A Match Made in High School (2 page)

No need to say that. We were riveted to our seats by iron bolts of sheer terror.

Principal Miller snapped her papers, adjusted her redrimmed glasses, and began reading. “We have purchased a curriculum called
Trying the Knot
, the materials for which you will receive in homeroom. The registrar’s computer was programmed to randomly pair up the male and female seniors into couples. First period, Friday morning, there will be a mock wedding uniting you in marriage, with a dance following later that evening. Attendance is compul-sory.

“Each term, either the husband or wife will choose a semester-long activity in which to participate. Together. You will be assigned a mock budget with mock expenses to cover using a monthly income derived from
real money
you must earn as a couple.”

A bunch of idiots started yelling, “What?” and “Hell, no!” and “No way!”

I yelled, “Bite me!”

“Now wait! Before you complain, listen up! The money everyone earns will be collected here at school. At the end of the year, the couple with the most successful marriage
will split half of the total money collected
.”

The idiots and I did some quick math in our heads and shut up fast. That could be a lot of coin.

“The other half of the money will be donated to a charity of the winning couple’s choice. Additionally, each month, the couple who earns the most real money for that month will be awarded a prize sponsored by a local business. Prizes 10 Kristin Walker

include items such as mall gift cards, concert tickets, and a free limo to prom.”

A bunch of ditzy cheerleaders squealed like guinea pigs at that.

“At random points throughout the year, you may be given a life issue to deal with, such as a surprise pregnancy or a job promotion, a debilitating injury or a lottery windfall. You will keep a journal of your private thoughts and feelings concerning the marriage. To aid you in this journey together, you will attend weekly sessions on marriage skills presented by our guidance counselor, Ms. Klein.” Maggie Klein rose from her seat down front and gave one of those fake, twiddly-fingered waves to us. She sported her usual phony look of calculated disarray: a flowy yellow sundress accented with gold bracelets and gold dangly earrings, her hair tied back neatly with a white scarf. Definitely granola, but clean and put-together. She always reminded me of the women in douche and tampon commercials.

Principal Miller went on. “She and I are in full agreement that now is the perfect time for you to learn how . . .” She closed her eyes for a second. Opened them. “To maintain and sustain a possibly . . . challenging . . . relationship.”

Principal Miller squared her shoulders, leaned into the podium, and scanned the room again. “I feel obliged to make it clear that we are not in any
way
condoning physical consummation of these marriages.”

Well, everyone pretty much cracked up at that. Todd Harding started howling like a dog and pumped his fist in the air. What a jackass. He and his Porn Star Barbie

girlfriend, Amanda Lowell, had been “consummating” like crazy for over a year and a half. It was common knowledge. Spread by Todd, of course.

While Todd hooted, Amanda leaned over and tickled him. He draped his arm around her and inhaled her face into his like a vacuum hose, or like a zombie sucking her brains out through her mouth. That’d be if Amanda actually had brains. Which was doubtful. The only time in history that she’d demonstrated the least bit of cleverness was in second grade when I wet my pants on a pony ride at Callie Brooks’s seventh birthday party and Amanda started calling me Pee-ona instead of Fiona. Then she’d say,
Your
last name should be Pony. Then you’d be Pee-ona Pony. Get it?

Pee-on-a-pony?

Yeah, I got it. Hi-freakin’-larious.

She still called me Pee-ona, too. In ten years she hadn’t been able to think up anything more original. But whatev. At least now it was just her, and not the entire second-grade class.

I made a gag face at Todd and Amanda’s vacuu-kiss and rolled my eyes at Marcie, but she didn’t notice. She just sat, white as a sheet, with her eyes fixed on Principal Miller. She picked at her brand-new French manicure. I gave her an elbow. “Are you okay?” I whispered.

Marcie turned her bug eyes toward me, shook herself, and said, “Uh, yeah.” She looked like she might puke. I wasn’t feeling too well myself. The idea of marriage education had gotten my pits all sweaty again. Next, my stomach started churning.

12 Kristin Walker

Then, deep in my mind flickered the tiniest thought. Maybe, just maybe, I’d get paired with Gabe.

And that was the moment. Right then.

The moment I allowed myself to have the slightest bit of hope that I’d be lucky and things would work out for me. Right then I should have known.

