#scandal (12 page)

“I’m just saying, if you’re so fair and balanced, you should support all forms of journalism. Even Miss Demeanor’s.” I grab my phone and sign into the ground zero of my Facebook account. A few taps later, I’m an official Miss Demeanor fan, dashing off a private message to the great adviser of our time.

From: Lucy Vacarro

Dear Miss Demeanor:

With your finger on the pulse of Lav-

Oaks’s most popular gossip channel, you likely already know me. I’ve recently been embroiled in a scandal over some photos taken at a 136

postprom party, in part because of your ongoing encouragement of scandal documentation.

In a sense, one might say you owe me.

No judgments, of course. I realize that you trade in scandalmongering and I’m not one to impede the life choices of fellow students. Still, you’re nothing if not fair and balanced, and I thought you might like to know the truth.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I didn’t post those photos, and I didn’t have sexual relations with the male subject in those photos.

I’d like to clear my name and patch things up with my best friend, who is currently not speaking to me because of this disaster (the male subject was, until recently, her boyfriend).

I’m sure you’re aware.

Anyway, word on the streets of Lav-Oaks is that you’re the one to go to for advice. So . . . got any for me?

Yours

truly,

Vilified

and

Illified

“Vilified and Illified?” Franklin laughs when I show him the message.

“You know advice columns. It’s all, ‘Stranded in 137

Sacramento’ or ‘Heartsick and Hopeless.’ I’m trying to be legit.”

“The
Explorer
doesn’t require you to feign legitimacy.

Illified
, good grief.”

I sign out of Facebook feeling slightly less destroyed than I did when Ellie gave me the shove-off. Thankfully, Jayla didn’t screw up the chocolate pudding cup portion of my lunch hour, and I hold the dessert up in a toast. “Franklin old chap, I’ve been called much worse and lived to tell the tale.”

He raises his ginger ale, giving me his sly, lopsided smile. “Indeed.”

138

WITH FRIENDS LIK E THESE, NO

WONDER ANGELICA DARLING

WHACKS ALL OF HERS

MISS DEMEANOR

2,983 likes
C

788 talking about this

Wednesday, April 30

Today’s Wednesday Words of Wisdom—a meme I just made up since it’s Wednesday and I’m both wordy and wise—go out to a couple of former friends in the midst of a thorny #scandal, the details of which have been widely publicized.

139

In such situations of the backstabbing nature, I like to ask, WWAD—what would Angelica do?

Anytime a friend has double-crossed Miss Darling, she’s had them killed, a move that in this case is neither an option nor a good idea. Although I sometimes confuse the two myself, this is real life, not television. While real bestie betrayals aren’t unheard of, interested parties would be wise to fully investigate the evidence. Ending a friendship is a serious, often irreversible decision, and without absolute proof of betrayal, you could be making a grave mistake.

If you’re the wronger, on the other hand, and you’re looking to make things right, why not come forth with your honest, heartfelt feelings? If you need a forum in which to carve open that vein, Miss D is your girl, girl.

Call me Switzerland, ’cause I’m impartial. Or is that neutral? Either way, consider this an invitation to let your voice be heard!

Speaking of hearing voices, in dramatic times such as this, let’s all remember the old chestnut: Assumptions make an ASS out of YOU and UMPTIONS. I don’t know who Umptions is, but I’m pretty sure if he were 140

a Lav-Oaks student, he’d focus on more pressing issues, like planning the senior prank. Maybe we could redirect our collective angst into something more productive, such as relocating Principal Zeff’s car to the roof or giving the iron Swordfish statue a gender reassignment? Just throwing suggestions out there, people. Class secretary and horse lover Margo Hennessy tells me the official planning meeting is in the you-know-where on you-know-what at precisely you-know-when-o’clock. Unless you
don’t
know, in which case you won’t know what you’re missing.

It’s all very meta, and you know what I’m missing? An adult beverage.

xo ~
Ciao!
~ xo

Mis Demeanor

141

IF YOU CAN’T BE AT ’EM, JOIN ’EM, THEN BE AT ’EM AF T ER ALL THE

JOINING, BECAUSE THE Y TOTALLY

WON’T SEE THAT SHIT C OMING

M
ust be a slow news week if both the newspaper editor and the gossip blogger are offering me page time.

