7 Clues to Winning You (3 page)

“So wait,” Veronica said, “you start right after spring break? So you’ll be there for this year’s scavenger hunt, right?”

“And you’re a junior,” Cerise said.

My stomach slipped to the floor. My jaw followed. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.

“But wait, this could be good,” Tara said. “This could be your chance to get back at them. You could sabotage the scavenger hunt. Bring it down from the inside.” She was grinning a bit too enthusiastically.

I sat in silence. Revenge was never my thing. Just the opposite, in fact. I was all about charity. Charity made for a much more appealing personality. Plus, it comes across super in college interviews. Nevertheless, Tara had a good point. The question was, was I willing to risk my social life and reputation to make their lives miserable? The answer became obvious. I couldn’t care less about having a social life at Ash Grove. Between the viral picture and Principal Daddy, my reputation was already toast before I walked in the door. It really couldn’t get much worse.

LEGALLY, IN ORDER FOR ZACH AND ME TO REGISTER in Ash Grove schools, our parents had to prove that we were residents of the Ash Grove school district. To do that, we had to have a contract on some kind of home. So instead of spending spring break actually relaxing and enjoying my remaining days with my friends, I got dragged around on a hurricane house hunt. We must have seen thirty properties that week. Our real estate agent, Marjorie, took us to see one stories, two stories, raised bungalows, tri-levels. They had big lots, corner lots, walk-out basements, new roofs, replacement windows, upgraded kitchens … but no matter what we saw, nothing was good enough for Mom. It was too small. Too old. Too much work. Too sketchy a neighborhood. Too high property taxes. Too expensive (those two were Dad, really).

Finally, this traditional two story came on the market in a decent neighborhood not far from the town center of Ash Grove. It was “three-years new!” (perky agent-speak), bank-owned, and vacant. Some victim of a foreclosure, Marjorie surmised. At any rate, it was move-in ready (which you don’t find with foreclosures normally, so this was sure to be a hot
property, said Marjorie, and if we were interested, we should move on it
right away
).

It was actually bigger and nicer than our house in Meriton. I guess better school districts like Meriton drive house prices higher there. This place had a big front porch that wrapped around one side of the house, landscaped gardens with paver walkways, and a huge backyard. Mom couldn’t find anything to object to, other than the tacky wallpaper. Dad promised to get it professionally removed and repainted before we moved in, if that would make her happy. So she agreed. I didn’t hate the place. Zach was fine with it. Frankly, if a house had a toilet, electricity, and a basketball hoop, Zach was happy.

We put in an offer on the house and it was accepted. So, as soon as we sold our Meriton house, we could start our thrilling new lives as Ash Grove inmates. Excuse me, residents. My darling, sweet mother kindly counseled me by saying, “Blythe dear, we must maintain an open mind and attitude about this change in our lives. Each one of us has to make … adjustments to this new situation. Instead of focusing on the negative things, list the positives.”

List? I couldn’t come up with one positive, let alone a list.

Of course, the flip side to buying a house is that you have to sell the one you already own. Which means you have to fix all the broken, chipped, dirty, worn parts that you’ve managed to live with contentedly for years. Then you have to clean the places in the house that you’ve never cleaned—or even knew you should clean.

Who knew you were supposed to climb up onto your kitchen counter and scrub the tops of the cabinets? Who
knew that all this time, you should have been cleaning the lint out of the exhaust tube in the back of the dryer? Who ever could have guessed that you’re expected to purge and organize every closet, cupboard, shelf, and drawer? And I don’t mean only the built-in ones, either. I mean all of them. Even the ones in your own personal furniture that you’ll be taking with you and that the buyer has no business poking around in. Because buyers will look everywhere, Marjorie instructed us.
Everywhere.

When your house is for sale, you may no longer have a junk drawer in the kitchen or that one closet where you throw the old shoes and broom handles and dirty buckets and broken things that you were going to fix one day and anything else you don’t want to look at or deal with or smell. You may not leave a single family picture anywhere, no matter how expensive the frame was or how important that dead relative is to you. You may no longer let a load of laundry sit in the dryer for a moment after it’s finished. Please, people, do not leave the toilet plunger sitting right there next to the toilet, out in the open like that … what are you thinking? And for the love of all things holy, never,
ever
forget to make the beds!

