The Karma Club (16 page)

The most hilarious part is this isn’t even really revenge. He brought this upon himself! This universal imbalance was obviously decided by a much higher force than just us. All we’re doing is making sure it becomes public knowledge.

And it’s really too bad . . . for Mason, I mean. Because had he not completely tossed me aside for Heather Campbell like I was a moldy piece of stale bread, I might have looked upon this little discovery a bit differently. I might not have felt the desire to anonymously share it with the Amherst College admissions office.

But I guess that’s water under the bridge now. Ironically, though, it’s the same bridge that Mason felt such a strong desire to burn the moment he finished crossing it.

At this point, it becomes pretty obvious to me whose side Karma is on. And what kind of birthday present it has in mind for Mason Brooks.

Monday morning, during
the break between first and second period, I’m in one of the stalls in the girls’ bathroom, daydreaming about what will happen when the two envelopes that we dropped anonymously in the mailbox this morning reach their final destinations of Amherst, Massachusetts (home of Amherst College), and Princeton, New Jersey (home of the College Board, which oversees the SAT). My daydreams are quickly interrupted, however, when I hear the door open and the sounds of high-pitched, girlie laughter flood into the tile-covered room. Which, by the way, does not make for the best acoustics when it comes to keeping your conversations to yourself. And this much is obvious when what I immediately recognize as Heather Campbell’s voice says, “Yeah, she is such a loser. It’s hard to imagine anyone still respecting her.”

Now, I’m not normally a paranoid person, but you can understand, given recent circumstances, why I might have a sneaking suspicion that Heather is talking about me. And for that reason, I stay quiet, thankful that I chose the very last stall.

“I mean, can you believe she even has the nerve to show her face at school?” Heather asks her bathroom companion.

“Totally not,” I hear the other person, whom I can only assume to be Jenna LeRoux, say.

But then I hear Heather say, “And I still have to hang out with her, you know, for the sake of looking like the supportive friend, but her reputation is totally toast.”

Okay, so now I’m sure she’s not talking about me because I definitely don’t remember Heather and me ever hanging out.

“It’s so sad how Jenna thinks that just because she hangs out with me people actually like her,” Heather continues.

My jaw immediately drops to the floor. Why is Heather bashing her best friend? Okay, that is
not
Jenna in here with her but someone else entirely. And this is how she talks about her
friends
? I can’t even imagine the stuff she must have said about me over the past month.

“Yeah,” agrees the mystery girl. “She’s totally lame.”

I immediately find this hilarious because it’s pretty obvious from what I’m overhearing that Heather will just as likely walk into another bathroom on another floor after another period and start saying nasty things about
this
girl to someone else. So the fact that she’s so faithfully pledging her loyalty to Heather Campbell is really somewhat comical.

Comical as in in-my-head funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny. Obviously.

“Yeah, and you know, just because she dated Spencer Cooper doesn’t automatically make her prom queen or anything,” Heather continues.

Wait a minute.
Dated
Spencer? As in past tense? When did they break up? This is news to me. Is that what Spencer was talking
about on Friday when he said he wasn’t going to Mason’s birthday party?

I instantly feel totally stupid for even entertaining the thought that his reason for skipping the party had anything to do with me. Clearly it didn’t. It was about Spencer not wanting to be around his now ex-girlfriend.

“Well, that much is obvious,” the other girl faithfully replies. “There’s no way she would ever beat you for prom queen.”

“Especially after what Spencer did to her last night,” Heather whispers, conspiratorially. It’s one of those whispers that’s only used for emphasis, not because you’re actually trying to hide what you’re saying from anyone.

What? What did he do?
I immediately wonder.

“Wait a minute. What did he do?” the other girl asks as if she’s able to hear my thoughts through the stall door.

Heather giggles. “You mean you don’t know? I thought everyone knew.”

I shake my head while inside I’m screaming,
I don’t! I don’t know!

