Winning (9 page)

Lexi is late. Worse, Lexi is late when she's supposed to be
early
. I'm not the one who's been working Ivy Proctor. If she checks out of the lunch line before Lexi arrives, there's no way she's going to come sit with me. I mean, if our awkward chat the other day is any indication, I make Ivy twitchy—and not in a good way.

My eyes dart from the cafeteria's double doors to Ivy, who is progressing through the line at a decent clip.
Come on, Lexi
.
Where
are
you?

Ivy's swiping her card at the register when Lexi finally walks through the door. She nods in my direction before heading toward the line all casual-like. Lexi says something to Ivy, then points in my direction. I lift my hand in a not-quite-wave. Ivy just stands there as Lexi hits the lunch line. What the hell is she buying? She doesn't eat cafeteria food.

After what feels like an eternity, Ivy slowly makes her way over to where I'm sitting.

“Hey,” she says. She sets her tray down but remains standing, almost like she expects me to shoo her away.

“Hi,” I say back. “Um, have a seat.”

“Yeah?”

Oh, god. This is going to be so painful.

“Yeah,” I say. “We're going to be friends. Lexi says so.”

The words surprise me even as they're leaving my mouth. Ivy's eyes catch mine and we both chuckle. Okay, maybe this won't be so bad after all.

Ivy slides into her chair and says, “She gets what she wants, doesn't she?”

“Always.”

And that's where our conversation dies. It remains suspended in silence until Lexi appears several minutes later.

“So what are we talking about, girls?” she says in a mock-breezy voice that only I, the only person who really knows her, would identify as fake.

“Goals,” Ivy says. “We were talking about goals.”

“Like field hockey?”

This makes Ivy and me chuckle again. And
that
makes Lexi frown. She hates not being in on the joke.

“Ivy was just saying how much she admires your determination,” I explain. It's not entirely a lie.

“Yes,” Ivy agrees, totally deadpan. “You're so determined. It's very admirable.”

Ha. If she wasn't such a complete psychopath, I might actually
like
Ivy Proctor. Too bad Lexi's got her in the crosshairs. No sense growing attached to a bunny that's slated for slaughter.

Lexi's smile is tight; she's not buying it. I try to deflect.

“So, are you still thinking about doing that thing we were talking about earlier?” I ask, per Lexi's pre-written script.

“Not now,” she says softly, cutting her eyes in Ivy's direction.

“Do you guys need some privacy?” Ivy says. “I can go.”

“No,” Lexi says. “Stay. It's just . . . Sam's asking about . . . well, what you and I talked about this morning. About me and Homecoming? But I know that makes you uncomfortable, so . . .”

Ivy looks down at her tray. “Oh.”

“The answer's yes,” Lexi stage-whispers in my direction. “But we'll talk about it later.”

“You can talk about it now,” Ivy says. “You dropping out of Homecoming Queen doesn't bother me.”

I fight a grin. Ivy's not a soft-spoken girl, and she said that last thing loud enough that the table of sophomore girls beside us has heard her. Their overly mascaraed eyes fly open. The buzz begins:
It's true then? She's really quitting?
It makes its way around the cafeteria like a brush fire.

Lexi blushes bright red. How she can control her coloring is beyond me.

The news finally reaches Sloane Fahey, whose freckled face lights up like she's just hit the jackpot on a Hoosier lottery scratch-off. Lexi continues to feign embarrassment. She's talking, presumably to both me and Ivy, but I'm not paying attention. I'm watching Sloane, who looks like she's ready to leap up at any second.

And then she does.

And then she walks over to our table.

“Is it true?” Sloane asks Lexi. Just like that.

“Is what true?”

“You,” Sloane says. “You're really giving up the Homecoming crown?”

Lexi doesn't respond, not at first. She looks down at the chocolate chip cookie she bought in the lunch line. The one she hasn't been eating, because she'd rather fart in the middle of a school assembly than get caught eating carbs in public.

“Well?” Sloane prompts. “Are you quitting or what?”

“Yes,” Lexi says, her voice barely a whisper. “I think I am.”

Sloane's mouth drops open. “You're shitting me. This is a joke, right?”

“Nice language, Sloane,” Lexi says. “And no. It's not a joke.”

Sloane crosses her arms across her chest. “I don't believe it.”

“You don't have to,” Lexi retorts. “
I
know the truth.”

“Then prove it. Make it official.”

I can only begin to imagine how elated Lexi is at this turn of events. Sloane has set her up perfectly.

“Fine,” Lexi says. “You want some big, dramatic announcement? I'll give you one.”

