DupliKate (10 page)

TO-DO LIST: PRIORITY/ADDITIONAL

• Finals:
  English take home, French, Euro, bio, govt
  DONE! Yay!
  
• Physics project
  
• SATs
  
• ESSAY
  (Have Paul write for me? Yeah, right. Argh.)
  
• Packing list for Yale (jeans, shirts/bras/undies, socks! Cardigan sweater, jacket? Going-out clothes?)
  
• Car: gas, check tire pressure, etc.
  
• Directions! Print map! Also schedule Sunday campus visit w/ host students, Monday interview, Tuesday bookstore/exploring/shopping/whatev
  
• Cash from Mom
  
• Google parking in New Haven—structures? Maybe call admissions office to see? You suck for not figuring this out before. What the hell is wrong with you?
  
• Beat Anne to pulp. Just kidding. Sort of.
  

“CAN WE NAME OUR ROBOT DOUCHEBAG?”
Jake asked.

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “I certainly resent him enough at this point.”

Jake and I were sitting in physics lab Friday afternoon, putting—hopefully—the final touches on our robot. We had until five p.m., but if all went well it would take only until the end of class. A few people had already turned their projects in and were playing with their phones, reading, or otherwise running out the clock until the end of the hour (and the semester). Lucky bastards. Anne casually walked around the classroom, ostensibly making small talk with other early finishers but somehow keeping close enough to our lab table to overhear what Jake and I were saying. It was irritating, to say the least.

“Okay, try it out,” Jake said. He put a Ping-Pong ball
in the middle of the table while I positioned Douchebag at the table’s edge. I pressed the button on the remote control. Douchebag rolled toward the Ping-Pong ball, picked it up, and…sat still.

“Dammit,” Jake muttered.

“Ugh,” I agreed. Douchebag was supposed to throw the Ping-Pong ball at three different targets, which were on a piece of posterboard set up next to the table, but instead he just held the ball in his little metal claw. I took the ball out and turned to Jake. “Now what?”

“I don’t know, try one of the other settings,” he said. We tried again. Douchebag successfully chucked the ball at the second target, but failed on the third one.

“Well…one out of three ain’t bad.” Jake stretched his arms behind his back and yawned.

“Yes it is,” I said. “One out of three isn’t an A. One out of three is, like, one-third credit.”

“Quit exaggerating. It’s more than that. We did the whole write-up.” Jake fiddled with Douchebag’s claw. It made a worrisome clicking noise. What the hell was wrong with it?

With fifteen minutes until the end of class, everyone was done except for us and Haylie Harmon and Jay Trale, who were over in the corner. “No,” I said to Jake. “We can’t turn it in like this.”

“Oh, come on,” Jake said. “It’s close enough.”

“No, you come on,” I snapped. “What were you planning on doing after school?”

Jake shrugged. “Going home and starting my winter vacation.” He smiled. “Probably playing Call of Duty until I can’t see straight.”

“Sorry, but I don’t find Call of Duty a particularly convincing reason to stop working now.” I looked at the clock again and winced when I heard a cheer from Haylie and Jay. Their mousetrap car had apparently just hit the target speed.

Jake rolled his eyes. “It’s
sort
of working,” he argued again. “We’d probably get a B. Can’t you live with a B?” He idly punched the button on Douchebag’s remote again. This time, the robot made a weird noise and didn’t move at all.

“Oops,” Jake said. I glared at him.

“Fine, we’re staying.” He sighed. He picked up the robot as the bell rang. Everyone else raced to the door amid chatter and cheers, Anne lingering just long enough to register that Jake and I were still there. She looked appraisingly at Jake, then smiled at me condescendingly and walked out the door. God. Dammit. But I had bigger worries at the moment.

“Um, Mr. Piper?” I walked to the front of the classroom to explain our situation.

“You have until five,” he pointed out.

“I know,” I said, “but that’s only two hours from now, and this thing that was working before isn’t working any
more. So if there’s any way we could possibly get an extension, like maybe until—” I could hear my voice speeding up and my fingers clenched nervously.

“Kate, I know you’re a responsible student,” Mr. Piper said, noticing my growing panic. His voice turned more soothing. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll give you the rest of tonight; just leave your project here and I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning at nine.”

My eyes widened. “Oh my God, thank you! Thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome. Have a good winter break.” Mr. Piper threw some papers into his briefcase, snapped it shut, and left the room. I whooped to myself and turned to Jake, who was standing by our lab table, arms crossed, with a very sour look on his face.

