Authors: Cherry Cheva
“Eh,” Cat said, taking off the nonprescription red glasses she was wearing and setting them down on the table with a click. “That sounds like it might sort of negate the whole ‘easy money’ selling point of this entire thing. I mean, if it’s really that much work—”
“I know, I know,” I said, forcing myself to sound casual. “Just . . . everyone think about it, okay? Honestly, I don’t even know how many clients we’re gonna have yet, but just remember, most of the papers won’t have to be any good, so it’ll probably take less time than you think. And if they do have to be good, well, we charge extra for that.” I looked around at a table full of skeptical faces. “A lot extra,” I added. “Remember, they’re rich private school kids.” I scribbled a note that said,
And their rich private PARTAYS,
and shoved it in front of Cat and Jonny. They read it, and Jonny cracked a smile as Cat looked up at me and grinned.
“Point taken,” she mouthed. She was enjoying her new cheating ring–created social life as much as, or more than, anyone.
There was a lot of murmuring as everyone gathered up their stuff to leave, and I forced myself not to hiss, “Murmur quieter!” at they wandered toward the door. The paranoia that people were going to find out was growing on me as the group grew, and I didn’t know what I was going to do if any information filtered out. Would I deny everything? Bring each new person into the circle? I watched everyone leave as Cat, Jonny, and Bella deliberately lagged behind. As soon as the door swung shut, they pounced.
“Dude, how come you
really
decided to expand?” Jonny asked, leaning back against the door and crossing his arms. He stared at me through his glasses.
“Every business expands eventually.” I shrugged. I’d figured this was coming, and it wasn’t too hard to keep my tone nonchalant. “Those private school kids are totally used to having everything done for them; why not take advantage of it? It’s term paper season—we could make a killing.”
“Well, yeah,” Jonny said, “but it sounds like we might not be able to keep up with demand. If Camden really knows that many people—”
“We’ll keep up,” I said quickly. “Hell, it’s not like we can’t find more people if necessary.”
“My boyfriend would probably do it,” offered Bella.
“Joe’s an idiot,” said Cat.
“What’s your point?” Bella asked flatly.
“That you’ve got bad taste in—”
“Hey,” I said, before they could start one of their patented sisterly squabbles. “You know who’s really good at writing papers really fast?”
Jonny and Cat looked at each other, and then at me.
“Oh no,” Cat said. “You can’t. Not again.”
“But she could totally help,” I said. I couldn’t keep from sounding a little wistful—Sarah’s been known to write a ten page English paper, complete with correct citations, in an hour . . . and get an A+ on it. If she were to get in on the deal, that would mean more money, and faster. And what with being able to charge more for A papers, it would mean more money, exponentially faster.
“You know she won’t do it,” Jonny said, shaking his head. “You’ve already tried like, a zillion times.”
“If at first you don’t succeed,” I said, picking up my backpack and slinging it over my shoulders. Sarah was probably in the tutoring office right now; no time like the present.
“Or at second, or at third,” Cat said, backing up Jonny. “Dude, don’t bother asking her. It’s like Tara Reid’s comeback—it’s just not gonna happen.”
“Never say never,” I said, pushing my way out the door. After all, Sarah had said no before because she thought we were just being shady and doing it for the money—I hadn’t tried telling her the truth yet. Maybe if I did, she would agree to help. We’d been friends since before either of us could even spell the word
friends
. She’d help bail me out, right?
Even if she thought it was wrong? Even if we hadn’t exactly been hanging out as much lately? She’d do it if she knew that my family’s restaurant and our whole future together at Stanford were on the line, right?
I found Sarah in the tutoring office, doing her homework on the couch in the main room.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” she said, looking up at me in surprise. “What’s up?”
There were a few people putting together some sort of biology presentation on a foam board at the big table, so I dragged her into one of the study rooms, came back out and got all her stuff and dragged it all in too, shut the door, pulled down the blinds, and spilled the entire story—the fine, the cheating ring, the blackmail, everything. She listened quietly, her eyes widening and widening, right up until I said, “So. I’m begging you. Do you think you could help us out, just for the next two weeks? Nobody can write a paper faster than you.”
