How to Be Popular Read online

  “Look, Steph,” Jason said. “It’s your boyfriend.”

  This caused Becca to laugh uproariously. Only she was trying to hide it, so as not to hurt my feelings. So all that came out was a snorting noise.

  “Has he seen your new crazy hairdo?” Jason wanted to know. “I bet when he does, he’ll forget all about Little Miss Moffat and make a beeline for your tuffet, instead.”

  I didn’t say anything. Because the truth is, even though Jason doesn’t know what he’s talking about, that’s EXACTLY what’s going to happen. Mark Finley is totally going to realize that he and I belong together. He has to.

  Anyway, driving up and down Main Street turned out to be a bust. Not just to me, either. After about the third turn, Jason went, “I feel like ass. Who wants coffee?”

  I didn’t, but I knew what he meant about feeling like ass. I mean, driving up and down a street—even a street on which every single person you know, practically, is also driving up and down—is boring.

  And the good thing about the Coffee Pot is that if you get a seat on the upstairs balcony, you can still see what’s happening on Main Street, because that’s where the Pot is located. It’s across the street from The Wall, behind which the Goths and Burners gather to kick their little leather beanbag hacky sacks in the red glow of their clove cigarettes.

  No sooner had we snagged our balcony table than Jason elbowed me and pointed over the railing.

  “Ken and Barbie alert, at two o’clock,” he said.

  I looked down and saw Lauren Moffat and life mate, Mark Finley, heading toward the outdoor ATM directly beneath us. It’s really incredible to me that someone as nice as Mark could be with someone as evil as Lauren. I mean, Mark is almost universally liked (except by Jason, who harbors an irrational disdain for just about everyone except for his best guy friend, Stuckey, who might possibly be one of the most boring human beings on the face of the earth; Becca; and me—when we’re not fighting, anyway). Mark’s been voted president of his class every year since, um, forever, because of his niceness. Whereas Lauren—

  Well, let’s put it this way: Mark can only like Lauren because of her looks. Two such beautiful people—because of course Mark isn’t just nice; he’s Brad Pitt handsome, too—sort of have to be together, I guess. Even if one of them is a spawn of Satan.

  And Mark and Lauren—they’re definitely together. Mark’s arm was around Lauren’s shoulders, and her fingers were slipped through his. The two of them were totally canoodling, oblivious to the fact that there might be people sitting above them who didn’t necessarily want to witness them kissing. Although obviously I was the only one to whom the sight of Mark kissing Lauren was like a red-hot poker through the heart. Becca and Jason just don’t like seeing people putting their tongues in other people’s mouths, on account of the grossness factor.

  “Ugh,” Becca said, averting her gaze.

  “I’m blind now,” Jason declared. “They’ve blinded me with their disgusting PDA.”

  I craned my neck to see over the side of the railing. But the two of them had ducked beneath us so Mark could use the cash machine. All I could see was some of Lauren’s hair.

  “Why do they have to do that?” Jason wanted to know. “Make out in public like that? Are they trying to rub it in that they have a special someone, and the rest of us don’t? Is that what they’re trying to do?”

  “I don’t think they do it on purpose,” Becca said. “I mean, it’s still gross. But I think it’s just that they can’t resist each other.”

  “See, I don’t believe that,” Jason said. “I think they do it on purpose to make the rest of us feel bad for not having found our soul mate yet. Like high school is really the place where you’d want to find your soul mate.”

  “What’s wrong with finding your soul mate in high school?” Becca wanted to know. “I mean, maybe that’s the only chance you’ll ever have to meet your soul mate. If you blow it off, just because you don’t want to meet your soul mate in high school, you may never meet your soul mate at all, and wander lonely as a cloud for the rest of your life.”

  “I don’t believe we HAVE only one soul mate,” Jason said. “I think we’re given multiple chances to meet multiple soul mates. Sure, you could meet a soul mate in high school. But that doesn’t mean if you don’t act on it, you’ll never meet anyone else. You will, just at a time that’s more convenient for you.”

