My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan (6 page)

“Hey, Savannah!” Becky said as she waved.

“Hey, Becky …”

As Savannah walked up to us, I could tell she trying to decide whether to just say hello to Becky or if she also had to say hello to me. If I had just happened to walk by at that
moment, she would have ignored me, but since I really was walking with Becky, she knew she had to acknowledge me. She looked back and forth between Becky and me and suddenly—

“Hi, Justin,” she finally said.

Wow. Already my social standing went up a notch. I don’t think Savannah’s spoken to me since the sixth-grade production of
Grease
. And that was only onstage because she was Frenchie to my Doody. Before “Hi, Justin,” the last words she spoke directly to me were “Sandy and Danny belong together!”

Becky admired her outfit. “I love the flare in the pants, don’t you?”

“My mom—” Savannah started to answer, but then realized that Becky was asking me.

I let the moment of shock register on her face and then turned toward Becky and answered, “Yeah … very eighties.”

Becky playfully hit my arm. “Seventies, you ninny!” She turned to Savannah and pointed at me playfully. “This one doesn’t know anything about fashion.” She grabbed my hand. “Thank God he’s so cute.”

Savannah’s face was frozen, mouth agape and upper eyelids as far away from the lower lids as possible. Becky ignored the fact that Savannah’s eyes were now as flared as her pants and asked her, “You wanna walk to school with us?”

“With … both of you?” she asked. She looked at our intertwined hands. “I didn’t know you guys were …” She faded out. She started again. “Are you guys …?” Needing clarification, she spoke slowly. “Shouldn’t we wait for Chuck?”

“For what?” asked Becky, with a combination of innocence, sweetness, and a sprinkling of pixie dust.

Savannah was now acting as if a gasket had blown inside her logic area. She kept opening and closing her mouth and finally sputtered, “Aren’t you …? Isn’t Chuck your …?”

“My boyfriend?” Becky finished the sentence for her. “Not for a loooong time. Where have you been?” She laughed with a slightly mocking edge to make Savannah feel out of the loop.

“But you faked—” Savannah lowered her voice. “I know you pretended to break up last year to get your father off your case.…”

Becky nodded.

“But,” Savannah continued, “I thought you were still dating.”

Becky looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Savannah, Chuck and I broke up for real back in …” She let her sentence die off and then laughed. “I’ve been dating Justin for a while now. I can’t believe you didn’t know.” She gave Savannah a slightly pitying shake of her head.

“I had no i— I mean, no one told me.…” Savannah didn’t know how to play it. Up until one minute ago, she had thought Chuck and Becky were still secretly dating. But now, if she acknowledged that she had no idea about Becky dating me, it would imply that she wasn’t hanging out with the “cool” kids who supposedly
did
know. I could see her make a decision in her mind.

Savannah motioned toward both of us. “I mean, I
knew
about you and Justin.…”

She did?

“I just didn’t know how serious it was.” She smiled warmly.

Becky kissed my cheek. “It’s very serious.”

Savannah grinned. “Duh!”

Wow. I was in awe of Becky’s technique. She just made a person claim they had always known something that had, in fact, never been true. I guess having a crazy father whom you’re constantly trying to trick has some benefits.

We started walking toward school, and I could tell Savannah was super-happy to be included in Becky’s presence. I felt the same way. It was a little like walking with the queen. Everyone smiled and waved as we passed … which was then followed by a double take when they saw Becky holding hands with me.

“What’s your social studies report gonna be about?” Savannah asked. “I’m doing the Civil War.”

I waited for Becky to answer. Then I realized they were both staring at me. Savannah was talking to
me
—uninitiated!

Immobilization overtook me. I wasn’t really sure how to chat with someone who was in a higher social stratum than myself. I’m used to having conversations with those in my own lowly status and being ignored by everyone else. I decided to answer like I normally would.

“I’m doing a report on McCarthyism in the fifties.”

“Oh …,” she said, trailing off.