She rises, pulls her chair away from the table, and then climbs up on it. “Excuse me!” she calls out. “Hello! Can I please have your attention? I'll make it quick.”

It doesn't take long for Lexi to get every eye trained on her. The volume in the room goes to zero; the only sound is the pinging of the registers as kids check out of the line.

“I didn't want to make a big deal out of this, but Sloane here is insisting that I do.” Lexi looks down at Sloane, her mouth twisting like she's tasted something sour. “Anyway,” she says, “while I am so honored and flattered to be nominated for this year's Homecoming Queen, I have decided to drop out of the race.”

Her dramatic pause was meant to allow for chatter, but the room remains pin-drop silent. Even the stoners are too surprised to toss out a single “Who cares?”

“There are so many amazing girls on the ballot,” Lexi continues. Here, she smiles warmly in Ivy's direction. Without breaking her gaze she finishes, “I think it's time we recognize one of them instead.”

A slow clap starts from the other side of the caf. Matt, of course. He pops up, kicking his chair back, and shouts out, “Yeah! That's my girl!”

Suddenly, everyone is clapping, cheering for Lexi. She clasps her hands over her heart, like she's so touched by their support. Before the clapping wanes, Lexi carefully steps down from the chair. Then, to Sloane, she says, “Happy?”

But Sloane is
not
happy, which is crystal clear to just about everyone in the room. She skulks back to her own table, muttering to herself.

“That feels like such a burden off my back!” Lexi declares dramatically. “Now, what were we talking about?”

Ivy looks dumbstruck. Her face screams WTF, but she's smart enough not to say it.

“Goals,” Ivy says finally. “We were talking about goals.”

Lexi nods. “Oh, that's right. So here's my goal for the day: to find
you
the most gorgeous Homecoming dress in the entire Tall Oaks Mall.”

Her eyes sparkle; her beautiful face shines. Lexi is such a star. She always has been, always will be.

As she and Ivy chitchatter on, I feel Lexi's hand under the table, landing on my knee. She squeezes it lightly, then runs her hand up my thigh as she pulls away. For a second, I lose the ability to breathe.

Goals
, I think, beating back a familiar ache.
I have a few of my own
.

On a normal day, my sixth-period musical theater elective is my absolute favorite class. For one thing, Alexandra Miles isn't in it. This is the first year we haven't had some sort of performing-arts class together and can I just say how much I love not being eclipsed by her? I am the star of that class. Me. Not her.
Me
.

The funny thing is, she was
supposed
to be in the class. Of course she was. But then, by some magic twist of fate, it got scheduled opposite the only section of AP English offered for seniors.

Here's an Alexandra story for you: when she found out that she had to choose between musical theater and AP English, she actually petitioned the school to get musical theater moved to a different time slot. Even more amazing:
it almost happened
. So why didn't it? Because the only other period that Mrs. Mays could move it to was third. Mays was ready to pull the trigger, too, but then Alexandra told her not to. Third period conflicted with her AP History class, so why even bother?

On the one hand, you almost have to admire a girl who has
no problem asking a teacher to rearrange her entire schedule—a schedule that then affects dozens of other students as well. On the other, it kind of makes you want to scream, “Self-involved much? Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”

At least, that's what
I
want to yell at her. But I never would, because she'd be all, “I'm Alexandra Miles, that's who.” And, like, in a weird way, that answer would make perfect
sense
.

This is one of the reasons why I've decided it's time to take her down. It's like,
enough already
. But Step 1 of my original plan was figuring out how to get Erin Hewett to defeat Alexandra for Homecoming Queen. And now she's gone and dropped out of the race all on her own.

This is the thing that doesn't make
any
sense whatsoever. Fact: Without intervention from me or some other interested party at Spencer High, Alexandra would've been a lock for queen. Hands down. They probably could've gone ahead and handed her the crown for prom, too, just to save us all a little time.

Anyway, here I am, 1,000 percent miserable in what is typically the happiest forty-seven minutes of my school day. Not only because Alexandra just embarrassed me in front of the entire cafeteria (even though that was pretty awful, too). No, I'm miserable because I can't figure out
why
she's dropping out. And I know Alexandra well enough to know that there has to be a reason.

There's always a reason.

Time to regroup. When I first started formulating Operation End Alexandra, I debated which allies I was going to target
first—Erin (the competitor) or Sam (the confidante). I'd been leaning toward Erin, but now I know it has to be Sam. She's the only one who might possibly have intel on Alexandra's intentions.

I pull out my Moleskine notebook and open to a fresh page. At the top, in capital letters, I write “SAMANTHA SCHNITT.”