“Omigod,” Heather begins in a low, traitorous voice. And I can tell just from the tone of it that she’s more than happy to retell this particular story about her supposed best friend. I lean closer to the stall door, anxious to hear every word that’s about to be said. “So last week Jenna tried to break up with Spencer because she said that they really weren’t a very good match. You know, because he’s kind of spoiled and all, with his parents owning like ten houses or whatever. Anyway, he got really pissed off that she was breaking up with him and because she told him he was uninvited to Mason’s birthday. So on Friday night, while the rest of us
were at the party, he snuck into the school and wrote something totally awful on her locker.” She pauses in anticipation. “Jenna and I saw it when we got to school this morning.”

“What did he write?” the other girl asks with unbridled eagerness.

“It’s so terrible, I don’t even think I can repeat it.”

She
does
repeat it. Except, despite the fact that I’m leaning so far forward I’m close to falling over, all I can hear are incomprehensible whispers.

“Poor Jenna,” the mystery girl replies solemnly.

“Yeah,” Heather says, trying her best to sound sympathetic. “Can you believe he did that to her?”

It
is
actually really hard for me to believe that Spencer would do that. I mean, it seems so petty and immature . . . whatever it is that he wrote. I know he has a reputation for being a jerk, but after tutoring him for these past two weeks, I’ve kind of gotten to know him, and he just doesn’t seem like the type of guy to write something nasty on a locker, no matter how pissed off he was.

My thoughts about Spencer are brought to a screeching halt when I hear Heather change subjects and say, “Ugh, I don’t know why I’m suddenly breaking out! I’ve gotten like three pimples in the past week!”

My face brightens, and I sit up a bit straighter on my throne, which I’m sure has now left a semipermanent red ring across my butt, but I don’t really care. I debate reaching into my backpack and taking out my cell phone to text Angie and Jade, but the thought of dropping it on the floor and being discovered after hiding out in here for the whole of this conversation makes me decide otherwise. So I bite my lip to keep from breaking out into
joyous laughter and listen as Heather’s new friend tries to fulfill her civic girl duty by telling Heather that she looks perfect and the pimples are hardly even noticeable.

Impatiently, I wait until they finally leave. Then I stand up, stretch my legs, because I have been sitting there for quite a while, and flush the toilet. I’m at least ten minutes late to my next class, but I hardly care. I take out my phone and text Jade and Angie, asking them if they think the jewelry store sells any charms in the shape of a big fat zit.

Heather’s unsightly blemishes
only get worse through the week. And people are starting to take notice. Because when the most popular girl in school, famous for her glistening amber hair and flawless skin, starts turning into a walking zit factory, it’s kind of hard to miss. On Wednesday, I even spot her wearing a baseball cap to cover up the breakouts on her forehead until a teacher makes her take it off because we’re not allowed to wear hats in school. Then, on Thursday, as she’s walking down the hallway, some guy yells out, “Hey, Heather, how about laying off the chocolate?”

And although she hides it pretty well by making a disparaging remark back to him, I can tell that it crushes her. By Friday, she’s called in sick. And she continues to call in sick the following Monday and Tuesday.

My friends and I take this as an obvious sign that we have reached yet another milestone in our campaign, and on Saturday
we set off to decide on the most appropriate victory charm to add to our bracelets.

The first thing Angie suggests is a mortar and pestle, and I have absolutely no idea what that even is. But apparently, it’s some official symbol for the pharmaceutical industry. It looks like an old-fashioned bowl or large cup (that’s the mortar part) with a rounded sticklike mixing device (the pestle). Then on the side of the bowl are the letters
Rx
. Angie says she’s forced to stare at the one hanging over the pharmacy section of Mr. Miller’s drugstore all day.

I guess it makes sense after our night playing pharmacist in Heather’s bathroom. And surprisingly we are able to find a charm in the shape of this very symbol online. I guess there are a lot of pharmacists out there with charm bracelets. From the minute I clasp it on, I have a feeling it might draw attention, because it’s sort of a random thing for a teen to have on her bracelet.

And this is exactly what happens the Tuesday after next, when I’m tutoring Spencer again, this time in the dining room of his house as opposed to the school library. “Why do you have a pharmacy symbol on your charm bracelet?” he asks.

