by Lara Deloza
“I have to go to rehearsal,” I tell Matt. “We’ll pick this up later.” I cut my eyes away from his face and let them lock on Frick’s. “When we’re off school property.”
“Hate to tell you, Miss Miles,” Frick says, “but those rules of conduct apply off-campus, too.” Her thin lips curl upward in what I think is supposed to be an evil smile. “You should ask your mother about that sometime.”
She turns on her heel and walks away.
Sloane Fahey is on top of me the minute I enter the theater. “How about Friday?” she suggests. “We can just hang after Key Club.”
I’m too irritated by Frick’s comment about my mother to think of a valid reason why Friday won’t work. “Fine,” I say. “Friday. Whatever.”
Sloane looks taken aback by the sharpness in my voice. This only proves to irritate me more.
“Damn it, Sloane, I said yes!” I snap at her. “What more do you want from me?”
“Don’t do me any favors,” she huffs.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t care—this is, after all, Sloane Fahey we’re talking about. But it’s poor form for me to act so bitchy the day the nominations are posted. I decide to toss her a bone.
“It’s not you,” I say, by way of an apology. “Frick just chewed me out in the hallway. I’m a little on edge.”
“What did you do now?”
“Nothing. I was just talking to Matt.”
Sloane snorts. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you were doing.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “but what I do with my boyfriend isn’t really any of your concern, is it?”
She looks me straight in the eye and says, “Nothing you do is any of my concern, Alexandra.”
So, the kitten has claws. Interesting.
“I’m going to chalk this up to good old-fashioned jealousy,” I say in a tight, even tone. “Everyone knows you can’t get a boyfriend to save your life. And honestly? I feel bad for you.”
Her right eye begins to twitch. I’ve struck a nerve.
“But I would advise you to watch your tone with me,” I continue. “Because we both know what happens when you cross that line.”
We stand there, staring at each other, in a game of chicken. Finally, Sloane’s gaze breaks away and she shakes her head slightly. “You think you’re Teflon, don’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing ever sticks, right? You can do or say whatever you want, and you always walk away a winner. Well, guess what, Alexandra. You’re about due for a takedown.”
Where is this coming from? Even after everything that went down sophomore year, Sloane Fahey has kept her nose glued to my ass. This? This is new.
My amusement seems to irritate her even more.
“Someday somebody is going to make you regret how you treat people,” she says.
“Oh, really? And who’s that going to be? You?”
“Probably not,” she says with a shrug. “Doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”
Something about Sloane’s words unnerves me. It’s not like she wields any sort of social status at Spencer. And she’s not someone I’d ever be threatened by, not in a million years.
Honestly, it’s not even what she said, but how she said it. Like she’s been harboring some deep-seated resentment toward me stretching back to the Jonah Dorsey scandal sophomore year. I mean, yes, that situation got really ugly. But Sloane never stopped clinging to my shadow. She never stopped trying to get me to be her friend again.
People like Sloane Fahey—who, let’s face it, have little to lose—can become dangerous variables in a heartbeat. They’re not easily controlled because their actions are far too erratic. On the other hand, a Sloane vying for my attention, trying to insinuate herself into my social stratosphere, is predictable. Pathetic, but predictable.
I’m going to need to keep my eye on her. There’s just too much at stake.
FOURTEEN
Sam
This year’s senior class princesses are (in alphabetical order):
•Ashley Chamberlain
•Erin Hewett
•Hayley Langer
•Alexandra Miles
•Ivy Proctor
The printout hangs on the bulletin board outside the main office. I stare at it in disbelief.
Lexi isn’t going to like this.
Not one bit.
It’s bad enough that Erin made the ballot, though I presume that was Frick’s doing. I mean, the girl’s been a student here for literally three days. People like her, sure, but Homecoming court? It’s a stretch.
The real head-scratcher is Ivy Proctor. What is that about?
There are 327 kids in the senior class. So it’s not like Ivy got that nomination on the basis of a couple of stray votes. At the very least, she had to have gotten a couple dozen. That’s not an accident.
Twenty votes is a coordinated effort.
Lexi texts me a question mark. She’s dying to know the results. I debate whether or not I should give them to her. If I tell her she’s on the ballot, she’s going to want to know who the competition is. And if I tell her that without having some good intel, all hell will break loose.
Think, Samantha. Think.
What I need is to know the number of votes that went to each candidate. Frick wouldn’t have done the count herself, would she? That’s what she has peons for.
Peons like Iris Testaverde.
Iris has been Frick’s secretary for years, long before we were freshmen. She looks like a character from Saturday Night Live, all baby-blue eye shadow, loud floral prints, and augmented boobs bursting out from her blouse, even though she’s a long way from the right side of forty. Her husband, Greg, owns this dinky Italian restaurant on the edge of town that’s popular with the geriatric crowd. It keeps him pretty busy—or at least busy enough that he hasn’t noticed his wife’s banging the football coach behind his back.
To be fair, most people don’t know about Iris and Coach Dawson. Lexi and I only found out after we convinced Wyatt to rig up a tiny spy camera in the main office. She was looking for some dirt on Frick, I think, but was just as shocked as I was to find some on Iris instead. Let’s just say that girlfriend knows how to get her freak on. Wyatt threatened to burn out his own corneas just to try to unsee the footage.
