The Comeback

by Marlene Perez

  Some smart-ass had plastered copies all over my locker. I ripped them down and was stuffing them in the trash can when Monet stopped me.

  “I’d shred them,” she advised. “Otherwise, they’ll just hang them back up again.”

  She fished the photocopies out of the trash.

  “How many of these are there?” I asked.

  “Dev’s been taking them down since he got here for swim team this morning,” she said. “He called me to let me know. I tried calling you, but your cell went right to voice mail.”

  I grimaced. “Jason has been calling all weekend. I finally shut it off.”

  “He has a lot of nerve,” she said, “after what he did.”

  “He’s a cretin,” I said. But my mind was on Dev. Why was he being so nice to me? The Dev I knew would have reveled in my misfortune, not tried to help me.

  And who out of all the kids at the dance had taken the picture? Who disliked me so much?

  As the day progressed, I realized that apparently the answer was, a lot of people. First, Hannah laughed in my face in English. Then, in PE, I was the last to be picked for softball.

  “What a loser,” Kent Teramoto said.

  I knew he was taking about me. A week ago, he was telling everyone how hot he thought I was. Like I cared.

  By the end of the day, I was steaming mad. When I had been popular, I had never experienced so much grief from total strangers. Maybe I had ignored a few people, it was true, but I had never been mean for the sport of it.

  Outspoken, yes, bitchy and temperamental, maybe, but I’d never gone out of my way to be cruel. Was that what it was like for the normal kids? If so, I was glad I’d been popular.

  I didn’t dare show my face in Wicked Jack’s. Instead, I convinced Monet to hit Taco Bell at lunch. She didn’t mind. Turned out Scott loved Taco Bell and tagged along with us.

  I took a sip of my soda. “So what do you guys know about Angie?” I asked, carefully casual. “Where did she come from?”

  I hadn’t seen her with anyone besides Connor. And Haley and Vanessa were certainly friendly only because of their boyfriends. I needed to talk to someone who knew the entire scoop about Angie.

  Monet crossed her arms. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just making conversation.” I smiled at her, but she just snorted. “Scott, don’t you have English with her?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She and Connor sit in the back and hold hands. I think she transferred from Eisenhower.”

  I beamed at him. It was a start.

  When Scott went to refill our sodas, Monet turned to me. “Sophie, it’s a bad idea.”

  “What’s a bad idea?” I said with studied innocence.

  “Whatever it is you’re planning,” she replied. “Can’t you just let it go for once?”

  I looked at her. “You think I should let it go that she started seeing my boyfriend behind my back?”

  “I heard that nothing happened before he broke up with you,” Monet protested. “She wouldn’t even let him kiss her until he did.”

  “Oh, and that makes it better? She knew he had a girlfriend. She should have walked away. Period. And then to encourage him to dump me in public—that’s adding insult to injury.”

  “I don’t think she encouraged him,” she replied. “Connor used bad judgment.”

  Monet would never go along with what I had planned. The girl had too many moral scruples. Luckily for me, I was less fastidious.

  “Maybe you’re right. Perhaps I should let bygones be bygones,” I said, peeping over at her to see if she was falling for it. She was. “It hurts, though.”

  For a second, I thought I’d oversold, but then Monet said, “You should get to know her. She’s really very sweet.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Even Monet, my best friend, obviously liked Angie. Pretty soon, Monet would be wearing a TEAM VOGEL tee, too. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready. I’ll try, though. For you.”

  “I could see if Angie would be open to a sit-down with you,” Monet offered.

  I made a face, pretending I needed convincing.

  “You don’t have to be friends or anything,” Monet said, “but maybe a truce for the good of the play?”

  I nodded. A truce was the last thing I had planned, but Monet didn’t need to know that. And neither did Angie.

  Chapter 11

  Hey, Mom, do you know any of the moms from Eisenhower High?” I already knew the answer. Mom knew everybody.

  She looked up from her computer. “Yes, I think Judy Blake’s two girls go there. You remember Stephanie, don’t you?”

  “Do you think you could give me her number? I just need to talk to her about something.” I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I’d know it when I saw it.

  “I’ll get it for you,” she promised. “But why do you need it?”

  “Connor and I broke up,” I said. “And he’s dating someone who just transferred from there. His costar in the play.”

  She jumped up and wrapped an arm around me. “You broke up? Honey, I’m sorry.”

  I tried to be nonchalant but didn’t move from her embrace. “It was a couple of weeks ago. I’m over it now.”

  She gasped. “Weeks? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You like Connor. I didn’t want to tell you he dumped me.”

  “Yes, I like Connor,” she replied, “but I love you.”

  It’s amazing what those words can do for your self-esteem, even if they come from your mother.

  “I love you, too, Mom.”

  “And I’m not sure I do like Connor anymore, if he has the bad taste to dump my daughter.” She put her hands on her hips.

  “It’s okay if you still like him, Mom. He’s a nice guy.” And he was, most of the time. My public humiliation was not typical of Connor. I blamed it on a certain bad influence.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Mom asked.

  I smiled at her. “Just see if you can get her number. That would be great.” Our moms worked together at the public relations agency, but Stephanie lived across town and went to Eisenhower.

