Most Likely to Succeed (6 page)

“You’re resigning?” I was astonished. Aidan was way too proud of his position to let go so easily.

“No,” he said. “Not me.”

“Me?” I squealed. “You’re asking me to resign?”

“Yes.”

This made no sense. I was counting on entering “student council vice president” on my college applications, and Aidan knew it.

“I don’t understand this,” I said. “Maybe you’re taking this too far because I’m your girlfriend, and you don’t want to be seen as soft on me. But Aidan, there’s something to be said for that sometimes. We’re
not
in a corporation. We’re in high school, and I
am
your girlfriend. You seem to be forgetting that a lot lately.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be my girlfriend.” At the shocked look on my face, he blinked and said, “We need to take a break and find out.”

I’d been wrapped up in what he was saying to me, trying to maneuver out of his anger. But as he uttered these words, suddenly I became aware again of a good portion of the student body moving all around us. Football players streamed out of the team buses, lugging bags of equipment into the locker room. Members of the marching band wearing bright tank tops and their uniform pants, or plaid shorts
and their military-style uniform coats, honked obnoxiously on their instruments as they walked to the band room. Sawyer’s majorette followed them, swinging her sequined butt.

But Sawyer hadn’t left yet. He might be able to hear what Aidan and I were saying. He could certainly see Aidan scowling down at me like an outraged teacher.

I asked carefully, “You want us to take a break because you’re mad about the election? It was a mistake, Aidan.”

“Not just because of that. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. We’ve been partners for a long time. I’m not convinced we’re such a good match, in our personal lives or in student council.”

Oh, now I understood. I managed to mumble, “So, when I fucked up the Superlatives election, that was the last straw.”

He winced at my curse word, but he said firmly, “Yes.”

“Which you found out about from Ms. Yates at lunch.”

“Right,” he said more uncertainly.

“That’s why you came to my house this afternoon.” My voice was rising, and Aidan was glancing around to see who was listening, but I didn’t care anymore. “You’d already decided you would tell me tonight that you wanted to ‘take a break’ ”—I made finger quotes—“but you wanted to get your recommendation letter for Columbia from my mother first. And you wanted to screw me one last time!”

He reached out for me. I never knew what he intended to do—hug me, hit me. Most likely he meant to slap a hand over my mouth to silence me. But he looked so angry that adrenaline rushed through my veins. Necessary or not, I jumped backward, out of his reach.

He crossed his arms and glowered at me. Nothing made him madder than
me
getting angry with
him
. “This is exactly why you need to resign. Using that language and talking about your sex life in the school parking lot!”

“
My
sex life!” I exclaimed. “Weren’t you there?”

He looked up at the dark blue sky, gathering self-control. Then he said, “Don’t try to argue your way out of this. I’m not changing my mind.”

“
Your
mind?” I asked. “Since when does a student council president get to decide that other elected officials should resign?”

“That’s what’s best for the school,” he said.

“I’m not resigning.” Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. What would my mother say?

“We’ll see, after I talk to Ms. Yates again,” Aidan sneered.

“And after I talk to the parliamentarian,” I shot back. “There are rules for trying to make your girlfriend resign just because you’ve broken up with her.”

“Oh.” Aidan rolled his eyes and shot me the bird.

Speechless for the first time, I stared at him, trying to get my head around the fact that my longtime boyfriend, the one I’d thought I would marry, had broken up with me and was now shooting me the bird. If
that’s
how mature he wanted this breakup to be, I wished I had my mother’s entire container of homemade cookies to throw at him one by one.

Finally I said, “Thanks for confirming that I’ve wasted the last three years with you.”

He stalked away. A few band members who’d stopped to witness our fight were watching me and talking behind their hands.

I wondered if Sawyer was listening. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of turning to look.

No, I took the only possible course of action in this situation. Blinking back tears, I went off in search of Harper and Tia.

5

WAY ACROSS THE PARKING LOT,
Will stood beside one of the band buses. He wore his uniform pants but had already ditched his coat. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head, wadded the cotton into a ball, and reached upward with it.

