What I thought: Like intelligent thoughts?
What I said: “I’ll wear a hazmat suit.”
I cringed as the words came out of my mouth. It’s fun to be with the in crowd, I thought, but did they hate themselves as much as I was hating myself right then? This popular stuff was complicated.
On the other hand, isn’t this what real life was like? My dad had told me before that you need to have a wide range of friends, and you have to act according to the situation. Be whatever you need to be for the person in front of you, he said. That’s how you’ll become president. We always laughed about that, but now I really started thinking about it. I can do that. If Dad could, and Noel sure could, I could too.
And then it all went to shit.
Because lunchtime rolled around, of course, and after I picked up my how-the-hell-can-you-call-this-pizza lunch tray, there was Anya in her usual spot, sitting alone. And out of the corner of my eye I saw Skyler waving me over to our usual spot. Is that what it was now?
And I just stood there while the cartoon Angel Hailey and Devil Hailey popped up on each of my shoulders.
Devil Hailey: Do you really want to do this now? Maybe tomorrow. Go sit with Skyler.
Angel Hailey: Screw Skyler. She’s a bitch! Sit with Anya!
Devil Hailey: You don’t know that Skyler’s a bitch! Maybe Anya’s lying about everything! Maybe she really is a psycho! Maybe she never was a cheerleader, never had a baby! You’re taking her word for it! You don’t know!
Angel Hailey: You know. In your heart, you know.
I don’t even remember making the decision. I just suddenly found myself sitting next to Anya.
She looked up.
“What the hell are you thinking?”
“What?” I asked. “I need a place to sit and eat this overcooked blackboard eraser they call pizza. Here’s as good a place as any.”
Anya leaned in. “This is the ’social suicide‘stuff you read about in books or see in movies. Jason is in his mask and he’s right behind you, about to kill your blossoming popularity and crush your prom-queen dreams.”
“Whatever,” I said.
“Bullshit,” she said. “It’s not ‘whatever.’ I’m serious. They’re staring at you right now, doing all their devious mental calculations and trying to decide whether treason is punishable by death even in tenth grade, and believe me, they think it is. Get your ass up right now and go over there and tell them you only sat down here so you could tell me I smell like roadkill and ask why I can’t get around to bathing more than once every leap year.”
“But—”
“Seriously, Hailey,” she said, her eyes pleading. “I’m fine. I’m good. You don’t have to do this. Don’t—”
And then we were surrounded: Skyler, Daniella, Cassidy, Jericha. I noticed Skyler giving Anya the evil eye. Anya, staring back, scratched an itch on her nose … with her middle finger.
Skyler turned to me. Once we caught eyes, I knew things would never be the same. She said: “Did you not see me waving at you?”
I decided to play along for now. Maybe there still was some way to salvage this. Maybe I had the unique ability to walk this line. Hell, you never know ’til you try.
“Hey, Skyler,” I said pleasantly. “Did you need to talk about something? Or … something?” I was hoping for a good reason to leave Anya other than a popularity contest.
“Actually, yes,” she replied. “It’s important.”
“Okay,” I replied, and as I grabbed my tray and got up, I mouthed the word sorry to Anya, who replied with a soft, understanding nod that made me feel ten times worse.
We returned to the table, where the something Skyler wanted to talk about turned out to be … nothing. I expected some sort of grilling for my impudence, that I dared to sit next to the outcast Anya, but it wasn’t even discussed. It was as if Anya wasn’t even worth talking about, as if the girls felt they would be poisoned by even letting her name cross their lips.
Because they had far more important things to discuss, like clothes, and shoes and bangs, and Holy crap why am I sitting here? I thought. Fact is, girls live in an endless loop of:
1) contemplating bangs
2) getting bangs
3) hating a recent bangs decision
4) growing out bangs
… but that doesn’t mean they need to be discussed every single day.
“Bangs are a commitment,” Daniella said. “You have to really know what you’re in for. And always carry bobby pins, because at some point they will drive you crazy and you’ll need to do damage control.”
