How to Be Popular Read online

  Can I just say that in real life, this never happens? The people who send the mean e-mails always get away with it, and the victims just have to suck it up and go around wondering for the rest of their lives who could possibly hate them that much—always suspecting, but never knowing for sure. Always wondering if they had done or said something just a little differently, if the person would hate them less…but never knowing, since they have no idea what it was they did to make the person hate them in the first place.

  Well, unless they’re me. Then they have a pretty good idea what they did.

  They just don’t know why something that happened so long ago—and was a total accident, besides—has to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

  I didn’t start crying. And I didn’t run for my mother, either. Instead, I just hit DELETE.

  Because seriously. Who cares? I’ve had worse things said to my face. I wasn’t exactly going to freak out because someone who didn’t even have the guts to use her real screen name was upset with me.

  Besides, The Book had fully warned that anytime you try to effect social change, there will be those who will feel threatened and/or insecure, and will attempt to stop you, either by intimidation or ostracism.

  These people, The Book said, were to be ignored. There was simply no other way to deal with them, as their fear of change of the social order is completely irrational.

  So what else could I do? Except delete. Delete. Delete.

  Then I had an e-mail from Becca.

  Scrpbooker90: Hey, it’s me. So, that was weird today. I mean, cool. But weird. Can I ask you something, though? It has nothing to do with, you know. Your auction thingie.

  My mom refuses to let us set up Instant Messaging accounts, as she considers them cerebral black holes that suck out your brain and leave you spending hours basically doing nothing (she feels the same way about MTV, which is why it’s password protected).

  So I had to e-mail Becca back and just hope she was online and would write back soon.

  StephLandry (I know. That is the name of my e-mail account. My mom set it up): Sure, ask me whatever.

  She was online. A minute later, I got the following:

  Scrpbooker90: Oh, hi. Okay, I feel really stupid asking you this. But could you do me a huge favor and find out if Jason likes me?

  I stared at the screen. I had to read her message like ten times, but still, I didn’t understand it. Or, rather, I understood it…but I figured it couldn’t mean what I thought it meant.

  StephLandry: Of course he likes you. We’re friends, right?

  While I waited for Becca to write back, I listened to Robbie argue with my dad, who was making lasagna for dinner. Robbie hates lasagna—and all red food, actually—on principle and wanted chicken instead.

  Scrpbooker90: Yeah, that’s just it. I mean, find out if he likes me as more than just a friend. I THINK he does. Today, at Pizza Hut—well, you weren’t there. But I was getting a vibe.

  A VIBE? What was she TALKING about? What kind of vibe could JASON have been giving off? Except his usual, I’m-starving-and-I’m-going-to-eat-everything-in-sight vibe. Unless it was a why-is-Becca-acting-so-weird vibe that she was misconstruing as a Becca-is-hot vibe.

  StephLandry: Um, Bex, you have to be mistaken. Jason likes Kirsten, remember?

  In the kitchen, Robbie was losing the lasagna battle. He was going to have to fall back on his standard, “Fine, then I’ll just have peanut butter and jelly” argument.

  Scrpbooker90: He doesn’t REALLY like Kirsten. Well, I mean, I know he does. But she’s in COLLEGE. No way is she interested in HIM. Even now that he has a car. I seriously think he likes me. Like, LIKE likes me. Did you see how he let me draw all over his shoes today during the convocation?

  Oh my God. What a mess.

  Because of course there was NO WAY Jason LIKE liked Becca. Even if he hadn’t just come out and complained about her to me barely two hours ago, there’s the fact that…well, the entire time I’d known Jason—even as far back as nursery school—he had never liked anyone he had an actual chance of attaining. It had always been Xena Warrior Princess, or Lara Croft, or Stuckey’s mom, or Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. He had never liked a girl in any of our classes…

  …as I knew only too well, given our fight in the fifth grade.

  No, Jason wasn’t likely to have fallen for Becca. But how to tell her that, without hurting her feelings?

  I tried.

