Winning (5 page)

Key Club meetings start at 3:45 p.m. Fact: Alexandra always, always walks in at 3:44 p.m. on the dot. You could set your watch to it.

Except today. Today is the first time in the history of Key Club (or, at least, the length of time I've been a member) that Her Highness strolls in two minutes late. “Apologies,” she says breezily. “I had an important matter to attend to.”

Her tone doesn't match the sharpness of her eagle eyes, which scan the room with expert precision. For whatever reason, she isn't liking what she sees. Her resting bitch-face frown deepens slightly. But when her eyes land on me, it's replaced with a smile.

Did everyone forget to tell me it was Opposite Day?

Alexandra calls the meeting to order, even though our advisor, Mr. Vick, hasn't arrived yet. He takes a thirty-minute smoke break at the end of the day that may or may not include illegal substances, depending on whom you ask. It's just as well. He's kind of a letch, and leers at any girl who dares to show leg.

P.S.: the only one of us who wears a skirt on Key Club day is
Alexandra. If anything, being around Mr. Vick causes her hemlines to
shrink
.

After I take attendance, Alexandra asks
me
if
I
want to lead the Key Club pledge. There's an audible gasp of surprise from Hayley Langer.

“Sure,” I say, feeling even more confused. I even mess up part of the pledge, saying “to serve one nation under God” instead of “to serve my nation and God.”

Hayley giggles. I steel myself for Alexandra's anger, but instead she smiles at me and nods approvingly.

I am both relieved and horrified—and simultaneously ashamed by my relief and horror. Why the hell should I care about Alexandra Miles's opinion of me?

I think it has something to do with her freakishly strong magnetism. She's like the sun. You never really stop wanting to feel that warm, buttery light on your face. Even if you've been burned by it on more than one occasion, as I have.

Alexandra likes to start each meeting with a motivational quote. Today's gem is “You can do anything, but you can't do everything.” This, I'm guessing, is to set me up for the motion she wants me to make. I should feel like a puppet on a string, but again: she's the sun.

And I am an idiot.

Mr. Vick wanders in as Alexandra goes over old business from our last meeting. He gives her the up-down, letting his eyes rest on the side of her ass just a little too long. Or, at least, long enough for Alexandra to tug her skirt down half an inch. Then he retires
to the corner, where he pretends to read the newspaper—the kind with actual pages—but really keeps stealing glances at all of the underage females in the room.

I take the minutes as the meeting progresses, but keep missing little things since I'm not paying full attention. It doesn't matter; Alexandra edits them every week anyway. I'm trying to work out in my head why her polarity has suddenly flipped in my favor—is it only because she wants me to do this thing, or is there something more?—when she calls for new business.

“I have some,” I say, raising my hand. Hayley gasps again. And people say
I'm
the drama queen.

“I've been thinking about the quote Alexandra shared at the beginning of the meeting,” I begin. “It's so
true
. If you're trying to do everything, you're not doing any of them very well, because your efforts are diluted. I feel like . . .” Here, I pause for effect, pursing my lips as if I'm searching for the perfect words. “I feel like maybe we—as in, the Key Club—should think about scaling back some of our efforts, so that we're not so . . . scattered.”

Alexandra once again nods approvingly, and flashes me a smile. It's like a shot of adrenaline, this her-liking-me thing.

I kind of hate myself for it. Especially after everything that went down sophomore year.

“If we cut back on new activities,” I continue, “we could focus our energy on existing projects. Strengthening them. Making them better.”

“I couldn't have said it better myself,” Alexandra adds.

Maybe that's because I used your
exact
words.

“Is that a motion?” she asks.

“Right,” I say. “Yes. I'm putting forth a motion to table all new business until January.”

She frowns slightly. I know I've overshot her request, but if I say “until after Homecoming” they'll all know she was the one who put me up to this.

“I second!” Susan Apple rings out. “It'll be a nice breather while I'm working on college apps.” The other seniors nod their heads in agreement.

“Okay then,” Alexandra says, her voice tight but even. “All in favor?”

It's unanimous. After the meeting is adjourned, Susan comes up to me and says, “Thanks for doing that, Sloane. It really will be a huge help.” And then Hayley sidles over and says, “Nice job, Fahey. You got more moxie than I gave you credit for.”

I marvel at the irony. By doing exactly what Alexandra wanted me to, people think I've challenged her again.

And they're loving me for it.

