Winner Takes All (2 page)

She looked down at her fingernails again and started chipping away more polish. “I’ll do it on one condition: You stick with me at all times. I don’t want to look stupid, not knowing an answer to some campaign question. Once I say yes, you can’t abandon me.”

“Of course!” Celia yelped. She wrapped her arms around her friend and new campaign partner. “I’ll never leave your side. I promise. I’ll stick to you like Poochie does when you invade his territory,” she added.

“Ugh. Just what I needed. More Poochie problems.”

They both laughed, neither of them knowing that as far as problems went, Poochie would be their smallest.

Celia should have been totally mentally prepared for what she was about to do—that is, dance around the truth in front of her favorite school counselor, Ms. Perdomo, as she turned in the nomination form with Mariela’s name on it. But there was one thing she was not ready for: slamming into her crush, Lazaro Crespi, right as she walked through the main office door.

“Whoa!” Laz yelled as she stepped on his brand-new Jordans. Her face collided with his shoulder, and she saw the red blur of his Miami Heat jersey as she stumbled backward.

As she regained her balance, she rubbed her cheek and cried, “Owww,” while trying to think of something to say. Laz, though, spoke first.

“You okay, Celia?” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder to steady her, then letting it drop back to his side. “Lemme guess—you were too busy thinking about the periodic table to watch where you were going?”

“Yeah, because thinking about science is all I ever do,
Lazaro.
”

Celia didn’t know why, but every time she managed to talk to Laz, they always ended up picking on each other. She couldn’t help being really mean to him; it was the only thing she could do to keep from getting nervous and stuttering. At least Laz took it well. He always laughed off her cut-downs, giving her an honest smile and joking right back at her. Though she hadn’t been thinking about the periodic table, she
had
used the scientific method months ago to figure this out: Laz’s jokes probably meant he liked her—but only as a friend.

Celia looked at Laz’s chain—thick and silver and hanging low outside of his shirt. She’d never seen it before.
Must be new
, she thought.
It’s really nice.

“Whose bike you steal that off of?” she said as she lifted the chain and let it drop back on his shirt with a thump. “Or did your mom just put a bike on layaway and all you got now was the chain?”

“Ha-ha,” Laz fake laughed. “Actually, it’s an early birthday present from my dad. He sent it to me from Puerto Rico. You like it?”

“When’s your birthday?” Celia asked.

“Next month. October nineteenth.”

“Why doesn’t your
dad
know that?”

Laz sucked his teeth and smiled. “I guess I walked right into that one.”

“Ya sure did, buddy!” she said.
Buddy?
Why was she such a dork? And why was she encouraging him to think of her as a friend rather than as the love of his life, which she was sure was the case? She slow-motion punched him in the arm, another dork-move.

Then there was a very awkward, very uncomfortable pause. Celia searched her mind for something—anything—to say, just to keep Laz talking to her. She pulled on the straps of her book bag, remembering the form inside the folder—her whole point for coming down to the school’s office. Laz blinked and she stared at his dark eyebrows, by far her favorite part of his face.

“So then you’re gonna be thirteen, huh?” she finally said, the best and nicest-sounding thing she could come up with.

“Yup,” Laz said, looking over her shoulder and down the hall.

Think
, she told herself.
Too bad you still look like a fifth grader.
No, that was mean, and it wasn’t true either.
Is it hard for you to be an age that you can’t count on your fingers?
Also mean, and he might not get it.
Are you gonna have a birthday party or something?
There, that was perfect! Casual and nice, and it was a question! Boys loved when you asked them questions, right? Hadn’t she read that in one of Mari’s fashion magazines? And if he was having a party, it would give him a chance to invite her—

“I better get back to homeroom,” Laz said.

She’d missed her chance. Once again, her nerdy brain was thinking too much, and now Laz was walking away.

“See ya,” she yelled when he was a few feet away from her.

He turned around, lifted an eyebrow at her, and waved good-bye.

Celia stepped toward the double doors of the main office, trying to get her mind off Laz and his eyebrows and remember what she was there to do. Then she felt the weight of her book bag on her shoulders and remembered: Mariela and the election. She braced herself for the super-cold airconditioning that would hit her the second she
walked into the maze of the school’s administrative brain. She pushed through the doors.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite little
chica
, Ms. Celia Martinez! Please, come in!” Ms. Perdomo said from behind her big metal desk. She had her hair slicked back and parted in a zigzag pattern and she wore her funky glasses—thick dark green frames that, though ugly on their own, somehow made her face look really pretty.

