Revenge of the Geek (19 page)

“What’s wrong with it?”I asked nervously.

“Is it true that the guy you interviewed for that piece is your boyfriend?”Candace asked.

She was, as usual, perfectly pressed—today’s wrinkle-free outfit was a striped oxford shirt tucked into skinny white jeans—which made her even more foreboding.

I nodded. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes, it’s a problem!”Candace said. “It’s a breach of journalistic ethics!”

“It is?”I bleated. “Why?”

“Because you did a complete profile on this guy without disclosing that you have a personal relationship with him. That’s completely unacceptable,”Candace said. “You’re lucky it was just a profile and not a news piece, which would have been far worse. Anyway, we can’t run it. I’m cutting it from the issue.”

My first real publishing credit was slipping away. I made a desperate attempt to grab it back.

“But I could add a disclosure,”I said. “I’ll just put a paragraph in the beginning saying that I know Dex. Besides, does it really matter? Like you said, it’s not a news piece. Just a profile. My knowing Dex doesn’t make it less interesting.”

Candace shook her head. “
The Ampersand
may be a high school magazine, but I still expect all of my writers to conform to the highest standards of professional journalism. And that certainly does not include doing a profile on your boyfriend and adding in a sloppy, after-the-fact disclaimer.”

My cheeks were burning hot and red. I couldn’t believe it. I’d worked so hard on my article. Not only had it not impressed Candace, but it had actually made me lose credibility with her.

“Are you kicking me off the magazine staff?”I asked. My mouth felt very dry, and my tongue felt large and unwieldy.

“No. But I’m also not going to give you a new assignment for the second issue. Instead I want you to redo your student-athlete piece,”Candace said. She cocked her head to one side, and her eyes softened. “You know, your concept was good. I like the idea of the profile. You just need to find someone to interview who isn’t your boyfriend.”

I nodded, my face still flaming. “I understand,”I said.

“Good.”Candace turned, as if to leave.

“Wait . . . Candace?”I asked.

She looked back at me. “Yes?”

“Who told you that Dex is my boyfriend?”I asked.

Candace frowned, clearly not sure why I was wasting her time with such questions. But then she shrugged and said, “That new girl on layout. What’s her name again? Nora, I think. Nora Lee.”

Chapter Twenty

A
s I walked out of school to the student parking lot, my head buzzed with anger. Why had Nora told Candace that Dex was my boyfriend? Had she deliberately set out to sabotage me? And, if so, why? Had she known from the time she spent working on the student newspaper at her old school that telling Candace would get me in trouble?

I took a few deep, cleansing breaths, and tried to talk myself out of jumping to conclusions. Especially such far-flung, paranoid conclusions. Maybe Nora just mentioned my relationship with Dex in passing, not realizing that Candace would have a problem with my interviewing him for my story. After all, I hadn’t known I was doing anything wrong. So how would Nora?

By the time I reached Bumblebee, I had calmed down somewhat. I just needed to talk to Nora, to hear her side of the story. Remembering that Nora and Charlie had made plans to meet at Grounded after school—the fact that they hadn’t invited me along, too, still stung—I decided to drive straight there and talk to Nora immediately. Before my anger and suspicions had time to fester.

When I walked through the glass front door of Grounded, I saw Nora and Charlie sitting at a table in the back, their heads bowed close together, deep in conversation. They didn’t notice me until I was standing right at their table, towering over them. Then Charlie looked up.

“Hey, Miranda,”she said, surprised.

“Hey,”I said. I glanced at Nora, and thought that for just a fraction of a second, I saw a flicker of annoyance pass over her face. But a moment later, it was gone—replaced by a welcoming smile—and I wondered if I’d imagined it.

“Hi, Miranda,”Nora said. “Have a seat. Or are you going to get a coffee first?”

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,”Charlie said.

“I didn’t, either,”I said. “But something happened that I need to talk to Nora about.”

I sat down across from Nora and tried to think of how I should begin. I didn’t want to sound like I was accusing her of anything.
Maybe I should have practiced what I was going to say on the drive over
, I thought.

“I just talked to Candace. She’s pulling my article from the first issue of
The Ampersand
,”I said.

“What? Why?”Charlie asked, frowning.

I looked at Nora, watching her reaction. And, unless I was very much mistaken, Nora wasn’t surprised by this news. Not one little bit. My suspicions flared a little higher.

“What, exactly, did Candace say?”Nora asked.

“She said that it was unethical for me to write the profile without disclosing that Dex is my boyfriend,”I said.

“Really? Is that true?”Charlie asked.

“Apparently. I didn’t know that, of course, or I would have disclosed it. Or written about something else,”I said.

“Of course,”Charlie said. “So how did Candace find out that you and Dex are dating?”

“She said Nora told her,”I said, looking straight at Nora.

For a moment, Nora’s face was an absolute blank. It was as though she hadn’t even heard me. But then, as if she’d reached a decision, she finally nodded once and arranged her features into an expression of concern.

“I did tell her that,”Nora said. “I’m so sorry, Miranda. I didn’t know it would get you into trouble.”

There is something going on here
, I thought. Something sketchy about the way she was reacting that made my Spidey-sense tingle.

“Why did you tell Candace that Dex is my boyfriend?”I asked, taking care to keep my voice neutral.

Charlie gave me an odd, searching look. “I’m sure Nora didn’t mean anything by it,”she said.

I continued to look at Nora.

“It just sort of came out,”Nora said.

“How did it sort of come out?”I asked.

“I don’t remember exactly. I was in
The Ampersand
office, working on layout, and I saw that Candace was editing your piece. And I knew how hard you had worked on it, so I couldn’t help myself—I asked her if she had liked it. And she said that she thought it was an interesting angle, and wondered aloud how you’d found Dex. And I just sort of blurted it out. That he was your boyfriend,”Nora said.

