lana could afford to teach me that lesson.
“I’m lucky—I get a bus pass all to myself,” I say, but Bethanie’s expression makes it clear she doesn’t find me as amusing as I find myself.
“Anyway, I was just taking Chanti home and thought I’d grab a drink for the ride. She lives way across town—Aurora Avenue or something. It’s a hike, so I thought a coffee would be a good idea. Your brother’s Justin, right? The quarterback? I hear he’s very good. It must be so fun to have a twin. You live in Cherry Creek right? I don’t live too far from there. I’d love to give you a ride after we drop Chanti.”
Bethanie is the opposite of me. I get around a boy I’m jonesing for and can’t string together three coherent words. She gets around a girl she’s jonesing to be, and she can’t shut up. We get to the car and somehow I get the backseat. So much for the new girls sticking together.
“What’s the story on the car?” Lissa asks. She looks relieved she won’t be riding in the wreck that a scholarship girl ought to be driving, if she’s lucky enough to be driving at all. “Aren’t you supposed to be socioeconomically disadvantaged ?”
“I have a rich uncle. He let me borrow it.”
“Did he let you borrow that Coach bag, too?” Lissa says.
Not that I’d ever want to have anything in common with Lissa, but I’d like to know the same thing. She probably borrowed the bag the same way she “borrowed” that pen from Smythe. Maybe she really does have a rich uncle because she couldn’t have stolen the car. Or could she? For all I know she might be part of a car-theft ring. At least that would explain why she has to park over hill and dale.
“You’re too funny. It was a gift from him.”
“Too bad he couldn’t get you a gift of tuition money, huh?”
“Right!” Bethanie says, laughing way too hard.
I tell Bethanie the fastest way to get me home and then shut up while they discuss the joys of attending Langdon Prep. When we finally take my exit off the interstate, my first thought is that I’m so glad to be home. My next thought is how much home is a helluva lot different from Langdon, and I begin to see it through Lissa’s eyes. Between the graffitied walls and the rejas on all the windows, Bethanie probably thinks she’s arrived in West Hell, after all.
“Chanti, now what?” Bethanie says when the red light stops us at Center and Lexington, where Crazy Moses is about to push his shopping cart/living room into the park. They probably don’t have a Crazy Moses in their neighborhood.
“Just go two more lights to Aurora Avenue. It’s about a quarter mile on your right,” Lissa says.
Well, that’s correct, but I didn’t say it. How does Lissa know this neighborhood? Maybe she’s got a little less Cherry Creek in her than we thought. As if she’s read my mind, Lissa offers, “Our maid lives off Lexington. I was with Daddy once when he gave her a ride home.”
Right. The maid. I can’t get out of that car fast enough when we finally get to my street. The minute I step on the sidewalk, smell the year-old grease frying wings up at the Tastee Treets, and hear Jay-Z blaring from someone’s window, I feel like a fish let off the hook and thrown back into the water.
My relief at being home lasts just two seconds. That’s when I notice that I arrived at the very time it seems everyone on the street is outside—washing cars, unloading groceries, throwing a football. I know I’m going to get a million questions about rolling up in a brand-new BMW wearing this fugly uniform. And they’ll all come from Tasha and Michelle, who are sitting on Tasha’s front steps. I asked Bethanie to drop me there because I don’t want her or Lissa to know exactly where I live, at least until I know what else Bethanie is hiding and why she’s so desperate to become Lissa’s BFF. A little healthy paranoia comes with being a cop, or the kid of one.
“Oooh, look at Miss Thing stepping out of that car,”
“Now she’s on the red carpet. Michelle, what’s she wearing?”
“Well, Tasha, I believe that’s the latest couture from the House of Burberry Knockoffs.”
“Who is she? Is it Beyoncé? Could it be . . . no, wait, it’s our very own Chantal Evans, fresh from the other side of Denver.”
They break out laughing.
