How to Win at High School (4 page)

“
Sara
”

—except it comes out more like a shout and half the kids nearby turn and look at him, this weirdo new kid who dresses funny and never says much and suddenly has the
gall
to talk to
Sara freaking Bryant
in that tone of voice.

Sara stops. She looks back at Adam. Cocks her head.

“
Pardon?
”

Adam knows he's screwed up.

Everyone's watching.

“Hey,” he says. Softer. Not quite so desperate. “What's up?”

It doesn't help. Everyone's still watching. And Sara Bryant is not impressed. She arches an eyebrow. Doesn't say a word.

Shit.

Adam can't even look at those piercing blue eyes. “You, uh, having a party tonight?”

Whispers all around. Someone laughs. Adam feels his face go red.
Not cool. Not cool at all.

Sara Bryant frowns. “Who'd you hear that from?”

“Uh”—Adam pauses—“around. It's around.”

“Around where? The school?” Sara Bryant casts her gaze across the classroom. Instantly, eyes are averted. Kids pretend to go about their business. “Who knows about this?”

Nobody answers.

She looks at Adam again.

“Everyone,” Adam says.

“Jesus Christ.” She pulls out her phone and starts texting, rapid-fire, furious. Fingernails rapping like bullets against the iPhone glass. “It's not a party,” she says. “It's a
get-together
. I'm having a few people over, that's all.”

Adam nods. “Oh.”

She punches at her phone. Looks up. “Dude, I don't even know who you are.”

“Adam,” Adam says. “My name is Adam Higgs.”

“Well,
Adam
, just so it's clear,” she says, “this party? Is
invite-only.
And you're not invited.
”

Then she
breezes
out of the room.

And that's that.

Embarrassment.

Mortification.

Social suicide.

The whole grade knows who Adam Higgs is now. He's not just some anonymous guy. Some new kid with a zit on his chin.

No.

He's the weirdo who got shut down by Sara Bryant in physics class.

He's worse than anonymous. He's a LOSER.

Certified.

Guaranteed.

Grade A.

And just when he's thinking it can't get any worse?

It does.

Saturday night.

(Because if you think our boy Adam made it to that party, you need to go back and reread that last bit.)

Adam's working at Pizza Hut. Clearing tables. Some snot-nosed ten-year-old's snot-nosed birthday party.

(He's in a bad mood. See above.)

There's giggling from across the restaurant. Adam looks up and—

(
Oh shit
)

—the gang's all here:

Paul Nolan.

Janie Ng.

Leanne Grayson.

Alton Di Sousa.

Rob Thigpen.

Jessie McGill.

And, yes—

Sara
freaking
Bryant.

The gods. The goddesses.

They're all here, huddled around Leanne's phone. Flipping through pictures. Jostling for a view. Laughing.

Basically, living the charmed life.

“Best. Party. Ever,” says Paul Nolan.

“I'm so fucking hungover,” says Rob Thigpen.

“You drank half a fifth of vodka, you moron,” says Janie Ng, giggling. “What did you think would happen?”

“I can't believe how many people showed up,” Leanne Grayson tells Sara. “Are your parents going to be cool with it?”

“Long as they didn't see it on the news,” says Alton.

Sara smacks him. “
Shut up
. It wasn't on the news.” She looks around the table. “And you assholes better help me clean up before they get home.”

Groans. Laughter. Leanne passes her phone around. The gods all stare at the screen, their eyes goggling. More laughter. Alton and Rob Thigpen slap five.

Adam stands there and tries not to look obvious. It doesn't work. Sara makes him. “
Oh shit
,” she whispers. “
That's the guy
.”

The gods stop with the laughing. With the slapping five. They all look at Sara.

Sara's not looking at the phone.

She's looking at our boy.

Our boy, Adam Higgs, loser, where he stands across the restaurant, hands-deep in a bucket of dirty pizza plates and empty soda cups, still clearing that snotty ten-year-old's table, trying not to let on that he's listening.