“I’m just so not a bangs person,” Cassidy said. “They make my forehead sweat and I totally break out from them. Blech. I mean, they look great on you—super cute—but not on me.”
As I listened to the riveting bangs discussion, I knew Anya was telling the truth about everything. That’s when I also figured out that the minions were just as bad as Skyler, if not worse. And I realized it doesn’t get any worse than Skyler.
I started to determine my course of action, but Skyler, once again, took care of that for me.
She leaned over and whispered in my ear: “Hailey, I’m letting it go this time because you’re new. Just this time. You only get one warning.” Then she leaned back and rejoined the increasingly vapid conversation.
I sat there steaming, then spoke:
“Warning?” I asked, not whispering, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Excuse me?” Skyler said, turning.
“I don’t think I quite understand what you’re trying to say.”
Skyler looked aghast, then irritated, then … dark. “I was saying, ‘You’re welcome for me saving you from that loser’s table.’ What I was saying was that if you hadn’t come with us right then … you would have been done.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Even quicker.”
“Wow.”
It was like everything Noel’s journal had taught me was leading up to this moment. Noel would certainly be Team Bitch Squad, I knew that much. But as I thought about it for a moment, there really wasn’t a decision to be made—I couldn’t stand these people.
“You know what?” I picked up my tray again and stood, a weapons-grade smile spreading across my face. “I guess I’m ‘done’ then.”
Skyler confirmed it: “So done, Hailey. Big mistake. You think you look good? You look okay, Hailey, and guess what? No one notices okay.”
I balanced my tray in my left hand and turned away. As I walked off, I lifted my right hand and extended it back toward them in a familiar gesture.
“Do they notice me giving you the finger?”
The Hater Tots chimed in, hurling insults at my back. I could hear the barrage of insults being hissed in my direction, but I didn’t stop or turn around. I felt like an action hero in a movie, walking in slow motion as buildings behind me exploded in my wake. Those buildings being my fleeting brush with popularity, but I didn’t care. I walked back and sat down next to my one true friend. The first real friend I’d made at my new school: Anya.
She looked up, and I smiled. “This seat taken?”
Funny how we make new friends.
—WILCO
“Can’t Stand It”
CHAPTER
6
“The Breezeway is this covered walkway between two of our school buildings,” Anya explained. It was a warm afternoon, and we occupied the children’s swings in the park, twisting the chains we hung from into impossibly tight spirals and then kicking up our feet to spin like Tasmanian devils. “That’s where kids and teachers who think they’re cool smoke.”
“Which is not to be confused with Stonerville,” Xandra chimed in. “That’s where the partiers skip class and smoke pot.”
“Got it,” I said. Getting the lay of the land was proving to be almost more complicated than some of my classes. Luckily, my friends list was growing, and my new friends were happy to catch me up on the real deal. My brief foray i
nto popularity didn’t exactly prove helpful in learning about my surroundings or how to get around. With the Bitch Squad, the most important thing impressed upon me was that I wasn’t allowed to go shopping without an ankle bracelet that would alert the freakin’ police if I tried on an article of clothing that Skyler might want.
In the week following Lunch Rebellion, Anya introduced me to Xandra, Emily and Kura. Xandra’s a theater geek, known for developing impossible crushes on gay boys. She planned to be the next Natalie Portman. Academy Award? Yes, please. (Starvation diet to achieve Ballerina Body … no thanks.) Xandra would buy up all the tabloids every single week, not realizing (or caring) that half the stories were manufactured nonsense. The stories that were true were worth it—any tips she could glean were welcome. Between building sets and actual rehearsals, Xandra was busy three days a week after school. The rest of her time was ours—at least when her nose wasn’t buried deep in an Us Weekly.
