7 Clues to Winning You (6 page)

Gladys glanced behind her at Dad’s office door. It was partially open, so she nodded and waved me by. I thanked her and wished her a nice afternoon and then crossed to Dad’s door. I knocked softly and peered around the edge. “It’s me,” I said.

Dad stood up quickly and motioned me inside. He skirted around his desk and placed his hands on either side of my shoulders. He gave them a squeeze and said, “So? How’d it go?”

I opened my mouth to launch into my petition, but for some reason, my brain did a quick run-down of the day like a highlights clip. Actually, a lowlights clip would be more accurate. I saw the girl who called me that first derogatory name this morning. I saw my exchange with Luke Pavel where he said my father was a fascist. I saw myself standing in the lunchroom realizing that I’d have to sit alone. I saw
the issue of
Buried Ashes
on the computer screen. I saw Luke Pavel’s smug expression from a few minutes ago.

And I started to cry.

No!
I thought.
No crying! Not yet, anyway!
But it was no use. The tears kept spilling out like they’d escaped captivity. I inhaled in jerky gasps. My nose started to run. Dad shut the office door, pulled me to him, and wrapped his arms around me. I sank my face in his shoulder and sobbed.

Dad stroked the length of my hair and whispered, “Hey, hey. It couldn’t have been that bad. What happened? Tell me what happened.”

So I did. In between involuntary cry-hiccups, I gave him a detailed run-down of my lowlights. When I was done, he handed me a tissue from the box on his desk.

“I’m sorry, honey. Kids can be cruel.” He’d said that like he was letting me in on a secret. Like he was imparting some ancient wisdom that I couldn’t possibly have known and might not comprehend. Saying it with such condescension made the fact that he said it at all even more pathetic.

“Kids can be cruel? That’s all you’re going to say?”

He eased me off his shoulder and held me at arms’ length. “Now, come on. Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Maybe just a little bit?”

I shrugged out of his grasp and crossed my arms. “Is that what you say to all the kids who tell you they’re being bullied?”

Dad’s eyes widened and he frowned. “Bullied? What do you mean bullied? Don’t throw that term around lightly, Blythe. Bullying is a serious accusation.”

“It’s not an accusation, it’s a fact,” I shot back. “What would you call it when someone posts an inappropriate picture of one of your students on the Internet and the whole school joins in to make fun of her?”

Dad sighed. “The whole school did not join in to make fun of you last year, Blythe. Do you see how you’re exaggerating the facts here?”

“I’m not talking about last year. I’m talking about the past month! The caption contest!”

Dad tipped his head like a dog hearing a high whistle. “Caption contest? What are you talking about?”

“There was a contest last month. On Luke Pavel’s online newspaper. He posted a bunch of pictures that were slated to be in the yearbook and there was a contest for people to submit insulting captions that, for some perverse reason, they thought were funny. Everyone in school voted, and the winning captions got printed in the yearbook with the pictures. Guess what one of the pictures was?”

I knew Dad didn’t need to be told. His face blanched and he leaned back against the edge of his desk. He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “I wasn’t aware of that,” he finally murmured. He snapped into principal mode and stood up. He folded his arms and crossed back and forth in his office, just like he does when Zach’s in trouble. He stopped in front of me and shook his head. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know about that. If I had, I would have stopped it. Who instigated the contest? Was it Luke Pavel or was it the yearbook committee?”

I gaped at him. “Do you know how absurd it is that
you’re asking
me
? I’ve been here one day. You’re the principal. Don’t you think you’re the one who should have that information?”

“I have a lot of things I’m responsible for, Blythe. Policing the student body is not one of them. I depend on the staff, students, and parents to keep me apprised of these situations.”

“But you ARE my parent! How could you not have known about it?”

“I’ve been very busy lately, Blythe. You have no idea how many things require my attention.”

“You mean like gunning for superintendent?”

He stuck a finger at me. “Now, that’s not fair.”

“Not fair? Not fair? You know what’s not fair? Being torn away from your home and friends and a school where you were perfectly happy and never caused a minute of trouble to your ungrateful parents and being forced to endure humiliation and embarrassment with no friends, no future, and no escape! THAT’S not fair!”

“Spare me the dramatics, Blythe,” he said in a low, firm voice. “Families are not democracies.”

