by Amy Spalding
“Angry,” Marisa says. “You look angry. It’s like dance is making you rageful.”
“That girl next to you is worse,” I point out, though picking on little kids feels mean, even during wartime. “That girl’s terrible. Oh my god!”
“Yep,” Thatcher says.
“Oh my god,” I say again as it dawns on me.
And then Carlos and I say it together: “That girl’s Natalie.”
“Whoa,” Marisa says. “I’ve never seen Natalie be bad at anything. Much less…”
“So bad,” I say.
“We’ll play it on Friday,” Thatcher says.
“It doesn’t have to be Friday,” I say. “Right? Can’t the system be accessed whenever we want?”
We decide to run the video on Thursday, to hopefully give people a full twenty-four hours to talk about Natalie’s performance before TALON’s next episode. If we were dealing with anyone else, I know that this wouldn’t be a very big deal; most kids have done something silly in public that they’ll wish they could take back later. But this is Natalie.
I didn’t tell Darcy and Mom exactly how late my meeting would last, so when we head out for the night, I drive to Alex’s instead of my house. He’s waiting outside by the time I pull up, and any residual thoughts about the Crest evaporate when he sits down in my car.
Alex directs me to take a couple of turns and then to park on a semi-empty block. I give him what I hope is a cute and quizzical look, and he responds by climbing over the console into the backseat.
Oh my god. We are old-school parking.
I’m not sure I can gracefully hurtle the console, so I go the old-fashioned way by getting out of the car and then getting into the back. I never thought that the backseat of a Toyota Camry would be the most romantic setting I’d ever encountered, but it turns out that it’s a very good place for kissing someone in the moonlight.
“The weekend after next,” he says later, while I’m driving the few blocks back to his house, “my parents are going to some huge banquet for my dad’s department.”
“Cool,” I say. “Is it all about mathematics or—”
“Jules.” He cracks up. “The department rents a bunch of suites at a hotel near the convention center. They’ll be out most of the evening and all night.”
“Next weekend?”
“The weekend after next.” He kisses me again. “Two weekends from this one. I just thought you should know.”
I know very quickly what he means, though even with a boy I kiss in cars, I hadn’t thought that sex would be a thing I’d have to think about this year. It was something else I figured that I’d worry about in college or even grad school.
But now that it’s been implied, I realize I’m not having a knee-jerk reaction against it. I’m not having any reaction against it.
“Okay,” I say. I worry Alex thinks I’m just affirming that I understand which weekend he’s referring to. “We can definitely have sex that night.”
“I—” He laughs again. “Okay. We definitely can. Write it down in your organizer.”
“Don’t joke about my organizer. It keeps me very—”
Now he’s kissing my neck and it’s very hard to concentrate on speaking.
“Organized?” he says finally.
“You’re mean,” I say, and kiss him again. “You’re the meanest.”
“And you’re the most organized.”
Sex, or at least the very real fact that it may soon be a very real part of my life, is unfortunately still on my mind when I get home. I’d hoped for some time off to help Mom with dinner, get through my homework, and talk to Sadie for long enough to make up for turning off my phone last night. But I’m in the midst of chopping veggies in the kitchen when it’s all back, at full volume, in my head.
“Um,” I say. “Can I go to the doctor?”
“Oh no,” Mom says, dropping her meat tenderizer onto a pile of chicken. “Are you feeling sick?”
She washes her hands while I try to make the rest of my thoughts come out, but it’s too late. She’s already checking to see if I have a fever, as if mom hands work better than thermometers. When they’re both home, it’s even more annoying.
“Not that kind of doctor,” I say.
“Like a therapist?” Mom asks. “Of course. This year’s been so stressful for you, and with your worries about college… I know Joe’s been concerned—”
“Alex and I are… sort of… I…”
“Having sex?” Mom asks.
“No,” I say. “Not yet. But maybe. I don’t know. It’s like now it exists.”