Ms. Perdomo’s office was along the back wall of the main office. The room was small but bright, and it always smelled like mangos. She had an unlit mango candle on her desk and a bowl of mango-scented potpourri perched on the bookshelf behind her. Sometimes when Ms. Perdomo visited a classroom or even just walked by in the hallway, the mango smell trailed behind her like a fruity phantom. Whenever Celia and her mom shopped for groceries, the overflowing bin of mangos in the store’s produce section made Celia think of her favorite counselor.

Ms. Perdomo was the most active administrator. She had been in charge of organizing the science fair last year when Celia won, she was the student council advisor, and she’d been the
school’s election coordinator ever since she joined Coral Grove’s staff. She was the youngest of all the counselors, and Celia’s mom once said that that was why Ms. Perdomo was so active, because she hadn’t “burned out” yet.

“So are you here to make my day and tell me you’re running for seventh grade representative?” Ms. Perdomo said as she rubbed her hands together and swiveled in her desk chair.

Celia swung her book bag off her shoulder and planted it in the visitor’s chair. She unzipped it and said, “Urn, not exactly.”

Once she found the form, which was kept crisp and pristine in a brand-new folder that Celia had labeled
Marie la’s Campaign Papers
, she handed it to Ms. Perdomo. The counselor kept the smile on her face, but as she scanned the name on the form, Celia thought she saw it droop just a little bit.

“Oh. Ms. Mariela Cruz! Excellent, excellent.” She placed the form on her desk. “Looks like everything’s in order, then—for Mariela. You have a minute to sit with me, Celia?”

This was what Celia had been dreading. Because of the science fair, Ms. Perdomo knew Celia pretty well. She knew about Celia’s tendency to slip into Presentation Mode and about Celia’s
failed attempts to join the drama clique. Ms. Perdomo even knew Celia’s family. Celia’s brother, Carlos, had gone to Coral Grove, and Ms. Perdomo always asked Celia about how he was doing over at Hialeah High.

“Sure,” Celia said. She lifted her book bag off the chair and sat in it, hugging the bag to her chest.

Ms. Perdomo leaned forward in her desk and smiled. She said, “I want to know why
you
aren’t running.”

This was one of the things Celia liked about her counselor. Ms. Perdomo just
said
things; she spoke her mind and was very direct with people. There was no banter, no back-and-forth conversation to warm up to things, as with the other counselors. Celia loved when adults just spoke to her like they’d speak to one another. It reminded her of the way the Dog Whisperer just told people why their dog was so bad:
No, no, no
—
this is
your
fault.

Celia started spilling out the list of reasons she’d practiced in her head on the car ride to school that morning. “I have a million reasons, Ms. Perdomo. First of all, I’m too busy with other school activities to run. Second, Mariela is my friend and I wouldn’t want to run against a friend.
Third, I wouldn’t want my position as representative interfering with my schoolwork. Fourth, politics has always struck me as corrupt—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Ms. Perdomo said, holding her hands up in surrender. “Once you’re in ‘Presentation Mode,’ there’s no stopping you.”

Ms. Perdomo crossed her arms over her chest, disturbing a bunch of cool buttons pinned to her blazer. She wore different ones every day. The buttons always said weird, random things, like “Area Woman” or “Fancy Pants.” Today’s button read
BUTTON
, and the one underneath it said
IRONY
. She wore a third one that just had the face of a very old dog on it—one of Celia’s longtime favorites.

“So if you’re turning in this form for her,” Ms. Perdomo said, “does that mean you’ll be helping Mariela with her campaign as her ‘campaign manager’?”

Ms. Perdomo held her arms out and made air quotes with her fingers around the words “campaign manager.” If Celia hadn’t been so suddenly worried about what Ms. Perdomo might really be asking, she would have laughed. Ms. Perdomo did air quotes way too much, and it was the only thing that seemed lame and teacher-ish about her.

“It would be safe for you to assume that, yes, but it’s not what you think—”

Ms. Perdomo covered her ears with her hands and sang, “La la la, I can’t hear you! I can’t hear your excuses for why you aren’t running! La la la.”

Celia stopped talking and tried to smile. Sometimes she thought Ms. Perdomo could use a counselor herself, but that was why she loved her. Ms. Perdomo’s hands came down.

“I accept this form, which officially makes Mariela a candidate for seventh grade representative to the student council. There. You happy?”

“Very,” Celia said. She almost breathed a sigh of relief. Almost.

