The Karma Club (25 page)

“I know.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is.”

“Uh-huh.”

He can sense that he’s not getting anywhere, so he stands back up. “Okay, I guess you know where to find us.”

And when he’s about halfway to the door, I sit up, and say, “Dad?”

He turns around. “Yeah?”

For a brief moment I think that maybe there’s a way to ask what I’m about to without divulging the secret background story. And if there is, it’s definitely worth a shot. “What would you do if everything you’ve tried to accomplish in your life doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to go? And even though you think you’ve been doing everything right, it all just falls apart right in front of you?”

My dad seems somewhat surprised by my question. It’s not exactly a light and fluffy one that can be answered with a simple greeting card. “Well, you know what Einstein said?”

“What? That time and space are relative?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Yes, but he also said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I sigh and fall onto my back. Why does everyone have to be so cryptic all the time? Why can’t anyone just talk in normal, straightforward sentences? Is that really too much to ask?

My dad senses my frustration. “It means you should do the opposite.”

I look at him. “The opposite?”

“Yes. If something you did brought you failure, then shouldn’t the exact opposite bring you success?”

I consider his logic. I guess it makes sense. But it’s not like it applies to
me
. I can’t
undo
what I’ve already done. I can’t
unreveal
that Mason cheated on his SATs so that he can get back into Amherst. I can’t get Ryan Feldman
unkicked off
the varsity baseball team. So I thank my dad and tell him that he’s helped a lot, because I know that’s what it will take for him to leave the room feeling satisfied and content.

After he closes the door, I think about everything I’ve done in the past few months, trying to figure out if I can possibly “undo” it all using my dad’s brilliant theory of opposites.

Well, let’s see. I’ve lied to the people I like, and I’ve plotted revenge schemes to get back at the people I don’t like. That about sums it up.

Now the only thing I want to do is continue to lie to Spencer so that I don’t have to face the truth and figure out a way to make Jenna pay for what she did to my friends and me . . . and to Spencer. Or what she plans to do to him, rather. If only I could get her to admit that she’s the one who wrote that nasty word on her own
locker and then secretly videotape her confessing. Then I could put the video on the Internet and completely humiliate her. Or maybe she has some kind of beauty-enhancing prescription drug of her own that I can swap out with . . .

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

That means no more revenge plots. No more lies. Clearly that approach didn’t work for me the first time around, why on earth would it work for me now?

If something you did brought you failure, then shouldn’t the exact opposite bring you success?

There they are. Two brilliant quotes from two arguably brilliant people. Einstein . . . and my father.

The opposite. The opposite. Find the opposite.

The opposite of lying is telling the truth. But what’s the opposite of revenge? What’s the opposite of payback? Pay
forward
?

I suddenly sit bolt upright on my bed. My head is filled with a million tiny pieces all merging into one solid, halfway decent idea.

Pay forward.

Like that movie I saw once about the kid who started a whole pay it forward revolution out of his seventh-grade social studies project.

Good deeds. Random acts of kindness. Goodwill. Unwarranted compassion toward strangers.

Bad deeds will be punished while good deeds will be . . .

Oh my God, it’s been right in front of me this whole time. It’s the very
definition
of Karma. Why didn’t I think of it before?

We’ve been so focused on the concept of punishing those who
have caused us pain that we’ve completely disregarded the entire other half of what Karma is.

Good deeds are rewarded.

If you want good things to happen to you, then you have to do good things first. You have to send out positive energy into the universe if you want positive energy in return. The Karma Club doesn’t have to be about punishment. It can be about compassion. Generosity. Kindness. Honesty. Instead of punishing those who hurt us in an attempt to ruin
their
Karma, we should be setting ourselves up to improve our own!

I feel so inspired and revved up that I actually jump from my bed, grab my purse and car keys, and fly out the front door. I get into my car, start the engine, and take off.

I don’t have much time. Jenna’s deadline is in four days. If I’m going to make a difference by then, I can’t afford to waste another minute.

This has to work. There’s no way it
can’t
work.

I park my car in front of a very familiar house, walk up to the front door, and ring the bell. I can feel tingles in my fingertip as it comes in contact with the cold metal doorbell and the nervousness runs up and down the length of my spine.

When the door slowly opens and the person behind it looks at me with those kind eyes, so full of anticipation and trust, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ve made the right choice.

I tell Spencer
everything. From the beginning to the end. And just as I did with Rajiv, I don’t leave out any details. Even the really creepy ones, like hacking into Mason’s e-mail account or snooping around Seth Taylor’s computer. I lay it all out on the line. Right up to my revelation only moments ago.

This is what I do now. I tell the truth.

No more lies. No more dishonesty. No more angry revenge. Just truthfulness and compassion. That’s it.

I know Spencer might leave me. I know he might look at me for the first time with disgust in his eyes and disbelief splashed across his face. But it’s a chance I have to take. Because I trust that it will work out for the best. That everything will happen the way it’s supposed to happen. If Spencer kicking me out of his house and telling me he never wants to see me again is part of the grand plan, then I will be crushed and heartbroken, but I will trust that Karma knows exactly what it’s doing. Something I never managed to do before.

Spencer listens intently as I tell my story. He doesn’t say anything. He barely even reacts. He only nods here and there. When I’m finished, he has this intense look in his eyes, and I try desperately to read the thoughts behind it, but I can’t.

I can tell, though, that he is completely overwhelmed. His eyebrows are furrowed and the crease on his forehead is larger than usual. I have this sinking feeling that he’s going to break up with me right then and there, so I start to plead with him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I truly am. I was wrong to lie about it. I know that now. I was just so afraid that—”

Then, before I can say anything else, Spencer totally starts cracking up. Like uncontrollable laughter. The kind capable of being elicited only by a stand-up comedian or a really funny movie.

