What If... All the Rumors Were True (14 page)

SCATTERBRAINED

College mania is a disease—and one that's highly contagious.

“N
o, Haley, you don't get it.” Beads of sweat popped up on Dave Metzger's forehead, even though the window was wide open and his room was freezing. (“For better brain stimulation,” Annie Armstrong had said when she opened it, and let in the frigid breeze.) Haley put her sweater back on and huddled on the rug beside them.

“It's not that simple,” Dave was saying. “You can't write a one-size-fits-all essay for all the colleges. You have to tailor each one to what the school is looking for. Each institution has its own personality. It wants students who'll fit in. Look at the chart.” He stabbed his finger on the huge poster laid out in front of them on the floor. It was a flow chart Dave and Annie had made of all the top colleges: their requirements, locations, stats on the student body, pros and cons about each.

“See, Brown and Berkeley like free thinkers, but Stanford usually takes a more conventional student,” Annie said, running her finger along the lines connecting the schools. “For Harvard, you have to be more rigorous. You have to ‘show your work,' in a way.”

Haley nodded, even though she had no idea what they were talking about. Annie and Dave were so stressed over colleges, Haley was beginning to worry they were losing their minds. Dave's hives had returned, full force. The slightest disagreement brought unsightly rashes to his arms, neck and face. Annie had even whispered to Haley that Dave now had serious backne—a sure sign of overstress and an over-share, to say the least. Meanwhile, Annie herself was so frantic about colleges, the subject had invaded her every conversation. Ask about ice cream, and you ended up talking about MIT. She analyzed her every action in terms of whether or not a particular college would approve. “Would a University of Chicago student eat this apple?” she'd say, holding up a piece of fruit. “Or is that too New England for them? Maybe I should have some deep-dish pizza instead. That would put me in the right frame of mind.”

Their stress was contagious, and it was getting to be too much for Haley. But, perversely, the more she heard them prattle on about Princeton versus Yale and whether Dartmouth was too frat-boy for them, the more interested Haley became. She'd always been a good student, and she'd always dreamed of going to a prestigious college, too. But now that it was time to apply, Haley realized how much work was involved, and how insanely competitive it was. Dave's sweaty, zit-covered face was proof enough of that.

“I keep switching my number one between Yale and MIT,” Dave said, holding up a list of colleges he was applying to, with twenty-five slots and multiple cross-outs and write-overs. “But then I think, shouldn't it be Harvard? I mean, Harvard's number one in the eyes of most of the world. Who am I to argue with that?”

“You put Harvard number three because you went to computer camp instead of studying philosophy with a tutor last summer, remember?” Annie said. “Didn't you read somewhere that Harvard prefers students with a philosophical turn of mind? Or did I dream that?”

“True,” Dave said. “And the MIT rep I talked to last year seemed much more impressed with my podcast than any of the Ivies.”

“I just hope my transcript isn't too nerdy,” Annie said. “I mean, I love the debate team, but is it too cliché-smart-kid? Haley?”

“If you love it you should do it,” Haley said. “That's what I say.”

“That kind of thinking will get you nowhere,” Dave said. “What are your top five, Haley?”

“I haven't ranked them yet, but I'm thinking Brown, Yale, Columbia, maybe Wesleyan—”

“Don't count on Wesleyan as a backup,” Annie warned. “Those days are long gone.”

“Or Oberlin either,” Dave said.

“I wasn't counting it as a backup,” Haley said.

“You should definitely apply to Columbia,” Annie said. “I mean, your dad teaches there, right? That can't hurt.”

“Unless the administration doesn't like him for some reason.” Dave scratched his neck frantically while he spoke.

“Why wouldn't the administration like my dad?” Haley said.

“Never know,” Dave said.

Hanging with Annie and Dave certainly wasn't much fun these days, but they'd done so much research on every college that Haley thought it had to be helping her get her thoughts together. She now understood what she needed to do: prepare as much as possible for every debate, study more for all her classes and do an extra SAT prep practice test every night before bed. Among a million other things.