“See, I was going to tell you about my new school,” I say, trying not to laugh myself. “And I wanted to hear what it was like at North, but you people make somebody want to go inside and do homework.”
“Sorry, Chanti, we’ll be good. We want to hear all about your new school.” Tasha makes room for me on the step.
“But first,” Michelle says, sticking an imaginary microphone in my face, “tell us if they’re letting you keep your ensemble, and whose car you and your friends jacked to bring you home following the show.”
Then I do laugh, because it feels good to be back home and I have a whole fifteen hours until I have to deal with Langdon Prep again.
Chapter 5
Fifteen hours goes by fast, ’cause now I’m starting my second day of hell. I still can’t believe this is where I go to school, a place that looks like something from a Hollywood film lot. I can totally see an ad for a Lamborghini or Ferrari being shot here—red car, green grass, gray stone, and a woman leaning against the car sipping champagne. Or maybe one of those rich-prep-school shows on the CW. That’s what I’m thinking as I make the walk from the bus stop, until I see Marco sitting on the bench under the tree where we first met yesterday. How could I forget my silver lining?
“Hi, Marco.”
“Seems like only yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
My goal for today is to talk to this boy in sentences with more than two words. I swear.
“I thought I’d hang out here in case you and Bethanie, you know,” Marco says.
“I know. The first day, right? We should compare schedules. Maybe we have some of the same classes.”
There. I knew I could do it. But I cannot be smooth no matter how I try. The minute I take my schedule out of my backpack, the wind snatches it out of my hand.
“I’ll get it,” Marco offers.
“No, I have it,” I say, but I don’t. But what kind of second impression would I be making to have the guy run all over campus chasing down my schedule?
I try to step on it, but it gets away again. Now I’m running after it, wondering which is worse—looking like an idiot chasing a piece of paper across the windy quad, or missing out on the chance to sit way too close to Marco while we look over our schedules. I decide it’s too early in our relationship to make him think I’m a complete moron and let the wind have my schedule.
“Do you think this planet is your trash can?”
I turn around to find someone who I can only guess is a teacher walking toward me, holding what looks like my schedule.
“Excuse me?”
“Mother Earth is not here to accept your refuse,” she says and shoves the schedule against my chest. “Treat her like the goddess she is.”
All righty then.
“Hey, that lady caught your schedule. Cool,” Marco says when I get back to the bench.
“You mean the psychotic hippie?” I feel some attitude coming on, but I let it pass because I’d rather get all worked up over Marco than some crazy teacher. “So what do you have first period?”
“Maybe we should wait for Bethanie. She might have some of our classes, too.”
“I don’t think Bethanie will be showing up.”
“She already dropped out?”
“Hardly. She’d kill to stay here. I don’t think she’ll be showing up to meet us. I think she’s already ditched us for new and improved friends.”
I’m about to tell Marco about yesterday’s adventure when Bethanie appears, proving yet again that when it comes to her, my superpowers of observation are no good.
“I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you’d be part of Lissa’s crew by now. How’d the ride home go?”
I give Marco a look that says I told you so. “So she invited you to a party?”
“Not in so many words, but why else would she tell someone about a party unless she wanted them to come?”
“Because she’s Lissa. From what I know of her, sounds exactly like something she’d do.”
I’m about to explain to her how the haves treat the have-nots when we notice Mildred from yesterday’s vacuuming incident dragging a bookshelf across the quad, and having a hard time with it. She drops the bookshelf, falls to the ground, and grabs her foot. We run over to her since it appears we’re the only people to witness this out of the hundred kids walking around and across the quad.
“Are you okay?” Bethanie asks. “Should we call someone ?”
“Why are you trying to drag this heavy bookshelf by yourself?” Marco asks.
“Because it’s my job, even if I don’t get paid nearly enough for it. Oh, my foot is killing me.”
“Seems like a two-person job, at least. You think you can grab the other end, Chanti? Or should I grab one of these guys?”
