I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl

by Gretchen McNeil

  You have no idea.

  Toile shook her head. “Yes. I mean, no.” She bit her lower lip. “I just . . . I feel like I’m in a rut, you know? Like I’m not living each day to its full and unique potential, and whenever I feel that way, I do something that I’ve never done before, like shout, ‘Jell-O monkeys,’ in the principal’s office, and then I can feel unique again even if it’s only for a second.”

  My body stiffened. And then I can feel unique again even if it’s only for a second. Where had I heard that before?

  Principal Ramos sighed. “My time is valuable, Ms. Jeffries. Are you dropping out of the race or not?”

  “Oh,” Toile said with a small smile. “No. I’m not.”

  “Of course not,” Principal Ramos muttered. “Why would anyone want to make things easy on me?” The bell for first period rang, and Principal Ramos spoke quickly. “Runoff will be Thursday. Posters and banners—heck, all campaign materials—are prohibited.” She was clearly making this up as she went along. “I’m not dealing with the cleanup a second time. This will be a one hundred percent virtual election. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Toile said.

  “Good. Now get to class. I’m not writing late passes for either of you.”

  Toile grabbed her bag and dashed out of the office before I’d even gotten out of my chair. I’d barely heard Principal Ramos’s instructions. My brain was racing to access my manic pixie database.

  I wandered into the bustling halls. That line. I’d heard it recently. I was positive.

  I fished my phone out of my bag and typed in a few words from Toile’s weird monologue in Principal Ramos’s office. A video result popped up immediately: Natalie Portman in Garden State.

  I stood outside AP English and watched the short clip, completely oblivious to the press of bodies around me. About thirty seconds in, Natalie Portman uttered the line I remembered, and which Toile had practically quoted verbatim.

  The slip in character. The anger. The combative response when I suggested we both drop out of the race. A manic pixie dream girl line lifted from one of the most famous manic pixie dream girl movies.

  Toile’s manic pixie act was just as phony as mine.

  She was following a formula.

  THIRTY-ONE

  GABE WAS ALONE at our lunch table when I hurried into the cafeteria; Spencer sat with Cassilyn at the adjacent table. He had his sketch pad, and his pencil was flashing around the page while Cassilyn leaned in, watching his progress with rapt attention. And she wasn’t the only one. Esmeralda was watching Spencer from beneath her fluttering lashes, and across the table, Milo and Thad glared at him. Only unlike the adoration on Cassilyn’s face and the envy in Esmeralda’s dark eyes, Milo and Thad just looked pissed off.

  “Hey!” I said softly, sliding onto the bench next to Gabe. “You aren’t going to believe what happened in Ramos’s office. Toile dropped her act. Right in front of me. Can you believe it? And then she quoted a line from Garden State as if she were just making the thought up out of thin air. Gabe, she’s totally faking this manic-pixie-dream-girl crap. Isn’t that awesome?” I held up my hand for a high five.

  Instead of reciprocating, Gabe shifted his body away, boxing me out with his shoulders.

  “Come on,” I said, realizing I was—literally—getting the cold shoulder. “The election wasn’t my fault.”

  Gabe opened a yogurt container and picked up a spork, but didn’t say a word.

  “I thought it would work,” I continued, talking to the back of his head. “I thought everyone would realize I was campaigning for you.”

  Spencer rounded the table and sat down next to Gabe. “You would have made an amazing ASB president.” His eyes never even flitted in my direction.

  Gabe smiled at him. “Thanks.”

  “I said I was sorry!” I threw up my hands. “I don’t even want the job.”

  “But your article submission for the Register is awesome,” Spencer said. “Even if you have to change the ending.”

  “You read it?” I asked Spencer, then turned to Gabe. “Can I—”

  “Thanks,” Gabe said to Spencer. “Nice to know I have at least one good friend.”

  “Fuck.” I planted my forehead against the lunch table. So this was what it felt like to be a ghost haunting your old neighborhood, listening to people talk about you like you weren’t even there.

