The Karma Club (17 page)

He laughs, and I immediately regret saying it. I feel my face flush, and I look away. Did that sound dirty? I didn’t mean it to sound dirty. His parents really
are
paying me by the hour . . . to help him with his homework. But when I look back at Spencer again, I notice that he’s watching me. Like he’s expecting me to do something or say something very important. And not this-pronoun-replaces-this-noun type of important.

I’m about to open my mouth to ask him why the heck he’s looking at me like that when he says, “I should probably tell you something before we continue.”

My first thought is that he’s going to come clean. He’s going to tell me the whole story about what happened with Jenna and her locker and the spray paint. And it’s all going to make sense. And he’s going to be pardoned in my mind. Because for some reason, unbeknownst to me at this moment, I really need him to be.

“What’s that?” I say, trying to act casual and unassuming.

He clears his throat in the way that people do when they’re about to confess something. “When I came to the counseling office to sign up for tutoring,” he begins, “I kind of . . . um, requested you.”

Huh?

What does he mean he
requested
me? He didn’t even know me. Did he?

“Why?” I ask.

He shrugs and refuses to make eye contact with me. For the first time, I realize that he looks nervous. But why on earth would he feel nervous around me? I’m just plain old Maddy Kasparkova. The smart girl who got dumped at the Loft. Trust me, I’m not anyone to be nervous about.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “When I saw you in the office that day—you know, when you confused me for Mr. Wilson?—I thought you were kind of cute, and . . . well, I know you’re not supposed to pick out tutors because they’re cute, but hey, it can’t hurt, right?”

Cute? Spencer Cooper thinks I’m cute? As in little-girl cute? Like “Oh, look at her in her cute ballerina costume.” That kind of cute? Clearly, that’s what he means. Right?

“I asked Mr. Wilson if you tutored French, and so here we are.”

I’m not quite sure how to respond to this. It’s not every day that one of the most popular and good-looking guys in school tells you he handpicked you. Granted, it was out of a pool of academic dorks, but still. So I just go, “Okay.”

Spencer looks even more uncomfortable than he did a few seconds
ago. “I really don’t know why I felt like I had to tell you that. I just . . . did.”

“Okay,” I say again, feeling incredibly stupid. But honestly, it’s the only word coming to my mind right now. How’s that for academic?

Before I can think of anything more articulate to say, Spencer is suddenly kissing me. Yes, completely out of the blue like that. And it’s totally amazing. His lips feel like silk, and he tastes like soda and vanilla cupcakes. Obviously I know where the soda came from, but the vanilla cupcakes? Anyone’s guess at this point. Not that I care in the slightest.

I’m feeling tingles in my toes that I honestly can’t remember if I ever felt while kissing Mason. But there’s also this looming sense of trepidation. And I can hear a voice deep inside of me screaming for it to stop. That this guy clearly isn’t who he makes himself out to be. That it’s an act. Spencer the beautiful, polite, amazing kisser is really Spencer the evil spray painter who writes awful things on your locker. Maybe it’s like a Jekyll and Hyde type of thing. Or maybe it’s triggered by a full moon. Well, that’s fine. I can simply kiss him like this and then, whenever the moon is full, I’ll just steer clear of him.

The reasons for stopping this mind-blowing kiss dead in its tracks are flying at me like fastballs, but one by one I just keep knocking them out of the park. Finally, Spencer pulls away and we look at each other for a moment and I kind of expect him to say something like “Okay, so how about those French pronouns?” and act like nothing even happened, but instead he goes, “I guess we shouldn’t tell my parents that they’re paying for
that
.”

I break into a fit of nervous laughter. “Yeah, probably not.”

“Although, I most definitely
would
pay for that.”

I beam because I know it’s a compliment and not a suggestion that I should be hanging out on Hollywood Boulevard after midnight waiting for Richard Gere to show up in his borrowed Lotus.

It’s completely unethical for me to be making out with a student while I’m on the clock, but I just can’t help myself. We try to focus on French, we really do, but after about five minutes of playing that game where you look at someone until they look up and then you look away and then it happens all over again in reverse, we just end up kissing again. This time with a bit more intensity as he reaches around behind my head and pulls me into him, which totally makes me melt.