Throughout the massive cleanup, Dad would make these observations that he probably thought were deeply philosophical but actually were just complaints. “Does it strike anyone as ironic,” he’d call out, “that we’re making the house perfect just before we leave it?” And then, “How come we never could do this for ourselves, but we’ll do it for someone else?” But the mantra he repeated again and again under his
breath as he trudged from chore to chore was, “Eyes on the prize, Mac. Eyes on the prize.”

The prize, of course, was not a good offer on the house; the prize was an appointment to superintendent. I didn’t overlook that.

Zach and I had each been in charge of our own rooms. Mine wasn’t too bad, since I’d just done my springtime organization. But Zach’s looked like something from a show on hoarders. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he uncovered a litter of desiccated baby raccoon carcasses. On the plus side, by the time he was done, he’d collected a small mountain of dirty odd socks.

By the end of spring “break,” we were beyond exhausted. I momentarily slipped and caught myself looking forward to school on Monday. The sensation didn’t last long, though. It was quickly replaced with dread. I tried to convince myself that I didn’t care if people remembered the picture or not. I mean, it was a year ago. It had to be old news by now. Right?

So the next morning, I got up, made my bed,
of course
, and then did the one thing that helped me feel confident and together: I put on a new outfit. It was an adorable pink silk blouson top with a camel stretch pencil skirt that I’d gotten at the mall after my cry fest with the girls. I fixed my hair and makeup, slipped into a pair of pumps, and went downstairs to eat some cereal to settle my jumpy stomach. It was getting late, though, so after a couple of minutes, Dad and I headed out so I could follow him to school in my car. It’s a gold 1995 Honda Civic in all its scratched and dented glory. It’s not exactly a smokin’ ride, but it’s mine. It was a gift for my
sixteenth birthday from Dad. My grandparents had wanted to get me an electric-blue Mini Cooper convertible, but Dad shut that down. He was adamant that the car should come from him and should be something that wouldn’t crush like a soda can or eject me fifty feet if I happened to get into a fender bender. Hello, safe, reliable Honda.

When we got to Ash Grove, I parked in the student parking lot in one of the last free spaces, approximately 150 miles from the building. As I schlepped with my messenger bag across the enormous parking lot in heels, I kicked myself for not riding with Dad since he got the sweet principal’s parking spot right beside the door.

No,
I told myself.
It’s better to distance myself from him. Better to be Blythe.

When I got to the door, I paused to take a cleansing breath, straighten up, and arch my back slightly for good posture, as Mom always emphasized. This also was definitely a time for the lady look, so I put one on, opened the door, and walked inside.

The first thing that hit me was the smell of the place. It was a smell unlike anything at Meriton. In fact, Meriton didn’t really have a smell at all, except after they polished the floors on the weekends. But Ash Grove smelled like ancient mildew and disinfectant mixed with bad cologne over BO.

It smelled like academic mediocrity.

I knew I had to go to the office first, and Dad had told me how to get there from the student parking entrance. But twenty seconds after I entered the building, all memory of his directions evaporated.

My heart was a madman pounding out of its cage of bones. Pinpricks of sweat bloomed on my upper lip. Why was I nervous? Surely I was at least as intelligent as these people. And … now, I’m not saying I was necessarily
better
than they were or of a higher ilk or anything … but let’s just say there wasn’t a tailored pant in sight. God, there wasn’t even a belt. Meriton might not be a private school, but at least we dressed the part.

I tried to swallow, but my gummy throat stuck to itself. Bodies everywhere pushed around like refugees jostling for heels of bread. It was a rising tide of fake tans and bad fashion. I noticed that I’d started to draw some looks. Some at my face, some at points farther south. I was, in fact, the only girl wearing a skirt. The glimmering thought sped through my mind that maybe this was the only skirt they’d ever seen at school.
Okay, so they don’t dress for school here,
I thought.
I can deal with that.
I don’t like it, but I can deal.

