Mean Girls

chapter 5 becca

“HEY, BECCA.”

Johnny stopped in front of Becca. He, Cam and Max all had lacrosse bags over their shoulders. Blake smiled at her, her hand in Cam’s. Apparently the last two had taken her advice and had been talking, a lot.

Becca smiled, her eyes slightly narrowed. “Hey,” she said to Cam and Blake. To Max she said, “Mike, was it?”

He had not said anything to her since they’d hooked up. That was weird. And she hadn’t just made out with him. They’d actually done it. He was really going to act like it hadn’t happened?

Max grinned. “Yep, that’s it.”

She looked back to Johnny, wondering if he knew what she and Max had done. “I was just on my way to the courtyard,” she let out.

“Mind if I come with you?” he asked.

No, she didn’t mind. Maybe Max would get jealous and then realize he should really talk to her.

“Sure.” She glanced back to Cam, Blake and Max. “I’m sure I’ll see you all soon.”

Cam said nothing, but smiled and started off with Blake. Max held her gaze a few extra seconds, laughed, and followed them. Something in her plummeted as he did it.

She shook it off, and turned her focus to Johnny. Walking with him to the courtyard felt like walking the red carpet with Brad Pitt for all the stares they were getting. In the tabloids, she’d be a “mystery blonde.”

Not for long.

He held the door open for her. “After you.”

She walked through and sat down on a bench obscured mostly by bushes. “These socks are so ugly,” she remarked, taking a cigarette from the top of one of hers.

“Everyone has to wear them, so it’s not like you’re going to stand out. You’re not going to be the girl with those weird, ugly socks.”

Becca raised her eyebrows. “Well, at least I found a use for them. They’re so freaking bulky you can’t even see my cigarettes—” she reached for her other sock “—or my lighter.”

“You kind of can,” he said, and watched her as she lit it. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“What, do you not like it or something?”

He made a face. “Not my business.”

True.

“I’d stop if I had to.” She eyed him, and took a drag. “So, why did you want to come out here with me?”

He looked as if this was a subject he’d hoped she wouldn’t broach. “I don’t really know. I kind of … just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, really?” She smiled playfully. She was used to this approach. This was much more comfortable for her than what Max was doing. Or wasn’t doing.

People passing by the windows that overlooked the courtyard were noticing them. She blew some smoke out of her lungs and stood in front of him.

“Do you like me, Johnny?”

“I barely know you.” He looked into her eyes. “But I’d like to get to know you.”

“Good. I like you, too.” She focused on the grass beneath her feet. “But I don’t want to get a bad reputation.”

She raised her head, hoping he’d say that Max had told him about what had happened. She envisioned a proud scene in which Max went for high fives and everyone was jealous.

But Johnny just furrowed his brows. “Bad reputation?”

Dammit. “Oh, you know. I don’t want to jump into something with someone too fast.”

“That’s okay, I’m not saying—I just feel like I want to know you. It’s stupid….”

More looks from inside. She smiled winningly at him. “It’s not stupid at all. Let’s go eat lunch.”

They walked down the hallway, Becca telling a story about her old school. He made a joke, and she laughed, laying a hand on his arm. “You are so funny.”

Together they waltzed into the dining hall.

“Let’s sit by ourselves, okay?”

“Sure,” he said.

Becca set her purse down on a table and got a small bowl of soup. As they ate and he talked about whatever it was he was talking about, Becca surreptitiously scanned the hall for Max. Finally she caught him at a crowded table across the room. He wasn’t looking at her. She couldn’t help but glance up every now and then at him. Finally he did look in her direction, then quickly averted his gaze.

It was working, she could tell. He cared if she talked to Johnny. So she didn’t look up again, but directed her attention to Johnny only.

“So how long have you and Max been friends?”

He ignored the change in subject and took a bite of his sandwich. “Since we were kids. We both grew up in D.C.”

“Cool. How come he doesn’t date?”

He looked at her with a small smile. “You like Max, don’t you? See, here I thought you weren’t like every other girl here.”

She laughed, trying to look as though this were preposterous. “I do not! I’m just curious. He’s not even that good-looking, I don’t get the appeal. So many girls like him, and he never dates.” She took a sip of her water. “It’s just weird.”

“Girls are always throwing themselves at him. He doesn’t need to date.” Johnny shrugged. “I guess he’s never gone for the desperate type.”

“Well, who does?”

“True.”

“So,” she said, “tell me something about you.”

Whatever he said, she didn’t listen. She was just trying to look like she thought every word he said was fascinating.

A couple days later, as Becca left her last class of the day, she saw Max going into the gym. She hurried upstairs to put on her “workout clothes” and then walked in, too. She stepped onto a treadmill a few down from his, her headphones on, and acted like she didn’t see Max.