“Okay, I just got us a massive extension, so I don’t know why you look like that.”

“Exactly,” Jake answered. “Now we know we have all night. So it’s probably going to actually take us all night.”

“Wrong,” I countered. “I have the SATs tomorrow morning. Obviously I don’t want it to take that long. We’ll get it done when we get it done, and we’ll go faster if you quit complaining and start working.” I picked up a pencil and then put it down again. “Oh, wait. I have to make a phone call.” Jake rolled his eyes as I stepped out into the now-deserted hallway to call Paul.

Paul picked up on the first ring. “Hey, where are you?” he asked.

“Still at school,” I told him. “Our robot malfunctioned and now we’re trying to fix it.”

“Ugh, sorry about that,” Paul said sympathetically. “We’re still hanging out later though, right?” We’d planned to repeat our pre-SAT (and PSAT and ACT) tradition: chill out, see a movie, not think about anything, and go to bed early.

“About that…” I started slowly, waiting for Paul’s reaction. There was silence on the other end of the line. “I’m gonna try and get it done in the next few hours,” I continued, “but just in case I don’t—”

“Kate.” Paul was clearly annoyed.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re the one who was all gung-ho about relaxing before the SATs, and now you’re bailing?”

“I’m not bailing,” I said defensively. “I can’t help that the thing malfunctioned.” I glanced through the physics room window at Jake, who was looking intently at a calculator. “We’re going to finish as soon as possible and then you and I can hang out.” I tried to sound gentle and calm, but failed miserably. I hoped that Paul didn’t notice my impatience.

He noticed. “Oh, so now
you’re
mad at
me?
”

“I’m not mad,” I said. “And you shouldn’t be either.
I’m just trying to get this A so I have the best chance of getting into—”

“Yeah, yeah, getting into Yale with me,” Paul interrupted, and I could tell he was rolling his eyes. “You know, it’s kind of pointless if you’re just gonna be like this next year.”

“Like what?!” I exclaimed. “It’s not my fault I have to stay here and—”

“It
is
your fault,” snapped Paul. He officially sounded angry. “You and your slacker partner. I know you guys have been wasting time. Anne told me how much
fun
you guys have been having in class—”

“Okay, first of all, I can’t believe you’d listen to her over me. You realize she still totally wants you and therefore she hates me, right?”

“—so what am I supposed to think when suddenly you’re
supposed
to be done but somehow
magically
you’re not—”

“She’s totally exaggerating! I can’t believe you’re buying it.”

“I mean, come on, you guys have been working on that stupid robot
forever
and you still can’t get it to work—”

“If you think it’s so easy then why don’t
you
come over and—”

“—and now
I’m
the one paying for it? I mean, you
say
you’re gonna try to hang out tonight. But I don’t believe you.” He practically spat those last couple words.

I was shocked at how furious he’d gotten and how quickly he’d gotten there. I could almost hear him clenching his phone in his fist. I knew I was clenching mine.

But he was right not to believe me. Even if this only took a few hours, I wasn’t going to want to do anything but go to sleep when I was done building this damn robot.

“Paul,” I pleaded quietly. I’d never heard him this angry—at me, at least. “I
promise
I’ll finish in time for the movie, okay? I
swear
.”

There was a long, long silence. “Fine. What time should I pick you up?” His voice was cold.

Hmmm. I had no idea what time. “Um…eight?” I ventured. That gave me and Jake a little over four hours. If we didn’t finish by then, I could send Rina. But four hours seemed doable.

“I’ll come by your house,” Paul said. His voice was completely flat, which was actually scarier than angry.

“Thanks,” I said softly.

“I just don’t know how you were so chilled out yesterday and today you’re all nuts again—”

“What are you talking about?” Oh God.
Rina
. She’d hung out with him all afternoon. Great. They were supposed to have been studying, but apparently she’d been two tons of fun. “Um…” I tried to think of how to cover having no idea what Paul and Rina had talked about yesterday. I settled for rampant cheerfulness. “Well, whatever, don’t
worry. We’ll have fun tonight, I promise! Okay?” I faked a smile, as if he could see it over the phone.

“Okay.” Paul didn’t sound convinced. “See you in a while.” After he hung up, I sat listening to the silence. Now what? I could try
really
hard to finish the robot in the next few hours…but if that didn’t happen…would I call it a night and risk a B, thereby sacrificing my entire future? Or would I cancel on Paul at the last minute and risk whatever that might do to his already brewing anger?

