The Takedown(3)

Meanwhile, Jessie was the sole student in Park Prep on an art track. She exclusively cloaked her painfully thin body in vintage couture, and her permanent vibe was world-weary disdain. (Life with her collection of Puccini bags and shoes must be so hard.) A loner by definition, her Quip stream was all about how soul-destroying daily life was with “the locals”—i.e., us, her classmates.

I won’t say that the only reason Jessie was my competition for valedictorian was because all her classes consisted solely of spreading color on paper. I’ll just think it.

I flashed the girls a bright smile. Ellie smiled back. Jessie did not. I held up a fist and then four fingers. Point four. The exact number of points Jessie’s GPA was below mine.

I could hear Mom disapprovingly gasp, Kyle! But Jessie’s family was loaded. She’d be the kind of artist who had Chelsea galleries representing her straight out of art school and would be in MoMA by the time she was thirty. This would be the one time in her life she didn’t get exactly what she wanted. A little healthy razzing was good for her. She needed to build character somehow.

Jessie held up only one finger back.

It wasn’t the nice one.

“You’re bad,” Fawn laughed.

Grinning, I refocused on the girls only to find Audra casting a half-genuine, half-benedictory smile over my shoulder. Behind me, curls and an eager-to-please look of puppy devotion were pushing their way through the crowded foyer. Speaking of weird pairings…not this again.

“Konichiwa, Ailey-chan,” Audra cooed.

“Konichiwa, Senpai.” Ailey beamed.

Ailey.

Ailey was my BFF K thru eight, but we drifted freshman year when we came to Park Prep. Or, skip the sugarcoating? I drifted. Ever since, Ailey and I had swum in entirely different circles. Her, quite literally, as swim-team captain and all-around likable jock. Since she still cropped up in my feeds, I knew she went to perfectly adequate parties, was now the aforementioned Ellie Cyr’s bestie, and did plenty of the enviable cultural stuff that is the hallmark of any NYC teen’s life.

And that was all great until, in a weird turn of events, Audra deemed Ailey “cute” this, our senior, year. They’d only been in the same classes for three years prior, but then they found themselves the lone two seniors in the Japanese Life, Art, and Love elective, and suddenly my new best friend was talking my old best friend up to me as if she were Brooklyn real estate at the turn of the century and I’d passed on the chance to buy her.

Whenever they saw each other, to the exclusion of everyone else—namely me—they embraced in, I kid you not, a full-minute-long hug. I pretended absorption in Sharma’s zombie-dedicated screen until it was over and Ailey was back on her way.

And then my Doc chirped a familiar tone and I didn’t give a swipe about any of it. Not the creepy txts or my lateness or the fact that I lived in a constant state of stress over my bestie’s mood while she merged new, apparently more fulfilling, friendships in maddeningly adorable Japanese. My heart skipped in my chest.

Mac.

mac Boys’ room. Now, betch.

I snorted.

“Toodles, lovelies,” I said as my battery light went from yellow to red. “Ran so seven and a half minutes late this morning, didn’t have time for a proper pee.”

“I-C-K.” Sharma crinkled her nose.

“Sharma,” Fawn said, and tsked. “Pee is natural.”

“Boo!” Audra called after me. “We aren’t going up together?”

“Audy, I’ll see you in two minutes.”

“But how am I supposed to survive in the meantime?”

Just like that, all was right with the world again. Tossing me a coquettish wink, Audra linked arms with Fawn and Sharma. I blew them a kiss. And even though my favorite part of the morning was almost there—Mac time—I paused to watch my vivacious girls climb the stairs. We only had six more months together, and then it would be separate schools, states, social calendars, lives. This time was precious. Precious and finite, because more than ever, right at that moment, I had the worst feeling it was all about to go away.

And what do you know? Like always, I was right.





I barged into the bathroom, very Audra at a sample sale: What I want is in this room and I will have it. A freshman was picking at his face in one of the mirrors.

“Out,” I said.

“Oh gawd, I’m sorry.”

The boy bumped into the sink, dropped his Doc, fumbled to pick it up, then fled. I laughed, not so much at his freshie antics, but because there at the end of the row of sinks, also laughing at them, was the latest, yet most indispensable, addition to my life.

Mac.

“Did you just kick a boy out of the boys’ bathroom?” Mac arched the eyebrow of ruin. “That’s a pretty boss move even for you, Ms. Cheng.”

Utilizing my best impersonation of Mac’s strut and light Chicano accent, I said, “You’re, like, not the boss unless you make people work for you, you know?”

As much as I would miss the girls in the fall, I couldn’t even grapple with not being around Mac. But he’d accepted early admission into NYU, and my top five schools were out of state.

“All right, my little Szechuan baguette.” Mac snorted. “Let’s promise you’ll never do that impression again. I just heard my primos cringe all the way from Sunset Park.”