Candid (True Images Series) (20 page)

“Yeah, well, I never meant to actually ask her.”

“But you did.”

“Yeah, I did. But you know what? She was thrilled when I did, and happy to wear whatever I suggested – unlike some people I know.”

“Why should I be thrilled to do something I don’t like just because you like it?”

“I just thought it was a chance to do something together that wouldn’t be breaking your mom’s rules.”

“Well, now you can do it with Robin. I hope you have a great day.”

“Are you still going to dress up with Michael?”

“I sure am. I didn’t waist $20 buying pink t-shirts for nothing.”

“He’s actually going to wear pink?”

“Yep.
I guess it doesn’t offend his male ego. Come on. We’d better get going or we’ll be late.”

As we walked to Lee’s truck, he practically growled under his breath as he said, “That guy’s ego is so big, he’d think he was hot stuff wearing a pink tutu.”

I ignored him until we got to school. Then as he parked, I saw Robin making a beeline for us. She pulled Lee’s door open and unzipped her jacket to flash her t-shirt at him. I looked around him and saw that she was wearing a black t-shirt with the words, “He’s mine,” spelled out in iron on letters across the front, with an arrow made out of glue on crystals pointing to the left.

“Well,” I told him, “Be sure you stand on her left side all day.” I got out of the truck and went to find Michael. I found him leaning against the hood of his car, obviously waiting for me. He stood when he saw me coming and said, “Did you bring my shirt?”

“Yeah.
Let me get it out.”

I sat my backpack down on his car and unzipped it. Then, I realized that he was taking off his hoodie. Was he going to change right here? I guess so. I held the t-shirt out to him and watched bemused as he pulled off his own t-shirt. I had to hand it to him, the guy was ripped. And he was standing really, really close to me. I saw Lee watching us from the corner of my eye and I couldn’t remember ever being so uncomfortable. Was it just me, or was Michael taking his sweet time, putting the pink shirt on?

“How’s it look?” he asked when he finally yanked it down over his massive chest. It was at least a size too small so it was literally molded to him. No one was going to call him a sissy in that
shirt, that
was for sure.

“Um, it looks great. Let’s go.”

As we walked inside, I glanced back over my shoulder at Lee and saw him trying to walk on Robin’s right side, but she was determined to have him on her left. She saw me watching them and smirked at her success. I almost felt sorry for him, until I saw Robin’s hand curled around his arm.

The twin thing only worked if you were seen together, so Michael walked me to all of my classes until I was ready to club him with the nearest heavy object. The only upside was that I could tell it made Lee extremely jealous and I got a morbid satisfaction out of seeing it. It was almost worth the struggle to keep Michael’s hands where they belonged the whole day.

At lunch, Marisol ran over to me. It was the first time I’d been away from Michael all day except during class, and I was enjoying my peace. He’d gone to eat in the cafeteria, but only after putting a strong effort into convincing me to go with him. I didn’t mind at all if Marisol joined me, though, since apparently Lee wasn’t going to.

“Did you hear what Lee did?” she asked as she sat down next to me and opened a bag of chips.

“No. Tell me.”

“He taped a piece of paper to his shirt that said, ‘No, I’m not.’ You know, since Robin’s said, ‘He’s mine.’ It’s hilarious, and Robin is so mad.
Serves her right.”

I wasn’t so sure it did. After all, Lee had encouraged her, even if he hadn’t meant to. “You know, I kind of feel sorry for her.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you. She’s been telling people that she’s going to get him one way or another. She sounds kind of pathetic and desperate, but very determined.”

“Well, she’s not his type, so good luck to her. I don’t know why it bothered me so much in the first place.”

“Probably the same reason it bothers Lee to watch you going around with Michael even though he’s not your type either. Not that you ever seemed to have a type before Lee showed up, but even then I wouldn’t have picked Michael for you.”

“Where is Lee?”

Before Marisol could answer, I saw him coming towards us. “Right there,” she said, laughing.

Lee nodded at Marisol, and said, “Hey,” as he sat next to me. He nudged me with his shoulder and asked, “Are you still mad at me?”