  “What’s so inconvenient about meeting your soul mate in high school?” Becca asked.

  “Let me see,” Jason said, rubbing his chin like he had to think about it. “How about…you still live with your parents? Where are you and your soul mate supposed to go, you know, to get it on?”

  Becca thought about it and said, “Your car.”

  “See, that’s B.S.,” Jason said. Only he didn’t just say the initials. “What’s romantic about that? Forget about it.”

  “So you’re saying nobody should date in high school?” Becca asked. “Because it’s not romantic to make out in a car?”

  “Sure, you can date,” Jason said. “Go to the movies and hang out and stuff. But don’t, you know. Fall in love.”

  “What?” Becca looked appalled. “Ever?”

  “Not with somebody you go to school with,” Jason said. “I mean, come on. You don’t want to spit where you eat, do you?”

  Only he didn’t say spit.

  “Ew,” Becca said.

  “I’m serious,” Jason said. “You date someone in school, what happens if you break up? You have to see them every day anyway. How’s that going to be? Super tense. Who needs it? School sucks enough without throwing THAT into the mix.”

  “So you’re saying”—Becca needed some clarification—“that you’ve never thought about dating—never had a crush on—anybody in school? Not anybody?”

  “Exactly,” Jason said. “And I never will.”

  Becca looked like she didn’t believe him, but I knew he was telling the truth—knew it from firsthand experience, when, back in the fifth grade, a new teacher who didn’t know any better let us sit next to each other in class, and Jason proceeded to pinch, poke, and tease me until I couldn’t bear it anymore. When I consulted with my grandfather concerning how I ought to handle the situation—whether I ought to pinch Jason back, or tell on him—Grandpa said, “Stephanie, when boys tease girls, it’s always because they’re a little bit in love with them.”

  But when I had—unwisely, I now realized—repeated this to Jason (the very next time he pretended to wipe a booger on my chair just before I sat down on it), he became so angry that he didn’t speak to me for the rest of the year. No more G.I. Joe meets Spelunker Barbie. No more games of Stratego. No more bike races or leg-wrestling. Instead, he hung out with his stupid friend Stuckey, leaving me to have to befriend Sleeping Beauty (aka Becca).

  He didn’t warm up to me again until the sixth grade, right after the Super Big Gulp incident, when Lauren’s campaign of terror against me reached its peak, and he couldn’t help but feel sorry for me, sitting alone in the cafeteria, and he finally started having lunch with me again.

  Jason doesn’t believe in in-school romance. In a BIG way.

  “Because otherwise,” he went on, at the café table, “you’ll be like those two morons down there. Speaking of which, Crazytop? May I ask what you’re doing?”

  I stopped shaking the sugar packets I’d torn open over the balcony railing and looked at Jason innocently. “Nothing.”

  “Clearly,” Jason said, “you are not doing nothing. You are most definitely doing something. What it looks like you’re doing is pouring packets of sugar on Lauren Moffat’s head.”

  “Shhh,” I said. “It’s snowing. But only on Lauren.” I shook more sugar out of the packets. “‘Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter,’” I called softly down to Lauren in my best Jimmy Stewart imitation. “‘Merry Christmas, you old Building and Loan.’”

  Jason started cracking up, and I had to hush him as Becca saw my sugar supply running low and hastene
d to hand me more packets.

  “Stop laughing so loud,” I said to Jason. “You’ll spoil this beautiful moment for them.” I sprinkled more sugar over the side of the balcony. “‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.’”

  “Hey!” Lauren Moffat’s voice, sounding noticeably irritated, floated up to us. “What—ew! What’s in my hair?”

  We all three ducked beneath our table so Lauren couldn’t see us if she realized what was happening and looked up. I could see her between the slits of the fencing around the balcony, but I knew she couldn’t see me. She was shaking out her hair. Becca, crouching across from me, had to put her hands across her mouth to keep from giggling. Jason looked like he was about to pee in his pants, he was trying so hard not to laugh.

