Populazzi

Chapter Ten



Claudia wasn't happy when I told her I had no intention of ever getting back on the Ladder again. I drove to her house to let the bomb drop, then watched her do a ten-minute dumb show of frustration. She threw her arms in the air and stormed away just far enough that it seemed she was leaving me forever—despite the fact that I was in her house and sitting on her bed, so that clearly wasn't an option—then turned her head to me and stared daggers. She stalked back and eyed me appraisingly, twitching her braided loops in a way that should have been physically impossible. She reached her arms to the sky, imploring the Lord Above to help her, help her save this lost and confused soul. She paced in front of me, arms clasped behind her back, and discussed me as if to a jury.

"I ask you," she asked no one, "what am I supposed to do with this woman? How do you help someone who has no idea what's truly good for her? What more can I do?"

I piped up and entered into evidence one fact I hadn't mentioned: that I'd managed to strike up what could conceivably be called a friendship with a member of the Happy Hopeless.

Claudia fell to her knees in shock.

All told, she reveled in her outrage for about a half hour. Then she brought out the Uno cards. After she beat me, I borrowed her mom's old bike and we made the several-mile trek out to Core Creek Park, where we cooled off with an easy cruise by the lake before turning around and cranking it back to Claude's. The fall air was just crisp enough to burn my lungs each time I strained uphill, standing in the saddle and fighting to keep my momentum. I wasn't the most coordinated rider—I had to look straight ahead or I'd veer off in whatever direction my gaze wandered. Still, I couldn't help letting my eyes roam the trees that lined the streets. Every leaf had exploded into color—huge, beautiful flakes of red, orange, and yellow. With each gust of wind, they burst off their branches and rained down on us. It felt like riding through confetti.

That was Sunday, and Sunday was fantastic.

Monday, however, was a misery. I knew I'd have to see Archer. I considered playing sick, but that would only postpone the agony. I reminded myself school was a job, not a social opportunity, and it was time to go to work.

The whole drive there, I fantasized about getting into a car crash. It couldn't be my fault, of course, and I wouldn't want to get hurt in a life- or long-term-quality-of-life-threatening way, but if the crash put me into a coma until after graduation, that would be good.

They say people can hear things in a coma, and I had faith that my mom would read textbooks to me so I'd stay up to date on schoolwork. By the time I woke up, I could ace a GED and go right on to college. Northwestern would go crazy for me. The "I Spent Junior and Senior Years in a Coma" story would make a great application essay. Karl would burst with pride. Maybe I'd even end up on The Today Show. Then I could land a motivational speaking tour and make so much money I wouldn't even need college. I'd still go, of course, but money wouldn't be an issue. I'd even give Karl a monthly allowance so he could hit the blackjack tables guilt-free.

Unfortunately, by now I was pulling into school, and since I was decidedly not in a coma, I had to deal.

I saw Archer within two seconds of walking in, but he wasn't waiting for me at my locker. He was back by his old window seat with Ember, Sue, Dinah, and the rest of the gang. He stood in the middle of their group, making them all laugh, but he froze when he saw me.

Of course he did. He had thought it was perfectly clear we were just friends, and I'd thrown myself on him like an unhinged nymphomaniac. I was sure the coma-till-graduation option would have been fantastic for him, too.

That's when I realized something. While I couldn't actually disappear, I could make what had happened disappear. I'd just act like it had never occurred, and I'd stay far enough away from Archer that we'd never have to deal with it. Ever.

Uh-oh. He was walking toward me. He looked nervous. He was probably worried I was going to do something stupid like collapse into tears or profess my undying love right there in the hall.

"Cara, hey!" he said. "I, um ... didn't see you at the Halloween dance. I would have called, but..."

I laughed, as if the idea of him calling was the most preposterous thing in the universe. "I didn't go," I said with a shrug. " A little under the weather, no biggie. Talk to you later!" I turned and strode toward my locker, but he followed right along.

"I, um..." He took a deep breath, then lowered his voice. "I kind of thought maybe we should talk."

"About what?" I asked. And here was the impressive part: I stopped walking and turned to face him with a perplexed look on my face, like I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about.

"About ... you know..."

I gave him nothing. I shrugged my shoulders again and looked at him curiously.

The standoff continued for maybe a minute, and I had no idea how to get out of it gracefully. Then inspiration struck. "Ooh, it's my aunt's birthday! I want to text her before class starts. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Okay," he replied, but I was already zipping out a side door to deliver my pretend text.

Wow. That kind of worked. It wasn't fun, but it worked. I could handle being in the same universe as Archer without falling apart. I could.

When I walked into English, I saw Archer had saved my usual spot next to him. I walked right past it and settled in across the room, sitting between a Happy Hopeless and a Cubby Crew. I don't know how Archer reacted. I didn't let myself look.

