THE MARQUETTIAN CANDIDATE

Thursday, 12:02 P.M.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. My brain and body were wound tighter than my braces. I tried everything to relax: a hot shower. A yoga relaxation DVD I’d bought last summer when Ella was going through her But why? phase. I’d even Skyped with Molly and the girls, spilling everything about Mom and Gabe in hopes that one of them would have an inspired idea about how to wreck their relationship.

The next day, all I had to show for my efforts was frizzy hair (thanks to two washes in one day), a slight limp (thanks to an off-balance downward-facing dog), and a cell full of pity texts (thanks to my sweet, completely unhelpful friends).

By lunchtime, I considered calling Mom and telling her I was sick. Which wouldn’t have been a total lie. But Molly was hosting a Party Planning Committee meeting in The Square. More important, my big date with Zander was that night. So I dragged myself to the overpopulated courtyard as soon as the lunch bell rang, my black silk pants billowing indignantly behind me.

Molly and the girls were already clustered in a circle around our usual stone bench. I wriggled past a herd of eighth graders shooting hoops and broke into the center of The Square. Though the green crepe paper spiderweb Zander and I had made yesterday had vanished, the Quinn Wilder posters were still everywhere. At least Stevie had had the decency to leave a few GO GREENE posters up, but Imran Bhatt’s presence was virtually nonexistent.

“Hey, Kace! Over here!” Mols waved me over, all business in camel wool skinnies and a fitted leather blazer with an asymmetrical zipper. Her glistening stick-straight hair was styled with a no-nonsense center part. I’d had most of the morning to get used to her new edgy-young-professional look, but it was still more disorienting than seeing a teacher at the grocery store on a Sunday.

“Hey.” I wriggled between Molly and Nessa. A poster crinkled beneath my butt, and I pulled out a neon-blue flyer that had nothing to do with school politics. It was a Levi Stone flyer, advertising his show at the Goodman Theatre. “Did you guys know Levi Stone is playing the Goodman next Tuesday?”

Molly handed me a clear pink folder with my name on it in glitter. Liv and Nessa were already perusing matching folders. “Phoenix says he’s a total hack.”

I shook my head. “I think he’s pretty good.” I made a mental note to ask if Mom could get comp tickets from the arts and entertainment reporter at the station. Maybe for Zander and me. Maybe for our second date.

Molly shrugged and handed me a gigantic latte with my name scrawled across the side of the cup. The bench was crammed with Sugar Daddy to-go cups and vegan sandwiches from the deli down the street. “BTW, I told the girl at Sugar Daddy to give you an extra shot of espresso. You probably didn’t sleep much last night,” she said sympathetically.

“That’s so nice, Mols.” I managed a weary smile and wound my frizzed-out mane into a messy bun. “Thanks.”

She beamed. “Welcome.”

“Hanging in there?” Liv looped her arm through mine and rested her curls on my shoulder.

“Yeah. I guess.” I closed my eyes for a second, inhaling the scent of Liz’s lemongrass shampoo. It felt good to hang with my old friends instead of being forced to spend time with Stevie at rehearsal or one of our terrible Mandatory Blended-Family Dates. And at least Mols and the girls were sympathetic to my situation. Which was more than I could say for Paige. “I just want things to go back to normal. I liked it when it was just Mom and Ella and me.” And Dad. I shoved the last thought from my mind.

“I get it.” Nessa toyed with the dark fringe grazing her brow. “It’s, like, what you were used to. You didn’t ask for Gabe to just swoop in like this.”

“Remember when Nate came to live with us the summer before he left for college?” Molly said quietly. Nate was her half-brother from her dad’s first marriage. He’d always lived with his mom in Oklahoma, but he stayed with the Knight family one summer while he took premed classes at Northwestern. I’d only met him twice. He was nice enough, but it was still weird.

“I remember you stuffed a bunch of Snoopy’s hair in his pillowcase,” I reminded her. Snoopy was the Knights’ three-legged diabetic cat, and Nate was deathly allergic to him. “And that Nate had to go to the ER to get some kind of emergency shot.”

“He stole my room!” Molly protested. “Am I not allowed to defend my territory?”

“Peace, girly. She’s just kidding.” Liv grinned.

“I’m just saying that situation was kind of like this one,” Molly said. “I had my family, and everything was good, and then all of a sudden, things just… changed.”

“Yeah.” I reached out and squeezed her hand. I’d never really thought about what that summer must have been like for her. Knowing that she’d felt the same way I did made me feel less alone.

“Things are good now, though.” Molly double-squeezed back. “He sent me an NYU hoodie for Christmas, and he’s coming home this summer to intern downtown.”

“Good. Okay, enough about Gabe and our crazy families. We’ve got a dance to plan.” I took an extra-long sip of latte, feeling the caffeine shoot through my veins. I flipped my folder open and found a song request list for Gravity, a catering menu from a hip Asian-fusion bistro in Lakeview, and a checklist of tasks for the committee, arranged by the necessary completion date and time.

I blinked. It looked like Molly really had found her calling.

“So I’m calling this meeting to order.” Molly straightened up at least two inches. “We still haven’t decided on a theme to go with the decorations we picked out the other day. Plus, we have to clean up The Square. These campaign posters are killing the vibe in here.”

“I can’t believe Quinn is still in the race,” Nessa said.

“Right?” I exclaimed.

Molly lowered her fingertips to a black-and-white LET’S GET WILD(ER)! flyer on the ground and traced Quinn’s chiseled cheekbones. “He’s totes overcompensating.” But her awed voice didn’t quite match her words.