It's almost better that Sam's first on the hit list, because at least I know how to get close to her. She's one of three confirmed lesbians at Spencer, and the other two are high-school married. Our Indiana town is too conservative for her to have a lot of opportunities for hookups, if any.

I've never kissed a girl before, but I
am
an actress, and I have no problem playing the part of someone who has. I mean, Meryl Streep did it, right?

The problem is that I only really see Sam on school grounds, and when I do, she's almost always glued to Alexandra's side. That's a challenge.

My first bullet point: ISOLATE SAM.

My second: FLIRT WITH HER.

My third: MAKE OUT WITH HER UNTIL SHE TELLS ME WHAT I NEED TO KNOW.

It looks so simple on paper.

It is 7:42 on a school night and I am eating dinner at Panda Express with
Alexandra Miles
in the food court of the Tall Oaks Mall. We have spent the past two-plus hours trying on potential Homecoming dresses. Or, rather, Alexandra has tried on dresses as I have watched. I do not need a dress for Homecoming. I do not plan on going to the dance. I have tried to tell Alexandra this several times, but she does not believe me. Or if she does, she is convinced that she can change my mind.

She is very persuasive, that is for sure.

I have known Alexandra since we were little kids, and I think we were probably friends at some point. Not real friends but like the fake kind that exchanged grocery store valentines and invited each other to our birthday parties because that is just how it was. But we have not even been fake friends now for many, many years.

I push my Sweetfire Chicken around the plastic bowl while Alexandra explains to me about how she trains for a pageant. She did not volunteer this information; I asked her to tell me
about it. I have asked her a lot of questions tonight, because each question means that she keeps talking and I do not have to. She prattles on about cabbage salad and practicing her walk but I am only half listening to what she is saying. The other half of my brain is trying to figure out why Alexandra Miles has taken such a sudden interest in me. The easy answer would be that it is because I am inexplicably one of the nominees for this year's Homecoming Queen, but I do not buy it.

She is being nice.
Very
nice. Nice in a way that I do not remember Alexandra ever being. It is strange in that she is one of the most popular girls in the whole school—she always was, even in grade school—but she does not have a lot of friends. In fact, her only real friend is Samantha, and even with her I am not sure if what they have is friendship or fealty. Her boyfriend, Matt, adores her. But I have seen them together since the start of the school year and she does not look like she adores him. She kind of wears him like a human accessory.

There is something about this entire situation that does not feel right to me. I am pretty sure that my nomination for Homecoming Queen is a sick joke—that I was put on the ballot so some twisted high school bullies could reenact the pig's blood scene from
Carrie
. This is why I am refusing to go to the dance. Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

Alexandra talks with her hands, but in a weird way, like a game show hostess pointing out prizes. I nod along as she talks, but really I am just trying to figure her out.

See, if this is truly part of a plot to humiliate me at the dance,
then Alexandra
must
be in on it. Correct? This would explain why she is trying so hard to be my friend. Why she herself has dropped out of the race. Why she is spending all of this time to help me find the perfect dress—she has even offered to help me find a
date
.

I am Ivy Proctor. I am the crazy girl. The one who had a public breakdown in the middle of biology class. Who bled all over Mr. Barksdale's linoleum floor without shedding a single tear.

Nobody wants to be my friend. And I cannot blame them.

Then again, none of this feels like Alexandra's style. Hayley Langer—this is something that she would do. But Alexandra is a good girl. She is a straight-A student. President of the Key Club. A pretty, perfect pageant queen.

Dr. Sanders would say that I am catastrophizing or one of the other many cognitive distortions she tells me I exhibit every time I see her. The frequency of my visits has increased to twice a week now that I am back at Spencer. This is due more to my mother's anxiety than my own. I have spent the past eighteen months making myself numb to the high school thing. I am focusing on college now. College means getting away from everyone and everything in Spencer, including my cloying parents.

College means having a chance of truly starting over fresh. Going somewhere where no one knows who I am or what I have done.

Another reason for avoiding the dance: if some horrible
prank were to take place, it would surely be captured on multiple phones and uploaded to the internet where it would live on, a stain on my face and my name ad infinitum. It is a miracle that it did not happen the first time around. I guess everyone was too freaked out to remember to press record.

I will not let myself be a target.

“Target?” Alexandra says. “What do you mean?”

Did I say that last part aloud? I must have, or else why would Alexandra be asking me about it? It's not like she can read minds.

“Target
girl
,” I say on the fly. “Like, wearing a dress from Target. I can't let myself be
that
girl.”