Mom nods. She doesn’t look horrified or disappointed or, really, any different than usual.
“Obviously, of course, I knew it existed,” I say. “But…”
“Of course, Jules,” Mom says. “But I didn’t even realize you and Alex were that serious—”
“This has been a strange week,” I say. “Please don’t tell anyone. I know you’ll tell Darcy, but, no one else. Please? We aren’t officially… anything. With everything going on between TALON and the Crest, it’s better if people don’t…”
“Sadie doesn’t know you’re back together, is what you’re saying.”
“Well, Mr. Wheeler doesn’t either, and he’s my advisor for the Crest, and I know how you guys like to have weird conversations with him all the time.”
Mom sighs loudly and goes back to pounding pieces of chicken for our chicken piccata. “Jules, I know it continues to be hard for you to believe, but Joe is our neighbor and friend, and we have what I believe to be very normal friend and neighbor conversations. I certainly don’t tell him every time someone in the house goes to the gynecologist.”
“Every time?”
“Any time,” Mom says. “Do you want me to take over on the zucchini?”
“No, I can handle it. I’m fine.” I start chopping again. “Wait, do you think I need therapy?”
Mom laughs. “Only if you want to go. But, honey…”
I stop chopping. She stops pounding. I wait for it, the sex lecture I should have seen coming.
“I think Darcy and I are both worried about what will happen if you don’t get into Brown,” she says.
“Well, me too!” I quickly see from her expression that it was the wrong answer. It’s funny how I have none of her DNA but we’re both terrible at hiding our emotions in such similar ways. Darcy’s better, because you can’t be a successful attorney without a good poker face. “Hopefully I’ll get in, and it won’t matter.”
“If you don’t, do you promise me you’ll talk to someone?”
I nod.
“Hey,” Darcy says, walking in. “Oh, god. Why do you both look like someone’s died? Who died? Did someone die?”
“Apparently just my sanity,” I say, and it wasn’t supposed to be a joke, but they both laugh, and that’s probably for the best.
When I go upstairs to my room later, I do open my organizer. I’ve already written in the box for two Saturdays from this one, the same thing I’ve written in every Saturday’s space. 8 AM Walking dogs at Stray Rescue.
I draw a heart in the remaining space.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I try not to visibly sit forward in anticipation on Thursday. It’s not that I think we won’t be the primary—or only—suspects for the video, but I still don’t want to appear too knowledgeable or ready for it.
I never imagined myself breaking so many rules, much less during my senior year. I should probably be worried about my permanent record or disciplinary action, but the Crest and its legacy are far more important right now.
The TVs switch on, and I guess thanks to TALON, no one seems that surprised that it’s happening, even on a non-TALON day. The footage has been edited down to start with a tight close-up on Natalie, and I’m worried no one will know it’s her, but I hear her name being whispered around the classroom almost immediately.
“Everyone,” Ms. Cannon says. “Please be quiet and watch the presentation.”
Sometimes I can’t tell if Ms. Cannon isn’t that good at her job, or if she’s just very, very over it.
“Where did you get this?” Sadie whispers to me.
“Thatcher,” I whisper back.
“Oh my god!” Sadie shouts. “Thatcher!”
The transmission cuts out once the video ends, and Ms. Cannon sighs very loudly before directing us back to our discussion questions. The dance recital footage didn’t get quite the reaction that the Chaos 4 All video did, but I have to believe that Natalie’s fuming right now.
“Hey.” Natalie walks up to me at my locker after class. “Screw you guys. That was completely unprofessional.”
“Oh, unlike stealing computer keys from all our keyboards? Or hacking into media files and substituting unapproved material into a publication?” I ask.
“The guest column should be open to everyone,” Natalie says. “I’m a member of the Eagle Vista Academy student body.”
“Then you should have followed protocol to submit a piece,” I say.
“You’re lucky I’m not going to take this to administration,” she says.
