Surviving High School

by Lele Pons

  “Okay Freddie, not in front of the kids,” says Aunt Sylvia.

  “Come on, they’re too young to even know what I’m saying.”

  “Let’s keep it light.”

  I put my face in my hands, imagine I’m somewhere else. I’m on a beach with Alexei, and waiters in Speedos are serving me piña coladas. They fan me, feed me grapes; they’ve all written “Lele is queen” on their chests in blue paint. I open my eyes and, to my dismay, I am still in the Palm Beach mall with the entire Pons clan, each of us wearing some combination of red and green. My outfit is a red polyester dress with big green buttons on the shoulder straps and a white puffy-sleeved shirt billowing out the top. I do my best to keep my eyes on the ground in a valiant attempt to go unseen, but my efforts are in vain.

  “Ew.” I look up to see a girl, about my age, in a leopard-print dress, immaculately flat-ironed hair, and bubblegum-colored lip gloss. She’s staring me down like I’m a leper.

  “Excuse me, are you talking to me?”

  “Yeah,” she says, “I said ew, because your outfit is completely gross.”

  “Bitch!”

  “Slut!” This voice comes from a third party. I turn around to see (gasp!) Yvette Amparo with (gasp!) her family, staring down Leopard Girl with more tenacity than I’ve ever seen.

  “Whoa. Hey, Yvette, I didn’t see you there,” I say, wondering how long she and her family have been standing behind us.

  “Are you going to let her talk to you like that? Hey, Leopard, who do you think you are? You think you can just go around commenting on people’s outfits like you know what the hell you’re talking about? You’re wearing leopard print, girlie, which puts you at the very bottom of the fashion totem pole. As far as I’m concerned you’re the least qualified human to criticize anyone’s fashion sense, and I’m fairly certain nobody asked for your useless opinion, so buh-bye, walk along, sweetheart.” Yvette waves her acrylic nails at Leopard Girl, who is now a deer in the headlights, scampering away with wide eyes and trembling legs.

  I’m just as stunned. “Thank you, I uh . . . I don’t know what to say, that was really sweet of you.”

  “Yeah, well, no one’s allowed to talk to you like that but me, right?”

  “That’s right. Puta.”

  “Pendeja!” We laugh, our parents eye each other suspiciously.

  In a daydream, Yvette and I get our revenge on Leopard Girl. Mercilessly, we tie her to a tree, we roll her up into a rug, all the while “Do You Believe in Magic?” by The Lovin’ Spoonful plays on repeat. Ahhh, I think I’ve found my happy place.

  “Lele? Lele?” Mom snaps me back into reality. “Who was that girl? Is she a friend of yours?”

  “Yeah,” I say, thinking about Yvette. “I guess she is.”

  15

  Nobody Ever Believes Little Kids in Scary Movies / How Little Kids Wake You Up on Christmas

  (5,892 Followers)

  So, turns out Yvette isn’t so bad after all. Sometimes your greatest enemy is actually the most like you. Yvette saw herself in me and freaked out, figuring this town wasn’t big enough for the both of us—it’s all very cinematic. We hate the same things and the same people, she’s actually the smartest and funniest person I know, besides myself of course. So what if she has a chip on her shoulder? I can relate to that sometimes, to be quite honest. I think if we join forces we’ll be unstoppable. We’ll throw parties that people rave about for months and invent a secret language so no one can decode our texts—all the guys at school will want to date us and all the girls will want to be us. Hell, even the girls will want to date us and even the guys will want to be us. We will be rulers: first we take Miami, then we date the world.

  But for now it’s winter break and I am beyond thrilled to be away from school. Although, it’s not much of a vacation with Uncle Freddie and the gang scampering around our house all day like rabid mice. I try to spend as much time in my room as possible. I’ve fashioned a makeshift lock out of pushpins and a chain-link bracelet so that my room can be a secluded sanctuary for sleeping, eating, and Vine making. It may not be all that professional-looking, but this is my office, my studio, the setting where the magic happens.

  In years from now, my house will be a museum, my room blocked off with red velvet rope, and a tour guide will say, “This, THIS is where Lele thought up the material to put in her Vines. Some say she’s the greatest genius of the millennial era . . .” Really, you guys, they will say this.