We continue to kiss for what feels like hours until I hear the front door open and Spencer’s mother walks into the house pulling a rollaway suitcase behind her. And that’s when we quickly break away and do our very best impressions of two people studying at the dining room table.

“I’m back from Geneva!” his mother announces brightly.

Spencer pretends to be very engrossed in the book in front of him, and without looking up he says, “Hi, Mom.”

“You must be Spencer’s tutor,” she says, pulling a scarf from around her neck and hanging it on a coat rack next to the door.

I press my swollen lips together tightly and nod. “Yes, I’m Maddy. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Cooper.”

Then with a
clickity-clack
of her heels on the hardwood floor, she walks into the dining room, ruffles up Spencer’s hair with an affectionate head rub, and flashes me a hurried but genuine smile. “So,” she says, pausing just long enough to tap her manicured
nails against the top of the high-backed chair that Spencer is sitting in, “how’s the French homework coming along?”

I fight with everything that I am to keep from cracking up, because if she only knew exactly what kind of
French
we were studying, I doubt I would be kept around much longer as a hired employee of the Cooper family.

I decide not
to tell Jade and Angie about my make-out session with Spencer. I normally tell them everything, but for some reason, I don’t want to tell them about this. Maybe it’s because I’ll feel like I have to justify making out with someone who writes nasty things on the lockers of his ex-girlfriends. Or maybe it’s because when we started the Karma Club, the three of us agreed to swear off
all
men until graduation.

I think I was even the one to say something along the lines of how all high school boys are heartbreakers and not worth our time. Honestly, I’m kind of regretting that passionate speech right about now.

It’s not like I left Spencer’s house thinking that we were an item or anything. I don’t want to get into something serious right now. In fact, I explicitly told Spencer before I left that I didn’t want anyone to know about this and he said he was fine with that. Of course this automatically made me worry. Was he fine with it because
he’s embarrassed he kissed me? Or because he too doesn’t want to get into anything serious and just wants to keep me around as a fun hookup buddy/paid-by-the-hour French tutor?

The next morning, I’m in the kitchen with my little sister, Emily, finishing off a bowl of cereal. Emily is scribbling in a notebook and rambling on about her new science fair project, but I’m hardly listening. My mind is preoccupied trying to figure out how I’m going to make it through this entire day without accidentally spilling everything about my afternoon with Spencer Cooper.

“My hypothesis is that the plants that I expose to classical music will grow better than the ones I expose to heavy metal,” Emily is saying.

I gnaw on a spoonful of cereal and make a “hmm” noise to imply that I’m interested in what she’s saying. But I’m really only interested in reliving in my head all the amazing things Spencer can do with his tongue.

“Or maybe I should try hip-hop too,” she muses as she sticks the tip of her pencil in her mouth. “What do you think?”

I’m about to give her a halfhearted “Yeah, good idea,” when my mom walks into the kitchen looking like she’s just seen a ghost. Her eyes are glazed over, and I’m seriously wondering if maybe she’s gone into shock or something. She’s holding a section from the newspaper and staring absently at it. When she reaches the kitchen table, she drops it in front of us.

“Mom, do you think I should add hip-hop to my experiment?” Emily asks, clearly oblivious to our mother’s catatonic state.

“Mom?” I ask. “Are you all right?” But then my eyes catch a glimpse of the paper, and suddenly I understand what this is about.

I desperately grab hold of the paper and bring it closer to my face to get a better look. “Oh my God,” I say, stunned.

Emily drops her pencil and attempts to peer over my shoulder. “What? What is it?” Then she sees what I see. And her surprise is just as transparent. “Is that Mason?”

But I don’t even respond. I’m too busy scouring the page with my eyes. Once again, Mason Brooks’s picture is staring back at me from the pages of a familiar publication. This time, however, it’s not some girlie teen magazine; it’s the
Pine Valley Tribune
. And this time, the headline says nothing about him being the world’s best boyfriend.

LOCAL TEEN IMPLICATED IN SAT CHEATING SCANDAL

I read the article top to bottom, my eyes practically devouring the words. “Acceptance rescinded,” “SAT scores revoked,” “Amherst College admissions office disappointed.” And yet, when I reach the end, I’m still hungry for more.