  “What’s the matter, babe?” Mark came out from beneath the balcony, putting his wallet into his back pocket.

  “There’s something—sand or something—in my hair,” Lauren said, still fluffing out her hair—which you could tell she didn’t want to do, since she’d flat-ironed it so straight.

  Mark leaned closer to examine Lauren’s hair. “Looks okay to me,” he said. Which just made us laugh harder, until tears were streaming out of the corners of our eyes.

  “Well,” Lauren said with one last shake of her perfectly straight locks, “I guess you’re right. Come on. Let’s go.”

  It was only when they’d rounded the corner toward the Penguin that we finally sat up, laughing semi-hysterically.

  “Oh my God, did you see her face?” Becca asked between guffaws. “‘There’s something in my hair!’”

  “That was fantastic, Crazytop,” Jason said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “Best master plan yet.”

  Except that it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. He didn’t have the slightest idea.

  “Can I get you guys the usual?” That’s what Kirsten, our waitress, wanted to know, coming up to wipe down our table—she’d apparently noticed all the sugar I’d spilled on it.

  Usually when Kirsten is our waitress, Jason drops his napkin or something and has to crawl around looking for it. Because he feels about Kirsten the same way I feel about Mark: He thinks she’s perfection. And maybe she is. Who am I to judge? Kirsten, who is from Sweden, is working her way through college on the tips she earns at the Coffee Pot. And yet she still manages to maintain her blond highlights, which is just one of the many reasons Jason has spent night after night lying on The Hill, composing haikus in her honor. He gets especially poetic about her when Kirsten wears a men’s white button-down shirt with the ends tied just under her ribs, and no bra.

  Personally, I think Kirsten is nice, and all, but I don’t think she’s good enough for Jason. I would never admit this to HIM, of course. But I’ve noticed she has really dry skin around her elbows. She should totally invest in some lotion.

  But tonight, for some reason, Jason didn’t appear to notice Kirsten. He was too busy asking how Monday morning was going to work (not the part about how I was going to change the social structure at Bloomville High with the help of his grandmother’s book—Jason and Becca don’t know about that. Obviously). We were discussing what time we’d actually have to leave the house for school now that Jason has a car—a glorious eight A.M., to get us there by first bell, at eight ten, as opposed to the hideous seven thirty, which is when the bus shows up in our neighborhood.

  “Can you imagine their faces when we pull up?” Becca was saying as Kirsten came over with our order. “I mean, in the student parking lot?”

  “Especially if we’re listening to Andy Gibb,” I pointed out.

  “The A-crowd,” Jason said, “can eat me.”

  “What is the A-crowd?” Kirsten asked.

  “You know,” Becca explained as she stirred more Equal into her decaf. Becca’s got weight issues on account of how when she lived on the farm, her parents had to drive her everywhere because there was nothing within walking distance of their house. Now that she lives in town, her parents still drive her everywhere, because they want to show off their new Cadillac, which they also bought with the I-69 money. “The popular people.”

  Kirsten looked confused. “You are not popular?”

  This caused uproarious laughter on our part. Which was okay, because we can talk openly about our lack of popularity at the Pot, as we are the only people from Bloomville High who go there. It’s kind of a hippyish place where they hold regular poetry readings and have loose teas in these giant plastic containers.

  And besides, not that many teens in Greene County drink coffee (even half coffee, half milk, and a lot of sugar, like I drink), preferring Blizzerds (spelled that way so as not to get sued by Dairy Queen for copyright infringement) from Penguin.

  “But you guys are so nice,” Kirsten said when our laughter had died down. “I don’t understand. Aren’t the most popular kids in your school the ones who are nicest? Because that’s how it was in my school, back in Sweden.”

  Seriously, that practically brought tears to my eyes. I never heard anything quite so sweet. Aren’t the most popular kids the ones who are nicest? Sweden must be the best place to live. Because out here, in the cruel Midwest, popularity has nothing whatsoever to do with niceness. Unless you’re Mark Finley, of course.

