WHEN I ARRIVED HOME FROM SCHOOL, I found my mom and my Aunt Colleen basking in the sun on our apartment balcony, their eyes shaded by the fake Chanel sunglasses my brother had sent them from his shore leave in Dubai. A half-empty bottle of 7-Eleven chardonnay sat on the glass table next to a mostly empty pack of Virginia Slims Luxury Lights. When they saw me coming through the sliding doors, they both leaped up.
“It’s not true, is it?” Aunt Col said, attacking me with one of her breasty, perfume-y hugs. “It can’t be true!”
“It can,” I said, my words muffled by her cleavage.
My mom pulled on her cigarette and exhaled with a sigh. “As if you haven’t already been through enough. What are we going to do?”
“Well, she’ll have to go to Lincoln, I guess,” said Aunt Col. The two of them exchanged a look. They do that a lot—have silent conversations with their eyes. My mom and Col are eleven months apart and could pass for twins. Same dark-brown-almost-black, wavy-just-short-of-curly hair, same squinty blue eyes, same bump in the middle of their noses. Aunt Col lives a block down from us, and she might as well be my second mom, especially because she and Uncle Jimbo were never able to have kids of their own so Stevie Junior and me are the sole targets of her maternal smothering.
“You guys say that,” I said, leaning against the railing and looking down at the parking lot below, “as if it’s the worst thing in the world.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t ideal, now, is it?”
Both my mother and Aunt Col have this perception that public high schools are places where a bunch of kids dressed in skimpy outfits spend the day buying drugs and being atheists. It’s like they’ve totally forgotten that their own Catholic-school experiences were steeped in misery. When she was a kid, my mom’s punishment for slouching in theology class was to spend the rest of the day kneeling next to her desk on grains of dry rice. And Aunt Col is only right-handed because her first-grade teacher, who believed that left-handedness was a sign of the devil, had taped the fingers on her left hand together every day until she learned to write legibly with her Christian hand. And yet, the two of them both act like those were their glory days. I guess that kind of brainwashing never really goes away.
Aunt Col was now gazing into her wineglass, searching for something positive to say about the situation. “Well,” she finally said, “Lincoln does have that new fine arts complex, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” said my mom, “but is that the measure of a good school? A goddamn pottery studio? What about moral education?” I put my head down and stifled a laugh. Given what’s happened in our family over the last two years, I don’t think the Boychucks are the most qualified people to be making decisions about moral education.
“Bernie, times have changed,” Aunt Col responded. “People don’t respect old-fashioned Catholic values the way they used to.” She leaned over to flick her cigarette butt onto the asphalt below, and they sat for a while, sipping their wine sullenly.
“My daughter going to a coed public high school.” My mom shook her head finally and poured the last of the chardonnay into her glass. “Can you imagine what Ma would say about that if she were alive?”
“Can you imagine what Ma would say if she found out ASH was closing?”
They were silent again, ruminating on this possibility. My grandma had been the president of ASH’s class of 1958, and, until she got sick, chairwoman of the annual alumnae fundraiser. Just outside the journalism room, there’s a big black-and-white yearbook photo of her and two of her friends hanging on the wall, with these amazing gravity-defying bouffants. At seventeen, Grandma was beautiful, which is hard to square with my final memory of her: skeletal, sour-smelling, two inches of white at the roots of her black hair, staring at all of us from sunken, milky eyes and wheezing through that horrible throat machine thing with uncomprehending, unspeakable rage. Throat cancer: and here were two of her daughters—who are both, by the way, nurses—smoking. It amazes me how stupid adults can be sometimes.
I left my mom and Aunt Colleen to their cocktail hour and spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on my bed, scrolling through my various social media accounts and halfheartedly plodding my way through Pride and Prejudice. When the cicadas began to buzz outside my open bedroom window, I finally got up and went to take a shower.
Not to sound like a total princess, but every time I get ready to go out in our tiny, moldy apartment bathroom, with its vertical coffin of a shower, all I can think about is my old house. I know that thinking about that kind of stuff is both pointless and dangerous, but I can’t help it. I’ve gotten used to nearly everything about our new life, but God, it would just be so nice to have a shower with good water pressure and a bathtub where you could spread around some scented bath salts and just hang out for a while. And maybe a hallway that doesn’t always smell like cat piss. And hey, if we’re dreaming big here, how about some air-conditioning and a front room carpet that doesn’t have a gigantic mysterious black stain in the shape of Australia? Not that I ever appreciated this kind of stuff when we actually had a house. I grew up thinking that big houses with dishwashers and bathtubs and a big oak tree in the backyard were, like, constitutional rights. It’s only now that we’ve lost everything that I realize how lucky I was.
