Getting Caught (7 page)

So as far as I’m concerned, a girl who can be that two-faced got everything she deserved. Hell, today’s little performance was
nothing
compared to what she should have had coming to her.

I push the mower into the garage as a silver Mercedes pulls into our driveway. My mother slides out of the passenger seat, her frosted blond French twist still as perfect as always. I’m convinced it’s not real hair, just a helmet, because I’ve never seen it any other way. She has blood-red lipstick and a smart business suit even though it’s Saturday. My mom does not own weekend wear. In her warped language, jeans and T-shirts don’t compute.

Her mouth is hanging open, and I realize at that moment she hasn’t yet been introduced to my new hair. Unlike my mom, I change my color almost weekly. This is, obviously, not the only area in which we differ.

I fluff my platinum spikes, like a beauty queen. “Like it?”

She rolls her eyes and scowls. “Jessica, I’d hoped you would have grown out of this by now.”

“No, but
it
should grow out in about three months,” I say, like a total smartass.

She means, I don’t know, a pep rally or a drive-in movie or whatever social activity was popular when she was my age. I think she would have been happy if I sat around with a bunch of stoners passing a hash pipe as long as I wasn’t home,
again
, on another Saturday night. And yeah, maybe I did spend most, if not all, weekends in my bedroom, but it wasn’t like I was planning the next Columbine or anything. I just hadn’t found any company that was as interesting and fun to be with as my own. It seemed like
everyone
got caught up in high school, and all I wanted to do was pretend it didn’t exist.

“Yes, thanks. I would much rather be selling crack to schoolchildren. But it’s a Saturday, so the playgrounds are empty.”

She sighs. “What about Peyton? Why don’t you two do something together?”

This hopeful suggestion just perfectly shows how out of touch with reality my mother is. Obviously the growls I constantly throw in the direction of the Brentwood home and the fact that Peyton hasn’t set foot in our house in years hasn’t tipped her off to the war we have going on.

I grimace but don’t look up from the bag of grass clippings I’m unloading. “Why don’t I sell my body on Main Street for a buck an hour?”

She gives up trying to have a civil conversation with me, since we haven’t had one of those in forever, and trudges inside. That’s just when I see a flash of red on the street, slowing to a stop outside the Brentwood’s. It’s Peyton’s vintage VW bug. The princess is home from the biggest ass-kicking of her life.

I quickly dodge under the garage door so she won’t see me. I want to see whatever remnants are left over from the reaction Gavin witnessed. I want to behold those blotchy cheeks, those tear-filled eyes. I want
blood.

I wait for the door of the car to open, for the princess to step out into the sunlight, where I can finally see those things. But it never happens. From here, all I can make out are two hands, clenching the steering wheel, unmoving. I imagine her going inside, telling friends and family that it wasn’t a real interview. That it was a misunderstanding.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall for that.

Because this is war. And all is fair.

Chapter Nine

Peyton

Although I’ve never
actually
hyperventilated, I feel dangerously close, like my chest is tightening up and my throat is closing in. My pacing has turned so frantic it probably resembles a Nazi march, my legs stiff and swinging out in front of me. I shake my head. I must
not
think of Nazis. Not this time. That interview was fake.
Fake.

My nerves are getting the better of me as I recall the absolute bewilderment of Jess’s prank interview. The memory seeps into my conscious mind and makes my stomach do the kind of flip-flops I’ve only seen on televised gymnastics. My palms are sweating, and my wool sweater, with a button-up blouse underneath, seems unreasonably stifling.

I regret wearing this plaid skirt, too. I wonder if they’ll think I look like an immature schoolgirl, like I don’t have the kind of sophistication Harvard requires. I would have worn the same fancy slacks as the last interview, but I didn’t want the karma to rub off on me.

I want to kill Jess because last time, I wasn’t this nervous. I’d felt semi-prepared, like there was a real chance I could pull off a great interview. Now I’m expecting something really bizarre to happen and send me into a panic.

Not to mention, I feel a little bad about the tiff I got into with Bryn three hours ago. She assumed she’d be by my side once again. But
everything
about the last interview screamed bad karma, and I couldn’t stand the idea of her presence. She’d acted like it was some sort of personal attack, but honestly, I just wanted to make things as different as possible so I could concentrate.

The door behind me opens, and a man in a Harvard blazer and expensive black slacks steps out. He looks way more credible than the last guy. “Miss Brentwood? I’m ready for you.”

I take in a gulp of air and try to walk confidently to the door, even though my knees are so wobbly I feel like a newborn calf. All I can see is the door in front of me, as if bright white light is shining out and it’s the Promised Land.

When I get inside, it looks a lot more official than the last time. The table in the center of the room has a stack of papers on it, some upside down. There’s a placard that says
Phillip Voight, Admissions
in front of his chair, and a glass of water beside the empty one meant for me.

I suddenly have dry mouth and want to guzzle the entire glass, but as I sit down, I only sip daintily at it, as if table manners alone are going to get me in the door.

“Miss Brentwood, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Your application was of particular interest to me. I once played Danny Zuko in
Grease
.”

We make small talk for another ten minutes, during which time my heartbeat slowly returns to normal. Even as he asks me, “What was the most enriching experience for you in the last four years?” I can’t shake that tiny bit of worry. It’s like I expect him to turn around and say, “Shaken or stirred? Steak fries or onion rings?”

Damn Jess. Damn her.

Ten minutes later he’s ushering me out the door, and I’m frantically searching my mind for some perfect parting remark, but nothing comes, so I mutter a forgettable “thank you” and leave the room.

