Ready or Not

7

“They were just all so…dirty.” That is what Catherine has to say about the protesters. The ones she saw on the news. The same ones who were outside the Four Seasons when Dauntra got arrested. The ones Dauntra was arrested with. “I mean, like they hadn’t bathed in weeks.”

“They were having a die-in,” I pointed out. “Pretending to be dead. So they were lying on the street. That’s why they looked dirty.”

“It wasn’t just street dirt,” Catherine said firmly, as she searched through the apples at the fruit and salad bar in the caf for one that wasn’t bruised into pulp. “They just looked…homeless. I mean, couldn’t they have worn nicer clothes?”

“They aren’t going to wear their Sunday best to lie in the street, Cath,” I said.

“Yeah, but I’m just saying. If they want people to be more sympathetic to their cause, you’d think they’d at least take out some of their piercings, or whatever. I mean, how are we supposed to relate to people like that? It’s bad enough they were totally dissing the president. Did they have to look so…grungy?”

“They weren’t dissing the president,” I said. “They were protesting his policies—”

Before I had time to go on, however, Kris Parks came bustling up to us, and was all, “What are you guys doing here? You said you’d help set up the gym!”

I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. It was Catherine who elbowed me and went, “For the town hall meeting tomorrow. Remember?”

“Oh, right,” I said, trying not to sound as bummed as I felt. Because the last thing I wanted to do was spend my lunch hour setting up folding chairs with Kris Parks and her hideous Right Wayers.

“Come ON,” Kris said, grabbing my arm. “I told everyone you’d show.”

Everyone turned out to be…well, everyone. Not just the Right Wayers and other people from Adams Prep, either, including my German teacher, Frau Rider, who kept wandering around, shouting, “Don’t spill that paint on the gym floor!”

No, Kris had also invited members of the press. To watch me, the girl who saved the president, set up folding chairs.

Not that many had actually shown up. Fortunately, most papers prefer to run stories that include real news, not stuff about some prep school’s efforts to get ready for a presidential visitation. Or maybe they’d caught on that the whole thing had just been a ploy on Kris’s part to get herself into the papers, and therefore add another clipping to her college admissions packets.

But a few of the free press papers had shown up, and their photographers busily snapped away as I was painting a huge sign that said, WELCOME TO ADAMS PREP, MR. PRESIDENT, bored out of my skull.

At least until Debra Mullins, the dance team member about whom Kris had been so mean the week before, wandered by, and asked, in her bright, chipper voice, “What are you guys doing?”

Kris, ever conscious of the cameras on her, went, “Setting up for the president’s visit here on Tuesday night.”

“The president is coming here?” Debra looked impressed. “To Adams Prep?”

“Yes,” Kris replied. “Maybe if you spent less time under the bleachers with your boyfriend, and more time paying attention in class, you might have realized this.”

Debra blinked a few times at this. To tell you the truth, so did I.

“Was that really necessary?” I asked Kris, after Debra had wandered confusedly away.

Kris looked at me blankly. She had no idea what I was talking about. “Was what really necessary?” she asked.

“That,” I said, jabbing the end of my paint brush in Debra’s direction. “What you said to her.”

Kris smirked. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but he’s her boyfriend. If she wants to hang out with him under the bleachers, what business of that is yours?”

“I’d hardly call what Deb and Jeff do together hanging out, Sam. Hooking up is more like it.”

It was only when I saw Kris’s eyes narrow that I realized what was going on. And that’s that all of the reporters who’d been milling around in a bored sort of way, cursing their editors for giving them such a sucky assignment, suddenly perked up and started paying attention to what we were saying. This was good, you could practically hear them thinking. The Girl Who Saved the President Picking a Fight With the Head of Right Way? Major human interest.

“And, by the way, Sam,” Kris said, forcing a smile. Because she obviously couldn’t say what she wanted to say. Which was Get bent, Sam. “I didn’t know you and Deb were such good friends.”

“We’re not friends,” I snapped.

Then felt guilty. Because that had made it sound as if I wouldn’t be friends with a girl like Deb on account of her being a “slut,” when the reality was, I wouldn’t be friends with a girl like Deb because she’s on the dance team, and I can’t stand people with school spirit. I mean, the dance team performs at halftime during the football games and stuff.

