The Diamonds (21 page)

Mike called himself a semiprofessional skateboarder, which I later found out simply meant that he
fell down a lot and had anointed himself with a skater name: Turbo. At another school, Mike might have been popular. But at Bennington, where popped collars and football helmets reigned supreme, Mike was a total joke.

In one of the Diamonds’ first rulings
(Rockford v. Samuels)
, Emily Rockford, a well-liked junior, had claimed that Mike told her she was “hot” at a house party and it had made her uncomfortable. The Diamonds ruled in her favor and told Mike that he was no longer allowed to attend any parties thrown by Bennington students. The last I heard, he'd shown up at Ryan's party that fateful night Anderson and I were “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” (Will Smith, 1998); not only had he been turned away, but Tiger had punched him in the stomach and poured a cup of beer on his head. (I didn't have the best night, either, but come on. That sucks.)

NAME: Monique French ROLE: Foreign

Monique would have been pretty were it not for her mustache. She'd been born in Paris but had traveled all over Europe and lived in six different countries by the time she was fourteen. Her father was some sort of diplomat; she'd moved to Manhattan when she was fifteen and then to Long Island, where she'd started at Bennington as a junior. That was never good. I had a hard enough time starting at Bennington as a freshman, and my only savior from social oblivion was Clarissa. At sixteen, it's pretty hard to make new friends, especially if you carry a baguette in your backpack and speak with an accent. Monique knew, like, ten different languages, though, and served as the student body liaison between the foreign language department and all the different clubs.

Monique would be an advantage if we needed anything to be translated (you never know) and also if we needed anyone with a mustache.

NAME: Jenny Murphy
ROLE: Byotch

Then there was Jenny, who you already know about.

There's not much else to say. She was probably the first person at Bennington to hate Clarissa and, for some reason, one of the few to be left alone by the Diamond Court. (Jenny had quit the mock trial team soon after the Diamonds took over, yet had never appeared before the court herself.)

Jenny was an enigma and would definitely be the hardest to persuade, seeing as how she
hated
my
guts
.

There were others we could have asked, I suppose, but it was a delicate situation. We needed people who were trustworthy and had nothing to lose. People who weren't afraid—like Sharon Wu—of ending up worse off than when they began. I debated mentioning my idea to Mr. Townsen but thought better of it.
He
was the one who'd supported Clarissa from the beginning, who'd given her the unrestricted ability to usurp the Bennington mock trial team and hypnotize them into becoming her Bedazzled army of followers. Even though he supported Clarissa without question, there was no way I could depend on him to do the same for me.

Especially when I would be battling her to the finish.

I left it up to Tommy to do the talking on my behalf. Two days later, we decided on a time and place to meet. We couldn't meet at school, for risk of being overheard, and I suggested Anderson's house.

“That's an awful idea,” Tommy said. We were standing outside the back entrance of the school. “What if he overhears us?”

I hadn't come right out and said I wanted Anderson to be a part of whatever it was we were doing, but I figured Tommy would understand. Anderson's friends had stopped talking to him, and the football team was extra-hard on him during practice. (They took the term “physical” to the extreme; there wasn't an afternoon when Anderson came home without a new bruise.) Besides, I wanted him around more than anything.

I gave Tommy an “And I Am Telling You [He's] Not Going” look
(Dreamgirls
,1981) and he shrugged and said, “Whatever. I'll make sure everyone is there by three-thirty. The rest is up to you. As long as you write the exposé, of course, and I can print it in the paper.”

“Of course.”

Tommy was all business.

Now I just had to go find Anderson and convince him to let the biggest losers at Bennington convene at his house for the sole purpose of destroying the Diamonds.

Piece of (chocolate) cake.

In a strange twist of fate, Anderson was all for it. The conversation went something like this:

ANDERSON

(looking like a supermodel)

Marni, love of my life, the most important person in my

entire world! No, my
universe!

ME

(becoming thinner with every single word I say)

Oh, Anderson!

ANDERSON

(taking off his shirt to reveal a chiseled torso)

Do you know that Michael Jackson song “The Way You

Make Me Feel”?

ME

(panting, and suddenly in designer clothes)

Yes! Yes, I do!

ANDERSON

(panting back at me)

Well, you make me feel like that!

ME

(slightly confused but still panting and still in designer

clothes)

What?

ANDERSON

(with feeling)

Kiss me!

ME

(with tongue)

Mmmggah …

Okay, so maybe I took a
few
liberties with that transcription, but Anderson
was
fully supportive of
any extracurricular meeting with the sole purpose of dethroning Clarissa, Priya, and Lili.

“I'll tell my mom to make some snacks,” he said, giving me a quick kiss before heading off to class. Anderson was slowly warming up to public displays of affection; whenever he touched me in front of other people, my insides went gooey, like a brownie taken out of the oven a few minutes too soon.

When I arrived at Anderson's, the gang was all there—sort of. Monique was perched on his den sofa as if it were a piano and she a sultry lounge singer in her prime; she was wearing a long, flowy dress that could have easily been mistaken for a muumuu. (It was cow print.) An unlit cigarette dangled from her lip.

“I smoke now,
oui
?” Her lips were smothered in purplish lipstick.

