• Fall 7th grade (Huxley)/Fall 8th grade (Steve)–present

º Steve—new student, played football. Huxley—nice and normal, then met Steve and became popular and demonic.

º Eating lunch together by end of second week.

º Were seen at parties together by mid-September.

º Publicly confirmed relationship with article in school paper = the decline of modern journalism.

º PDA Level = ELEVATED

• Held hands in school, kissed in the hall, nothing obscene.


Confirmed rumors:

º Winter sophomore/freshman: Steve—Got so drunk off tequila that he threw up on Huxley.1

º Fall junior/sophomore: Huxley—went on acai-berry diet and dropped 6 lbs before homecoming coronation.

º Fall senior/junior: Huxley and Steve window-shopped for wedding rings.


I stop writing. My hand is shaking. After over four years together as the top couple in school, do they really have no other rumors? No fights, no scandals? Huxley is a master of controlling her PR; you would never guess that Steve’s family is scheming to rip them apart. In a school of fifteen hundred kids, why is there so little gossip about the biggest couple? Their relationship cannot be as perfect as it seems.

* * *

Diane and I form a battle plan over leftover pizza the next night.

“I hate that the middle of the pizza never gets warm in the microwave. The edges are burning, but then the middle is still ice-cold,” she says. But she eats it anyway.

My gossip dossier and yearbook are laid out on the dining table. My parents are at a bar mitzvah tonight, so we don’t have to plot in private. “We have a better chance of getting Steve to dump Huxley. There’s no way she would ever dump him.”

“I’m not so sure. He’s not going to be a big football star next year. His sex appeal is going to drop.”

“He’s going to Vermilion for her,” I say. “And she’ll probably join him when we graduate.”

“That’s bleak.”

“Never underestimate the power of a whipped guy. He has a breaking point. She doesn’t.”

“Dammit!” Diane wipes a clump of sauce off her sweatshirt. A red splotch covers the g in Rutgers. Just one of many. “And since his family hates her guts, he’s probably looking for any excuse to get rid of her. Now you need to work this angle, try to talk to his parents maybe.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. I leave families out of my break-up schemes. I do have some ethics, despite my line of work. I pace around the room, careful not to knock into any of my mom’s antique vases.

“What if he thinks she’s cheating on him?”

“I doubt she would cheat on him, and he knows it.” Huxley’s face circles in my mind. Why would anyone break up with her? I think about all those picturesque moments she and Steve share during school. Her life is like a movie, every detail staged so that girls can aspire to be her. If you are her friend or boyfriend, you have to know your lines. And as I learned, if you don’t fit the part, you’re cut.

“What if she thinks Steve is cheating on her?” I ask.

Diane chugs the last of the Coke. “He wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, but if we make her think he’s cheating?”

Diane puts down all food and drink and gives me her undivided attention. “Go on.”

“If Huxley suspects he’s cheating, she’ll freak out and try to assert more control over him, which I think could drive him over the edge. But it has to be long term, a slow build. If we try anything easy, like a dirty text, she’ll see right through it.” My mind is in overdrive, imagining the possibilities.

“That could work, but who would be the other girl?”

My mind grinds to a halt. No girl in school would dare go after Steve. They know he has Property of Huxley Mapother stamped on his forehead. And I don’t hate any girl enough to make them the unsuspecting other woman. My memory wanders to seeing Steve on his first day of school. So cute, so charming, so tall. He had no awkward prepopular phase like Huxley. There’s no way she was his first girlfriend. It’s not humanly possible. Guys like him don’t sit on the market. There had to be someone before her, someone he left behind in Leland, his old town.

“His ex-girlfriend,” I say.

“He has one?”

“They always do.”

We go upstairs to Diane’s computer to look at the photos in Steve’s Facebook profile, but I don’t have access. I’m not cool enough to be his friend in any context. All I can see on his page is his main picture: he and Huxley cuddling by a lake at sunset. It may seem like one of those candid pictures, but Huxley probably waited all day to get that shot.

“Great,” I say.

“I have an idea,” Diane says. “It’s a bit old-school, though.”

* * *

“They keep this stuff?” I ask in a hushed voice.

“Yeah. It’s public record. All towns have them,” Diane says at her regular volume level. The librarian at the reference desk shushes her.

The smell of old books stirs in the air, and I feel smarter just inhaling it. A giant clock hangs on the back wall, as if the Leland library is a timepiece for an old giant. Diane’s finger scans shelf after shelf of town records until she finds bins labeled “Yearbooks: James Whitmore Junior High School” on the bottom.

“Of course they’re on the bottom,” I say. It takes both of us to pull the bin onto the floor. We scramble through Leland history until we find the relevant year.

I immediately flip to Steve’s yearbook photo, for proof that I chose the correct book and to check out how young he looks. When I see his buzz cut and chubby cheeks, I laugh, even though he looks adorable.

Diane and I turn through pages of sports teams and clubs and faculty, all things I would care about if I actually went to this school. I’m amazed at how dated the pictures and people look after only five years. Then again, it has been five years. That’s almost one-third of my life.

We reach the “Out and About” section. Real candid pictures of students around school. I can instantly tell who’s popular by how many shots they’re in. Steve pretty much has his own section. Multiple photos feature him and a lithe blonde with big eyes and a warm smile that makes me believe she’s as friendly as she seems.

