The Implosion of Aggie Winchester (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

TUESDAY, APRIL 28 / 6:49 A.M.

“Aggie, wake up.”

I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. My mom was standing in my doorway. She was showered and dressed and looked ready for work—except now she had no job to go to. Sunlight streamed in through my windows and flashed off the small metal bits on the toes of her shoes—the ones she’d bought during a shopping splurge in Chicago last year.

“What time is it?” I asked. I almost asked what day it was until I remembered: Tuesday.

“Time for you to get up. Your father and I need to speak with you in the kitchen.”

I was still in trouble. The thought made me fully awake. “Where were you guys last night?” I asked my mom’s retreating back.

“The lawyer’s office,” she said, her voice fading down the hallway.

Why? Are you going to sue the school?
I wanted to ask, but she was already gone.

I climbed out of bed and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, noticing my cell was still on my bedside table. I grabbed it and tucked it into my pocket, hoping my mom wouldn’t find out I’d stolen it back. Then I headed to the bathroom to splash some water on my face and brush my teeth. After a few minutes of quick prep, I went downstairs to the kitchen. My dad was already there, sitting at the table with a steaming mug of coffee in front of him. He was wearing one of his best suits, but it looked like he hadn’t shaved. His eyes were still bloodshot.

“Aggie,” my dad said, his lips hardly moving, “sit.” My mom was over near the sink, making tea. I paused, wondering if she was going to sit too, or if she was just going to stand as far away from me as she could. I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

I sat and looked at my dad. The kitchen table was where I’d first heard that my mom had breast cancer.

“Your mom tells me you went to the superintendent’s office yesterday,” my dad started. “She also said you addressed the superintendent directly, after she’d asked you to leave, and that you told him about how you believe the ballot boxes had been stuffed.”

I looked up. “The ballot boxes
were
stuffed,” I said. I looked over at my mom, who was still standing next to the sink, staring at her tea. “I saw Sylvia on two separate occa—”

My dad held up a hand. “Aggie, please. Just stop.” I snapped my mouth closed. The quiet, tired way my dad had spoken to me was worse than if he’d stood up and yelled at me.

“We were at our lawyer’s office until very late last night, trying to figure out where to go from here,” my dad continued. “There are some legal issues we still have to work out with the school board, and we’re preparing ourselves against potential lawsuits.”

Lawsuits? I suddenly felt shaky.

“Our lawyer,” my dad continued, “asked us to speak with you candidly about the prom situation in hopes that we could diminish your irrational behavior and reduce the potential that your actions would hurt us.”

Diminish my irrational behavior? Reduce the potential? My dad never spoke this way. Now
he
sounded like a lawyer. What were they talking about?

My mom finally joined us at the table. Her mouth was set when she looked at me, but something in her eyes had softened. “What your dad is saying,” she said, “is that you need to know the role I played in the prom situation. You need to know how things happened. Our hope is that if you know the truth, you’ll stop . . .”

“. . .
meddling
,” my dad finished for her.

I felt my face flush. Meddling. Wasn’t that the word they used on
Scooby-Doo
? Meddling. I was suddenly in the same league as a bumbling cartoon dog.

My mom cleared her throat. “What you need to know,” my mom said, sitting up a bit, “is that Mrs. Wagner brought the prom ballots to me right away after she counted them. She came into my office and told me Sylvia had enough votes to be queen. And when she did that, I acknowledged her information.”

I waited for more, my hands in a knot in my lap.

“So then what happened?” I asked.

“Mrs. Wagner asked what she should do. And I gave her my response. Which was to take care of it.”

My stomach lurched so hard I thought I might be sick again. “Take care of it? What does that mean?”

My dad looked at my face and let go of his coffee mug. “Your mom never told Mrs. Wagner to burn those ballots, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “Mrs. Wagner did that of her own accord.”

“But she never told her
not
to burn them,” I said. “I mean, take care of it? What was Mrs. Wagner supposed to think?”

My mom rubbed her forehead with her left hand. “We’re not telling you this so we can be judged by you, Margaret. We’re telling you this so you know there’s nothing left to do. So you know what
happened
. My mistake was that I wasn’t clear enough with Mrs. Wagner when she brought the ballots to me. I had no problem with Sylvia being queen, quite honestly, but I never said it directly. When I heard that Amy had made Marissa the queen, I figured we’d ensure nothing like this happened again by creating guidelines for next year’s vote. But, as you know, things spiraled out of control quickly. Too quickly for me to process. I faltered, and now I’m out of a job.