Lunch was a little more challenging. Finding a whole new group to sit with was way too daunting to handle. Happily, the vending machines still had Diet Cokes and Zone bars. I could've eaten in my car, but it felt conspicuous. I might be a loser, but I didn't have to look like one. I wandered around the main building until I found a small cement stairwell that led to some kind of basement door. The stairwell was littered with dried leaves—not surprising, since the whole area was half hidden by trees. The door itself was padlocked. I could only imagine what was in there—storage, I supposed. Whatever it was, it looked as though it hadn't been disturbed in ages. No one would see me down here, and it offered a bit of shelter from the cold. It was the perfect place to curl up with my lunch, hang out, and read until it was time for my afternoon classes. After school I drove home as quickly as possible.

This became my daily schedule. At first Archer tried to catch my attention and make conversation. I wasn't surprised. He was a nice person; I'm sure he felt obligated. I was always smiley, friendly, and very, very busy, so he soon realized he didn't have to make the effort.

It was perfect. Sure, I was more isolated than I'd have liked, and I did worry a little that someone might catch me in my lunchtime hideaway and mistake me for a homeless person, but I wasn't in pain on a daily basis, and that seemed like a totally reasonable tradeoff. As the weeks rolled by, I even decided the hermit life suited me. Oh, sure, there were some things I missed. I couldn't bring myself to go see Archer in Cyrano, for example, even though I knew he'd be brilliant. I'd spent so many weeks running lines with him and imagining he was thinking about me when he said each romantic word ... To hear them now would be torture.

I still might have tried if I hadn't already experimented with the previous week's jazz band concert. It was awful. Seeing Archer play piano reminded me of when I used to watch him practice at his house. It hurt too much. I tried to focus on the rest of the band and concentrate on the music, but it didn't help. I sneaked out in the middle of the show. On the plus side, I threw myself into classes and studying, and easily pulled Karl from his newspaper every night at dinner with deep discussions about U.S. history, physics, and what could have possibly driven the otherwise brilliant T. S. Eliot to write Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. I had been a great student all year, but now I was Super Scholar, more knowledgeable than a speeding megacomputer, able to read tall textbooks in a single sitting.

With so much on my plate, time flew, and soon it was Thanksgiving break. It started out perfectly. My report card came in the mail, and it whisked me into Chrysella's honor roll stratosphere. Karl practically had a party for me when he saw it. He faxed the report card right to Stevenson Jaffe. If I got really lucky, I figured Dean Jaffe would be so blown away that he'd suggest I skip the rest of junior and senior years and get my butt to Northwestern immediately.

I spent Thanksgiving morning with my parents—or technically with Mom, since Karl's Thanksgiving was all about the NFL. Mom made the bird, the stuffing, and the pumpkin pie and set the table. I handled the green bean and sweet potato casseroles, and the rolls. I was also the official cranberry sauce musher. I took great pride in crushing away every last vestige of metal can lines. My aunt and uncle came in from Connecticut with my two little cousins and their super-mellow corgi mix, Lulu, and I forgot everything in the happy flurry of family chaos.

That night Karl fell asleep in front of the TV while Mom and I cleaned up. It took forever, but then we settled in at the kitchen table for late-night coffee and pie.

"Did you have fun today?" Mom asked.

I nodded, my mouth full. "I'm totally getting a dog like Lulu when I have my own place."

"She's a sweetie." Mom took her last bite of pie and a swig of coffee, then said, "So I spoke to Bina the other day..."

I froze. I looked at Mom, but she was concentrating on running her finger over her plate to sweep up scrapes of pumpkin. She wasn't giving me her Face of Ultimate Sympathy. That meant she might not know.

"Really?" I asked. "How is she?"

"She's good. She mentioned she hadn't seen you in a while, and I said I'd noticed the same thing, that you and Archer didn't seem to be spending time together. Is everything okay?"

"Everything's great," I said. "We just both got busy, that's all. But if you talk to Bina again, tell her I say hi. I really like her."

Mom smiled, satisfied. "I will. I like her, too."

"Want to play backgammon?"

"We haven't played in ages. I don't even know where the board is."

"I do. I'll get it."

I raced upstairs, pausing for just a moment in the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and shock back the giant lump of emotion threatening to push its way out. I stared at myself in the mirror and took two deep breaths. I was strong. I was fine.

I smiled at my reflection and trotted off to grab the backgammon board.

Friday morning I drove out to Claudia's for the weekend. As always, it made me wish I'd never moved away or that she could go with me to Chrysella. It was just so easy with Claudia. There was no pressure of wondering if this person or that person liked me and wanted me around. There was no second-guessing everything I said and worrying that I was messing up a potential friendship. There was no new-school/new-friends angst. I could just be myself.

I'd promised my parents I'd be home by dinner Sunday so I could "get a good night's sleep" before school, but as I knelt on Claude's bedroom floor rolling up my sleeping bag, something huge and heavy slammed down in front of me. It was the giant yellow binder with THE LADDER written on the front.