“You can't smoke in here,” Anderson said. He was at the other end of the room, reclining in an oversized suede chair. “Sorry.”

“Eeet's okay,” Monique said, removing her beret, tossing the cigarette inside, and positioning the cap back on her head.

“Where's Tommy?” I said to no one in particular. Mike was admiring Anderson's guitar. His pants were baggy and littered with holes, and he was wearing a T-shirt that said
Death 2 Posers
.

“He went to the bathroom,” came a voice from the other room. The timbre—nasal and high—could have
been linked to only one person. Boyd. “I hope he's not taking a poop, because that could take forever.”

On first glance Boyd looked like most any other Bennington guy: a slim pair of chinos, a starched oxford shirt, a comfortable tie. On closer inspection, though, his outfit was trademarked with his own personal flair. A shiny belt peeked out from the top of his slacks. Plus his tie was pink enough for a flamingo to envy.

Boyd must have noticed me staring, because he looked down at his chest and laughed. “Oh, this? It's reversible.” He flipped over his tie; on the other side were the Bennington colors, blue and white. “It's like, if I wear it on this side, I'm
bo
ring, but if I flip it over”—he made it pink again, effortlessly—“I'm am-
a
-zing!”

Anderson pinched me, and I applauded. “Wow!” I said. “That's so, um …”

“Diva? I know,” Boyd said, setting a tray of drinks down on a metal coffee table with an intentionally tarnished finish. “Refreshments!”

Monique twitched her nose in the air. “Martinis?”

“Nope. Fanta, Fanta,” Boyd sang, and then, suggestively: “Don't you wanna?”

I reached for two glasses—for Anderson and me. It was then that I noticed Jenny Murphy huddled in the corner, pressed against the wall as though she were a light fixture. “Jenny?” I called from across the room.

Her face twisted into an awkward hello. “Are you
planning on keeping us here forever? I have things to do, you know.”

I returned Anderson's pinch.

“Uh, so, Jenny,” he said, “do you want to see one of my paintings?”

“I didn't know you were an artist,” she said, looking intrigued.

“I'm a
fart
ist,” said Boyd.

Anderson got up from the chair; without his body to lean against, I fell into the empty spot. “These are all mine.” Anderson motioned at the long wall with enough artwork to be a small museum.

“Dude,” Mike said. “Kewl. Also, can you guys call me Turbo?”

I let Anderson show off for a few minutes, until Tommy appeared in the doorway, cheeks flushed, hair damp around his ears.

“I hope you washed your hands,” said Boyd teasingly. “Because if we do a trust circle or group massages, that would be p-r-e-t-t-y gross.” He looked around at us—his audience—and bowed. “Am I right or am I right?”

Tommy started to respond but stopped himself. “We're just waiting for two more people and then we can begin.”

I looked at Tommy, shocked. “One minute,” I said, pulling him out of the den and into the hallway. “What are you talking about? Everyone we need is in the other room.”

Tommy seemed anxious. “Don't get mad at me, but I invited two other people.”

“I thought we were in this together, Tommy.
Partners
. Partners don't go behind each other's backs and invite people without their approval to secret meetings!”

“I know, I know,” Tommy said. “But I knew that if I asked, you'd say no, and well, we
need
them.”

There was a lot more yelling to be done at Tommy, but now wasn't the time. Not with people in the other room who were ready to leave at any second. “Fine,” I said. “Who are they?”

I heard footsteps heading in our direction. My gaze shifted from Tommy—who looked as nervous as a thirteen-year-old at his bar mitzvah—to the guests who'd been invited to our undercover rendezvous without my knowledge.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

“Marni?” said a formal baritone.

“Jed?”

As you may have expected, there was an incredibly awkward silence, the kind you could slice with a knife and smear on a chunk of bread. Tommy cleared his throat. “So, uh, does everybody know each other?”

Yes. Everyone knew each other. It was such a motley crew, however, that I wouldn't have been surprised if this was the first time any of them had hung out together after school. Bennington was like that: small
enough to feel incestuous, but large enough to hide behind self-constructed walls. I stared at Boyd with his pink tie, Monique with her mustache, and Turbo with his skater getup, wondering whether I would have even said hello to these people before I graduated if Jed had never dumped me and Clarissa had never exiled me from the Diamonds.

“You all want to know why you're here, I'm sure,” I said, letting my eyes linger on Jed, who was sitting next to Darcy, seeming unsure of what to do with his hands. I understood why Tommy had wanted them to come—Jed had a lot of pull with the faculty and knew how to impress a crowd, while Darcy was basically Queen of the stoners, ballers, and after-school cigarette smokers—but the sight of them together made me sick to my stomach.

Not to mention that Jed had never even apologized for cheating on me. And dumping me. In public.

“I can't take back what I did when I was a Diamond,” I continued. “I've certainly made some mistakes, but I'm ready to fix them. And I want to start with overthrowing the Diamonds. Tommy and I are going to expose them for who they truly are, and we can't do it without you.”

“You want our help?” asked Monique, scooching as close to Anderson as possible. “What can
we
do?”

Tommy reached into his backpack, removed the book I'd given him, and held it up for everyone to see. “You all took American history, right?”