Where It Began(63)

Undying love undying love undying love . . .

And I go, Gabriella: Get. A. Grip.





gabs123: r u kidding me? nash it was perfect. not that i would mind if u showed up tied with a bow. or even completely unwrapped.



pologuy: i wish. just b glad i’m up the street. if it wouldn’t screw up my transcript for the Big P i’d be in a bunk bed with my cousin henry going to public school in santa barbara right now and i’d never get to c u



gabs123: well that would suck. no me and public school. boo hoo hoo nash.



pologuy: not funny. can’t u get those bitches to back off? they’re scaring me



gabs123: not bitches. bff’s. i just keep telling them i don’t want to talk about it. they get it.



pologuy: good. maybe u should put them on hiatus. u don’t need to listen to their estrogen crap





I can tell how pissy he’s getting, but I totally don’t care.

I am the one with the Undying Love candy, and every time his screen name shows up on my screen, which is happening with reassuring regularity, it’s like an electronic aphrodisiac demonstrating for all eternity why porn sites gross more than mediumsized countries. And my Billy sightings at school make my heart pound like Cheesy Railroad Girl, and I don’t mean in a metaphorical, heart-nailed-by-Cupid’s-dinky-arrow kind of way. It is actual weird tachycardia (SAT word) and I feel like some ditz who is going to keel over with a mere glance at Perfect Hot Boy.

It isn’t clear if I’m going to live through the rest of chemistry with him in the same room ignoring me. That’s how bad it is.

That and the less-than-pleasant daydreams. For example: Agnes won’t let him out of the house after six p.m. so I know he isn’t taking Aliza Benitez out for Baby Blues ribs and sweet potato pie on Lincoln Boulevard, listening to Johnny Cash and cuddling up to her, and it’s even hard to imagine Aliza as a Johnny Cash–and-ribs kind of a girl. But then it starts bothering me that the place he isn’t taking her but would if he could is probably some elegant, expensive place on Melrose or a cute little organic forty-dollar snack at Urth Caffé on Beverly, and not the rib joint where he takes me down in Venice. Even though I somewhat dread going there because did you ever try to look reasonably appealing while gnawing on a slab of ribs with your fingers and chin coated with barbeque sauce?

I am in a complete paranoid snit.

But the fact that he can’t leave his house after dark to go out, slumming or elegant, doesn’t make up for how godawful it is to see him gazing down Aliza’s skanky little tank top under her unbuttoned uniform blouse in the Class of 1920 Garden every day, and how totally cat-full-of-cream-and-mice-stew smug she looks.

She is one happy Slutmuffin and I, for all anybody knows, am history.

Within a couple of days, the other Muffins have stopped scurrying off in the other direction whenever I walk by and are actually saying hi to me. This is not a good thing. You can tell that it is only because they feel sorry for me, as opposed to when I was Billy’s formerly invisible girlfriend, when they barely even nodded in my direction.

And you have to wonder if being a pathetic delinquent girl with no visible boyfriend is enough to make them start feeling sorry for a person, or if they have actually looked up from their makeup mirrors long enough to see the even more pathetic fact of my life as spectator to Aliza Benitez’s bliss.





L


AFTER SPENDING THE REST OF THE WEEK SKULKING around Winston School in my new role as a human magnet for unwanted self-revelations, I get a note from Mr. Piersol at the end of Honors Spanish, and it occurs to me that probably he wants to tell me how he spent his teenage years addicted to pornography and smoking crack. Actually, it’s kind of amazing to think he would have had enough gumption to drive to a crack house or to do whatever it takes to acquire all the porn you would need to be successfully addicted in the first place, given that he is famous for basically doing nothing but spouting clichés, suspending kids for no apparent reason, and sucking up to parents with checkbooks.

But no, that isn’t it. He wants me to resign from Student Council. Not that anybody but the decorating committee will notice I’m gone.

Still, I can’t believe it. There I sit in his enormous office in his enormous club chair watching the sun shine through the enormous stained glass window and reflect its colors on the Persian rug. And it sounds as if the tide is coming in inside my ears.

I so didn’t see this coming.

The thing is, I am actually sort of good at what I do for Student Council, even though I don’t need the Leadership in Party Decoration ribbon for my application to (fog descends, parents moan) Some Random College. Not only that: At the rate I’m going, Student Council is the only place at Winston I’ll ever get to sit at the same table as Billy and talk to him, assuming I stop feeling so insane every time I see him and I actually open my mouth and speak coherently, even if it is only about the budget for the homecoming dance and to okay the Junior Spring Fling posters.

At the rate I’m going, if I get kicked off Student Council, our only connection will be at one a.m. on a computer monitor, and he’ll forget what my voice even sounds like unless I start raising my hand in chemistry.

“Gabby,” Mr. Piersol says, playing what looks to be several rounds of here-is-the-church, here-is-the-steeple with his folded hands, “you have to understand. Eleventh grade rep is a leadership position.” Actually, it’s about fourteen leadership positions, since Winston has the biggest student council possible with representatives for everything the college counselors could think of so everyone can stick some leadership position on their application to (Hands of God applauding through the clouds) Harvard, but this seems like a bad time to point that out. “Blah-blah set an example. Blah-blah uphold reputation. Blahblabitty-blah.”