I decide to play dumb. “Huh?”

Spencer reaches over and touches the dangling silver charm on my bracelet. “Isn’t that the symbol for a pharmacist?”

I look down at what he’s touching, and for a second the only thing I can focus on is how close his fingertips are to the back side of my wrist. Which is ridiculous because I’m not interested in Spencer Cooper whatsoever, especially after what he did to Jenna last week. Not that I’m a big fan of Jenna or anything, but still, not a cool thing to do. And second of all . . . well, I’m just not
interested in him period. So I really shouldn’t care if his skin is now mere millimeters away from mine.

I subtly pull my wrist away and execute a very dramatic pen-reaching move to cover the fact that I just purposely avoided his touch. Then I say, “Oh, that? Um, yeah. I’m not sure why I have it.”

Smooth. Real smooth, Madison.

And then Spencer looks at me funny and says, “What do you mean you’re not
sure
? Didn’t you put it on there? Or were you attacked by the evil charm fairy?”

Okay, I don’t really appreciate his sarcasm right now. Especially when I’m struggling to get myself out of this mess without doing any permanent damage.

I reach back and scratch my head even though it doesn’t really itch, but for some reason this seems to be the thing people do when they’re trying to come up with believable stories on the fly. I’ll be the first to document in writing that it doesn’t work.

“Yes,” I say, somewhat rudely. “Of course I put it there. I just don’t know what it means.”

Spencer nods warily. He either thinks I’m lying or has decided I’m totally crazy. At this point, I’m not really sure which scenario I would prefer. I’m hoping that he’ll just drop the whole thing and forget about me and my stupid charms. In order to facilitate that outcome, I point down at the textbook in front of us and say, “So, is this whole pronoun replacement thing starting to make sense to you yet?”

But of course, he doesn’t let it go. He doesn’t care about pronoun replacements or anything else in that textbook. All he cares about is solving the mystery of the unaccounted-for charm. Like
he’s freaking Sherlock Holmes or something and figuring out the stories behind strange, out-of-place charms is his life’s passion.

What a loser.

“I’m just wondering because it seems like every time you tutor me, you have a new charm on your bracelet. Did someone give you the pharmacist charm?”

I nod slowly and say, “Yes.” Because that seems like the right answer even though I’m not quite sure why.

Spencer shoots me another strange look. “And the person who gave it to you didn’t tell you why?”

I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and stare down at the page. “Uh-huh. That’s about the gist of it.”

Spencer begins to tap his notebook rapidly with the tip of his pen. “Okay. That’s kind of weird, but whatever.”

I nearly breathe a heavy sigh of relief when he turns his attention to the open textbook on the table. Except it doesn’t stay there. A few seconds later, he looks at me again.
Oh my God, he’s not going to let this stupid thing go,
I think. But instead he simply asks, “Do you want a soda?”

Even though I don’t really want one, I say yes. Spencer gets up and heads to the kitchen. He returns a minute later carrying two cans of soda. I take one, pop the top, and sip it slowly. I’m not thirsty, but I don’t want to be rude. My dad always taught me that when you’re a guest in someone’s home you eat what they put on your plate and you drink what they offer you. Although I’m guessing that, when he said that, he wasn’t talking about those parent-free house parties where someone puts a beer in your hand the minute you walk through the door.

For a brief moment, Spencer and I sip our sodas in silence. It’s kind of awkward, but honestly, I’m not sure why. I mean, I know
I should just continue on with what I came here to do, help him with his French homework. But for some reason all I want to do is ask him about Jenna. Ask him why he would write something so terrible across her locker in red spray paint.

I saw it for myself yesterday before the school janitors sandblasted it off, and let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. You really have to detest someone to write something like that for the whole world to see. And the more I sit there thinking about it, pretending to be all into my can of soda, the more I dislike him for it. It’s just kind of tacky and classless.

“So, should we get back to it?” Spencer says after downing the last of his drink.

I force myself to smile and set my soda off to the side. “Yep, let’s get cracking. Your parents
are
paying me by the hour.”