Paula Stokes - The Art of Lainey

“Right. Sorry. A life-fixing plan.” Bee opens another window to a search engine. “I don’t think I’ve fixed your life since that time in seventh grade when you tried to give yourself highlights and ended up looking like a crooked skunk.”

I shudder. “Thank God that color fixer stuff worked.” I lean over Bianca’s shoulder while she types in various permutations of “how to win back your ex-boyfriend.” Hundreds of thousands of hits come up. “Wow. A lot of people get dumped.” I feel a tiny twinge of relief. Somehow, it’s better knowing I’m not the only one.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure if we’ll find anything useful.” Bee scrolls through a bunch of websites that are trying to sell thirty-dollar e-books with “secret psychological techniques.” Some are written by people whose grasp of the English language is debatable.

Undaunted, Bee keeps clicking. A pink-and-gray page pops up. “This one looks good.” She nibbles at a pinkie nail. “Tips from Maverick the Master Dater, MD in Loveology.”

“Clever. Probably some thirty-year-old virgin living in his mommy’s basement, but what do I have to lose?” I read over her shoulder. Maverick has a basic list of Dos and Don’ts.

• Do keep on living. Even though you’re sad, you need to keep going to school or work.

• Don’t wallow. It’s pathetic, and you don’t want him to realize how much the breakup has affected you.

“I can do those,” I say. “I’m pretty sure my parents wouldn’t even give me the option of bailing on my shifts at Denali, and I definitely don’t want to seem pathetic.”

Next:

• Don’t contact him. At all. No emails, text messages, phone calls, letters, unannounced drive-bys, etc. for at least three weeks. Men inherently crave what isn’t readily available. If you stay away, he’ll wonder why. And he’ll come sniffing around to find out.

A strangled sound works its way out of my throat. “Three weeks without any contact from Jason would seem like several lifetimes. No way,” I tell Bianca. “Find something else.”

A rattling sound from the floor makes me flinch. Bee’s backpack is vibrating. While she digs around for her phone, I click desperately through links from so-called relationship experts, but they all seem to say the same thing: the best way to win back a guy is to avoid him . . . for weeks!

“There has to be a better way,” I say.

Bianca peeks quickly at the text message and puts her phone away without replying. She holds up a tattered red-and-black paperback.

“Maybe there is.”

“The Art of War?” I raise an eyebrow. It sounds vaguely familiar, like I heard it referenced in a movie or something. It also sounds as old as dirt. “Why do you have that?”

“Seriously? It’s on our summer reading list. Don’t you ever do your schoolwork?” Bee slaps me on the leg with the book. “It’s by a Chinese military strategist named Sun Tzu. It’s mostly about war, but people have applied it to all kinds of scenarios—business, law, college, sports, relationships.”

I squint at the cover. It figures brilliant Bianca would turn to some dusty schoolbook for advice. “You think a dead Chinese guy can help me get Jason back?”

“A dead Chinese warlord,” Bianca corrects.

My eyebrow creeps up even farther. “My world is ending and you’re channeling your inner warlord?”

Bee smiles. “Hear me out.” She flips the book over and starts reading the back cover. “‘Master Sun Tzu’s military treatise is required reading on battlefields and in boardrooms. Countless people of all ages have benefited from his wisdom.’” She tosses the book to me.

I snatch it out of the air. “This is never going to help.” The cover is decorated with a bunch of symbols that look like tic-tac-toe boards on crack. I flip past the introduction and start skimming from the top of a page. “‘The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one’s deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.’” I roll my eyes. “Whatever that means.”

“Read them,” Bianca says. “The five factors.”

“‘Moral law, heaven, earth, the commander, method and discipline.’” I clear my throat. “Which is six things, not five. I’m supposed to take advice from some dead guy who can’t count?”

Bee ignores me. “So you can think of those as loyalty, timing, natural resources, leadership, and organization. These are the things you need going your way to be successful.”

“Super. All I have to do to win Jason back is become my mother.”

“No, really, Lainey. Give it a chance. Millions of readers can’t be wrong.”

“That’s like saying millions of boy-band fans can’t be wrong,” I mutter, but I flip through a few more pages. They’re full of words I’ve never heard of, like ramparts and bulwark. Even the words I do understand don’t make much sense. My eyes start to glaze over. “Is there a translation?”

“This is a translation.”

“Is there maybe a translation to the translation? The Art of War for Dummies?”

“You can do this.” Bee reads over my shoulder. “‘All warfare is based on deception.’” She points at the next page. “‘Hold out baits to entice the enemy. . . . Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.’”

I stare down at the text. “So how do I use that to win back Jason? Sneak up on him when he’s at the gym and offer him a protein smoothie?”

“You have to read the book first,” she says. “Then we’ll make a plan.”

“You’re giving me a homework assignment?” I ask. “Because honestly, I don’t feel like reading a book right now. I feel like hunting Jason down and forcing him to tell me what I did.” I sigh dramatically. “Which was nothing. So if I can make him see that, show him we’re fine and he’s just being mental, then he has to take me back, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” Bee says. “About the assignment. Sorry, no about everything else. And you need to stay away from him at least for a few days, give him space, don’t be clingy.”