“No luckier than you are that we’re not doing the same.”
“Your team should really proofread with more care,” she says.
Alex walks by and comes to a halt upon sight of the two of us. He looks to me, then quickly away, and then back to Natalie.
“Come on, Alex,” Natalie says. “Let’s not waste our time with print media.”
He sneaks me a little glance as they walk off. Alex is so good at secret looks that I feel my face heat up.
“Is it hard fighting your ex-boyfriend?” Amanda asks me as she and Carlos walk up to me.
“No,” I say. Hopefully everyone will attribute my face—if it is as red as it feels—to ex-boyfriend anger and not current-secret-boyfriend-secret-looks feelings.
“Jules likes a competition,” Carlos says. “Way more than she likes some boy bander.”
“I—” I cut myself off from saying more, which is that of course I care more about the people in my life than I care about the Crest. I’m not sure what’s true right now.
I have a text when I sit down in class, even though we’ve mainly been eschewing digital communication in this second round of our relationship. For your sake didn’t want to risk dropping anything at your locker right now. But this might all be easier if we just came clean.
I start approximately one million messages to him, all with a variation of Are you crazy?? before landing on something much calmer. It’s probably not the right time. Let’s wait until the battle dies down.
Considering that there’s no way I can see that happening before the Crest’s legacy is saved for the foreseeable future, I think I’m safe from worrying about coming clean for a while.
Instead of going to school the next morning, I drive myself to a nearby medical complex. Answering real questions to a real medical professional (“No, I’m not sexually active. Yes, I plan to be.”) is somehow my first real conversation about what’s going on with Alex and my potential sex life. I thought I’d be embarrassed, but it just feels like a reminder that I’m not talking to anyone I expected to about this surprising development. I can’t believe I’m not texting Sadie every detail. I can’t believe I don’t have her responses to get me through any of this. So I actually feel relief saying these things aloud, especially to a doctor, as she has no stakes in the rivalry between TALON and the Crest.
The actual exam is less awkward than I expect, though afterward, a nurse does teach me how to use a condom via a banana. I’m curious what happens to the bananas once they’ve served their demonstration purpose. It would be awful to just throw perfectly good bananas away when there are so many hungry people in this city. But it also doesn’t seem right, somehow, to feed someone a banana that recently was wearing a condom. Now I’m worried I’ll never be able to eat a banana again.
“Where were you?” Sadie asks when she finds me by my locker after third period. “You missed Jenni Gant asking a really stupid question about Mesopotamia, and Ms. Cannon nearly losing her shit.”
“Doctor,” I say, because in general my knee-jerk reaction is honesty.
“Are you sick?” Sadie asks. For just a moment I fear that she’s about to check my forehead for a fever. Can I fake a fever? Can I direct heat to my head? “Why are you here if you’re sick?”
“Just a checkup,” I say, even though my purse feels weighted down suddenly with the condoms and birth control prescription we aren’t talking about. I wonder if I should tell Alex about my appointment. Would Sadie?
“You promise me that you’d tell me if you were dying,” Sadie says. “Right?”
“I promise I’m not dying, no more than regular mortality,” I say. “Though after next year we’ll be so far away it wouldn’t really matter, right?”
Sadie narrows her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just, college?” I clarify. “Once you’re off doing amazing things in New York, you won’t have time to worry about my mortality anymore.”
“I would never not have time for you, Jules,” she says. “And I barely even see you now, and we live in the same zip code and go to the same school.”
“It’ll be different,” I say. “You’ll be having some new exciting adventure every day.”
“So will you,” Sadie says, even though I’m not sure how I’ll think of anything to do outside of school and volunteer work without Sadie’s help. “We’ll still talk. We’ll text, at least. If I can text you now, I can text you then.”
“Okay,” I say, even though I can’t envision what that will actually be like. I didn’t actually mean to get onto the subject of college at all, though I guess it’s better than continuing to avoid conversation about my doctor visit. Talking to Sadie without talking about any of the things I actually want to talk about is yet another challenge I didn’t expect to take on this year.