  Until that point, however, my four-year-old cousin Johnny is sharing my room at night, sleeping on a cute little trundle mattress that pulls out from under my bed.

  Johnny is really sweet, but he sort of creeps me out. He reminds me of one of those kids from horror movies who somehow is the chosen one in the family to be constantly contacted by the supernatural, I mean, preternatural element. He’s constantly spooked and on guard, staring at the walls like he sees something no one else can see. I believe in ghosts, so all this kid has to do is stare into nothing with that fixed, dreamy gaze and I jump right on board with the notion that the house I live in is, in fact, haunted.

  I have a lot of empathy for the kids in horror movies: nobody ever takes them seriously. I can relate. So, when I come home from my morning jog to find Johnny sitting up in bed, hands over his eyes, I want to believe him that there’s something in the closet.

  “What is it, Johnny? What’s in the closet?”

  “It’s a monster. It has black hair and a black face.” He whimpers into a pillow, brown eyes wide and glossed with fear.

  “Okay, let’s check this out.” I grab a baseball bat to show him that I am taking him very seriously, then open the closet and peer in. Nothing. Nothing but a disorganized pile of my shoes and some articles of clothing piled on top of that. I’m not great with neatness.

  “Look, no one’s in there. You’re safe.” I turn back to face him. “I was on your team, I wanted to believe you, I really wanted there to be a monster and for you to have your little-kid victory of finally being right for once, I’m sorry that it didn’t turn out that way.”

  He starts screaming, bloody murder, and pointing aggressively.

  “Behind you!” he shrieks. “He’s behind you!”

  “What? Where?” I swing back around, only to see my lopsided ball of clothes and shoes.

  “Johnny, is this what you’re seeing? These clothes sort of look like a monster. I guess.”

  “No! He has a black face and black hair! And whenever you look at me he comes back out!”

  “Johnny”—I turn back to face him—“are you messing with me? There’s no—” And that’s when I feel it: two slimy hands wrapping around my ankles. I try to run but it’s too late. The hands pull me down into the closet, I try to grip the carpet, hold on to anything I can, but I’m dragged deep into the bowels of the house and then deeper, into the fiery pits of Hades.

  LOL, yeah right, I’m just messing with you. Did I mention I have an active imagination?

  • • •

  Having kids around is scary enough as it is without adding monsters to the mix. Seriously, what is with them? They need to eat around the clock, they are loud and insist on climbing everything, they’re amused by the stupidest things ever, and they never get tired. I don’t know how they do it, but if you didn’t make them go to bed they honestly never would.

  And nothing gives them more energy than Christmas. NOTHING. Last night, Johnny and Kyle and Suzie stayed up until two in the morning waiting for Santa Claus, and are now banging on my door screaming “PRESENTS! PRESENTS! PRESENTS!” It is six in the morning, I don’t give a f**k about presents. It’s six in the morning, I wouldn’t get out of bed if Alexei was downstairs standing under the mistletoe, covered in whipped cream and strawberries, wearing nothing but an elf’s hat. Okay, maybe I would get up for that.

  The Pons family has two main Christmas traditions. The first, I’ve told you about already—you know, the one with the mall and the waiting around for a chance at a photo op
with Santa while dressed in embarrassing clothes. The second is exponentially more lovely, something I actually look forward to. I don’t know where you come from, reader, or if you’re blessed with snowy Christmas mornings, but there’s a better chance of seeing snow in hell than in Miami. Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, considering hell is most likely a fictional place, and it did snow once in Miami thirty-six years ago. But anyway, the night before Christmas, the Pons family gathers around the dining room table and makes chains of paper snowflakes to hang around the house. I’m not talking like eight or nine snowflakes here and there, I’m talking about hundreds upon hundreds, all painted with glitter-glue for a magical sunlit-morning-snow look. We stay up late drinking warm apple cider and make bets on who will fall asleep first. Whoever falls asleep first gets their face drawn on (PG stuff only, e.g., no penises), and whoever wins the bet gets to do the drawing. Whoever stays awake the longest gets to hide the presents all around the house and laugh while everyone struggles to find them. It’s an odd tradition, yes.

