You Should See Me in a Crown(42)
“Jordan!” I grab his arm and pull him with me into the alcove where the vending machines sit. It’s a pretty tight fit, but I find enough room to pull my fist back and punch him in his bicep. “What do you know?”
“Whew, girl, who knew you had such a strong right hook?” He rubs the spot on his arm like I really injured him. “Nobody knows anything, okay? Your girl just posted a snippet from the Kittredge concert on CC, and my Lighty Senses told me you wouldn’t miss a chance to see that Teela chick.”
“Sorry for punching you,” I say as I reach out to rub his arm where I hit him. “It was a reflex.”
“Some reflex.” He grimaces. “But who cares? Tell me about Molly Ringwald.”
“Jordan.”
“Sorry, Jessica Rabbit.”
“Jordan.”
“My bad, Kim Possible.”
“Jordan!”
He holds up his hands with a laugh. “Okay, I’m being serious now. Please don’t punch me again.”
“You can’t tell anyone.” I don’t want to hold this like some secret shame anymore, and something in me still trusts Jordan, especially after the past couple of weeks. So I tell him everything. About the concert, the agreement to keep whatever is happening between us super under the radar, all of it.
Jordan shakes my shoulders. “Don’t look so terrified! A girlfriend is not the worst thing that could have happened to you. Enjoy it! Make out with her some more. Go to prom. Whatever.” He wraps an arm around me, and I lean into his frame. “Whatever you do, don’t let this place take it away from you. Campbell ruins good people.”
His voice is sad, sadder than I’ve ever heard before. I wonder if he’s thinking about Emme, about whatever it is that drove her out of Campbell. But her life has always seemed so flawless, so shiny to me, I can’t imagine what could have happened. When I pull away to look at him, his face has rebounded to the Jordan Jennings everyone expects. Bright, confident, collected.
“But, we gotta get you to practice!” He shakes his body a little, like he needs to wake up. “Come on.”
We duck out of the alcove and almost run right into Cruella the Pill herself, flanked by her trusty sidekick, Claire.
“Jordan, we missed you at lunch today.” Rachel’s voice is dripping with a sugary sweetness that I know well as she looks between the two of us. It’s the voice she uses when she knows she’s got you where she wants you. “It’s funny we should run into you. I finally heard from Emme a few minutes ago.
“Yeah, she said she misses the love of her life and wishes she were with him.” She clicks her tongue. “It would be such a shame if she knew you were ducking into dark corners with the likes of the help while she was away.”
“Watch it, Rachel,” he says, voice low.
Rachel narrows her eyes.
“You don’t want to get mixed up with her, Jordan. There’ll be no saving your reputation when she’s finished with you,” she says. As she walks away, Jordan and I look at each other. He finally deflates as she rounds the corner.
“God, she gets under my skin.” He leans back against a locker with a thud and breathes out. “Always has. Her and her idiot boyfriend.”
I lean on the lockers too and bump his shoulder with mine. For all his posturing and prom kingliness, Jordan is still so much like that kid I used to know. He’s still soft in all the places that this school, this town has tried to make rough.
“I just don’t get it. I thought she was just like that with me because I’m, you know, a pretty easy target,” I say. “But you’re untouchable. And Emme is one of her best friends. What is her deal?”
“I keep trying to tell you that it’s not that simple, Lighty.” He rubs his brow with the back of his hand. He looks at me seriously. “There are only two people I’ve ever trusted in this school, and one of them might not ever come back.”
I’m silent for a second as I take him in.
“I wish more people like you won prom queen. Then Rachel wouldn’t get to live out this little fairy tale where she rules the kingdom and the rest of us are her little serfs,” he adds. I shake my head at him with a curious look. He rolls his eyes. “I’m an athlete, Lighty, not a slacker. I only slept through, like, ten minutes of the feudalism unit in AP World History—max.”
As surprised as I am by Jordan’s knowledge of the class system in medieval Europe, he has a point. This whole race is set up to mimic some twisted fairy tale. The queen is supposed to be the best among us: the smartest, the most beautiful, the worthiest. But the people who win are rarely the people who deserve it. Like with any monarchy, they’re just the closest to the top. You don’t earn queen; you inherit it.
People like Rachel don’t have to do much at all as far as campaigning. They can run with the same tired strategies and tactics year after year and still eke out wins. As for the rest of us, we can do everything right—go above and beyond, maybe even make court—but we never, ever win. It’s practically an unspoken law of nature. So even though I’m focusing my tactics on getting the votes of the outliers of Campbell’s student body, it’s not moving the needle enough.
“You know what? Forget her fairy tale.” I realize then what Gabi—and even Britt, with her threats of physical violence against Rachel’s person—keep failing to recognize in our campaign strategy. We don’t need posters and fliers and speeches. That’s for people like the PomBots. We may never have whatever it is that makes people like Rachel feel like they own everything on God’s green earth, but we have something else. We’re smarter, scrappier.