Your Own Worst Enemy

by Gordon Jack

  The crowd parted to let Stacey through. The silence was complete. Stacey felt like she was moving underwater. The sounds of people outside the classroom became distant and muffled.

  Stacey reached the nomination board and saw that there were two more names written on it. Under the office of ASB president, there was now Stacey Wynn, someone named Julia Romero, and Tony Guo.

  The shock of seeing the names scribbled beneath hers was considerable. For a second, Stacey lost her ability to observe her behavior from outside her body and stood slack-jawed in front of the classroom like some freshman boy experiencing his first view of live breasts.

  “Tony Guo?” Stacey said. “I thought he’d been transferred to New Horizons.”

  James shook his head. “His parents kept him out of that holding pen by building our new weight room.”

  Stacey wasn’t as bothered by Tony’s name as she was by Julia’s. Tony was the class clown—not the kind that’s stand-up-comedian funny but the kind that’s village-idiot funny. He posed no threat in or out of Lincoln.

  “Who’s Julia Romero?” Stacey asked, trying hard not to sound like the evil queen talking to her mirror about Snow White.

  “She’s in my AP comp class,” Leslie Knox, junior class secretary, said. “She’s from Canada. Great hair. And smart. Always quoting existential philosophers no one’s heard of.”

  Stacey didn’t care what Julia looked like or how smart she was. She could hold her own against an intellectual in a crop top. No, what concerned her was the last name. Romero was ethnic, and that could spell trouble for her at a school that was only 40 percent white.

  “Great!” Stacey said through gritted teeth. “Nice to see more people getting involved in student government.”

  Once the class realized Stacey wasn’t going to have a total breakdown, they dispersed and took their seats. Before James could walk away, Stacey grabbed him by the arm and yanked him close.

  “Did you put them up to this?” she asked.

  “What are you talking about?” The look of confusion on his face seemed genuine, but James was much better at faking sincerity than Stacey.

  “Tony and Julia,” Stacey said. “Did you encourage them to run against me?”

  “Tony Guo?” James said, laughing. “You think if I wanted to put up a candidate to run against you, I’d pick that guy? I thought you knew me better than that, Stace.”

  “What about Julia Romero?”

  “Never heard of her, which is weird ’cause I know most of the Latinas.”

  “Who is she?” Stacey said.

  James must have registered the panic creeping into her voice because the smile on his face disappeared, replaced by a look of genuine concern. “I don’t know. Let’s ask Jen.”

  James called Jenny Ramirez over with a snap of his hand. James, Jenny, and Odalis Rodriguez were the only black and brown people in student government and had developed a private communication style involving dramatic hand gestures and raised eyebrows.

  “You know this girl?” he asked, pointing to Julia’s name.

  “Never heard of her,” Jenny said, flipping her long, black hair behind her shoulders. “Whoever she is, the girl’s got some ovaries.” Jenny returned to her seat. Stacey watched her retreat and wondered how the girl made even a casual stroll seem like dancing.

  “Stacey?” James said, drawing her attention back.

  “Yes, sorry,” Stacey said. “I was just surprised to see the names is all. Sorry to accuse you of trying to undermine me.”

  “Apology accepted,” James said.

  Stacey took a seat at her desk and tried to pretend everything was business as usual.

  Fake it till you make it, her mother used to say whenever Stacey needed to present a positive front to her friends and followers. This psychobabble used to be Stacey’s mantra, until her mom left her dad for Mr. Park, Stacey’s Tae Kwon Do teacher. Now the phrase seemed like the slogan for pathological liars everywhere.

  Her mom’s abrupt departure was the last time Stacey had been surprised, and she vowed it would never happen again. But how could she have foreseen this? She had anticipated every potential rival from the field of candidates in her student government class and spoke with each and every one of them to determine the likelihood of them competing against her. How could she have seen that a boy who recently drove into a math portable and a transfer student from Canada would decide to launch campaigns for the highest office at the school? It was impossible to predict, like the next earthquake or the mood of her English teacher.

