Mission (Un)Popular (18 page)

It was. And for some reason, it made me sad. I was envious—I guess. What must it be like to have a dad who loved you that much? Not to mention a parent who actually understood how much your social life mattered and who was willing to do something so big to help you improve it? Based on what Em had just told me, our party was about to make Sarah J.'s legendary poolside bashes seem totally lame. “A really big deal,” I agreed.

“Exactly. Now”—Em grabbed a notebook and flipped it open—“let's keep working on that guest list.”

After we finalized who we'd invite, we spent the next hour planning the food (chips, salsa, jelly beans, full-size chocolate bars), the playlist that would lead up to the single (starting out kind of mellow and building in intensity), and the decorations (none, because decorations are lame, but the lights would be low). It wasn't until Em's mom knocked on the door that I even noticed how late it had gotten.

“Hello.” She stuck her head into the room and looked around in this calm way that was entirely different from Bald Boring Bryan's post-yogic peacefulness—less zen, more zoned out. “I brought you a snack.” She pushed the door open and held out two plastic takeout cups. “Conrad went out to the juice place for smoothies.” Em stood up and grabbed them, handing one to me. She took a long sip. “Thanks,” she said, when her mom kept standing there watching us. I tried some too. It tasted amazing—like it was squeezed from mountain-fresh elderberries, or something.

“Mmm,” I said, taking an even bigger sip. Then, worried that my frantic drinking was making me look like a starving, disadvantaged kid, I slowed down. “Thanks,” I added, taking the straw out of my mouth. “This is good.”

“Hear that?” Em's mother said. “Somebody likes my cooking.” She laughed a little too loudly at her own joke. Em stared off at the corner like she couldn't bear to make eye contact with her embarrassing mother. I couldn't say I felt sorry for her. Debbie was stylish and sophisticated. After finishing my homework the night before, I'd watched an old clip of
Chicago Dreams
online. In the episode, Debbie's character had just been in a car accident, and even when she was in a coma, she looked put together. Plus, she actually made the time to check in on Em, which was more than I could say for my own mother lately.

“Are you staying for dinner, Margaret?” Debbie asked me. “I'm ordering Thai for Emily.”

That was when I glanced at the clock. It was already 6:45. “Oh, no, thanks,” I said, already making a grab for my backpack and shoving the clothes, belt, and frizz control serum into it. “I forgot. I'm supposed to be home.” Even if I ran the whole way, it would be past 7:00 by the time I got there. My mother was definitely going to kill me.

When I speed-walked into the kitchen, practically panting, my mom, Bryan, and the triplets were already sitting around the table over steaming cardboard containers of VTV Thai tofu with some sort of floppy green vegetable.

“Where have you been?” Mom twirled a noodle tightly around her fork. Somehow, I was willing to bet that whatever food Em's mom was ordering—probably crispy spring rolls and mango salad from Bangkok Gardens—would be more appetizing.

Bryan tilted his head like he had a right to be mad too, but I just gave him a look. He turned back to his dinner, trying to pick up a green thing that flopped off his fork back into the container.

“You told me you'd be home in time for dinner.”

“And I am,” I answered, hanging my backpack over my chair and sitting down.

“Margot, if you're going to be late, you call. You know that.”

“I know,” I muttered. Obviously, I knew. “I just lost track of time. I thought you were going to be at a playdate anyway.”

“I was. But when we got home, and you were nowhere in sight, I started to worry.” She wound up another noodle. Meanwhile, Aleene started squishing soft tofu chunks in her palm, watching as they came through the cracks between her fingers like worms.

“Sorry,” I said again, poking my fork into the cardboard box.

“Well, just try to keep better track of time from now on, okay, Margot?”

“Food snakes,” Aleene squealed. “Look!!” Everybody, unwisely, ignored her. “Look, look,” she cried, and when we still didn't pay attention, she lobbed the tofu mush directly at my mother's chest.

“Aleene,” Mom exclaimed, standing up, “in our family we don't throw things.” She went to the sink, where she started blotting at her shirt with a dishcloth.

While my mom's back was turned, Bryan speared the green thing again, sniffed it, then put it back down. He caught me watching and gave a little shrug of defeat. I had to agree with him on that one point. VTV had definitely outdone themselves tonight in the disgusting and unidentifiable categories. I watched as he reached for the special notebook we were supposed to use to record our observations about the food.
Vegetables overcooked
, he scribbled underneath the heading
Thai Tofu
. He slid it across to me.
Slimy
, I added.
Mysterious.
He read my entry and nodded gravely.

“Didn't I tell you?” my mom said to Bryan. She was still standing at the sink, working on the stain. “Dante was throwing toys the whole time we were over. His mother doesn't step in. And here you see the influence he's had.”