And now this experience is over, and Harvard has every last piece they need to make their decision. I’m either in or I’m out.

For a long, frightening moment, I stand in the empty halls and consider what it would be like. I’ll be saying goodbye to this school in just a few short months, and if Harvard doesn’t want me…I have nothing. I’ll be a failure, like the rest of my family.

Then I realize I’m being totally silly, because of
course
I’m getting in. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to and followed every book on Ivy League schools I could find. I’m a shoo-in.

I drive home, still so distracted that I run a stop sign. Thankfully no one’s around to see it.

I’m replaying the questions in my head as I walk in the front door and see my dad with twelve cans of soda lined up in front of him and a notebook at his side. There are dozens of balls of crumpled paper all over the floor.

“When you drink grape soda, what do you think?” He looks intense, staring at me like I’m going to give him the secret of life and not my take on a fizzy soft drink.

“Jelly Bellies?”

He gives me this “A-HA!” face and writes something down. “Wait…what?” he says, turning back towards me with his face scrunched up.

“Oh. Sorry. I’m…thinking of something else. I guess it makes me think of…” I search the recesses of my mind for something brilliant and life-altering to say, but all I can think is that maybe I should have lied and told the interviewer I
had
seen the Broadway version of
Grease
. What if he wanted someone with culture and life experience?

My dad is tapping his pen on the notebook beside him and shaking his leg at the same time. I narrow my eyes and reach out and lift, one at a time, each can in front of him. They’re nearly empty.

“Tell me you haven’t had twelve cans of soda.”

He nods his head, very quickly. “Yes. Twelve. I should have gotten caffeine-free but that could affect the taste, yes?”

I groan. “Yes, but the caffeine could affect
your brain
. How are you going to think straight?” As if he ever thought straight to begin with. Sometimes I don’t understand how my dad could have descended to this sad low. There are days I want to help him, days I wish I could see him and his business succeed for once. Days where I feel like I’m the parent and I need to guide him on the path to success, even though that’s what he’s supposed to be doing for me. Then there are days, like today, when all I want to do is shake my head at him. When I know that tragically, only one of us is built for success. And that’s usually when I can’t wait until I’m thousands of miles away so I can focus on my own life and forget about that feeling of pity that’s a constant weight in my stomach.

He shrugs and keeps tapping. “I just need one good line. One slogan that will win them over. Who are the current supermodels?”

“Dad, not now.” What if the interviewer expected someone more bubbly and charismatic, and I’d been too bland? Maybe I should have worn something with more personal style, something to show I have great taste.

Oh, crap. I have European History homework. It’s a thousand-word essay and I have precisely two of those words done: Peyton Brentwood, written at the top of the page.

He’s still talking, so I mumble something as I walk away. “Homework,” it might have been.

Or maybe it was “Harvard.”

Chapter Ten

Jess

I open up my gym locker on the first day after mid-winter break, and a folded note flutters to my feet. I take a deep breath. After weeks of waiting, is today finally the day?

I pick up the paper and place it casually down on the bench next to me, then reach for my gym shorts. Though I’m dying to know what it says, Peyton and Bryn are probably somewhere nearby, surveying my every move. I know they want to see the sweat on my upper lip. But it ain’t happening.
Nothing to see here, folks.

After I finish changing and pulling my oil-black hair into a headband, I pick up the note, pretending to do it almost as an afterthought. I keep my hands as steady as possible when I unfold it, look at it as quickly as I can, and crumple it up, tossing it in the trash. I calmly head out to the gymnasium even though the words, written in Peyton’s bubbly script, make me very nervous:

Do you smell something?

I’ve been expecting a prank for so long I barely went anywhere without checking over my shoulder. I knew after the Harvard interview, this one was going to be a whopper. Peyton lived and breathed competition. She hated to lose. I expected nothing less from her.

I feel a prickling sensation on the backs of my ears as I walk to the bleachers. I climb them slowly, just as I notice one of Peyton’s cronies holding her nose and waving her hand in front of her face. She scowls at me and whispers something to her friend that begins with an “Ew.” I move as far away from her as I can to the top row of the bleachers and then notice, as I turn back to the gym, that most of the three-dozen students in the vast hall are staring at me. Grinning.

The principal might not have figured out our prank war, but everyone in the room has. And I know they’re all rooting for Peyton.

Oh, hell. Is there something on my back? I nonchalantly reach behind, pretending to itch my shoulder blades, but there isn’t anything there. Then, as I’m about to sit, I look up at the scoreboard and see it, in screaming red block letters:

JESS HILL HAS B.O.

I study it for a minute, grinning as widely as I can. As everyone watches, I lift up one arm, then the other, and sniff my armpits. I shrug. “What?” I say, loud enough so everyone can hear me. “I showered last Thursday. Give a girl a break.”

A couple of the guys below me chuckle, and that’s when I catch sight of Dave. He’s not laughing. In fact, he looks a little preoccupied, which is totally not like him. Dave is definitely the carefree type, assuming he isn’t concentrating on whatever sport he’s perfecting.

Then I see Peyton, huddled with Bryn and the girl who had scrunched her nose near me. Peyton’s staring up at me, and she has this blank look on her face. She looks, I don’t know, defeated. Obviously she’d expected me to turn red, to rush out of the gym in tears. But she should know by now that if she wants to get me worked up, she’d have to pull something a little better than that. That one was…well, lame. It seems like even though I keep raising the stakes, Peyton is still determined to play it safe and pull the same old boring, childish pranks. She’s too concerned about wrecking her sparkling Harvard future. And what’s the fun in that? Pranks are supposed to be a thrill. This just proves I’m better at this than her.