Tia stuck her head out of the bus window and laughed with him, then accepted the T-shirt and lobbed another out the window at him. At the last second before the shirt fell to the pavement, he snagged it from midair with one of his drumsticks. He shook it out and pulled it over his head. Then he reached up to the window again.

Tia put her hand out the window. They held hands for a few moments while she smiled down at him and told him something. I was still half a football field away from them
and couldn’t hear anything they said, but I knew they were stalling, milking another minute of excitement out of seeing each other before he walked away to make sure all the instruments safely traveled the distance from the truck to the band room. He and Tia would be separated for only fifteen minutes. They were ridiculous, acting like they wouldn’t see each other for a month.

That’s how Aidan and I had felt about each other when we were fourteen.

Now Aidan had told me he wasn’t sure I was good enough for him because I hadn’t upheld his high standards of running an election correctly—even though I hadn’t been allowed in the room when the votes were counted.

It had finally happened. My mother had told me a million times that because I was a woman, I had to work twice as hard as a man for the same amount of respect. And I was black, so I had to work four times as hard. To get twice as much respect, I had to work eight times as hard, and that’s what she expected of me.

But she’d been wrong. I worked as hard as I could, eight times harder than most people, probably fifty times harder than Tia, who didn’t work at all, and Tia was still acing the tests and ruining the curve in calculus. My mother might want me to have twice the respect of other people, but she
gave me none. She demanded perfection. I wasn’t perfect. I would have to work sixteen times as hard, and I just couldn’t do it anymore.

My tears blinded me. I didn’t notice Will had come across the parking lot to meet me until he filled my blurry field of vision. “Kaye,” he said, “what’s wrong?”

“Math,” I sobbed.

“Um . . . Come over here.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the band instrument truck. “Watch out,” he warned, settling his other hand at my waist and guiding me through the half-dressed band members kneeling over black cases laid out across the asphalt. He slid onto the back bumper of the truck and sat me down beside him.

“Now,” he said, “what’s wrong besides math?”

“I hate it here,” I grumbled to the silhouettes of the palm trees that dotted the parking lot.

“Really?” he asked. “I love it here. I just wish it wasn’t so hot.”

I sniffled. “It’s Florida, Will.”

“They keep telling me that.” He eyed me. “Tia will be out in a sec. She’s looking for some stuff she lost on the band bus.”

“Uh-oh,” I managed to say calmly, my voice gravelly. “What’d she lose this time?”

“Her phone, one of her drumsticks, one of her shoes, and her bra.”

“Her
bra
?” I repeated. “You might have had something to do with her losing her bra.”

“She said it was uncomfortable on the long drive. I was helping.”

A shadow fell over us as the lights overhead were blocked. We both looked up to see Sawyer standing in front of us, his gloved hands on his padded hips. The white pelican suit glowed like it was some mutant creature born of a nuclear accident in a B movie.

“Why are you in costume again?” Will asked.

Sawyer reached out and swatted Will to one side.

Will slid off the bumper and nearly fell. “Hey!” he yelled.

Sawyer settled next to me, then scooted back into the truck to give his padded butt more room. He put his arm around my waist where Will’s had been. With his other hand he turned my chin so I had to look at him. His white-gloved thumb erased the tracks of tears on one of my cheekbones, then the other.

I didn’t want to admit how touched I was by this gesture. “You’re getting mascara on your glove,” I said.

He held his glove up in front of his foam head, appearing to look at it. He wiped it on my bare knee.

Out in the field of instrument cases, Will and Tia were talking. He must have told her I was upset. She ran toward me, hurdling rows of cases as she came. “What’s the matter?” she called when she was still surrounded by discarded drums.

“Aidan told me he wanted to take a break,” I said shakily. Sawyer squeezed my shoulder.

Tia reached us and stomped her foot. “What the fuck for? Was it because of the shit in student council today?”

I sighed. “That probably had something to do with it, but he’s mad at me for other stuff too. I don’t meet his standards. He wants me to resign as vice president.”

“Wait until I find him,” Tia said. “I’ll take every one of his standards and shove them up his—
What?
” Exasperated, she turned to Will, who was poking her in the side.