“He cheated on the SATs?” my sister cries in disbelief.

My mom is standing there, studying me. She’s waiting for a reaction. And laughing out loud like a sadistic psych-ward patient is probably not the one she’s expecting. So I have to fake it.

I gasp in shock and look up at her. “Is this for real?”

She nods and takes a seat next to me. “You didn’t know anything about it? It happened while you two were dating.”

I shake my head. “No. I had no idea. I mean, I know he got a really high score, but I just thought he studied a lot.”

“How did he do it?” Emily asks.

I flash her a calm, patient glance, even though my stomach is
bubbling up with excitement. “The article says he hired someone to take the test for him.”

Emily’s eyes widen. “Whoa. That’s really bad.”

“I can’t believe it,” my mom muses. “Mason, of all people. He just doesn’t seem the type to be so dishonest.”

I want to scoff at this and say something like “Oh you’d be surprised,” but I hold my tongue.

“The school says it was an anonymous tip-off,” my mom remarks. “I wonder if the guy who took the test for him got a guilty conscience.”

I nod, realizing that this is a very good explanation, and I think I’ll stick with it from here on out should anyone else question me.

When I get to school later that morning, the hallways are buzzing with the news. It’s kind of like déjà vu. It was less than two months ago that I walked through these hallways and listened to people whisper about Mason’s face in
Contempo Girl
magazine. And today they’re talking about him again. Except for a very different reason. And in my opinion, it’s a much more deserved kind of attention.

Mason quickly becomes like someone with an infectious disease around school. No one will even get close to him. Including Heather Campbell, pimple faced and all. Although her complexion is starting to clear up slightly, and I’m assuming it’s because during those days when she called in sick, she went straight to her dermatologist’s office and demanded a stronger prescription. But I still feel pretty confident in our victory, knowing that the Crisco
will undoubtedly stay in her pores for at least another three weeks before it is completely eliminated from her system. And even then, it will probably be a good month or two before her skin is back to normal. That is, if the acne doesn’t scar. One can dare to dream.

So Operation Splitsville comes full circle, and Mason finds himself exactly where he should be . . . alone. I admit, it wasn’t exactly the most direct route to get him there, but hey, who am I to argue with Karma?

Once again, I can hear the E! News correspondent’s voice in my head as he eloquently reports on the information that’s been filling the hallways. “There are definitely signs of trouble in paradise. Newly established Colonial High couple Mason Brooks and Butter Face Heather Campbell are rumored to be on the verge of a split after evidence surfaced today linking Mr. Brooks to a very controversial cheating scandal. Ms. Campbell has yet to give any official comment on the status of their relationship, but sources close to the couple have stated that it is definitely coming to an end. Rumors of a pending split first surfaced, but were immediately denied, a month ago, when Mr. Brooks was said to be possibly involved with a woman by the name of Catherine Linton. Whether or not these more recent separation reports have anything to do with Brooks’s involvement with Linton have yet to be determined. Catherine Linton, the mystery woman behind the previous rumors, was unavailable for comment.”

And so the three of us are able to celebrate our final victory. It’s quite a ceremony actually. Jade splurged on some delicious red velvet cupcakes from the gourmet bakery in town, and the three of us sit in a circle on the floor of her room as we simultaneously snap the fifth and final charm onto our bracelets.

This one in the shape of a heart . . . that has been split in two.

It holds many meanings actually. Because not only does it represent Mason’s feelings about having lost Heather and his acceptance to Amherst College but it also represents what we had to go through to get here. Each of us with our own, devastating heartbreak. And those heartbreaks were what inspired the four other charms on our wrists. So we agreed that the broken heart was the perfect final addition to our collection.

After the initial buzz of Mason’s cheating and his consequent breakup with Heather wears off around school and within the club, things fall back into a normal routine. Angie works her regular quarter-time hours at the drugstore, Jade starts getting ready to audition for a new play at school, and Spencer and I spend most afternoons hiding out in his room. Okay, so that part’s not really normal routine, but it sure is good.