Let Mike and me duke it out, while Kevin cleaned house. Though I doubted it. More likely, Kevin feared Mike Domski, or he just didn’t care if a guy said such disgusting things to a girl.
Not that I needed Kevin to stand up for me. I could handle this myself. “Stop talking to me,” I declared, which fell far short of the sharp retort I’d hoped to conjure up.
“Hey! Come on, Natalie. I’m only kidding with you.” His smile lengthened to a sneer. “You could never give me a hard-on. You’re like . . . dick repellant.”
Anger burned hot through my body, and I gripped the sides of my chair. Mike Domski wanted to hurt me, and the best way he knew was to call me ugly. I hated that, despite the fact that I would rather eat vomit than touch a hair on Mike’s head, it worked. It took all my self-control not to hock the biggest, wettest ball of spit right between Mike’s eyes. And I would have, too, if not for Ms. Bee weaving through the thick crowd, waving a slip of paper over her head. “Okay! Thank you for your patience! Here we go!”
Spencer lurked near the doorway, huddled with a couple of other girls. When our eyes met, she gave a big wave and blew me a kiss, which was a gesture more baffling than comforting. I tried to find Autumn’s face in the crowd, but when I couldn’t, I settled on the wall to my left, where the senior portraits of former Ross Academy student council presidents hung. Most were boys in blazers, wearing grins dripping with unabashed, unapologetic ambition. There were only a handful of girls, all stern-faced with set jaws. I felt the kinship straight away.
Ms. Bee joined us in the front of the library. The smell of her peppery perfume comforted me, just a little. “It’s wonderful to see so many of you interested in student council this year,” she said. “Our first meeting will be on Monday, and I hope you’ll parlay this enthusiasm and sign up for one of our many committees.”
I waited, a hollow smile frozen on my face, and listened to the names of the winners. David Goss won secretary. Dipak Shah won treasurer. Martin Gedge took vice president. I smiled at Martin to congratulate him, and he gave a worried look that cut right through me.
The stuffy library air fluttered with the tepid applause of people waiting for the main event. Ms. Bee cleared her throat and the room went quiet. All except for my heart, which pounded rapid and crazy.
“And in the election for your new student council president, we may have had our closest results in my history as an adviser. The winner, by just a handful of votes, is . . . Na —”
Somebody in Mike’s crowd booed, and I never heard the rest of my name. Not that it mattered.
From somewhere in the back of the room, Autumn barreled through the crowd toward me, knocking people aside with her huge book bag. Her hair flopped all in her face, and she screamed at the top of her lungs. I rose to my feet, smiling so hard it hurt. Autumn wrapped her arms around me tight, and we swayed with such force that we almost fell on the floor. We jumped up and down, over and over, both of us screaming and laughing.
I noticed Mike standing with his friends. Connor grinned at me. He thought my celebration was funny, I guess. But Mike could barely conceal his disgust.
I broke free from Autumn and pushed myself in front of him. I knew I had huge damp spots in the armpits of my white shirt, but I didn’t care. After pulling up my hair into a quick ponytail, I stuck out my hand and waited for Mike to shake it. “Don’t you want to congratulate me?” I said in my most sarcastic voice. His friends were all listening. Connor Hughes. Everyone. And I loved every second of it.
Mike looked down at my hand and scoffed. “Congratulations on being the kind of loser this stuff actually matters to.”
Before I could say anything back, Autumn pulled me away. “You okay, Miss President?” she asked, and massaged my shoulders like a boxer and his trainer after a long fight. The library had begun to empty out, but there were still lots of students who stuck around to congratulate me. The moment felt so right, so beautiful. Like destiny. Like all those life-changing moments should feel. Easy.
I picked up Autumn later that night. It was supposed to be, at least to her knowledge, our typical Friday — renting whatever movie was next on our list (we’d been working our way through the AFI Top 100 Films list, which I’d cut from the newspaper and dutifully laminated at my mom’s office), followed by snacks, followed by either face masks or new nail polish, followed by whatever lame show was on television until we fell asleep.
Except I had heard on NPR during breakfast that A Streetcar Named Desire was playing at a little independent movie theater a few towns over. It wasn’t actually the next film on our list, but the chance to see one on the big screen was too exciting to pass up. Plus, it would make for a more special night, considering I’d won the election a few hours before.
Even though my air-conditioning was on, everything still felt sticky. September weather always left you guessing, with some days hot like summer and others chilly like fall.
I beeped and Autumn came running out in jeans and an oversize hoodie I’d bought her on one of my college tours. I felt a little bad, because I was in a red corduroy skirt, a black scoop neck, and the tiny silver hoops Grammy had given me on my Sweet Sixteen. Not that we needed to dress up, but this particular movie theater was a lot different than the megaplex inside Summit Mall. It served wine and had gourmet snacks, like kettle corn and Italian chocolate bars. A red-velvet curtain hid the screen until just before the film started, and they showed movie trailers in French and Italian.
Autumn knew something was up as soon as she saw me. “What’s going on?” she asked, smiling. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a secret,” I teased.
“But you look so nice. Should I go change?”
I would have said sure, but Autumn was slow enough getting ready for school, never mind when she actually had a choice of outfits. Anyway, she always looked pretty. I shook my head. “Don’t worry. You look fine.”
I decided to take back roads, to keep Autumn guessing — a wandering maze of rolling hills and twisted streets that made our stomachs drop, so long as I hit the gas at just the right moment. Together we sang whatever song came on, my pathetic radio turned up so loud the speakers crackled. My heart felt buoyant, lifted by my relief over the election and the excitement of surprising Autumn. It seemed less like driving and more like we were floating.
Autumn kept guessing about what I had planned. Then she pointed out the window and looked all excited.
“No way!” she gasped. “We’re going to a party?”
Her words didn’t make sense to me at first. We weren’t anywhere near the theater. I had to come down from the clouds and look around to figure them out.
Cars were crammed along every available inch of curbside, parked in haste, as if the beer supply might run out at any second. I recognized some by their Ross Academy bumper stickers. Music thumped from a small house halfway down the street, bursting with people. Some kids were hanging out on a lawn, blanketed by fall leaves no one had bothered to rake up.
All I could come up with was, “Are you kidding?” What in the world would ever make Autumn think I was bringing her to a party?
“So . . . this isn’t what we’re doing tonight,” she said, the excitement draining from her face.
I shook my head. Even though I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, I explained what I had planned for us. I tried to sound excited about all the fancy snacks and the velvet curtain, but Autumn didn’t look interested. She kept staring out of the passenger window as we passed by the party house.
Finally she turned to face me. “What if we just walked in?”
“Why would we do that?”
“I don’t know. To freak everyone out? Not in a bad way. We’d be like . . . celebrities or special guests or something.