  This year around midnight, Mom says, “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a second.”

  “Sure, sure. Go ahead, take a break,” I say encouragingly, because I’m betting on her to be the first one out. She closes her eyes and in seconds is talking in her sleep. Mom is an impressively intelligible sleeptalker:

  “Don’t forget to turn off the electric cars,” she mumbles, and then, “Is this the one with the roller coasters?” The rest of us laugh so hard it hurts.

  By 2:00 a.m. I reach the end of my snowflake-making capabilities, so I pull a blanket over Mom and (lovingly) draw a small snowman on her left cheek—it’s super adorable if I do say so myself—then drag myself to bed where I fall instantly into a deep and peaceful sleep.

  • • •

  “Lele! Lele! Lele! Get up! Presents!”

  “Go away!” I put a pillow over my head, trying to block the sound. CRASH! They break through my makeshift lock and bound into the room like jungle animals. Johnny and Kyle jump up on my bed while Suzie walks right up to my face and screams, “IT’S CHRISTMASTIME!!!!!!!”

  I’m sorry, but what are we feeding these kids, cocaine? I never thought I’d say it, but I think I’m ready to go back to school. I love my family but I’ve learned a very important lesson this winter vacation: they are extremely frightening.

  16

  Puberty Hit Her Like . . .

  (600,000 Followers) (WHAT??!!)

  You guys, I went on a jog EVERY SINGLE DAY OF CHRISTMAS VACATION. Christmas vacation was like a sweet little cocoon; I curled up in my den of hibernation as a caterpillar and came out, if I do say so myself, as a FRICKING BUTTERFLY. I exercised, I got a tan, I put highlights in my hair, went shopping two or three times, and best of all, I GOT MY BRACES OFF! Finally! I had almost forgotten what it’s like to not look like a crew of robots has colonized my mouth. Would you believe me if I told you my abs are almost as flat as Darcy’s now? I can rock a crop top like a superstar and nobody can stop me. Hallelujah.

  Oh, and after Cameron Diaz shared “3 Ways to Tell If a Person is Latin,” I jumped from six thousand followers to six hundred thousand! I literally don’t know how to process this information. I keep getting phone calls about unfamiliar words like deals and sponsorships and representation and brand image . . . am I going to need a manager? Who knew having a following could be so complicated? Ooh, I like the sound of that: “a following” . . . it’s like I’m a cult leader.

  On our first day back at school, I show up wearing a hot little dress from Brandy Melville, and beige suede Korkys wedges. I have cranked it up to the next level and everyone is noticing. During first-period English I keep catching people staring at me, but in a different way than they used to. Now they see something they like and can’t get enough of. That’s right, bitches, my smile says to them, Nerdy girl is all grown up.

  “Hey, Lele.” Alexei stops me after class. “You look . . . hot.” My mouth hangs open as he walks away.

  When gym rolls around, I worry that changing into that hideous uniform might kill the magic of my new look (how will I ever take off this little black dress with holes so casually and conveniently cut into the sides to reveal where my waist curves in?!), so I tell Coach Washington that I have terrible cramps and opt to sit on the sidelines. What a beautiful hour: me in the bleachers without a care in the world while the other girls run laps around and around the track field. Everyone is sweaty and gross, while I remain a goddess of hotness, hair blowing in the wind high above the common folk. I feel like I’m on top of Mount Olympus; I feel like I’m in a movie.

  Yvette and her gaggle pass me on the track and Yvette stops to catch her breath.

  “Wish that dumb mall bitch could see you in that dope outfit, Lele. She’d shoot herself in the face.”

  “That’s a tad extreme, but thank you. I accept your kind words.” I accept your kind words? Will I never learn how to speak to people?

  “You’re seriously so weird,” she says. “Wanna have lunch with us today?”

  “Whoa, me? Really?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “Can I bring Darcy?”

  “Sure. Yeah, she’s cool.”

  “Okay then.”

  “We meet at the front gate and then walk to Tommy’s Pizza.”

  “See you there.”