  Stacey tried to focus on the Stress-Free Students Club’s proposal to bring puppies on campus during AP testing. She could use a puppy right now, although in her current state she might inadvertently break its neck a là Lenny in Of Mice and Men. All she could think about was how her votes were getting redistributed. Tony might get a sliver of support from the kids he partied with, but even those potheads might have enough brain cells left to realize he wasn’t the best representative for their school. Stacey wouldn’t be surprised if one of his friends put Tony’s name on the board as some kind of joke. A prank to get even for the school’s recent “Smart Choices!” campaign to curb teen drinking at sporting events.

  Tony could be ignored. Julia, on the other hand, was a potential threat. Stacey flipped open her laptop and Googled Julia Romero but couldn’t find anything that matched Leslie’s description of “Canada,” “great hair,” and “Sartre.” Who was this girl, and why had Stacey not heard about her until today?

  In the midst of her Googling, a message from her mom popped up on her screen. Don’t forget we’re going shopping for bridesmaid dresses next weekend. What do you think of this? Below the text was a picture of a floor-length dress the color of a Band-Aid. It was hideously bland, but better than the traditional Korean wedding attire Mom was considering when she first got engaged. Neither Stacey nor her mom could wear those dresses without looking like a culturally appropriating Barbie doll.

  Yes, Stacey typed back as a quick reply.

  “Stacey, what’s your vote?” Brandon asked her.

  “Yes,” she said, hoping he was asking about the puppy proposal.

  Why were all these people pressing her for answers when she needed to figure out her game plan? She opened a new document and started typing out a to-do list. First off, she needed to make posters. She had all the butcher paper and paints in her garage ready to go for that. She’d need a slogan. Something catchy that hinted at her vision for a zero-waste school. “Clean up your act!” she wrote, which sounded too much like a nagging parent. “Don’t be trashy” she liked for the subtle dig at her rival. Should she go negative right off the bat? Stacey didn’t think so. “Don’t throw away your vote!” made her smile. She’d run that one by Brian after school. She’d need his help making these banners in order to have them ready to hang by tonight. She’d also need him to help her revise her acceptance speech into a stump speech that would persuade students to vote for her. Was her composting platform too narrow to win her votes? She wrote “Focus group message” down at the bottom of her to-do list.

  As soon as the bell rang, Stacey ran over to Brian’s AP bio class, slaloming between students like a waitress in a crowded restaurant. The halls were crammed with so many kids; Stacey registered their faces as blurs of black, brown, and white. How could she, or anyone, appeal to such a diverse collection of interests? She couldn’t serve all these different people the same dish, but if she tailored her message to each of these constituencies, she ran the risk of sounding like a suck-up. How did she create a menu to please both the carnivores and the vegetarians? She needed to find the item that pleased both. French fries, she thought. She needed to run on a platform of French fries.

  Stacey reached Brian’s class a little sweaty and out of breath and waited for him to exit the room. The flood of students turned into a trickle and then stopped altogether. Did Brian stay home today? They had texted at lunch while Stacey was at the Environmental Club meeting. Alm
ost all of Stacey’s free time at school was taken up with club or student government meetings, so she usually didn’t see Brian until after school.

  Stacey poked her head in and saw Brian talking to a girl sitting on the desk, facing him. The girl’s legs, and who knew what else, were directly in Brian’s line of sight, preventing him from seeing Stacey waving from the doorway. Stacey couldn’t see who the floozy was from her position, but whoever it was had great hair. Looking at its honeyed shine in the fluorescent light, Stacey recalled a myth she’d read in elementary school about a golden fleece and the powers it brought to whoever possessed it.

  And then she realized it. “Fuck,” she breathed.

  This was Julia.

  6

  BRIAN DIDN’T NOTICE Stacey standing in the classroom doorway with Julia’s smooth and tanned legs on display right in front of him. They were like an athlete’s, only with none of the scars or bruises that come from competitive sports. Brian kept trying to focus on whatever it was Julia was saying. Something about the project they had just been assigned? They had to explain the genetic variations in some organism? He hadn’t paid attention to anything Mr. Cohen said after Julia leaned over and whispered, “Will you be my partner?” Brian must have nodded because here they were, staying after class talking about sexual reproduction and giraffe necks.