I thought for a minute and realized I wasn’t. I didn’t want to let him off that easy though. “I don’t know. Are you sorry about the whole deal with Robin?”

“You have no idea how sorry I am. And I’m sorry I pressured you to do something you didn’t want to do.”

“Whoa! Sounds like you two need some privacy,” Marisol said, jumping up.

 I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. “Relax. He just means that he tried to make me do this whole spirit week thing.”

“That’s a relief,” she said. Then looking at Lee, she added, “I thought I’d have to put you in the same category as Michael.”

“What are you talking about?” Lee asked sweetly, but there was a menacing tone in his voice.

“Oh, you know. Poor Sienna’s been fighting him off all day. I thought Sienna was going to deck him when he touched her rear after third hour.”

“Thanks a lot, Marisol.” I reached over and put my hand over Lee’s clenched fist. “Look, it could have been an accident. He said it was. Don’t make a big deal out of it. I was kind of asking for it anyway. I shouldn’t have asked him to pair up with me for twin day. I knew what he was like.”

“Nothing you did makes it ok for him to touch you.”

“No, it doesn’t, but it’s not like I let him get away with it.”  I turned his fist over and pried his hand open so I could lace my fingers through his. “Look, forget about it. I mean, you have to practice with the guy later.”

Marisol started laughing, “Practice is dangerous enough. Will
told
me that Lee almost took Michael’s head off with the ball yesterday.”

“Really?”
I asked Lee.

“It was just a pass. He should have been paying attention.”

“Whatever,” Marisol continued. “Will said you were a bear the whole practice. It’s a good thing Michael got out of the way in time. Did you really throw the ball hard enough to break the cover off the fire alarm?”

“I just cracked it a little. Where is Will? I’m going to go have a word with him.”

Lee stalked away and Marisol eventually stopped laughing long enough to say, “
Chica
, that guy has it bad.”

*****

Lee let up about the whole spirit week thing. He continued to dress for it, but didn’t say another word when I didn’t. I had more important things to think about anyway.

What was I thinking about?
English?
Math?
World History?
Nope. For the next week I forgot they existed because I was thinking about Homecoming and how to sway all the votes Katie’s way.

Even the fierce powder puff game on Wednesday after school did little to distract me from it. I was really glad I was taking pictures of it and not playing.
Very few of the girls escaped without an injury of some kind.
Some really crazy tension erupted during the game and carried on through school the next day.

This all added to the drama leading up to the election that would be held the next day during lunch. Jordan didn’t play, but most of the cheerleaders did. During the game, they seemed to have their sights set on beating Cecilia up every chance they got. Alyssa also played, and it was obvious she was gunning for Cecilia as well.

I wasn’t sure  how much of Alyssa’s aggression came from Jordan’s encouragement and how much came from her own jealousy over Cecelia getting so much of the attention after being on my blog. Fortunately for Cecilia, she was as tough as shoe leather and ran over more than one of the lighter cheerleaders.

I had no doubt that Jordan was behind the attacks on Cecilia during the game. She had her sights set on bringing Cecilia down in the Homecoming election, and she didn’t have many qualms about sportsmanship. Through it all though, she made sure that I knew that she considered me to be her true opponent. Fortunately, she thought I wanted Cecilia to win.

In fact, it was hard to keep a straight face when she ran me down outside the yearbook room after school on Thursday. When I saw her coming, my first instinct was to duck and cover, but I refused to be intimidated.

“Oh, hey, Jordan.
That’s a cute jacket!”

Confusion darted across her face, but she recovered quickly. “Since when do you know anything about fashion?”

I shrugged and said, “I don’t. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to warn you that all your work to get Cecilia elected Homecoming Queen is a big waste of time.”

“I’m not trying to get her elected,” I said, glad that I didn’t have to lie about it.

“Don’t waste your breath. There was that article about all of her volunteer work in the school paper on Monday, the photos of her you put up on your blog, her little make-over, and the posters and fliers all over the school.”

