Getting Caught (6 page)

It comes out slightly more rehearsed than I would have liked, but it sounds good just the same. The man, who I now realize never even told me his name (or maybe I just missed it), nods his head and writes something in his notebook. In fact, his notes seem longer than my actual answer. I wonder if this is good or bad.

“I see. And you don’t think…beauty school would be a better choice?”

“Uh…” Did he just say
beauty school?
Is he making fun of my crazy hair? I mean, the curls
are
a bit unruly, but today they’re pulled into a French twist with the assistance of a lot of bobby pins and a gallon of hairspray. Oh God, maybe it’s fallen out. Why didn’t Bryn tell me I looked bad? I force my hands to stay clasped in my lap instead of reaching up to check. The last thing I need is to show him how nervous he’s making me. “No, sir.” I laugh anxiously. “Harvard is definitely the place for me.”

He nods and takes more notes. I resist the urge to sit forward to try and see what they say.

“Why didn’t you take German instead of French? Do you have animosity toward Germans because of Hitler?”

Huh? I narrow my eyes. This has to be a joke. Maybe he’s trying to see how I handle stress. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to say because I don’t think it’s a real question. “Umm.” Crap. I’d rehearsed everything several times in order to avoid words like “um” and “uh.” So much for that idea. “No, of course not. Hitler
was
German, but—”

“Oh, now you’re comparing all Germans to Hitler?” He purses his bushy brows together and stares across the table, as if I’ve just told
him
he’s Hitler. As I look at him I realize maybe he’s German. And maybe he’d just been curious about my language choice and I’d gone off on some weird tangent about Hitler. Or had he brought that up first? Now I can’t remember.

I sit back in my chair. I feel myself going down in flames. “No, sir. Of course not. I think maybe I used a poor choice of words. I would love to visit Germany some day. Perhaps I’ll pick up an extra language course over the summer. German seems like a wonderful language.”

He seems pacified. I take in as big a breath as I can manage without looking panicked. I can still recover. He’s bound to ask questions I can answer without bumbling like an idiot.

I stare at him for a long moment. This can’t be right. Maybe it’s a test, like they ask you really weird questions and you’re supposed to know about it, like an inside joke or a secret handshake or something. I can actually feel my heart beating and I wonder if he can see my body move the slightest bit with each pulse. I feel like I could slide off the chair and pass out all in one motion.

“I’m not sure how that is relevant,” I finally say.

“Miss—” he glances at his paperwork again. “Brentwood, we at Harvard pride ourselves on diversity. Our students must be prepared to encounter a variety of individuals. Each student contributes to your academic career in a different way. I’m merely striving to be certain we don’t admit anyone who would cause friction.”

“Oh, of course not,” I say, relieved I finally understand something he’s talking about. “I have respect for everyone, regardless of background. I thrive on the challenge of working together with an extremely varied group of peers.”

He nods, seeming pleased with my answer. I can feel myself sweating now. It’s beading up at my temples and trickling down my neck. I hope he doesn’t notice.

“You’re on a desert island. Do you bring a bag of Jelly Bellies or a Hulk Hogan figurine?”

I make a funny noise that sounds like I’m choking, then cover it with a cough. What the hell is he on? Harvard must not realize this guy is ruining their image. He’s like a rogue agent or something. “Um, the Jelly Bellies?”

He scribbles several more notes. I wonder if I should have picked Hulk Hogan.

“If you were a character from
Saved by the Bell
, which one would you be?”

Saved by the Bell?
Maybe this guy is older than I thought. “Uh, Jesse?” She was the one who got good grades, right? I’ve only seen like three episodes, ever, but I think I remember an episode where the girl was flipping out over her SAT scores. That’s familiar.

“You do realize she’s the one who starred in
SHOW GIRLS
, right?”

I sit back in my chair. “Well, that was the actress. Not the character from
Saved by the Bell
.”

He writes something down again.

This is completely surreal. Part of me wants to tell him off because now I’m
sure
this isn’t what Harvard expects of him. I wonder how many people he’s ruined so far. If this doesn’t go my way, maybe I’ll write to the admissions office and tell them what he’s doing. Maybe they’ll give me a second interview, one where the guy isn’t a total buffoon.

I’m
this
close to refusing another question, since he really seems to be making a mockery of this interview, but I stop myself. Even if he is being stupid, he can still make my dream come true. I can’t piss him off.

I look around the room, like something will tell me what’s happening and how this has all spun out of control.

The interviewer sits back in his chair and adjusts a watch. It looks a lot cheaper than I’d expected. He
is
a Harvard alum, after all. I bought a fancier watch for my dad at Sears last Christmas.

He shuffles his papers and something falls out. Before he scoops it up off the table, I see it. It’s a business card.

For Pet Pantry.

I sit up sharply in my chair. Pet Pantry is the store in town. It isn’t a chain. It’s a single store. And it’s not anywhere near Harvard.

And I’m pretty sure I heard that Jess Hill works there.

I suddenly remember running into her in the hall. And I realize it hadn’t been surprise in her widened eyes; it was fear. She thought she’d been caught red-handed. She’d probably planned to hide in the room before I got here so she could hear my humiliation. But if she really knew me, she’d know I always arrived early.

I stare at him for a long, silent moment, my mouth slightly agape and my heartbeat ringing in my ears. He shoves the card back into his portfolio, but I can see in his eyes that he knows.

“That bitch,” I snarl.

“Uh, what?” he says calmly, like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but his face has a slight red tinge.

