You Should See Me in a Crown(11)
We’re in her massive basement—which I have a feeling is going to become our prom war room—pretending not to hear Gabi’s parents arguing upstairs, and listening to her lay out an impressively detailed plan for how she’s going to Pretty Woman the hell outta me.
“Okay, so I had my mother’s personal shopper send some options over to your house today.” She holds her hands out in front of her. “No pressure! I just thought it might be a nice solution to the wardrobe concern.”
Me and Gabi have always seen things very differently. For her, there is always a way if her will is formidable enough. Though she be little, she is fierce. Or whatever it is they say about short girls with big personalities. So if she thinks a wardrobe change is the fast track to winning prom queen, no amount of arguing is going to change her mind.
It’s annoying, but I’ve learned to deal. Me and G aren’t just friends, we’re family.
I think about telling her that there’s no way I’m accepting an order courtesy of her parents’ AmEx like some sort of charity case, but then I remember her being there for me every day after my mom died without complaint. Bringing me homework for the weeks I missed school, sleeping on the floor of my bedroom every night in the weeks after the funeral to keep me company. Holding my hand when I couldn’t stop having nightmares where my grandparents and Robbie were all lined up in identical hospital beds, the low, steady beep of a flatline multiplied by three. So I keep my mouth shut and swallow down all my protests, because even if I don’t want to accept the gift, she wants to give it, and I know her heart has always been in the right place.
Even if her execution is … a bit shoddy.
“You were the only one with a wardrobe concern!” Britt huffs from where she sits. She crosses her arms over her Campbell County HS Varsity Girls Rugby hoodie. “Despite her impressive height and ridiculously perfect cheekbones—they really are crazy high, Lizzo, it’s almost obnoxious—Liz isn’t some Barbie for you to play dress-up with.”
“Well, I’m just trying to be helpful. Someone has to take initiative here and—”
“Um. I’m right here, guys. Me? Liz? Your friend and the one whose life you’re talking about?”
“You’re so right. We should table that discussion for later,” Gabi sort of concedes. She pauses briefly as her parents’ muffled shouting from upstairs gets slightly louder, but she straightens quickly like we heard nothing at all. She uses her laser pointer to underline the point on the slideshow that she has projected onto the wall. I immediately wish I hadn’t asked my coworker Victor to cover my shift tonight in order to subject myself to this. She turns back to her screen and purses her lips. “We need to be drumming up support for you within the student body, because they ultimately decide who wins.”
“Okay, but I shouldn’t be too behind, right? I mean, I’ll do all the volunteer things, and I definitely have the highest GPA,” I offer. “Madame Simoné made it sound very egalitarian yesterday.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Britt kicks her legs up in her leather seat and bites down on nacho-cheese Doritos covered in spicy hummus. “Don’t tell me this is some electoral college garbage.”
“Great questions, my friends.” Gabi smiles. She has been studying this process her entire life. “You’re easily in the lead on GPA, Lizzie, but that is worth the smallest percentage of overall scoring. So while the different events and your class rank get you on the court, the votes alone determine whether or not you win. So as important as the next few weeks are for how well you manage to show up and take illiterate ferrets for walks at the ASPCA or whatever, what matters is that you win over the people.”
Gabi tells the Alexa to bring up the lights so that we’re no longer lit only by the glow of the PowerPoint. It’s always like being in that old Disney Channel movie Smart House when I come over to the Marinos.
“Stone, if you don’t mind.” Gabi waves her hand to the side as an invitation to have Stone join her in front of us.
“While I would normally be inclined to allow the universe to dictate its will to us, due to the dire nature of the circumstances at hand, I found it in our collective best interest to—”
“Stone, some of us have to get home at some point this century.” Britt interrupts as gently as she can.
“I’ve devised an algorithm for evaluating where Liz is at in the rankings at any given point during the race.” She hands me her phone. “I’m not particularly adept at coding, but this application should suffice for our purposes.”
“Whoa. Seriously?” Britt leans over and gapes at the screen. I’ve always secretly assumed that Stone is so spacy because she’s tapped directly into the motherboard. This confirms it.
“Stone, G, this is amazing. How did you do this so fast?”
Gabi polishes her manicure on her chic black sweater. “I told you to leave it to us. We’ll take you far, my fierce and fantastic best friend.”
“Be advised, it’s an imperfect system. We’re using the number of hits a candidate’s name is getting on Campbell Confidential as a standin for projected votes to determine what type of traction you’ll need to win the popular vote, should you make court.” Stone says it as lightly as she says everything, like she’s talking about her moon being in Venus, or Mercury retrograde incoming. “But our primary concern is calculating the other elements—GPA, community service events—to understand just how competitive you need to be in order to enter the top four.”