Did you get a senior superlative in high school? Best Dressed, Most Likely to Succeed, or Biggest Slacker? I was voted Most Involved and Best Personality by my graduating class because I was doing it all and doing it all with a smile! Class president, drama, Key Club (whatever that was)…I signed up for any and everything they would let me. I even lettered in student council. Most people think you can only get a letterman jacket for things like football or track, but I’m here to tell you that you can also get one for varsity student council. I’d like to think I was leading the student body for the right reasons, but I probs was just doing all the school clubs to avoid sex. While my peers were busy making out, I was suppressing my sexuality by planning prom and meeting with the principal to discuss vending machine snack options. As class president, I was always trying to think of new activities, charity events, fundraisers, and adventures that would keep me hanging out with girls while not being expected to physically touch them. During my time in office, I got to attend leadership conferences out of state and hobnob with other student leaders from schools across the country, giving me a front-row seat to the saga of two chaotic young Ohioan women named Brooklyn and Chrissy.
Brooklyn was part of the A-group, not only within her district but within the county, the state, the world! Okay, maybe not quite the world, but a lot of people knew of Brooklyn’s accomplishments—her quarterback boyfriend, the Benz her parents bought her to drive around town, her chihuahua named Daisy whom she treated like an accessory. There was even a rumor that she’d won some pageant called Miss Teen Ohio Galaxy Girl, which I don’t think was a real thing? She was the Regina George, the trendsetter, an influencer, the queen bee! For a minute during the Obama administration, it felt like schools were ridding themselves of the archaic social hierarchy that plagued students for centuries, but I have young nieces and nephews who tell me that all went out the window and the social standings are back in vogue.
Cliques look different than they used to, but there’s always going to be some asshole running things and making lives hell. Brooklyn was that girl when I was a teen. I once heard her insult another girl by telling everyone that she bought her socks online. Like, that was the entire insult, and it worked because of Brooklyn’s ruthless delivery. A young lady chose to cover her hooves with e-commerce, and apparently that was a bad thing. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since and certainly have never turned to Amazon for socks. Did you ever see that movie Georgia Rule with Lindsay Lohan and Jane Fonda? Jane plays Georgia, and she has all these odd rules that everyone has to follow. Brooklyn is the Georgia, and she made the rules, number one of which was no online socks.
Chrissy was Brooklyn’s number two—a girl next door, still wildly popular, gorgeous, and smart—but she didn’t have the wealth Brooklyn had and was forever self-conscious about it. They even looked alike; the only real difference was that Chrissy cut her hair short to stand out, and her budget hairstylist didn’t do her any justice. It just made Brooklyn’s luscious long locks look even better in comparison. For their school, hierarchy had less to do with looks and more to do with dollar signs, so Brooklyn didn’t shade Chrissy’s hair; she shaded the cheap stylist who did it. No matter how many people liked Chrissy more than Brooklyn, she always felt not quite good enough because she couldn’t afford the Chanel bags and stylists. The two girls were best frenemies, but their school knew Brooklyn was the queen bee and class president to Chrissy’s vice.
One thing Brooklyn and Chrissy did share…a father. Here’s where the story gets twisted and Shakespearean. Brooklyn’s mom and Chrissy’s mom each slept with a guy named David when they were in high school, and David fathered both their children. Brooklyn and Chrissy were half sisters, but no one ever really knew the details of the complicated family tree. It was this weird open secret that people whispered about but didn’t dare mention in their presence.
You might be wondering what was so great about this David that enabled him to get with half the school’s parents. The only things David really had going for him were his abs and a trust fund, but in high school, that was enough to make him a prize to be won. David knocked up the two gals during their senior year and ended up settling down with Brooklyn’s mom. Meanwhile, Chrissy was raised by her single mother, who had too much pride for David’s child support checks.
