The List (9 page)

t takes Sarah a while to find her old bike. It’s deep in the back of the garage, covered by a dirty flowered sheet her dad uses when he rakes up the leaves. A playing card is folded into the spokes, and seeing it makes Sarah remember the last time she rode the bike — away from the group of girls she’d hung around freshman year, fighting back tears for the millionth time about some innocuous thing she was supposed to know and didn’t.

“Why is it so hard for you to be normal?” these “friends” wondered aloud in uniform bafflement after she’d shown up for a boy/girl party sticky and sweaty on her bike. Like they hadn’t ridden bikes together all summer long! It wasn’t the first time the girls she hung around with had said something like that. Sarah had heard it constantly since middle school had started. How everything she did was wrong.

She leaves the playing card there, liking the flutter it makes as she coasts down her driveway and past her bus stop, where kids wait in clusters to be picked up. Sarah rocks her weight from side to side, pushing the gears in a lumbering circle. The metal teeth edging the pedals poke through the soles of her fraying canvas sneakers. The seams of her black jeans burn strips of fire up the insides of her thighs, rubbing the skin raw with each pump of her legs. Sarah coughs up a ball of phlegm and spits it on the road.

Damn cigarettes.

Her old bike is in even worse shape. The frame’s too small and her knees knock the handlebars, where brittle plastic
streamers hang like uncooked linguini. The chain needs grease, the back tire sags, the brakes are dangerously unresponsive.

But she will not ride the school bus to Mount Washington High for the rest of the week. She’s come up with a plan, a brilliantly diabolical plan. Clearly, the geniuses at Mount Washington have realized that she isn’t trying to be their kind of pretty. But what will happen if she tries to be ugly, like the list said? The ugliest she can possibly be, an ugly they can’t look away from?

She has Principal Colby to thank for the idea.

When Sarah was stopped in the hallway by Principal Colby and given the note about the after-school meeting, she’d forgotten about the word written on her forehead. Principal Colby noticed it right away and actually reached out to push Sarah’s hair off her face, but then thought better of it and pulled both her hands behind her back.

“Who wrote that on your forehead, Sarah?” Her voice was concerned, worried, sad.

Sarah scrunched up her face. Did Principal Colby seriously think that someone had pinned her arms and legs down and done it without her permission? Hello?

“I did,” she said proudly.

Principal Colby gave a stiff, incomprehensible smile, as if Sarah wasn’t speaking English. “This isn’t the way people see you.”

Sarah read the meeting note Principal Colby handed to her. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but everyone shares the same brain around here. It’s like a mass cult. They’ve all drunk the Kool-Aid.”

Principal Colby sighed deeply. “Please wash that word off your forehead before our meeting.”

“It’s permanent marker,” Sarah said. “And I’m not going.”

“The meeting is mandatory, Sarah. And your forehead is a distraction. Also, I don’t agree with what it says about you.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. Principal Colby was trying way too hard. Like she’d read too many How-to-Be-an-Effective-Principal books over the summer. Sarah almost preferred Principal Weyland, who had retired at the end of last year. Weyland was a billion years old and ran the school like a dictator. He was clueless, but he never tried to be anyone’s friend. It seemed crazy that Principal Colby would be picked as his replacement. Maybe she got the job because she gave Weyland a boner. Principal Colby was pretty in the generic, boring way that all the girls at Mount Washington aspired to be. Sarah was positive that Principal Colby was completely full of shit and didn’t find Sarah’s necklaces, her nose ring, her weird haircut, attractive at all.

Sarah raked her hair down in front of her face. “There. No distraction.”

Principal Colby dropped her head to the side and tried again. “I know you’re upset, Sarah, and that’s perfectly —”

“I am
not
upset.”

Principal Colby was getting flustered. Sarah could see her cheeks blush, even under all her makeup. “Okay. Well … it’s clear that you have strong feelings about the list. And I appreciate you trying to make a statement. It’s shocking to me that Principal Weyland let this go on for so long under his watch.” This last bit took Sarah by surprise. Principals never talked shit about other principals, as far as she knew. “And I would love it if you could help motivate the others into taking a stand, so this same sad event won’t happen next year to more girls.”

Sarah tried not to laugh. Principal Colby was delusional if she thought she could put a stop to the list. Or that Sarah would have any interest in helping her try. “I don’t care about any of the other girls on the list. I don’t care if it goes on forever. In fact, I hope it does! The fact that people put so much stock in this is insane. It serves them right for buying into it.”

Principal Colby frowned. “Please go wash your forehead now, Sarah. I’m not going to ask you again.”

Sarah stormed to the bathroom, grabbed a paper towel, and held it under the faucet. Was this lady for real? What was so different between the list and homecoming? Both were stupid beauty contests, except one was school-sanctioned.

