How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend (7 page)

“You mean we'll try to appeal to everyone's sarcastic, cynical side?” Charity asked.

Raine leaned forward across the table toward her. “Wilson is popular, but a lot of people at school resent popularity. You know, the snobbery, the cliques—how they look down on the rest of us. We've got to use that to our advantage.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Raine.” Daphne twirled her pencil between her fingers. “No one at school looks down at you.”

Raine let out a grunt like she thought Daphne was making fun of her height. “Yeah. No one looks down on me without a ladder, right?”

Daphne rolled her eyes. “Don't be so touchy. I just meant that no one looks down on any of us.”

Daphne, I should say right now, is the most popular of my friends. She flits from social group to social group, defying the boundaries that keep the rest of us in place. We have never figured out how she does this. It may be that she seems to like everyone at school, or it may be because she's gorgeous and has mastered flirting so well she could list it as a skill on a job application.

Whatever it is, Daphne doesn't quite live in the real high school world, and mostly we're glad she still wants to hang with us, as opposed to, say, striking out for Hollywood.

“Let's get something to eat,” Charity suggested, breaking the tension between Raine and Daphne, “and then we'll talk more about the elections.”

We went in separate directions to order food, then congregated back at the table and threw out campaign slogans while we ate.

“ ‘Rise up against the ruling class, vote for Dante,' ” Raine said.

“ ‘It's time for a party that can party,' ” Daphne said.

Charity took a sip of her drink. “ ‘Vote Dante, he has better hair than Wilson.' ”

We all stared at her.

“What?” she said. “It's the best presidential quality he has.”

Did I mention Charity and Dante don't always get along?

We kept throwing ideas around, then Daphne came up with a phrase that really caught my attention. She said, “Oh, there's Jesse.”

I had heard the term “my heart leapt” before, but I always thought it was one of those clichéd metaphors like “It's raining cats and dogs.” I've seen a lot of storms, and not once have I seen a downpour of poodles. But the thing was, my heart actually leapt. I felt it jump inside my chest.

I looked up.

Jesse wasn't alone. Bridget walked beside him. The two strolled across the food court, talking to each other and laughing. Jesse had apparently not only picked up and moved on after our relationship, he'd dropped several IQ points as well.

What a jerk.

I stared at the two of them, unable to pull my gaze away.

“Whoa, he didn't waste any time, did he?” Raine said.

I gulped. It felt like I'd swallowed glass. I couldn't answer.

Jesse and Bridget passed near enough to our table that they couldn't help but notice us. He did a double take and she gave a little wave and went, “Howdy.” Then she stood even closer to him and smiled at me. You know, a sort of I've-stolen-your-boyfriend smile.

Daphne looked up at the two. “Out shopping—or did you decide to join our meeting and campaign for Dante after all?”

Bridget tossed her hair off her shoulder with disdain. “Not likely.”

“We're ordering some shirts at the T-shirt shack,” Jesse said. “For Wilson's campaign.”

“Then we're meeting some people and going to a movie,” Bridget said. “You know, Wilson's friends.” She cast a knowing glance at Jesse, but he was looking at me, not her, so he didn't catch it.

Daphne said, “Oh really, who?”

Bridget counted the names off on her fingers. “Luke, Stacey, Micah Barnes, Anjie Eller . . .” Which is what you'd expect. Micah was captain of the baseball team, and Anjie was captain of girls' basketball. Apparently Wilson was collecting captains to help him out.

While Bridget and Daphne made small talk about who was and wasn't showing up at the mall, Jesse continued to stare at me. “So you're already having a campaign meeting?”

I forced my voice to sound upbeat, as though it didn't hurt to see him with Bridget. “I told you Dante was serious about running.”

Jesse looked over my head and then at both sides of the food court. “Where is he then?”

“He had other things to do.”

“Other things besides attending his own meeting?”

I shrugged, refusing to concede the point. “Where's Wilson?”

“He'll be here.”

“Oh, right. You came early to order shirts.” My gaze slid over to Bridget. “That's obviously a job that takes two people.”

A smile spread across Jesse's face. He seemed entirely too happy about my jealousy, so I pointedly ignored the fact that he is gorgeous when he smiles.

Jesse took a step closer to me. “I figured when buying clothes, I'd best get a woman's opinion, and you wouldn't be likely to help me. But if you're having second thoughts about helping Dante . . .”

“I'm not.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Raine and Charity. They were pretending to be engrossed in Daphne's conversation with Bridget, but I knew they were listening to Jesse and me. I tried to sound confident. “I'm supporting my brother. He'll make a great president.”

Jesse shot me a challenging grin. “It's not gonna happen.”

“When Dante wins, you'll have to eat every word you just said.”

“If he wins, I'll eat my boots.”

I pointed a finger in his direction. “I'll hold you to that.”

Jesse's blue eyes glinted. “And what will you do when Wilson wins?”

“Lose my faith in humanity.”

He laughed and shook his head. “No, if I'm eating my boots when Dante wins, you've got to come up with something a little better when Wilson wins.” He peered under the table at my feet. “What are those Reeboks made out of?”

“I'm not eating my shoes.”

“You're not as sure about Dante winning when there's leather on the line, are you?”

And then I couldn't back down. “Fine. Whatever. I'll eat a pair of my shoes, but not the Reeboks. They were expensive.”

Jesse's cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and glimpsed at the caller ID. “There's Dante now.” He took a few steps away to take the call in private while I stared at my shoes and wondered if it would be lethal to eat a pair.

I mean, let's face it. There was a much greater chance that I'd be sawing up a pair of high heels than there was that Jesse would be chewing down chunks of his cowboy boots.