Trying not to let on how pissed

upset

angry

depressed

he is that Sara Bryant's little get-together turned into the biggest party of the year, and
he wasn't invited
.

(And now Sara Bryant is looking at him.)

(And the rest of the gods are staring at him, too.)

He's blushing.

He can feel it.

The whole restaurant gets about fifteen degrees hotter.

He's screwed.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then Paul Nolan speaks up. “Hey, man,” he says. “C'mere.”

Adam hesitates. Like a serial killer on death row when the cell door opens that final time. He knows he has to walk, and to walk means to die.

They all walk, eventually.

Adam is no exception.

He walks like his legs have a mind of their own. Crosses the restaurant to the gods' table. Leaves the dirty dishes behind.

Janie Ng looks him up and down. “Hi there,” she says. She giggles.

“Hi,” Adam says.

Leanne Grayson nudges her, and they both collapse into laughter. Adam stands there and takes it. Wishes he was dead.

“Hey, man,” Paul Nolan says. “What's your name again?”

Adam clears his throat. “Adam,” he says. “Adam Higgs.”

“You missed the party, Adam,” Jessie McGill says. “Biggest party all year. Where were
you
?”

“Biggest party all year,” Rob Thigpen says. “Your sister was there. You had better things to do, though?”

Something about the way Rob Thigpen says it, the way the whole table laughs. The way he leers when he mentions Steph. The cocky smirk on his face—

(Something about Rob Thigpen, period.)

(The guy is an asshole.)

(He looks like the kind of guy who spends his summers on the Kennedy compound in, like, Martha's Vineyard or whatever. Gleaming white teeth, perfect hair. His daddy's BMW. Rob Thigpen is a spoiled brat.)

(But there's something else, too, something Adam can't
put his finger on. Something about Rob Thigpen that makes his Spidey sense tingle.

Could be just that he's probably hooking up with Steph.

Could be something else entirely.

Adam's not sure yet. But it bugs him.)

Right now, Adam would give just about anything to knock that smirk off of Rob Thigpen's face.

Except he knows he could never actually do it.

Because all he
really
wants is to be the one smirking, for a change. To be the one at the table. A god.

He knows he wants to win.

And right now, Adam's losing.

Adam doesn't do anything. He stands there in front of them and laughs along, like he's in on the joke. Like a jester in the king's court.

“Guess I had something else going on,” he says.

“Like
what
?” Sara Bryant's voice is breaking now, hysterical.
“Cleaning dirty pizza dishes?”

Everyone laughs. Funniest joke ever. Adam keeps his smile pasted. What else can he do?

“But seriously, though . . .” Rob Thigpen waits for the table to calm down. Fixes Adam with a stare, earnest. “It's great to meet you, Adam,” he says. “I just have one question.”

“Yeah,” Adam says. “What's up?”

Thigpen pauses.

Wait for it. . . .

Wait for it. . . .

“I was wondering—” Thigpen picks up his glass and rattles the ice. “Could you get me another Pepsi, man?”

Laughter.

Applause.

Drop curtain.

End scene.

Later that weekend, Adam finds Steph.

Asks her: “You went to Sara Bryant's party on Friday?”

Steph's texting. She doesn't have an iPhone either—

(doesn't even have a job)

—but she has a cell phone and it's better than nothing—

(which is exactly what Adam has).

Steph stops texting. She looks up at Adam. “Oh yeah,” she says. “Rob said he saw you at Pizza Hut yesterday. Great service, by the way.”

Adam brushes this off. “Why didn't you tell me you were going?”

“What, to the party?” Steph makes a face. “Maybe because I didn't know I had to check in with you every time I did something.”

“They're juniors. They're in
my
grade.”

“Yeah, but Rob's
my
friend.”

Adam thinks about Steph riding home in Rob's daddy's BMW. The hugs good-bye. Rob's wandering hands.

Some
friend
, he thinks.

“You have your own friends, Adam,” Steph's saying. “Who's that fat guy you always get high with?”