  And suddenly there was Stacey, standing next to them, wearing an expression of anger and despair, like someone showing up to a costume party in a sexy nurse outfit only to learn they’re at a bar mitzvah.

  “Stacey,” Brian said. “What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to you,” Stacey said flatly.

  The silence that followed probably only lasted for a few seconds, but it felt like hours to Brian. The three of them sat there in the awkward space between conversations. Brian looked down. He knew he should be the one to say something here. Introduce the girls to each other. Make a joke. But something in Stacey’s hostile demeanor made him hesitate. Instinctively, he sought to protect Julia by keeping her as anonymous as possible.

  Julia just looked back and forth between Brian and Stacey, until finally, Stacey thrust a hand out to her. “My name’s Stacey,” she said. Julia shook her hand gently.

  “Julia.”

  “I understand you’re my rival,” she said.

  “Julia and I are just lab partners,” Brian said.

  Stacey rolled her eyes. “I’m talking about the election, dumbass.”

  “Oh, right. Wait. What?”

  “Julia’s running for student body president.”

  “She is?” Brian looked at Julia. “You are?”

  “Yes,” Julia said.

  “Really? That’s weird. I mean, it’s great. I guess.” Brian felt trapped suddenly. Nothing he could say to one would go over well with the other. His best move would be to shut up, but he had as much control over the words coming out of his mouth as he had over his penis. “Why do you want to be student body president?” he asked.

  Julia shrugged. “I think it would be fun.”

  “Oh God,” Brian mumbled. That was not the way to describe student government to Stacey.

  Stacey stumbled back, as if she’d been slapped. “Fun?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a lot of work,” Stacey said.

  “I like working,” Julia said.

  “Do you know anything about this school and its traditions?”

  Julia shrugged again. “I know enough.”

  “What does that even mean?” Stacey said. Brian could tell she was getting heated. Stacey wasn’t good when she let her emotions take over like this. She came across as intolerant and condescending. Underclassmen didn’t like her for that reason. In the last opinion poll Brian conducted, they overwhelmingly said Stacey reminded them of their mean older sister.

  “It means, in my opinion, that some of your traditions only serve to divide the school, rather than bring people together.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Take homecoming for example.”

  Stacey made a choking sound.

  “You want to get rid of homecoming?” Brian asked for Stacey, who had lost the ability to speak.

  “I don’t know about getting rid of it, but don’t you find it a little, I don’t know, démodé?”

  “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘historic,’” Stacey said.

  “Yes,” Julia said. “It’s historic. Like slavery.”

  Stacey laughed and sputtered. “You’re equating homecoming with slavery?” She was on the verge of hyperventilating at this point.

  “Not slavery per se. Maybe more like colonialism. I don’t understand your desire to be ruled by kings and queens. And frankly, the whole thing is oppressive to anyone not conforming to binary gender norms.”

  “Oh please,” Stacey said. “Seriously?”

  “I’m sure you’d see it too if you weren’t so indoctrinated by the school.”

  “Now who’s sounding like the colonialist?” Stacey said.

  “Do you mean colonizer?” Julia said.

  “You know what I mean. You’re trying to impose your foreign values on our school culture.”

  “Maybe.” Julia said. “I’ll present my point of view and let the voters decide which system they favor. That’s what’s so wonderful about democracy, right?”

  Brian knew he should be on Stacey’s side, but he was in awe of Julia’s oratorical style. While Stacey visibly shook with righteous indignation, Julia never lost her cool. If this were a debate, he’d clearly have to hand the victory to her. In five minutes of conversation, she had made him question his allegiance to a system that continuously rewarded the rich and athletic.