“Well, I’m not,” Ms. Perdomo said.

Here it comes
, Celia thought, glad she hadn’t taken that breath. Now Ms. Perdomo was going to admit she was onto Celia’s plan and forbid her from following through on it. Here came the long talk about self-confidence, about being true to yourself. Here came Ms. Perdomo’s crazy claim that a nerdy girl with a semi-Afro and crooked teeth could actually win a popularity contest. It was all the stuff counselors were supposed to say, but that Celia was sure they couldn’t possibly
believe.

But to Celia’s surprise, Ms. Perdomo wasn’t onto her plan—she didn’t even mention that stuff. She said something much worse.

“I’m not happy,” she said, “because including Mariela, there are only two people running for seventh grade rep. And two people isn’t going to be any fun, for me, anyway. I barely know this other student—he’s not one of my advisees.”

Ms. Perdomo sat on her side of the desk and frowned.

“I wish I could help you,” Celia said. And she meant it.

“Maybe you can,” she answered. “I’m not too familiar with this person. Maybe you are?”

Ms. Perdomo slid the filled-out form of the other candidate across her desk and turned it so that Celia could read it. Celia stood up from the chair to see the name on it. As she read it, she felt her knees get wobbly and her heart thud in her chest. She sensed her eyes widening and checked herself, not wanting Ms. Perdomo to register the shock.

The counselor asked, “I know the seventh grade class is huge, but what do you know about Mariela’s only opponent so far, Mr. Lazaro ‘Laz’ Crespi?”

“Oh no. Please no,” Celia whispered under her breath the next morning as the principal’s voice boomed through the loudspeaker. He was wrapping up his daily contribution to the morning announcements, a segment he called the “Principal’s Proclamations.” Celia sat in homeroom, the shock of the disastrous news still buzzing in her ears: According to that Tuesday’s Proclamations, the election for seventh grade student council rep was officially between only two people: Mari and Laz.

“This can’t be happening,” Celia mumbled as she let her head fall to her desk. The principal’s voice droned on. “And so, I expect all seventh graders to follow the example of the recently
concluded eighth grade campaign and take this election seriously and vote based on the issues. Know that the sixth graders are watching you and that you need to be a good example for them, as their campaigns will begin in the next weeks. And, Coral Grovers, be sure to ask the candidates questions when they visit your homerooms next week. And of course, dear students, the campaign will conclude with the Representative Debate next Friday, where I expect all in attendance to behave in a
respectful
manner. And students, for those of you who don’t know what I mean by that, I define
respectful
as follows—”

It was hard enough to listen to the Principal’s Proclamations on a regular day (largely thanks to his habit of reminding himself who he was talking to at the beginning of every sentence), but to hear him spell out the next week and a half of the campaign—a campaign between Celia’s best friend (and, in reality, Celia herself) and The Love of Her Life Since Fifth Grade—made her stomach knot in a way that caused her to wonder if she should ask for a bathroom pass. Maybe she would run into an equally upset Mariela on her way there—she was in a different homeroom, and though they had most of their classes together, they wouldn’t really get a chance to talk about
this latest campaign development until their lunch period. Celia thought about raising her hand to get a pass out of there, but the principal was still talking, going on and on about what would and would not be tolerated at any school function. Celia figured it was a list the principal was fond of reciting, since he mentioned it during the Principal’s Proclamations at least once a week.

“…no talking to your neighbor
for any reason
, no leaving your seat
for any reason
, no throwing of any objects
for any reason
…”

Celia once asked her mom during the ride home from school why the principal was so focused on discipline and order, hoping to hear some crazy story: Maybe he had once been in charge of a jail! Maybe he’d been kicked out of the military and was now taking out his revenge on the Coral Grove population! Maybe his own kids had ended up in juvie! But Mami had kept her hands on the steering wheel and answered, “I’d be that tough if I was responsible for fifteen hundred middle school kids. Tougher, probably.”

The principal finally finished his Proclamations, and the classroom felt oddly quiet in the seconds after he stopped speaking. But then the hum of other students talking started to rise up around her, crowding her thoughts. Celia had never told
Mari about her crush on Laz. She kept it a secret, even from her best friend, because she knew there was no way a cool guy like Laz would ever go for a certified nerd like her, and she was bound to get over her crush, anyway, so why embarrass herself in front of her also-cool best friend by confessing she liked him? This was the kind of logic that won her first place in the science fair, which was why she planned on sticking with it.