Not to mention Asher’s (e)VIll invite yesterday. Way to rally around a crisis, random people I’ve never talked to before!

After besting my Fruit Ninja score on the walk to school, I flip my iPad case closed and sip my coffee, Black & Brew forgiven on account of my addiction being more important than petty vendettas. Today was another early-to-riser for me, and I enter the building with a clear mission: swap a few books at my locker and slide into homeroom without any confrontations, accusations, or invitations.

142

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the sudden support—

particularly in light of the explosive popularity of the Juicy page—but my besties shouldn’t need to read my defense in the newspaper or Facebook court. This is a private matter among friends (and, okay, some not-so-friendly acquaintances who got swept up in the photo scandal),
not
some save-the-whales, antisocial-media rallying cry.

Unless I get a free T-shirt and/or Chipotle veggie burrito out of the deal, I’m no one’s poster child.

Even though my locker is now covered in posters.

Pay no attention to the woman behind this curtain of mystery
and contradiction!

“We tried to get them off,” John explains as I approach.

Cole’s there too, scraping at my locker with fierce determination, drumsticks poking out of his back pocket. They must’ve had band rehearsal in the gym this morning—

Vanitas is playing at the pep rally next week.

There’s a stack of shredded posters at their feet, but the wallpaperist who did this was serious about longevity.

Printouts of the infamous bedroom shot are duct-taped to my locker in layers.

“Creative,” I mumble. According to the liner notes scrawled over the photos, I’m a narc, a slut, a home wrecker,
and
an ugly C-word who needs to get some. “Yet inconsistent.”

143

With my back against the adjacent locker, I sink to the floor. Coldness seeps through my ripped denim shorts, through my purple fishnets, straight to my skin. I can’t bring myself to look at John, but I apologize about the pond pictures anyway.

“You kidding? That’s the funniest shit I’ve ever done.

Don’t worry about me.” He tilts my chin up to meet his eyes, and I’m relieved by his familiar smile. “Got it?” I smile in response. Maybe random, sudden support isn’t so bad after all.

“Gotta bounce.” John tugs on one of my braids and knocks against Cole’s shoulder. “Catch up with you later.” On his way out, he scoops up the torn posters, pitches them into the trash.

Cole slices at my locker with his car keys, trying unsuccessfully to tear down another layer.

“Leave it,” I say. “They’ll just put more up later. Obviously someone’s determined to humiliate me.”

“Us,” Cole says. With a key, he points to one of the pictures and taps his pixelated face. “We’re in it together.” Inside, warmth tangles with guilt like a weed choking a flower, and I scan the hall for cell phone snipers. A handful of teachers dot the dim corridor, but it’s early yet; most of my classmates are still home toasting their Pop-Tarts.

Cole crouches in front of me, head bent close. “Looked 144

for you in the woods last night,” he says softly. “No Lucy.

No Night of the Living Dog. Spike misses his bestie.”

“Yeah, things are kind of crazy at home. My parents are in California and my sister’s back for the summer, so there’s . . . that.”

Also, I didn’t want to run into you alone. I’m avoiding you
because every time you look at me like that, it hurts. Stop looking
at me like that. Don’t ever stop looking at me like that.

Cole shifts around and sits next to me, setting his sticks on the floor. Our shoulders are touching and it’s all
aren’t-we-the-greatest-of-pals
, except for my heart, which is spazzing in a very nonpals way.

“Things any better with you and Jay?” he asks. He was the one who drove Ellie to pick me up at DIA after last summer’s California disaster. I didn’t share the specifics, but it was obvious we’d had a major fight.

“So-so,” I say. “She’s . . . trying.” I pull my knees to my chest, wrap myself in a hug. “She feels bad about all the scandal stuff.”

“Yeah.” Cole runs a hand through his perpetual bed-head. “Finally talked to Ellie last night. Five whole minutes.”

“That’s about five times what she’s giving me.”

“Pretty sure she hates me more than she hates you,” he says.