“And what did Candace say?”I asked.

Nora looked down at her coffee cup resting on the table. She had both hands wrapped around it, as though she were warming them.

“She seemed pretty ticked off about the whole thing,”Nora admitted. “She might have said something about it being unethical.”

I looked at Nora with what I hoped was a cool, level gaze. Because at the moment, I didn’t feel at all calm. Instead, my head was buzzing again, as though a swarm of angry bees had taken up residence inside my skull.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”I asked.

Charlie was frowning, her head cocked to one side, as she looked from me to Nora and back again.

“I was going to,”Nora said. “But ...”She trailed off.

“But what?”I prompted her.

“I was afraid you’d be mad at me,”Nora said in a small voice. She seemed to become physically smaller, too. She folded up on herself, crossing her legs and arms, her shoulders slumping forward, her chin drooping.

“Miranda’s not mad at you,”Charlie assured her. “Are you Miranda?”

Oh yes, I am
, I wanted to say, feeling a flicker of annoyance at Charlie for taking Nora’s side. Charlie was supposed to be
my
best friend, after all. Didn’t she see that something hinky was going on here?

“I don’t understand why you didn’t warn me, so I’d be prepared when Candace talked to me about it,”I said.

Nora shook her head helplessly. “I’m really sorry,”she said.

“It’s fine,”Charlie told her. “It was just an accident. You didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“No, I really didn’t. I swear, Miranda,”Nora said.

“So, what did Candace say to you?”Charlie asked me.

“Just what Nora said. Basically that interviewing Dex without disclosing my relationship with him was a breach of journalistic ethics,”I said.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Please. The article is for a high school magazine, not the
New York Times
. Don’t you think she’s overreacting just a bit?”

“Totally overreacting,”Nora agreed. “And it was a profile, right? Not a news piece. Why can’t you just say at the beginning how you know Dex? Or you could work it into the body of the article.”

“I offered to do that,”I admitted. “But Candace said no. It’s like she thinks the piece is tainted or something.”

“That chick is so uptight,”Charlie said. “What happens now?”

“Candace is giving me a second chance to write a student-athlete piece. She liked the idea of my doing a profile, although obviously I can’t write about Dex again. I’ll have to think of something else. The bad news is that I won’t get a shot at a better assignment for the second issue. And I won’t have a piece in the first issue,”I said.

“You’re not the only one,”Nora said.

“What do you mean?”I asked.

Nora leaned forward, eyes glowing. “When I was in the
Ampersand
office, I overheard Candace telling one of the guys on the staff that she’s spiking Tabitha Stone’s short story. That’s just how she said it.
Spiking
,”Nora said.

This piece of gossip was juicy enough to distract me from my personal plight.

“Seriously?”I asked. “Why?”

“Candace said it was terrible. Whatever Tabitha wrote was all postmodern and nonsensical. There weren’t any characters or any sort of a plot. Apparently, there was a paragraph in the middle where she just repeated the word
desolation
over and over again,”Nora said.

She was grinning now, and I couldn’t help smiling, too. Tabitha Stone was so full of herself, so sure that she was some sort of literary whiz. Maybe this setback would let out some of her hot air.

“Desolation?”I said. “You mean, that was part of the story? How, exactly?”

“That’s just it. It wasn’t. It was just the word repeated.
Desolation
.
Desolation
.
Desolation
,”Nora droned.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,”I said.

“I know. That’s what Candace said, too. She actually seemed really annoyed about the whole thing. She said that she’d been clear that she wanted an actual short story, with a plot and characters.”

“I really hate it when people have preconceived notions of art. Why does a short story have to have a plot and characters?”Charlie said.

“Because that’s the definition of a short story?”I suggested.

“Maybe a paragraph on desolation is central to Tabitha’s theme. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s fascist to dictate art,”Charlie said.

“No, it’s not. When the result is Tabitha Stone getting her short story spiked, it’s great,”I said with relish.

“You know what? You should submit one of your short stories, Miranda,”Charlie suggested.

“What? No way,”I said.

“Why not? They need a short story, and you’ve written tons of them. It’s the perfect solution,”Charlie said.

“I don’t have one prepared,”I protested.

“You have notebooks full of them,”Charlie said.

“But nothing I’ve written is ready for submission,”I argued. “For one thing, they’re all handwritten. I’d have to find one I like, shape it up, and then type the whole thing out. And I’d probably have to do it immediately, before Candace gives the fiction slot to someone else.”

“So? You could totally do that,”Charlie said.

“You definitely could,”Nora agreed.

Could I?
I wondered. Was it possible?

“But would Candace be willing to consider me? Especially after the debacle with my Dex article,”I said nervously.

Nora groaned. “I’m so sorry, Miranda. This is all my fault. I really didn’t mean to get you in trouble with Candace.”

My anger at Nora, which had softened with the excellent gossip about Tabitha Stone’s rejected story, now disappeared altogether. She really did seem genuinely sorry.

“It’s okay,”I said. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

“I really had no idea she’d react the way she did,”Nora said.

“I think Charlie’s right. Candace is really uptight. Have you ever noticed that her clothes never, ever wrinkle? I mean, how is that possible?”I said, and was rewarded by a grateful smile from Nora.

“Are you going to submit a story or what?”Charlie asked, leaning forward and resting her head on her fisted hands.

“You totally should,”Nora said.

“I don’t know,”I said. “It’s a long shot. And I don’t want to come off looking stupid.”

“If you’re going to be an artist, you have to be fearless, Miranda,”Charlie advised.