“Is there a rule that says cafeteria food has to be inedible?” she asks.

I stand next to the full table, feeling more awkward by the second.

“Addison,” Huxley says. “Get up.”

Addison looks up from her magazine. She’s prettier than most of the models in it. Her curly red hair bounces on her shoulders. “What?”

“You’re in Becca’s seat.”

“What are you talking about, Hux?”

“You don’t sit here anymore.”

Addison laughs it off as a joke, but Huxley continues to glare. She waits patiently for Addison to stand.

“Are you kidding?”

“No. I’m not. You don’t sit here anymore.” Huxley is statue still, poised to attack if she needs to.

“I thought we were friends,” Addison says.

“Me, too. But when things I tell you in confidence happen to spread throughout the school, it makes me question our friendship. I thought I could trust you, but apparently, I can’t. How can I continue eating lunch with you when looking at your face makes me lose my appetite?”

Huxley doesn’t flinch or misspeak. I feel like I’m the one in trouble.

“This is crazy. I have never said anything to anyone. I swear.”

Steve squeezes his girlfriend’s hand in support. The rest of the table is riveted.

“Raise your hand if Addison ever told you any personal stories about me and Steve, or Steve and Angela,” Huxley says.

Slowly but surely, every person at the table raises a hand. Addison scrunches her face up, feigning outrage.

“This is a witch hunt! Don’t worry, Hux. I have plenty more stories to share.” Addison stacks up her books and flees out of the cafeteria. She leaves her tray on the table.

Huxley grins at me and motions at the empty chair. “Sit!”

* * *

The conversations at Huxley’s table are mundane, yet because popular people are saying them, I somehow find it more interesting. These are the celebrities of my school, and I’m seeing them in their natural habitat. I know it sounds dumb, but I feel sort of cool for joining them. Who knew being popular could be so easy? All it took was some lying, manipulation and moderate dance skills.

The girls talk about fashion and celebrities; the guys talk about sports. They play their gender roles well. My seat is in the middle, so I toggle between both discussions.

“Steve-o, what do you think about armadillos this time of year?” Greg Baylor says through a mouthful of mac ’n’ cheese. He’s burly with shaggy blond hair. You might mistake him for a caveman.

“What are you talking about, dude?” Steve asks.

“This scout at Chandler University called me last night. He wants us to come down and check out the campus for a weekend.” Greg shoves down another forkful of food. I wish I could eat mac ’n’ cheese without thinking of the caloric consequences.

“Us?” Steve asks. Huxley’s ears perk up. She checks out of the girls’ conversation.

“Yeah, man. He’s still interested. Are you going to eat that?” Greg points to my salad roll. I nudge it over. He takes it in one bite.

“Really?”

“You gotta come. Chandler University made it to the Sugar Bowl last year. And I heard that campus is wild.” He raises his eyebrows quickly, as if we didn’t already know what he meant.

“He’s still interested?” Steve asks.

“I just said that.”

Steve gazes at the rapidly diminishing mac ’n’ cheese while he thinks it over. I’m sure he’s picturing multiple scenarios of the weekend, all of them like a Girls Gone Wild video. The corners of his mouth turn up in a smile.

“I bet he’ll bring up that scholarship offer again,” Greg says.

“He’s too late. Steve’s already going to Vermilion,” Huxley says.

“Is that a done deal?” Greg asks.

I remember Steve’s talk with the coach. If he can’t pay for Vermilion, then nothing’s a done deal.

“Pretty much,” Steve says. Huxley rubs his shoulder.

“Pretty much? Come check out the school with me. One weekend won’t kill you, Steve-o.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Huxley says. “It wouldn’t be fair to waste the school’s time and money when he has no intention of going.”

She rests her head on his massaged shoulder. Steve thinks it over and taps his fork against his empty plate.

“It’s up to you, man.” Greg licks his disposable plate clean, then crumples it into a ball.

“I’ll pass. I already know where I’m going to school.” Steve turns his head to a beaming Huxley, and kisses her smack on the lips.

* * *

I make a quick dash for my locker before sixth period. Since we can leave lunch a few minutes before the bell rings, I usually can zip down to my locker then all the way to health class without being late. I round the corner of the science hallway. Formaldehyde fills my nostrils. I stop dead in my tracks when I come to my corridor.

Val leans against my locker. She’s crying.

22

“Can we talk?” she asks. Her eyes plead with me not to brush her off.

“What’s up?”

She scoots back from my locker. I drop my book bag on the ground, and I swear the floor tiles crack.

“I really like your new look. Remember I told you to use a darker base?”

“Thanks.” I squat down and take out my morning textbooks. I can’t remember the last time we were hanging out together sans Ezra. It seems like a decade ago.

“So how’ve you been?” she asks.

I feel like I don’t know this girl anymore. How did we get this out of the loop? I throw my books back in my bag. I’ll run down here before seventh period. This is torture. “I have to get to class.”

“Wait.” Val grabs my book-bag strap. Her voice breaks. “I miss you.” She wipes her nose with her blazer sleeve.

“I’ve been here.”

“We’ve drifted.”

“That wasn’t me!” I didn’t ditch anyone for a guy.

And now I’m crying, too. I miss the Val who talks in only run-on sentences.

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry. I don’t want our friendship to end over a guy.”

I’m pleasantly surprised by her self-awareness. “Me neither.”

“I want us to stop having awkward conversations whenever we see each other. That’s not us!”

