Where It Began(67)

But that’s exactly what it’s like—like I am powerless and pathetic. Like I’m powerless and pathetic and ridiculously perky and give really good IM. And even repeating undying love to myself every time I inhale and every time I exhale can’t completely drown out what I’m thinking.

And I say to myself: Gabby, if you keep this up, you’re going to have a whole lot of bad self-esteem to make Ponytail happy. But perhaps you should avoid sharp objects and thinking.





pologuy: whatcha doing?



gabs123: not a lot. spanish homework.



pologuy: same. do not take AP spanish language. slow death by magical realism. even tutor says so



gabs123: is your tutor living there now?



pologuy: now now. we all have our helpful professionals on the payroll. i’m stuck with him for company. ag is turning me into a hermit. boy needs companionship



gabs123: not a complete hermit. i see u with ur little harem. courtney thinks ur awesome



pologuy: r u saying i’m not awesome? well, i saw u with your scary little witches coven. again



gabs123: that is so not funny again. not witches, bff’s. u know this.



pologuy: no seriously. they look like they want to run me down in the parking lot



gabs123: lucky for u they don’t have cars.



pologuy: gabs! when did u get so harsh?



gabs123: when did u get ur harem?



pologuy: this is a joke right?



gabs123: duh. i totally understand. i do. u know i do. i’m just getting punchy with all this online cavorting. i miss actual cavorting.



pologuy: me too. miss u Miss G.



gabs123: i’ve gotta go to sleep. no more irregular verbs. xx



pologuy: u know it





I do know it. But as it turns out, some of the things I know are less true than others.

Because while I am sleeping, drifting through space in solo orbit so far away from actual events on planet Earth that I can’t see what everyone is doing well enough to understand anything at all, while I am dozing off thinking that nothing worse could happen, not even noticing when six thirty a.m. comes and goes, I am undone by a rhyming sock hop with poodle skirts.





part three





LIV


IT IS ALL JUST SO STUPID BUT I AM COMPLETELY unhinged. It’s like having an emotional breakdown over an advertising jingle about aftershave or having your heart ripped out by the Pillsbury Doughboy. And it isn’t even the Spring Fling itself, the actual dance, which, when you think about it, has all sorts of genuine dramatic possibilities:

Maybe Huey would grope Lisa, maybe he would play with the buttons of the horrible sombrero sweater that her mom is so attached to, and she would experience extreme moral conflict over slightly spiked punch.

Maybe Anita would break out of her house, show up with her bra straps hanging off her shoulders, and introduce us to the cute French guy from Marseilles who, having renounced his priestly vocation, was holed up at the Bel Air Hotel feeding torn up croissants to the black swans and waiting for her to run away with him.

Maybe I’d lose my mind and go stag and maybe I’d see Billy across the room and maybe we would slow dance to “My Blue Heaven” and we would both remember who I am, swaying to Elvis, and maybe he would want me.

What does not cross the mind of the orbiting space cadet, my mind, is that he would nominate himself for King of Fling and not even mention it to me, and Aliza would run for Queen of Fling with not one single other Slutmuffin nominating herself, big conspiracy, so you know that the crowned and anointed couple dancing to “My Blue Heaven” is going to be pologuy, live and in person, with Aliza Benitez and not gabs123.

Thank you, Brynn McElroy, for your highly organized and complete Fling committee minutes, distributed to all committee members, present or innocently sleeping through Charlotte Ward’s planning extravaganza.

“This sucks,” Anita says. “This is a bit much even for him.”

We are sitting in the Winston School darkroom, Huey’s private domain, where we all go sit in the dark so we can eat inside somewhere other than the cafeteria on rainy days, with the glowing red lights and timer buzzers going off and Huey bouncing around hanging up wet, newborn photos by little clothespinthingies while Lisa gazes up at him and Anita and I try not to look at each other.

Only it’s sunny, and we’re hiding out in there because I know if I have to see Billy with anybody else, I’m not going to survive the day.

“Wait a minute,” Huey says, dipping photographic paper into a tub of chemicals. “Are you saying you still want this guy to be your boyfriend?”

“Leave her alone,” Lisa says. “She’s having a hard enough time.”

“I’m just saying, I think you’d have a lot easier time if you’d take care of yourself. Like if you’d take care of all the legal things . . .”

“Huey,” Lisa says. “She doesn’t want to talk about the legal stuff. Leave her alone.”

“I am taking care of the legal stuff!” I say. “I’m doing everything my lawyer says I’m supposed to be doing. Punctiliously! I’m staying away from Billy and I’m going to therapy and I’m having a meeting with the Probation Department and I’m pretending to get over my so-called drinking problem and soon I’ll have my record expunged, okay?”