  StephLandry: Becca, don’t you remember what he said the other night, about how you don’t want to “spit” where you eat and how dating in high school is stupid?

  Becca wrote back almost right away.

  Scrpbooker90: He said finding your soul mate in high school is stupid. He said he was all for dating—going to the movies and hanging out. That’s all I want. For now. Until he, you know…realizes I’m The One.

  The One? Oh, God, this was worse than I’d thought.

  StephLandry: Becca, don’t get me wrong, or anything, I love Jason and all—as a friend, of course—but as far as his being Your One…I really don’t think so. I mean, Jason can’t stand scrapbooking. He doesn’t have an ounce of creativity in his body. Don’t you think Your One would at least—I don’t know—like art instead of golf?

  But Becca had an answer for this one, too.

  Scrpbooker90: He just hates art because he hasn’t been exposed to it enough.

  StephLandry: His grandmother took him to the Louvre last summer! And he said it would rock to install a nine-hole golf course in it!

  Scrpbooker90: So what are you trying to say, Steph? That you don’t think Jason likes me that way?

  YES! I wanted to write. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I THINK.

  But that would have been too mean. Even though it was true.

  Instead, I wrote:

  StephLandry: I just think you should keep yourself open to other guys, and not put all your eggs in one basket.

  I knew Becca would appreciate this analogy, having grown up on a farm and all.

  StephLandry: I will definitely ask Jason for you—you know, subtly. But I think you should prepare yourself emotionally for the cold hard fact that Jason’s saving his heart for Kirsten. Or some girl he meets in college.

  Becca, though, totally missed the warning part of my e-mail and honed right in on the part where I said I’d ask Jason if he liked her.

  Scrpbooker90: THANKS, STEPH! You are such a good friend. Just for that, I have decided to take your advice and allow myself to be auctioned off. I suppose you’re right, and there are a lot of people who’d like to learn to scrapbook. So I will auction off three hours of scrapbook mentoring. How about that?

  I was guessing that no one was going to bid on Becca. Except maybe her mom. But I tried to be enthusiastic about it just the same, and thanked her.

  It was as I was signing off that my mom came home from the store, aggravated, as usual, by how slow business had been.

  “How much did we make on this day last year, Stephanie?” she asked me as she hung her purse and car keys on the hooks just inside the driveway door.

  “Oh, Mom,” I said with a groan, acting like I thought she was being a drag. But really, of course, I knew when I told her, she’d just get even more upset.

  I was right. She made me look it up in my special Excel file for that purpose, and we were sixty dollars down from last year.

  “But sixty dollars isn’t that much,” I tried to point out to her. “That might have nothing to do with Super Sav-Mart. It could just be, you know, we didn’t sell a doll today, or whatever.”

  “God,” my mother said, ignoring me. “I need a drink.”

  “Maybe you should think about installing that café like we talked about,” I hinted. “Now that the Hoosier Sweet Shoppe closed down—’’

  “Closed down!” Mom interrupted, pulling down her not-so-secret stash of Tootsie Rolls from a top bookshelf (she doesn’t care if I know about them, since I’d never gorge myself on them, being too fearful of going
up another size, unlike my brothers and sisters) and helping herself to a handful. “They were driven out of business by Super Sav-Mart!”

  Um, not exactly. The Hoosier Sweet Shoppe shut down last year after an ancient water pipe burst in the ceiling, destroying all of their stock. But you don’t argue with a woman as hormonal as my mom.

  “It wouldn’t be hard to break through the wall to the Hoosier Sweet Shoppe,” I said, “since it’s right next door—”

  “And where am I supposed to get the money for that, Stephanie?” Mom wanted to know. Then, before I could say anything, she said, “And DO NOT say from Grandpa. I will not kowtow to that man, trying to get his money. Unlike the rest of the people in this town, I have some dignity.”

  Talk about touchy.

  I wanted to tell her not to worry—that everything was going to be fine. Because I had a plan that was going to bring tons of business to the store.