  “Come on. You guys are kidding me,” Kirsten said with a smile that revealed her crooked eyeteeth—eyeteeth about which Jason has waxed particularly eloquent in his haikus. “You are popular. I know it.”

  Which is when Jason stopped laughing long enough to go, “Wait, wait…so, Kirsten, you’re saying you’ve never heard of Steph Landry?”

  Kirsten blinked at me with her big brown eyes. “But that is you. Are you famous, or something, Steph?”

  “Or something,” I said uncomfortably.

  That’s the thing. Kirsten’s probably the only person in Greene County who hasn’t heard of me.

  Good thing I have Jason around to set her straight.

  * * *

  Can you ever live down a mistake that might be making you unpopular?

  YES! Of course you can!

  The first step along the road to popularity is honestly admitting that there might be areas of your personality, wardrobe, and “looks” that could use a little improvement.

  No one is perfect, and most of us have at least a few quirks that might lessen our chances of fitting in with the popular crowd.

  It’s only when we face this fact honestly that we can begin to learn How to Be Popular.

  * * *

  Four

  T-MINUS ONE DAY AND COUNTING

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 12:15 A.M.

  I should hate him. But I don’t. It’s hard to hate someone who looks that good with his shirt off.

  I can’t believe I just thought that. I can’t believe I’m sitting here DOING this, when I swore I wouldn’t. Anymore.

  Well, it’s his fault anyway, for not lowering his blinds.

  The thing is, what are you supposed to do when you know something is wrong, but you just can’t stop doing it?

  Of course, I guess I could stop if I really wanted to. But, um. I don’t want to. Obviously.

  Really, if you think about it, it’s just research. On guys. My interest in seeing Jason undressed is purely scientific. Which is why I use the binoculars I sent away to Bazooka Joe for when I was eleven. (Sixty Bazooka bubble gum wrappers, plus four ninety-five, for shipping and handling. They actually do work. Sort of.) I mean, someone has to observe guys in their natural habitat and figure out what makes them tick. Especially when they’re naked.

  But I really do feel guilty about it. Especially about the binoculars.

  Just not guilty enough to stop.

  Plus, you know, if you ask me, he sort of deserves it—especially tonight, after telling Kirsten the Super Big Gulp story. Like she needed to know about that.

  Then afterward he had the nerve to be all, “Hey, let’s go to The Hill.” Like I was really going to go stargazing with the guy who outed me to the one resident of our t
own who didn’t know about pulling a Steph Landry.

  Not to mention I didn’t have my Off! with me and I am not likely to lie on the grass and be eaten alive by chiggers just in order to see a few shooting stars. I mean, this is why Grandpa built the observatory, for God’s sake.

  So the guilt? Not so much. Certainly not enough to go to confession about it or anything.

  Especially since, even if I did go to confession about it, Father Chuck will say something to my mother—I just know it. And then she’ll tell Kitty. And Kitty will tell her son, Dr. Hollenbach, who’ll tell Jason (or, at the very least, he’ll tell Jason to put his blinds down). And then I won’t get to see him anymore. Naked, I mean.

  And that would totally suck.

  Plus, you can’t tell me that what I’m doing is all THAT wrong. Guys have been doing it to girls for hundreds—maybe thousands—of years. For as long as there’ve been windows and people changing in front of them—people who didn’t put down their blinds, anyway—there’ve been other people looking in those windows.

  It’s about time we girls had a little payback, is all I’m saying.

  And as much as it grieves me to report it, Jason regularly provides some fine, fine payback. I don’t know what he ate when he was in Europe, but he came back looking so hot! He didn’t have those biceps before he left. No way did he have those abs.

  Or maybe he did and I just never noticed.

  Of course, it’s not like, before he left, I was seeing Jason naked on a regular basis, either. It wasn’t until he moved into the attic, which happens to have a window I can see right into from our upstairs bathroom window, that I noticed I could see him.

  And people in my family wonder what I’m doing in the bathroom for so long. Like my little brother Pete, who just banged on the door.