How To Be A Perfect Girl (19 page)

“Yeah, exactly,” Val agreed.

“Just don’t cause any drama, and you’ll be
fine. Now, how about you finish a couple of laps and we’ll call it
good?” It was a fair deal; the fastest girls had only just finished
their first lap, and Val followed Scarlett for their final two
times around. When they finished, most of the other girls were
panting—Val wasn’t, but she didn’t feel too proud of herself, since
she’d only run two-thirds of what they had.

The rest of the practice went well; Coach
organized a scrimmage that lasted nearly the entire practice, but
he was fairer about the team division than Avery. As a result, Val
was able to score a point and a couple of assists.

“Thank you for your time, girls,” Coach said
at the end of practice, “You showed me a lot of heart out there.
I’ll make my mind up about who to bring on over the weekend, and
post a list outside my classroom on Monday.”

They all headed for the locker room; Val
found Scarlett and asked her, “Where’s his office?”

“Who? Mr. Swinn?”

“Yeah,” Val nodded, “Or whatever our coach’s
name is.”

Scarlett laughed, “Yeah, his name’s Mr.
Swinn. He’s an English teacher; his classroom is the corner one in
the English department.”

Val frowned, “I’m not sure I know the one
you’re talking about.”

“Ok. Then how about I just text you saying
whether you made the team or not?” Scarlett pulled her phone free
from her gym bag and offered it to Val.

“Thanks!” Val’s fingers worked over the
touchscreen as she entered her information. “Do you mind if I send
myself a text, so I can save your number?”

Scarlett shrugged, “Go for it.”

Chapter 14

“I’ve decided today’s quiz will be a partner
quiz. That means you can help and receive help from one person
only,” Miss Andrews glanced around the room, a stern look on her
face. Val had known the quiz was coming; she’d studied for it the
day before, but like everyone else she breathed a sigh of relief
when Miss Andrews announced it was going to be a partner quiz.

As their teacher handed out quizzes, Val
turned to Sophia, who was sitting across from her, “Hey, you wanna
partner up?”

“Sure!” Sophia walked around the table and
pulled up a stool next to Val. “I hope you studied,” the girl said,
“Because I heard the first quiz of the year in this class is always
really hard.”

“I did. How about you?”

Sophia smiled, “You know
me.”
In other words, you pretended to study
while doing your hair or something else ridiculous,
Val thought. Sophia was always bragging about
getting good grades on tests she “hadn’t really studied for”; as
far as Val could tell, however, she’d practically been raised
around the color wheel, since her mother was a professional
artist.

Miss Andrews gave them a copy of the quiz;
“Put both your names at the top,” she instructed.

“Yes ma’am,” Val looked at the quiz and her
heart sank. There were all sorts of questions that she wasn’t even
sure had anything to do with art. “What color do you get if you mix
one part yellow with two parts blue and two parts white?” she read
aloud.

Sophia frowned a moment. “Torquoise?” she
guessed; Val shrugged and wrote the answer down. The first section
involved several questions like the first, and that was followed by
some more general questions covered in class.

Partnering with Sophia proved to be a good
decision; the dark-haired girl answered several of the questions
before Val could even piece together what they were asking. “Wow,
you’re really good at this,” Val praised.

“Thank you,” Sophia smiled, “Yeah, it helps
that my mom talks about this type of stuff a lot.”

Wow, that sounds really
boring;
instead of voicing her thoughts,
Val laughed and continued working. They made good progress—or
rather, Sophia made good progress and allowed Val to feel like she
was being helpful—and finished a little over halfway into the
period.

“Done already?” Miss Andrews asked when
Sophia and Val tried to turn their quiz in.

“Yup,” Sophia replied.

Their teacher nodded, “Okay. You can just
hold onto that, and I’ll collect quizzes in a bit.”

Val and Sophia returned to their seats; a
bit ended up being fifteen minutes, and they quickly got bored. Val
tried to go over their answers, but Sophia argued against it.

“We’ll probably just end up talking
ourselves out of the correct answers.”

“Maybe, but what if we see something we
missed before and we get a better grade because of it?”

“That won’t happen,” Sophia seemed supremely
confident in the assertion, “And I’d rather go with what we have
than start changing answers and get like a B or something.”

