Mission (Un)Popular (25 page)

W
HEN MY
G
RANDPA
Button was alive, and he and Grandma Betty lived in a big house on Chester Street, they used to do a lot of puzzles. They had a card table permanently set up in the den, and every time my mom and I would go for Sunday dinner there'd be something new: five hundred pieces of penguins, one-thousand pieces of the pyramids, or—I'm not even kidding—a five thousand piece puzzle of the sky.

“Come sit with me, Margot,” Grandpa used to say while my mom and grandma were busy in the kitchen. “Tell me what's new in your world. We'll see if we can't get some edges in.” He'd arrange the pieces in piles by color and put them together patiently while we talked until he had an entire cluster of clouds. Meanwhile, I'd be sighing in frustration over a small section of hot air balloon. “There you go,” he'd say when I fit a single piece in. “You're getting it.” But I wasn't really. I was just fumbling through, getting lucky enough, now and then, to find two pieces that went together.

My grandpa, on the other hand, had eons' worth of patience, and an unwavering faith that we'd get that puzzle done.

I miss him pretty much all the time, but on that afternoon, especially, I would have given anything to be able to sit and talk with him again while piecing together that impossible-seeming sky.

“Margot, lovely to see you back,” Mrs. Rivera said unenthusiastically as I walked into the gym. She seriously had to be the most sedated person I'd ever met. All she ever seemed to do was sit in the gym office trying to tune out whatever was going on outside. I could picture her on Christmas morning as a little girl, sighing as she opened her presents. “A doll. How interesting,” she'd say, before dropping it on the floor and turning to stare at the wall.

“I have a little job for you.” She pointed to a pile of papers on her desk. “These equipment invoices need to be filed. Something to keep you busy these next few weeks.”

Weeks? It was a big stack of paper, but not that big. “When you're done with those, you'll find more in the boxes.” She waved her arms around to show me the boxes, which were, literally, everywhere…under her desk, on top of the filing cabinet, piled up behind the door. This had to be against some kind of child labor law.

The next hour of my life was spent sifting through one invoice at a time while I listened to the sounds of Mrs. Rivera crunching oatmeal cookies, humming along to soft rock radio, and flipping through the pages of a newspaper while the girls played basketball. Twice, one of them came to the door to report a foul, and Mrs. Rivera looked up just long enough to say, “Work it out.”

It was easily the most boring period of my life. Not that I didn't learn anything. Like, for example, did you know that Manning Middle School purchased thirty-two volleyballs in 1998? Me neither! Do you care? Me neither!

I was actually glad when the bell rang and I got to go to French class. That is, until I saw that Em was at George's desk in the back of the room. They were each sharing an earphone of his iPod, leaning in so close that their shoulders were almost touching. They must have gotten to an especially great part in the song, because he looked over at her, grinning and making a drumming motion in the air. I swallowed hard. Why hadn't I noticed it before? Just from the way his eyes lit up when he looked at her, it was so obvious he liked her. I opened my
cahier d'exercices
and started miserably practicing my
dictée
words. But a minute later, a bag landed in the middle of my page. I looked up, and there was Em.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Besides SubSonic, your loverboy has awful taste in music. He just made me listen to this entire song about weasels. It was like, five minutes long.”

I smiled, relieved.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I forgot that I brought you your clothes. The wet stuff you left at my house. I put some other stuff in there, too. A few camisoles and things.”

I smiled and was just about to open the bag to look at them when Mr. Patachou started to talk about the fascinating world of
passé composé
verbs and Em had to take her seat. She lay her head down on her desk, stuck her tongue out, and rolled her eyes at me. I let my head drop onto my desk too, doing a silent snore, except that it accidentally came out not-so-silent—like a big rhinoceros snort. Everyone turned to look at me.

“Margot, ça ne t'amuse pas, le verbe finir?”
Mr. Patachou asked, and everyone laughed. I didn't really care, though. For once I got the feeling they were all laughing
with
me. Plus, I had new camisoles, Sarah J. was suspended, and Em and I had just gone out for lunch with two of the most popular girls in school. So my love life wasn't working out the way I'd planned? So Andrew was a little bit mad at me? So what? When I weighed the good things against the bad things, it had still been a decent day. Em gave me a mischievous look, and I smiled back, relaxing into my seat. She didn't like George. She'd said so herself.