“Our lawyers thought that your understanding of this would allow you to let the topic go and stop talking about it. Even if the ballot boxes were stuffed, Mrs. Wagner burned them, so we can never prove it. What the ballots had on them is a moot point. We’re beyond that now. Do you understand?”

I shook my head. I definitely did not understand. “What the ballots had on them is the
whole
point!” I said. “Sylvia is going to get crowned, but she’s not the real queen. So how can what the ballots said be irrelevant?”

“Because I’ve resigned,” my mom said. “That’s why. It’s over for this family. Over. Period. I need to know you understand that.”

Rage and fury blinded me.
It’s not over!
I wanted to scream. And then suddenly I realized Rod Barris had been right. My mom
had
been involved in a prom cover-up. So what if my mom hadn’t told Mrs. Wagner to
burn
the ballots; she hadn’t told Mrs. Wagner not to, either. What was worse—pressing the button or just pretending the button didn’t exist?

I thought about my mom’s anger toward me when I screwed up—from sneaking out to talking to Rod Barris. I wanted to kick the table over. My mom had been pissed at me like I had spread lies and was the one who’d been wrong, but
she
was the one who was wrong—she had been at fault the whole time! She was the leader of the school, and when the school brought a major problem to her, she hadn’t acted. She’d frozen. And now that she’d resigned, she wanted to wash her hands of it like it was over. At least when I got in trouble, I stepped up to the counter for a plate of fuckup pie.

I stood up. It might be over for her, but it wasn’t over for me.

“Margaret, sit down,” my mom said. But I didn’t move. My mom, who hated messes, had made the biggest mess ever. It was all
her
. Her fault. Her school. Her disaster.

“You might be washing your hands of this,” I said, my voice thick with fury, “but I’m not. I don’t care what your stupid lawyers say. Everything is as wrong as it ever was.” I glared at my mom. “
More
wrong, in fact.”

My mom’s face paled, and she looked like she’d just been slapped. It was like all her anger from before had seeped out and had been transferred over to me.

I walked out of the kitchen to where my backpack was lying in the hallway.

“Aggie!” my dad said. I heard the scrape as he pushed his chair back from the table. “We’re not done here.”

Oh yes, we are,
I thought. I grabbed my bag and stepped outside. I was headed to school. Enough was enough. I slammed the door behind me and started walking.

A mile away from my house I called Jess on my cell. “I’m at the corner of Pixley and Grant,” I said. “Can you pick me up and take me to school?”

“What are you doing there?” Jess asked.

“It’s a long story. Just come pick me up, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Hold tight, I’ll be there in a few.”

While I waited, I scrolled through a pile of e-mails and texts on my phone. One was from Tiffany Holland.
U see this?
was the subject. It was a link, and when I clicked on it, it took me to a photo album Sylvia had posted to Flickr. The pictures were of Sylvia in New York, smiling on the set of the
Martin Pollock Show.
In all of them, her pregnant belly—covered by a tight black T-shirt with an anarchy symbol on it—was round enough to make me wonder if she’d started wearing maternity pants. I’d already closed my phone by the time I realized I didn’t even know if she was having a boy or a girl.

Ten minutes later, I was safely buckled into Jess’s car and we were headed toward school. As she drove, I explained to her what my mom had said about telling Mrs. Wagner to take care of the ballots, and how she was washing her hands of the whole situation now that she’d resigned.

“Jesus,” said Jess. “That’s completely crazy. Not to mention irresponsible.”

“I know,” I said, looking out the window. I tilted my head and pressed my forehead against the cool glass. “I can’t believe she was pissed at me this whole time, when she was the one who had screwed everything up.”

Jess didn’t say anything until we got to the school parking lot. “So now what?” she asked, pulling into a space and cutting off her engine. I lifted my head and watched the kids streaming into the school.

That’s a great question
, I thought. I looked at Jess, whose eyes were large with worry.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” I said, “so I guess the only thing to do is go in and find out.”

Jess fiddled with the sleeves of her shirt. “Yeah, okay,” she said, but didn’t move.

“What?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

“Uh, Ag, I gotta tell you something.” There was a note in her voice that didn’t sound right.

“What is it?”

“So I guess Sylvia got back from the
Martin Pollock Show
last night
,
and someone showed her that article in the
Letter
where ‘a source close to Gail Winchester’ says she’s carrying Ryan’s baby. She heard about how everyone was making fun of Ryan yesterday for it, and I hear she’s on the warpath. She’s figured the source in the story is you, and she wants revenge. I’m just saying—watch out.”