Brooklyn lived a lavish lifestyle off her dad’s inheritance. They had a huge house, a beautifully landscaped yard, and a live-in housekeeper-chef, while Chrissy and her mom (still single) lived in a modest house in the same town and shopped discount. Brooklyn and Chrissy knew they were half sisters—this wasn’t a The Parent Trap situation—but the family dynamics always caused underlying tension. That tension spilled over into the rest of the A-group, the group of friends that surrounded Brooklyn and Chrissy and included a boy named Thomas and a girl named Laney, whose real name was Aslan (like the lion from The Chronicles of Narnia). I always thought it was strange that someone with a name as cool as Aslan would go by Laney, but I digress. Brooklyn would throw fancy parties at her house for the A-group; Chrissy wouldn’t dare have friends over.
You might be wondering how the moms handled this social hierarchy. I was. I got to spend some time with Chrissy’s mom at a bake sale, and she was obsessed with her daughter’s standing, obviously still harboring resentment toward Brooklyn’s parents as she watched them live out the life she wanted. “Chrissy lets Brooklyn be in charge, but she’s more of a natural leader,” she told me. They were two generations of frenemies living in the same Midwest town and pouring all those family dynamics into student council activities.
Junior year is especially important for high school students because college applications are around the corner, and many students are fighting for acceptance into a good college. When you don’t have rich parents who can bribe your way into school, you rely on things like a résumé and grades, which is why that year was a turning point for Chrissy. She wanted to give up her number two spot and become the head of the A-group, determined to get into a better school than Brooklyn, and that desire led to a holiday charity showdown that ended with Brooklyn set on fire.
So where do I fit into all this, and how do I know all the intricate details of the web these young ladies weaved? Enter Thomas. Thomas was part of the A-group, one of the minions who worshipped Brooklyn and Chrissy. He was openly gay, which in 2002ish in Ohio was very brave and out of the ordinary. I wouldn’t come out until I was twenty-two, but that didn’t stop me from occasionally kissing Thomas after meeting him at a StuCo (slang for student council) conference. Although I mentioned earlier that I was avoiding sex in high school, I did make out with Thomas once every three months during my junior year, something that felt safe since he didn’t go to my school. It was our little secret, and I’d usually only see him when Brooklyn and Chrissy were around anyway. Those two were so busy with their rivalry that they wouldn’t even notice when Thomas and I snuck off into an empty room somewhere for a little first base action (I was too scared to go further than that). All that backstory brings us to pre–winter break of 2002.
JC Chasez’s bandmate once said, “What’s better than a million dollars? A billion dollars.” And what’s better than doing charity for one end-of-year holiday? Doing charity for all the end-of-year holidays. That was what Brooklyn and Chrissy set out to do that year in their battle for the number one spot. Brooklyn would have an idea, and then Chrissy would try to one-up it, ultimately snowballing into a full calendar of events. They organized a Christmas toy drive, they went to a predominantly Jewish nursing home to light menorahs for Hanukkah, and they served meals to homeless people downtown for Turkey Day. I tried to keep up at my school, but it was impossible. They were being too charitable! And I didn’t have the money Brooklyn did, so she did it all better. Her toy drive had presents wrapped impeccably with expensive Hallmark wrapping paper, while ours were delivered unwrapped. For the food bank, she hired expensive caterers to feed everyone fancy meals, while I was ready to serve whatever slop they had on hand. I learned at an early age that it’s impossible to compete with rich people. That also resulted in Brooklyn taking credit for almost every event because Chrissy couldn’t front the cash like her half sister could.
Since I couldn’t compete at my school, I offered to lend a hand with their activities, which also gave me an excuse to see Thomas. Things officially got out of hand when Brooklyn, a young white woman, showed up at a tree lighting wearing a homemade kente cloth. It’s a traditional African garb that she thought was appropriate for Kwanzaa, but she added a belt to cinch the waist and some cutouts to show off her ample bosom. It was Sex and the City 2 before Carrie and the gang spent a hundred and forty minutes in Abu Dhabi. The public’s awareness of cultural appropriation has come a long way, but even back in the early aughts, we knew not to be Brooklyn. Deep down, I think she even knew that it was inappropriate, but she had her other blond white girlfriends in the A-group wear the same. Thomas narrowly escaped the wardrobe because he and I were dry humping when the girls were at the fabric store.