It actually annoys me. I mean, here I am, spilling my heart out to him, trying to be a good person and tell the truth, and he’s laughing in my face? I think this is even meaner than telling me he doesn’t forgive what I did and kicking me to the curb. Does he really have to
laugh
at my terrible misfortune? Is it really that entertaining to him? I take one more look at his face and then rise to my feet. “Well, I’m so glad I could be so amusing to you.”

Spencer holds up his hand as if he’s trying to tell me to stop, but he can’t even speak through his giggling fit.

“Look,” I say, really mad now. “I thought I was doing the right thing by telling you but obviously—”

“You replaced her acne cream with Crisco?” he finally gets out.

I stop and study him. “Yeah.”

Then he busts out laughing again. “That is so freaking hilarious! Where did you come up with that?”

And then I start laughing too. “Actually, it was Angie’s idea.”

Spencer wipes tears from the corners of his eyes and gathers his composure. “Absolutely classic.”

I slowly ease back onto the couch, and he scoots over closer to me and puts his arm around me. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And for sticking up for me.”

“Huh?”

“In front of your friends,” he says with a dopey grin. “You could have easily sold me out. Taken the easy road to get yourself out of a bind and keep your secret from them, but you didn’t. And that’s a pretty significant good deed right there.”

I laugh and wave his comment away. “It’s not a good deed if you do it for someone you know.”

“Why not?” he says seriously. “I think the very definition of a good deed is putting someone else’s feelings in front of your own. And you already did that for me.”

“Yeah,” I admit thoughtfully. “But if I don’t come up with something before Wednesday, my friends are going to go through with it anyway. I can’t tell you what they’ll do to you, but I promise it’ll be humiliating. Jenna won’t settle for anything less.”

Spencer smirks like he knows something I don’t and says, “Don’t worry about it. You just keep doing what you’re doing. I’m sure everything will work out.”

I just hope that he’s right.

The next stage of my new plan is to come up with a good deed that really means something. This gets me thinking. What can I
do for someone else that they can’t do for themselves? What do I have to offer the world that’s unique and can actually make a difference?

I take inventory of my skills.

1. I have a fast metabolism. Okay, I don’t think that’s really a skill, because I don’t have to practice at it. Plus, I’m not sure how the speed of my food digestion can really help anyone else. So next . . .

 

2. I’m a good kisser. Or so I’ve been told by both Mason and Spencer. But unless I plan to host some kind of kissing booth charity event and risk contracting mono or something worse, this is probably a no-go as well.

 

3. I make really good instant mashed potatoes from the box. I know, I know, how hard is it to follow a set of add-butter-and-milk directions? But maybe I could cook mashed potatoes for the homeless or something. They won’t care if it came from a prepackaged powder, right? Okay, I need more options.

 

4. I’m smart and I get good grades. This is, after all, why I’m a student tutor for the counseling department, because according to Mr. Wilson, not only do I get good grades but I’m really good at helping people understand things so
they
can get good grades too.

Instantly I know that’s where my answer lies. In my tutoring. It’s something that I’m good at and something that helps people.
Lots of people need tutoring in all sorts of subjects. Heck, Mason Brooks’s parents paid that Kaplan company loads of money to help him improve his SAT scores, and we know how that turned out. But what if some people can’t afford to pay a company to help them study for the SATs or raise their geometry grade or teach them the difference between the
passé composé
and the
imparfait
of French verbs? It doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t get the help, does it?

The first thing I do on Monday morning is head for the counseling center and sit down in Mr. Wilson’s office to tell him about my idea: a volunteer tutoring program for high schools in underprivileged areas. Free tutoring sessions, either one-on-one or in groups, for students who need extra help with their assignments but can’t afford to hire a tutor.

He is absolutely blown away by the idea, which of course only inspires me more. Then he tells me that I should feel free to utilize the resources of the counseling department to help turn this idea into a reality.

So I get to work creating flyers to inform the other student tutors about the program and ask them to write down their names if they’re interested in participating. Mr. Wilson even offers to mention the idea at the next staff meeting to see if the administration would be willing to offer the volunteers extra credit in the subjects that they tutor as an added incentive.

On Tuesday afternoon, Spencer helps me call some schools in impoverished neighborhoods to ask if they would be interested in having a program like this. Every single one of the guidance
counselors we speak to is completely thrilled with the idea.

We tell them all that we’ll be in touch when we’ve secured some volunteers and we can talk about scheduling and everything.

“Oh my God,” I say to Spencer after I hang up the phone. “I can’t believe this response.”

“That’s because it’s a good idea,” he tells me.

“I just hope that people sign up. It’s pretty much a dead end if no one wants to tutor for free.”

“They will,” Spencer assures me. “I think most people
want
to do the right thing, they’re just not presented with enough opportunities to do so. You’re making it easy on them. You’re putting it right in front of their faces.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Spencer pulls me closer to him. “Of course I’m right.”

Then he kisses me really deeply, and I’m not sure if it’s the feeling of his lips on mine (which has always been earth moving) or if it’s the exhilaration that’s coursing through my veins at the thought of doing something that might actually help people, but either way, it’s one of the best kisses I’ve ever had.

When it’s over, Spencer looks into my eyes and tells me that he’s proud of me, and I can’t help thinking that I’m actually kind of proud of me too.

Okay, so of
course I’m worried about Wednesday. After all, it’s tomorrow, and although I’ve been totally absorbed in my new free tutoring program, I haven’t forgotten the deadline Jenna gave us. We have to give in to her outrageous demands or she releases the Karma Club notebook to the public and we go down in flames.