I wanted to be defensive, but I knew I’d broken my promise to Sylvia. It wasn’t right for me to have told Rod Barris anything. Sylvia had been awful, yes, but I’d officially iced the friendship by betraying her secret.

Jess pulled out her cell phone. “Call me if you need me. I’ll be there in a second, and I might look small, but I can kick some ass.”

I nodded, but I knew that Jess, as tough as she was, wouldn’t really be able to help me when things got messy. This was something I’d have to face alone.

Chapter Thirty-five

TUESDAY, APRIL 28 / 8:12 A.M.

I went to study hall
and said hello to Fitz, but after only a few minutes at my desk, I was called down to Mrs. Mayteg’s office. She was a counselor who smelled like cinnamon sticks, and she wanted to know how I was “holding up.”

“I heard you’ve had some difficulty recently,” Mrs. Mayteg said from her office chair, which was positioned underneath a poster that said HEAR THE POPS—THE POWER OF POSITIVE STUDENTS.

“What do you mean?”

“Some communication with local reporters, a few run-ins with Mrs. Wagner’s cheerleaders.”

Mrs. Mayteg didn’t know the half of it.

“Yeah. Well.”

“Aggie, this situation must be very hard on you. Not to mention on your family. Your mom’s job . . .”

Mrs. Mayteg trailed off, and I think she was waiting for me to complete the sentence with something like, “I know, it’s horrible,” or “Can you believe this is happening?” Mrs. Mayteg looked like she felt sorry for me, pitied me, even, but I didn’t feel like I needed her droopy emotions hanging over me.

For the first time in a long time, I actually felt strong. Whether it was because I was teetering on the edge of a dangerous run-in with Sylvia and Beth, or because I’d learned the truth about my mom, or because I realized my sins weren’t worse than anyone else’s, or because Fitz Peterson and I had figured out how to be friends with potential, I didn’t know. But something was different, and I didn’t need the shelter of the counselor’s office to protect me from whatever storm was waiting for me in the halls.

“I’m okay,” I said, sitting up straighter. Mrs. Mayteg looked like she didn’t believe me, but after I spent a few more moments convincing her that my schoolwork hadn’t suffered from the prom affair, she finally let me go. But not without giving me a sticky note and writing her home phone number on it.

“Just in case, Aggie,” she said, and I nodded. I folded the sticky note and put it in my pocket, inhaling Mrs. Mayteg’s cinnamon smell as I left her office.

The halls were all but empty and the bell was about to ring as I headed toward second period. Just as I rounded the last corner on my way to class, Sylvia and Beth ambushed me. And by ambushed, I mean walked right up to me and shoved me into the lockers.

“Ow,” I said when the small of my back collided with the hard metal of a combination lock.

“You little bitch,” said Beth, getting right up in my face. Her breath smelled like cigarettes and Cap’n Crunch. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

I didn’t answer. I’d expected this moment, but now that it was here, I had no idea what to say.

I looked over to Sylvia. Her jaw was set and her face was contorted with anger. She glared at me with such hate, I thought I could feel the hallway heat up.

“You know what the latest news is?” Beth asked, not waiting for me to answer. “That Sylvia is carrying Ryan Rollings’s baby. Now, who do you think started that little rumor?”

I shrugged. “Your dad, maybe? After you used his janitor’s keys to steal ballots?” I looked at Sylvia. “Her dad’s the janitor, in case you didn’t hear. She’s from Walker, not New York.”

The next thing I knew, the back of my head hit the lockers and a hot light burst in front of my eyeballs. Without really knowing I was doing it, I fell to my knees.

I’d been punched.

Everything was blurry, and I tried to open my left eye but couldn’t. I reached up and felt something sticky. Blood.

Just as I was getting to my feet, Beth’s black boot collided with my gut. I was back on my knees in an instant, my eyes bugging out as I struggled for air.

“You want to say anything else about my dad?” Beth asked. “Because I swear, if you tell anyone that I took his keys, I’ll kill you.” I looked over at Sylvia, who was now standing a good foot away. She actually half smiled as I struggled to my feet. Just when I was standing, Beth came at me again.

“I’m sick of you talking about things you think you know. You’re going to shut the fuck up if I have to bash your mouth myself.” Beth’s fist powered toward my lip. I lifted my hand in time to avoid most of the blow, but she still made contact.