She wiped the wad over her forehead. Of course, it barely lightened the black ink. The cheap-ass soap in the dispensers didn’t help, but the suds dripped into her eyes and stung them. Great. Just great. She sank to the floor and tried rubbing away the burn. If anyone saw her, they’d think she’d been crying.

She’d have to wait until she got home to wash it off. Wash it off so she could come back to school tomorrow and pretend like none of this had happened.

That’s when Sarah had the idea. How to take her rebellion to the next level. How to show everyone at school what she really thought of their opinions, their rules. She’d been too silent, too complacent, letting them get away with murder. And the beautiful thing was, if it went off the way she thought it could, she’d ruin homecoming, too, courtesy of one giant act of badassery.

Sarah takes a left and skids to a stop at the base of a hill that she doesn’t remember being there. Or maybe it never seemed this enormous when riding the bus. She can’t see Mount
Washington High School at the crest, just an endless stretch of tar paved to the sky.

She pedals hard, rocking her weight from side to side to get some speed going. At the halfway mark, she clocks barely enough to remain upright. Her wobbling bike drifts into the middle of the street. Cars and school buses begin backing up behind her, and a few hop the curb in order to pass her by.

But Sarah is determined. The autumn air bites the edges of her ears. Dead leaves explode underneath her tires. She stands and pumps harder, sweat bleeding into her T-shirt.

Milo’s T-shirt.

Whatever. The same shirt she wore to school yesterday.

Milo has beaten her to their bench. “Hey!” he calls out, surprised. “Nice bike.” His eyes move up to her forehead. “I, um, guess they call it permanent marker for a reason, huh?”

“I guess so.” Sarah can barely speak, she’s panting so hard. She picks up the hem of her T-shirt and dabs lightly at the sweat on her forehead, careful not to disturb the word. It is still scrawled there, a little lighter than it had been yesterday.

“Is that my shirt? Again?”

“Who are you? The fashion police?” She feels for her cigarettes, but then thinks better of it. Smoke will camouflage her smell. She will quit smoking this week. “Yes, it’s your shirt.” She sits down at the end of the bench and pulls her legs close to her chest. They are already sore, cramped from the ride.

A curious look crosses Milo’s face. It makes his eyes go squinty behind his glasses. “Why are you wearing it, when you’ve been acting like you can’t stand me?” He digs in his school bag and hands her a folded square of black fabric. “Here’s yours back, by the way. I washed it.”

It’s funny how direct Milo can be about stuff sometimes. It’s like his awkwardness trumps the shyness.

Sarah has not yet said anything to Milo about ending things between them. It’s been too crazy, with yesterday’s events. And seriously, why should she? Why should she have to do the dirty work when she’s not the one who did anything wrong? Why should she give Milo the easy way out?

She lifts her chin a few degrees. “I’ve decided not to take a shower for a whole week.”

“For real?”

“Yup,” she says, making the
p
pop. “I’m not showering, I’m not brushing my teeth, putting on deodorant, anything. I’m wearing these same clothes, not just the shirt, but the jeans, the socks, the underwear, the bra. My last shower was on Sunday night, before I went over to your house.” She folds her arms. “I won’t participate in any kind of hygiene until Saturday night.” It feels good to say her plan out loud. Now there can be no backing out.

“What’s on Saturday night?”

“The homecoming dance.” It sounds so utterly ridiculous, but she keeps a straight face. “I’m going as smelly and disgusting as I can possibly make myself, dressed in these clothes.”

Milo laughs and laughs, but when Sarah doesn’t join, he stops. “Wait. You’re not serious.”

“I am.”

“Why are you letting that stupid list get to you? You hate the girls at this school, obviously for good reason. And now you want to show up at their dumb dance? This isn’t like you at all.”

Sarah runs her fingers through the brittle streamers on her old bike, trying to detangle them. This last bit is proof. Proof that Milo doesn’t really get her. He never did. And she doesn’t
feel like explaining everything to someone who’s not going to understand it. “Look, can you not make a big deal about this? I’ve made up my mind. It’s happening.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Can I go with you?”

She turns her head fast and looks Milo over. “Shut up.”

Milo grins. “It could be funny. I’ll wear a tie. I’ll get you a corsage.”

Sarah stops herself from being surprised that Milo would want to go to the homecoming dance. It actually makes perfect sense, considering what she knows about him now.

“So it’s a date?”

Sarah shakes her head, baffled. “If by
date
you mean that you and I will show up at the same place at the same time, then yeah, I guess it’s a date. But don’t you dare get me a corsage.”

The bell rings. It’s funny how absolutely insane this is. Sarah never in a million years thought she’d ever go to the Mount Washington homecoming dance. With a boy. And though she’d never admit it, there is a tiny glimmer deep down inside that is excited in a disgustingly typical way.