“Alright,” Val frowned, “Then how do you
want to spend the rest of the time between now and when everyone
else finishes?”

“I dunno. We could just talk.”

“Talk? About what?”

Sophia smiled conspiratorially, “I hear
you’re dating Keenan. How’s that going?”

“Pretty well. He’s nice. The one thing that
gets kind of annoying, though, is he’s always hanging out with
Alex. Like on our first date he was there the whole time; it hardly
even felt like a date.”

“Oh, yeah, I know how that is.” Sophia
glanced at the clock, “Just be thankful you only have to deal with
his friend; parent chaperones are about ten times worse.”

“Parent chaperones?” Val grimaced, “That
would be horrible.”

“Tell me about it. When parents get
involved, it seems more like a playdate than a real date.”

“Has that actually happened to you?”

Sophia nodded, “Yup. His Dad was there the
whole night—he got really mad when I didn’t know the directions to
get back to my house. And then he—the guy I was dating, not his
Dad—tried to kiss me goodnight, and it was like the most awkward
thing ever.”

“I can imagine.” Val thought a moment, and
then asked, “Who was it?”

“Alex.” Sophia laughed, “He’s gotten a
bit—smoother—since then.”

Before Val could reply, Miss Andrews cleared
her throat, “Time’s up.” To Val’s left, Miro cursed.

“Why didn’t you give us some kind of
warning?” A sophomore across the room from Val asked.

“Anyone who’s not done by now is never going
to finish. I gave you plenty of time.” Miss Andrews gestured to Val
and Sophia, “Miss Hunter and Miss Reed finished fifteen minutes
ago.” Miro and the boy who’d spoken up shot glares Val’s way. Miss
Andrews segued into a short lesson; when the bell rang, Val was one
of the first ones out the door. She didn’t want to be in that class
any longer than she had to, with the sophomore and Miro obviously
angry with her; also, next hour she was supposed to have lunch with
Porter, and Val was excited to see him again.

Val waited at Porter’s red car for five
minutes before he showed up. When he saw her, instead of grinning
like he usually did, Porter scowled. “Hey Derrick,” Val heard him
say, turning to his friend, “You cool with catching a ride to lunch
with someone else? I need to talk to Val about—you know.”

“Yeah,” Derrick joined another group of
seniors headed to their cars; Val vaguely heard him asking if he
could tag along with them. She was busy focusing on Porter, who was
still scowling.

“We need to talk,” Porter said when he
reached Val and his car. “Here, let’s do it on the way to
lunch.”

“Uh, okay,” Val replied; she got in the
passenger seat, wondering what Porter wanted to talk to her
about.

The moment they were out of the parking lot,
Porter turned to Val, “So you told Avery that all I do is complain
about her?”

Val gulped,
oh, right.
She’d nearly
forgotten about that incident with Avery. “Well, I didn’t say that,
exactly.”

Porter sighed, “Then what did you say?”

“I just said that you complained about her.
Like I didn’t say it was all you did. Porter,” Val hated the
pleading tone that crept into her voice, “She was just being really
mean and, I don’t know, I—“

“You wanted to bring her down a peg,” Porter
finished for her.

“Yeah.”

“Val,” Porter’ voice assumed the tone Mom
used when she was reprimanding Val, “You’re supposed to be nicer
than that. That’s what I like about you.”

“I know. It’s just—this place. Yesterday I
was going to apologize to Jenny, for what I said, but instead I was
even meaner than before!” The tears welling in Val’s eyes surprised
even her, “What’s happening to me? I don’t wanna be like this, but
more and more I just feel like—like I have to be. You know?”

“Yeah, I—“ Porter stopped at a red light; he
turned to look at Val, “Hold on, are you crying?”

Val nodded, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Look Val, I think you just
made a mistake. You’re still a nice girl,” Porter frowned, “But I
just wanted you to know that you got me in a lot of hot water with
Avery. That’s all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Do you still want to go to
lunch?”

Val shook her head, “I don’t really feel
like anything, but you can still go wherever.”

Porter nodded, “Alright then. I’ll just stop
off at McDonald’s and we can talk some more.” He executed a U-turn
and slammed on the gas.

“Can I ask you a question Porter?”