  “Are you going to the dance with Cassilyn next Friday?” Gabe asked, nodding at the table behind us. “Or do you want to meet up at the diner beforehand?”

  The diner. Our traditional pre-dance meal. We’d load up on junk food, then all roll into the dance together. Safety in numbers.

  “Haven’t decided yet,” Spencer said.

  “Well,” he said, arching an eyebrow. “We’ll only need a table for two. Since someone won’t be with us.”

  I sucked on my bottom lip, trying to stave off the tears. I wasn’t a crier. But to sit there and be ignored by my friends, and to listen while they cold-heartedly cut me out of their lives, even if I deserved it . . . I couldn’t take it. I stood up, shoved my lunch bag back into my patchwork tote, and fled the cafeteria.

  It was a warm and sunny day per usual, almost too warm, but thankfully I found an unoccupied, semishady spot halfway down the stairs to the parking lot where I could wait out the lunch period.

  Things would blow over. I knew they would. Everyone was raw from yesterday’s assembly and the unexpected election results. Gabe’s pride was wounded, and Spencer . . . well, that was something else entirely.

  Honestly? Their reactions were more than a little dramatic. Flat-out ignoring me was childish, a punishment reserved for a six-year-old pariah on the playground, not one of their closest friends. They should have just told me to my face that they were angry. Then we could have discussed it like rational, civilized pre-adults. I could have explained the innocence of my actions and the victim-of-circumstances nature of the entire ordeal.

  Still, as much as I could justify my actions as being aboveboard and having only everyone’s best interests at heart, there was a nagging little voice in my head that said otherwise. It reminded me that I had enjoyed the name recognition, of feeling like I was actually somebody at this school instead of the nameless Math Girl. I’d gotten a thrill out of that assembly, a shot of adrenaline and power as I’d taken the microphone and had the entire student body cheer for me. I’m not exactly an introvert, but I’m not a performer either. But at that moment, I had felt like the center of attention at a school that had barely known I existed two weeks ago, and I had to admit I loved every second of it.

  So maybe I had something to apologize for after all?

  I pulled a spiral notebook and mechanical pencil from my bag, took a deep breath, and leaned against the banister. I needed to make amends, show my friends how much I cared about them.

  I needed a new formula.

  The Formula 3.0™:

  If F is a continuous real-valued function defined on a closed interval [t, f] between Thursday and Monday, V is the void created by F, then the empty set, i.e., “eternal happiness,” is the summation of grand gesture x applied over three integers.

  Or:

  (1) Find the void in my friendships.

  (2) Identify the fix.

  (3) Find a way to show them I’m sorry.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I SAT BACK and reviewed my calculations. Honestly? It might have been the best formula yet. Elegant and simple, yet detailed and specific. I mean, sure, I could have just apologized, but I’d said I was sorry in the cafeteria and they hadn’t listened. This formula would help me target the precise issues they had with me and come up with a fix.

  I was doodling on the page, my mind focused on how to make amends to my friends, when a shadow blocked out the fuzzy rays of sunshine penetrating the foliage overhead.

  “Can we talk?”

  I craned my head around and found Michael Torres two steps above me.

  I was surprised to find
him (a) not glaring at me, (b) not insulting me, and (c) not sneaking around spying on me. Plus, his entire demeanor had changed. For starters, he was smiling—a real smile, not an evil mastermind’s leering grin—and instead of hands on his hips or arms folded across his chest, his hands were tucked casually into the pockets of his chinos, the epitome of a friendly classmate.

  “What about?” I said, immediately on my guard.

  Michael Torres took my response as an invitation and squatted on the step next to me. “Look, I give up,” he began. “You win.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shrugged sheepishly. “I tried to prevent you from getting elected, but you beat me. I miscalculated how popular you’ve become.”

  Why was he admitting this to me?

  “I think we both know what this is about,” he continued, eyebrows raised. Then he paused as if waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

  “Our mutual dislike for one another?” I suggested. “The fact that you’re a pompous jerk? Your inability to accept that I’m ranked higher in our class than you are?”