  “Awesome, see you there,” she says. “On Wednesdays, we wear pink.” She winks at me in this chillingly cool, self-aware way that leaves me in awe. First day back at school is shaping up to be a memorable one.

  • • •

  “Shut up,” Darcy says, eyes wide. We’re walking toward the front gate and she cannot keep her cool. “You have to be kidding me.”

  “I am not kidding you, Darcy. She just ran right up to me and invited us to eat lunch with them.”

  “Off campus.”

  “Correct.”

  “We’re eating lunch off campus with Yvette Amparo.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Do you know how rare this is? Nobody gets invited to eat off campus with Yvette and her posse.”

  “Yeah, speaking of that, do they have a name or something? I mean I feel like any real popular clique needs to have a group name, like the Plastics or the Pink Ladies or the Heathers or the Pretty Little Liars or . . . the Jawbreaker Murderers?”

  “Hm. I don’t think they do. Maybe you should suggest one and then they’d invite us to be permanently part of the group.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s so weird that she invited you, of all people. I mean, I thought she hated you.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing, she did hate me. And I hated her. Then we realized we just hated each other because of how similar we are. I think that’s what happened anyway. At the end of the day I’m not really one to hold a grudge.”

  “I guess stranger things have happened,” Darcy says, fixing the barrettes in her newly braided hair.

  • • •

  Yvette and the Fleek Four (obvi the clique name is a work in progress) look like an army waiting for us at the gate. They’re all wearing black and the same impeccably applied cat-eye makeup, clear lip gloss. Yvette’s eyes could cut through ice; man am I glad I have her on my side now.

  “Hey, Lele. Hey, Darcy. Thanks for joining us! Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.” She leads the crew off campus and we follow her down Fourth Street to the corner of Ocean Avenue, where Tommy’s Pizza awaits us, a 24-7 oasis in the desert of high school hell. Emily, Cynthia, Maddie, and Becca huddle together, pretending that Darcy and I aren’t here. They order Diet Cokes and nothing else. Oh, so it’s that kind of lunch. Sigh.

  “How happy are you that Frisbee golf is over?” Yvette asks once we’re outside with our Cokes. Cynthia lights a cigarette.

  “Oh, super glad,” I say. “Although now we’re probably going to just have to participate in some other humiliating sport. Once swimming season comes around I’m going to be longing for the Frisbee golf days.”
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  “Oh my God.” Yvette laughs. “That is so real. I am with you one hundred percent.”

  A truck full of guys drives by and all five of them whistle at us, calling out obscenities too obscene for even an X-rated film. If only their mothers could see them.

  “Men are pigs,” Becca says. “They don’t deserve to share the planet with us.” The other girls giggle.

  “Amen, sistah.” Cynthia exhales smoke.

  “Please don’t blow that in my face, Cynthia,” Yvette says. “I just got a facial.”

  “Sorry,” Cynthia mutters, turning away.

  “Speaking of men”—Yvette laces her fingers together and rests her chin on them—“what’s going on with you and Alexei? I saw the Vine you guys made together, it was so cute. Are you dating?”

  “Oh, uh . . .” I freeze, I’ve never had to talk to anyone about Alexei before. “No, we’re not dating. Just friends.”

  “Really? You guys seem really close,” Yvette says.

  “We’ve hung out a bunch and it doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere . . . I mean, he did tell me he liked me but—”

  “He told you he liked you?!” Yvette’s eyes are bulging out of her face. Is it THAT SHOCKING that he likes me? I mean, I’m not ugly.

  “Mmm-hmmm.”

  “Oh my God, Lele, he’s in love!” Yvette is practically squealing.

  “You think?”

  “I know boys, Lele, trust me. You should totally date him.”

  “Well, he hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend or anything, so I don’t know.”

  “Men are so confused,” Cynthia says. “They have no idea what they want.”

  “Does Alexei Kuyper really count as a man?” Maddie asks. “I mean, isn’t he such a boy?”

  “Oh, he’s a man,” Becca says in a way that makes me a little nauseous. The rest giggle. Blech.

  “He’ll come around.” Yvette smiles, almost wickedly. “Especially now that you’re so goddamn sexy, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind.” I swat at her playfully. “Tell me again.”