On the way into school, Sarah watches the faces that pass her by. No one seems to notice that she’s in the same clothes as yesterday. Sucks.

And then, out of freaking nowhere, Milo takes her hand. Easily, as if they hold hands all the time. Which they don’t.

Sarah doesn’t pull away, even though she wants to, and even though she knows she’ll regret it later on. It is a glimmer of the Milo she thought she’d met. And it feels nice for one brief, too-fast moment.

wonder if Mr. Farber will call today,” Mrs. Finn says, as she turns to check her blind spot. “I hope he’s decent enough to tell me if I don’t get the job. Some people don’t give you that courtesy. That’s cruel, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.”

The word comes out a little too slow, a little too dragged out, because Lauren’s not really listening. She’s looking at the back side of the list, tucked between pages of World History notes.

Yesterday had been full of introductions. A few girls took a formal approach, telling Lauren their first and last names. Others simply threw an arm over Lauren’s shoulder as she walked down the hall and struck up the kind of conversations that seemed reserved for old friends — complaints about period cramps, tidbits of gossip about people she’d yet to meet, confessions of crushes.

Lauren tried to keep track of everyone she met. She wrote everything down on the back side of the list — a five-petal flower as a bullet point, followed by a name and a brief physical description. Initially, Lauren liked watching the page blossom like a springtime garden, but toward the end of the day, it grew into a tangled jungle, and it seemed impossible to distinguish one person from another. She worries about this now, as Mount Washington High appears before the windshield.

“Do you have a history test today?” Mrs. Finn asks, and
tries to get a look. “You didn’t mention it last night. We could have studied together.”

Lauren flips her notebook over and curls her fingers around the spine. “No. I just have this feeling we might get a pop quiz.”

Lauren hadn’t told her mother about the list. Obviously.

First off, Lauren knew she would not approve. It was exactly the kind of thing that Mrs. Finn had wanted to shield Lauren from with homeschooling.

But also, they’d spent the night going over every single moment of her mother’s job interview. Mrs. Finn seemed sure she hadn’t gotten the job. Lauren assured her mother that she’d done fine, but worried what might happen if she hadn’t.

It’s hard sometimes, she thinks, having a mother for a best friend.

Her mother manages a weak smile. “I wish you didn’t have to go to school today. I’ll be at home alone, driving myself crazy. Hey! I’ve got an idea! Do you want to go grab pancakes? There’s a little diner your grandfather took me to every Sunday and they make the best ones. I could write you a note. I’ll say you had a doctor’s appointment.”

Though the pancakes are tempting, Lauren is actually kind of excited to go to school this morning. It’s the first time this has happened. “I can’t, Mommy. Sorry. That pop quiz would be first period.”

“Right. Okay.”

“If you’re bored, you can always unpack.” Though they moved to Mount Washington almost two months ago, most of their things are still in boxes.

“I want to know we’re staying first. You never know. If I don’t get this job, we might have to sell the house.”

“You’ll get the job, Mommy. I know it.” Lauren says this expecting her mother to smile. But Mrs. Finn doesn’t. Instead, she looks at Lauren as if she’s said the wrong thing entirely.

As the sedan pulls up to school, Lauren notices other students noticing her. In a way, the list was like a birth certificate; it officially marked the beginning of her existence at Mount Washington High School. Lauren turns, hoping to see that her mother isn’t noticing, and she’s not. She’s glancing out her side-view mirror, looking backward.

Lauren gets to homeroom. She takes a seat and again reviews the notes on the back of the list, trying to focus only on the girls in the tight circle who’d seemed the most interested in her.

One by one, these girls arrive to find Lauren. They pull their seats close to hers. Others stand to get a better view, and they all beam down at Lauren as if she’s a baby in a nursery they’ve collectively adopted.

They appear charmed by her innocence, sharing pleased little looks as they point out Lauren’s social transgressions to each other — her lack of makeup, that she’s covered her textbooks in brown paper, the barrette she uses to keep her hair pinned off her face.

Blood rushes to Lauren’s head and makes her woozy and warm.

And then, the questions begin.

“So, have you lived in Mount Washington your whole life?”

“No,” Lauren answers, once she’s picked out the girl who’d asked from the crowd. “I used to live out west with my mom. We moved here when my grandfather died.”

“Are your parents still together?”

Lauren turns her head toward a girl perched on the desk to her right. “No. It’s just the two of us.”

“Where’s your dad?” a girl leaning against the bulletin board asks.

“He died, too. When I was a baby.”

“Wow. That’s so sad,” comes a voice from behind her. The girls nod in solemn agreement.

“He was a lot older.”

Lauren senses their urgency to get to know her, and she tries her best to keep pace, answering their questions as quickly as they’re asked. It is clear from the unspoken ways they communicate — head nods, glances, smiles — that most of these girls have known each other for practically forever. Lauren herself has watched them from afar the last few weeks walking through the halls with their arms linked, hugging in between classes. She wants to be a part of what they have. There seems to be so much time to make up for.

