The Implosion of Aggie Winchester (10 page)

Chapter Eighteen

MONDAY, APRIL 20 / 6:48 A.M.

Monday morning,
I rolled out of bed and groaned. I dragged myself to the shower and let the hot water run until my skin turned pink and wrinkled.

“Ag, don’t be late!” my dad called as I dried off. I rolled my eyes. Not only would I be late, but there was a good chance I might not go to school altogether. I didn’t want to see Sylvia. I sure as hell didn’t want to see Beth. And I didn’t want to face the prom madness that would be inflaming the halls, since
today was the day
we’d finally vote for the king and queen.

I put on my makeup slowly, taking my time.
You have to go
, I told myself as I applied lipstick the color of dead leaves.
If Sylvia wasn’t the one who hated you and this was someone else, she’d tell you to get your ass to school and act like nothing was the matter. The minute you don’t show up, you show weakness.

God, she wasn’t even my friend anymore and I could still hear her in my head. I wondered if the sound of her voice would fade the longer we were apart. And then, if I didn’t hear Sylvia’s voice, whose would I hear?
I could hear my own
, I thought, as I pulled on a black T-shirt. Except for the fact that I wasn’t sure what that sounded like.

I was throwing the last of my stuff together when I saw my cell phone blinking. I grabbed it and looked at the list of missed texts. There were twenty of them.

Almost all of them were for the prom, telling me who to vote for. RYAN IZ THE BEST MAKE HIM KNG!!! Or MARISSA MENDEZ DSRVS THE CROWN!! Ryan, Marissa, Tiffany, Ty—it was spam from all the usual suspects. I was going through the messages, deleting them one by one, until I saw a different cluster of texts.

ST. DAVIS CHESS CLUB IS BEHIND SYLVIA NESS! CHANGE WE CAN BLEVE IN!

A few messages down was another.

GIVE SYLVIA A CHANCE! SHAKE IT UP FOR THIS YRS PROM!

I sat down on the edge of my bed. Sylvia had significant prom support at school. The groundswell was real. “Well, strap on a keg and call me a Saint Bernard,” I said, borrowing a phrase my Grandma Lou Belle used to use. I stood up and grabbed my bag. There was no way I was going to miss school now.

I was almost out the door when my phone rang. I half expected it to be Sylvia, since this was around the time we’d text or call each other most days. Instead, I looked at the caller ID and froze. It was Neil.

I snapped open the phone. “What?” I hoped I sounded tough, even though I could swear my heart was melting.

“I need to talk to you. I’ve been texting and e-mailing. Why didn’t you get back to me?”

“Get back to you about what?” I asked, my voice cold. “What could you possibly have to say that I want to hear?”

Neil took a breath. “I want to get back together. For real. No more back and forth. I love you, and I want to be with you.”

I almost dropped the phone. My hands were trembling.

“Are you there?” Neil asked after a little while.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I’m here.”

“Come over Friday. We’ll talk about it. Just you and me. I miss you, Ag. I really do.”

Neil was saying all the right words, so why wasn’t I feeling relief?

“Friday when?”

“Late. So we can be alone.”

So we can be alone or so no one will see us?
I wondered. “Um. I don’t know.”

“Aggie, I’m serious. Things will be different after this. You’ll see. I love you so much. Please. Come over. I need to see you.” His voice was velvety and earnest. I closed my eyes and could already feel his arms around me. After getting dumped by Sylvia, the thought of being close to Neil sounded like heaven. If he was telling the truth, that is.

“If you’re fucking with me—”

“I’m not. I swear. Just come over on Friday. I’ll see you at midnight. Okay?”

I exhaled. “Okay. Fine.”

“I love you, Ag.”

I snapped the phone shut before I let myself say anything back.

When I stepped through the front doors of school, the energy in the hallways was palpable. I headed to my locker staring at the signs that had gone up, sometime over the weekend, in support of Sylvia. They were everywhere.

DEBATE TEAM AGREES THERE’S NOTHING TO SAY OTHER THAN VOTE FOR SYLVIA!

OUTCASTS UNITE! VOTE FOR SYLVIA NESS!

WHO SAYS QUEENS DON’T WEAR BLACK? CAST YOUR BALLOT FOR SYLVIA!

Not one of them was in Sylvia’s handwriting, which told me she’d probably never started campaigning for queen. The support had just simmered on its own from people who thought it was time to crown someone who wasn’t skinny and pretty and popular.

Jess found me in the hallway and just about ran me over. “Okay, so you won’t believe this. You just won’t.”

“What?”

“Marissa Mendez has a black eye.”

I arched a brow. “What from?”

“From Tiffany Holland.”

“What? How do you know this?”