Silence. UGH! I was so annoyed with myself! I finally had a chance to converse with someone who wasn’t considered a total loser by the whole school and I was blowing it. I felt like I was solidifying my lowly social standing. How could I make her think I had risen in the ranks? In my head, I ran through conversations I had eavesdropped on in the past. Hmm … it seemed the people at the top always had a certain style when they spoke to anyone lower than them. I decided to give it a try. “You’re doing the Civil War?” I asked while adopting a slight sneer. “Why’d you pick something stupid like that?”

Was I doing it right?

“I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m an idiot sometimes.”

That was it! I had to be a little mean to show I was above her. Then she’d wanna keep talking.

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I can still switch. What do you think I should write about?”

Uh-oh. In reality, I thought the Civil War was fascinating, so I didn’t have an immediate follow-up. “Um …” I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. “The Nazi Big Lie technique.”

Becky quickly joined in the conversation. “Oh, just ignore him, Savannah. He thinks everything’s boring if it doesn’t involve biology.”

“Or Broadway,” I added.

“Or girls!” Becky added, probably to counteract my last
comment. I didn’t know how
that
Nazi big lie was gonna fly until Savannah laughed and said, “Typical guy.”

Typical guy?!
I’d always been the outcast, the loser, the weirdo.
Never
“typical.” My life seemed to be on a completely new path, and I was going to stay on it! God bless Mr. Plotnick’s social studies class. Because if we hadn’t spent that week on World War II, Becky and I wouldn’t have learned the theory that if you state something with full confidence, even a blatant lie,
people will believe you
.

Wow. I never imagined I would one day say this, but … thank you, Nazis!

COINCIDENTALLY, MY FIRST CLASS WAS
social studies and nothing seemed different—aka I was ignored by the cool/​popular/​smart kids and harassed by the Doug Gool group. Today, class started with a lesson about World War II’s Axis of Evil, and not surprisingly, Doug taped a note to the back of my seat that said “Axis of Gayvil.” World War II has been especially ripe for Doug to find harassment material. Besides learning the Nazi Big Lie technique over the last few weeks, we also learned about the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb: the devastatingly named (for me)
Enola Gay
. As soon as class was out that day, Doug and his friends started calling me “Enola.” I, of course, made the mistake of asking them not to call me that, so they offered to be more polite and started calling me Miss Gay. I knew if I protested “Miss Gay,” it would then become “Ms. Gay,” so I quit before I was addressed as a feminist.

At the beginning of class, I saw Doug put a piece of
chocolate on Mary Ann Cortale’s (the guidance counselor’s daughter) seat, and she sat down without seeing it. We spent the second half of class learning about Hitler’s girlfriend (Eva Braun). When the bell rang, Mary Ann got up with the chocolate flattened all across the left butt cheek of one of her two signature outfits. On the way out, I braced myself for a Doug Gool onslaught but thankfully he forgot about the Axis of Gayvil and instead stood behind Mary Ann and said, “Look, everyone. It’s Eva
Brown
!” Doug’s two cronies high-fived him and some kids not in Doug’s group started to laugh, too. Mary Ann looked around, confused. She knew they were making fun of her but didn’t know why, because she couldn’t see the chocolate. I didn’t want to attract any Doug attention, plus I was dying to know if word of my “relationship” with Becky had spread, so I started to sneak out.

When I was by the door, I saw Spencer push through the circle of kids that was starting to surround Mary Ann. He stood in front of her, handed her a tissue, and said simply, “You have chocolate on the back of your dress.” As Mary Ann turned around to wipe it, she tripped a little and her glasses fell to the ground and cracked. People stopped laughing as she bent down to pick them up. She managed to wipe the chocolate with one hand while grabbing her glasses with the other, but as she got up, her organic rubber band snagged on the desk, which made her hair disengage from its signature ponytail. She stood there with her hair askew, holding her ruined glasses in one hand and a dirty tissue in the other. The crowd
that was around her began to disperse. They didn’t mind mocking and psychologically torturing her, but actual physical damage wasn’t in the mix when you were considered a “good kid” by your parents.