“What I mean is—”

But I never got to say what I meant, because at that moment, my cell phone rang.

David. It had to be David.

And I still wasn’t ready to talk to David.

Everyone was looking at me. Kris. Catherine. Frau “Don’t Spill Paint on the Gym Floor” Rider. The reporters.

My cell phone rang again. “Harajuku Girls.” That’s the ring I’d chosen, from the Gwen Stefani song.

“Well,” Kris said, “aren’t you going to answer it?”

Frustrated, I pulled the phone from my jeans pocket. I was going to turn off the ringer, but before I could, Kris got a glimpse of the caller ID screen as it flashed David’s name.

“Oooooh,” she said, in a loud voice. “It’s the first son!”

Now every television camera in the place was on, and the lens pointed straight at me.

I couldn’t ignore David’s call. Not this time.

Feeling sick to my stomach, I answered. “Hello?”

“Sam?” Again, David managed to convey a thousand different emotions in a single word—relief that I’d finally answered, happiness at hearing my voice, confusion and frustration over my having given him the cold shoulder for the past two days…maybe even a little anger about it, too. “There you are. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you since Saturday night.”

“Yeah,” I said, conscious of the cameras on me. “I know. Sorry, things have been crazy. How are you?”

“You think they’ve been crazy for you?” David asked, laughing. “Have you turned on a TV lately? Did you see what happened Saturday night? Too bad you didn’t go. You’d have loved it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Probably. Actually, David, now is not a very good time to talk.”

“Well, when would be a good time to talk, Sam?” David asked. He didn’t sound like he was laughing anymore. “You’ve barely spoken to me since Thursday. I mean, do you have any openings for me in your busy schedule?”

“Hey,” I said. “YOU’RE the one who went out with your parents on Saturday.” Which, even as I said it, I realized wasn’t fair. I mean, he had invited me to come along.

And it isn’t as if his parents are just…well, like normal parents.

“What’s wrong, Sam?” David, sounding confused, wanted to know. “And don’t tell me nothing. I know something’s up. Are you mad at me, or something?”

Suddenly I became aware of how quiet it had grown in the gym. Which was weird because there were a lot of people in it, all busy doing fairly loud things, like opening folding chairs and arranging them in long rows.

But none of that was going on right now. Instead, everyone in the gym was simply standing where they were, looking at me. Even Catherine had her paint brush poised in midair (“Don’t spill paint on the gym floor!” Frau Rider hissed) as she stared at me. The only sound you could hear was the whir of the television cameras, as they filmed me.

“Because it seems like,” David’s voice went on in my ear, starting to sound less confused, and more angry, “that ever since I asked you about Thanksgiving, you’ve been mad at me. And I want to know why. I mean, what did I do?”

“Nothing,” I said, staring daggers at Kris Parks, who had a little cat-who-swallowed-the-canary grin on her face. All because I’d been caught on film, arguing with my boyfriend. “I have to go now. I’ll explain why later.”

“You mean you’ll explain why you have to go now later?” David wanted to know. “Or why you’re so mad at me?”

“I’m not,” I said. “Really. I’ll explain later.”

“Really? Or will you be dodging my calls again later?”

“Really,” I said. Then added, desperately hoping he’d understand something I didn’t even understand myself, “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” he said. Only in a sort of impatient way. Then he hung up.

I hung up, too. Then put my phone away. Then, cheeks blazing, and eyes on my feet, went back to the sign I’d been painting.

“Everything all right?” Catherine asked gently, handing me the paint brush I’d abandoned.

“Fine,” I said, trying to put some artistic flair into the letters I was filling in—the ENT in PRESIDENT.

“That’s good to know,” Kris Parks said, as she bent over her letters—SID. “I’d hate for there to be trouble in paradise.”

Which was when, for reasons I will never understand, I kicked the paint can, so it went rolling all over the banner reading WELCOME TO ADAMS PREP, MR. PRESIDENT. All over the shoes of the people working on the sign. And all over the gym floor.

“Aaiiiii!” screamed Frau Rider, when she saw this.

“Sam!” cried Catherine, leaping out of the way.

“You bitch!” shouted Kris Parks, when she saw what I’d done to her Kenneth Coles.

Which was when I dropped my paint brush in the middle of the free throw line and walked away.