How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend (19 page)

 

Maybe it wasn't the logical thing to do. I mean, I'd been trying to stay out of trouble with the school since last semester's suspension. But as I walked out of the library, I stole a roll of tape from the librarian's desk. I didn't even look back to see if she'd seen me do it. I grabbed it and kept walking.

You see, it's just so easy to fall back into your criminal ways once you've done suspension time.

Instead of going to trig, I waited until all the girls in PE class had dressed down and gone out to the gym, then I walked into the locker room. Right in the middle of the mirror, where every girl was bound to see it, I taped up Wilson's rejection letter.

I got a tardy slip for first period. But it was worth it. I mean, seriously, I smiled all through the lecture on inverse sine and cosine because I knew what was coming.

And it came. It came in a big way.

By the end of second period I heard snippets in the hallway. Girls talking about Wilson. “Did he really write that?”

“It was in his handwriting.”

“What an absolutely conceited pig.”

“I hope whoever he asks to prom turns him down.”

By the end of third period the girls started a new election trend. They'd taken their “Vote for Wilson” buttons and drawn a red circle and a big slash across the words.

At lunchtime no less than five girls came up to me and asked who Dante was taking to prom. They all volunteered to go with him. I said I'd tell him, but to tell you the truth, I couldn't get near him. Everywhere he went, girls surrounded him. Wilson backlash had firmly set in.

And it was gratifying, really, to see the bewildered look on Wilson's face as he ate lunch. Luke, Jesse, Bridget, and Stacey tried to do damage control. Luke swore up and down that Wilson hadn't written the letter. He claimed it had been a frame job. But that's the disadvantage of having really distinctive handwriting, and then using it on your election posters.

Everyone knew he'd done it.

When I sat down in English class, I went out of my way to give Jesse a big, friendly hello.

He let out a sigh, and shook his head sullenly. “Don't say it.”

“Don't say what?” I asked.

“Whatever it is you're planning to say, because I don't want to hear it.”

So basically it wasn't a good time to bring up the we-need-to-talk discussion. It might have helped if I'd been able to wipe the so-Dante-doesn't-stand-a-chance-huh? smile off my face, but really, there wasn't much possibility of that.

When I went to PE class fifth period, the letter was still there, but all along its borders girls had scribbled in angry comments. Many of them the four-letter variety.

Yeah, someone would be eating their footwear soon, but it wouldn't be me.

Chapter
14

T
he next day I had Dante bring me to school early again. I'd had enough time to get the happiness and basic gloating out of my system, and wanted to try to talk to Jesse again. Instead of going into the library this time, I hung out at the water fountain en route to the library, hoping to intercept him before he got there. But I didn't ever see him. I did notice that someone—not me, though I wished I'd thought of it—had taken Wilson's rejection letter off of the mirror and taped it onto the front of his locker.

I'm sure it gave the authors of those comments a lot of satisfaction to know Wilson could now read what they thought of his rejection letter, and I wondered if Mrs. Pembroke might try something along the same lines. I didn't suggest it, though.

In English class I smiled at Jesse in my old, flirty manner. “Hey, Cowboy.”

“I still don't want to hear it,” he said.

“Hear what?”

“Whatever it is you're dying to say to me.”

“What if I'm just being friendly? What if I'm shooting the breeze?”

He watched me for a moment with narrow eyes, then turned back forward. “Nope, you're smiling too big.”

“But—”

Bill leaned over toward me. “He doesn't want to talk, Giovanna. Respect his wishes.”

Jesse let out a grunt and stretched his legs underneath his desk. “She didn't respect my wishes when she was my girlfriend. You expect her to do it now?”

I leaned over until my elbows rested on Bill's desk. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means,” Jesse said.

“No, I don't.”

Bill slapped his hands down on his desk. “What is the deal with you two? Even when you're not speaking, you can't stop speaking to each other.”

“Tell me what you mean,” I said to Jesse, “because I always remember respecting your wishes.”

Jesse's expression turned hard. “You didn't trust me about Wilson's campaign. I told you I had good reasons for supporting Wilson, but you wouldn't believe me.”

“I believed you. I just thought you were wrong.”

“You should have trusted me.”

“Why? Because Wilson turned out to be such a stellar candidate? Mr. ‘I'm too good to go with anybody to prom'?”

Bill raked a hand through his hair. “Haven't you all ever heard of the silent treatment? Maybe you should give it a try.”

Jesse's eyes narrowed again. He shook his head as though trying to figure something out. “Tell me, Giovanna, how did that letter of Wilson's make its way to the girls' locker room?”

I shrugged. “Why ask me?”

“Because the day it happened, I thought I saw you in the library. For a second as I walked in, I thought I saw your face through one of the shelves.”

A shiver ran down my back. My breath caught in my throat. I had to remind myself I hadn't really done anything wrong. Wilson wrote the letter; I'd just made it public. I forced myself to smile at Jesse. “That's so sweet. You see my face everywhere you go.”

He nodded his head slowly, letting his gaze penetrate into my eyes. I knew, even though he didn't come out and say it, that he'd figured out the truth.

The heat of a blush spread across my face, and I hated myself for being so transparent. “Are you really going to defend Wilson for what he did?”

Jesse's voice took on an edge. “I don't know. It seems like I've been so busy defending you lately that I'm not sure how much time I have left over to defend Wilson.”

His words made me do a double take. “When have you ever defended me?”

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter but his gaze just as penetrating. “I defend you every time I hear somebody talk about how you went joyriding around with Rich, Shane, and Brett, and every time I hear how no one should expect more from someone who burglarized the biology room.”