The only ones who remained were Spencer and Doug Gool. I looked at them and then looked back at Mary Ann. I didn’t mean to be shallow at that moment, but seeing her without her thick glasses and with her hair less severe made me realize that she actually had a beautiful face. It was like that cliché I’ve seen in old black-and-white movies with the librarian letting down her hair to reveal herself as a knockout, but it was true. Spencer was helping Mary Ann get herself together and Doug was watching. For a second, I thought there was going to be a Hallmark moment where Doug sees the broken glasses and realizes the damage his words can do. He then puts out his hand to Mary Ann and says, “Friends?”

And … credits.

That didn’t happen. Instead of putting out his hand, he simply put out a finger. I think you know the one. After that, he got his book bag, bumped Spencer in the shoulder (calling him a spaz), and walked out. I watched Doug go down the hallway and was pleasantly surprised to see Chuck coming from the other direction. I gazed at him as he stopped in front of me and said to one of his friends in the classroom, “See you at lunch, right?”

Sigh. He’s so handsome. He was sporting just a little bit of facial hair, and I noticed that, like his hair, his beard was sandy
blond but with a hint of red in it as well. I got a great view because he kept standing in front of me. I didn’t know why his friend hadn’t responded until I realized the only people left in the classroom were Spencer and Mary Ann.

AH!
I
was the friend he wanted to see at lunch! I quickly changed my facial expression from
staring from afar
to
responding from close up
and answered, “Yes, Chuck. I will see you at lunch.” It was a little stilted but, come on, I was in shock! This was the first time he had ever asked me a question that wasn’t laced with annoyance or anger. Spencer and I always ate lunch together, so did this mean that Chuck would “see” me as he walked to his table, or did he mean that both he and Becky would actually be sitting with us? Dare I hope for such joy?

Before I could ask, Chuck gave me a thumbs-up (such cute thumbs!) and walked off while I went toward my locker in a daze. When I got there, I realized I hadn’t said goodbye to Spencer, but I knew I’d see him at lunch and would explain everything. The bell rang and I ran to study hall next and then to computer lab, where nobody spoke to anybody because we were all wearing headphones, trying to upload sound effects into the games we were creating. PS, my computer game was Broadway themed (natch) and took place on the streets of New York. As the player, you were an up-and-coming actor and had to sabotage older established stars. The more stars you got rid of, the more room there was for you to become famous. You had the option of pushing them down stairs, pushing them in front of taxis, or pushing them into the lake at Central Park.
(I tried for the ol’ making-scenery-collapse-on-them trick or electrocuting them with their own microphone but could only figure out how to program a push move on the computer.)

I spent the whole period trying to get the perfect sound for being pushed in front of a cab. I wanted a scream, a tire screech, and the cabdriver yelling, “Son of a—”

Unfortunately, I only had the option of using a computerized voice, which made it sound like the cab was being driven by a robot. Or by Madonna acting in a film. (If you don’t know what I mean, rent
Shanghai Surprise
.)

Finally, the bell rang and I skedaddled to lunch.

Mmm. Delicious pizza. The lunch lady likes me (and knows I’m a vegetarian), so she orders soy pepperoni just for me and puts a ton of pieces on my slice. I thanked her, picked up a cookie for dessert (and by “a” cookie I mean “three”), and saw Spencer sitting at our usual table. I was on my way over to give him the lowdown when I heard my name yelled. I looked around and realized it was coming from Cool U.

Oh no.

Cool U is the name Spencer and I call the table where all the popular kids sit. It’s right next to the window that looks out onto the football field. Not to be confused with Toughs ‘R’ Us, which is the table by the cereal bar where Doug Gool and his friends sit. I braced myself for the mean comment that usually follows contact from anyone at either table. Hmm. Nothing. I waited and then heard my name yelled again. I quickly glanced over and saw a fist waving in the air.