  My mom worked her magic and I had Stephanie’s number within days. Unfortunately, she was out of town. Or at least I thought she was. I couldn’t see why else she hadn’t called me.

  I spent the weekend gathering information, looking for anything I could use against Angie, any indication that she was less than perfect.

  Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find anything juicy I could use. She was gorgeous, participated in just the right amount of extracurriculars, and had hung with the popular people at Eisenhower.

  I shut my laptop and leaned back against my pillows. It was going to be harder than I thought, and I like a challenge. But how was I going to find out more information about Angie? Connor clearly was in that moony delusional stage of the relationship, where the other person could do no wrong. Besides, he rarely left her side. And from the way the other guys at school looked at Angie, I couldn’t really blame him. It was definitely a problem that needed some thought.

  In the meantime, I needed to work on revamping my own somewhat tarnished image.

  When Vanessa came up to me Monday afternoon, I was waiting for Monet outside art class—she’d convinced me to go to Dev’s swim meet with her.

  “Hey, Sophie,” Vanessa said.

  “Hey,” I said. “Aren’t you worried that it’ll rub off?” I was still angry that I hadn’t been invited to Connor’s party.

  She frowned. “What will rub off?”

  “My complete and utter unpopularity, thanks to the dance,” I replied, suddenly too tired to pretend.

  “Oh, that.” She shrugged. “That’s nothing. It’ll blow over.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Some people at this school want to kick you when you’re down. Don’t you remember when that rumor floated around about me?”

  I had to think about it. “You mean, back when we were freshmen?”

  “Yes,”
she said. “You were one of the few people who didn’t cough ‘slut’ every time I walked into the room.”

  “It wasn’t true,” I pointed out. “And besides, even if it was, you were my friend.”

  “Still am,” she said.

  There was silence as I tried to conceal my surprise. I managed to keep my normally smart-assed mouth quiet and merely smiled.

  She smiled back. “Now, about the cast party,” she said briskly, “do you have time to help me plan it?”

  I knew an olive branch when one was waved in my face. “I’d love to.”

  Vanessa left just as Monet came out of the classroom. She walked out with Scott and a tall girl with multicolored hair and a Monroe piercing. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.

  “Hi, Sophie,” the girl said. “How’s the play going?”

  “Good, how are you?” I smiled at her, not having the faintest idea who she was.

  “I went to see Wicked last month,” she said. “I think you would have liked it. The costumes reminded me of the outfits Ms. Meeks used to wear in class.”

  I giggled. We had a history teacher in middle school who always wore period-appropriate clothing. On Halloween, Ms. Meeks had dressed as Anne Boleyn after the beheading.

  “Ms. Meeks rocked,” I agreed.

  We chatted about the theater for several minutes and then the girl left.

  “You have no idea who that was, do you?” Monet said as soon as the girl was out of earshot.

  “No,” I admitted, “but she does look vaguely familiar.”

  “Vaguely familiar? Honestly, Sophie.”

  “What?”

  “That’s Ava.”

  I must have still looked blank.

  “Ava, you know. Ava Tate. She lives about a block away from you. Your moms used to hang out all the time when we were little.”

  “Oh, my gosh. That’s Ava? She looks so different from middle school.” The Ava I remembered was a pudgy little thing with glasses and a slight lisp.

  “So do you,” Monet replied.

  I groaned. “Don’t remind me. I was such a dweeb back then. Nobody even knew who I was.”

  “Ava knew who you were,” she said. “And so did I.”

  The girl had a point.

  Monet changed the subject. “C’mon, we’re going to be late. Dev’ll kill me if I miss his big meet. He thinks he has a chance to shave two seconds off his time.”

  “Is that good?”

  “I have no idea.”

  We headed for the swim meet in Monet’s car. Our school pool was being resurfaced or something, so the meet was being held a few blocks away at the city pool.

  “Why are you going to your brother’s meet, anyway? You hate sports,” I said to Monet as we found seats on the metal bleachers.

  “But I love my brother and he asked me to come,” she replied. She and Dev didn’t even try to hide that they got along.

  “You are giving me massive sibling envy, you know. And indigestion.”

  I scanned the cluster of guys who were bare-chested in the California sun, but I didn’t see Dev.

  But I did see Angie Vogel, sitting in the opposite bleacher. She was with Stephanie Blake. Why hadn’t Stephanie called me? I waved at her and she gave me a halfhearted salute in return.

  “What’s Angie doing here?” I said.

  “We’re playing Eisenhower, her old school,” Monet said. “She probably knows someone on the team.”

  It seemed like she knew everyone on the team. I wondered if Connor knew where his girlfriend was. My question was answered when he showed up and took a seat next to her.

  Monet nudged me. “Dev’s up,” she said. “And besides, you’ve been glaring at Angie for the past five minutes.”

  I don’t know why, but the sight of them looking so happy made my stomach churn. I was over him, but that didn’t mean I wanted my face rubbed in his obvious bliss. It was like a slap in the face every time I saw them together.

  Turning my attention back to Dev, I was disappointed to note he had on a full-body-suit thing, like a wet suit.

