Beware That Girl Read Free Page B

Jackie, who was in for near-crippling OCD and cutting. Jackie maintained that it helped the “traps” in her head, and besides, what could it hurt? Concluding that the logic was sound, Olivia took up occasional praying with indifferent enthusiasm.

    She glided through the heavily carved Waverly doors, past her locker and straight to Ms. Hornbeck’s AP English. Olivia nodded, smiled and “heyed” at all the correct girls. She even feigned interest when Madison Benner panted hysterically about the dreamy new director of advancement. “Wait ’til you see him! OH, MY GOD! And I mean it. No one that hot has walked through these halls in a hundred years!”
    “So I keep hearing. Can’t wait to get a peek!” Olivia delivered this with dripping envy, which she was sure was the emotion called for. A small victory, but worth noting.
    She steeled herself for AP English and Sylvia Plath. Olivia didn’t “get” Plath, but she knew she should and that just made the abstruseness of her poetry all the more galling. They were going to dissect “Lady Lazarus.” She could speak to it analytically, but that was never enough for Hornbeck, who wanted her students to engage with the material on some gut-wrenching emotional level.
    Olivia would have to hire help, and soon.
    “Fasten your seat belt for another mental car wreck.”
    It was the scholarship kid, new from out west or somewhere. Olivia had already noticed how the other seniors had been weighing, judging and, in the end, vying for her. The girl started rummaging in her bag—last year’s Chloé, but still a Chloé. She was supposed to be some kind of genius, noticeable even in a school choking on them.
    “You think? If it is, it’s beyond my mental capacity,” said Olivia. “Me and Plath are an epic nonstarter.”
    The scholarship kid had excellent hair. A Bergdorf Blonde, like most of the school, but it was styled all loose and beachy-like—a bit messy, a bit stiff. Superb. Olivia got annoyed all over again about Plath.
    The scholarship kid rolled her eyes in sympathy. She was pretty even in the eye rolling.

    “Plath is a way easy ride for me. Maybe you have to be crazy to really get her.”
    She knew how to wear her blazer too. Secondhand maybe, but boyfriend-style. The girls were still milling about the seats near the back of the small lecture room.
    “My name is Olivia.”
    “I know.” The scholarship girl smiled. “I remember from our first class. You’re kind of noticeable.” She turned toward Olivia. “I’m Kate.”
    “So, Kate…poetry—Plath, you really get her?”
    “Sure.” Kate shrugged. “I did my entrance essay on Plath, and apparently it was enough to get me into this place. It’s physics that’s going to get me tossed out.”
    And right then, Olivia, who had not made an impulsive decision since her return to Waverly, decided it was time to do just that. There was no weighing and measuring of outcomes, no deliberating about implications and consequences. “Physics?” she said. “Physics is a breeze. I have a feeling we can work something out.”
    Olivia sat and patted the seat next to her.

Step one, contact—total success. Step two, meeting in the library re: AP Physics—even better. It was a bit of a challenge to pretend to be unable to follow Olivia. There’s a fine line between slight confusion and hopeless stupidity, a shorter road than you’d think. I’d made Olivia feel like she was an award-winning tutor by the end of the session. She asked me over to her place on Sunday night so I could return the favor with “Lady Lazarus.” So big win all around. Atta girl.
    Yet.
    I couldn’t hold on to “Atta girl.” I was sitting in the dark on the Spider-Man sheets on my cot, trying to think about other things—about Olivia, about the prize, about, well, just about anything else. White-knuckling it. Impending change does that to me. A lot of stuff does that to me. It just happens. I don’t want to get sucked back, but back I