The List (25 page)

It always struck her as odd, the way Jennifer would randomly bring up things she’d only just confessed to the pages. Like when she lamented the size of her chest. Or the things she’d secretly do with Dana and Rachel. Or being in love with Matthew Goulding. Or how she was seriously afraid of Maureen sometimes. There were pages and pages devoted to her inner turmoil about ending her friendship with Jennifer.

Margo takes a deep breath. Jennifer must have known the friendship was going to end before Margo found the courage to do it. Which maybe should have made her feel less guilty, that Jennifer hadn’t been blindsided by it the way she’d assumed. That she knew it wasn’t just a pretty girl leaving her ugly friend behind. Instead, Jennifer knew the guilt, the worry she’d had about hurting Jennifer’s feelings.

Jennifer continues, “I thought if I could knock you down a few pegs, you wouldn’t leave me for Rachel and Dana. But you still did.”

Margo realizes that senior-year Jennifer has the same flawed logic that eighth-grade Jennifer did. She wants to leave the room now — leave the house, leave Jennifer, in the same way she did back then. The only difference is that her younger self
wasn’t entirely sure of her reasons. But this time, Margo is all too aware of why she wants to go. And she doesn’t feel sorry about it one bit.

There’s just one thing she needs before she goes.

Margo swallows. “I want that stamp.”

“Are you going to tell everyone I did it? Is that your plan, to make sure I don’t win?”

“This isn’t about homecoming queen, Jennifer! God! Of course I’m going to tell on you. Everyone thinks I did it.”

“Oh, I feel
so
bad for you.” Jennifer rolls her eyes. “You know you didn’t do it. What does it matter what everyone else thinks?” Jennifer smirks. “That’s right. You haven’t changed, either. You still care what people think of you.”

“Give it to me, Jennifer. My sister told you she wanted the list to end.”

Jennifer purses her lips. She lies back down on her bed. “Tell you what. You want the stamp? You want to end the list? Then I’ll give it to you tonight, at the end of the dance.”

“No deal.”

“Then no stamp.”

Margo puts her hands on her hips. “Fine. I don’t need the stamp. But I’ll tell. I’ll tell everyone.”

“You won’t be able to prove it. I’ll just deny it.” Jennifer rolls over to the wall. “And I’ll hand it off for next year,” she threatens. “I already know who I’m going to give it to. And there’ll be nothing you can do to stop it.”

Margo considers this. “You’d really do that? What about the other girls?” she asks. “The ones you picked as the ugliest? You’d let them go through what you did?”

“I picked those girls for a reason, Margo. I picked
everyone
for a reason. And anyway, they can deal with being put on the list one time. Look at me. I survived.” Jennifer sighs. “Just give me tonight, Margo. Give me one night, one chance to not be the ugly girl. Please. If you do, I’ll give you the stamp. If you don’t, well … you can try and get me in trouble. But, remember, you’ll be putting Maureen at risk, too.”

Margo knows she doesn’t owe Jennifer anything. Not anymore. But at the same time, she has no desire to wrestle the stamp out of Jennifer’s hand, or to spread the truth when the truth will only come back to haunt Maureen.

This is bigger than just her and Jennifer. The greater good is at stake. The chance to end the list once and for all. And, suddenly, that’s what matters to Margo. Not homecoming, not redeeming herself to her classmates, but making sure no one has to go through this ever again.

“Tonight,” she tells Jennifer. “I’ll give you tonight. Then it’s over.”

t is the worst Saturday of Abby’s whole life.

Lisa sends her text messages throughout the football game so she can follow the score. It is sweet of Lisa to do, but it also makes it harder for Abby, having to read tiny versions of the play-by-play action that she doesn’t get to be a part of.

The game is not going well, at least not at first. Apparently, the coach gets so desperate, he lets a few of the second-and third-string kids play. Mount Washington manages to fight their way back within one. With the clock ticking down, Andrew drops a Hail Mary pass that would have won the game. Lisa spots him afterward, being ignored by his friends.

She feels bad for thinking it, but Abby is glad the team loses.

Maybe Andrew will be so upset that he’ll cancel his party. Or maybe Jennifer and Margo will duke it out over the homecoming crown and Principal Colby will call off the dance. Or Sarah’s smell will be declared an environmental hazard and the whole gym will be shut down.

There is always hope.

The rest of the afternoon is beyond boring. Abby doesn’t know what to do with herself. So when the time comes that she would have been getting ready for the dance, that’s exactly what she does.