Iris doesn’t know about the tape. She doesn’t even know that we know about her affair with Coach.
It’s a handy card to have, and one we haven’t played . . . yet.
I can’t think of a better time to pull it out.
My plan is simple: I’ll wait until Iris clocks out for the day, and then follow her to her car. There will be fewer witnesses that way. Less chance of someone overhearing.
At four on the dot, Iris exits the main office and heads out the front doors. I shadow her to the faculty lot. She’s fumbling for her keys when I call out, “Excuse me, Mrs. Testaverde?”
Iris jumps about ten feet high, then whips around to face me. “Good Lord in heaven, child. You scared me half to death!”
“Oops,” I say. “Sorry.”
“Well, what do you need, Samantha?” Iris asks. “There’s a turkey breast in my Crock-Pot waiting for me to tend to it.”
“I’m glad you asked,” I say. “I have some . . . questions . . . about the Homecoming ballots.”
Iris arches an eyebrow. “What kinds of questions?”
I bite my bottom lip and look down at my feet, like I’m really struggling.
“Well?” she prods. “What is it?”
I let out a slow, measured sigh. “I’m a little . . . concerned . . . about the nominees for senior class princess.”
She snorts. “You’re not the only one.”
“Oh?”
Iris looks around the parking lot. There’s no one in the immediate vicinity. She steps closer to me and leans in. “That poor Proctor girl. Hasn’t she been through enough?”
“My thoughts exactly,” I say. “How many votes did she get, anyway?”
“Enough. M
ore than enough, actually.”
“More than Erin Hewett?”
Iris purses her lips so tightly together that they form a thin, magenta line. “I’ve already said too much, Samantha. I really need to be going.”
She turns back toward her car, and I blurt out, “Erin didn’t have the votes, did she?”
No reply.
“Is it the turkey breast you’re running off to, or is it Coach Dawson?”
I cringe even as I say the words.
Iris’s cheeks are brick red, and her eyes are burning craters into my face. “She had . . . votes.”
“But not enough to get on the ballot.”
“Let me repeat: She. Had. Votes.”
“Where are the forms? The ones we filled out this morning.”
“In the recycling bin.”
“Your office?”
Her eyes narrow into thin slits. “If your mother only knew what a snake you were . . .” she says, her voice trailing off.
“She’d be proud,” I say quietly.
Iris continues to try to burn holes through me with her angry stare.
“I need those ballots, Mrs. Testaverde. We should probably go get them now. If you hurry, you can still make it back to your turkey breast on time.”
There are nearly eight hundred half sheets of copy paper spread across every available surface in my room. I have them divided by grade, which isn’t difficult since Iris ran the ballots off on different colors for each class. Freshmen are pink, sophomores are blue, juniors are green, and seniors are goldenrod. Even though I’m really only interested in what’s going on with our class, I have meticulously sorted the ballots for each of the grade levels. I don’t want to miss a single thing.
I’m sitting on the floor, using my bed as a seat back, with the senior class ballots fanned out around me. It doesn’t matter how many times I recount them (six, for the record), the results are always the same:
Ashley Chamberlain: 27
Erin Hewett: 11
Hayley Langer: 31
Alexandra Miles: 89
Ivy Proctor: 23
There are one- and two-off votes for various other seniors, celebrities (JLaw, really?), and rando made-up names like Butterface McGee—a total of twenty-one. That leaves nine classmates’ votes unaccounted for. I’d have to get Wyatt to hack into the school’s system to verify the number of absences from today, but it’s a reasonable enough number that I don’t feel like going to the effort.
The good news is that Lexi’s ahead by a clean enough margin that she should have this Homecoming race locked up.
The bad news is that I am utterly clueless as to who’s behind the twenty-three Ivy Proctor votes. The fact that she earned almost as many as Ashley did confirms my initial suspicions: this is a coordinated effort. But who orchestrated it?
And here’s an even better question: Why?
I’ve been ignoring texts from Lexi all afternoon, and I can tell she’s starting to get pissed. My phone dings again. I’m coming over.
Perfect, just . . . perfect.
I don’t even bother to tell her not to; I’ve put her off long enough. All I can do is prepare my mother for Lexi’s impending arrival. She won’t be happy either.
I stand up, careful not to disturb my piles of paper, and step over them. There’s a circle of blank carpet marking where I was sitting. At least she’ll see how hard I’ve been working.
FIFTEEN
Alexandra
Sam’s frumpy mother frowns at me from across the room. She is always frowning at me. Even when she smiles at me, it’s really a frown wearing a smile’s costume.
It’s fairly safe to say Jessica Schnitt doesn’t like me.
That feeling is mutual.
Even though I’m one of Jessica’s least-favorite people in the state of Indiana, if not the entire world, the woman insists on feeding me every time I come over. My guess is that she wants to make all of the thin people she knows fat like her. Natalie would absolutely die if she saw the things I am forced to eat at the Schnitts’. Homemade macaroni and cheese. Deep-fried chicken tenders. Twice-baked potatoes smothered in some sort of creamy sauce. It’s enough to make a girl go Sloane Fahey once in a while.
