Where It Began(64)

The tide in my ears gets so loud I’m afraid that I’m going to pass out, and it becomes increasingly difficult to make out exactly what he’s saying except that it’s pretty obvious I’m the bad apple that’s going to spoil the bunch, the jailbird that doesn’t get the worm, the poor example who is therefore here today and gone from Council tomorrow.

It’s just so unfair that I’m the one getting beat up with his mindless clichés. Billy is the one whose middle initials are DUI and there is no way Mr. Piersol doesn’t know that. I am sitting there thinking how Billy is lucky the Mothers Against Drunk Driving haven’t made him their international poster boy, and nobody is asking him to resign from Student Anything.

I would never drive drunk.

I would never even let him drive me drunk.

And then I think, Wait a minute. That can’t be right, can it, because I did, didn’t I? Somehow I managed to get plowed and wrap a car around a tree.

But it is still hard to see how any of this makes me unfit to plan how to decorate prom given that I’m the only person on the committee who can see that doing the whole room in iridescent pink and black and silver that looks a lot like tinfoil would be both tacky and disgusting, not to mention I’m completely responsible for the Youth League shelter looking cheery for Christmas.

Which makes this totally unfair.

I look straight at Mr. Piersol, who seems somewhat uncomfortable, his mouth in this tight little straight line, and I just don’t want him to be able to do this to me. And I say, “I don’t think this is right.”

And then I almost do pass out. Because: I don’t generally spend my time confronting people. But all I can think is: Have to stay on Student Council. Billy is on Student Council. Have to see Billy on Student Council.

“Mr. Piersol,” I lie really well after all this endless practice with helpful helping professionals who are supposed to keep me out of jail. “I have a Problem.”

He doesn’t seem quite as happy to hear this as all the helpful helping drones I am supposed to say it to, but I’m completely shameless.

“I have a Problem and I’m Dealing With It. But the thing is, I’m not the only student here who has a problem, even this particular one. And I think . . .” Oh God, what do I think? Think think think. “I think, actually, that this makes me, um, a better leader than I was before when I, uh, wasn’t dealing with it.”

He is leaning forward in his chair, from the look of it trying to figure out what the hell I’m talking about.

“And frankly, Mr. Piersol,” I say very quickly before I pass out or he interrupts me or I completely lose my nerve, “I don’t even think I was a true leader before. Like I am now, I mean.”

Mr. Piersol just stares at me in absolute silence. It is hard to imagine what cliché he is going to come up with to bash me back into my place as if I were a presumptuous rodent sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong in a game of Whack-A-Mole. But then he starts to crack, just a little, and then he’s absolutely leering at me like a seriously stoned clown. There it is. The total smile. Mr. Piersol is just sitting there loving every inch of my lying fictional self.

Not that I have turned into a total moron who thinks the man actually likes me, but now he doesn’t have to do anything to me—in fact, he doesn’t have to do anything at all (an added bonus)—and he can still be Mr. Responsible Headmaster.

I feel like a complete lying genius-child.

Now Mr. Piersol can jump on the bandwagon with my entourage of high-priced rehabilitation experts and embrace my lying fictional self and it won’t disrupt his day.

There he sits, embellishing my fictional sad story, and there I am, gazing into my lap and waiting for it to be over. New respect blah-blah . . . thoughtful self-reflection blah-blah . . . newfound maturity blabitty-blah.

Not only am I still on Student Council, but I can see a college recommendation forming before my very eyes, even though you can tell that, deep down, he really hates me and isn’t all that happy with himself for getting carried away with the happy idea of just staying inert and not sticking with the original program and tossing me off Council.

It occurs to me that maybe this whole thing really is a Personal Growth Opportunity, just like everyone says, and I have developed the useful new skill of telling people whatever they want to hear, pretending to be whatever they want me to be, while appearing to tell the truth, aka lying, and getting them to do what I want whether they like it or not.

Then it occurs to me that this is what I had been trying to do with Billy pretty much the whole time.

Then I have to go to art, which is fine, because this isn’t exactly what I want to be thinking about.

Ever.





LI


BRYNN MCELROY IS A SLUTMUFFIN PEON. THAT’S JUST the way it is, and even her dad calling her “my gorgeous daughter, Brynn” when he thanks her from onstage at the Golden Globes can’t change it. She’s welcome in the Class of 1920 Garden but not someone whose offer of a lift home confers the possibility of popularity. But she is on Council with her football-playing boyfriend, Jack Griffith, and she is the lowest status girl working on the Fling committee. Except for me. So it makes sense that she’s the one who gets stuck calling me to see if they can get me off it after Charlotte Ward tried and failed.

“Hey,” she says.