  He clenched his jaw and I could see him fighting to remain calm. “No,” he said through gritted teeth. “I meant the MIT scholarship.”

  Ah, so he was finally admitting it. Michael Torres had invented an entire drama in his head, one in which I was running for ASB president in order to thwart his own efforts to win the scholarship by infiltrating the school paper. But he wasn’t going to believe me if I told him the truth, so I decided not to bother.

  “I joined the Herald to test my theory on the mathematical dissemination of information via the press, and you reinvented yourself in order to be popular enough to get elected to the student government. I’m sure you’re working on a formula and backing it up with research, same as me.”

  Michael Torres understood only part of what was going on, and while I had no plan to enlighten him, I couldn’t help but laugh. At the moment, the MIT scholarship was the least of my worries.

  “What’s so funny?” he demanded, his forced affability beginning to crumble.

  “Nothing,” I said, suppressing a giggle. “Sorry.”

  “I’m trying to be nice,” he said. “I thought maybe we could help each other out.”

  It would be a cold day in hell before I’d accept help from Michael Torres.

  “I’m willing to collaborate with you,” he continued. “Share my research and submit for the scholarship together.”

  I snorted. “Seriously?”

  He missed my sarcasm. “Yes. You just have to drop out of the runoff election.”

  Alarm bells went off in my mind, and all I could hear was the sound of the lobster-looking guy in that Star Wars meme yelling, “It’s a trap!”

  I was about to point out that his motivations made absolutely no logical sense, when I noticed that Michael Torres wasn’t looking at me anymore. Instead, his attention was focused on a grassy tier of the hillside leading down to the parking lot, where two figures sat eating their lunches. I recognized the navy beanie and burgundy fedora right away.

  Toile and Jesse.

  Why was Michael Torres so interested in them?

  “Hey!” I said, snapping my fingers in front of his face. “Why do you want me to drop out?”

  “I . . . I just . . . ,” he stammered. Then he cleared his throat and turned back to me. “You should leave the school government to someone who’ll do a good job.”

  So that was it. “Toile?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Toile would not make a better president than me.”

  Michael Torres laughed as his eyes trailed back down the stairs. “Um, yeah, she would. She’s fun and she’s nice to everyone. That’s exactly what this school needs.”

  Unbelievable. Toile was just as big a fake as Trixie, and yet half the school had bought into her bullshit. She’d charmed Cassilyn and her friends, weaseled her way onto the A-list, and even had Michael Torres eating out of her hand. But it was all make-believe, and it was about time this school knew it.

  “Toile doesn’t care about this school,” I said, shooting to my feet. “She only cares about herself.”

  Michael Torres popped up beside me, his face instantly red. “That’s not true.”

  “Yeah, it is. She’s a fake. I’ve seen the real Toile Jeffries, and trust me, she ain’t sunshine and rainbows.”

  “You’re just bitter,” Michael Torres said, spit flying from his mouth. “Because she stole your boyfriend. You don’t care about the election. You just want to beat Toile.”

  I winced. First Spencer, then Michael Torres. They’d both accused me of wanting to get back at Toile for stealing my boyfriend. Were they the only ones who believed it? Were other people thinking the same thing?

  “See?” Michael Torres said, taking my silence for agreement. “You can’t even deny it.”

  I pushed my finger into his chest. “You know what, Michael Torres? You can take that offer and shove it up your ass.”

  “I was trying to help you,” he said, nostrils flared.

  He was so full of shit. “Really?” I countered. “Like when you helped Milo and Thad find Gabe in the cafeteria? Did you think he might be intimidated into dropping out of the paper so you could take over?”

  His eyes faltered, proving that I’d hit the nail on the head. “No, I . . .”

  “You’ve been nothing but a dick to me since the first day of school,” I continued, backing him down the stairs. “And going after my friend so you could have a chance at that scholarship is truly pathetic. Not only am I not dropping out of the race, but I’m going to win. Not just the election, but the scholarship too.”