Jess smiled. “Well, first of all, I saw her. And oh man, is her eye six shades of disgusting. Then some people near my locker were saying it happened because Tiffany finally found out Marissa was screwing her boyfriend. I guess they had it out over the weekend at Jefferson Talbot’s.”

I slowed my pace. Jefferson’s. He’d had a party, and I hadn’t been there. It made sense, I supposed. Now that Sylvia and I weren’t friends, I wouldn’t have an in to his parties. And even though I knew neither Sylvia nor I were really his friends, the reality of it smarted.

“Well, let the divas in the school duke it out,” I said, reaching my locker. “What do we care, right?”

“That’s just it,” Jess said. “The divas are duking it out. It looks terrible. It’s sad and desperate, and who wants to vote for that? If there wasn’t already enough support for Sylvia, there will be now.” She paused for a second. “What’s your deal? I thought you’d be happy. Sylvia could actually win this.”

“Yeah, well, Sylvia sort of hates me right now,” I said. “It’s hard to be happy for someone who tells you to stay away from her.”

Jess’s face fell. “Are you serious? When did this happen?”

I shrugged and grabbed a few books. “She told me last week that it wasn’t the best time for her to be hanging with the principal’s kid.”

Jess’s blue eyes widened. “What? Why?”

“I have no idea. She also told me she didn’t appreciate how I’d talked about R—” I stopped short before I said his name out loud. Sylvia might hate me, but there was no way I was going to blab who her baby daddy was.

Jess leaned in. “Talked about who?”

“No one. Never mind.”

Jess eyed me. “You sure about that?”

“Yes. Leave it alone.”

“Okay,” Jess said. “Consider it left.”

“See you in fencing later, okay?”

Jess nodded. “Sure. See you.”

Chapter Nineteen

MONDAY, APRIL 20 / 8:20 A.M.

The pressure cooker
of my emotions all but exploded when Mr. Otts handed out the prom ballots.

“Okay, same drill,” he said, walking between seats. “Out of the six people on the prom court, pick one male and one female for king and queen. If you write down two people of the same sex, or if you leave one of the lines blank, your vote will be disqualified.”

He dropped the prom ballot onto my desk. It was orange. It was rectangular. With two blank lines on it. The same kind of paper Sylvia had been pulling from her car last Friday.

Fitz kicked my shoe. “Are you okay?” he whispered.

I shook my head. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t speak. What the hell was going on? How had Sylvia managed to get her hands on an entire box of blank prom ballots? And more importantly—why?

“Come on, Winchester,” Mr. Otts said. “Let’s do this. I need your vote.”

I scratched two
‘X
’s onto the paper and dropped it into the bag. Mr. Otts moved on, weaving in and out of seats, collecting strips of orange paper.

I put my head in my hands and tried to breathe normally. There wasn’t a reason on earth I could think of for Sylvia to have a box of orange prom ballots that didn’t include cheating. And if that were the case—if Sylvia was somehow screwing with the election—I couldn’t just let it slide. Not while everyone else was campaigning and trying to win the election on the up and up. I hated being such a Girl Scout about the whole thing, but what Sylvia was doing wasn’t cool—and it wasn’t right.

I gathered my thoughts and sorted out my options. I couldn’t tell my mom, that was for sure; otherwise, everything Tiffany Holland had ever said about me being a principal’s bitch would be true. But I could still tell
someone
about seeing Sylvia with all the blank ballots, right? Or I figured I could also confront Sylvia about it directly,
or
I could tell myself it was just a stupid prom and I should let it slide.

Just then, another option presented itself when Jefferson Talbot showed up at our door. He was the student council representative who was supposed to round up all the ballots for counting. He seemed like the right person to mention this to. Not a teacher, but not just a random student, either. Of course, I had no clue what I’d say to him, but I still had a couple seconds to figure that out.

After Jefferson left, I dashed over to where Mr. Otts was sitting. “Can I have the bathroom pass, please?”

“Sure,” he said, barely looking up. I grabbed the laminated square and trotted out of the room. I caught a glimpse of Jefferson turning the corner at the end of the hallway and broke into a jog to catch up with him. I was almost to the end of the hall when, of all people, Sylvia came from out of nowhere and barreled into me.

“Jesus,” she cried as our torsos crashed. I stumbled, and Sylvia fell.

“Oh my God,” I said, thinking of her baby. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replied, getting to her feet. As she did, her oversized army surplus bag, stuffed to the core, spilled its contents. A mess of smaller bags—all of them glittery with faux fur—and orange ballots scattered onto the floor.

“What the hell,” she said, sweeping up the ballots and bags. “Watch where you’re going.”