I shot back, “Then don’t act so surprised to hear that it’s all your fault!”

I never talked back to my parents. Ever. I don’t think Dad knew how to react. I’d never blown up and lost my temper before, not even when I was a toddler. Mom always said that I didn’t have terrible twos, I had tranquil twos. I just never got very upset about anything. Until then.

Dad glanced quickly over my shoulder, then stepped around me to shut his office door. “Blythe, I know you’re
upset,” he said softly, “but becoming superintendent would benefit all of us, not just me. It comes with a forty percent increase in salary. Forty percent. I’m talking a whole different tax bracket here. That money would improve our lifestyle dramatically. Hell, we could actually afford to send you to Bryn Mawr.”

I gaped. He’d never mentioned the cost of college before. I never thought it was something he had to consider. “Gran and Granddad are paying for college,” I reminded him. “They’ve been saying that forever.”

“I don’t want them to!” Dad patted his chest. “
I
want to be the one sending you to college! Not them. I want to give my family everything they need.” He turned away from me. His shoulders slumped. He watched his fingers lace and unlace. “I’m a grown man, Blythe. I’m done with taking handouts from them.” His fingers curled into fists. “I have to be.”

I wanted to go over and hug him. Then I remembered why I was there. I forced myself to bring him back on topic. “You don’t have to be superintendent to give me what I need right now.”

When he wheeled around to face me, he was Principal Mac again. Turns out, he was like the Incredible Hulk too. “What would you have me do, Blythe? Discipline the yearbook committee? Suspend Luke Pavel? Cancel the yearbook altogether?”

I knew he wanted me to react as though those punishments were ridiculous, but I didn’t bite. “That’s a start.”

He wheezed a high, sarcastic laugh. “A start? What else did you have in mind, exactly?”

I drew myself up and set my shoulders back. I lifted my chin and said, “I think you should cancel the Senior Scramble.”

It was Dad’s turn to gape. “What? Are you kidding?”

“That’s where it all started, Dad. If it wasn’t for the Senior Scramble, that kid never would have taken my picture, and none of this would have happened. Look how easily the scavenger hunt can get out of hand. How mean-spirited the participants can become. Don’t you think it’s a bit heartless and irresponsible for you to let it continue? What will the school board think when they find out that your own daughter had been bullied at your school and you did nothing?” I was pretty sure that clinched it.

Dad drew in a long breath through his nose and exhaled vocally, puffing out his cheeks. “I see what you’re saying … I just … it would totally alienate the student body. It’s a tradition that’s been around here a lot longer than I have. Some of those same school board members grew up here and took part in the Senior Scramble themselves.”

“Yes, and that was back in the days before the Internet and before desensitization to violence. Back when bullying was written off with ‘kids will be kids.’ This is your chance to demonstrate the seriousness of your zero-tolerance policy. It would set a precedent. It would deter other would-be bullies. At the very least, it would send a message. In fact, it might send an even louder message if you
didn’t
do anything. ‘Ash Grove: where you can bully even the principal’s daughter and not get in trouble.’”

I have to admit that I hadn’t planned to spin my argument
quite that way. To make it such a big deal. To take a stand and challenge my father on such a serious point. The words had simply poured from my mouth, and I couldn’t deny a certain truth in them. Neither could Dad.

He rubbed his hands up and down his grimacing face. “I need to think about this for a while.” He turned away from me. Fiddled with some papers on his desk. “I need to think.”

“Okay,” I said contritely. Had I gone too far? If I was getting what I wanted, did it matter?

He sat down in his chair and squeaked it back and forth a few times. He laced his fingers across his lap. I felt like he was waiting for me to say something more.

“Are you going to Shady Acres today?” he asked.

I gladly went along with the subject change. “I’m heading there now.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later at home,” he said. “Drive carefully.”

“I always do.”

I was nothing if not careful.

I LEFT THE OFFICE FEELING DEFEATED. WHICH WAS odd, since I’d basically been victorious arguing my case. I needed to hear a friendly voice, so the second I was outside the school doors, I pulled out my iPhone and called Tara. She skipped the hello and got right to the point.

“Oh my God, are you alive?”

“Barely. It was brutal.”

“I’m so sorry, B. I wish I was there. Imagine I’m giving you a big hug.”