Principal Miller raised her hands above her head and motioned for everyone to settle back down. Once we were relatively quiet, she said, “Mr. Evans has signaled to me that the list of paired couples and their respective homerooms has been posted on the bulletin board outside the auditorium. Seniors are now excused to—”

She probably said more, but there was such a spastic rush of people and noise, I couldn’t hear another word. The seniors scrambled over their seats, spilled into the aisles, and crammed through the auditorium doors. Marcie and I got trapped behind Johnny Mercer, who was over six feet tall and the size of a small bulldozer. He couldn’t move fast if a burrito’s life depended on it. Plus, he was listening to his MP3 player like always, so I’m sure he couldn’t hear the shrieks and screams coming from the hallway as everyone read the name of their . . . spouse.

Marcie and I finally made our way out the auditorium doors and over to the bulletin board. Marcie’s forehead glistened with sweat, and she kept puffing these shallow breaths out of her half-open mouth. I skimmed the alphabetized list for the
S
names. There was mine:
Sheehan, Fiona
. I prayed that for once in my miserable life I’d be just a little bit lucky

and then slid my eyes over to the name next to mine.
Harding,
Todd
.

My legs nearly fell out from under me. “Son of a
bitch
.”

Marcie grabbed my arm and yanked me sideways. I seriously thought it could not get any worse until my eyes passed over the
W
’s. I tugged myself out of Marcie’s grip just long enough to read
Webber, Gabe—Lowell, Amanda
. Un-freaking-believable.

MARCIE puLLEd ME AGAIN ANd wE duCkEd INTo ThE

girls’ bathroom. “Did you see that?” I cried.

“I’m sorry, Fee,” Marcie said. “You cannot possibly complain to me.”

“Todd Harding? How am I supposed to spend the year with that no-necked Neanderthal?” I leaned over the sink, willing it to suck me down the drain. The fluorescent light buzzed above us.

Marcie said, “He has a neck. And an ass and abs. Nice ones. And even if you haven’t noticed them, pretty much every other girl has.” She pulled out a tube of lip gloss and started applying it as she spoke. “Plus, in case you missed it, he is
not
three times your size, like the guy I got.”

“Johnny Mercer is not three times your size,” I shot back.

“Okay, maybe twice. But at least he’s a nice person.” Mar held the lip gloss out for me. I shook my head. She dropped the tube back in her purse.

“How would you know?” she cried. “He’s gone to school with us for years. Have you ever had one conversation with him?”

I picked at the stringy hairs on the end of my braid for a

second, then gave up and just watched Mar primp. “No, but he keeps to himself. He’s got his damn earphones on all the time. He might be nice.”

“And he might be a serial killer,” she said. She adjusted and readjusted her ponytail in the mirror and tucked a stray highlighted strand behind her ear.

I rolled my eyes at Mar and then checked under the five gray stalls to see if anyone was there. It was all clear, so I said, “Did you see that Amanda freaking Lowell got Gabe?

That is
so
unfair! Do you think we’re allowed to trade? She’d never trade anyway. Plus, I would never
ever
ask her, because then she’d know that I liked Gabe. Or, wait! I could just say I was being nice by giving her Todd. Oh, screw that. That would make her even more suspicious. I can’t believe she got Gabe. So typical. She gets everything.”

“Good Lord, Fiona. Take a breath,” Marcie said. “It’s not real life. Let it go.”

“Hey, you’re the one who’s so choked about being matched with Johnny Mercer.”

I took off my glasses to rinse them in the sink. I dried them on my shirt and slipped them back on. Several girls filed into the bathroom. Cheerleaders. Vomit. They set off on such a frenzy of giggling and makeup application that I didn’t even notice in the mirror that Her Royal Cheerleading Highness, Amanda, had come up behind me.

“Listen, Pee-ona,” she said. I turned around, but she looked past me at her reflection and fluffed her already perfect blond hair. “I guess you think you pulled the golden ring by getting Todd.”

16 Kristin Walker

I shifted over to block her view of her reflection. “Before we begin, Amanda, please clear up your metaphor. Are you trying to say ‘golden ticket’ or ‘brass ring’?”

She cocked her jaw. “What?”

“I just want to understand completely the complexities in your locution and lexicon.”

She blinked at me as her mental gears (the two of them) ground together. God might not have made me pretty, but He made me smarter than Amanda Lowell, and that was enough for most days.