  But I didn’t want to jinx it. So I kept my mouth shut and went over to make Robbie a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so he’d shut up already about not wanting to eat Dad’s lasagna.

  * * *

  So you think you’ve met the boy of your dreams—but he doesn’t seem to know you’re alive?

  No problem!

  A surefire way to get the opposite sex’s attention is to SMILE!

  Operation Smile:

  The power of the smile is amazing and cannot be overemphasized. A single, dazzling smile in the direction of your crush can do more than anything else to get his attention.

  So brush those pearly whites and start practicing…. Then next time you pass him in the hallway, show those dimples!

  You can bet he’ll be asking for your number before the end of the week.

  * * *

  Fourteen

  DAY TWO OF POPULARITY

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 1:30 P.M.

  Mark Finley spoke to me at lunch again today.

  I was sitting there, trying to draw Darlene out on the few subjects she seems to know anything about—makeup and Brittany Murphy movies (I had just said everything there is to say about 8 Mile, with the help of Darlene’s assorted suitors, several of whom volunteered that their favorite part was in the factory, where Brittany licks her hand)—when one of the guys went, “Oh, hey, Mark,” and I looked up to see Mark Finley standing by my chair.

  “Hey,” Mark said, and swung a chair from a neighboring table around until it was near mine, and straddled it.

  “Listen, great flyer,” Mark said to me.

  Yes. Mark Finley had come over to our table on purpose to speak to me. ME. I can’t get Jason and Becca to sit with me at lunch—Jason, still excited about the fact that, now that he has a car, he can leave campus for lunch every day, insists on doing so, and Becca, because of her conviction that Jason is The One, has to follow him…even though today Jason invited his friend Stuckey to come along with them, and Becca can’t stand Stuckey, due to his custom of endlessly relating pivotal moments in Indiana college basketball games.

  Clearly, they don’t want to eat with me. Which is just as well, since the ride to school with them this morning was excruciating. As if it weren’t bad enough that Jason felt compelled to comment on every article of clothing I had on—“What’s wrong with that skirt? Why’s it so tight? How are you supposed to run if Gordon Wu blows up the chem lab again and there’s a fire and we all have to evacuate?”—there was the fact that Becca can apparently no longer speak in his (Jason’s) company, on account of being too shy, since he’s Her One, so I had to do all the talking.

  I may just start taking the bus.

  But Mark Finley doesn’t seem to mind eating with me. At all.

  “Oh,” I said, immediately flustered. Because, you know, even though he had e-mailed me last night, and all, speaking to Mark Finley in person…well, that’s totally different. Because of his eyes, which looked greener than usual for some reason.

  “Yeah, it was nothing,” I said.

  It HADN’T been nothing. That flyer—advertising Thursday night’s auction—had taken half the night to come up with. I’d had to blow off my homework, but it was worth it, since in the end, I’d come up with something semiprofessional-looking…which was good, since I had to buy ad space in the local paper to showcase the event, and needed something especially eye-catching.

  I could, I suppose, have sought my mom’s help on this, since ads and window displays are her best thing—her ONLY thing, really, that she’s good at, insofar as running the store goes. She’s great at figuring out what will sell like hotcakes in our town—biographies and Madame Alexander dolls—and what won’t—tell-alls and Sanrio—as well as physically making sales.

  But she sucks at the bookkeeping and bill paying…which makes it good that she has me around, now that she’s given Grandpa the boot.

  Still, I wasn’t super enthused on letting my mom know what I was up to just yet…not that she isn’t already suspicious, especially when this morning I came downstairs in one of my pencil skirts and she was like, “And you’re going…where? To school? Dressed like that?”

  I could see that I’d lived in jeans and sweatshirts for far too long.

  “The ad should run tomorrow,” I said to Mark. “I faxed it over first thing this morning. Hopefully we’ll get a lot of bidders.”

  “Oh, we will,” Mark said with that lopsided smile that made my heart skip a beat. I glanced over his shoulder and saw that Lauren was pretending to be deeply engaged in an animated discussion about her favorite soap opera, Passions, with Alyssa Krueger.