“That’s not helpful right now,” he said.

“It’s helpful to
me
!” she exclaimed.

“Come on.” He started to pull out the ramp attached to the underside of the truck where we were sitting, but Sawyer’s costume overflowed into its path. “Tia and I have to get into the truck. Scoot over, bird,” Will said, kicking Sawyer’s cushioned butt.

Sawyer rose, pulling me up with him. But he didn’t let me go. The soft padding and feathers of his costume enveloped me. Rather than fighting him, I let him hug me.

Will and Tia tromped up the ramp and maneuvered a huge xylophone on rollers onto it. Steadying the lower end, Will walked carefully backward. “Oh, wait,” Tia called, “I don’t have it. Oh, ack!” The xylophone slid down the last foot of the ramp, knocking Will in the gut. “Are you okay?” she called.

“We didn’t really need that lower octave, anyway,” he groaned.

Sawyer put his hands over my ears.

Taking the hint, I inhaled deeply and shut my eyes, letting myself melt into his softness. I could still hear Will and Tia flirting as they coaxed instruments down the ramp and other band members laughing as they passed. But their voices were muffled and smoothed over, just as Sawyer’s downy but firm hug was soothing.

For those few seconds in Sawyer’s arms, I tried to live in the moment and remember what I loved about high school: my friends, our sports events, and our fun gatherings like the homecoming dance, which I was more determined than ever to save. It wasn’t until rare interludes like this, when I felt the weight lifted from my shoulders for a short time, that I realized how much pressure I was under, and how that anxiety turned my whole world dark.

Through my closed eyelids I sensed a flash. Blinking, I
pulled away from Sawyer just as Harper snapped a picture of us with her fancy camera.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You two hugging with Kaye in her cheerleader outfit and Sawyer in his pelican costume struck me as a symbolic photo for our school. It’s also one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.” She turned to me. “I hear Aidan wants a
break
?” She held her camera out of the way with one hand while she embraced me with the other.

“Tia told you already?” I asked into Harper’s shoulder. Tia wasn’t good at keeping news on the down-low.

“Tia isn’t happy with Aidan,” Harper said as she let me go.

And then—granted, the lights in the parking lot were bright, the shadows strange, and I was feeling out of sorts after my cry—but I could have sworn Harper gave Sawyer a knowing look, like they were hiding something from me.

Which was ridiculous. I spent way more time with Sawyer while he was in costume than Harper did, and I still didn’t know which part of his bird head he saw from.

She stuck out her bottom lip at me in sympathy. “Are you okay to drive?”

“Oh, sure. I’ll see you in a few.” I turned to Sawyer. “Did you put your costume back on just so you could hug me, even though you’re still mad at me? Because that’s kind of sweet, and kind of twisted.”

He shrugged.

“Well, go take it off. I know you’re hot.”

He nodded, nearly poking me in the eye with his foam beak, and curled his arm to show me his bird biceps.

I actually managed a laugh. “Yes,
that
kind of hot. You are one sexy waterfowl.”

He swaggered toward his truck, lifting his huge feet high and wagging his feathery bottom.

Suddenly the instrument truck, the cheerleader van, and all the buses around me were moving, like curtains rising and sets changing behind an actress onstage. Everyone in the parking lot drove away at one time, making the windblown palm trees seem stark and lonely. Only Sawyer remained, out of his costume again and unable to get over his anger at me, yet waiting for me behind the wheel of his truck.

I got in my car, and he followed me to Harper’s.

* * *

It was impossible to stay depressed in Harper’s tiny house with the five of us pushing past each other and laughing about it: me, sweet Harper, hilarious Tia, Harper’s hippie mom, and of course Sawyer. Just as Harper had said, he didn’t draw a lot of attention to himself or make much noise. It was almost like he was trying to blend in so Harper’s mom wouldn’t kick him out. He kept his clothes in a backpack stuffed under a side
table. I knew this because he drew some out right after we arrived, then disappeared to take a shower.