We all stared at Molly for a beat. Then I coughed.

“Ummm, don’t we need to get on with the meeting?”

“Oh. Right. Okay. First, we need a theme idea. The floor is now open.”

Liv leaned in excitedly. “I was thinking about this last night and—”

Molly shook her head vehemently. “Please address the chairperson in the proper manner, Committeeperson Parillo.”

“Fine.” Liv raised her hand. “Madame Chairperson, may I have the floor?”

“You may.” Molly beamed, stealing a glance at me. I gave her a thumbs-up.

“What if we picked a cause, like global warming or cancer or something, and charged a few bucks at the door? We could donate the proceeds to charity.”

“People aren’t gonna pay to come to a depressing party. Besides, how do you decorate for cancer?” Molly made a fist and thumped it against her knee. “Veto. So here’s what I was thinking. We could do a dance with a date auction, where everybody comes by themselves, and then people bid to be my date?”

“You mean, they bid to be your—the universal your—date,” Nessa said dryly.

“That’s what I said.” Molly raised an eyebrow.

“Wait. What happened to the new boyfriend? You’re not… you don’t wanna bring… him?” I asked carefully.

“I mean, obv, I do.” Molly’s left eye twitched. “I’m just thinking that most of the dateless freaks at this school—and I’m clearly not talking about you guys—would rather not have to go through the humiliation of showing up alone,” she explained. “And we could make a lot of money for the school this way.”

“Okayyyy.” I exchanged glances with Liv and Nessa.

“It was just an idea. Whatever. We can come up with another one.” Molly dragged the zipper on her jacket up, down, and back up again. Down. Up. Down. Up.

“We could just do something really simple,” Nessa suggested, pointing the toes of her bronze ballet flats. “Like, Marquette at Midnight, or something. We could have the dance here in The Square, under the stars. Just make everything really elegant.”

“Ooh! I like that.” I nudged her knee with mine. “Good one.”

“Madame Chairperson!” Liv’s gold-henna-inked hand thrashed in the air. “We could use those tea light votives we bought! We could hang them from the skylights to save electricity! And be romantic!”

Molly sighed and rolled her eyes. “So nobody wants to do my date auction idea?”

I bit my lip.

“Whatevs,” she said drily. “All in favor of Nessa’s romantic idea?”

“Aye!” the girls and I chorused.

“Fine.” Another eye roll. “Okay, so music? Kacey?”

“Gravity’s rehearsing today and tomorrow after school, so I’ll take your requests and see what we can do.”

“Good.” Molly’s gaze lingered on me a few seconds too long, but I couldn’t read her expression. “So now all we have to do is get rid of these ugly campaign posters.”

“Over my dead body. Didn’t anybody tell you it was election week?”

I turned around to see Paige standing behind me, her arms crossed so tightly over her chest it was a wonder she could breathe.

“Hey, Paige.” I rubbed my temples. “We were just kidding. Nobody’s gonna take down your posters.”

“Uh, yeah. I am.” Molly slapped her folder closed and stood up. “They have to go. I can’t throw a decent party with your mug everywhere.”

“Excuse me?” Paige’s face turned tomato red. “Say that to me one more time.” A few feet away, a crowd was starting to cluster.

“Okay, okay.” I jumped up and grabbed Paige’s hand. “You. Come on.” I dragged her across the courtyard, to an empty patch of real estate outside Silverstein.

“Oww! Kacey!”

“Hey. Look at me.” I pointed at Paige’s eyes, then at mine. “Focus. Do you really think I’d let Molly mess with your posters the day before the election? Come on, Paige. I helped put them up!”

She stared at the ground. “I guess not. Sorry. It’s just that this Quinn Wilder thing is driving me crazy.” Her shoulders dropped. “And I’m sorry about your mom and Gabe. I know you’re upset, and it’s just that I’m just really stressed out, and—”

“I know.” I pulled her in for a hug, and she sniffled into my shoulder. “It’s okay. I just really don’t want you to worry about Quinn, okay? I mean, it’s Quinn!” My laugh sounded fake even to my own ears. “He can’t even make it through homeroom without losing focus. There’s no way he’s gonna see this thing through.”

Paige pulled away. “You really think so?” Her eyes said she wanted to believe me. Almost as much as I wanted to believe myself.

“Heyyyy, Marquette! Make some NOOOOOISE!” Before I could reassure Paige, Quinn’s voice boomed over the courtyard. A few seconds later, he emerged from Hemingway, holding a megaphone and wearing a T-shirt with LET’S GET WILD(ER)! printed across the chest.

The Square erupted into cheers as Quinn paraded around the perimeter. “Are you guys sick of lame field trips and even lamer vending machine snacks?”

“Yeahhhh!”

Paige croaked and grabbed my hand.

“Then I say, let’s take back our student government! Starting with our snacking privileges!” Behind Quinn, Aaron and Jake whipped out Marquette gym bags and started pitching mini candy bars into the crowd. Soon, the kids in The Square were more out of control than Liv in the back room of a vintage consignment shop.

“TELL ME AGAIN HOW I SHOULDN’T WORRY ABOUT QUINN RUNNING?” Paige shouted, her eyes wild with panic.

“YOU’LL BE FINE! PROMISE!” I hit the deck to avoid getting whacked in the head with a mini Snickers.

It was a blatant lie, and we both knew it. But this was one of those times when the cold, hard truth was simply just too painful.