“Shoot.”

“Well, Avery’s so mean and you’re really
nice and—“

“And you’re wondering why I’m with her?”

Val nodded.

“It’s a fair question, I suppose. There are
good sides of Avery that almost no one sees; just the same, I’ve
been trying to figure out if the positives outweigh the negatives
of staying with her. By the way, don’t tell her I said that,”
Porter added.

“I won’t. But you think you might wanna dump
her?”

“I was—hang on,” Porter pulled into the
McDonald’s drive-through.

“Welcome to McDonald’s,” a man’s voice
played over the speaker, “Can I interest you in a McChicken?”

“No thanks,” Porter shifted so he could
speak directly into the ordering screen. “Could I just get three
McDoubles, a large fry, and a vanilla shake.” He turned to Val, “Do
you want anything?”

“You mean that’s all for you?” she joked.
“No thanks, I’m not a fan of McDonald’s.”

“Alright then,” Porter turned back to the
microphone, “That’ll be it.”

They collected Porter’s food, and he parked
in the lot to wolf it down. Val had a couple of his fries, but
quickly remembered why she usually avoided such food; the fries
tasted like pure grease sprinkled with a little salt.

“Yuck,” she shook her head at Porter, who
was unwrapping his third McDouble, “I can’t believe you eat this
stuff.”

Porter smiled, his mouth full of hamburger,
“It’s good!”

“Yeah,” Val grimaced, “It
looks—appetizing.”

While Porter finished his meal, Val made the
mistake of pulling down his passenger vanity mirror, only to
discover a single streak of mascara running all the way down her
cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me my makeup was smeared?” she
asked.

Porter shrugged, “It was just us, and I
wasn’t that put off by it.”

Val rummaged through her bag, looking for
her travel makeup kit. “Hang on, I don’t think it’s in here!”

“What’s not?”

“My makeup!” Her voice rising, Val pulled a
pair of books from her bag, “What am I gonna do?”

Porter laughed, “Calm down. It’s not like a
huge tragedy.”

“Can we go to like a store or something?”
Val asked.

“So you can buy an entire makeup kit to fix
that little streak?”

Val nodded, “It’s either that or clear
everything off.”

“I don’t see what would be wrong with that,”
Porter frowned, “You wear a lot of eye makeup anyways. Can’t you
just clean that part and—?“

“I don’t know. I’ve never had this happen
before!” Val looked at her reflection again, “It doesn’t look like
I could fix it without removing the rest of my—“ she sighed.

“Here, how about you go into the bathroom
here and try to fix it? If that doesn’t work I’ll take you
somewhere where you can buy whatever it is you need.”

“That sounds like a good
idea,” Val opened the door of Porter’s car and stretched before
heading into McDonald’s. The smell of fries cooking assaulted her
as she made her way to the bathroom;
Am I
one of the only people that doesn’t like greasy food?
she wondered absently.

It quickly became clear that simply cleaning
the streak of mascara would not work; Val wet a paper towel and
tried to use that, but, true to her expectations, it cleared away
almost all of her makeup. She tried to use a corner and dab clean
only the sections of skin that needed it. Once finished, Val took a
step away from the mirror; there was a pale white streak where the
mascara had been, and she’d managed to take off a lot of eye shadow
as well. “That’s what I get for using so much bronzer,” she
muttered. She decided to clear off the rest of the makeup, and hope
there was a store with a makeup counter nearby.

When Val opened the door to Porter’s car, he
feigned surprise. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

Val laughed, “It’s me.” She stuck her tongue
out at Porter.

“Oh, Val, I didn’t recognize you without all
that makeup.”

“Jerk!” Val smiled, “So, do you know where
we can go to buy a makeup kit?”

Porter turned his key in the ignition; he
frowned at the dashboard clock. “Crap, we’re running later than I
thought.”

“Oh, well—“

“I really can’t miss next hour,” Porter
sighed, “Sorry. Let’s just go back to school.”

Val bit her lip, “Okay.”

Porter drove out of the McDonald’s parking
lot; he managed to hit forty-five on a side street before turning
onto the road that would lead them back to school. “You really
don’t look bad,” he said, “I know a lot of girls worry about not
having makeup on, but the natural look suits you.”