She had to run for fifteen minutes before he came up next to her.

He was in a gray T-shirt, soaked with hard-earned sweat in all of the right places. She lowered the speed and took out her pink headphones.

“Hey,” she said, with a small smile.

He smiled back. “So, you’re hanging out with Johnny now?”

“What do you mean ‘hanging out with’?”

He shrugged. “You tell me.”

“I’m getting to know him, but I’m not hanging out with anyone.”

“Right.”

Not being able to take it anymore, she turned off the treadmill.

“I’m going to get in the sauna. You want to come?”

He considered her for a moment, and then said, “I thought you weren’t hanging out with anyone?”

“I’m not,” she said, and led the way. Then she added, without looking back at him, “And besides, we’ve already done our hanging out. What interest are you to me now?”

“Ha!” he said.

The sauna was already warm. She took off her shirt and her shoes, leaving her in her neon pink sports bra and black nylon shorts. He followed her lead and stripped down, too.

It was the first time she’d really seen his body. It was perfect. The type of body artists would want to sculpt and poets could gab endlessly about. He was lean but strong.

They sat next to each other for a minute in silence, him leaning against the wall with his eyes shut, and her looking around the small brown room. The door had a lock. She leaned forward and turned it.

He turned to her, a small smirk on his face. “Yeah?”

Determination filled her. He had to want her. She couldn’t be just another girl throwing herself at him, but she needed him to do something.

“What? I’m generally quite modest,” she said, “and I just want to make sure no one comes in while I don’t have my shirt on.” She indicated her sports bra.

He nodded, visibly not believing her. “Come here,” he said.

Yes. Now she had the power. “Why?”

“You know why.”

She smiled and stepped up to where he was and lowered herself onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him kiss her. Soft at first but then with urgency.

The surge she felt in her chest was not romantic. It was victorious. She knew that as soon as he started to show interest in her, that she’d have no trouble walking away. But right now …

He laid her on the surface of the wooden bench and they did it again. By the time they emerged from the room, their faces were pink, and their bodies were slick with sweat from the heat.

chapter 6 me

ONE OF THE THINGS THAT HAD BEEN INTIMIDATING about heading to Manderley was its boast that almost every student had a 4.0 GPA. My 3.2 was pretty good, but who knew how that would translate from a public high school in a beach town to a private New England boarding school.

I suspected “not so well” when I sat down on my first day in my first class.

“Good morning, everyone.” The teacher was a small woman with black, beady eyes and hair that looked like it would feel like straw. Her voice was a bit low and booming. “I am Professor Van Hooper. Welcome to English. I’ll tell you now that this class will not be easy. Expect a C to be a good grade.”

I got a chill as I imagined what we’d have to do to stay afloat. As if she’d read my thoughts, Professor Van Hooper went on.

“Every two weeks, we will begin another book. At the end of those two weeks, you will owe me a paper written on your own choice of topic. The only restriction is that you must find something worth investigating in the book and write about it.”

A girl in front raised her hand. “Like a book report?”

“No. Not like a book report.” The way she responded made me sure I’d be keeping my hand down as much as possible. “For example, this week, we are reading To Kill a Mockingbird. You may, for instance, choose to theorize on how the main character, Scout, grew through her experiences in the book. Or you might get a little bit more creative, and talk about her relationship with her father or brother. It’s up to you to write something I want to read. It’s up to you to find something about the book that isn’t on the back cover. Now. Let’s talk about basic formatting. Times New Roman, one-inch margins …”

There was a sudden shuffle as people dug through their backpacks for pens and notebooks. At my school back home we’d pretty much started using laptops, but the brochures had made it perfectly clear that they were not allowed in class. Stupid rule. I have terrible handwriting.

She switched on the overhead, and it hummed into life.

She sped through what she expected technically from us, and skipped straight into finding the deeper meaning in the classics. I loved to read, so I wasn’t dreading it.

“I assume you’ve all read To Kill a Mockingbird, yes?”

There was an uncomfortable shuffle from the students who I guessed had skimmed through it and used Spark Notes.

“So as you read it this second time, I want you to start thinking more about the underlying themes. Yes, we know it’s about prejudice and the struggle between right and wrong—but what else is there? What else did Harper Lee bury within her pages?”

World History demanded a lot more prior knowledge than I had. The teacher started off the class by asking us what we knew about the religious beliefs of the Neanderthals. I sank in my seat and hoped to God I wasn’t called on.

Math, which was always my worst subject, started off with a quiz. Really? Day One of Algebra II and we’re taking a quiz? Just to see what we know, but still. It’s a quiz. Everyone else around me seemed to know what was going on, making my inability to follow along stick out like a sore thumb.

