A Week of Mondays (26 page)

He sits speechless in his chair, staring at me.

But I really don't have all day. So if he's not going to get this thing moving along, then I better just finish her up.

“You've been assigned to meet with every student in the junior class to talk about the next two years.” I recite the speech I've heard three times now. “Have I given any thought to where I want to apply? No? Well, ticktock, ticktock! Time's a runnin' out.”

Mr. Goodman rubs his mouth with his hand, tugging down on the corners of his lips.

“Now this is the part where you tell me I'm living my life wrong and give me one of those pamphlets behind you.”

Dazedly, he spins in his chair and practically startles at the sight of the pamphlets. As if he forgot they were there. He plucks a red one from the rack and slides it over to me.

I eye the brochure. It has a picture of a girl sitting on the edge of a bed, holding her head in her hands. A boy is out of focus in the background. Across the top it says:

Making the Right Choices About Sex

I force a smile. “Great!” I scoop up the pamphlet and give it a brusque tap with the back of my hand. “Thanks for this. I can't wait to dive in. Super-duper helpful!”

As I leave Mr. Goodman's office and approach the receptionist for a pass back to class, I eye the digital clock on the wall. It's 2:08 p.m. I'm suddenly struck with an idea.

I turn toward a nearby bulletin board and pretend to be very interested in the colorful display about self-esteem, keeping one eye on the clock. As soon as it clicks over to 2:10, I approach the desk.

“Hi!” I say brightly.
“
I need a pass back to class.”

The receptionist smiles at me. “Of course.” She glances up to check the time.

“2:10,” I say way too urgently. “It's 2:10.”

She gives me a strange look, but writes 2:10 in the time slot and hands me the pink slip.

I thank her and duck out of the office. As soon as I'm in the hallway, I pull a black pen from my bag, hold the pass up against the wall, and with two quick pen strokes, expertly turn the one into a four.

There. Now I have until 2:40 to get my butt down to the fairgrounds, convince that greasy carnival manager to give my boyfriend the stage gig, and get back here before I'm thrown in detention.

That's a little less than thirty minutes. Not ideal, but not impossible either.

I dart out the back door and into the student parking lot, smiling to myself the whole way.

Apparently this outfit is not only making me a better girlfriend, but also a better delinquent.

That's called progress, people.

 

I Get Around

2:39 p.m.

I make it back just under the wire. After parking the car, I grab my bag and sprint for the building. The conversation with the carnival manager was short and sweet and now the stage belongs to Whack-a-Mole.

I'm only a few paces from my English classroom when the massive shadow of Principal Yates falls over me and I slow to a stop.

“Ms. Sparks.” She pronounces my name like she's a warden in a prison movie.

I turn. “Ms. Yates.” I try to replicate her tone. She doesn't look amused by that.

“I do hope you have a pass.”

I give her a big toothy grin. “But of course. Who do you take me for? Some kind of rabble-rouser?”

Not even so much as a lip twitch.

Tough crowd
.

I produce the pink slip from my pocket and hand it over. “I was just coming from the counseling office. Mr. Goodman is meeting with all the juniors. Gotta start thinking about those colleges. Ticktock ticktock!”

Yates slides her reading glasses onto her nose and glares at me over the rims. She studies the pass for a lot longer than necessary and I start to get antsy. Is she comparing the pen strokes? Will she determine that the four is a fake? I half expect her to hold it up to the light like she's checking a counterfeit hundred-dollar bill.

My heart leaps into my throat. I can't go to detention again. I can't suffer through that pit of despair and risk missing softball tryouts.

Principal Yates pushes her glasses back onto her head and hands the pass back. I breathe out a sigh and start for my classroom.

“Interesting speech today,” she says from behind me.

Apparently we're not finished here.

I slowly turn back around. “Thanks!”

“If you could even call it that.”

I shrug. “A politician's gotta do what a politician's gotta do.”