"It's time," Claudia said. She sat cross-legged on her bed like a guru.

"Seriously? Haven't we had this discussion? Didn't we determine I was done with the Ladder forever?"

"In a fit of pique, you made a grandiose statement you didn't really mean. I shan't hold it against you."

"Oh, shan't you?"

"You fail to realize it, but you have already had tremendous success with the Ladder," she said.

There was no clever retort to that; it was so beyond the realm of sanity, I couldn't do anything but gape at her for several seconds. She was unmoved. Was she really going to make me spell this out again?

"Here were Archer's choices," I said. "A: endure a single kiss from a reasonably attractive girl, or B: risk severe head trauma to both himself and said houseguest, who could conceivably then sue his family for everything they have. Guess which one he chose?"

"That means nothing. We've established that he's probably gay, remember? If a gay man doesn't want to kiss you, it only means you're not masculine enough for him. To me, that's a compliment."

It was an argument she had used before, and it wasn't entirely wrong—i/Archer was gay. Which I doubted.

"Even if he's not gay," Claudia continued, "even if he's just ridiculous and stupid and not interested, there is no denying that by being his close friend, you officially earned a spot on the Popularity Tower. Am I right?"

Of course she was right. I'd noticed it myself when I started hanging out with Archer's friends. Even though I couldn't act to save my life, for a while I'd been an honorary member of the Theater Geek Cubby Crew.

But that was before. Now I didn't see them at all. I reminded Claudia of that little factoid.

"Doesn't matter," she said. "It's been, what, a few weeks? That's a blip. Nonexistent. You'll pick up right where you left off the minute you restart your friendship with Archer."

Restart my friendship with Archer?

I wished I'd been middrink so I could give her comment the spit-take it deserved.

"No way," I said. "Can't do it. If I do, he'll think I want him again, and he'll get that sad look on his face because he'll feel like he has to let me down gently and I swear, Claudia, I would rather drink hot glue."

"So the drama!" Claudia raised the back of one hand to her forehead, then grinned and leaned down to me. "He won't think you want him, because of the beauty of the Ladder! The minute you hook back up with Archer, you ask for his help getting you someone on the next tier of the Popularity Tower: a DangerZone. Instant fix: immediately Archer knows for a fact you're no longer interested."

"But I am still interested," I said.

"Of course you are. But what's the best way to get you not interested? A distraction. Actively working to get someone new, exciting, and incredible—not to mention someone who's actually into you. Now think about it: Are there any DangerZones you like? Any Archer could help you get?"

I thought about it. I thought about everyone in Archer's circle. They were all Theater Geek Cubby Crew. There were lots of other people who knew and liked Archer from a distance, I supposed. There was everyone who'd watched him perform that poem the first day of school, all the people who'd raved about him in Cyrano, and everyone who'd gone crazy over the jazz band concert...

The jazz band concert. There was a guitarist in the jazz band. Nate Wetherill. I remembered seeing him my very first day, stalking down the halls with his guitar case on his back, wafting DangerZone hotness with every step. I'd seen him a few times after that. He and Archer always said hi in the halls. Or Archer said hi. Nate always gave a moody upward nod, which was still a million times more attention than he gave most people in the school. Even then, when I thought Archer and I were basically together, Nate made me stop and stare. But it was the way a hot celebrity would make me stop and stare. It was fantasy. Nate was way out of my league. He wasn't even an option. I had to laugh.

Claudia pounced. "You thought of someone! Who?"

"Nate Wetherill," I admitted. "And he's Archer's friend ... ish."

"That's perfect!"

"It's ridiculous. Nate would never be interested in someone like me."

"You're forgetting the rules of the Ladder. There is no 'someone like' you. You find out the kind of girl Nate wants, you become that girl, then you burst out of your Chrysella chrysalis transformed and blow him away! You'll get together, you'll move to his tier on the Popularity Tower, and most important, you'll be so completely distracted that you'll finally get over Archer."

Getting over Archer sounded great—exactly what I needed to make Chrysella bearable again. Getting over Archer by hanging out with him and getting his help with the Ladder? That sounded like the craziest kind of reverse psychology ever, which is what I told Claudia.

Claudia climbed down from her bed and sat in front of me. She took my hands and looked me in the eye. "Archer does not want to be your boyfriend," she said mercilessly.

I cursed myself for feeling tears spring to my eyes.

"Know it," she continued. "Believe it. Be cool with it. If you can do that, not only will you get to be with someone who does want to be your boyfriend, but you'll also get back a guy who had become a really close friend. Don't you want that?"

The tears dried up before they ever spilled over. Once again, Claudia knew exactly what to say. I did want that. I wanted it badly.

"Okay," I finally agreed, "tomorrow morning I climb back onto the Ladder."