“Mom?” I interrupted. I knew it was a bad time, but then, it was always a bad time in our house. “Can I sleep over at Em's house next Saturday?”

She blotted at the stain again. “I don't know, Margot, give me a second here.”

“They have this really great rec room,” I said. “Perfect for sleepover parties.” It was true. Em had taken me down there to see it. They had the hugest plasma TV I'd ever seen—probably the one K'wack.ed had given them.

“Well.” Mom dropped the dishcloth back in the sink and sighed. “I suppose you can. I don't see why not.”

I bit into a chunk of tofu, washed it down with a huge gulp of soy milk, dumped the rest of my dinner into the garbage while my mom was busy washing Aleene's hands, then went to my room.

When I got there, I checked my e-mail—like I'd been doing night after night—hoping against hope that there might be an answer from Erika. And when there wasn't, I knew it was time to face the facts. Em was right. Things were changing for us at school, and maybe that meant it was time to let go of the past. After all, I couldn't force Erika to forgive me.…So, taking a deep breath, I looked around the room, then grabbed a big Walmart bag off my dresser and started to gather things up. First the fun-fur headbands she'd bought me in fifth grade, then some magazines she gave me in the summer, and a bracelet from this time we were obsessed with making bracelets with embroidery string. I even took down the Eternal Crush poster from the back of the door, and the babyish Winnie-the-Pooh nameplate while I was at it. I added in the bobble-head turtle, the magical horse books, kissed Ian Donahue's lips good-bye, and finally, choking back tears, dropped the BE
_FRI
necklace into the bag. When I was done, I tied up the top, shoved some junk aside in the closet to make space, and buried it under some old sweaters.

I sat down on my bed and looked around. With Erika's stuff gone, the room looked different. Emptier—even though it was still messy. And plainer—like the person who lived here had no story. But more grown-up, too. I knew it would never compare to Em's room, with her mossy green walls and gleaming hardwood floors, but that didn't mean I couldn't try. “Mom!” I yelled into the living room. “Do we have any empty moving boxes left?”

“In the garage,” she shouted back. “Near the outdoor stuff and the bikes.”

I went to the garage and pulled the stuff aside, took three flattened boxes, and got to work.

I
CLEANED AND SORTED AND
rearranged until after eleven o'clock that night. When I was done, the result wasn't exactly minimalist, but it wasn't a pigsty either. And for a budget of zero dollars, I hadn't done that badly.

The Ian Donahue lips poster over my bed had been replaced by this cool gold-and-black Japanese wrapping paper I'd found in the closet, and the butterfly quilt had been turned upside down to the plain white side—only slightly stained. I'd swapped my heavy blue curtains for some gauzy black fabric I'd used once for a cape at Halloween, tying it in the middle with a gold ribbon I'd found attached to a crumpled gift bag. My fake wood dresser looked almost respectable with its top draped in a black-and-white polka-dot scarf; plus, I'd expanded the space visually by pushing my computer desk against the far wall and shoving a bunch of floor junk under the bed. The
Decorating by Design
theme-song lady would have been proud.

And it turned out my room wasn't the only thing that got a makeover. When I arrived at school the next morning, it seemed my social life was getting an overhaul too. Everyone was talking about the slips of hot pink paper that had appeared taped to the lockers of a select few.

“It's supposed to be some kind of world premiere for Sub-Sonic,” Tamara Smith, a chunky girl with glasses was telling her friend Meredith as I passed. “But only like, twenty people are invited.” Neither of the girls was holding a fuchsia paper, but even if they were envious, they didn't seem especially disappointed about it—probably because they wouldn't have expected, in a million years, to be invited. It was exactly the position I would have been in only a few weeks before.

“Hey,” I said, approaching Em. She handed me an invitation with a flourish. “Thanks.” I took it. The background had this black-and-white faded-out photo of the band, with the lead singer wearing her trademark push-up bra and scowl.

“So?” Em said.

“It looks good,” I answered.

“Do you want to do the honors?” She motioned with her head toward Ken and Gorgeous George, who were sitting on the steps, each drinking a Big Gulp–sized Coke. I looked at her uncertainly. Even dressed in the clothes Em had given me—a pair of skinny jeans with the brown belt and the silky gray top—I didn't feel that confident. Plus, I still hated Ken's guts. “Here.” She put two invitations in my hand and shoved me toward the guys. “Go talk to Floppy Hair. It's no big deal. He's just a normal guy. You'll thank me for this later.”

I took small slow steps, as if I were approaching two unpredictable and possibly dangerous wild apes instead of two guys my own age, which maybe wasn't a bad description for one of them, considering the way Ken was burping the alphabet directly into George's face.

