Populazzi

Chapter Eleven



I left Claudia's house feeling strong and decisive. She was right—climbing back onto the Ladder was my key to getting over Archer. After all, I tried to convince myself, it's not as though I was in love with him or anything. How could I be? We were never even together. So it couldn't be heartbreak that had my stomach in knots at the very idea of being around him again. It had to be simple embarrassment. Yet if I stepped back and looked at the big picture, was what happened between us that hideous? No, not terribly. It could even be funny one day, months and months from now, when I was happy with someone new.

But that would come later. If Archer and I were going to be friends again right now—something I really did want—there was only one way to make it work.

I let my car idle in the school parking lot and listened to the drum of the downpour outside. I concentrated on the sound and took deep breaths, letting the noise drown out every negative thought in my head. I knew exactly how I wanted this to play out, and I didn't want anything to throw me.

Finally I raced inside, ditched my coat in my locker, grabbed my books, and zipped into English class less than a minute after the bell rang.

"The Hyacinth Girl!" boomed Mr. Woodward as I walked in. He pointed the Bat at me, stopping me in my tracks, then fixed me with a knowing glare. "Do you know why I'm calling you the Hyacinth Girl, Cara?"

"Because I'm late, my arms are full, and my hair is wet?" I said, remembering the passage from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

Mr. Woodward smiled. "I see the tryptophan didn't stop someone from doing her reading over vacation. Well done."

He lowered the Bat and let me pass. I walked straight to my old spot next to Archer as if the past several weeks had never happened, and I reclaimed my old perch on top of the table.

"A continental shift," Mr. Woodward noted, then continued with the class. Archer, however, sat in his chair with his jaw hanging open. He looked up at me as if for an explanation, but I didn't give him one. I didn't ignore him, though. Not even remotely. I smiled down at him every time Mr. Woodward or someone else in the class made us all laugh. I rolled my eyes to him whenever someone said something ridiculous. I made sure he was one of the people I looked at whenever I spoke up to make a point.

I expected it to be harder than it was. But any time I looked at Archer and felt a pang, I heard Claudia's voice saying, "Archer does not want to be your boyfriend." It wasn't fun hearing it over and over in my head, but it was effective. And while I didn't exactly get over him in that English class, I started to feel like maybe one day soon I could. Plus I had a new incentive: just interacting with him the littlest bit in class reminded me how much I missed hanging out together. Getting that back without all the pain was totally worth a few harsh reality checks.

But I knew I couldn't really be around Archer without some ground rules, so when class ended, I fell into step next to him.

"Cara, I—" he started, but I held up a palm and silenced him.

"Just answer me one question: do you want to be friends again?"

"I never wanted to stop being friends. Look, can't we—"

"Please-please-please, just say yes or no. Do you want to be friends again?"

I could tell he was struggling not to say everything he wanted. I appreciated the effort.

"Yes," he said. "Of course I want to be friends again. I just—"

"Please!" I begged. "I do, too. But first I need you to promise me something."

"Okay ... what?"

"We never speak of it again." I said it very clearly, with no emotion.

Archer looked confused. "But Cara—"

"No. That's the deal. It's like it never happened. Can you be cool with that?"

Archer opened his mouth to speak ... but he didn't. He looked frustrated, concerned, even angry. Finally he sighed and shook his head.

"Fine," he said.

I felt a rush of relief so huge, I almost wanted to hug him—then I let Claudia's words scream out in my head again.

"Is there still a seat next to you at lunch?"

I was suddenly sure he'd say no, that Sue now sat next to him every day. It was a land mine I hadn't thought of until now.

"There's a seat. I'll save it for you."

"Great! See you then!"

I walked off to precalc feeling lighter than I had in weeks. This was going to work. There'd be rough patches, but it would work.





Dealing with Archer's friends turned out to be one of the rough patches. For once Claudia was wrong—they weren't happy to pick up where we'd left off. They were nice enough; they were just distant.

The lunch seating had changed, too. Sue and Doug were back at the table; Noah and Molly were gone. I got the feeling it was a keep-your-enemies-close thing for Sue. By now I was pretty sure she had a crush on Archer. I think she wanted to keep me off her turf. If I had been feeling more charitable, I could have told her she had nothing to worry about. I was actually surprised she didn't already know. Maybe Archer hadn't told them everything that had happened between us.

Things with Archer himself went fairly smoothly. We'd been such good friends, it was impossible not to fall back into our easy rapport. It wasn't long before we were grabbing fries together at the mall, and soon after that we even started playing Ping-Pong again. I was happy to see he had never taken down the giant wall chart, even though it gave me a romantic pang I had to quash.

In the meantime, I dedicated myself to the Ladder and filling my mind with Nate Wetherill. It was a little weird. I had gone after Archer because I really liked him. I was attracted to Nate—anyone would be attracted to Nate—but I knew nothing about him. I had to work at liking him, as if he were a school assignment. Sometimes it bothered me that I was being so calculating, but then Claudia would remind me of the alternative—permanent Archer obsession—and I'd get over it.

So I studied Nate. And I looked for things to like.

Nate was very broody. He frowned like he was constantly tortured with deep, troubling thoughts. That wasn't really my thing.

He didn't seem to have a lot of friends. Any, really. Also not my thing.

He did have the attention of the Populazzi. I saw it when I was in the halls between classes. Just like everyone else, Trista Camello stepped aside and stared when Nate walked by. Even the Senior Populazzi noticed him. If I were his girlfriend, part of that mystique couldn't help but rub off on me.

It was cool to think about, but it still wasn't enough to make me like him.

Then one day I was late coming in to lunch, and I saw him. He sat outside on a rock, strumming his guitar and singing softly.