Emily is a bit of a contradiction. She’s a staunch vegan who made it clear to everyone that “Fur Is Murder,” and, yes—she won’t eat anything related to meat or dairy, so in that sense she’s socially conscious … but get her near a mall, and she suddenly turns into Winona Ryder on a theft-bender.
Kura (short for Sakura) is basically a genius. Never mind that she takes all advanced placement classes, but she also takes satellite classes at UCLA, which is kind of a big deal considering that’s college and she’s only a sophomore in high school. She actually tested out of high school because she’s so smart, but she’s staying because of studies that show problems with many genius kids who test out and enter college way too soon: They not only miss out on crucial life experiences in high school, but many grow up to be socially awkward. While Kura is unquestionably a “brain,” she also happens to be drop-dead gorgeous. Her dad is Irish and her mom is Japanese, and she looks like she could be a model. Well, she could if she dressed better (she doesn’t), styled her hair on occasion (she’s busy studying books that confuse me just in the table of contents) or ditched the biggest and ugliest pair of eyeglasses you’ve ever seen. Consequently, her beauty remains a bit of a secret to the rest of the school.
All the girls had horror stories about the different ways they’d suffered humiliation at the hands of Skyler and her minions. We bonded over lunches and after-school frozen yogurt runs, and I’d wince at their tales of trauma, thankful that I escaped before any of that evil rubbed off on me. Sure, I thought about how far I’d strayed from what would have been “approved” friends according to Noel. But those brief what-if moments were far outweighed by how nice it felt to have friends I could just be myself with, though I would get a little self-conscious about the lie I still perpetuated when they’d mention how strange it was for a “popular” girl to suddenly hang out with the nobodies. Everyone knew the story of how Skyler betrayed Anya, of course, but why would I give up a seat in the Queen’s Court, as it were, to hang with the misfit crew? I usually just shrugged it off, said “Nobody tells me who my friends can be,” and left it at that.
Even though I’d been exiled by the Bitch Squad, I wasn’t ready to let my guard down completely with my new clique—though I was loath to call it that, we were turning into a clique of sorts—one of lonely girls, unpopular girls, randoms, pretty much anyone who didn’t already have a clique.
Emily put it into terms that resonated especially with me: “Before we all started hanging out, I always felt invisible.”
I related all too well. “That’s so funny, because I have a comic I’m working on, and the main character is called Abby Invisible.”
“She’s like a totally sick artist,” Anya said, which made me feel good.
“We should call ourselves that,” Emily said. “The Invisibles.”
Anya knitted her brow. “Isn’t that a bit too self-deprecating?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure the Beatles is already taken, and it’s kind of like taking ownership of the term,” I said.
“Like we’re invisible because we damn well want to be,” Anya said.
“Exactly!” Emily said.
“Well, when you put it that way,” Anya said, “I love it!”
And so our little group of misfits became a part of something bigger than just the individuals. It was nice to be surrounded by acceptance and encouragement.
One afternoon that week, Anya and I were at Yogurtland (OMG, red velvet cake frozen yogurt—I live for you!), and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I figured it was Anya telling me to back away from the self-serve pump—bad idea, Yogurtland, you don’t know what depths I’m capable of—but when I turned, it was Andy.
“Hey,” he said, as a drip of deliciousness trickled onto my finger.
I leaned down to lick it off. “Hey back.”
“You girls and your frozen yogurt.”
“Everyone has a weakness. Achilles has a heel. Tiger Woods has a … well, it’s not his heel that’s the problem there. For us, the promise of less calories than ice cream and the multitude of ridiculously tasty flavors sucks us in.”
“They should hire you to promote it.”
“I’d eat them out of business.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, motioning to the mountainous cup of yogurt I had in my hand.
“Hey now,” I said in a mock-upset tone. “Are you calling me fat?”
“No,” Andy said, smiling, “I just meant—”
I wasn’t sure why he stopped talking until I turned and saw Anya. She’d headed over but stopped about ten feet away, keeping her distance.
“Huh,” Andy said.
“Um, huh what?” I asked.