  “What is he wearing?”

  “Some new swimwear,” Monet replied. “Dev said it’s supposed to make him faster.”

  “Yeah, but he might as well be wearing a muumuu for all the skin you can see. Even his chest is covered.”

  Monet bristled. “Why are you interested in seeing Dev’s skin?”

  Damn. She sounded mad. “Keep your voice down,” I said, glancing over at where Dev stood with his teammates.

  “You’re going on about how you can’t see enough of him.”

  “I’m not,” I said, faking a shudder. “I mean in general.”

  But it wasn’t true. I wanted to see what Dev looked like in the worst way, and not in a general way but in a very specific way.

  I’d never so much as looked at another guy when I had a boyfriend. Now I was practically drooling over Monet’s brother, for God’s sake. I seriously needed to find a date.

  It was Connor’s fault. Connor and Angie’s. I glanced over at them and caught Angie’s eye. I smiled sweetly and waved. You know the old saying, Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It was time to get closer to Angie.

  Chapter 12

  I hadn’t expected it to be easy to get next to Angie, but it proved to be even more difficult than anticipated. I didn’t want the whole world to know what I was doing.

  I knew she ate lunch at Wicked Jack’s, sometimes even without Connor, but that wasn’t an option. I still couldn’t bring myself to show my face there. Not after the dance humiliation, although that scandal had died down a bit, thanks to an STD. The victim was varsity cheerleader Jackie Johnson, the abstinence queen who used to hand out sexual Just Say No pamphlets at lunch.

  They couldn’t shut up about it in English class. We had a sub. Sometimes we got lucky and had substitute teachers who really wanted to teach, but today’s candidate assigned us to read a chapter and then promptly got out his newspaper.

  “Did you hear about Jackie?” Olivia whispered.

  “Yes,” I said. “What’s the big deal?” Don’t get me wrong, I was delighted that the focus was off me and the debacle at the dance, but I wasn’t going to revel in someone else’s misfortune, especially not with that harbinger of doom Olivia Kaplan. I had a pretty good suspicion she was the one who had plastered posters of me all over school.

  “She has crabs,” Olivia replied indignantly.

  “Olivia, that could happen to anybody,” I said. “It could even happen to you.”

  I didn’t think it was humanly possible, but for some reason, that shut her up.

  I finished reading the assigned chapter in about ten minutes and had the rest of the period to kill. I made a list of the information I’d managed to glean about Angie.

  Drama was the most important extracurricular activity she was in.

  She was an only child, like me. Her parents were rich.

  She’d gone to Adams Middle School.

  Slim pickings as far as information went. I tapped my pencil against my teeth as I thought about my options.

  Adams Middle School. That was it! I started thinking about my own hideous appearance back then. There had to be something I could use there.

  During morning break, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Stephanie’s number again. I left a brief, innocuous message on her home phone. She and Angie had seemed chummy at the swim meet. Maybe she knew something I could use.

  Stephanie still hadn’t called by the weekend. On Saturday, Monet and I were hanging out in her room when the doorbell rang, but she didn’t move to get it.

  I looked at her inquiringly.

  She shrugged. “It’s for Dev. Beth’s coming over.”

  “I thought they weren’t serious,” I said. I don’t know why the thought of them alone in Dev’s bedroom bothered me so much, but it did.

  “They’re not,” she said. “I don’t know what he sees in her, anyway.”

  “She’
s cute,” I replied. “And athletic. So they have that in common.”

  “She has the personality of wet spaghetti,” Monet replied. “I never thought Dev would go for the doormat type.”

  When we went downstairs to get snacks, Dev was sitting at the kitchen table reading a comic book.

  “Where’s Beth?” Monet said.

  “She left,” Dev said. “She just came by to get some history notes.” He went back to his comic.

  “Shouldn’t you be studying your blocking?” I said, rejoicing in the fact that they weren’t holed up in his room with the door closed.

  “Got it nailed,” he said. “What about you?”

  “Almost,” I said. In reality, I was memorizing Angie’s stage moves as well as my own, which meant it was taking me a little longer.

  “Give me a call if you want to study,” he said. “I could always use the extra practice.”

  Monet grabbed a bag of Cheetos and some sodas. “Are you done monopolizing my friend?” she said.

  He said, “Not quite. So, Sophie, what did you think about—?”

  He didn’t finish his sentence because Monet smacked him with the Cheetos bag.

  “Hey, I was going to eat those,” I said.

  Dev snickered. “Be my guest.”

  When I got home, the answering machine in the kitchen was blinking, but I ignored it. No one called me on that line.

  I checked for messages on my cell, but there weren’t any, yet another sign of my waning popularity. But even more vexing was Stephanie’s lack of response. I mean, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do than call me.

  I was in my room when Mom got home from work. “Sophie, there’s a message from Stephanie on the phone downstairs.”

  Stephanie turned out to be the information jackpot. Angie had gone to Adams with her and they had both attended Eisenhower before Angie transferred to Kennedy.

  I did my nails as she talked, listening with only half an ear while she rambled on and on about how wonderful Angie was. I was trying to decide between pale pink or a bright orange when something she said caught my attention.