But the fact that Laz was her crush wasn’t the only problem. Because he was one of the funniest and best-looking kids in seventh grade, Laz was really cool and had a lot of friends. In fact, Celia couldn’t think of anyone who
didn’t
know Laz except, apparently, Ms. Perdomo. He had a place in almost every clique: He got small parts in the plays, time on the basketball court, and even an honorable mention in the science fair (not for the project itself, but for the art design of his board). Every boy gave him a head nod when he walked through the hallways. Yvette and the rest of the cooler girls said hi to him every morning before the bell rang for homeroom, and made sure to come over and give him a hug on the way to their lockers. And he was just as sweet to the less-cool girls, hence his joking around with Celia and any other nerd. He never seemed fake or insincere
either—he was always so…so…
nice.
To pretty much
everyone.
It was part of what made Celia fall for him, and the main reason why he was going to be so hard to beat in the election.

Celia still thought—no, she
knew
—that Laz’s coolness would actually hurt him when it came to doing a good job as seventh grade representative. She knew him well enough to guess that he would be too laid-back to take the job seriously. She also knew that he was really indecisive, and—she had to admit this to herself—not exactly the brightest crayon in the box. She’d counted a few misspelled words when she glanced through the report accompanying his science fair board, and the project itself was not actually an experiment—it was called “Mold!” and was just a collection of different things with mold on them glued on the board in an artistic pattern. But that was Laz’s magic: He could make mold look attractive. Even Celia had to agree with the judges awarding him honorable mention for art design.

The reason Celia saw Laz as a threat was not because he’d make a better representative, but because he had a better chance of winning the election. Sitting there in homeroom, Celia finally felt like she’d done the right thing by getting Mari to run as the face of the campaign. Celia knew
there was no way she could beat someone like Laz, but because Mari was almost in the same class of popularity as him, Celia thought they still had a solid chance. The hard part now was going to be convincing Mari of that.

As they sat down with their lunch trays at the table assigned to their language arts class, Mari said, “This is terrible! He’s one of the most-liked boys at Coral Grove!”

You’re telling me
, Celia thought. She shoveled the corn kernels piled into one compartment of her lunch tray into her mouth, chewing thoroughly. Their table was near Yvette and her band of loyal cool-clique followers, a group of five girls that, along with Yvette, called themselves the Six-Pack. The Six-Pack all had dance together just before lunch period, and they’d sat closer to the end of their assigned table than usual, so Celia was extra careful to avoid getting corn stuck between her teeth. Not that those girls would notice anything Celia did, anyway; they had barely looked her way when she and Mari had first sat down. A couple of them had smiled at Mari, but that was it.

“And not to freak you out or anything,” Mari said while opening her chocolate milk carton, “but
I think I have to back out for a totally unrelated reason.”

Celia shot up in her seat and blurted out, way too loudly, “WHAT?!!!” She knocked over her own still-unopened carton of milk.

From out of the corner of her eye, Celia saw Yvette and her crew all snap their heads in her direction. She kept herself from looking over at them, resisting the urge to cover her outburst with some lame joke or excuse, and instead pretended to cough. Once the girls went back to their food and started giggling about something else, Celia swallowed hard, trying not to choke on the pieces of corn moving down her throat. She righted her milk carton and coughed a little more. Then she said, quieter this time, “What are you talking about?”

“Okay, so this morning in drama class, Mrs. Wanza finally announced who from second period got parts in the fall play.”

Celia remembered that Mari had been worried about this for days, ever since Mrs. Wanza made each student who wanted a part try out by reading the same years-old audition material, a stupid monologue from
Grease.
But with all the campaign plans floating around in her head, she’d completely forgotten.

“And?” Celia said when Mari paused for dramatic effect. Mari gnawed on her pizza.
Since when does corn go with pizza?
Celia suddenly thought.

“I got it.” She ducked down under the table, dug around in her bag, and pulled out a huge, thick script. She patted it lovingly. “I got the main part in the play! And it’s, like, a lot of lines. Way more than any part I got last year.”

“That’s awesome,” Celia said. She really was excited for Mari, but she knew what was coming next and had to plan her rebuttal—fast.

Mari thumbed through the script’s pages and said, “Which brings me back to my point about quitting…”

“Are you kidding me?” Celia said. “This news only proves my point even more—you
gotta
run. You’re about to be the most famous girl in the school. Once people find out you’re the lead in the play, they’ll want to vote for you even more. How could you even
think
about quitting?”