He twisted his mouth as he weighed his answer. “It’s just … so you’re still hanging with Anya. It wasn’t just that one time at lunch.”
“Absolutely,” I said, giving zero ground. “Anya’s great. I really like her. We actually have things in common.”
“Okay,” Andy said. “It’s just … I mean, it’s not my business, but I just thought when I hooked you up with Skyler and those girls that you kinda found your groove. And obviously that didn’t work out, and I took a little crap from Skyler and the rest for that, but—”
“Really? They gave you a hard time?”
“Well, I kinda vouched for you,” he said. “Skyler wasn’t exactly celebrating after you basically told her to go to hell.”
“But I’ve seen you still hanging out with them,” I said. I glanced over at Anya, motioning for her to just give me another minute.
“Yeah, they can’t do much to me,” he said. “They’ll take it out on someone else.”
“I know,” I said. “Why didn’t you warn me that they could be so cruel?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Look, they’re still my friends. They just have their ways, and I know they can play rough. But there’s a lot to be gained from being part of that. Which is why I’m surprised you’d rather be hanging out with, you know, randoms.”
If my raised left eyebrow could talk, it would have said, “Randoms?”
I think the message got across, because Andy started to backpedal.
“I mean, look—I don’t know most of the people you’re hanging out with, but I do know Anya.” When he said her name, it was quieter than the rest of his words—more carefully measured, like when you’re trying not to say a bad word or something. “I told you about her.”
“Yeah, you did. But I like to make my own decisions. From what I can tell, she’s damn sure not a psycho. So you lied to me.”
He let out a huffy sigh, and for a second I thought he was going to storm off. But he settled himself and said, “Okay, ‘psycho’ may have been a little harsh.”
“Well, Andy, I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. I mean, if ‘psycho’ means ‘funny’ or ‘smart’ or ‘not a sheep like that idiot clique you introduced me to,’ then yeah, she’s a total psycho. And for that matter—”
“Stop it!”
We spun around, but we already knew the voice: It was Anya, who decided
enough was enough and joined us.
“You two realize this isn’t a sitcom, right?” she asked. “I’m standing ten feet away. I can hear every word you’re saying. Andy, I am anything but random, and you damn well know it. Hell, I’d rather you stuck with psycho.”
As Andy stammered, I started to say, “That’s right,” but Anya cut me off.
“And, Hailey, I appreciate you standing up for me, but I can fight my own battles, thank you very much. I’m not a cheerleader anymore. I’ve had just about enough standing on the sideline, okay?”
My yogurt was now fully dripping down my hand, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the Yogurtland manager giving us the evil eye.
Andy looked down and then at Anya, then back to me, shook his head and started to walk off.
“No!” I yelled, loud enough to startle Andy and Anya and the increasingly upset Yogurtland manager. I grabbed Andy’s arm and pulled him back to us, and said in a firm, measured voice: “No one is leaving Yogurtland until you two call a truce. Got it? No one leaves Yogurtland.”
I realized that I’d come to genuinely like Andy. I liked the idea of all my friends being friends. And it was obvious that Andy transcended the clique thing. He was friends with all sorts of people—I’d seen it in the brief time I’d gotten to know him. He didn’t care about who fit into what group, and that was one of the things I liked best about him. Of course, it also occurred to me that if Skyler and her crew of rabid wolverines remained his buddies, it might not hurt for him to be just a little more exclusive.
“Look, you two,” I started in. “Can’t we all just get along?” (Yeah, I know. But we’d just studied Rodney King in history, and I was evoking my inner Rodney—well, my inner Rodney post-beating, but pre–Celebrity Rehab.)
“You guys,” I continued. “Anya, you’re not a psycho. Andy, you’re not an asshole. So whatever the deal is with you, let’s put it to rest.” (I figured that knowing nothing of what happened made me an excellent decider on the matter. Ignorance is bliss, and I’m one blissful kind of girl.)
Confessions of a Hater Page 7