I stand up so fast my chair clatters to the floor. “That fucking bitch.” I’ve never been one to swear, but anger is boiling up so fast I can’t stop myself. “She
knows
what this means to me. She
knows
how serious this is.” I shake my head and start backing away from the table. I’m so angry I’m trembling. “You tell her—”

“Who?” he interjects, still playing dumb.

“You tell her,” I repeat, louder this time, “that she’s going to regret what she just did. She’d better watch her back, because things just got ugly.” I pause for a moment and take a deep breath, trying to keep myself from throttling him. “Things just got
real
ugly.”

Chapter Eight

Jess

I let go of the push bar on the lawnmower, adjust a strap on my camouflage tank top, and check the display on my cell.

I shrug and collapse on the newly mowed lawn outside my house, feeling pure triumph surge through me. The grass is cold, almost frosty on my bare skin.

I’d spent probably as many sleepless nights thinking up the interview as Peyton did preparing for it. “That’s okay. The point is, she believed it. I wish you could have videotaped it. I would have loved to see her face when she figured it out.”

I squeal with delight. “Perfect. And don’t worry about Peyton. She’s harmless. The most she’d do is throw a dictionary at you.
I’m
the one she’s at war with.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Exactly. So I don’t think you should come within spitting distance of her for the next decade.”

“Not possible. She lives next door to me,” I say, inspecting the blue-shuttered bi-level next to mine. Peyton’s stepmom is all artsy, so there are these horrible wire and clay statues on the front lawn of butterflies and gnomes and gargoyles. An ugly “Welcome to our Home” slate under the mailbox has the scariest-looking creature painted on it, and just screams “Stay away!” I think it was supposed to be a caterpillar but looks like the green-skinned ogre of my childhood nightmares. To go with the ogre, their house numbers are surrounded in hand-painted, whimsical flamingoes. And they never mow their lawn. “Lawnmower” is probably the one word that
isn’t
in Peyton’s vocabulary. “Besides, I’m tough. I can handle her.”

“Tough is an understatement. You’re downright diabolical.” His tone is reproachful.

“Oh, please. You have no idea what that girl is capable of. Public humiliation has been her specialty since freshman year. If you were there that day, you wouldn’t feel an ounce of regret. She deserves everything I can dish up, I promise you that.”

I stare up at the cloudless sky and push away memories of the party at Ken Greeley’s, the cold sneer on Peyton’s face, the way everything turned shimmery when the tears in my eyes pooled over. But even though I can do all that, I can never forget the sound of her cruel laughter as she watched me fall to pieces.

“Hey, listen. I’m as guilty as you are. All I know is that that girl might need shock treatments to repair the damage. She was that worked up.”

I sit up and look over at Peyton’s house with a grin, picturing her in pure meltdown mode. I might feel the tiniest bit sorry for her—
if
I didn’t remember the sound of that laughter ringing in my ears over and over.

The snotty bitch had this one coming. “She’ll recover. Trust me. Peyton always ends up on top. Even if she has to stomp on everyone to get there.”

When the conversation ends, I toss my phone aside, fall back against the lawn again, and look up at the sky. Five years ago, Peyton would have been by my side, naming all the types of clouds and species of birds. Starting in third grade, we were inseparable, always going over to each other’s house after school for cookies and milk. We’d just veg for hours in front of the TV. If a teacher wanted us to pair up, neither of us had to say a word; it was obvious that we were together. Then, in middle school, she started spending all of this time on lame extracurricular activities and rarely had time to hang.

The unraveling began when she went away to some stupid summer academy for over-achievers. That was the summer my parents went through some trial-separation thing…back when we were a real family, before they looked at me like I was a disappointment. They expected me to go to all these weird therapy sessions with them. Maybe it’s because avoidance is my coping mechanism, but those sessions were just hell. Who wants to be part of lame family therapy when the real problems have nothing to do with you?

I tried all summer to get in touch with Peyton, sending a zillion letters.
Write every day,
my ass. She didn’t send a single one. She didn’t call, either.

And then when she came back, I got it. I’d been replaced. Bryn Samuels was new in town, and they’d met at that stupid academy.

I should have known. Peyton wants the best of everything. Once she realized I wasn’t ivy-league, pep-squad material, she tossed me in the ditch and drove off.

I cringe, thinking of that day at Ken Greeley’s. When she invited me to that party, I decided to give her one last chance—why give up on so many years of best-friendship? I vowed to tell her that I didn’t hate all those hobbies she had—I was scared of them, scared of being left behind.

But what I got instead was a rude awakening. When I got there, they were all hanging out around the pool, giggling, and I heard my name, the voice drifting through a row of bushes. Someone said,
What a loser. She dresses like the captain of the Salvation Army.
And everyone laughed. I thought to myself, “Peyton can’t be there. If she was, she’d defend me.” But that was when I caught a glimpse of her curly hair and saw her face. She was seated next to Bryn, laughing just as loud as the rest of them. That was the day I decided I never, ever wanted to be part of their crowd again; in fact, I wanted to be the opposite of whatever they were.

I was going to leave Ken’s house without saying a word, but when I spun around I smacked right into Grant, Ken Greeley’s best friend. The commotion was enough to alert Peyton to my presence.

She called me over to their little group and for some stupid, pathetic reason, I walked up to her. Maybe I thought she was going to have an explanation for what was going on.

But she didn’t. She just looked at me, smiled, and shoved me into the pool. Everyone laughed and taunted me, and the tears quickly mixed with the chlorine until I could barely see where I was going well enough to climb out.

And since I’d walked the mile to Ken’s house, I had to walk back home like that, sopping wet.