“If she hated you, she wouldn’t have a reason to hate 145

me, because the hater and the hated . . . it doesn’t . . . You know that saying? Like, your enemy’s enemy is not your enemy, so you—”

“That’s it. We’re switching to decaf.” Cole leans across me and nabs my coffee cup. He takes a swig like we’ve known each other forever, and only now, in the aftermath of all the sparks, do I realize he’s always done it. Every dinner-and-a-movie he and Ellie third-wheeled me on, every botched double date, Cole always ate the fries off my plate, always stole the grand finale bite of my grilled cheese on rye or brownie à la mode. Not Ellie’s, but mine, like we had this unspoken fry-sharing agreement, and I never questioned it. It was just our thing, accepted and unremarkable, significant only in the remembering.

“After graduation,” he says, returning the coffee. His copper-green eyes are full of light again, the posters behind him dull in comparison. “Deal?”

“What about Ellie?”

“Oh, that girl will
never
go decaf. She’s way—oh.” Cole stops when he sees my face, T minus one second to eye roll. My knee gets an encouraging squeeze. “Sucks. Like, there’s all this sadness in her voice and I’m the one who put it there and it kills me. I mean, I get it. She’s fuming about the pictures, fuming that neither of us said anything earlier about . . .” His hand waves between us,
you and me
,
me and
146

you
. “Things. Us. I wish I knew how to make it okay for her. For you. All of it.”

My brain is all,
There were
earlier
things?
Us
things?
Earlier us
things?
But my mouth just goes for the gold with,

“Yeah.”

“Miss Vacarro. Mr. Foster.” Principal Zeff nods curtly as she breezes down the hall, polished and put together as usual. If she notices the posters on my locker, she doesn’t stop to investigate, to check whether they meet the “bullying on school property” handbook criteria. “Glad to see you two getting an early start on your education.” Once she’s out of earshot, I ask, “How does someone see two scowling kids sitting on the floor and think it has anything to do with education?”

“We’re in the a building half hour before the bell,” he says. “And we’re not smokin’ a jay in the bathroom with 420. What else
could
she think?”

“I’m still scowling. You see that, right?” Cole pretends to erase my grimace, fingertips grazing my lips. “Take it off, because I have an awesome fun idea and you’re not allowed to shoot it down.”

“I’ve already had my eight minutes of fun,” I say. “Your contract has thus released you from further obligation.” There’s something dangerous in joking about that night, but it feels normal, too. Easy, like the fry-and-coffee stealing 147

thing. And even though my locker is covered in damning evidence and my lips still tingle from his touch, it’s so good to laugh with him, so real, and when he returns my smile, it’s all,
Wow. This is what home feels like.

“We’re hitting up the prank meeting tonight.” Cole nods, triumphant, like Franklin asserting the superiority of the
Explorer
yesterday.

“Are you pranking me right now?” I ask. “Because in the words of Miss Demeanor, that’s very meta.”

“Shhh!” Cole presses his fingers to his temples. “I’m pretending I didn’t just hear you admit to reading Miss Demeanor, and you’re agreeing to my idea instead.”

“Dude. We can’t show up at a group thing, like,
together
.”

“You’re shooting me down, Luce. We talked about this.”

“Have you
seen
my fan page?” I bang the locker with my fist. “This crap?”

“Yeah, but we can rise above.” He takes one of my braids in his fingers, rolls it absently. “You know that old saying, if you can’t beat ’em—”

“Join ’em by giving them more photo ops for the poster project? Good plan.”

“That’s not . . . Okay. You know that scene in
Walking
Dead
when Rick and Glenn go zombie undercover in that 148

dude’s guts?” He drops the braid and reaches for the coffee, takes another swig. This time he balances the cup on his knee when he’s done, nestled perfectly in a hole in his jeans. “Something tells me you’re not getting the ‘joining’

metaphor here.”

“It’s possible you’ve misinterpreted that scene,” I say.

“Not surprising, coming from a self-professed zombie

‘dabbler.’”

Cole raises an eyebrow.

“That scene functions on multiple levels,” I say. “From a plot perspective, they needed to get to the truck without calling attention to themselves. By wrapping themselves in guts, they could trick the zombies long enough to get past the horde.”

“But what about—”

“Symbolically, it was a spiritual turning point. They had to die a metaphorical death—become zombies themselves, temporarily—so they could be reborn into a world where the dead walk and the living are losing their humanity. It was one of the last scenes where they still treated the zombies as humans, as lives that had been cut short by a freak accident. That’s why they checked the dead guy’s license before they gutted him and said he was an organ donor.”