“You mean one of the guys who don’t even seem to notice we need help over here?” I say the last five words loudly, in the hope someone might care, but no luck. “Sure, we can carry it together. Where were you taking it?”
“Over to the administration building. Headmistress Smythe’s office.”
Of course.
“Do you think you can put pressure on your foot if I help you?” Bethanie asks. She’ll never fit into Lissa’s crowd, lucky for her. I noticed Lissa and her entourage had walked right past us.
Once we get the bookshelf into Smythe’s office, Mildred tells us where to place it. Marco is about to go find the nurse’s office when Smythe arrives.
“What are you doing in my office? Who let you in here?”
“I did,” says Mildred. She’s lying on the sofa, out of Smythe’s view from the door. “They helped me get the bookshelf you wanted moved from the library.”
“Mildred, we do not ask our students to help our custodial staff with their duties.”
“She didn’t ask,” Marco offers. “She was trying to drag that heavy thing across the quad by herself, and dropped it on her foot.”
“If she needed help, she should have asked one of the other custodians, not our students.”
“But you just called me on the Nextel and told me to get it over here ASAP,” Mildred is saying. “I tried to tell you I needed to wait for . . .”
“That’s neither here nor there. You children should get to class. First bell will ring any second.”
“We were going to help Mildred get to the nurse,” Bethanie says.
“I’ll see to Mildred.”
I doubt it. I imagine poor Mildred still here on this sofa at the end of the day, thirsting to death and Smythe laughing at her while she sips a glass of cold lemonade.
Just as we’re leaving the office, Smythe stops us.
“Since you’re all here, I can ask you about my Montblanc. It went missing yesterday.” She’s looking directly at me when she says this. “You remember, Chantal, the one you almost walked off with. I’ve had it for years and have never misplaced it.”
I look over at Bethanie, waiting for her to confess so I don’t have to narc on her, but she gives me a blank look. I guess she’s going to let me take the fall.
“As I told you yesterday Mrs. Smythe, I didn’t take it,” I say, and walk out.
If my life had a soundtrack, the shower-scene music from Psycho would be playing right now. When I walk into my next class, I see the psychotic hippie at the whiteboard writing her name. Ms. Reeves. My biology teacher. I grab a seat at the back of the class. As soon as she turns around, Ms. Reeves’s eyes lock on mine, and I can no longer hope she doesn’t remember me. She comes straight back to my desk, her long tie-dyed skirt billowing behind her, bracelets tinkling. I can’t believe Smythe lets her dress like that. It’s so un-Langdon.
“And you are . . . ?”
“Chantal Evans. New girl.”
“Since we last spoke, have you reconsidered your treatment of Mother Earth?”
Last spoke? We didn’t speak. She made an accusation, shoved my schedule at me, and went off in a huff, as I remember it.
“I wasn’t polluting. My schedule blew out of my hands. I was chasing it in the wind, but it got away.”
“What I saw was you giving up the chase.”
She walks back to the front of the room, tinkling and swooshing. That’s going to be really annoying on test days.
“Welcome, class. I’m Ms. Reeves, a new teacher here at Langdon. This is an environmental science class, but it will be taught from the perspective of Earth and your place on this planet, rather than from your perspective and what the Earth can do for you.”
From the sighs and groans around the class, I know I’m not alone in thinking the woman is a little off. Now I get why she’s at Langdon. They’ve gone green. Langdon is trying to be environmentally aware because everyone knows green is the new black. I think I know who convinced the board to replace the Smythe Botanical Garden with sagebrush and limestone.
“Take a look around this room at all your . . . stuff.”
I know what she really wants to say.
“Your stuff is your carbon footprint, and I can look around this room and see that the twenty of you will likely leave a footprint the size of a landfill. Just look at the number of plastic water bottles I see on the desks. It breaks my heart.”