I started to muscle my way through the crowd, trying to remember where Dad had said to go. Was it the second or third hall on the left? I finally broke into a clearing and knew I was lost. I picked out a fairly friendly-looking girl a few feet away and walked up to her. “Hi,” I said. “Could you please tell me how to get to the main office?”

The girl looked at me for a few seconds, and then her over-tanned face lit up with a huge openmouthed grin. Her hand flew up and cupped her mouth as she took a step backward. Then she dropped her hand, pointed one of her bedazzled fake nails at me, and squealed, “Oh, my
gawd
. You’re that booger girl!”

FACES SPUN TOWARD ME AND MELTED INTO SNICKERS as I inched my way down the hall. This was insane! The picture wasn’t that big a deal that they’d remember it so well a year later. How did they recognize me right away? I started walking faster past the smirks. One guy doubled over into that phony, exaggerated imitation of hysterics. Some trashy-looking girls eyeballed me up and down like I was a fungus, then giggled. What were those little kids over by the wall laughing at? Me? But they had to be freshmen. They weren’t even here last year! What was going on?

In my mind, I could hear my mother’s voice repeating, “Dignity, Blythe. Dignity.” She would know how to handle this situation. She was unflappable. So I pretended to be her. I set my jaw like Mom would. I kept my line of vision just above everyone’s head. Eye contact with no one. I pinned my shoulders back and strode like Moses parting the Red Sea. Only, this was a sea of synthetic fibers and cheap hair extensions.

Trying to dodge one particularly vocal jerk, I made a wrong turn into what must’ve been the senior wing and rammed into the back of this tall skinny guy with dirty-blond
hair and glasses. I apologized and tried to leave, but he snapped his locker closed and snagged my elbow. “Hold on. Who are you? You look familiar.” At which point I rolled my eyes and tugged my arm away. I turned to go, but he stepped in front of me. “Wait! Now I recognize you. You’re McMussolini’s daughter. Wow, shouldn’t you be over in Meriton with the rest of the socialites? What brings you out here to the slums?”

Even though I knew I shouldn’t acknowledge any of these baboons, this guy irked me. So I tried a different Mom technique where she turns someone’s sarcastic comment on its head and makes the commenter look like an idiot.

I gave the tall guy with glasses an innocent look and said, “I’m here to be educated. And what an education it’s been so far, let me tell you. The overwhelming reception I’ve received this morning has touched me in the most unexpected fashion. I especially appreciate the way you’ve welcomed me, how you’ve gone out of your way to treat a complete stranger as though you actually knew her. I’ll be sure not to forget it. Ever.”

I didn’t wait for a response. I tossed my auburn hair and waltzed away without looking back. I kept going until I found the damnable office. I didn’t stop at the counter, either. I stormed right past it, through the clutch of secretaries’ desks, and straight into Dad’s office. I shut the door behind me before he even thought to say “come in.”

The way he looked at that moment spooked me, though. It was like he’d just been caught. Wide eyes. Fish mouth. Hands dangling at his sides like empty sleeves. That’s when
I realized he knew something. He knew something I didn’t know. Something bad.

He held both hands out in front of him to stop me. “I just found out,” he said. “I didn’t know before now. One of the secretaries only just told me.”

“Told you what? Wait, let me guess,” I said. I pointed in the direction of the hallway. “She told you that I didn’t even make it twenty feet inside the door before some girl called me ‘that booger girl’ and people started laughing? Even freshmen! They couldn’t have seen the picture. How would they know? How could everyone still remember it enough to recognize me?”

“It might have something to do with the yearbook,” he said meekly.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at him through the slivered gaps. I tried to stop my hands from trembling by clutching the strap of my messenger bag in a death grip. “What about the yearbook?”

He said nothing.

“What about the yearbook, DAD?”

He patted the air with both hands to try to get me to calm down. It didn’t work. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said. I didn’t believe him. He took a baby step toward me and spoke in a low, steady voice. “When I told Gladys—she’s the head secretary out there—when I told her that I was registering you for school here, she looked surprised. I asked her why, and she said because of the yearbook. When I said I didn’t know what she was talking about, she told me that one of the pictures in this year’s yearbook is … you know … the picture … of you. From last year.”