After my shower, I pulled a towel around myself and cracked the window to release the fog of steam. In the parking lot below, my downstairs neighbor, Sonny, was chivalrously opening the door to his Jeep for a bleached blonde in one of those bandage dresses generally worn by women half her age. If their date went well, chances are I would hear about it later that night, when pornographic sounds began emanating from his bedroom, which was situated, tragically, directly under mine. Gagging at the possibility, I put on shorts, a tank top, and my espadrille wedges. As I globbed my eyelashes with mascara, I could hear the music drifting from the open windows of Emily’s Ford Focus before it had even pulled around the corner. I slicked my tongue over my teeth and smiled fiercely in the mirror. I stuck my phone in my pocket, called good-bye to my mom and Aunt Col, and headed down the stairs and out into the purpling night. Before I climbed into Emily’s car, I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the onslaught of deafening club music and peach body splash that awaited me.
When I opened the car door, Kenzie immediately whipped around in her seat to give me that big, glittering smile that had already paralyzed the hearts of so many Saint Mike’s boys.
“You look hot,” she said approvingly, arching a penciled eyebrow. “I have a feeling about tonight. A good one.”
“Your hair looks adorable,” Sapphire said with a pout, shoving over to make room for me. “Mine looks disgusting. I wish I had your hair.”
“No,” I said, reciting my lines. “My hair looks disgusting. Your hair is gorgeous.”
She began teasing the crown of her hair with her fingers, using the mirror on the back of her iPhone case to make adjustments. Sapphire’s beautiful, thick curls were her greatest vanity, so in the strange, inverted world of popularity, it meant that she had to spend as much time as possible ridiculing them.
“I love your top,” Emily shouted over the music as she eyed me from the rearview mirror.
“This?” I snapped the shoulder strap dismissively. “This stupid thing was like three bucks.” Which, of course, was a lie. The top was from the Young Contemporary section at Bloomingdale’s, a gift from my rich aunt Kathy, and it was my favorite piece of clothing.
But this is the ritual of my friends: we pick each other over like preening monkeys, exchanging compliments and insulting ourselves with machine-gun quickness. I’m not sure why we do it, exactly, but I suspect it’s a combination of envy and insecurity. Whatever the reason, the nice things my friends say to me have long since ceased to mean anything. I remember once, at the end of sophomore year, when Ms. Lee handed back my Grapes of Wrath research paper, she told me that I had a fresh way of looking at things, and that I was one of the best writers she’d come across in eight years of teaching. To this day, I still smile to myself whenever I remember that compliment, because I could tell that Ms. Lee had actually meant it, and because it wasn’t about my outfit.
The thing is, even though it’s been two years now, I’m still not quite used to being popular. I hadn’t counted on how exhausting it would be, how much pretending it involved. Being an honors student, I learned early on, is an embarrassment that I have to downplay, which is why I’ve started reading novels the way other kids my age probably watch porn: sweaty-handed and in secret, hoping that no one will walk in on me. I also have to pretend I’m attracted to a revolving cast of douchebags and meatheads, because the quiet, bookish boys I usually like don’t attend parties in the woods that flow with foamy kegs of lukewarm beer and are populated mainly by barfing football players. Evan Munro, for example, is Kenzie’s boy of the moment, and we’re all expected to swoon over him because, I guess, he’s the star quarterback at Saint Mike’s with Division 3 colleges scouting him and he’s built like a brick shithouse. It doesn’t matter that I once watched him sit in a chair at a party, drunkenly squeezing at a huge zit on his shoulder with two pudgy fingers until it ruptured and he wiped a streak of bloody pus onto the wallpaper, concluding this activity with an earth-shattering belch.
Our complimenting ritual now complete, Emily floored it, and we were off, speeding past the Dairy Hut, where families lined up in the warm night for what would probably be one of the last cones of the season, and turning down Avondale Avenue along the train tracks. Someone had put fresh flowers at the memorial crosses that marked the place where Tiffany Maldonado and Sandy DiSanto were killed in the crash that, if you believe such things, had made Our Lady of Lourdes cry.
We slowed past the night-darkened windows of Academy of the Sacred Heart and pulled into the parking lot of Saint Michael’s High School for Boys, threading our way past tailgating parents who were gathered around portable grills drinking beer from coffee mugs, and found one of the last open spaces near the chain-link fence butting up against the soccer fields. When we got out of the car and headed for the ticket line, which was already snaking out from the stadium and into the parking lot, Kenzie stopped short.
“Wait a second,” she said, closing her eyes and sniffing the air. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” Sapphire took a panicked whiff of her own armpit.