She makes a grunting sound. “Be careful, Ms. Sparks. Telling people what they want to hear is not the same thing as winning.”

Um, okaaay. What's up, random cryptic pep talk from the principal?

“You're a good kid, Ellie. I'd hate to see you go down a bad road.”

I force out a smile. “Well, I appreciate that.”

She nods and takes off around the corner. I almost want to snort aloud. Bad road? Just shows how much she knows. Right now, my road has never looked better.

 

My Boyfriend's Back

3:22 p.m.

“And, in a landslide victory, claiming a whopping 82 percent of the vote, the junior class president and vice president are Rhiannon Marshall and Ellison Sparks!”

I stop walking. I'm halfway to my locker after seventh period but my feet just kind of congeal to the spot. People are hurrying past, bumping into me, tripping to get around me.

We won? We actually won?

After three days of losing, I kind of started to think that winning an election with Rhiannon Marshall as your running mate was impossible.

But today we did it!

“Nice going, Sparks!” a voice says, and I turn around to see some jock in a letterman jacket extending his fist toward me. “Awesome speech!”

Random jocks are fist-bumping me?

I tentatively lift my fist and tap it against his. He nods like we do this every day. “Yeah!” he says.

“Yeah,” I echo with significantly less enthusiasm.

What is going on here?

“Go, Ellison!” I hear someone else say. I turn around and a girl I've never spoken to in my life draws me in for a hug. “You killed it today. I knew you could do it!”

“Um, who are you?” I say into her shoulder.

She laughs and pulls away, tweaking my nose. “You're hilarious!”

This is too weird.

Is this what it feels like to be popular? Everywhere you go people acting like you're best friends?

My feet finally unfreeze and I stumble down the hall toward my locker. It takes forever to get there. Everyone in the world suddenly feels the need to say hi to me or give me a hug or a high five. Despite how strange it all is, it's admittedly exhilarating. No wonder so many narcissists go into politics.

I mean, after Tristan and I started dating people suddenly knew who I was, but it wasn't like this. They saw me as a threat. A challenge. A victor to overthrow. Now it's like I'm everyone's hero.

Just because I told a few inappropriate jokes?

When I get to my locker, Rhiannon is waiting for me. She looks positively jubilant. When she sees me approach she gives a little bounce. “Oh my God. We did it! I knew we could do it! I'm totally not surprised. Politics basically runs in my veins. Did you know my dad was county commissioner for eight years in a row? I was practically a shoo-in for president. I was a little worried after that horrific rando speech you gave—seriously, Ellie, what were you thinking?—but I could tell I reeled them back in with my speech. Good thing one of us was prepared, right? I worked on that speech for weeks, and it definitely paid off.”

I bite my tongue as I dial my combination. “I dunno,” I say casually, unzipping my bag and unloading my books. “I think maybe my speech helped.”

She leans against the locker next to mine with a sigh. “Don't be ridiculous. It was atrocious. You should consider yourself lucky that you're running with me. I
saved
you today, Ellison.”

I taste blood in my mouth. I want to grab her by her dainty little shoulders and shake her. Shake her so hard her pink headband pops right off her head. I want so badly to tell her that her speech actually sucked big-time. That it lost three days in a row, and that the only reason we won today was because of
me
.

But I don't.

Because what does it matter now? We won. The rest is just semantics.

“Anyway, we should get together tomorrow and start coming up with our yearly plan,” Rhiannon says, smoothing a lock of her blond bob against her cheek.

“Sure,” I tell her. “I have a ton of ideas. Like a Battle of the Bands competition or maybe—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. Who's the president here?”

“Excuse me?”

She flashes me the fakest of fake smiles and tilts her head like she's talking to a child lost at the mall. “Ellie. I'm so thrilled that you have so many ideas. Like
so
thrilled. But to be perfectly honest, you have no experience in politics. I do.”

“Because your dad was county commissioner?”

“For eight years in a row.”

“Wasn't he impeached?”