  “Fine,” he said, hiking his backpack up on his shoulders. “But just so you know, this is war.”

  Then he turned and marched back up the stairs toward campus.

  THIRTY-THREE

  IT WAS A long, lonely three-day weekend.

  As much as I hated to admit it, Michael Torres was right. Sort of. Somewhere along the way, my goal of getting Jesse back had shifted to a competition with Toile. Things had gotten out of hand, and I’d ended up hurting the people I cared about the most: Spencer and Gabe.

  Thankfully, I had a formula for that.

  There were two things I could do to make amends to my friends. First up: I needed to talk to Kurt.

  I was at Hidey Hole Comics at the crack of eleven on Sunday, when they opened. My mom had driven me over after Mass, but thankfully waited in the Prius while I walked up to the front door. I was pretty sure she was texting with Benjamin Feldberger, but at least that kept her occupied.

  At exactly 11:02, a familiar figure approached the glass door from the inside of the store and unlocked it. Kurt pushed open the door to admit the lone customer, but didn’t realize it was me until I stepped inside.

  “Hi, Kurt.”

  He stared at me, blinking slowly, as if I could have been a hallucination. “Gabe doesn’t work today.”

  “I know.”

  He continued to hold the door open. “Then why are you here?”

  I had to give him points for consistency. He definitely disliked me. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “Gabe.” Duh.

  “Oh.” Kurt let the door swing closed and turned to a tiered comics display in the window, busying himself with straightening each pile. I appreciated his attention to detail despite the fact that he’d opened two minutes late.

  “Gabe really likes you,” I said, getting straight to the point. “And I know you like him.”

  “Really?” Kurt said without looking at me. “Did your formula tell you that?”

  Ugh. “No,” I said, smiling. “My eyes.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Then he sighed, slow and deep. Which told me it did matter. Very much.

  I just needed to be honest with him. Maybe he’d see that we both had Gabe’s best interests at heart. “I know how you feel about me, and about Gabe’s new look.”

>   He paused and glanced at me, eyebrow arched. “Do you?”

  I snorted. “Yeah, you hate us both. But you know as well as I do that how he acts at school is just that. An act.”

  “Exactly.” Kurt stepped away from the display case and stared down at me. “It’s an act and it’s totally ridiculous. It sets LGBTQ gains back thirty years and makes me feel ashamed every time I don’t speak up about it.”

  “I didn’t even think of that.” I felt awful. I’d never meant to insult homosexuality or make anyone feel uncomfortable. Gabe was my best friend, and I loved him and accepted him no matter what. I was just trying to protect him. “You weren’t here our freshman year to see Gabe get his ass kicked at school once a week. It was brutal. And that first day of school when you saved us in the cafeteria? That was going to be the beginning of Gabe’s worst year of bullying. I had to save him from that. And now, for the first time since we started high school, the jocks are leaving Gabe alone.”

  Kurt didn’t respond. He may not have agreed with the Formula, but he couldn’t deny that it had protected Gabe.

  “I know he can be a little bit much,” I continued. “With his zoopas and his need to be in the spotlight.”

  “That formula released the crazed attention whore that was hiding inside of him,” Kurt said. “I don’t like how New Gabe is starting to replace Old Gabe. It’s like he’s not the same person anymore.”

  “Of course he is.”

  Kurt arched a brow. “Are you blind?”

  “Look, maybe you could just roll with the New Gabe for now?” I suggested. “There are only eight more months of school. I know that seems like forever, but in the great scheme of things, it’s not that long at all. And after that, there will be no more Cassilyns and Esmeraldas to impress, and no more Milos and Thads to avoid.”

  Kurt laughed dryly. “There will always be Milos and Thads.”

  I sighed and turned toward the door. He was probably right, but a part of me was hopeful that once we were all out of the clique-controlled cesspool of Fullerton Hills, things would be different. “I just wanted to clear the air. I hope you and Gabe can work it out.”