When the torture that is a Schnitt family dinner is over—in addition to the caloric-laden fare, I must also contend with Wyatt’s sad attempts to both flirt with and impress me—Sam and I head up to her room. My thus-far pasted-on smile melts away when I see the piles of “evidence” strewn across her beige carpeting.
“What is this?” I demand.
She fills me in on her afternoon activities. I manage to control my rage, but only just barely.
“You traded in the sex tape for . . . this?” I seethe. “Without even asking me?”
Clearly, this isn’t the reaction she was expecting. “Not the tape,” she says. “Just the affair part. This Ivy thing—it had to be a coordinated effort, right?”
“So?”
“So I was trying to figure out who. And why.”
I shake my head. I cannot remember a time when I have been more disappointed in Sam. I need to tack in a different direction.
“It was me, stupid,” I hiss at her. “I am behind Ivy’s nomination.”
Sam stands there, her mouth forming a cartoon O. “But why?” she says finally. “Why would you do that?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
She doesn’t respond.
“She’s my insurance policy,” I say. “My secret weapon.”
Sam shakes her head. “I still don’t get it.”
“Look,” I say, “no one hates Ivy. They pity her. And now that she’s up for Homecoming Queen, they’ll be talking about her, not that New Girl.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense.”
This is not the entirety of my backup plan, of course. But Sam doesn’t need to know about the rest. Not yet, anyway.
“So why didn’t you tell me?” Sam asks, a wounded look on her face. “I would’ve taken care of it.”
It’s adorable, how sincerely she believes that she alone could have convinced a significant portion of Spencer High’s student body to vote a bona fide pariah into Homecoming contention. And do it without arousing anyone’s suspicions or generating untoward gossip that could blow back on me.
“I needed to keep your hands clean,” I tell her.
She nods, but I can tell she’s not buying it. Her job is typically keeping my hands clean, not the other way around.
“Can we focus on what’s really important here?” I say. “Erin Hewett and her eleven votes.”
“That’s a good thing, right? I mean, she barely made the ballot.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “She got eleven votes after being in my school for all of two days. There’s no telling where she’ll stand in the polls a week from now.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that Erin Hewett is a threat that needs to be neutralized. I won’t have her waltzing in here at the eleventh hour and stealing Homecoming right out from under me.
“It’s time to focus, Samantha. We’ve got a crown to win.”
I decide to take a drive after I leave Sam’s. I need to think. Plus, I want to blow off some steam before I head home to Natalie. I could find her at home, still flying around, or she could’ve crashed . . . hard. I have no idea what I’ll be walking into.
I knew there was a possibility that Erin Hewett could end up a candidate for Homecoming Queen. A new student from coastal California is exactly the kind of shiny object that would attract the attention of my classmates. But eleven votes? In two days?
Is it possible that some of the ballots were faked? I play out the scenario in my head. Frick is Erin’s aunt. Frick hates me. Frick would do anything to take me down.
There is no doubt in my mind that Frick is twisted enough to try to manipulate this election in her niece’s favor. Especially if it means delivering a blow to my undefeated record.
As for Erin herself—if she was, as she informed so man
y of our classmates, a candidate for Homecoming Queen in her old school, it’s possible that she’s hungry enough for the win to do whatever Aunt Fricky tells her.
Winston Churchill said, “Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
Is that what Erin is doing? Ensuring her social survival at Spencer?
I can’t take the chance of being eclipsed by the New Girl. Not when so much is already on the line.
Goddamn that Erin Hewett! Everything had been going according to plan until she showed up. Now, suddenly, there are all of these unknown variables.
I don’t like it, not one bit.
I feel so agitated that I decide to try the deep breathing exercise I learned from the headshrinker I saw after my father died. Breathe in through the nose for four seconds, hold for three, exhale slowly through the mouth for five. Four, three, five. Four, three, five.
The headshrinker was a waste, but the deep breathing thing actually works. I can literally feel the tension start to drain from my body. Time to go home, take a hot shower, and butter my body with that coconut-scented stuff that makes Matt want to devour me. Maybe I’ll call him to see if I can come over. Maybe his hotness is the cure to all that ails me.
That’s when I realize where I am.
The corner of Lakeside and Lafayette.
No. No no no no no—
I don’t want to be here. It makes me think about him. About what happened to him.
I don’t want to think about that. Not today. Not ever.
I make the left onto Lafayette, then a sharp right onto Baker Street. Only, I take the turn too fast and end up scraping the curb. There’s a loud thunk, followed by a hiss—or maybe the hiss is only in my head. All I know is that thirty seconds later, the check tire gauge comes on, indicating a flat.
“Son of a bitch!” I smack the steering wheel with the palm of my hand and end up banging my wrist too hard. The pain is surprisingly sharp. That’s definitely going to leave a bruise.
The breakdown lane is too narrow for my liking, but I don’t want to risk further damage. I ease over, throw the hazard lights on, and get out of the car to inspect the tire. It’s bad. Not only do I have a full-on flat, but I’ve also managed to rip the rim to shreds.