“Look, loser. Let me make it clear that if you think that just ’cause you got”—she did the quote thingy with her pale pink, pointy-nailed fingers—“‘married’ to Todd that he’s going to be with you and not me, then you are wrong.”

“See how much better you do when you stick to single syllables?” I said.

Amanda smirked. “Here’s a single syllable for you.” She stuck up her middle finger, then turned and swished out of the bathroom. The rest of the cheerleaders flocked and flapped after her.

“Why do you love goading her so much?” Marcie asked me through her reflection in the mirror. She licked her thumb and wiped off a speck of mascara below her eye.

“I’m just trying to even out the scales of the universe,” I said. “Maintain homeostasis. Why should she be given a life of such utter perfection without the least amount of payback?”

“Why do you feel it’s your responsibility to level the field?” Marcie fancied herself an amateur therapist at times. I was her favorite patient.

“I don’t,” I said. “It’s just fun.”

“Try to focus on the positive, Fee,” Mar said. “At least we got the same homeroom. Let’s go.”

That was true; we’d both gotten Mr. Tambor, who was pretty decent, even if all his sentences went up at the end like everything was an emphatic question. It must have been Mar’s good luck that did it, though, because it sure wasn’t mine. My luck had resulted in Todd being in our homeroom as well. Mar and I saw him and Amanda outside Mr. Tambor’s room, huddled against the lockers. She had her face nuzzled in Todd’s neck as he stroked her hair. When we passed, both of them—right on cue—looked at me like I had pus-laced phlegm dripping out of every orifice in my body. I opened my mouth to say something just as Mr. Tambor boomed, “Okay,
people
? Take your
seats
?”

Marcie grabbed my arm and yanked me inside, saying,

“Leave it.”

wELCoME To
Trying The KnoT
!

Congratulations! Your school has invited you to participate in a revolutionary course on marriage education. This folder contains all the materials you’ll need. Below is a list of “rules”

you must follow to gain optimum benefit from this course. 1. Shared Activities

Each semester, one member of the couple will select an activity in which both partners will participate (one person picks first semester; the other picks second semester). The activity should have a duration of at least three months, and should meet at least once a week. Of course, more is fine!

2. The Budget

Every month, each couple must earn real-world cash money by doing a job (or jobs!) together. In addition, by a random draw, they will receive an “Income Factor,” which is the number by which all real-world cash earnings will be multiplied. The resulting figure will be the couple’s income for the month. For example, if you select an Income Factor of 50, and you and your partner earn $20 that month washing cars together, then your total income for the month is 50 x $20. Or $1,000. That $1,000

is what you must use to create a budget from the “menu” choices below. (Remember, all expenses are per month!) So the more real-world cash you earn, the more you have to spend! At the end of each month, the couple must turn in a balanced budget using the enclosed budget sheets, as well as the earned cash, and written validation that the money was earned at a job. (No cheating with your own money!)

LIVING EXPENSES (choose one):

A four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house in a gated community. Excellent school district and no crime. Mortgage and insurance: $2,000

Utilities: $500

A three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath house in an established neighborhood. Decent school district and low crime level.

Mortgage and insurance: $1,500

Utilities: $400

A two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in an apartment building. Marginal-quality school district and moderate crime level. Rent: $1,000

Utilities: $300

EXTRAS (choose any or none):

Cable TV: $75

20 Kristin Walker

Cell phone: $50

Internet: $30

CAR PAYMENT (choose two):

Brand-new luxury hybrid: $400

Pre-owned midsize: $250

Used compact: $150

FOOD EXPENSES (choose one):

Gourmet, all organic; frequent takeout: $600

Average grocery; occasional takeout: $500

No name-brand grocery; infrequent takeout: $300

ENTERTAINMENT (choose one):

Country club membership, three movies a month, etc.: $350

One movie a month, video rental, etc.: $150

Video rental only, etc.: $50

BANK IT OR BLOW IT:

Any remaining income either can be spent on a luxury item or vacation, or can be listed under SAVINGS and be banked to the next month.

3. The Journal

Enclosed, you will find a journal in which to write your thoughts and feelings concerning the “marriage.” You may evaluate the course, your spouse, or yourself! Try to make an entry at least once a week, or more if you feel like it!

4. Weekly Sessions

Each week, you and your partner will attend a brief counseling session with a school guidance counselor to address issues in