“Never,” she says back. Alexandra's face is full of horror. It almost makes me giggle. She puts her hand across her chest like she is about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and says, “I solemnly swear that I will never allow you or any of my friends to purchase a dress for a semiformal from any store that also sells laundry detergent and baby wipes.”

She says the words so fluidly—“you or any of my friends”—that I cannot help but wonder if maybe she is for real. It is impossible to know for sure until something bad actually happens. Or is it?

“What's your angle?” I blurt, before I can puss out.

“Angle?” she echoes.

“Yes,
angle
. Before I got nominated for Homecoming, you didn't so much as look my way. Now this? It doesn't make any sense.”

Alexandra's dark-blue eyes drop to the table, and her perfectly manicured hands twist in her lap. “You're right,” she says quietly. “It probably doesn't make any sense . . . to you.”

“But it does to you?”

“You don't have to believe me,” she says.

I do not respond. This is a trick I learned from Dr. Sanders. Silence makes most people uncomfortable. If you do not say anything, they will, just to avoid the dead air.

Alexandra does not disappoint. “What you don't get, Ivy, is that I
was
you. Before I learned to channel my energy into pageants, I was so . . . angry that it could've been me in that biology classroom. I came so close, so many times, to completely losing it. . . .”

Tears start to fall, making delicate tracks down her smooth, unblemished cheeks. It is like art, watching her cry like that. Like her crying face should be in a museum.

“Pageants gave me something to focus on,” she says through the tears. “Something that would make my mom proud. And then, after my dad . . . you know . . .
died
, and my mom turned into a Tennessee Williams cliché . . . I had to focus even harder, to get her to see me. I'd already lost my dad—I couldn't lose my mom, too.”

Whoa
. Alexandra never talks about her mother. Never. Once upon a time, Mrs. Miles was this glamazon of a woman—tall, flawlessly gorgeous, and reeking of big-city style, even though she had never lived a day of her life outside of Spencer. She was awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

But after the horrible car wreck that claimed Mr. Miles's life, Alexandra's mom came completely unglued. On the rare occasion that she picked Alexandra up from school, she would be half in the bag, and do completely bizarre things like show up wearing one of her fur coats over a silk peignoir and a pair of tennis shoes. You could tell how mortified Alexandra was, but she never said a word, and no one else ever said a word about it either—at least not to her face. It was this unspoken rule in the Spencer community: you could gossip about Natalie Miles all you wanted, but doing it in front of her kid was 100 percent off-limits.

I cannot believe Alexandra is talking about this with me.

“I used to see a therapist,” she continues, catching me by surprise. I am sure there are tons of kids in Spencer who see shrinks but like my meltdown and Alexandra's cracked-out mom, no one ever talks about it. “It was after I lost my dad. He was kind of a quack—the therapist, not my dad—but he really encouraged me to stay active in pageants, even when I wanted to quit. He'd say, ‘You can't let other people dictate how you feel about yourself, but sometimes it takes a little external validation to help generate the internal kind.'”

Alexandra reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “I want that for you, Ivy. I want you to know how amazing it feels to have the spotlight on you for all of the right reasons. Not because your dad died or you lost your shit in a very public way. But because you were
chosen
. Because you're the one they picked to wear that crown.”

For a split second, I can see it. Me, on that stage, wearing a deep purple strapless gown and a pair of scary-high stilettos. Principal Frick placing that rhinestone tiara on top of my head. Walking down the steps for the ceremonial slow dance with this year's king. I have never slow danced with a boy. I have never gone to a high school dance, period. Everything I know about them comes from TV and movies. But boy, would it be nice to have that movie moment—the one without the pig's blood pouring on my head.

“And just think what you running could do for the others—the outsiders who feel like they could never fit in,” she says. “Imagine, Ivy, what it would be like for one of their own to be honored that way.”

I chuckle. “Even the outsiders wouldn't have me.”

Alexandra sighs. “Look,” she says, pulling her hand away. “I'm not going to make you run. Not if it makes you that miserable—”

“It doesn't,” I say. “Honestly. It's scary more than anything else.”

“Of course,” she says. “You're putting yourself out there for public judgment. I still throw up before every pageant—and not because I'm trying to fit into my dress, either.”

This makes me chuckle. Alexandra wipes the last of the tears from her cheeks and smiles brightly.

“It can be so much fun, Ivy. I can make it fun. I'll be, like, your campaign manager!”

She instantly starts rattling off ideas: when I will get my hair cut, what I should be wearing to school, how I should be doing
my makeup, who I need to be seen with. She even pulls out her iPhone and starts making an official list.

I have no idea what I have just gotten myself into, but for whatever reason, I am not interested in finding a way out.