“Hmmm,” she said. Her tone was completely neutral. “Does anyone else know about this blackmail development?” Sarah reached back to tighten her ponytail, then leaned toward me, putting her elbows on the table and propping her chin on her hands.
“No,” I said, nervously starting to twirl a pencil with my right hand while twisting a lock of hair with my left.
“I didn’t tell anyone except you and Camden.”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of his name. “So, along with the cheating, you’re also lying to Jonny and Cat and most of our other friends?” she asked. So much for her previous neutrality. By the end of the sentence, her normally soft voice had developed an unpleasant edge to it.
“Uh . . . I guess,” I said, shifting uncomfortably in my chair. This was not exactly going the way I’d envisioned it. I debated explaining to her that the whole reason I was even telling her the whole story now was that I trusted her more than I trusted Cat and Jonny . . . not that I thought they would tell, necessarily, but . . . Sarah’s voice cut off my train of thought.
“And you expect me to first of all be okay with that, and second of all bail you out even though you’ve barely talked to me the last couple of weeks?” The softness in her voice had now completely disappeared and her entire body was weirdly still. “By the way,” she said pointedly. “Did you get into Stanford?”
Oh my God. How had we not talked about that yet?
The pencil I was twirling in my fingers slipped out of my hand and clattered noisily across the table. “Uh, yeah,” I said, avoiding her eyes. “Did . . . did you?” I knew the answer, but I was sure she’d known my answer too. She was just making a point.
“Yeah,” she said icily.
I suddenly realized that not only had she and I not talked about Stanford yet, we hadn’t talked about
anything
lately, because my head had been totally distracted the last few weeks, and certainly the last two days—I had been panicky over Leonard’s blackmail, fearful about paying the Health Department fine in time, and brimming with a mixture of anxiety, happiness, nervousness, and giddiness over everything that was going on with Camden. Christ, I hadn’t even talked to her about Camden; she hated him, but I could have tried, at least. My God, I was losing it. I was a terrible person.
“Sarah,” I started, not sure of what I was about to say, but certain that I had to turn this around somehow or else I was going to lose my best friend, along with everything else. “I’m sorry. I know we . . . I mean, I wouldn’t have . . .I mean—” I didn’t get any further than that because there was a tap on the window and then, without any pause at all, the door swung open and Leonard poked his head inside. I glared at him.
“What the hell do you want?” I snapped.
“Just wanted to see how you’re doing,” he said innocently. “Hi, Sarah,” he added, giving her a little wave. She ignored him.
“Fine,” I said through clenched teeth.
“And how’s your boyfriend?” he went on. Sarah whipped her head around to look at me.
“He’s not my—he’s fine too,” I said, my hands curled into fists under the table. “Anything else?”
“Nope!” Leonard jauntily adjusted his baseball cap, taking it off, bending the brim, and then putting it on again backward. “Well, good luck with
everything
that’s going on in your life right now, Maya. ’Bye, Sarah.” Leonard gave us another cheerful wave and left, shutting the door just hard enough to make the blinds swing a little. Sarah was still staring at me.
“So he’s your boyfriend now?” she asked quietly.
“Uh . . . yes? No. I don’t know. . . .”
“I can’t believe you.” Sarah shook her head and then started throwing her books and folders and papers into her bag without even closing the notebooks; everything was getting bent and crumpled and she didn’t seem to care. “You’ve been so shady lately, and I want to think it’s because you’re just trying to pay off this fine—I mean, I can see where you
might
feel like you had to start this whole cheating thing. I feel bad for your parents too, but . . . hanging out with
him
?
That
guy? And his friends? The people who used to make fun of us? Who used to beat up your little brother?”
I winced; it was years ago, but it was true. Sarah noticed, and it fueled her fire; her eyes narrowed and her pale skin started growing pink. “I mean, do you not remember—do you realize what this
looks
like? Do you realize what people are gonna say? What they’ve probably
been
saying? About you? And him? Camden, King-of-the-School has already done all the popular chicks, so he’s branching out now.”
“Okay, first of all—” I started.
“How could you let him talk you into this?” She was standing now, pacing back and forth on her side of the table.
“He didn’t talk me into it,” I said. “I’m the one who—”
“You never would’ve done this if it weren’t for him, and now look what you’ve gotten yourself into!”