At the tree lighting, I had a tiny table setup where I was selling hot chocolate with a small group of kids from my school, and I wish I could say we were collecting money for a charity or our prom fund, but I think we wound up using it to go see The Santa Clause 2 in theaters. There was a stage near the tree where the mayor was going to say hello, welcome the townsfolk, and then hit a button that would light the tree and start the music. All standard fare, except somehow Brooklyn weaseled her way onto the stage with the mayor. I have no doubt it was all an effort to write on her college applications that she “was in charge of the town tree lighting in conjunction with the mayoral office.”
“Welcome to the tree lighting! The holiday season is upon us, and this year, local high school student Brooklyn is going to help me do the honors with a special all-inclusive message,” the mayor said to a festive crowd.
“Hello! I’m Brooklyn, and it’s so important to help around the holidays, which is why we’re collecting money in the THS booth over there. So often, other holidays get pushed to the background in December, so I wanted to take a moment to honor all our end-of-year holidays, which is why I’m wearing an authentic kente cloth for Kwanzaa and will guide us in a Jewish prayer as I light a menorah.”
The rest of the A-group was scattered throughout the event. Thomas was waiting in a bathroom stall for me at a nearby Panera, Aslan was manning the collections table, and Chrissy was just offstage dreaming of standing in front of the crowd like Brooklyn was. If Chrissy would’ve taken time to write Santa a letter that year, she would’ve asked for the life Brooklyn had, for her mother to marry David, for the school quarterback to be her date to prom instead of Brooklyn’s. Most importantly, Chrissy would’ve asked for Brooklyn to be number two, so Chrissy could finally be queen bee.
Brooklyn stood in front of a small suburb of people, wearing the slutty kente cloth and holding a menorah, even though the only other Festival of Lights she had ever attended was World of Color at Disneyland. She motioned for Chrissy to join her onstage with the lighter, and Chrissy attempted to set flame to the menorah but instead accidentally lit Brooklyn’s African tube top on fire. It was the smallest of flames, but Brooklyn freaked out. An elderly gentleman was right up front with his wife, who had just bought hot chocolate from me. He instinctively grabbed his wife’s hot cocoa and doused Brooklyn with it to blow out the flame, only it didn’t blow it out; it made things worse. The woman had spiked her hot chocolate with booze, and Brooklyn burst into even bigger flames like Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider…
Just kidding about that last part. The old lady didn’t actually spike her cocoa. Spiritually, I like to think she was imagining it was mixed with peppermint schnapps, but it was just chocolate. Regardless, it was still hot, sticky, and thick, and now it covered Brooklyn. Brooklyn ran offstage like a bat outta hell, and that was it for her holiday charity. The crowd watched in horror as this beautiful young mean girl was Carrie-d in front of the wintry crowd, only instead of pig’s blood, she was doused with hot cocoa. As I watched in horror from the table where we gathered funds to see a Tim Allen movie, I noticed Chrissy’s face. For a split second, I saw a gleam in her eye, and the sides of her mouth curled upward. I’m not saying Chrissy purposefully lit Brooklyn’s offensive attire on fire, but I do think she was less than careful as she lit the candle.
The following year, Brooklyn gave up all her extracurriculars and fell into the arms of her boyfriend, Rock. She and Chrissy had a falling out, and Brooklyn spent her final year of high school with her other A-group friends like Thomas (whom I continued to hook up with sporadically for a decade), Aslan, and a new friend…lady MDMA, a mistress that came courtesy of her expendable funds that were no longer tied up doing school charity work.
Chrissy meanwhile took over as class president and got into a nice state school on scholarship. Despite spending twelfth grade with ecstasy, Brooklyn still got into the college she wanted. She never had to get involved or do any charity in the first place because of one thing: her family was rich. Rich people don’t have to work hard or give back or be kind. They play by their own rules, and money talks louder than any bullet point on a résumé. I wish I could end this tale by telling you Brooklyn ended up with a shitty life or some sort of late-in-life comeuppance, but she married a hot doctor, looks younger than ever (according to social media), and had her kids young, so she’s the hot mom. Last I heard, she was running the PTA, and I hope when she’s helping plan holiday events, she remembers to do it for the greater good and to steer clear of open flames.