I stopped to listen, then moved closer, staying behind him and far enough away that he wouldn't see me.

He was incredible.

I didn't recognize the song he played, but it was beautiful. I wondered if he'd written it himself. His broodiness seemed melodramatic when he walked through the halls, but it was perfect for the song. Just watching him, I could tell how serious he was about his music. He seemed to pour his entire soul into what he played, and seeing it happen right in front of me ... I was awed. I wanted to sit at his feet and listen all day.

Talent and passion: those were my thing. Those I could fall for.

From that moment, I tried to watch Nate as often as possible while he was playing guitar. It wasn't that challenging: any spare moment he had, he used it to play. I just had to slip outside or look through the right window and I'd get to see the show.

Nate was hot no matter what, but when he played, his hotness went off the charts. His spiked hair fell across his left eye as he bent over his guitar. Shadows played over the sharp angles of his face. His eyes, which were so distant normally, filled with emotion.

The more I watched Nate play, the more fascinated I became not just with his music but with him. I followed his fingers moving over the guitar strings, and I imagined running my thumb over their calluses. I listened to his songs and imagined he was singing them to me. I imagined the two of us cuddled together on a couch somewhere, Nate strumming chords and making up lyrics to try to put into words everything deep and wonderful he felt about me.

I was a good student. I was totally falling for Nate Wetherill.

Eventually Archer noticed. We'd be talking and I'd see Nate out of the corner of my eye and lapse into fantasyland, losing track of our conversation entirely. Sometimes Nate would look our way and nod or even give a sly half smile. I'd melt a little, imagining the look was for me ... but of course it was meant for Archer. Archer always caught me when I got dazey like that, and he'd scrunch his face at me, but I'd snap out of it pretty quickly. I didn't want to let him in on my plan until our friendship was rock solid again.

It took about two weeks.

"Archer," I said as we split a massive sundae at Friendly's, "we're friends, right?"

"Only if you let me have the peanut butter cup," he said.

"Done."

He plucked it out and took a bite.

"And friends help each other," I said.

"I believe that is indeed part of the Webster's definition, yes," he said after another bite of the candy—which looked really, really good.

"You're totally giving me the last bite of that, right?"

He pondered a moment, then handed it over. I popped it in my mouth, looked around to make sure no one from school was in earshot, then leaned across the table. "I want you to help me go out with Nate Wetherill."

Archer grimaced like I'd just told a bad joke. "What! Since when do you like Nate?"

"Shhh!" I looked around again to make sure no undercover gossip hounds were texting this information to the entire school. "I just do," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "He's ... you know ... hot. Like ... rock-star hot." Yeesh, that sounded lame when I said it out loud.

Archer thought so, too. "'Rock-star hot'?"

"Whatever. I like him."

"So, what, you want me to tell him or something?" Archer asked, digging back into the sundae.

"No! You can't tell him. Not until I'm ready."

"Ready? Ready how?"

Ugh, how was I going to explain this? I couldn't tell him about the Ladder. There was no way he'd ever understand.

"You spend time with Nate in jazz band," I said. "You know him. You know what he likes to talk about, where he likes to go, what he likes to do ... maybe even the kinds of girls he's into."

"Yeah. Not girls like you."

"Ouch. Blunt much?"

"You asked."

"I did. For a reason. That's why I need your help. I want to know everything about Nate. Everything he likes—especially everything he likes in a girl. Then once I know it, I can become it."

"Kind of Fatal Attraction meets The Talented Mr. Ripley. Classy."

"Archer..."

"What? You don't turn yourself into someone else to get a boyfriend. If it's the right person, it's supposed to just happen naturally. You meet, you click, you hang out..."

Did he not realize what he was saying? That's what had happened with us, and it had ended in disaster.

"I know, but I can't let it happen naturally with Nate. You said yourself that wouldn't work."

"Because you're not right for each other."

"Haven't you heard of 'opposites attract'?"

"Yes, but they attract as opposites, not because one changes for the other one. What do you even like about Nate? Aside from his 'rock-star hotness'?"

"I don't know yet! I don't know him! Maybe when I do, I won't like him, but I can't even get to know him if I seem like ... you know ... me."

"I think it's a dumb idea," Archer said.

This was going nowhere. Obviously, Claudia thought I had far better recruiting skills than I actually did.

But did I need recruiting skills for the Ladder? Sure, it would be easier to go after Nate with Archer's help, but I could conceivably do it on my own, right? The main reason I was telling Archer in the first place was so he'd know I was totally over him. That mission had to have been accomplished.

"Fine," I said. "You don't have to help me. I just thought it would be more fun that way."

"Fun? How would this possibly be fun for me?"

"It would be fun because it's a project, and we'd work on it together. Like"—I suddenly thought of exactly how I could make him understand—"like a musical! Think of it as My Fair Lady. You'd be Henry Higgins; I'd be Eliza Doolittle."

Archer thought for a moment. "How well do you know My Fair Lady?"

"I know Henry succeeds; he turns Eliza from a flower girl into a lady. You could do the same thing. It's a Cinderella story; you could be my fairy godmother."

"I do look good in a hoop skirt and wings."

"You see? You're thinking about it. You know it would be fun..."

"I know you have a twisted sense of fun."

"Come on. Let's do this together. You said you're my friend. You want me to be happy, right?"

Archer looked at me skeptically. "And you think Nate will make you happy?"

"I told you, I have no idea! But getting the chance to find out will make me very happy. Especially if I get to do it with you."

Archer thought a second, then he burst out in a perfect upper-crust British dialect. "'I'll take it! I'll make a duchess of this draggle-tailed gutter-snipe.'" "You're quoting, yes?"

"Yes." Archer looked me in the eye. "Let's get to work."