“I know,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm so that at least one of us would be. “I didn’t think it was gonna get this bad.”
“Well,
I
did!” she exploded, the loudest I’d ever heard her yell, ever. “I
told
you so!”
I scooched back in my chair, crossing my arms, a little angry now. “Okay, I know that, but can we get past that and maybe focus on fixing the—”
“No, Maya, I’m not gonna get past it!” Sarah’s face was now bright red. “You brought all of this on yourself, and worse, you let a total douche bag talk you into making it a huge train wreck instead of just telling the truth in the first place! He’s using you, Maya! He’s been using you this entire time and you were dumb enough to fall for it! And now you’ve been dressing like a slut—”
“I don’t dress like a slut!”
“—just because he told you to—”
“He didn’t tell me to do anything!”
“—and now you’re gonna get yourself expelled and we’re not gonna be able to go to Stanford together and you did it all just because of a
guy,
a
stupid, shallow
,
sketchpad
of a guy, and—”
“You’re just jealous because a guy like him is into me!” I yelled, my voice even louder than hers. “You’re mad because I’ve actually got a life now, and you still don’t, and I’m dating, and you never have!” I saw her face fall, and my stomach instantly knotted up, but I kept going anyway—I couldn’t stop myself. I stood up, kicking my chair aside with a loud scraping noise, and swung my backpack onto my shoulder, glaring daggers at her. “If you don’t wanna help me, fine. But I don’t have to sit here and listen to all of your pathetic, childish, jealous crap!”
I got up and flung open the study room door, turning around for a moment to glare at her again. I could see that she was about to start crying, and as I walked through the doorway, I knew I already was.
I slammed the door anyway.
For getting your mind off a big problem, there’s nothing
like a bigger problem. Sarah and I were now officially not speaking—or at least, neither one of us was willing to see if the other would talk, so that was pretty much the same difference—but it wasn’t like I was going to have the time to talk to her anyway. If Camden and I were going to make an extra five grand in the next two weeks, I was going to have to come out of retirement; skimming off the top of everybody else’s assignments would help, but I was definitely going to have to supplement it with my own work. Of course, that was assuming that Camden had managed to round up enough clients from Greenbrook. I tried to hold in the urge to ask him every two hours how the rain making was going—the result being that I asked him every two hours how the rainmaking was going.
“Dude,” he finally said, tracking me down on Friday morning in between second and third periods and yanking me into the Chem lab. “You can stop texting me. I’m working on it, okay? There’s this chick, Kelly, I used to date over there. I hung out with her yesterday while you were at work and sort of started feeling things out. Just chill, okay? Everything will be fine.” He reached out to give my hair a reassuring stroke, his fingers twining gently through the long strands.
“All right, all right. I was just wondering,” I said, absently reaching out and hitching my fingers through one of the belt loops on his jeans. Great. His connection was the ex-girlfriend. And he was “feeling things out” with her. I remembered Sarah’s words (and even my own, from a few weeks ago) about Camden’s sketchy past, and paranoia rose up in my stomach. With a huge effort, I squashed it back down again and put a neutral expression on my face. “So . . .do you think Kelly will come through?” I asked cheerfully.
“Of course. She knows everyone. I’ll have something by tomorrow at the latest, but if you’re that worried about it, I could distract you ’til then.”
“Yeah? With what?” I asked.
He grinned and leaned toward me until my back was pressed up against an old jazz choir audition poster.
Oh, right. That.
Well, shucks. Why not? A girl could use a good distraction every now and then.
By the end of the day, when I got in his car, Camden had the Greenbrook client list.
“Ta da,” he said, tossing a few sheets of legal paper into my lap as he started up the car and gunned us out of the parking lot.
“Oh my God,” I said, shifting in my seat and glancing through them. There had to be at least forty names, and he had put asterisks by the ones who had major term papers coming up—which was nearly everybody. So over the next two weeks, if they all had an average of one or two papers plus miscellaneous homework . . . yeah, it was doable. There would have to be some premium charges for higher grades, not to mention higher charges in general, because the private school kids could afford it . . . all while keeping costs low on our side because we’d only be paying our employees a little extra . . . yep, doable. Mathematically doable.