Em met me at my locker after school, where I'd just finished pinning up my copy of the “autographed” SubSonic poster beside the pair of pears photo. Even though I knew it wasn't a real autograph, I liked the way it looked hanging there. A few other people who'd been at the party had put theirs in their lockers too.

“Your hair looks good today,” Em said, coming up behind me. “You think so?” I asked. “Thanks. That frizz control serum is amazing.”

“I know.” Em smiled, then looked at me more closely. “Your eyeliner's not bad either. But I'll bring you a new one tomorrow. Brown would be better on you for daytime.” I'd done the best I could recreating my party eyes with my mom's crusty old black eyeliner pencil, but it hadn't been easy.

“Thanks,” I said again. “That'd be cool.”

A surge of hopefulness went through me as we walked out to the yard together. Maggie and Joyce were sitting on the concrete ledge and they waved us over. It felt weird to be approaching Sarah J.'s territory. Weirder, even, to be invited, but I propped up my crutches and hoisted myself onto the ledge. I had to admit, it was nice. The ledge was higher than most places in the yard, and it made me feel like royalty, looking out over my kingdom.

“God,” Maggie lamented as she examined her pores in a compact, “my tan is totally gone. It's like the summer never even happened.”

Joyce reached into her bag, unzipped a makeup case, and handed Maggie some bronzer.

“Thanks! You saved my life!” Maggie took it gratefully. “You're so lucky, Margot,” she said to me as she started applying the gold powder to her cheekbones. “You never have to worry about being tanned.”

I could have mentioned the many joys that come with permanently brown skin—like the fact that the pharmacy near our house barely carried any makeup that matched, or the loveliness of having a mustache I had to bleach—but instead I just smiled, taking the compliment, since it was the first real one she'd ever given me.

“Oh look,” Em said as she hopped onto the ledge beside Joyce. “Here comes loverboy.” George and Ken were coming straight for us.

“Stop calling him that!” I whispered, then I watched George's eyes carefully as he got closer, trying to see if he was focusing more on Em than on anyone else. It was hard to tell. If anything, he seemed to be looking at something off in the distance behind us.

“Is that your dad?” George asked, as soon as he reached the concrete ledge. I turned, and sure enough, Bryan was getting out of our rusty, hundred-year-old minivan, which he'd parked right in front of the school, where everyone would see it.

“Stepdad,” I corrected. “Anyway. See you tomorrow.” I grabbed my crutches and hopped off the ledge before the entire school yard had a chance to see how the driver's-side mirror was being held on with duct tape.

“You're not going to stay and hang out with us?” Ken looked almost genuinely disappointed. “You're breaking my heart, Button.” I rolled my eyes at him.

Maggie and Joyce were still waving as Bryan shoulder checked five times and pulled into the street. Ken, who by then had already forgotten I existed, was sitting on the ledge, opening a bag of Doritos. But I couldn't see Em or George at all. I turned around farther in my seat, pretending to be waving back at Maggie and Joyce, and that was when I spotted them. They were standing together, talking. A bit apart from everyone else.

“Was that the same girl whose home you were at on Friday night?” Bryan asked, interrupting my minor panic attack. I pretended I hadn't heard him. “I'd still like to speak with her mother, but I'll need you to get me their number. It's unlisted.”

“It's probably unlisted because they don't want people bugging them,” I said, hoping he'd take the hint. “Her mom's an actor.”

He nodded, not seeming all that impressed. “Your mother mentioned that. I also take it she isn't deaf.”

I smiled sheepishly. “Would you believe that she magically regained her hearing?” Bryan didn't laugh, but he didn't look mad either.