  But her gaze kept darting nervously toward me. And Mark.

  “It’s gonna be awesome,” Mark said. “People are stoked. The whole town’s talking about it.”

  “Great,” I said. And gave him my most dazzling smile.

  Sadly, he didn’t appear to notice—perhaps because at that same moment, Todd said, “Hey, Mark. You coming to the rager at the quarry on Friday, or what?”

  “Of course I’m coming,” Mark said with his trademark lopsided grin. “Never missed one of Todd Rubin’s back-to-school ragers yet, have I?”

  “Friday?” Darlene looked up from a detailed inspection of her cuticles. “It’s supposed to rain on Friday.”

  We all looked at Darlene, because it was so unlike her to be at all familiar with current events.

  The weather, however, appeared to be different than actual news, since Darlene explained, noticing our questioning stares, “I always check the five-day forecast before I plan my weekend tanning schedule at the lake.”

  Which of course explained everything.

  “Can’t have a rager in the rain, man,” Jeremy Stuhl said with a frown.

  Todd looked concerned. “I’ll figure something out,” he said, not very confidently.

  Which was when Lauren suddenly appeared at Mark’s side.

  “Oh, Mark,” she said. “Do you have your car keys with you? I think I left my Carrie Underwood CD in your car, and Alyssa wants to borrow it.” Then, pretending to notice me for the first time, she said, “Oh, hi, Steph.”

  “Hi, Lauren,” I said. And waited for the taunts to begin. What would it be this time? “Cute necklace. Not real gold, right? God, you’re such a Steph.” Or, “I see you’re eating the chef’s salad. What’s the matter, afraid your butt’s going to take over the cafeteria? Way to pull a Steph.”

  She didn’t say any of those things. Instead, she said, wrapping both her hands around Mark’s bicep, “My dad’s real excited about the auction. Guess who he says he’s going to buy?”

  Mark looked delightfully bewildered. “Who?”

  “You, silly,” Lauren said, throwing her head back and laughing infectiously. Or at least, I suppose she thought it was infectious.

  Mark frowned. “But I’d work for your dad for free, babe.”

  “Don’t tell him that,” Lauren said. “God, he’ll have you out at the lot every single day. Do you have any idea how much business you’ll bring in, hon? I mean, the QB? Especially if yo
u guys get to State this year.”

  The chances of the Fighting Fish getting to State were extremely slim, and we all knew it—even, I suspect, Mark. But we all nodded and said, “Yeah, totally” like we actually believed it could happen.

  “Gee, babe,” Mark said. “That’d be cool if your dad bought me.”

  Lauren beamed.

  I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her. Because there was no way on God’s green earth Lauren Moffat’s dad was going to win Mark Finley on Thursday night. Not if I, and Emile Kazoulis’s wallet, had anything to say about it.

  * * *

  The eyes have it!

  You may not be aware of it, but your eyes are your most powerful tool in cultivating popularity.

  People who make steady eye contact are considered natural leaders.

  So next time someone looks you in the eye, don’t be shy—look right back at them!

  And take care to make up your eyes so that they are your most noticeable feature (but don’t overdo it!), and captivate those around you with your hypnotic “headlights.”

  * * *

  Fifteen

  STILL DAY TWO OF POPULARITY

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 4 P.M.

  I think I died and went to heaven.

  It didn’t seem that way at first, of course. When I got to the student parking lot after school and looked around for Jason, I saw that his car wasn’t there. Then I noticed Becca standing over by the bike racks, looking even more unhappy than she had when she found out Craig on Degrassi was bipolar.

  “Where’s Hawkface?” I asked her.

  And the floodgates let loose.

  “He said he had some important errands to run for his grandmother, for the wedding,” she burst out, tears trembling on the ends of her eyelashes. “And that he was really sorry, but that he didn’t have time to run us home first and that we were just going to have to take the bus! The BUS! How could he do this to us, Steph? I mean, the BUS!”