“Brown has a good media department,” Dave said. “If I want to impress their semiotics profs, I've got to take ‘Inside Hillsdale' live as a videocast. By next week.”

“You're taking the podcast to video?” Haley asked. Dave was famous for “Inside Hillsdale,” his weekly podcast on topics of interest to Hillsdale High students, including live interviews. But it was one thing to do an audio-only radio-style program every week. It was a lot more complicated to go video—and, in Dave's case, maybe not advisable until his little sweating problem and breakouts had cleared up. He had, as they say, a face for radio.

“Slow down, you guys,” Haley said. “How is it humanly possible to do all this work? Don't you think we might be taking on too much at once? Anyone? Dave?”

“Haley, it's not as if I or Dave is going to get recruited for sports,” Annie said, and truer words were never spoken. “There are thousands of smart kids out there with perfect GPAs and SAT scores, trying to get the attention of these admissions officers. We've got to do everything we can. And we've got to start now.”

“You never know which one detail will make them remember you,” Dave added.

“I guess,” Haley said. She was beginning to wonder if she maybe didn't prefer the old post-Spain-Spring-break Annie and Dave, the slackers who had thrown grades, rules and the precious Ivies to the wind.

Leave it to Dave and Annie to organize and obsess over their college applications as if preparing for World War III. Still, Haley wants to get into the school of her dreams, whatever that turns out to be, so at least in some small way, she can understand Dave and Annie's anxiety. But does Haley have any idea what college she wants to go to? Or is she waiting to find out how she does on the SATs before she deals with any of that?

If you think Haley should be there when Dave launches the
"VIDEOCAST"
. If you think Haley should remember to stay well rounded—and sane—go to
"PRINCIPAL CRUM'S LITANY"
.

The best colleges want the best minds. Losing your mind is not the best strategy for getting in.

RUMOR MILL

What goes around comes around…and around, and around…

“M
anor Estates?” Coco sniffed as they rode through the front gates of a brand-new luxury housing development, where not even the guesthouses were smaller than two thousand square feet. “
Très
nouveau. You know they build these shacks with particle board and wood glue, right?”

Haley sat in the front seat of the hybrid SUV, her mom driving, Coco in the backseat, which did not exactly make the teen queen happy. They were on their way to hang with Whitney at the new house of the ex–Mrs. Klein, who was now living with Sasha Lewis's father, Jonathan Lewis. It was a long, complicated and slightly sordid tale, but in the end, the coupling seemed to be working out nicely.

“I think it's great that Linda Klein has pulled her life together,” Joan Miller said, frowning at Coco in the rearview mirror. “After what that devil of a husband did to her.”

The previous year, Whitney's dad, New Jersey's breath-spray king, had left his first wife for a much younger waitress at the country club—an unsavory tart named Trish. Devastated and temporarily locked out of all her bank accounts, Linda Klein had taken Whitney to live in a depressing apartment in the Floods. It was around that time when Linda reconnected with Jonathan, a recovering gambler and alcoholic, who was also in the process of hitting rock bottom. They became friends, then fell in love, and now seemed to be in the midst of a sharp lifestyle upgrade—with a little help, of course, from Linda's ample divorce settlement and her steady income from her newly instated broker's license. Linda was actually a partner in the Manor Estates subdivision.

Haley was surprised to hear how much her mom knew about the personal lives of her friends' parents. Were rumors running so rampant in Hillsdale that even love-thy-neighbor Joan Miller was in the loop? “Since when are you so up on the gossip, Mom?”

“Oh, you know,” Joan said. “If you spend enough time with Blythe Armstrong, you just start to absorb this stuff through osmosis.” Joan worked at the same environmental law firm as Annie Armstrong's mother, and though they were die-hard do-gooders, they evidently weren't above a little friendly chatter.

Personally, Haley was glad for Whitney. Living in the Floods had been hard for someone as status-conscious as she was.