“How was TALON today?” I ask. I almost asked Mom to reschedule my doctor’s appointment so I wouldn’t have to miss it, but it’ll be up on VidLook anyway.
“It was fine?” Sadie shrugs. “Alex toured a digital media company and made it almost seem interesting.”
I know that Alex probably didn’t think that it meant something against me to do a story like that, but I’m sure Natalie did. I’m sure it was Natalie’s idea.
“How did Natalie look?” I ask.
“Not completely destroyed by the school’s knowledge that she can’t dance, if that’s what you’re asking.” She closes her locker. “See you at lunch.”
I want to call Sadie back and say the right thing—because lately it feels like I’m not doing that, and maybe even sometimes I’m saying the wrong thing. But if she doesn’t fully understand about TALON, and she can’t know about Alex, I don’t know what that right thing would be.
On Saturday I stay late after walking dogs to help stuff envelopes for the annual Rescue Festival they’re holding in a few weeks. Tricia buys us lunch, and when we’re finished eating, since I haven’t heard from Alex yet, I decide to walk dogs for a bit longer. It’s not that without Alex I have nothing to do, but it’s been days since we were curled up in the back of my car together.
I had no idea how long days could seem.
At home I sit down with my parents at the kitchen table while they’re drinking wine (I’m given sparkling water) and snacking on fruit. I glance down at my phone while Mom and Darcy are discussing gardening or something backyard-related. Alex still hasn’t texted, but Thatcher has.
Which is a first.
Feel free to shut her down. It won’t be suspicious. And then: Or don’t. Up to you.
I check my email. My parents are debating the pros and cons of rock gardens while I wait to find out who her is and what suspicion I’m avoiding and whether or not I should shut her down.
to: [email protected]
from: [email protected]
subject: More Operation
TALON
Hi everyone,
I know it’s been a while since we discussed this. But I’ve been doing a lot of research, and I finally completed my article.
I did some investigating, and actually got in touch with someone else from the group, and there’s definitely more to Alex Powell and Chaos 4 All than people know. I know that you’re thinking, “No one cares that much about Chaos 4 All anymore, Marisa,” but I think this ties into TALON’s success on VidLook, believe if or not.
If we’re looking to break into more long-form investigative journalism, this could be a good start. Plus I think this is a topic people actually will want to read about.
—Marisa
Oh no.
It has to be suspicious if I try to shut this down, though, despite Thatcher’s text-based assurances. I’m figuratively and literally the leader of the Destroy TALON faction. Why would I suddenly want to stop a piece of long-form journalism that would not only guarantee readership but go after one of our main enemies? Yesterday Carlos publicly said that I cared way more about the competition than Alex’s feelings.
Oh no, oh no.
On the other hand, of course, I want to know what it says. Earlier this week I might have kissed Alex in the moonlight, but right now I want to know what the more to him is. I think back to conversations we’ve had, how there were things he didn’t even want to talk about, things that (possibly?) haunt him (is haunt too strong a word?) still.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
alexpowellchaos4all.doc is attached. Download?
I click yes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAOS 4 WHO?
HOW A FORMER BOY BAND MAY HAVE
RIGGED THE SYSTEM AT E.V.A.
BY MARISA JOHNSTON
Two years ago, Chaos 4 All had the biggest hit of the country: on the radio, on iTunes, and online. “Want 2 B Ur Boy” set new records for viral popularity and sharing statistics. The music group enjoyed traditional success as well, including charting at #1 on Billboard’s the Hot 100. Much of its publicity, though, including performances on all late-night shows and a Rolling Stone cover, stemmed from this never-before-seen rise to the top starting from the ground floor of the Internet. Chaos 4 All’s fast success, however, may not be what it seems, and the circumstances surrounding them may cast a popular club at E.V.A. in a different light.