“It’s not!”

I hug her. That’s the first certified-Val thing she’s said to me in a long time. We smear the tears off our faces.

“I promise to rein it in with all my Ezra talk,” she says.

“So even you’ve noticed it?”

“I’m telling you, Becca. It’s like a vortex. You don’t even realize you’re getting sucked in. Having a boyfriend is such a rush, and it makes even boring parts of my life exciting. And so I think that everything in my life is going well. I thought we were great this whole time. But then I saw you hanging out with Huxley, and you sat at her table. And I realized that something wasn’t right.”

I drop my backpack on the ground with a thump. She smiles, like she missed hearing that thump or something. “How are things with you and Ezra going?”

“Fine. I don’t know. I get that he’s a movie buff, but that’s like 80 percent of what he talks about. Between you and me, it’s getting old.”

“Maybe your relationship has run its course,” I say, hoping for a breakthrough.

“No way,” she says. She doesn’t give it another thought. That doesn’t matter to her. I want to ask her if she truly loves Ezra, but I won’t. Our friendship is too fragile for probing questions right now. I find myself getting frustrated with her again, more than I have after past relationship discussions. Now that I’ve gotten to know Ezra, he deserves someone who appreciates his movie-buff personality rather than someone who tolerates it for the sake of avoiding singledom. He’s looking for something special; Val’s looking for a plus one.

I get into my locker and make the necessary book swaps.

“So be honest with me,” Val says. “Is Huxley a better friend?”

“No,” I say. An automatic response. I couldn’t hesitate for a second or else Val would never forget it. “Unless you find backhanded compliments endearing.”

Val laughs, happy that her top spot on my friend list is secure. “And what kind of a name is Huxley anyway? I’ll bet her real name is something like Heather, but it was too bland for her taste.”

The bell rings, and for some reason, that makes us laugh harder.

* * *

When I get home, I find an email from Mr. Towne waiting for me, burning a hole through my inbox.


I need a REAL progress report. Let’s chat.


I roll my eyes at the email. Is he my dad asking how my homework is coming along? None of my clients have required a progress report. They have faith in me that I’ll get the job done. But then, they haven’t had to wait this long for results.

“Things are taking a little bit longer,” I tell him on video chat. “But I am making progress.”

His gray eyes stare coldly into the screen. He leans back and rests his arms on his gut. “It’s been almost six weeks since we last spoke. You can’t give me radio silence like that. One snarky email won’t cut it.”

What kind of metrics can I give him? I don’t exactly work in statistics. Trust the process, I want to tell him. Couples aren’t destroyed in a day. Still, I nod in agreement. “I’m sorry. I’ll keep you updated.”

“So after six weeks, you’re only just ‘making progress’?”

“These things take time. Do you think Huxley is just going to give Steve up that easily?”

“At this rate, you’ll have them broken up by their silver anniversary.” He squirms in his office chair, like a kid in a waiting room. He’s probably not used to working with a teenage girl, especially not one in a costume. “Listen, college acceptances become binding by May 15. If Steve gets locked into Vermilion, then that’s it. His life is over. He’ll be stuck with her forever.”

I’m not the first person to think that, but hearing a grown man say it feels slimy. He’s not a member of Ashland’s social world. He doesn’t have that right to care about gossip.

“You have one month,” he tells me before disconnecting.

* * *

I relay our conversation to Diane. I want to quit this assignment. It used to stimulate me; now it makes me uneasy.

She lies on her bed, painting her toenails a funky neon shade of green. With her Rutgers sweater still on, she looks like a Christmas decoration.

“You have to keep going,” she says.

But it doesn’t seem that simple anymore. I keep picturing Huxley by the water fountain, that forced smile plastered on her face while her supposed friends gossip about her demise mere feet away. None of them care that she’s busting her butt to make this SDA show spectacular. How will it be once she and Steve are kaput? That’s all people will talk about until finals. It’s not like other couples where the dumper and dumpee can mend in relative obscurity. That forced smile will become a required part of her wardrobe.

Diane senses my confusion. “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for this girl?”

I throw myself onto the bed, making Diane smear a green streak across her foot. This is why I hate getting involved in my subjects’ lives. I need distance to perform a break-up. You don’t see hit men sharing family albums with their targets.

“I mean, we’re kinda-sorta-maybe, on some level, approaching the near vicinity of being friends again,” I say, though I know we’re a bit closer than that.

“Of course you are. Who else does she have to turn to?”

“Exactly.”

“This is all part of the plan, but it’s not real. Not for either of you.” Diane blows on her feet. “You’re a spare-tire friend.”

I fold my arms over my stomach.

“No, not that spare tire. You’re a temporary replacement. If you stop your plan and Huxley and Steve patch everything up, do you think she’ll still want to be friends with you? Her lemmings will come running back to her, and you’re going to get ditched. She won’t need you anymore.” Diane shrugs her shoulders. I didn’t come to her for a sugarcoated answer. “She’s done it to you before. Don’t let history repeat itself, B.”

I was blinded by her popularity, by the choice lunch table. But Diane’s right. She’s so right. We’re not real friends. Real friends don’t treat you like a social pariah to hide the fact they were ever friends with you. I am her spare tire. That’s what happened with Diane’s friends, too. When Sankresh dumped her, they stopped calling the house after a few weeks. They put in a little effort to show they weren’t completely heartless. Then it was back to their more-significant-than-Diane others.