My chest hurt from where we’d smacked together. I watched her scrambling for a second before my brain clicked into gear.

“What are you doing with those?” I asked.

“None of your damn business,” she replied, still not looking at me. Once she had collected all the orange paper and the bags, she stood up and started walking away.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing her arm, “where are you going?”

She shook me off. “Don’t touch me.” She finally met my eyes. Her expression was a mix of fear and anger; her whole body was trembling.

“Sylvia, what’s going on?” I lowered my voice. “What are you
doing
?”

“Nothing,” she said. Her chest was heaving. “You never saw me here, got it? If I hear you ever tell anyone about this, I will come after you and beat you until you’re paralyzed. Understand?”

A revelatory white light exploded in my head. I suddenly knew why Sylvia didn’t want to be friends with me. She was stuffing the prom’s ballot boxes so she could win the election, and she was worried that, if I found out, I’d tell my mom on her.

“Whatever you’re doing,” I said, “just stop it now. It won’t work.”

“What won’t work, Ag? You think you know something?” She started walking away again.

“Sylvia—”

She cut me off by flipping me the bird, then turned the corner and disappeared.

Without wasting another second, I ran the other way and tried to catch Jefferson. Sylvia might threaten to beat me senseless, but I couldn’t let her go rigging the election. I wove through hallways and peeked into classrooms until, finally, I spotted Jefferson in Mrs. Wagner’s office, handing off several bags of ballots.

“Hey!” I cried. “Wait!” I didn’t make it in time. Jefferson stepped out of the office and closed the door.

“Can I do something for you?” he asked.

“The ballots,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “You can’t let Mrs. Wagner count them.”

Jefferson studied me. “Excuse me?”

“They’re wrong. I think they’ve been tampered with.”

He gave me a small smile. “You think our electoral system has been compromised? I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”

“Cut the shit,” I said. “I’m serious. We need to go look at the ballots. I think Sylvia Ness swapped them out just now.”

Jefferson’s smile vanished. “You don’t say.”

“I do say. I just saw her in the hallway with a mess of orange paper. I don’t know, but I had to tell someone. I mean, I saw her with a box of blank ballots last week, except at the time I had no idea they—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Jefferson said, putting an arm around me. “Easy there, Tex. It’s no big deal. I’ll go in and talk to Mrs. Wagner, if you want.”

I squirmed out from underneath his arm. “You will?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll go in and make sure the ballots are legit. You head back to class. If you don’t hear from me, assume everything is on the up and up.”

“And if I do hear from you?”

“Either way, my guess is that you won’t hear dick. If I go into that office and it turns out things aren’t on the up and up, then this school is going to get whipped into a conspiratorial frenzy faster than you can say coronation.”

I nodded. It all sounded right. But then Jefferson just stood there with his hands in his pockets—rocking on his heels like everything was so chill—and I suddenly had the feeling that Jefferson was really good at making people believe things were under control even when they weren’t.

“You’ll tell Mrs. Wagner,” I said. “For sure?”

Jefferson smiled. It was meant to be reassuring, but I shivered instead. “I got this. I promise.”

I headed back to class only after I’d watched Mrs. Wagner’s office door close behind him.

Second period, Ms. Rhone had us waiting around for the election announcement, but it never came. “I guess we’ll fence until they interrupt us,” she’d finally decided after fifteen minutes had passed and still no Mrs. Wagner.

“Something’s going on,” I told Jess as we paired off. I looked around to see if Sylvia had come to class, but once again, she was gone.

“What do you mean?” Jess asked.

I almost didn’t reply, but the words were pressing against my throat. I needed to talk to someone—someone who would
listen
—about all this.

“You promise not to tell anyone what I’m about to say?” I asked.

Jess held up her deformed hand. “Scout’s honor,” she said. Her missing fingers meant that she didn’t make much of a scouting sign at all.

For the first time all day, I laughed. Jess laughed too, and something like relief flooded through me. Maybe I wasn’t as alone as I thought I was.

“Okay, here’s the scoop,” I said, and told her, in a rush of words, about my fight with Sylvia on Thursday and how I’d seen the orange ballot in her driveway, as well as what had happened in the hallway that morning.

“Shut up,” she said. “Are you serious?”

I nodded. “I think Sylvia may have tried to rig the election.”

“Oh man,” Jess said. “What do we do?”

We. As if she was in this thing with me. I appreciated the solidarity.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess let’s wait and see how the election turns out. If she’s not the queen, I guess her plan will have failed and we won’t need to worry about it. Which would be nice because, I mean, maybe I’m making too much out of this. It’s just the stupid prom, right?”