“I am not clingy,” I snap. At least I don’t think I am. Crap, now I’m having doubts about everything. “Fine. You’re right. I’ll stay away.” I pause. “But maybe I should call him just to see if he still wants me to play on his coed summer team. He was talking about it last time we hung out and sign-ups are really soon.”

She shakes her head. “How would that conversation go? ‘Hey, I know you just crushed me publicly, but I’m wondering if we’re still going to play soccer together?’ Sun Tzu would not approve.”

“Okay. Stupid idea,” I admit. “But I have his varsity jacket, and his jersey, and some DVDs. I shouldn’t keep that stuff . . .” I trail off hopefully.

Bianca’s too nice to laugh at me but the look on her face says exactly what she’s thinking—that I am the lamest person alive. “Keep it temporarily. Like Sun Tzu says, attack when the enemy isn’t expecting it. Right now Jason is probably expecting you to be all over him.”

“Fine.” I wrinkle my nose at the paperback. “And I’ll read this book, if you really think it’ll help.” My general reading consists of soccer and gossip magazines, so struggling through The Art of War is going to feel like self-mandated summer school. But hey, at least it’s short. And if it works for armies and athletes, maybe it can work for me. I’m a girl who believes in fighting for what she wants.

Kendall calls me the next day. “Laineykins!” She half screams into the phone when I answer. “I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too.” There’s a lot of chatter in the background. I hold the earpiece slightly away from my head. “How is everything going?”

“I swear.” She huffs. “I have to share a room with three other girls and they are all treating me like I’m a farmer because I live in the Midwest.”

“That sucks.” Kendall is supersensitive to being treated like a hick since she and Jason grew up in LA.

“You have no idea,” she continues. “And the people running this place have so many rules. Eleven p.m. curfew. Seven a.m. group breakfast. It’s like military school.”

“That sucks too,” I say. “Why don’t you just quit?”

“Because quitting means I lose, and losing is for . . . losers,” she says. “If I win this thing I get a hundred grand. If I leave, my mom will be all pissed and I’ll also get to deal with that waste of space who likes to call himself my dad.”

I suspected that Kendall mostly tried out for So You Think You Can Model to get away from her parents for the summer, but this is the first time she’s basically confirmed it. Don’t get me wrong, she loves the idea of being on TV, but I know she has no desire to actually work in the fashion industry. Her mom was a high-fashion model before she got pregnant and she seems determined to make Kendall to take over where she left off. She’s forced her to do lots of catalog stuff for the boutique, and Kendall says it all sucks. Apparently the designers and photographers poke and prod at her like she’s an alien and act like it’s her fault if she gets a freckle or—God forbid—a zit.

I’m pretty sure the only reason she even made it on the show is because her mom called in some favors from people she used to work with. Then again, Kendall is gorgeous and she does have the perfect confrontational attitude for reality TV.

“Um, hello? Lainey? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I was just think—”

“Oh, great. One of my roomies is talking about me.” Kendall swears under her breath. “She’s tattling about something to one of the production assistants.”

“So . . .” I start. “Not sure if you’ve heard about this or not . . .”

“Hang on.” I hear muffled voices, a stern-sounding man, and then Kendall sounding extra-indignant. “Apparently I have to go in two minutes,” she says. “Heard about what?”

My eyes flick to the picture of Jay and me at prom again. “It’s not important. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“For sure. Give my brother a hug for me.”

The phone clicks softly as she hangs up. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell her. It doesn’t take two minutes to say “Jason broke up with me.” Maybe it’s because there wouldn’t have been time left for her to give me advice. Maybe I didn’t want to dump my problems on her when she already sounded so stressed.

Or maybe I just didn’t want to start crying again.

A few days later, I have a dream about Jason lying in a ditch, calling out to me for help. It’s four o’clock in the morning when I sit up suddenly in my bed, positive he’s in some kind of trouble. I should call him. I mean, what if he’s really hurt somewhere?

I debate it for about five minutes but then decide to call Bianca instead. She went through a phase in fifth grade where she had night terrors and she used to call me at crazy hours when she woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep. We would end up talking movies and the cute boys in our class until Bee felt better and then we’d both doze off in class the next day. She hasn’t made a late night call in years, but she won’t mind if I wake her up just this once.

She picks up on the third ring. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“Sort of.” I explain the situation.

“Don’t do it, Lainey.” Bee yawns. “Nothing says pathetic like a middle-of-the-night text message.”

“But what if he was in a terrible accident?” I ask. “What if he really is lying in a ditch somewhere and I’m, like, psychically connected to him?”

Bianca mutters something in Spanish under her breath, but she stays on the phone with me while I do an internet search for recent crimes and car accidents. The Hazelton police department has logged exactly two incidents in the past twelve hours: a car break-in and a vandalized doghouse.

“Who would vandalize a doghouse?” I ask.

“Cats?” Bee suggests. She yawns again. I laugh. I love her. She lets me keep her on the phone for another half hour, talking about soccer strategies and Undead Academy, our favorite TV show. We trade opinions on which of this season’s zombies have the best hair, and then discuss which of the JV girls might make varsity soccer in the fall. It feels almost like fifth grade all over again. For a minute, I miss how simple things used to be.