“He lives halfway across town. And he's not fat.”

Steph shrugs. “So get a bus pass. Don't put this party thing on me. You can't get invited, that's your problem.”

“Yeah,” Adam says. “Whatever.”

She looks at him. “Just quit trying to force it,” she says. “What's so great about hanging out with Rob Thigpen and his buddies, anyway?”

Adam looks at her.

Tries to think of an answer.

Something witty and all-encompassing.

Fails.

“Everything,” he says finally. “Just everything.”

“So did you make it to that party, or what?”

Sam and Adam are watching the hockey game on TV. It's the intermission and Adam is getting more Doritos from Sam's cupboard. He pauses when Sam asks the question. Keeps his nose in the cupboards, pretends like he's rummaging.

“Uh, no,” he says. “Had to work.”

“Shit,” Sam says. “Really? You couldn't get the night off?”

Adam turns around. Shrugs. “Guess they needed me or something. Lame, right?”

“What about after?” Sam says. “The Hut's not open that late. And parties don't really start until like eleven or midnight anyway. You could have just swung by after work.”

Adam pretends like he's looking for a bowl for the Doritos. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

Sam doesn't say anything for a long time, and the TV just blares some stupid car commercial, and Adam can tell that Sam's looking at him, watching him pour the Doritos into the big bowl, waiting for him to come back to the couch and sit down.

Adam takes his time, but it's not long enough.

Sam's still looking at Adam when he sits down. Looking at him like he'd do anything for a day in Adam's shoes.

(
Take them
, Adam thinks.)

“You don't like parties, huh?” Sam says after a while. “That's cool.”

“No,” Adam says. “That's not it. I do, I just—”

He stops.

(
I'm just a loser
, he thinks.)

“I was tired,” he says.

Sam sighs. “You gotta get out and do this stuff, Adam,” he says. “Do the fun stuff while you can. It's not going to be like this forever.”

Adam looks into the bowl of Doritos, like that toxic blend of monosodium glutamate and delicious chemical cheese can save him.

“It's not always going to be this way,” Sam says. “It's not always going to be just parties and girls. It gets taken from you before you even know what's happening.”

Sam pauses. “Hey,” he says. “Look at me.”

Adam wrenches his gaze from the bowl and looks at Sam. His withered, useless legs. His shitty apartment with its millions of safety bars and emergency nurse buttons. The wheelchair with the squeaky wheel in the corner.

“Even if you don't fuck around and get paralyzed, man, it's not going to be high school forever. Sooner or later, you're going to have to go out into the real world.

“And the real world?” Sam says. “The real world fucking sucks, Adam. You have to get out there and do it. You have to take what you can—everything you can—
while you can.
Understand?”

Adam does understand. He wants it. He wants to take it, just like Sam is saying. He just doesn't know how, exactly.

It's fucking frustrating.

Monday morning. Math class.

“Looked for you at Sara's party,” Darren says, sliding into the seat beside Adam. “You didn't make it?”

Adam closes his eyes.

It's too early for this.

“Like two hundred people showed up,” Darren says. “There was a Facebook blast and everything. It was crazy.”

“Yeah,” Adam says. “So I hear.”

“What's your cell number?” Darren says. “Next time, I'll text you.”

Good luck
, Adam thinks.

Then he thinks:

I need a cell phone.

More $$$.

More Pizza Hut.

More dirty dishes.

Then Adam thinks about Sam in his apartment, staring at the TV, thinking about all the lost chances he never got, wondering why his little brother is such a big fucking pussy.

“When's the next one?” he asks Darren. “I'll be there for sure.”

“Next party?” Darren frowns. “Dunno. They don't happen all
that
often. Man, you should have seen it. Janie Ng and
Leanne Grayson—”

“There's gotta be something,” Adam says. “What's going down this weekend?”

Darren shakes his head. “I dunno, man. Probably the usual. I guess everyone's going to Crash.”

And just like that, Adam knows what he has to do.

Crash.