“Ew,” shrieked Coco, “who picked out these plants? The colors are so ghetto.” The development was so new half the lawns hadn't been sodded yet, and the other half had explosions of overly bright mums hastily stuck into the ground.

Joan pulled into the circular drive in front of Whitney's new house, a faux-Tudor-style manor that seemed to be as big as or bigger than the original Klein McMansion.

“Well, it's certainly not my taste,” Joan admitted. “But I have to say, it's something, all right.”

“To put it mildly,” Haley said. Her mother was very much against ostentatious displays of wealth.

“Your dad will pick you up in a few hours,” Joan said as the girls climbed out of the SUV. “Have fun.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Haley said. Coco, of course, said nothing, and emphatically brushed imagined dirt and dust off her jeans after she exited the vehicle. Haley thought it was amazingly rude of her to treat Joan like a chauffeur. Actually, even a chauffeur should be thanked.
I guess it's safe to assume the old Coco is back.

Whitney greeted them at the door, clearly house-proud. “Come on in,” she said, teetering through the half-empty front hall in feathered, high-heeled mules and a dressing gown. “We still have a ways to go with the decorating, but it's already such an improvement over our last space.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Coco. “A cardboard box in an alley would have been an improvement over that hovel. Please tell me you burned all your old furniture and clothes? I did not come here to get bedbugs or fleas.”

“Everything's new, down to the hand towels.” Whitney led them upstairs to her room. “Here it is: the Whitney hospitality suite.” Suite was not a bad description of Whitney's new room, which opened onto a small living area with a sofa, chairs and a coffee table, and branched off to a work area for designing clothes on the left and a bedroom and bathroom on the right.

“Wow, Whitney, it's huge,” Haley said. “It's like you have your own place!”

“There's an identical suite down the hall for Sasha,” Whitney said. “Though she's never used it. I can't say I blame her. I wouldn't want to hang around with Jonathan either if I didn't have to.”

“How can your mother trust him in the house?” Coco asked. “Isn't she, like, worried he's going to steal a painting and head straight for the nearest roulette wheel?”

“Mom says he's totally reformed,” Whitney said. “But I don't know…I mean, once a gambler, always a gambler, right?”

“Whit, a diet soda,” Coco demanded. “I don't want to ask for it twice.”

Two seconds after Whitney left the room to get snacks, Coco turned to Haley and said, “Sasha's dad is
thisclose
to popping the question to Whitney's mom, but Whitney doesn't know it yet.”

“How do you know?” Haley asked.

“I hear things,” Coco said. “Somebody saw Jonathan shopping for rings in Manhattan, the diamond district. What else would he be doing there? On second thought, maybe he was hocking Linda's jewelry. Poor, poor woman.” Coco shook her head.

“I'm sure your first guess was right,” Haley said. “I wonder how Whitney will take the news. She doesn't seem too crazy about Jonathan.”

“She'll be upset, of course. She'll freak, actually. Cohabitation is one thing; matrimonial vows are quite another. But I'm more curious to know how Sasha will feel.” Coco arched an eyebrow. “Can you imagine, Whitney and Sasha as stepsisters? What a pair.”

Whitney and Sasha had been lifelong BFFs. Until recently, that is, when Sasha had decided she was tired of the superficial Cocobot lifestyle and threw herself into practicing soccer and guitar. Whitney, meanwhile, had kept clinging to Coco as if she were a life raft.

“Don't say anything to Whitney, or she'll have a meltdown, and I cannot deal with that today. You know how emotional she gets.” Coco sifted through a pile of fashion magazines on Whitney's coffee table. “Rats, she doesn't have it.”

“Have what?” Haley asked.

“Oh, some European fashion magazine that trashy Mia Delgado claims she has a story in. But I don't buy it. Sure, there's a certain…wanton appeal about the girl. But no way is she top-model material. I think she's making up all this modeling business—and I'm going to prove it.”

Coco sat back on the couch and waited for Haley to beg for more info. At that moment, Whitney rushed back into the room. “WhudImiss, whudImiss?”