“She used to be on
Destiny's World
,” I told him. He still didn't seem awed, which kind of annoyed me. I mean, of all people, he should have known how hard it was to get good roles like that. “And
Chicago Dreams
. She's a big deal,” I went on. “Also, Em's dad is a music agent for this amazing band, SubSonic, which is why they're so rich.”

That seemed to get Bryan's attention, but not for the right reasons. “Are you sure about that?” he asked, as he shoulder checked again.

“Yeah. But don't tell anyone, okay? Em's trying to keep a low profile.”

He seemed to be deep in thought for a second. “Margot, that strikes me as odd,” he went on, signaling left. “You know, the acting community is smaller than you might think. I was talking with Jeff Fischer, from the Tylenol commercial.” I knew the guy he meant. He was part of Bryan's old “dramatic arts collective,” and he was the most famous actor in our town because he'd once pretended to have a backache for a national commercial spot. Then he'd moved to New York for a while to be on Broadway in some play about trains, which practically made Bryan die of envy.

“Jeff and Em's mother have a mutual friend,” Bryan went on. “He mentioned she was a single mother who'd done very well for herself.”

“What?” I looked straight at Bryan. “No. She's not a single mother. She's married. Em's dad lives in New York. She talks to him every day at lunch.”

“Really? Because Jeff Fischer seemed quite sure about her situation. I just—”

“Bryan. She's practically my best friend. Who would know more about her life? Me, or the guy from the Tylenol commercial?”

“I don't know, Margot. I'm just giving you the facts as I've heard them. Is it possible your new friend isn't being entirely forthright with you?”

“Of course she's being
forthright
,” I said, making a point of using his stupid word.

“I'm not trying to upset you, Margot. Sometimes people tell lies to cover up painful truths. It doesn't mean your friend isn't a good person at heart. But perhaps she's troubled.”

So now Em was “erratic”
and
“troubled”?

“Perhaps she's grieving over something,” he went on in this calm, wise, self-help-book voice. “People who are hurting inside often rebel against authority. It might explain why she felt the need to throw a party while her mother was out.”

“Right.” I stared out the window, but I couldn't deny it. No matter how I tried to rearrange the pieces of Em's story, and force them into place, they just didn't fit.

My mom's first tarot client still hadn't arrived when we got home. She was in the kitchen, still dressed in her 100%
VEGAN
T-shirt from that morning, picking at a VTV pasta entrée straight from the box while the triplets played with pots and Tupperware containers they'd scattered all over the floor. It looked like our kitchen cabinets had exploded, and the triplets were poor orphaned children playing in the wreckage.

Bryan went up behind my mom, massaged her shoulders, then kissed her on the lips.

“We just made a run to the pharmacy,” Mom explained.

“Tough trip?” he asked.

“You wouldn't believe it,” she answered. “All three of them threw tantrums because I bought store-brand diapers instead of the ones with Elmo. Then, while I was calming Aleene and Alice down, I lost track of Alex. I found her in the feminine hygiene aisle. She'd opened a box of tampons, dumped them on the floor, and was using them to build a log cabin. She screamed the whole way home in the stroller,” my mom finished weakly, shouting the last part of the story over Alice's wailing.

“My pot!!!!!” Alice was yelling, as Aleene wrestled it from her hands.

Mom stared at the ceiling like she was praying for the strength to survive another day of triple-toddler madness. Bryan stepped in to deal with the pot situation.

“Call me when your client gets here,” I said as I picked my way through the Tupperware and pots on my crutches. “I have to start my homework.” But instead I closed my door and flopped down on my bed. According to the clock on my bedside table, it was 3:47. Em and George were probably sitting on the concrete ledge at this very second, exchanging childhood stories. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head, but the second I opened them, my clock radio was staring me in the face again: 3:48. They'd probably moved from talking to tongue kissing. I groaned, then sat up and tried to calm down. After all, what had Em's exact words been? “No offense, but he's not my type.” Then again, she'd lied about a lot of things. What's to say she wasn't lying about George, too?

There was a knock at my door. “Margot, dear.” It was Grandma Betty. I hadn't even known she was at our house. “May I come in?” Unlike my mother, Grandma actually waited for an answer.