  “I think you two are going to give the students a lot to think about,” he said pathetically. His comment was meant to end the conversation on an optimistic note, but judging from the dour expressions on both Stacey’s and Julia’s faces, he may as well have asked them what they planned to wear for the swimsuit competition.

  “Merde,” Julia said, glancing at her buzzing phone. “I have to go.” She threw all her things into her bag and stood up to leave. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Stacey. Brian, we’ll talk tonight about the project?”

  Brian nodded and stood up as well. He and Stacey watched Julia sashay out the door and into the bright sunlight of the day.

  “You can’t be working with her,” Stacey said, whipping around.

  “We’re just lab partners,” Brian said.

  “She’s evil.”

  “She’s not evil,” Brian said. “She’s Canadian.”

  “She wants to get rid of homecoming!”

  “She didn’t say that,” Brian said. “She just used it as an example of one of the things she’d like to change.”

  “But who is she to want to change anything?” Stacey said. “She’s been a student here for what? A month?”

  “I think it’s great that she wants to get involved.”

  “Brian, I need you to swear your loyalty to me right now.”

  “Are you serious? Now you do sound like a colonizer.”

  “I don’t care. We’ve been friends for three years. Who beat up Chester Jespersen when he tried to nickname you ‘Slim’?”

  “You did,” Brian said, cringing at the memory.

  “Who brought you that towel after your swimsuit split open at the waterslides?”

  “You did.”

  “Who brought you cookies every day you were in the hospital when your appendix burst?”

  “Okay, I get it,” Brian said. Stacey had been his only friend since he started high school, a fact for which he was both grateful and resentful—two emotions he didn’t think he could experience simultaneously. “I hereby swear my loyalty to you, my superior queen.”

  “That’s better,” Stacey said. “What’s her background anyway?”

  “She’s from Canada. The Quebec Province, I think. She speaks fluent French.”

  “That’s not what I mean,�
�� Stacey said.

  “I don’t know. She’s definitely not white.”

  “Duh,” Stacey muttered.

  “Everybody loves you, Stacey,” Brian said. “More important, they respect you. There’s no way someone new to the school can beat you, not even someone as hot as Julia.”

  Stacey punched him in the shoulder. Hard. “Can you come over tonight and help me with my banners? I’ll bake you those gluten-free cookies you like so much.”

  “Yum,” Brian said. “I’m there.”

  “You don’t even have a wheat allergy,” she said. “Why do you like those things?”

  “I don’t know, I just do.” There were lots of things he liked that he wasn’t supposed to. Figuring out if this made him unique or freakish consumed most of Brian’s mental energies.

  “You guys about done here?” Mr. Cohen said from his desk at the front of the room. Brian and Stacey looked up in surprise. He had been so quiet up there grading lab reports that neither had noticed him in the room.

  “Sorry, Mr. Cohen,” Brian said, sweeping his notebook and binder into his backpack. He and Stacey hustled out of the classroom and into the bright afternoon. As Stacey walked him through her ambitious to-do list, he nodded in agreement, all the while mentally scheduling her demands around his phone date with Julia.

  7

  JULIA WAS LATE again. She texted her aunt saying there was a mandatory meeting for all the ASB candidates and she would be curbside in five minutes. Take your time, Gloria texted her back. Clearly, Julia’s involvement in student government had relaxed her aunt somewhat. Julia hoped the campaign could win back even more of her freedom. She’d love to better acquaint herself with her new hometown. She hadn’t even visited the new ice cream store everyone was talking about. Supposedly, they had a barbecue ranch flavor that was like licking a potato chip.

  Julia walked through campus, luxuriating in the warm spring day. The school seemed designed to soak up this sunshine, from the expansive lawns and benches in the center quad to the canopy of solar panels that covered the student parking lot. Unlike her old school, which was almost Tetris-like in its brick-and-stone construction, Lincoln looked like a vacation resort. Each single-story building was separated from the others by open cement pathways, and patios made out of paving stones, and landscaped with desert flowers and trees. Maybe the Club Med atmosphere was responsible for the students’ sunny dispositions.