“Dude, you're
so
nasty!” George was saying as he leaned away. My thoughts exactly.

“Hey,” I said, hooking one thumb into my pocket. Neither of them noticed me standing there. “Hi,” I said again. “Hello?”

Ken got to
Z
and looked up. “Button,” he said. “Would you care for a serenade?”

“It's tempting,” I said, my voice full of sarcasm. George kind of laughed, which gave me the courage to go on. “Anyway.” I held out both invitations. “We're having a party. You might have heard.”

“‘Velocity'?” George said after reading the invite. “Is this for real?” His deep blue eyes were looking directly into mine, and if only my hair had suddenly gone straight and tangle-free, it would have been exactly like my fantasies. Except, of course, for the fact that Ken was staring at me too.

“Yeah, don't mess with George here when it comes to SubSonic,” he warned. “You'll break his heart. Just like you've already broken mine.” Ken put one hand on his chest and flopped back against the step. He was making fun of me, and I felt my cheeks go hot with rage and embarrassment.

“It's for real,” I said. I could never break Gorgeous George's heart. “So, I'll see you there.” I didn't say it like a question, and I didn't wait for an answer. Instead, Em-style, I spun around on one foot and walked away, leaving (I hoped) an invisible trail of intrigue behind me. Or at least I would have if I hadn't accidentally tripped over a crack in the pavement. I heard Ken snort softly, but more important, I heard this: “Hey, shut up, man.” And when I looked back over my shoulder, I saw that George was still reading the invite.

Over the course of the day, the difference between the people who
did
get an invitation and those who
didn't
became kind of obvious. Everyone who
did
get one was talking about it, and everyone who
didn't
was talking about it too—it was just that they were saying totally different things. For example:

“Why would I want to listen to a CD in someone's basement when I could be out with Matt?” I overheard Sarah say to Maggie and Joyce as we did basketball practice drills in gym. “It's stupid. Plus, it's probably not even the real single.”

“Exactly,” Maggie agreed, dribbling the ball lazily over to Joyce and placing it in her hands instead of throwing it. Mrs. Rivera, our joke of a gym teacher, was in her office with her favorite soft rock radio station turned up loud, ignoring us. Nobody was putting much effort into the drill, except for Michelle and the volleyball girls, who were always trying to stay in shape. Even Em and I were just walking pointless circles around the gym, occasionally tossing a ball back and forth.

“I don't get why everyone's making such a big deal about this party,” Maggie finished, redoing her ponytail. As she lifted her arms, her gym shirt rode up a little, revealing a roll of stomach fat. I saw Sarah J. raise her eyebrows, but I didn't think anything of it until later, in the locker room. Maggie was in the bathroom when Sarah J. whispered to Joyce: “I've said it before, but now it's serious. Maggie
really
needs to cut out the macchiatos with whipped cream.”

Which, again, I didn't really think anything of until we were in French class that day. As Mr. Patachou was busy explaining the wonders of the
passé composé
, Em slid a note onto my desk.

“Pass this behind you when nobody's looking,” she whispered. The note had Maggie's name on it. But as you know by now, I'm nosy. I unfolded it a little.
Sarah thinks you're fat
, it read in big loopy letters. There was no signature. Em looked over at me, grinning. I didn't exactly grin back. I mean, Maggie wasn't my number-one-all-time-favorite person, but still, the note was mean. And I'd had enough anonymous notes passed to me in my day to know how much it sucked. At the same time, I couldn't
not
pass it. Em would know.

I refolded the note along the creases, passed it back, then watched anxiously out of the corner of my eye as it made its way up the aisle beside me and over to Maggie. She opened it, frowned before glancing around the room, then quickly tucked it into her pocket.

A minute later, she raised her hand.

“Mr. Patachou?
Puis-je aller aux toilettes?
” He handed her a hall pass. She left the room and was gone a full ten minutes. But after the bell rang, I saw her hanging out at her locker with Sarah J. and Joyce, making fun of Em's eyeliner, so I guessed she'd probably survive.

* * *

As I bounded across the yard after school, I couldn't help noticing how something in the air had changed. Obviously, it was getting colder—that brisk, stick-your-nose-in-the-freezer feeling of October approaching, but that's not really what I mean.

Charlie Baker smiled as I passed him; Michelle waved. Even people like Simon Sable and Laura Inglestone, who weren't invited to the party, seemed to look at me in a new way. “Smell ya later, Button,” Ken shouted from his perch on the bike rack. Well, even that wasn't so bad, compared to the things he normally said to me.