“Testosterone.” Kenzie’s eyes darted around the hordes of boys standing around in groups, drinking them in from head to toe as shamelessly as any catcalling construction worker. “God, how I’ve missed that smell. We’ve been locked up in that estrogen cave for a week!”
“I don’t know how you’re even going to handle public school next year.” Emily laughed. “You’re going to be going around humping desks or something.” In response to that, Kenzie wiggled her eyebrows at us, jumped into a basketball player’s defensive stance, arms and legs spread wide, and began thrusting her hips in Emily’s direction, slowly inching toward her with her pelvis in the lead. Emily, thrilled to be receiving such attention from the queen bee, squealed with delight, until suddenly Kenzie stopped midthrust. “Oh my God,” she said, grabbing both Emily and me by the arm. “That’s Christian.”
“Who?”
“Where?”
She pointed to a tall kid standing in the ticket line about ten people in front of us, kicking around a hacky sack and laughing loudly with his friends.
“Which one is he again?” I asked. It was hard to keep track of the men in Kenzie’s life.
“You know! The guy who started stalking my Instagram after he met me at that party in the forest preserve for Sami’s birthday,” she said. “And he’s been, like, professing his love for me to everybody at Saint Mike’s ever since.”
From the looks of him, Christian was just the kind of obnoxious boy-toy sort Kenzie often went for: a baby face partially obscured by a flat-brimmed hat, fake diamond earrings in both ears, and wrists weighted down with neon bracelets. His flip-flops were plastered with designer logos, the kind of shoes you buy at Marshalls when you don’t have a ton of money but you want people to think you do.
“If he’s so madly in love with you,” Sapphire said, shading her eyes from the setting sun, “why don’t you see if he’ll let us cut the line?”
“I was just thinking that.” Kenzie pulled down her tank top to expose the trim of her paisley-patterned bra and flounced in the boys’ direction while the rest of us followed in her wake.
“Hey, Insta-Stalker,” she said, brushing her hand against his bare arm. “Mind if we budge the line?”
Kenzie was such a child of the digital age that even her spoken words were like text messages: the tone was impossible to interpret. Christian didn’t seem to even notice that she’d just insulted him. “Hi, Kenzie!” he said, gazing at her like a slobbering golden retriever who just saw a piece of steak fall to the kitchen floor. “Yeah, totally squeeze in!”
As we shuffled into the line, ignoring the halfhearted protests of the kids behind us, Christian nodded toward a dark-haired, lanky boy standing next to him. “Hey,” he said, “do you guys know my buddy Darry?” Before any of us could answer, the boy reached across the cloud of Christian’s cologne and shook each of our hands. This might be a normal thing to do in the adult world, but I couldn’t remember there ever being a time when a boy my own age shook my hand. I was used to guys who might glance up from their phones to give me the up-and-down and then mumble hey before returning to their mindless tapping. I wondered if Darry was one of those weird boy-men who wears blazers to parties and plays the stock market, but other than the handshake, he was dressed like, and looked like, a normal kid. Except for one thing. His eyes. They were a light copper brown, almost golden, and they were resting on my face, and they were not looking away.
“These are my girls,” Kenzie said, pointing at each of us one by one. “That’s Sapphire, that’s Emily, and that’s Wendy.”
“Wendy?” Christian snorted. “Your parents named you after a fast food joint?”
“No.” I glared. “They named me for a girl in a Bruce Springsteen song.”
“‘Born to Run’?”
“Yeah.” I turned to Darry, surprised. “How’d you know?”
“Because it’s one of the greatest rocks songs ever, and I know all the lyrics by heart.” His eyes rested on me in a kaleidoscope of soft browns and golds. “My parents named me after a book. The Outsiders.”
“Darry Curtis,” I said, nodding. “I love that book.”
We smiled at each other, and for just a second, it felt like the whole world was holding its breath.
“Tickets, please.” The bored voice of the ticket taker broke the spell—we’d finally reached the front of the line. When Darry turned to hand off his ticket and we entered the stadium, Kenzie kicked me and bugged her eyes at me while Emily declared that she had to use the bathroom.
“I’m having a few people over later,” Christian said, gazing hopefully at Kenzie and her peeking paisley bra. “We’re going to head there after the game. You guys should come.”
“You really should.” Darry said. He was speaking to all of us, but he was only looking at me. “Corner of Strong and Melvina.”
“Hey,” called Christian, grinning stupidly, “there are only three streets in Chicago that rhyme with a part of the female body. Know what they are?”