Drama Queen: 1, Beauty Queen: 0.

I watch Sloane Fahey pick up a few popularity points post-meeting and fight the urge to put Little Miss Upchuck back in her place. What good would it do? In the grand scheme of things, she is nothing. She will always be nothing.

Then why does she irk me so fucking much?

And whatever happened to Erin Hewett? It annoys me that I went to so much trouble to shut her down and she didn't even bother to show. Where
is
she? Sam should have been on this. I check my phone. Nothing.

“I think that went well,” Sloane says to me, like we're friends now. I offer a tight smile in response.

“What?” she says. “No ‘thank you'?”

She's joking—I know this—but I'm not in the mood. “I have to go now.”

“You mentioned us running lines . . . ?” Sloane reminds me, her voice almost hopeful.

I tell her I might have some time on Sunday and that I'll text her later if that's the case. Then I gather up my things and go. It's
almost 4:15, Matt's picking me up for our anniversary dinner at 6:30, and I still have to track down Sam, who I sincerely hope is digging up some decent dirt on Erin, and scan YouTube to see if Matt's and my video is in circulation yet. If it goes viral it would not only ensure my place as Homecoming Queen, but also set me up nicely for my run at Miss Indiana next year.

My brain is so busy running through my mental to-do list that I almost miss it. Almost.

Principal Constance Frick and Erin motherfucking Hewett.
Hugging
in the faculty parking lot.

I stop dead in my tracks, not even caring if they see me watching.

Frick pulls away, and the two continue chatting. Erin is nodding a lot at whatever it is Frick has to say. I'm not close enough to hear or read their lips, but there's something awfully familiar about the way they interact. Erin turns as if to go, but not before Frick plants a quick kiss on the top of her head, like she was her grandmother or some gross thing like that.

Suddenly, I remember what Erin said on her first day, about having family in Indiana.

Is
Frick
her family? Principal Constance Frick, who's hated me since before she even met me, simply because I had the bad luck to be born to Natalie Miles?

Well, shit.

Things start to make a lot more sense. Like how Erin, who arrived out of nowhere, has shown me a complete lack of respect. If she is connected to Frick—and I can't think of any other
reason why a high school principal would be hugging and kissing a brand-new student—then Frick could've hand-fed her any number of lies about me, or talked enough trash that Erin didn't feel the need to kiss my ring.

That's a mistake on her part.

Frick may be the principal, but
I
can make Erin Hewett's life at Spencer High intolerable. And there's no way Frick can protect her from that.

“I can't just
make
a video go viral,” my brother, Wyatt, informs me Friday afternoon. “By the very definition, a video becomes viral because people feel compelled to share it. There's no way to manufacture that, though obviously frat boys and soft drink companies have been trying for years.”

Patience, Samantha. Patience
.

“Look,” I tell him, “I'm not asking you for BuzzFeed-level anything. We just need to get it up and out there. I'm absolutely certain it will find its own audience. I just need you to—” Here I pause, and give him my best “I adore you, O brother of superior intelligence” smile. “I need you to be
you
, Wyatt. I know what you're capable of.”

Wyatt frowns. Have I gone too far?

“I guess I don't understand why you even care,” he says finally. “You hate that guy.”

He's right. I do hate Matt.

“But I don't hate Lexi,” I say.

“True.” Wyatt snorts. “You're practically in love with her.”

Now
he's
the one that's gone too far.

“She's my best friend,” I say tightly. “Besides,
you're
the one who wanks off to her bikini pics.”

Wyatt's cheeks turn bright red in less than three seconds. “I don't have time for this,” he informs me, looking down at his keyboard. “I have to study for my SATs.”

“That can wait. Lexi can't.”

“And why's that?”

“Because on Monday, the nominations for Homecoming Queen open, and hers should be the only name on that ballot. Or, at least, the only name that matters.”

He shakes his head. “But you know she's a solid.”

“I
used
to know that. Before Erin Hewett arrived.”

“That new girl?”

I nod.

“She's pretty cute.”

“My point exactly.”

Wyatt still looks unconvinced. It used to be easier to get him working on Lexi's behalf. When he was a freshman, she spent a week teaching him how to French-kiss. That currency lasted quite a while. Early last year, before she started dating Matt, she offered him lessons on how to get game. She even let him practice unhooking her bra a few times—looking, no touching, of course. But the longer she stays with Matt, the less pliable Wyatt becomes.