“Hey, Margot.” I turned at the sound of one more voice. It was Amir, walking fast to catch up to me, his thumbs hooked under the straps of his heavy backpack. “You going home?”

“Yeah,” I said, pausing.

“I'm meeting my family at the community center for Maida's ballet recital.” He didn't wait for an invitation. “I'll walk with you.” I glanced back into the yard to see if Ken was watching, but he and George were busy looking down at his iPod. Still, I started up the sidewalk quickly. Neither Amir or I needed more rumors going around about how we were into each other.

For a while we just walked in silence. I started counting red cars. I got up to four before he spoke. “So, you're hosting a party or something, right?” he asked suddenly. I took a deep breath. I'd kind of been dreading this moment.

“Yeah,” I said. “It's just going to be a few people at Em's house, though.”

“Oh. Cool, I guess.” We walked in silence a little longer, then he looked straight at me. “Do you really like that girl?” he asked.

“Em? Of course I do.”

“Why?”

It was such a weird question. Amir liked Andrew and Mike because they shared a passion for ketchup-flavored snacks, zombie movies, and video games. When you're a guy, it's as simple as that. But when you're a girl, it's more complicated. First, there are friends like Erika-with-a-K, who you like because you have a history that spans a million sleepover parties, and includes a thousand inside jokes, plus fourteen tons of nacho cheese eaten over the years.…But there are also friends like Em, who are new, exciting, and spontaneous. They take you places you never thought you'd see, like the inside of a really cool party, just as one example…and they can make you into something you never thought you'd be. But I knew that was all stuff a guy like Amir probably wouldn't get.

“She's nice,” I said instead, pulling the sleeves of my green army jacket down over my hands.

“I don't think she's nice.”

I turned to him. “You don't even know Em. How would you know if she's nice or not?”

“I just noticed. She kind of tries to keep you away from Andrew. Me and Mike, too.” He picked a big stick up from under a tree and started dragging it along the ground. “Shireen had a friend like that last year. This girl Monique turned her against all her old friends, then she ended up dumping her the second she found someone else to hang out with. Girls are evil like that. They make the dragons of Elron Woods look like bunny rabbits.”

Shireen was Amir's older sister. She was in tenth grade at Sterling High. I didn't know much about her except that she got a poem published in a magazine once—something that had always made me look up to her and assume she was super smart. But then again, if she'd really fallen for a friend like that, maybe she wasn't as brilliant as I'd imagined.

“Not all girls are like that,” I said defensively. “And Em's
definitely
not.” I probably should have stopped right there, but I didn't want him thinking such bad things about Em after she'd done so much for me. “She might even invite you to her party,” I went on, unwisely. “I mean, the guest list is really full, but if she can fit three more.”

“Really?” Amir looked surprised.

“Really.”

He shrugged. “I don't even know who that band is anyway. SubTerrain.”

“SubSonic.”

“SubSomething.” He ran the stick along someone's picket fence. “But that's nice of her, I guess.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

“Andrew will be excited.”

I hesitated. “He will?” I couldn't picture Andrew liking a band like SubSonic either…so, obviously, if he would be excited about getting invited to Em's party, there had to be another reason. “Why?” I asked.

“Just because.”

We were approaching the community center now, and I could see Amir's family waiting out front. Little girls in tutus, fall jackets, and running shoes were all over the sidewalk, giggling and spinning while they waited for the doors to open. I spotted Amir's little sister, Maida, right away. She was easy to find since she was the only mini-ballerina wearing a head scarf.

All the women in Amir's family wore them. I spotted his mom and older sister, Shireen, in the crowd as well.

“Just because
why
?” I pressed. I wish now that I hadn't pushed Amir, but I guess I wanted to know how Andrew felt for sure.

“Why do you think?” He put the question back to me with a meaningful look. I didn't say anything. Thankfully, Maida ran up to us just then, coming to a jumping stop that made her tutu spring up like the petals of a rose.

“You were almost late!” she said, grabbing Amir's hand excitedly. “It's time to go in! Right now!” A few people were starting to file into the community center, but Amir's mom, older sister, brother, and father, all came over, not seeming in any rush.

“Hello, Margot,” his mom said, giving me a wide smile.

“Hi.” I tried to act natural, but Amir's family made me nervous, even though they were always totally nice to me. I think it was because I couldn't stop staring at their clothes—his mom's and sisters' bright head scarves, especially. It's not that I thought they were weird or anything, but I couldn't help wondering: what would it be like to have something so obvious like that, that made you so different from everyone else, but so the same as your family? Probably nice, in a way. Nobody would ever ask if you were adopted…not to mention the side benefit that you'd never have to worry about how bad your hair looked.…