“Coco was just filling me in on her theories about Mia Delgado,” Haley said, irritated that the conversation had once again shifted to the stunning Spanish mannequin. No matter where she went these days, everyone always seemed to be talking about Mia.

“Ooh, have you heard the latest?” Whitney nosed in, realizing she had a bit of news she had yet to share with the group. That was the thing about Whitney. She heard lots of juicy stuff, some of it true, some of it false. But as often as not, rumors flew out of Whitney's head before she had time to pass them on. You had to catch her at just the right moment, such as right after a visit to her hair salon, and then, without applying too much pressure, coax the volcano of rumors that was Whitney Klein to erupt.

“Do tell,” Coco encouraged, without seeming too eager.

“Well, apparently, Drew Napolitano heard Mia arguing with Sebastian. About a tape.”

“What sort of tape?” Coco imperceptibly leaned forward, suppressing her curiosity.

“A tape apparently made by someone Mia used to date. Someone who wasn't Sebastian Bodega. And,” Whitney added, a wicked grin on her face, “it's a naked tape.” She whispered those last three words, scandalized by the thought of such salacious viewing material.

“No,” Haley gasped.

“Yup,” said Whitney. “Mia was denying it, but Sebastian is not happy. And he said if her modeling agency ever caught wind of it, or actually saw the tape, her career would be over.”

“You don't say,” Coco mused.

Whitney grabbed three tortilla chips and loaded them with guac. But now it was her appetite for gossip that needed to be sated. “Have you two heard about what the football team's been up to lately? Cecily told me that Drew told her but swore her to secrecy.”

“Figures,” said Coco.

“But luckily, I have my own sources. It's called the booster club. Here's what I know—the varsity players are hazing the freshmen, saying if they want to be part of the team they've got to do whatever the upperclassmen say.”

“Like what?” Haley asked innocently.

“I can't believe what idiots boys can be.” Coco sighed. “Thank goodness my Spencer's not immature like that.”

“Right,” Haley said. “Spencer's real mature. He only runs an illegal gambling ring.”

“It may be illegal but it's certainly not childish,” Coco said. “And besides, he's given that up because of the campaign. So tell us, Whit, what exactly do the football players do?”

“Well, I heard they took one kid and blindfolded him and made him take off all his clothes and walk through town at midnight,” Whitney said. “In his jockstrap. And his father happened to drive by and see him, but he must not have recognized him because he didn't stop. And when another kid said he didn't want to do it, they filled his locker with manure.”

“Yuck,” Haley said. “Why aren't they getting in trouble for all this?”

“Because the freshmen grunts are too afraid to squeal,” Whitney said. “And the older boys took a vow of silence or something.”

“I guess the vow of silence doesn't apply to girlfriends,” Coco said, thinking of Cecily and Drew.

“Guess not,” Haley agreed.

There seems to be an awful lot of gossip swirling around Hillsdale these days. It's enough to make Haley's head spin. If even her highly principled mother is capable of getting caught up in the rumor mill, who is Haley to resist spreading the word?

Sasha's dad is about to propose to Whitney's mom, and neither girl knows anything about it? That's big—and maybe Sasha and Whitney have a right to know. It's their lives too, after all. Of course, if that rumor isn't true, it could cause a lot of damage for nothing.

And what about the sports hazing—shouldn't people know about that? Or should Haley leave it up to the victims themselves to turn in their tormentors?

The juiciest rumor by far is Mia's scandalous love tape. This one's the most tempting to spread, because of Mia's man-eater status. With her around, the other girls hardly stand a chance. Shouldn't all those admiring boys know what kind of girl they're drooling over? Or would that just make them drool even more?

If you think Haley should be
"TALKING TRASH"
, spreading the rumors she's just heard around the school. If you think she should not get involved in any of this, have her take the
"HIGH ROAD"
. And if you're not sure what Haley should do, and want to find out more before making a decision, send her to hear
"PRINCIPAL CRUM'S LITANY"
.

Some people love to hear gossip from their friends, but not so much when the gossip is about them.