Harper’s mom made us cookies from store-bought frozen dough. They didn’t taste nearly as good as my mother’s homemade, but I appreciated them more because they were made specifically for me. I was stuffing the fourth in my mouth when Sawyer stepped out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, wearing his Pelicans T-shirt and threadbare sweatpants that hung low around his waist.

He looked like a different person with his blond hair wet and dark. But the defiant lift of his chin was the same as always when he saw me holding my bundle of pajamas. He motioned with his head toward the bathroom door.

I jumped up, eager to ditch my sweaty cheerleading duds. As I passed him, our bare arms brushed. I asked, “Did you use all the hot water?”

He said quietly, “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

I locked myself in the bathroom and set my clothes on the counter. Even though I’d had no idea when I packed my overnight bag that Sawyer would be here, luckily I’d brought a cute tank and pajama pants, sexy without being indecent. I wasn’t worried about how I would look to him. It was the feel of his breath in my ear as he’d passed me that still sent shivers up and down my arms—and now the idea that I was
stepping into the shower where he’d just been. (Naked.)

Harper might think this sleepover was innocent. She was wrong.

I hurried through showering and brushing my teeth so I didn’t miss anything. When I exited the bathroom, the living room was empty. Harper’s mom’s door was closed like she’d gone to sleep. Laughter pealed from the opposite direction. I padded down the hall and found Harper in her room, which was wallpapered with photos and art and fashion shoots she’d torn from magazines. She shared her desk chair with Tia as they scrolled through Harper’s yearbook photos on her computer. Sawyer lay on his stomach crossways on Harper’s bed with his chin propped on his hands, looking over their shoulders. I stopped in the doorway. He turned around to glance at me and patted the bed beside him.

Any other night we’d found ourselves thrown together like this, I would have flounced across the room to drag Harper’s beanbag chair closer to the computer. I
never
would have accepted Sawyer’s invitation to lie next to him. But Aidan and I were on a break. I was a free woman who could do what I wanted.

And though I wasn’t at all sure where I stood with Sawyer, we’d definitely moved into new territory for us. What I
wanted
was to lie down beside him.

“Oh my God, is that Xavier Pilkington?” I exclaimed, keeping my eyes focused on Xavier’s photo filling the computer screen as I crawled onto the bed beside Sawyer. There was a moment when I had to decide whether to settle a few inches from Sawyer or lie right alongside him with our arms and hips and legs touching. I chose to touch him. If he was still so angry with me that he found me distasteful, this would serve him right. Cooties.

“Doesn’t Xavier look great?” Harper asked, grinning at me over her shoulder. She did a double take when she saw how close Sawyer and I were lying, but she smiled right through it and turned back to the computer.

“Like a 1940s movie star,” Tia agreed, “especially with the grease in his hair. How do you make people look so good, Harper? If you really want to expand your business to wedding photos, you should post what Xavier normally looks like as the ‘before,’ and this picture as the ‘after.’ ”

“Two-part secret to good pictures.” Harper held up one finger. “Lighting.” She held up a second finger. “Lots of frames. Let me pull up the rest of my shots for Most Academic, and you’ll see why.” She opened another folder and expanded a photo of blond Angelica, primly perfect as usual, next to Xavier, who looked like Harper had caught him mid-sneeze.

“Ah, there’s our Romeo,” I said.

Sawyer laughed. For someone with a great—even if snarky—sense of humor, he didn’t laugh a lot. The sound warmed me up.

“Speaking of Angelica,” Tia said, turning to me.

“Don’t tell her,” Harper muttered.

“She needs to know!” Tia defended herself. “Kaye, I swear to God, not ten minutes after Aidan told you he wanted to take a break, I saw him talking to the majorettes and, specifically, hitting on old Angelica.”

“You don’t know that he was hitting on her,” Harper reasoned. “She’s dating Xavier.”

“Oh, and you think Aidan couldn’t steal a girl from Xavier Pilkington?” Tia challenged her. “Xavier’s mom still cuts the crusts off his sandwiches.”

“I’m not saying he
couldn’t
,” Harper clarified. “I’m saying I saw Aidan having that conversation with Angelica too, but that didn’t automatically signal he was making a move in
my
mind.”