“I wish you were here too so you could give me a ride to my car. This parking lot is like five hundred square miles.”

“Okay, now I know it’s bad because you only exaggerate when you’re upset. What happened?”

“Oh, you know. The usual new-kid bloodbath.”

“They were mean to you?”

“Only when they weren’t ignoring my existence,” I said.

“Those little white-trash bastards. Ugh, I can’t believe you have to go to school there! It’s like a bad dream.”

“Tell me about it. Listen, T, I have to go volunteer. Want to get together later and I’ll give you all the gory details?”

“Sure. Food court?”

“Sure.”

We set a time to meet at the mall and hung up. I climbed into my car and made my way over to Shady Acres. I’d been volunteering at the nursing home since I was a freshman. At first I did it because I knew it would look good on my college applications one day. And Shady Acres wasn’t too bad, once you got used to the pervasive odor of antiseptic and stale urine. My job was to talk to the residents or play cards with them, call bingo, wheel them around outside for a while, whatever. It was actually kind of fun.

But the real reasons I kept volunteering all these years were Ms. Franny and Ms. Eulalie. Frances Calhoun and Eulalie Jones. Two crotchety, ninety-something-year-old roommates spending the remainder of their days bickering and pecking each other to death. They were a riot.

Those two would argue about the color of the sky if they had the chance. Every Monday, almost without fail, I could hear them from down the hall, more than twenty feet before I reached their door. Today was no exception.

“I’m tired of hearing about it every damn day!” That was Ms. Franny. “If I have to listen one more time to how you marched on Birmingham with Dr. King, I’m going to get out of this bed and march on your skull!”

“Well, pardon me, your whiteness!” Ms. Eulalie had a thick southern drawl. “Excuse me if I happened to be proud of doing something to change this world for the better.”

“Aw, you never changed anything but your big ol’ underwear. And even that you don’t do anymore. So tighten up your diaper and be quiet.”

“I don’t have to be quiet! I don’t have to be quiet just because some white lady say I do! I don’t take orders from nobody.”

“ANYBODY. Jesus H. Christ, will you learn to speak English for once before you die? Which I hope will be any moment now.”

“Don’t you go taking my Lord’s name in vain, you she-devil! You leave my sweet Jesus outta your conversation. You sure enough leave him outta your heart. That is if you have a heart, which I seriously doubt that you do.”

“Hello, ladies!” I sang loudly, peeking through the doorway.

Ms. Franny threw her bony arms in the air. “Oh, thank the devil. Get your butt in here, Blythe, so I don’t have to listen to this broken record anymore.” She patted a spot her bed and I plopped down on it.

“See?” Ms. Eulalie gestured emphatically at her roommate. “See how she thank the devil? You’d think that someone who has everything but one toe in the grave’d be a little more polite to God. Not that she’s got much of a chance to get into heaven. Not at this late a date.”

“If you’re going to be in heaven,” Ms. Franny said, “then I’ll pass.” She nestled back into her pillows looking satisfied.

Ms. Eulalie clucked and crossed her arms. “You’re lucky I’m a merciful woman. Lucky I have Christian charity. Lucky I put your name on the prayer list down at the Baptist church every week. I get the message to Pastor Morris to say your name loud and clear every Sunday.”

Ms. Franny wheeled around on her. “Will you stop putting
me on that damnable prayer list? You only do it because you know it drives me nuts!”

Ms. Eulalie smiled. “A woman got to do what a woman got to do.” She cackled with shameless amusement.

I shook my head at the pair of them. “You two are worse than a couple of five-year-olds, you know that?”

Ms. Franny sat up suddenly and squinted at me. “Wait a second.” She drew shaky circles in the air right in front of my face. “What’s going on with your eyes? Have you been crying? Look, Ukulele, our girl’s been crying!”

“What?” Ms. Eulalie clutched her chest. “Oh, no! What you been crying for, baby?”

I shrugged them off. “Nothing.” I forced a smile and waved their question away with my hand.

“Now you just tell us.” Ms. Eulalie gave me the Eye and spoke firmly in her no-nonsense tone. She had developed that tone over decades of raising many children, and not all of them her own. “You know we heard everything in this life there is to hear about. You tell us what’s wrong and we’ll tell you how to fix it. Something go wrong at school? Somebody not being nice to you?”