And then I walked into the huge concrete studio on the top floor of the main building. The windows went from floor to ceiling, and there were big black filing cabinets with wide, skinny drawers lining the walls. There were about thirty easels standing on the hard, cold floor, which was splattered with the paint of a million masterpieces gone by.

The room echoed the music that came out of a silver MacBook Air on one of the black cabinets. It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d gone almost three days without hearing music, and thought how unusual that was for me.

There were a couple of people there already, sitting on stools and talking to each other. I sat down on an empty one and stared at the floor while people filtered in for the next five minutes. I didn’t talk to anyone and they didn’t talk to me. Maybe I was being paranoid, but as their whispers echoed throughout the room, I heard a lot of “she,” and I automatically and self-pityingly felt sure they were talking about me.

Professor Crawley walked in as the clock struck three, marking the beginning of my last class of the day, and smiled at us. He’d been the first teacher to crack a smile all day long.

“How’s everyone doin’? Good first day?”

Silence.

“Yeah, me, too.” He sat on a stool and looked down at the papers on his clipboard. He ran through attendance, reading our last names and waiting for the small murmur of acknowledgment.

“… Francis? Gordon? Hanover? Holloway?” He looked up and around. I did, too. Had I not noticed him somehow? “Nope, no Holloway. All right, Langston? Marconi?”

My stomach dropped. I didn’t know why, but I was disappointed he wasn’t there. Maybe he was just late.

As Professor Crawley reached the end of attendance, everyone’s heads turned toward the door. I followed the collective gaze to see—

“Mr. Holloway, there you are. Don’t let your tardiness become a habit. You go by Max?”

He nodded his head and sat down on the stool next to mine. I looked straight ahead, suddenly unable to feel natural.

“So on to class, then. Welcome, all of you. Some of you I know, some of you I don’t.” Professor Crawley looked at me. “But I’m absolutely sure we’ll get to know each other in no time. I’m Professor Crawley. You can just call me Crawley while we’re in the classroom. Too many syllables otherwise. So how many of you have any experience in painting? Or art of any kind, really? Drawing, sculpting, maybe just doodles in your biology notes?”

A few people raised their hands. He smiled at them. “Right after piano lessons and right before tennis, huh?”

There was a small titter of appreciative laughter.

Crawley went on. “I’m just going to assume, for the sake of starting on the same foot, that we all have no experience, which is totally fine.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, and felt Max’s eyes shift to me. I glanced at him, and saw the smallest trace of a smile. I quickly looked away.

“So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to pair you guys up, and you’re just going to start painting, see what comes out. This is your Gamsol.” He held up a glass pot with a lid. “You rinse your brushes in here. It’s like turpentine, except I’m not allergic to it.”

Another titter from the girls.

“You’ve got your brushes, your oil paints, your palette, your palette knife and a rag. Make sure you rinse your brushes thoroughly or all of your colors will go muddy. Squeeze out only the smallest amount of paint. I assure you, this stuff goes far.”

He paired us off. In this kind of situation I usually ended up partnerless and had to work with the teacher. But not this time.

“All right, so go ahead and grab a canvas and an easel and then stop off with me to get your box of supplies.

Once we were set up and sitting across from each other, I gave the boy in front of me an awkward and probably very unpretty smile.

“Max,” he said, holding out a hand. “We met by the boathouse.”

Oh, did we? I hadn’t recalled …

“Yes, I remember, I nearly fell to my death on those stairs.”

With a sickening lurch, I realized what poor taste that had been in. I wanted to say something to make up for it, but before I got the chance, he just nodded as he squeezed out some blue paint and said, “But here you are.”

“Here I am.”

I squeezed out a couple of colors and blended them until it resembled Max’s tanned skin tone.

“So are you any good?” he asked.

“Good?”

He nodded at my canvas. “At painting.”

“Oh.” I laughed nervously. “I doubt it, I’ve never really done it before. I helped paint a mural back at my old school, but it was basically like painting in between the lines. Like a huge coloring book.”

“Where’d you go to school?”

“St. Augustine. In Florida.”

“Did you grow up there?”

“Yeah.”

He gave a small smile. “You’re in for a hell of a winter, then.”

I took a deep breath and said, “Oh, I’ve heard.”

“Ever seen snow?”

I shook my head.

“You’re gonna see a lot of it here.” He furrowed his brow at his canvas and looked at me.

“Are you any good?” I asked, indicating his canvas.

“Not at all. Don’t be insulted by my portrait of you. I just took this class because I needed an elective and Crawley is awesome.”

“He seems cool, yeah.”