It’s true. I think she’s tearing up. Some girls sitting two seats over from me don’t seem to notice our teacher’s pain, though. They’re too busy oohing and aahing over something one of them has taken from her bag. When I stretch to get a better look, I find it’s Lissa and a clone. I must have missed them when they walked in, since I was busy licking my wounds after Smythe accused me of being a thief.
“What’s going on back there?”
Uh-oh. Busted. Here she comes, swooshing and tinkling down the aisle.
“What is this?” she asks, snatching a small pink box from Lissa’s hands. Then she starts opening it, and I’m hoping it’s something embarrassing like a sex toy or a colonic kit.
“Face cream,” Ms. Reeves announces, which is a little anticlimactic. “And look at the packaging. An excellent example of carbon footprint. We have the cardboard box. Inside that, we have the plastic platform the bottle rests in. Plastic! Now the bottle itself. A bottle within a bottle, just to make it pretty. Do you know how long it will take the earth to break down this bottle? Never!”
Ms. Reeves reassembles the cream in its packaging, but instead of giving it back to Lissa, she takes it to her desk.
“Hey, what are you doing with my cream?”
“I’m confiscating it. Langdon policy. A teacher can confiscate anything a student brings into class that is not germane to the class or is causing a disruption. This abomination fits both categories.”
“But that’s a brand-new, unopened bottle of Il Mare.”
“How ironic that it’s named for the sea, because that’s exactly where the packaging will probably wind up.”
“But that cost me twelve hundred dollars.”
Ms. Reeves almost passes out after this news. Seriously. She has to brace herself against the whiteboard.
“Twelve hundred dollars? Twelve hundred dollars! Are you kidding? Do you realize how many acres of rain forest that could save? Do you know how many trees could be planted in the Northwest forests to stop soil erosion? I can’t believe you people. I just can’t!”
She throws the cream in her bag and walks out of the classroom, but before we can all start talking about what just happened, she’s back. She calmly goes to the lectern at the front of the class, opens her teacher-copy textbook, and says, “Please turn to page three.”
Seriously. Cue the music from Psycho.
Chap
ter 6
After spending an hour with crazy Ms. Reeves, my mood can’t even be improved by the cheery French café music playing in the background or the delicious scent of galettes Madame Renault is cooking on a waffle iron while she teaches verb conjugation. French class is my favorite, though even when I’m here, I still hate Langdon. When I should be listening to Madame Renault running through verb tenses, I’m mentally cursing everything that is Langdon—the long bus ride to get here, the crazy teachers, and the clueless kids who wouldn’t know real life if it smacked them upside the head. At least I do my mental cursing in French, though that puts some limits on me because I only know two French swear words. It isn’t the kind of thing they cover in class.
Right now, it’s just two minutes before the bell and I’m focused on trying to finish the short story I should have written last night instead of hanging out on Tasha’s porch, listening to the latest gossip that I miss by not going to North High. Another reason to hate Langdon.
I smell the faintest hint of familiar cologne mixed with something else that makes me weak every time, and I don’t have to look up to know Marco is standing within a few feet, and suddenly every part of me is warm.
“Has anyone claimed this seat yet?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Way to make a guy feel wanted,” he says, pretending to be crushed but smiling in that way that gets me all hot and bothered.
Oh, you’re wanted all right. That’s what the Chanti in my head wants to say, but all that comes out of my mouth is, “No one ever sits there. It’s your seat now.”
The first lie of our relationship. A girl who chose Fifi as her French name has been sitting there. That’s what she gets for giving herself a name reserved for poodles and strippers from old black-and-white movies.
“Good. It’s mine now. I just did a drop/add into this class.”
“Wasn’t it hard to get a schedule change?”
I imagine Marco in the registrar’s office begging the man to change his schedule so he could be in a class with me. When the registrar says it’s against the rules, Marco finally admits that he’s crazy about this girl but doesn’t know how to tell her, and if he could only take French class with her, he’d figure out how to tell her his true feelings. French being the language of love and all.
My Own Worst Frenemy Page 4