Forget it. Rina was going to the movies tonight and that was that.

I dialed my home number. The answering machine got it, just like it was supposed to whenever Rina was home alone. “Hey, it’s me,” I said. “Pick up the phone, will you? Hello? Hello? Helloooooo…”

“Hi!” Rina’s voice was breathless. “What’s up?”

“A bunch of stuff.” I explained the situation as quickly as I could, although by the time the words “movie with Paul” came out of my mouth I could hear her footsteps pounding either down or up the stairs.

“Yes! Thank you!” she squealed. “Thank you thank you thank you! Oh my God, I have to decide what to wear!”

“Well, you’ve got a while to figure it out,” I said. “Just make sure to come straight home afterward, and look to see if my bedroom light is on, since I have no idea what time we’ll be done with our robot.”

“Of course,” Rina answered distractedly. “Thank you!” I heard the sound of hangers sliding across metal and realized that she must be in my closet. It was weird to think of her going through
my
clothes in preparation for a date with
my
boyfriend (especially when she asked if she could wear the black and silver—and extremely low-cut—tank top Kyla had loaned me), but whatever. It bought me time. And right now, that was all that mattered.

I went back to the physics lab. Now that it was pitch dark outside, we were practically the only people in the whole building. Every once in a while a janitor cart rolled by, and there were several minutes where we had to yell over the sound of a vacuum cleaner in the hallway, but other than that, it was silent. By ten o’clock, the robot was still just two for three on the targets.

“We’re taking a break,” I announced.

“Thank Christ,” Jake answered immediately. He sprawled across one of the other lab tables facedown, resting his head on one wiry, flannel-shirted arm and letting the other one dangle toward the floor. I headed for the vending machine in the hall and got us both Diet Cokes, plus an assortment of Cheetos, SunChips, and mini-Oreos.

I returned to find Jake in the same position I’d left him in. “You asleep?”

“Yes,” he answered, his voice muffled. “Wake me when it’s all over.”

I perched on the end of the table he was lying on and opened a Diet Coke. He perked up at the sound. I handed him a can, then put all the snack bags down.

“Hey, my favorite,” he said, choosing the Flaming Hot Cheetos over the regular ones. “You remembered.”

“Of course I did,” I said. “How could I forget the red powder all over your video game controllers?”

“And the TV remote,” he added.

“And everything else.”

We kind of laugh-smiled at each other for a second, then swooped in on the food.

“So,” Jake said, ripping the corner off the Cheetos bag, “what happens after we get our A on this thing?” He nodded toward the robot.

“
If
we get an A,” I corrected, tearing into the Oreos.

“No way,” he said. “The only reason we’re still here is that precious A of yours. Otherwise I’d be in front of my Xbox right now. Killing. Or being killed. Hopefully killing, though.”

“Fine,” I replied, dangling my feet off the edge of the lab table. “When we get our A, knock on wood, I should have straight A’s for the semester.”

“And then what?” Jake asked.

“And then,” I said, “tomorrow I will kick ass on my SAT retake. And then I will kick ass at my on-campus interview, and I’ll get into Yale. And I will get to go to an awe
some school and make my mom proud and just generally win at life. Duh.” I grinned at him and playfully kicked him with my toe.

“Really?” Jake raised an eyebrow and stared at me, crunching on a Cheeto.

“What?” I asked.

Jake rolled his eyes very slightly, but I still noticed. “I don’t know that what you just described qualifies as winning at life,” he said. “Admit it. You only want to go to Yale because your boyfriend’s going there.”

“No,” I said. “Of course not. I’m applying to all the Ivies. Yale’s my top choice, but Paul’s not the only reason.”

“What’re the other reasons? Actually, never mind, don’t bother.”

“What? I can list them. Um…because Harvard is too close to home….” I paused. Jake didn’t try to hide his eye roll this time. “Forget it,” I snapped. He was clearly looking to shoot down my answers.

“How come you’re so hard core about the Ivies, anyway?” he asked, tilting his head and looking at me.

“Because you’re supposed to be!” I exclaimed. I was starting to feel like we were in an interrogation room. Next, Jake would be pacing back and forth playing both good cop and bad cop. “Doesn’t everyone—”

“No, not everyone.”

“Yeah, but I mean, if I want to go to grad school, or law
school or something, it would help if I went to a kick-ass college.” There. That reason was bulletproof.

Jake raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“Are you kidding? That’s huge,” I said. I crumpled up the Oreo bag and walked toward the corner of the room to chuck it in the trash.