We settled into a silence I struggled not to fill with stupid rambling. I mixed up some more color to match his dark hair. I laid the brush on the canvas with the blackish color I’d mixed up. But it wasn’t quite right. There was a small tinge of another color in there somewhere. I sifted through the paint tubes and found Alizarin Crimson. I added a tiny bit. Yes, that was a lot better.

“Look at me for a sec,” he said.

I looked up. “What?”

He squinted and leaned toward me. “Green, okay. But …” He stood and came over to me. He put his hand under my chin and lifted up my face. My heart skipped.

“Trust me,” he said with a smile. “I’m an artist.”

“Paint me like one of your French girls.”

Oh, the words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them. I was too used to my group of friends. My cheeks turned hot.

He dropped his hand and looked at me. “Did you just make a Titanic reference?”

“Maybe.”

He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “My older cousin Sarah watched that for the entirety of a family trip at the Outer Banks once. And if I remember correctly, in that scene, he wasn’t just painting her face.”

“Well, we probably won’t be asked to do that in here.”

“Probably not.” He smiled. “Now look at me, I need to look at your eyes.”

He tilted my head so that my eyes caught the light.

“They’re not just green. They have some brown in them, too. Right in the middle.” I looked at him as he studied my eyes.

“Really?” I said, even though I fully knew it.

“There’s also …” He narrowed his own eyes. “Also some blue. They’re like the color of … a pond or something.”

I laughed, and it echoed in the otherwise silent room. Everyone looked at us. I bit my lip and looked around apologetically.

Max smiled. “What?”

“A pond? So, like, the brown is mud and the green is pond scum?”

He laughed, too, sitting back down. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

I laughed and focused back on my canvas.

The end of class came, and we were able to reveal our paintings to each other. I actually kind of liked mine. It didn’t look like a photograph or anything, but it really looked like Max.

“You ready?” I asked him.

He furrowed his brow once again at his painting and said, “I guess.”

We turned around our paintings. I don’t think I’d laughed so hard in weeks. I was one big circle with pink tinge in my cheeks, little dots for freckles, and huge blue-green-brown eyes. I had no eyelids, and my lashes were like little black spiders.

“All right, all right, so I’m not an artist.” He put his canvas back on the easel. “But at least I got your eyes right.”

The rest of the week passed by in a frenzy of getting situated in classes and talking about the year full of work that lay before us. I could already tell that the huge studio was going to be my sanctuary, because as far as the other classes went, it was looking like the year wouldn’t be an easy one. Manderley had block scheduling, so one day we’d have four classes, and then the next day we’d have four different ones. Fridays we had all of them, but they were cut in half. On A days, I had English, World History, Algebra II and Painting. On B days, I had Gym (a bummer because at my old school we didn’t need to take it in senior year, and also because it’s at freaking 8:00 a.m.), Biology, French II (a breeze, since my Paris-born mother had mostly taught me the language) and study hall (which I could hardly believe was a real thing).

A couple days into this schedule, I approached Blake in the dining hall as we slathered bagels with cream cheese, and she assured me things would settle down soon.

“It’s always like this,” she said. “It’s superbusy and then teachers cool off. Trust me, two weeks from now it’ll be ten times better. It’s like they sprint and then get tired and drag their feet for the rest of the year.”

I saw her and Cam every day in the hallways and a few times during meals. They were clearly a very happy couple, and I got along with both of them. I saw a few other people in the halls that I’d met, but no one said much more than a passing hello. I didn’t see Max as much as I wanted to, but when I did, he was usually coming in from lacrosse practice with slightly flushed cheeks and a sheen of sweat on his sculpted cheekbones.

It was odd for me to be mostly solitary. Back home I was out all the time and did something at least kind of social every day even if it was just watching TV with Leah. I was missing home more each day. Every memory I had of home was suddenly set in a perfect sunny day, whereas Manderley was set to the backdrop of gray rain and cold drafts that seeped through ancient walls.

I was alone and cold, and since the food was nothing like my mother’s or what I was used to, I was hungry. Even the salad, usually a safe go-to, tasted like nail polish remover.

It was really hard to stay positive. And that’s normally a talent of mine.

Unable to simply quit school or even tell my thrilled parents about the mild disappointments of the past week, I sat by myself and read or did homework during meals, went to class alone, and then headed to my room where Dana would look disappointed to see me and then ignore me. Sometimes I wanted to just kick her in the shins and tell her to stop being such an unpleasant cloud of gloom, but then I’d remember Becca—it was hard not to, when my side of the room still displayed a wallpaper of her pictures—and feel guilty again.

So that put me in the dining hall at nine at night on my first Friday evening. I was filling my travel mug with hot chocolate. I’d decided I wasn’t ready for bed and that I didn’t want to spend time in the same room as Dana quite yet. I figured I’d read To Kill a Mockingbird and try to find the deeper motifs in the rotunda until I got tired.