She takes an extra long shower and shaves her legs. She blows out her hair and uses her fat curling iron to give the ends
a little bounce, like Bridget had done for her and Lisa at the beach.

Then she opens her makeup bag and does her eyes. A little eyeliner on her top lids, some shadow at the creases. She spreads petal pink blush on the rounds of her cheeks. Pink would have looked best with her dress, the dress she never bought. She traces her lips and then spreads a thin layer of lipstick in between the lines.

Abby texts Lisa a few times, asking to see a picture of Lisa dressed up. Lisa doesn’t write back. Probably because she’s too excited, or maybe because Bridget is doing her hair for her. Though typing the words makes her want to cry her eyes out, Abby manages to send one last text:

Have fun tonight!

Then she turns off her phone. She thinks about taking a Benadryl so she can fall asleep. She doesn’t want to spend the night staring at the clock, imagining all the fun happening without her.

She comes out of the bathroom and walks into her bedroom. Fern is sitting at her desk with
The Blix Effect
and a notebook.

“Well, are you ready or what?” Fern asks impatiently.

“You’ve read that book ten times, saw the movie yesterday, and are about to see it again. You don’t have the story down yet?”

“Hello! I’m killing time while you’ve been playing beauty parlor in the bathroom.” Fern finishes scribbling something down, and then looks up at Abby, surprised. “You do remember that you’re not going to the homecoming dance, right?”

A thunder rumbles inside her. “Shut up,” Abby says, and climbs into her bed and pulls the covers over her head.

“Nice. Real nice.” Through a little gap in the fabric, Abby watches Fern sneer at Abby’s side of the bedroom, scoffing at the mess. She sighs the way their mother would sigh, only it sounds much lighter coming from Fern’s mouth, like a girl playing dress up. Fern moves the books from her desk to her tightly made bed. “Sit here,” she tells Abby. “And maybe you should take advantage of being grounded and, you know, clean your side of the room tonight. It’s disgusting.”

Abby kicks off the covers, trudges over, and falls into Fern’s chair. Fern crouches next to her on the floor. Abby opens her textbook and takes out Monday’s still-unfinished worksheet. It is wrinkled and Fern seems annoyed by it, which makes Abby happy. But mostly, she would rather fail than suffer through this.

Abby watches Fern’s eyes sprint across the page. She secretly hopes Fern won’t remember this stuff, but Fern quickly announces, “Alright. So you need to calculate the rate of the seafloor spreading.”

Abby stares at the map in her textbook. There’s a star on North America, another star marking Africa, and a spread of blue for the Atlantic Ocean.

Fern continues, “The seafloor was approximately two thousand two hundred kilometers between North America and Africa eighty-four million years ago, and it’s four thousand five hundred and fifty kilometers today.” Abby starts to write that down, but Fern says, “You don’t have to write that down, Abby. It’s already on your worksheet.”

“Fine.” Abby crosses her legs at the ankle and rubs the bones together.

Fern waits a few excruciating seconds before asking, “So what’s your next step?”

Abby stares into the ocean. The blue seems to get darker as the paper dips into the spine. “I subtract?”

“Well … yes. But your figures are in kilometers, and you need to answer in inches.”

“Why does it have to be in inches?”

“Because the seafloor grows so slowly, the number would be insignificant in kilometers. And also, we don’t use kilometers in this country.”

There is a tone to Fern’s voice. It is teacher-y and confident, making the words sound pointy and crisp, like the tip of a freshly sharpened pencil.

“If the answer is so
insignificant
” — Abby’s tongue clumsily pushes out the word — “why does it matter?”

Fern looks slack jawed at Abby. “Because moving plates cause volcanic eruptions, they cause tsunamis. I mean, Mount Everest grows an inch a year. That’s something you’ll want to keep track of.”

“An inch? Wow. You don’t say.”

Fern ignores her. “One kilometer equals point six two miles, and there are five thousand two hundred eighty feet in a mile, and twelve inches in one foot.”

“You know that by heart?” Abby laughs heartily, even though it isn’t that funny. But she likes turning the tables on Fern.

“Those are basic conversions,” Fern says back. “Now, to solve it, set up a cross multiplication.” She stands and goes over to her bed, flopping down on it as if she were already exhausted.

Abby grips her pencil and writes “cross multiplication” down on her notebook with the hope that seeing the words might spark her memory.

It doesn’t.

Fern opens
The Blix Effect
like she is going to read it, but Abby can feel her sister’s eyes pinned to her. “Multiply by a ratio of one, Abby.”