I was back on my knees in a second. I flinched, expecting another blow, but just then I heard footsteps and shouting. Someone’s hands lifted me from underneath my arms and hauled me to my feet.

“You okay?” a voice asked. I squinted to try and make out who it was. It was definitely a teacher, but I couldn’t tell who. I tried to nod, but pain shot through my head and neck.

“All of you to the office
now
,” another voice said.

Struggling to see and breathe, I let the teachers lead me down the hall.

Vice Principal Monroe looked from Sylvia to Beth to me. His pale eyebrows were practically safety-pinned together, and his long, skinny fingers kept drumming out an anxious beat on his desk.

I held the ice pack that the nurse had given me over my left eye and tried to focus on Mr. Monroe with my one good eye. It wasn’t easy.

“Who’s going to tell me what happened?” Mr. Monroe asked, still drumming his fingers.

The whole room stayed quiet except for his tapping.

“All right, look,” Mr. Monroe said, pushing his rolling chair away from his desk. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Sylvia, I suggest you start talking. We can take away your crown for this.”

Sylvia looked like she’d just sat on something sharp.

“Aggie here started everything,” Beth interjected. “Plus, she hit me in the back, and now my left kidney hurts.”

“That’s a lie,” I said through my swollen mouth. “Just like this election is a lie. Those two stuffed the ballot boxes.”

“That’s not true!” Beth shouted, standing up and facing me.

Mr. Monroe got to his feet. “Okay,” he said, holding up his hands. “Beth, sit down.” After a second, both Beth and Mr. Monroe were back in their seats.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the throbbing aches all over my body.

“Look,” Mr. Monroe said after a moment, “there are obviously differing versions of what happened here. But I’m going to go by what I see, which is that Aggie has been assaulted. I need to report this to the police immediately.” He reached for the phone. “Aggie, you might want to talk to your parents about pressing charges.”

Before he could finish dialing, I reached out my hand and grabbed the ancient phone cord. “Wait.”

Mr. Monroe paused. “Yes?”

I looked over at Beth and Sylvia. Part of me wanted to drag this all through the mud and sue their asses and make them sorry for the day they ever crossed me. But a bigger part of me just wanted it to be over with. Once and for all. The end of Sylvia and me forever. It might mean Sylvia would get to keep her crown, but at this point one more controversy—for her, for me, for the school—might be one too many. It was time to call the match.

“Don’t call the cops,” I said. “I don’t want to press charges.”

Mr. Monroe set down the phone slowly. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. But you need to tell those two to leave me alone permanently.”

“Then tell Aggie here to stop spreading rumors about things she doesn’t know about,” Beth shot back.

Mr. Monroe frowned at her. “Aggie’s request is hardly unreasonable. You should be grateful she’s not getting the authorities involved.”

Sylvia still didn’t say a word.

“All right,” said Mr. Monroe after a moment. “Here’s the bottom line. Sylvia and Beth, if you two so much as approach Aggie, I’ll have you expelled. Aggie, I want you to do your best to avoid these two as well. Do I make myself clear?” The three of us nodded.

“And Miss Ness,” Mr. Monroe said, leveling his gaze at Sylvia, “I don’t want to put this school through anything else, but I will if you provoke something like this again. Marissa Mendez is as capable of wearing the prom crown as you are. Understood?” Sylvia nodded.

“Good. Now get to class, all of you.”

I stood and waited, politely I might add, for Sylvia and her belly to go ahead of me. Just as I was readying to follow her and Beth, Mr. Monroe called me back.

“Aggie,” he said, “stay a sec.” He motioned for me to sit again. “What you just said about the ballot boxes. What did you mean?”

I was surprised that Mr. Monroe was actually listening. “I saw Sylvia with a box of blank ballots. Then on election day I saw her again with ballots that had been filled out. I think she was swapping them for forged ones.”

Mr. Monroe’s eyes widened. “Is this true?”

I nodded. “It is.”

For a moment neither of us said anything. Then Mr. Monroe looked at me, his eyes sad. “I’m very sorry your mom has resigned over all this, Aggie. It’s been a tough road.”

“Yeah. You could say that.” My head began to pound with renewed force. I stood up to go, then felt dizzy and sore. “Um, do you have some aspirin?” I asked.

Mr. Monroe stood, too, and came around the side of his desk to help me stand. “Go home, Aggie,” he said gently. “I think you’ve had enough for one day. I’ll clear it with the attendance office. Go home and get some rest.”