Darry rolled his eyes at me, flattering me with the realization that he saw in me a person who was about to be as bored as he was with the immature comment that was sure to follow.
“Melvina, Paulina, and Lunt,” Christian cackled. Kenzie graced him with only the slightest hint of a smile.
“We’ll try to stop by,” she said, glancing over his shoulder to scan the crowd for people more interesting than him.
“Come in through the alley,” Darry said, and when he turned to follow Christian toward the bleachers, I caught the faintest scent of piney soap, and then the world rearranged itself back into the infinitely less interesting place it had been before I knew he lived in it.
“Christian’s hot, Kenz,” Emily observed. “And he’s totally into you.”
“He’s pathetic.” Kenzie picked a long black hair from the strap of her tank top and rubbed it between her delicate fingers until it sifted to the ground. “I could practically see his boner rising when I came within ten feet of him. Does he even know that me and Evan are kind of a thing now? Evan would beat his ass if he saw Christian ogling my boobs like that.”
“Yeah,” Emily said, quickly reevaluating her opinion. “I guess he is kind of sad.”
“His party should be good, though,” Kenzie said. She took out her phone. “I’m going to tell Evan to meet us there after the game.”
“What about that other guy?” Sapphire said. “Wendy, he was staring at you.”
“He wasn’t staring at me,” I objected. “I mean, he just likes Springsteen.”
“Staring. Like a stalker.”
“He seemed cool,” I ventured.
“Code for ‘I want to bang him,’” laughed Emily.
“Well, you’ll get your chance,” Kenzie said. “Christian’s parties are always out of control. Come on. Let’s go find a seat.”
At the risk of sounding like a shallow, superficial asshole, here’s why all the pretending and the fakeness of popularity is worth it: for that one moment when you and your clique climb the bleachers at a crowded football game. The four of us, dressed in our uniforms of tiny cutoffs and tinier tank tops, push-up bras thrusting our breasts up and out, sunglasses shading our eyes from the setting sun still warm on our bare, smooth legs, this was why I had made it my business to be popular when I started high school. This is the moment when everybody is watching you even if they pretend like they’re not, and everybody knows who you are even if they pretend like they don’t. It’s this crazy, intoxicating power, a power that I never had in elementary school, that makes me feel totally secure and completely unafraid. I knew that if I broke away from the group to go use the bathroom or buy a Dr Pepper at the concession stand, then all the magic would die and I’d just be me again. But surrounded by these girls, it’s different. It’s like no one can touch me. No one would say a word about my father; no one would post something awful about my family on social media. They wouldn’t dare. Being part of our clique makes me untouchable and admired, feared and respected. I’m not dumb enough to believe that everybody genuinely likes us, but they all do a good job at pretending, because they all know what happens when you piss off Kenzie Quintana. It’s an airtight kind of protection, and if it means that I have to dumb myself down a little bit and trade fake compliments and fawn over pimple-popping jocks, I figure it’s a small price to pay.
We found an open spot near the top row, up against the protective fence that ran along the back of the bleachers. There had been other, closer spots on the way up, but this one allowed for maximum visibility.
“Okay, everybody,” Kenzie said, leaning against the fence seductively and posing for a rapid series of selfies, “you guys need to help me pay attention to this stupid game. Evan is gonna be asking me about it afterward, and I have to pretend like I was on the edge of my seat, watching him tackle the shit out of people, okay?”
“He’s a quarterback, Kenz,” I reminded her. “Quarterbacks don’t tackle.”
She patted the open space on the bleachers next to her.
“And that,” she said, “is why Wendy gets to sit next to me tonight.”
Saint Mike’s kicked off, and the first quarter was underway. I was in the middle of explaining to Kenzie the concept of a first down for the hundredth time when I saw Ola Kaminski, Marlo Guthrie, and Alexis Nichols, the three smartest girls at Academy of the Sacred Heart, climbing the bleachers. They stopped for a moment, looking around for an open spot. Kenzie cupped her hands around her pink mouth and called, “Sit down, losers! I’m trying to watch a football game here!” The three of them looked up, in the direction of the insult, and Alexis’s eyes rested on me for just a moment. In that moment, I saw her taking in my carefully styled blond waves, my minuscule jean shorts, the sticky sheen of my lip gloss, the cotton candy–colored straps of my padded bra. When she finally looked away, I couldn’t tell if she was only squinting from the setting sun, or if she was smirking. Whatever it was, I felt a small crack in the armor of my popularity. I turned back to Kenzie and resumed my football tutorial as if nothing had happened. But I felt self-conscious for the rest of the game. Alexis Nichols was the only girl at ASH who could make me feel that way, because she was the only one who really knew me.