Abby drops her pencil. “I don’t know how.”

Fern’s face wrinkles. “That’s eighth-grade math.”

“Don’t you remember? I was stupid last year, too.” Abby stands up.

“You’re not stupid, Abby.”

“Whatever, Fern.” Abby lies back down on her bed. “I know you don’t want to help me, so forget it.”

Fern walks over and stands with her hands on her hips. “You’re a brat, you know that?” Fern says. “I have a stack of homework I have to do myself, and here I am spending my time trying to help you and you couldn’t be more ungrateful!”

“What does it matter? I’m missing the dance.”

“Are you kidding me? Hello! If you’re doing as badly in your other classes as you are in Earth Science, you could get left back, Abby. Do you want to be a freshman again next year? How do you think that will affect your precious social standing?” Fern licks her lips. “Or maybe you could be the prettiest freshman girl
again
next year! Wouldn’t that be
totally awesome
?”

Abby rolls over and stares at the wall. Getting left back is a huge, very real fear of hers. And Fern knows that. She knows that, and now she is throwing it in her face. “You’re a horrible sister!” Abby screams at the top of her lungs.

Fern startles. She backs away from the bed. “What? Was I not just helping —”

Abby rolls onto her knees and jabs a finger at her sister so hard, the mattress springs bob her up and down. “Don’t you even feel a little bit bad about ratting me out to Mom and Dad?”

“Is that why you brought up Mr. Timmet? To get back at me?” Fern shakes her head. “I hate to break it to you, Abby, but this is your fault. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. And quit blaming me.”

“You want to punish me for the list. You’re jealous!”

Fern’s face gets tight. “That’s pathetic.”

It is as if Abby has reached the top of a steep hill, and now she tumbles down without any chance of stopping. “You are. You’re jealous because I’m pretty and you’re ugly and EVERYONE KNOWS IT.”

For a second, it is a relief. To have said the thing she felt, to have said the best thing to hurt Fern. But in the next moment, Abby can’t breathe.

It happens fast. Fern’s face goes white, and then the tears pour out, as if they’ve been collecting there the whole time, waiting for the opportunity to fall. “Obviously, Abby! I know I’m ugly. I was on the list, too.”

It scares Abby to hear Fern say this. To hear Fern call herself ugly. “No, you weren’t. The list didn’t mention you by name. And like you said, no one thinks we’re sisters, anyhow.”

Fern wipes at her eyes, but it doesn’t help. “I’m not talking about this year’s list.” She looks away, ashamed. “I was on last year’s list. I was the ugliest sophomore.”

“What are you talking about?” Abby says, but she thinks back and starts to remember. Last year, she’d overheard Fern in the kitchen with their parents. Fern had been upset that someone had called her ugly.

Abby now understands that “someone” was, essentially, the entire school. Well, one person speaking for the entire school.

Their parents quickly leaped to Fern’s defense. Looks didn’t matter; Fern was smarter than the majority of her classmates; intellect was what counted; a million other compliments Abby never received. They had wanted to call the school to complain, but Fern forbid them to.

No wonder Fern had been so bitchy to her this week. And while Abby definitely feels bad, Fern should have told her. “How was I supposed to know that? You said the list was no big deal.”

“It isn’t a big deal,” Fern clarifies, her voice startlingly emotionless despite the tears. “I don’t need a stupid list to tell me what I already know.”

Abby opens her mouth, but no words come out. She doesn’t know what to say.

“And I’m not sorry for telling on you, Abby. It’s crazy to me that you think this list is the only thing you’ve got going for you. I seriously don’t understand how someone like you has such horrible self-esteem.”

It is the first nice thing Abby can remember Fern saying to her. “Well, you’re not ugly, Fern.” She would have said it back then, too. If she’d known.

“I am ugly. I know it.”

To hear Fern, so sure of herself, makes Abby want to cry. It makes her feel so ashamed for thinking it. She never meant it. Not really. “You’re not.”

“And you’re not stupid.”

Abby shakes her head. “Trust me, Fern.”

“Trust
me
, Abby.”

They are clearly at an impasse. Abby realizes they both firmly believe they are one thing and not the other. But they also have each other’s backs, like real sisters, for what feels like the first time ever.

Fern sits down on the floor. “Look, I’m just going to stay home and help you with this. I don’t need to see
The Blix Effect
again.”

“No, Fern. You should go. I’ll see where I can get on my own with this and you can check it when you come home. Do you want me to do your makeup?”

“Give it a rest,” Fern says, and they leave it at that.