I felt relief press itself to my heart like a cool washcloth. Maybe if I could find Jess I could bum a ride home off her.

“Thank you.”

I turned to walk out of his office, thinking how fabulous it would be to just go home and lie on my bed to take a nap. But just as I was going to my locker to collect my books, Sylvia approached me again. She was waddling slightly and moving slower than I remembered. I stopped and waited for her to get within speaking distance, my head throbbing the entire time.

“I have some things to say to you,” she said, pointing at me. She was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt with LINKIN PARK scrawled across it, and her forearms were bare. Her skin looked as smooth and soft as a puppy’s belly. I turned away, thinking it made her look . . . vulnerable.

“What do you want?” I asked, taking the ice pack away from my left eye.

When Sylvia came into focus, I realized how much pregnancy agreed with her. Her cheekbones seemed higher, her neck a little longer, her lips a little fuller.

Sylvia looked around.

“Checking for Beth?” I asked sarcastically.

Sylvia’s face darkened. “Look,” she said. “I didn’t want Beth to kick your ass. I didn’t know she was going to do that.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “First of all, I saw you
smile
when she hit me. You were standing right there, and you never stopped her, not once.”

Sylvia looked bored. “I can’t help what she does. It’s one of the things I like about her.”

“I’m sure it’s right up there with her lying. You must have loved finding out about how she was from Walker, not New York, and how her dad is a janitor, not a Wall Street big shot. Or, I’m sorry, didn’t she tell you? I’m sure she meant to. She just didn’t get around to it.”

“You can badmouth her all you want, Aggie, but at least Beth’s not a backstabber. She knows how to keep a secret, unlike you. You swore you wouldn’t tell anyone about Ryan being my kid’s dad, and now the whole school knows. What the hell is your problem?”

“I was just trying to help my mom. It didn’t really work. But now that makes us even. I tell your secret, and you stand by while Beth beats me up. Fair’s fair, right?”

Sylvia straightened. “The thing is, Aggie, everything between me and Ryan was just fine until you got involved. I mean, I’d kept my mouth shut about him being the baby’s father, and he was really happy about that. He said he really appreciated it. When I realized he was most likely going to be prom king, I asked him if he’d like it if I was prom queen. And you know what? He said he would. He said if I could get up there on stage, he’d be cool with it. And I did it, Aggie. I made sure he was king, and I was his queen.

“But then that article ran in the
St. Davis Letter,
and Ryan read it and thought I’d blabbed to the press about him being the dad. And now he wants nothing to do with me. Nothing. I can’t even get him to text me. All because of the article. Which wasn’t even my fault. It was
your
fault. You told that reporter my secret, after I trusted you.
You
fucked everything up.”

Sylvia’s upper lip had beads of sweat on it. I wondered if I was sweating too. I was certainly boiling with anger.

“I’m not proud of telling Rod Barris about you and Ryan,” I admitted. “But how can you stand there and believe everything was going to be okay between you and Ryan, when it so clearly wasn’t? Look at how he’s treated you! He’s never once owned up to his part of the pregnancy. Why did you think that was going to change just because you were the prom queen? You never should have rigged the prom election, Sylvia, but you certainly shouldn’t have rigged it because of a guy like
him
.”

“Don’t judge me,” Sylvia sneered. “You of all people have no right. I saved you freshman year when you had no friends and no one else to turn to. And what do I get in return? A big knife in the back is what.”

I blinked. “You did save me,” I said. “My problem was, I forgot how to be myself around you. I wore all that makeup and black shit, but for all the wrong reasons. Not because it was an expression of myself or because I loved it, but because I thought it could keep me safe from assholes at school, and because it seemed like the right thing to do. You
told
me it was the right thing and I believed you.”

Sylvia squinted. “Now you’re blaming me for your decisions? What else you want to put on me, Ag? Got some mommy issues you want to toss my way?”

I shook my head. “I’m not blaming you, I’m blaming
me
. And I know I shouldn’t have put all that pressure on you to figure things out for us at every turn. It wasn’t cool.
I
wasn’t cool. I tried to be, but I wasn’t.”

Sylvia scoffed. “So you thought you’d fix all that by outing Ryan and trying to tell everyone how I fixed the prom election?”

“It’s the truth. It’s what you did.”

“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d stuffed those ballot boxes or not. Your mom and Mrs. Wagner tried to take away my crown from the very beginning.”