A flash of horror contorts her creamy white features for a flicker of a second. “He was wrongfully accused.”

I nod. “Right.”

She stands up straighter. “Anyway, I think the best plan of action is for you to shadow me this year.”

“Shadow you?”

“Yeah, you know, like an intern. I'll teach you everything you need to know. It'll be great.”

I shove my bag into my locker and slam the door. “Rhiannon—” I start to say, but am immediately interrupted by a pair of arms around my waist, yanking me off the ground and spinning me around.

“Congrats, baby!” Tristan exclaims. He kisses me and I wince in pain. My lips are still swollen and chapped from our make-out session in the library earlier. “My little president.”

Rhiannon clears her throat behind us. “
Vice
president.”

Tristan doesn't seem to hear. Or if he does, he's smart enough to ignore it.

“I'm so proud of you!”

“You are?”

“Hell yeah. Politicians are hot. Making executive decisions. Wearing short suit skirts. Banging gavels. Hot. Hot. Hot.”

I laugh. “I don't think we actually wear suits. And gavels are for judges.”

“Humor me.” He bends down and presses his mouth into my neck.

Rhiannon lets out an impatient sigh. “So, are we good? On my plan?”

I shoo her away. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

Tristan moves his lips to my mouth again, his hands pressing into my lower back. I close my eyes, listening to Rhiannon's footsteps retreating down the hall.

I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to put up with her and her delusional power trips for an entire year, but right now I can hardly find the energy to care.

 

Unchained Melody

3:25 p.m.

When Tristan finally comes up for air, I'm able to tell him about the gig, and that leads to another round of kissing and whooping and spinning me around. Unfortunately, I have to extricate myself in order to make it to softball tryouts on time, although my lips are grateful for the reprieve. I think they feel more swollen now than they did when I ate that stupid banana bread.

As I peel off my sexy vixen costume and don my training clothes, I tell myself this whole attached-at-the-mouth thing is temporary. We're just going through a period of renewed excitement for each other. A second honeymoon period, if you will. Every day in our relationship is not going to be like this. I remember the days after our very first kiss. Those long summer nights when there was nothing else to do but make out, and nowhere else to be but with each other. I couldn't get enough of him. It was like I was gravely ill and Tristan was the cure. I was dying of thirst and Tristan was water. I was surrounded by silence and Tristan was music.

So much music.

All the time.

Streaming in my eardrums 24-7. Serenading me when I was awake. Lulling me to sleep.

Tristan was the soundtrack of my summer. The beat I walked to. The melody I breathed in and out. The lyrics I lived by.

And now suddenly, this day, this
version
of this day, it's like someone has turned him back on. Full volume. Full blast.

Like I've synchronized to his beat again, after falling out of step for too long.

4:09 p.m.

After crushing it in softball tryouts again, I race to the locker room and quickly change back into my miniskirt and boots. I want to try to find my sister before she leaves the middle school. I figure if I can catch her earlier, I might be able to figure out what happened to her. I stuff my training clothes into my gym locker and make a dash for my car.

The middle school is next door to the high school, so fortunately I don't have to go far.

I pull up in the parent drop-off lane and watch the front doors. I did the math. If I saw her at the intersection of Providence Boulevard and Avenue de Liberation at around 4:30 yesterday, that means that she must have left the school right about now.

A moment later, I hear a slam and a group of five giggling girls come running out a side door, around the corner from the front of the school. My sister is not one of them. I watch as they blather on and run to a waiting car, which I assume belongs to one of their mothers.

I can't hear what they're saying with the windows rolled up, but they look just like the girls did when I was in a middle school a few years ago. Thirteen-year-olds trying to be thirty-year-olds. Tanned legs, barely-there shorts, too much eye makeup. I watch both the front and the side doors, waiting for my sister to come out, but there's still no sign of her.

That's strange.

I drive in a loop around the parking lot, my eyes glued to the exits. Finally, as I'm about to give up and head home, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. It's coming from the empty soccer field.