“Giovanna!” Jesse motioned me over to where he stood and pushed the mute button on his phone. “I thought it was Dante, but actually it's your stepmom.” One of his eyebrows rose, and he tilted his head at me. “Do you have any idea why she would holler at me for being with you at the mall?”

“She's pretty much psychotic,” I said.

“Could it be you didn't tell her you were coming here?”

“Well, that too.”

He shook his head and handed me the phone.

I released the mute button and held the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

That's really all I got to say. The rest of the phone conversation was Gabby screaming at me because she'd come home early in order to supervise the garage cleanup, and I'd disobeyed her and gone off to the mall.

“Don't think there won't be consequences for running off with your boyfriend after I told you that you couldn't,” she yelled. “It will be a long, long time before you go out with Jesse again!”

See, it pays off to keep your stepmother uninformed about your love life. As far as the punishments she could have dished out, that one wasn't too bad.

 

Over the next few days I immersed myself in the election. Technically, we couldn't start campaigning until after we'd gathered enough signatures to put our candidate's name on the ballot. The office wouldn't hand out petitions until next Monday, but that didn't stop Wilson from planning things anyway. I heard through the grapevine—which generally meant Daphne—that Wilson had bought his popularity cohorts some shirts which read “WILLsonPOWER.” They were all going to wear them during the campaign. He'd also ordered buttons and pencils with this logo.

All this information panicked me, because I didn't know where or how to make up buttons or any of the other stuff. In my free time I worked on posters, so we'd have a few ready. I also tried to think of a campaign jingle—which you'd think Dante would appreciate, but instead he kept saying, “Don't you dare put my name into something that sounds like a laundry commercial.”

Stephen and Brandon, two of Dante's rebel friends who only went to school when it didn't interfere with their other plans, agreed to help with the campaign. They came up with the slogan “Let's make election day Dante's Inferno.” Which if you ask me (and obviously no one did even though I was supposed to be the campaign manager) didn't make any sense. Dante's
Inferno
? That was some medieval book describing the levels of hell, which hopefully would have very little to do with our school elections. I vetoed the idea, but Stephen and Brandon went off and made posters with that slogan on it anyway.

It's hard to be in charge of rebellious people, because they don't take direction well.

During school I spoke to everyone I could, trying to encourage them to join Team Dante. This was excruciatingly hard for me. Since the biology room break-in, I always worry that anyone who isn't my friend is telling Giovanna-kleptomaniac jokes behind my back. And yes, there are several.

“Knock knock.” “Who's there?” “Giovanna, so you'd better hide your valuables.”

And “What did Giovanna win when she entered a beauty pageant?” “Miss Demeanor.” I'm pretty sure Bridget came up with that one.

Anyway, it was hard for me to go up to people and strike up conversations, but I did. Every time I talked to a cute guy, I had the vague hope that Jesse would round the corner, see me talking to some studly rival, and be wounded by jealousy. This never happened, although every time I rounded a corner I saw Bridget glued to his side.

You'd think with all the guys I talked to, one or two of them might have shown some interest in the newly single me. I mean, before I went out with Jesse, guys occasionally flirted with me, but not anymore. It was totally depressing.

During lunch on Thursday I brought up this subject with Daphne. “Is there something wrong with me?” I asked as I sat down at our table. I'd just been through the lunch line, where despite a lot of smiling on my part, the guys in line had shown as much interest in me as they might to a nun in full habit. “It's the biology break-in, isn't it? Nobody wants to take a criminal to prom.”

Daphne let out a sigh and twirled the end of her straw in her mouth as though unsure whether to tell me a secret or not. “Actually, Jesse told all the guys he knows that they'd better not ask you out.”

“What?” I looked around the lunchroom, searching for Jesse so I could, I don't know, pelt him with carrot sticks or something. “He can't do that. We're not dating anymore.”

Daphne nodded sympathetically. “I know. It totally violates the rules of breakup procedure, but obviously he's not over you yet.”

Raine bit into a chip. “Or he wants to make you suffer.”

I ignored her. “He told guys not to date me? He actually had the nerve to do that while he and Bridget have been traipsing around the school like a pair of magnets?”

Charity watched me, her eyes turning sympathetic. “It sounds like the two of you need to sit down and talk things out.”

I picked up my utensils and cut into my salad with more force than was necessary. “Yeah, the last time we talked things out I ended up in an agreement where I may have to eat my shoes.”

Raine shrugged. “You could always start hitting on the freshmen. I bet Jesse didn't threaten any of them.”

Daphne leaned across the table as though she had the answer and it was already settled. “You need to meet some guys from Swain Academy. I know tons of them. I can set you up.” Daphne's flitting between social groups didn't stop at Bickham High's doors. She also frequented parties from Bickham's only other high school, Swain Academy.

I pushed a tomato chunk back and forth between two pieces of lettuce. “I don't know. Blind dates never work out.”

“Who says?”

“Anyone who's ever been on a blind date before.”

“That's because they've never been on one of my blind dates.” Her eyes narrowed, considering me. She leaned back in her chair. “You're on the quiet side, so you need someone who's outgoing, someone who knows how to have fun.” Her head tilted and she looked into my face with the intensity of a fortune-teller gazing at a crystal ball. “And yet you're half Italian, which means you'll need someone with an untamed, passionate side as well.”

I didn't contradict her, even though the only thing really Italian about me is my name. I've never been to Italy and know approximately twelve words of the language—and all of those are curses I picked up from Grandma Petrizzo.

Daphne gave me a motherly smile. “And yet you're in a fragile state of mind, so he'll need to be gentle and understanding too.”

With her elbow on the table, Charity rested her chin in her hand. “Does this guy really exist? Because if Giovanna doesn't want him, I do.”

Raine nudged her. “You can't date until you're sixteen. I claim the leftovers.”