“They won't last forever, you know,” I tell him. “He's not smart enough for her. But I know someone who is.”

Wyatt rolls his eyes. Now he knows I'm reaching, but even so, the flattery works. “Fine,” he says with a heavy sigh. “I'll do it. But get out of my room. Go make me a sandwich or something.”

“Make it yourself, pig.”

When I check my cell, I see there's a missed call from Lexi and a new voice mail. I listen to the message immediately.

“Erin Hewett and Frick,” Lexi barks at me through the phone. “Find the connection.”

Erin and Frick are somehow connected? Interesting.

Since Wyatt's handling the video, I retreat to my own room to investigate. I'm actually a little irritated that I wasn't the one to make this discovery in the first place. I rarely miss something so big.

I need to dig deeper.

At first, Erin Hewett's digital footprint doesn't reveal anything out of the ordinary. Her Facebook profile, which I'd just skimmed through yesterday, isn't locked down. Yet there's nothing remotely incriminating attached to her name. No drunken party pics, no untoward selfies, no shots of her making out with the Junior Olympics swimmer (or anyone else for that matter). Her status updates are kind of dull—“First day at the new school. The kids at Spencer High are awesome!”—but being boring isn't exactly a crime.

I switch off to Frick. Here's what I know about her:

        
•
 
She's in her late fifties.

        
•
 
She's spent her whole life in Spencer, Indiana, save for the four years she lived in Fort Wayne, getting her degree at IPFW. In fact, she was Lexi's mom's history teacher back in the day.

        
•
 
She buys the majority of her clothes in the old-lady department of JCPenney.

        
•
 
She doesn't have any kids (that we know of).

        
•
 
She used to be married to Dave Bridgeton of Crazy Dave's Used Cars, but they went through a messy divorce a few years ago after he cheated on her (repeatedly, if rumors are to be believed).

        
•
 
She can't stand Lexi. Seriously, she doesn't even try to hide it anymore.

I Google various combinations of the above names and locations. Nothing turns up. I find a couple of Yelp reviews from Frick, including one for a dry cleaner in Fort Wayne (who writes Yelp reviews for a
dry cleaner
anyway?), but nothing that ties her to Erin.

After twenty minutes of fruitless searches, I switch gears again. Maybe I'm coming at this from the wrong direction. Maybe I need to start at the end and work backward.

Like: how
could
they be connected? Is Erin Frick's long-lost daughter that she gave up for adoption? Unlikely, seeing as she would've been pregnant while she was in her early forties—something that wouldn't have gone unnoticed in our town.

Could Erin be the daughter of a child Frick gave up for adoption when she was in college? I quickly do the math. If Frick had a kid at, say, eighteen, and that kid had a kid at eighteen, it's possible that yes, Erin could be a grandchild.

Possible, but also unlikely.

What I want to do is call Lexi to see how she knows there's a connection in the first place. Details would be useful here. But if I call her, I'll only piss her off more. No, I need to produce results on my own. And fast.

Could Frick be Erin's
aunt
? Definitely possible. But how could I confirm that? Do I have to re-create the girl's entire family tree?

I'm struck suddenly by the thought that maybe I'm barking up the wrong branch of that tree. Maybe the connection between Erin and Frick comes courtesy of Crazy Dave.

Within minutes, I hit on something big. Crazy Dave's baby sister, Corrine, married a Gerald Hewett nearly nineteen years ago.

Bingo!

Four clicks later, I confirm it: Corrine and Gerald Hewett gave birth to one Erin Louise Hewett in Carlsbad, California, just shy of three years after they said “I do.”

I take a breather from my laptop to check on Wyatt. He's playing some nerd game on his computer, the one where he's got to rescue little green spacemen before they blow up or something.

“I thought you were working on the YouTube thing?” I say.

“It's done,” he informs me, never removing his eyes from the screen. “We're already up to four hundred views.”

“Nice,” I say, duly impressed.

“You owe me for this.”

“Whatever.”

I return to my room to confirm. Lexi's “Homecoming proposal” video is at 473 views and counting. In less than twenty minutes.

I don't know how Wyatt pulled this off. Then again, I don't want to know. Plausible deniability and all.

Lexi's going to be more than pleased. Hell,
I'm
pleased. I text her:
NG is F's niece (by marriage). Oh & you need to check YouTube. Someone uploaded a video of you & Matt this afternoon. Almost 500 views!

Not bad for a Friday afternoon. Not bad at all.