Jess frowned. “I don’t know. I mean, fraud is fraud. I don’t care if it’s the prom or the stock market. Rigging something so that it comes out in your favor while everyone else gets screwed is lame.”

I exhaled. “I know. That’s how I feel too.”

“All right, then,” Jess said. “So let’s see how the election turns out and go from there.”

“Fair enough,” I agreed. “Commence Operation Sit on Our Asses and Wait.”

The morning stretched into the afternoon, and still there was no announcement. The students were buzzing, wondering what was going on. The teachers were conducting business as usual—or at least trying to.

In English class, we got one of our tests back on
Catch-22
. We’d had to answer a bunch of true/false questions about the first half of the book, then we had to write a short essay about whether or not we thought this was a novel about war and the military, or if it was about something else. I’d scratched out twelve sentences about how I thought that Heller was writing about life in general, not the war. I’d gotten the test back with a big red 98 at the top and a GOOD JOB! written in all caps from Mrs. Miller.

I stared at the grade until the letters blurred. A 98 was an A. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten an A. Usually I was happy with B minuses, and I certainly didn’t think a C was anything to get upset about. But an A? This was rare. Sylvia certainly wouldn’t have approved of it, but I guess I didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

When the bell rang and I got up to leave, Mrs. Miller called out to me. “Aggie,” she said, “I have a question for you. Got a sec?” Her silver jewelry clanked softly when she spoke.

I shrugged. “Sure.”

When the classroom had emptied, Mrs. Miller sat at a desk in the front row and motioned for me to do the same. “Nice job on the test,” she said, straightening her blackframed glasses.

“Thanks,” I said, still holding the test in my hand. “I’m digging the book.”

Mrs. Miller nodded. “I have to say, your style of writing was really refreshing. In my world, I usually get two kinds of essays: those from the kids who use this as prep for college essays and say all the right things, and those from the kids who haven’t read the book at all. Yours wasn’t either. It was honest. And it was clear you’d done the reading. It was a pleasure, really.”

I was beginning to get uncomfortable. Teachers never talked to me like this. “Um, thanks,” I said.

Mrs. Miller smoothed back her raven hair. “I wasn’t sure if you’d thought much about college,” she said, “but if you’ll let me, I’d like to encourage you to pick someplace with a good English and literature department.”

Oh God
, I thought.
Here we go again with the college talk
. I wondered if she’d been set up by my mom for this.

“You don’t participate often in class, but when you do, your insights are good. This paper, and the promise of a few other things I’ve seen from you, make me think you have a gift for literary criticism. If you’re interested, there are good schools that can really develop that.”

The way she talked, it didn’t seem like Mrs. Miller was yanking my chain. “Is literary criticism when you read a book and then tell people what you think about it?” I asked.

Mrs. Miller nodded. “Sort of. Suffice it to say, you’re opinionated. And insightful. When it comes to books and literary criticism, those are two really good things to be.”

The warning bell for the start of the next class rang. “I don’t teach another class until sixth hour,” Mrs. Miller said. “What’s next on your schedule?”

“Chemistry,” I replied.

“Can you be late? If I give you a pass?”

“Okay.” I nodded. I’d never say it out loud, but sitting in the empty classroom with Mrs. Miller, the afternoon sunlight slanting through the windows, wasn’t half bad.

Underneath the desk, Mrs. Miller crossed her legs. “I’m sure your mom must tell you this a lot, but you have potential, Aggie. I was curious if you’d thought about the future at all.”

“How do you mean?” I asked, watching her silver bracelet glint. “Like whether or not I want kids, or what I want to be when I grow up?”

Mrs. Miller smiled. “More the latter. Is there anything you want to study? Anything you want to be?”

Normally this would be the part where I would stand up and tell off the teacher—or my mom—and ask her to stop meddling in my life. But I didn’t have any urge to do that just now. Without Sylvia telling me where to go and what to do, maybe it was time I started figuring things out for myself.

“I think I like bass fishing,” I replied slowly. “I’m pretty good at it.”

Mrs. Miller’s eyebrows shot up. “Bass fishing. Really?”

I nodded. “My dad asked me to join this local fishing group, the Bass Masters, because he thought it might help me straighten out, or whatever. And, I don’t know, I hated it at first, but now I really love it.”

Mrs. Miller nodded thoughtfully. “You know, there are some schools that teach kids how to look at the environment and make sure certain types of fish—bass among them—are harvested responsibly. Not overfished, in other words. There are other freshwater fish that are on the brink of extinction, like the sturgeon, and some schools help students look at how to save them.”

I found my heart was pounding rapidly. “Really?”

Mrs. Miller nodded. “Absolutely.”

Suspicion reared its head again. “Did my mom put you up to this?”