Angela Bentley.

A picture of the two of them eating at lunch sews it up for me. He’s picking pepperonis off his pizza and putting them on hers. She’s ripping off her crusts and placing them on his plate. It seems so routine for them. They give each other fake suspicious looks, hamming it up for the camera. “Angela and Steve: cutest couple ever!!” reads the caption. I have to agree.

“You were right, B,” Diane says. She leans against the shelf, strumming her finger against an encyclopedia. “Do you think he still talks to her?”

“They’re probably friends on Facebook. They seem too nice to have had a nasty break-up.” I bring myself back to the present, away from reminiscing about someone else’s junior high. “Maybe I can get into his phone and send her a message.”

“He would delete it before Huxley saw it, and if she did see it, he would deny sending it. And anyway, how would we know any of this went on? They aren’t like the normal couples you deal with. They’re stronger and more secretive. I’ll bet none of his friends know about Angela.”

Diane looks at me for an answer, but I don’t have one. She’s right.

“You need to dig deeper,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“Undercover.”

“Pretend to be friends with Huxley and Steve?” I wave off the suggestion. “No way.”

“Really just Huxley. You need to get past their facade and join their inner circle. The more time you spend around her, the greater chance you have of seeing or hearing something you weren’t supposed to.”

“It would never work.” There’s no way Huxley would ever be my friend. Not again. The thought of spending time around her turns my stomach.

“Why not?”

“Huxley’s mean, but she’s not stupid.”

“You said she’s having auditions for the Student Dance Association. If you get on her squad, you’ll have access to her for hours. Then we can get a better sense if the plan is working.”

“Do you really think she’ll tell me anything?”

“Didn’t you two used to be friends?”

I slam the yearbook closed. “I’m not doing it, Diane. This isn’t your business. It’s mine, and I’m not doing it.” My voice wobbles, but I remain stern.

Diane doesn’t say a word. She was off at college when Huxley started cutting me out, and I only told her about it after the fact, like it was a petty high-school anecdote. We weren’t as close back then; her world was revolving around Sankresh.

“You can do this.” Diane breaks the silence. This time, she remembers to whisper. “Not just for Mr. Towne, but for all the people at your school who are treated like second-class citizens. You’re going to expose this relationship for the pile of crap that it is.”


1 That one is my favorite.

12

“Rebecca, I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“Well, here I am.” I stretch my arms out wide, then snap them back to my sides. I take deep breaths through my nose. I can do this.

The cafeteria looks different emptied out. Peaceful. No battle lines. Just a room with tables and chairs. Huxley sits behind a table with a sign-up sheet. Even after a full day of classes and acting superior to fifteen hundred of her peers, she is still fresh faced.

“You want to join SDA?” Mockery and judgment, her specialties, coat every word. SDA is a dance color war at Ashland created to provide a less gymnastics-centric alternative to cheerleading. We are split into two teams—green and white, with squads performing dance numbers set to a mash-up of new and old songs.

“Yes, I love to dance.”

“You do?”

“You know that.”

Huxley crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. Yep, she remembers, although she wishes otherwise. How dare I bring up a time when she was merely mortal.

We used to take lessons at the Frances Glory Dance School for Girls. Frances was a petite, old woman with a shock of white hair that looked like lightning in the night sky. She spoke in an indecipherable accent that Huxley and I were obsessed with and would impersonate during school. Frances always placed us in the back of routines because we were so tall. She used to call us her Telephone Poles. Or rather Teelehfohna Pooles.

“That was years ago,” Huxley says. “And if I remember, you stopped going.”

Because of you, I want to tell her. Dance class lost its luster when she got in with Addison and the other popular girls. The memory comes back, so vivid. I shove it to the back of my mind.

“You never forget those skills. It’s like riding a bike.”

“SDA is slightly more complicated.”

“You’re right,” I say right back, hoping I didn’t just stick my foot in my mouth.

Huxley gracefully swishes her hair behind her shoulders with a flick of her head. I wish my hair did that. “Rebecca, the Student Dance Association isn’t some fun little club. It’s a serious commitment for serious dancers. I’m not sure it would be the best fit for you.”

“Everyone’s allowed to audition. Let me show you what I got.” I try to remain cheerful. I take more deep breaths.

“Fair enough.”

She turns on the music. A dance remix of the Olympics theme plays, a bass-heavy rhythm pulsing beneath the brass fanfare. I tap my foot to get the beat.

“Ready when you are.”

I perform a choreographed number I crafted from my Frances Glory memories (the happy ones) and watching old Britney Spears music videos. Huxley and I used to do this all the time, in her basement. We even posted a few of our performances online—and then quickly took them down. I practiced the moves all weekend, pulling certain muscles out of early retirement. I spent hours twirling, quick ball-changing, 5-6-7-8ing in my room until this routine was burned into my brain. I doubt other auditioners created such intricate routines, but I had to be immaculate to get Huxley to remotely consider me.

I turn and gyrate and try to make Britney proud, every move precise. I find myself enjoying this, remembering that once upon a time, I did have some type of athletic talent. I guess I still do. I dip forward then strike a pose for my finale.

“Thanks,” Huxley says stoically, as if I’d handed her a coupon on the street. She doesn’t make any notes on her pad. Her mauve pen lies there, matching her shoes. I doubt that is a coincidence.