She picked up her own rectangle of pizza and nibbled its edges, waiting for Mari’s reaction. She was impressed with herself—with her quick thinking and her ability to come up with an excuse that convinced even herself. She swallowed sauce and cheese and saw Mari do the same.

“But, Celia, how will I have time to memorize my lines, practice at rehearsals,
and
do all the campaign stuff? I have to basically memorize lines for my part as seventh grade rep, too. It’s like being in
two
plays, and there’s only so much information that can fit in my brain at once!”

Mari grabbed her spork and started digging around frantically at her lunch.

“What did I say when I first asked you to do this, Mari? I told you I’d do all the work, didn’t I? So don’t worry so much. You’ll beat Laz, and I’ll make it as easy as possible. And you’re so talented, I know you’re up for the challenge of playing both these roles at the same time. Think of it as being in TWO hit Broadway plays!”

“Double the fame and fortune…” Mari considered Celia’s argument. She shrugged, then took a bite of corn and said, “Just remember your promise not to—”

“—not to leave your side. I won’t,” Celia said. “I promise.”

Mari smiled at her. She had a piece of food stuck between her two front teeth. Celia pointed to her own teeth, and Mari knew exactly what she meant. Mari covered her teeth with her tongue and made a sucking noise.

“Besides,” Celia added, “you can’t quit now, because that would mean that Laz wins automatically. Not exactly the definition of democracy, is it?”

“Why are you so weird?” Mari said with a laugh. The piece of corn was gone. “Also, why are you doing that to your hair?”

“Doing what?” Celia said. Only then did she notice her hand, which was tugging at a curl at the base of her neck.
When did I start doing that?
she thought.

“You started doing that the first time you said Laz’s name,” Mari said, reading her mind.

Oh no, can Mari read minds?

Celia sat on her hand and started talking too fast, saying, “What? That’s odd. I don’t know why I would do that. That’s really weird. Whatever, let’s not talk about—hey, since when does corn go with
pizza
, huh? Am I right?”

Mari sat back from her tray. “Oh no. You
like
him, don’t you?”

She
can
read minds!

“Wh-who?” Celia stammered. “Oh, Laz? Oh, no way. Noooooo way. He’s not for me. He jokes around too much. And his hair is stupid.”

“What? He barely has any hair. He keeps it shaved close.”

“Yeah, but in sixth grade it was longer and it looked better. Now he looks stupid.” Celia only half believed this, but she was desperate to keep from being found out. “And he’s—he’s way too dumb. I mean, not
dumb
dumb, but not for me. And he has no opinions about anything—people think that makes him nice, but really, he’s just not interesting; he has no ideas. How can you like someone who almost never has any ideas, right?”

Mari sat quietly, thinking about this. “You’re right, sort of,” she said. “I don’t know if I totally agree with you—I think Laz is a nice guy, and really cute—but I can see why you don’t really like him too much. He’s definitely not like you. You guys are, like,
really
different.”

Celia crossed her arms over her chest. Maybe Mari wasn’t a mind reader after all.

“Don’t get mad,” Mari said. “What I’m trying to say is that I can’t see him being a good representative. Which is why you…I mean, me…I mean, I…I guess I need to stay in the campaign.”

Whew
, Celia thought. She uncrossed her arms and said, “Exactly.”

“And as my official campaign manager,” Mari said, “you should know that Laz and his sidekick, Raul, have been staring us down from their table over there for almost the whole lunch period.”

Celia started to turn in her seat, but Mari grabbed her wrist and said, “No, don’t look! I think Laz might be coming over here.”

Celia felt her hands start to sweat and sat on them again. “What should we do?” she asked.

Mari raised an eyebrow at her. “Some manager
you
are. I’m going to my locker to unload this heavy thing before next period.” She picked up the script and dropped it with a slap back into her bag. “You finish eating and tell me if he says anything interesting. You can tell him I said hi, if you want.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and picked up her tray, whispering “good luck,” as she headed for the trash line.

A few seconds later, Laz’s voice came from behind her: “Celia! Just the person I wanted to see.”

She noticed he said
person
and not
girl
—another piece of scientific evidence proving he saw her as just a friend—and she gave a sigh of relief that she hadn’t given away her secret to Mari.

“You didn’t see enough of me yesterday morning?” she said. “What are you, a masochist?”

Another awkward pause. He blinked and said, “Good one.”

“A masochist is someone who enjoys being miserable,” she said.

“I knew that,” Laz said. He looked at the halfeaten pizza on her tray. “Like, people who eat cafeteria food are masochists.”

She pretended to laugh at his joke.