My blush deepened. I sat stunned and silent as my mind shifted Jesse from the category of rival to defender. I wanted to thank him, to tell him exactly how I felt about everything, but even if I'd been able to conjure up the right words, I couldn't have said them here in the middle of English class. So all that escaped my lips was an inadequate, “Oh.”

Then Mrs. Pembroke stood up and began her lecture. I turned away from Jesse, I had to, but even though I watched Mrs. Pembroke, I didn't hear a word she said. My emotions ping-ponged around my insides, and I thought of all the things I wished I had said to Jesse.

 

I tried again the next day—tried to find a time when I could talk to Jesse. I only saw him once outside of English class. He passed me in the hallway, walking alone, but when I said hi, he only nodded curtly at me and walked on. In English class he sat silently gripping his pencil with one hand and made a fist in his lap with the other. He never looked at me.

I sat miserably in my chair, wishing he'd say something, wishing I'd never gotten involved in this election, and basically developing a resentment of democracy altogether.

If only we had lived in a country ruled by some hostile dictator, none of this would have happened.

I kept glancing at him until the bell rang. Was he completely over me now? The thought made my throat ache.

After school Daphne picked me up and took me to her hairdresser to have him “shape” my hair. This involved cutting layers into it, and to tell you the truth, I panicked when I saw strips of my hair falling to the floor. I kept thinking about our short-lived career as musicians, and why in the world had I let Daphne talk me into cutting my hair? I'd probably end up looking like I was wearing an angry porcupine on my head, and far from wanting me back, Jesse would laugh himself silly when he saw me.

But then the stylist blew my hair dry, and I realized I had been wrong to ever doubt Daphne, because my hair looked good. Really good. I'm not trying to brag here, I'm just saying that I'd had this hair for seventeen years and never knew it was capable of swishing around my shoulders in cascading waves that way.

We went to a couple of stores at the mall, and Daphne found me a gorgeous Armani silk blouse. Granted, it cost roughly the same price as a college education, but it fit great. Daphne kept murmuring inspirational advice to me as I paid for it. “Remember, you're beautiful, and beauty has a persuasive power all its own.”

We left the mall, Daphne dropped me off at my house, and I tried to remember all of her mantras as I walked across my lawn. I was confident. I was beautiful. Men would bow to my name. Or if not bow, at least talk to me in English class again.

I opened the front door, and there in the living room, talking to Dante, was Jesse. He sat on the couch. Dante sat on a chair. Both fell silent as I came in the room.

“Oh, um, hi,” I stuttered, which broke about fifteen of Daphne's instructions right off the bat. In an attempt to make up for it I swished the hair from my shoulders in what I hoped was an alluring manner.

“Hi,” Jesse said.

“Is there something wrong with your neck?” Dante asked.

I glared at him. It's hard to be alluring in front of your brother. Then I turned to Jesse with my best smile. “What brings you here?”

Jesse and Dante glanced at each other, then at me. “We were just talking about motorcycle stuff,” Dante said.

Jesse stood up. “Well, I'd better get going. I've got this dinner with—” He stopped speaking as his gaze rested on me. “You changed your hair.”

I fingered the ends happily. He'd noticed. “Yeah, Daphne thought it would look cute this way. Do you like it?”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you just doing whatever Daphne tells you to do now?”

I lowered my hand. “You don't like it?”

“No, I like it.”

“Then you think Daphne was right about it?”

“Yes. No.” His words grew flustered. “I mean, you should only change your hair if you want to, not because Daphne told you to.” He folded his arms, and his gaze ran over me again in a skeptical manner. “Is she still setting you up?”

I shrugged, trying to be playful. “Well, she was right about my hair.” And hopefully she was right about how to get an ex-boyfriend back too. For example, I liked the way Jesse looked at me so intently, his eyes glowing, as if he wanted to say a lot more to me. That was good. Plus, he'd come over to talk to Dante—which must mean they were trying to mend their friendship.

Life was looking up.

Jesse glanced at Dante again, then back at me. I could see frustration pass across his expression, but I didn't know why it was there. He nodded at me slowly. “We should sit down and talk about things after the election.”

I smiled at him again, this time less certain. “Right.”

Maybe he wanted to work things out, but just couldn't do it now because Dante was here. Then again, maybe “We should talk about things” was one of those phrases like “I just want to be friends,” which people said when they broke up but they didn't really mean.

Jesse looked at his watch. “Well, I should go. See you around.” And that was it. Jesse left. So apparently my beauty didn't have as much persuasive power as Daphne thought.

Dante turned away from me and walked out of the room. I followed him into the family room in time to see him pick Skipper off of the coffee table and set her down on the couch. “No standing on the table, squirt.”

“I was making some toast,” she said.

Thank you very much, Rich, for teaching that trick to my little sister.

“Not on the table,” Dante said. “If you want toast, you'll have to eat it in the kitchen.”

“Okay.” She got up and trotted after him to the kitchen.

I wandered in and leaned up against the countertop. “So, it was nice of Jesse to come over and talk to you.”

“Yeah.” Dante dropped a piece of bread into the toaster and didn't look at me.

“Is everything cool between you two now?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Do you think you'll go back to being friends after the election?”

“Sure.”

“Even if you lose?”

Dante let out a slow breath. He walked to the fridge and got out the butter. “Look, I've been thinking about it, and I don't know, maybe I don't want to be student body president after all. It's a lot of work—and for what? It's not like it matters.”

I stared at him. I tried to use my psychic twin powers to figure out what in the world he was talking about. I mean, this, now? After all the work I'd put into his campaign—after making posters, flirting with freshman guys, being pulled over by the police, and posting Wilson's memoirs in the girls' locker room—after finally getting Dante to the point where he might win, he didn't want to be president anymore?

The toast popped. Dante put it on a plate and buttered it, unconcerned.