Lauren wishes it wasn’t so one-sided. She wants to ask them things, too. But their questions keep coming.

“What kind of stuff do you like to do?”

“Um, I don’t know. Read? I like reading.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“A couple of the guys told us to ask you that,” a girl says slyly, and the others laugh.

Lauren shakes her head. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve … I’ve never even been kissed.” As soon as she admits this, it hits her that she isn’t just talking to these girls. Her answers will be reported back to more people she doesn’t know.

“Never?!” they all squeal with shocked delight. A few inch closer to her desk, as if to protect her. She can’t remember any of their names.

“Well, that’s about to change,” a girl says. She is speaking to
the others in the group but keeping her eyes on Lauren. “I bet Lauren gets a boyfriend by the homecoming dance.”

Lauren feels herself blush. It seems impossible. “I don’t know about that.”

“Have you bought your ticket to the dance yet?”

“No.”

“But you’re coming, right?”

Lauren nods. “I think so,” she says, even though she hadn’t considered it before now. Even though she’ll have to ask her mother.

“Good. And you should totally help us work on our Spirit Caravan for the homecoming parade. Everyone in school decorates their cars and drives around town, like a parade before the game starts. People come out on their lawns to watch. It’s seriously so fun.”

“I’d love to help.” The idea of riding in a car with these new girls, who are maybe becoming her actual friends, is extremely exciting. Suddenly the reality of high school is matching up with how she dreamed it might be, and not at all what she’d been told.

One girl cocks her head to the side and says wistfully, “I bet this is kinda crazy for you. Like, one minute, you’re invisible. And then the next, everyone knows who you are.”

“I thought you looked friendly,” another girl admits. “I don’t know why I never said hi or anything.”

“Me, too,” says another.

Lauren shakes her head. “It’s partly my fault. It’s not like I was talking to you guys, either. I’m really shy.” She spreads her eyes on all the girls. And as she does, she sees Candace walk by the homeroom, alone. Candace, the former leader of this group.
Lauren sees Candace’s eyes flit sideways into the classroom, looking but not looking. The other girls don’t notice. They’re too busy staring at Lauren.

“I feel bad for Candace,” Lauren says in a low voice. “She seemed upset yesterday.” More upset than anyone else in Principal Colby’s office.

One of the girls moans. “Ugh. Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s evil!” another cries.

Lauren watches the girls nod solemnly. “Wait. Aren’t you all friends with her?”

“We
are
friends with her,” someone says. “We’re
still
friends with her.”

“But … Candace had this coming, you know?”

“She gets away with a lot of stuff, because she’s … you know … so pretty. And that’s not right.”

“She’s said a lot of bad things about a lot of people.” It seems like the girl who says this wants something to register on Lauren’s face, and when whatever it is doesn’t, she adds, “Including you.”

Lauren cycles back through the last four weeks of school. She’d tried hard to blend in, but even still, there’d been mistakes. The waterproof hiking boots she’d worn on the first rainy day had gotten her a few weird looks. Her clothes were plain and sensible, not stylish. Her hair was longer than anyone else’s by several inches, and no one wore the side pinned back with a tarnished old barrette.

She lifts up her hand and quietly removes her barrette. She knows there’s so much still to learn. Things her mother doesn’t know, or never taught her.

When homeroom ends, Lauren still feels like she should say something to Candace. Making new friends is great, and so exciting, but she doesn’t want them at the expense of an enemy.

She sees Candace duck into the girls’ bathroom. Lauren follows her.

“Hi,” Lauren says. “I’m Lauren.”

“I know who you are.” Candace walks into a stall and closes the door.

Lauren wrings her hands. “I … wanted to say that I’m sorry about everything that happened yesterday. You don’t deserve to be called ugly. By anyone.”

After a second, the toilet flushes, though Lauren doesn’t recall hearing Candace pee or anything. The door opens and Candace walks over to the sink to wash her hands. She never looks at Lauren. But she does say, “I know I don’t.”

Candace is obviously upset. Lauren can’t blame her for that. Maybe talking to Candace is a mistake, but she still feels relieved to say her piece. “And, I’m sorry your friends aren’t talking to you right now. But I’m sure that will blow over.” Candace laughs, and it sends a shiver over Lauren. Because really, what does Lauren know about all this? She doesn’t know these girls. She doesn’t understand how things go in high school. “Okay. Right. Well, I just wanted to tell you that.”

She is nearly at the door when Candace calls after her, “You know that the only reason people are suddenly being nice to you is because of the list, right?”

This time, it’s Lauren who doesn’t answer. Because she does know that. And because she doesn’t care. The point is that they are being nice to her. And she plans to enjoy every minute.