Not That Kind Of Girl. Siobhan Vivian
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turned and saw Spencer bent over again, her butt back on display for everyone.
The eyes of the passing football players flitted to the left, as if Spencer’s ass gave off a high-pitched noise at a frequency that only boys could detect. One of the guys, Mike Domski, snatched the binder out from Connor’s hands and flapped it furiously toward Spencer’s rear end, trying to make a strong enough breeze so her skirt would flutter up even higher. The rest of the team fell all over each other in a fit of laughter.
A sour feeling rippled across my stomach.
Spencer spun around and pressed up against her locker, a look of pretend embarrassment, feigned modesty, painted on her face. The same one I’d fallen for a moment ago.
“Looks like Spencer’s grown up to be quite a lady,” Autumn said.
She meant it as a joke, I think. Except neither of us laughed.
I left extra, extra early the next morning, and picked up two egg sandwiches and two Oranginas from the bagel shop on Main Street. It was the first official day of student council elections, and I wanted to get my posters hung up before anyone else, claim the best wall real estate. When I got to Autumn’s house, I beeped my car horn along with the song snippet played in between NPR news stories. Across the street, an old lady in a flowered nightgown stared me down from behind her screen door. I mouthed an embarrassed apology.
Autumn finally appeared, darting across her lawn in bare feet. Her black flats were perched on top of the books clutched in her hands, a pair of wrinkled cream-colored knee socks slung over her shoulder. My campaign posters were tucked under her arm.
“Careful you don’t bend them!” I called.
I could tell Autumn hadn’t bothered to shower that morning, preferring instead to sleep an extra twenty minutes. I had always been an early riser, but Autumn loved to sleep, so I’d make sure to always have a book underneath my pillow whenever we had sleepovers. Lately, I only read SAT prep guides, but that’s how I devoured the entire Goosebumps series during middle school — next to my snoring best friend.
Autumn crouched down to the open passenger window and tipped her books forward, causing her shoes to fall onto the seat. She brightened when she saw the white paper bag. “Ooh! Breakfast!”
“Your reward for getting up early to help me.”
“I don’t need a reward,” she said, throwing her books in the backseat and then gently laying my posters on top. “After all, I’m your unofficial campaign manager.”
“I wish you’d be my official vice president,” I said under my breath.
Autumn sighed as she dropped into the passenger seat and clicked her seat belt into the latch with way more force than necessary. “Natalie. You have to let this go.”
I’d posed the idea countless times during the summer and as recently as this weekend, when we’d stayed up until three in the morning painting campaign posters. I’d painted one poster with both of our names on it, but Autumn just complained that I’d wasted a perfectly good piece of oak tag. “Good ideas are hard to let go,” I said.
She took a big bite of sandwich and got some ketchup on her face. I handed her a napkin. “Look,” she said, in between chews. “It means a lot to me that you think I could actually do something like this. But it’s not like I need to be vice president to help with all your projects. I’ll still be at every student council meeting, just like I’ve been the last three years.”
“It’s not about you showing up to meetings. It’s about you living up to your full potential, Autumn. You always say that you’re more of a behind-the-scenes person. But that’s not true. It’s just a convenient excuse not to be noticed. College admissions counselors don’t just want to know that you’ve participated in extracurricular activities. They want to see leadership skills. That you can take charge of something.”
Autumn opened her Orangina and chugged down about five huge gulps. A tiny part of me thought she might be considering it. Then she changed the subject, asking, “What were some of those funny slogans we came up with? I was trying to remember them this morning.”
I couldn’t force my best friend to run for student council. I knew she had to want it for herself. But that didn’t make it any less frustrating.
For the rest of the ride to school, we tried to remember the corny slogans that made us laugh so hard this weekend. Like Vote For Natalie — She’ll Do Things Nattily! Except without being sugar-drunk on Dr Pepper and cookie dough, they weren’t really funny at all.
Ours was the first car in the student parking lot. Ross Academy looked beautiful, the sun rising behind the fieldstone walls, sparking off the dew on the thick lawn. I was so taken with the beauty of our school that it wasn’t until I’d gotten halfway up the path when I noticed that every single window had been covered over with white paper.
“That’s weird,” I said.
“Looks like Kevin Stroop’s seriously stepping up his game,” Autumn said.
“I guess.” Kevin Stroop was last year’s treasurer and, as far as I knew, the only person running against me for president. I’d been counting on an easy campaign, mainly because I was last year’s vice president, but also because Kevin had made a stupid accounting error that had nearly left us bankrupt. We’d had to enforce a strict one-slice-per-person rule at the end-of-the-year pizza party, which no one had been happy about.
I pulled open the main door and hundreds of pieces of paper fluttered with the fall breeze I’d invited in. They weren’t just taped to the windows. Our entire school had been wallpapered — the bathroom doors, bulletin boards, every locker, and the trophy case. An empty plastic tape dispenser crunched beneath my loafer as I stepped forward. Several dozen others were discarded on the floor, down the length of the hallway.
I knew Kevin didn’t have the chops to pull off a stunt this big.
I pulled a single sheet from the spout of a water fountain.
It was a piece of photocopied notebook paper, with a bunch of flaming footballs drawn on it, and a cartoon version of Mike Domski, smoking a cigar and flanked by two busty bikini girls.
Unfortunately, this drawing was no sick fantasy. Mike Domski actually got girls to like him. Sure, he was a football player, and, yeah, he hung out with the popular kids. But the guy was a total scumbag, preying on girls too stupid to know better. There seemed to be a sad learning curve on that sort of thing.
Underneath his drawing, he’d actually written Domski 4 Prez. And he hadn’t even bothered to rip the page out properly — the bottom left corner was missing and he had proudly photocopied the jagged paper fringe.
“Mike Domski,” I said aloud.
“You’re kidding.” Autumn grabbed the flyer and made a face. “Ew. Why’s Mike Domski running for student council?”
I actually had to think about it. “Maybe to help his college applications? Or just to be an ass.” That was really all the reason someone like Mike would need.
“I’m going to take so much satisfaction in watching you annihilate him.” Autumn searched a nearby wall. “What are we going to do with all your posters? He’s left no room to hang them up. This can’t be legal! Do you want me to try and find Ms. Bee?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. And then I taped my biggest poster right over a bunch of Mike Domski’s stupid cartoon grins.
By lunch, Mike’s posters had begun to disappear. I wondered if Ms. Bee had gotten word that he’d charmed the school secretary for use of her copier and deemed them against election rules. But no. Kids had been ripping them down on purpose. I watched a line of guys in the cafeteria ask Mike to autograph them, because they’d be “worth something” someday. Which