“Well, actually, Marisol Ramos did the makeover, the posters and fliers were done by the volleyball team, and the article in the paper was written by someone else. I don’t do much writing, just photography.”

“Whatever. I know you’re behind it all. So too bad for you that Cecilia won’t be eligible after she gets suspended.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s in the office right now. She was caught fighting in the parking lot a few minutes ago.”

“With who?”
I asked suspiciously.

Jordan shrugged and looked pleased with
herself
. “How should I know? I just thought you should have some warning before you put any more effort into getting her elected.”

I needed to look angry, or Jordan would suspect something. Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem. I had wanted Cecilia to get out of this with as little damage to herself as possible. Now she was going to be suspended for fighting, and I’d bet my favorite lens that Jordan had arranged it.

 I looked Jordan square in the eye and, with a ferocity that surprised me, said, “The homecoming queen is supposed to be someone who best represents this school. I guess if people think an evil, scheming cat is the best way to do that, you’ll have no problem getting elected. Otherwise, you’d better watch out – no matter
who
your competition is.”

Jordan’s eyes were cold on me as she said, “When that crown is put on my head, I’ll be thinking about you.”

She started to walk away, but I called after her, “I bet that bothers you, doesn’t it?”

She turned back reluctantly to ask, “What?”

“That someone like me has caused you so many problems.”

Her eyes pierced me with honesty as she replied. “Only someone like you
could
have.”

I stood watching her walk away, blind to everyone else around me. I knew what
I
meant by someone like me. What did
she
mean?

“So what are we going to do now?”

I turned to see Parker standing behind me. Had he been there the whole time? “We’re going to go find out what’s happening with Cecilia.”

“No, I mean, about the plan. Cecilia was supposed to drop out and support Katie – not get disqualified.”

“We go ahead with our plans. I don’t think it will make that much difference. We might even be able to spin it in Katie’s favor. Mostly though, we’re going to let Jordan gloat and think she’s won the thing. Do you have time to walk down to the office with me?”

“Sure,” he said.

The hallways were practically empty now since most kids scrambled out of school as soon as they could. Since there weren’t many people around to overhear us, I didn’t mind that Parker was talking more than he should have.

“Do you think Jordan will know that it’s because of you that she lost?” he asked.

“It won’t just be because of me. This won’t work without everyone else we’ve got on board. But I plan to let her know I had something to do with it. Is that terrible? That I want her to know she didn’t beat me after all?”

“Maybe, but I’ve been wanting you to get her back since that day she pushed you into that muddy ditch in the seventh grade.”

I came to a dead stop. “I forgot about that! I was wearing those new purple suede shoes my mom got me for Christmas. They were ruined. How’d you remember that?”

“Well, I kind of had a crush on you then, and so it made me really, really mad.”

“You had a crush on me in the seventh grade?”

“And the eighth, and the ninth, etc…”

“Are you serious? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Because I knew you didn’t like me the same way and I didn’t want to screw up our friendship.”

“You seem to be over it now, though.”

He smiled wryly.
“Good thing, too – huh?
I can’t compete with Lee Franklin, that’s for sure. I admit that it was hard at first, seeing how much you liked him. But then, it was kind of nice to move on to liking girls that I actually had a chance with.”

“And who’s that? I mean currently. I know you’re over Alyssa.”

“I’m not saying another word. I don’t want to jinx it. Shouldn’t we get going?”

“Oh yeah.
Come on.”

A few minutes later, we got to the office just as Cecilia was coming out. She had a bruise darkening her right cheekbone and a fat lip. Looking into the office, I saw that two other girls were in the principal’s office now.

“What happened?” I asked.

 “What does it look like?”

“Who were you fighting with?” I asked motioning to the girls in the office.

“A girl named Brandi and one named Ally or Alice or something.”

“Alyssa,” Parker and I said together.

“Yeah, that’s it. We’re all being suspended. Brandi is a
cheerleader
,which
means she can’t cheer for Homecoming. I don’t have a volleyball game until Monday, so I’m good. They think
it’s
punishment enough for me to get disqualified from homecoming, which is kind of hilarious since I was going to drop out anyway.”