I had a sudden memory of how annoying that actually was, from a babysitter’s perspective. I could hardly get Spencer to sit still.
Spencer’s glossy smile gave way to a pucker. “Wait. If you didn’t recognize me, why did you come over here in the first place?”
I picked some lint off my skirt and suddenly wished that I didn’t know the color of Spencer’s underwear. I leaned in close enough to smell her cotton-candy perfume and whispered, “When you bent over before, you could see everything. And a bunch of boys were enjoying the view.”
Her mouth dropped open so wide I could see all her fillings. “Are you kidding?”
I shook my head. Despite being embarrassed, Spencer managed to smile. “You know,” I told her, “Ross does offer a pair of uniform pants for the girls, but they’re these horrible pleated slacks the color of cardboard. Really, the best thing to do is to wear something underneath your skirt.” I gave her the rundown of options, and even lifted my skirt the tiniest bit to show her the navy spandex shorts I always, always wore. Even over tights during winter.
Spencer nodded, but now she was looking behind me, trying to figure out which of the boys had been staring at her.
The warning bell rang. I needed to hurry to class, so I could get settled and focused before the quiz. “I’m sure I’ll see you around, Spencer. And let me know if you have any questions about school stuff.”
“Believe me, I definitely plan on exploiting that I’m friends with a senior! All the other freshman girls are going to die of jealousy.”
I knew that wouldn’t actually be true, but hearing Spencer say it made me feel pretty good as I hustled across the hallway to avoid being trampled by our entire football team. Connor Hughes, all tall and lean with his wavy brown hair grazing the collar of his white button-up, led the charge of boys down the hall. He held a playbook in his hands and the rest of his teammates orbited him, peering inside.
Autumn closed my notebook and handed it back to me. “I don’t know where you get your courage, Natalie. I couldn’t say anything like that to a stranger.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “That was no stranger.”
I told Autumn the story, and she glanced across the hallway. “So wait. Were you too busy catching up with Spencer that you forgot to tell her about her underwear?”
I turned and saw Spencer bent over again, her butt back on display for everyone.
The eyes of the passing football players flitted to the left, as if Spencer’s ass gave off a high-pitched noise at a frequency that only boys could detect. One of the guys, Mike Domski, snatched the binder out from Connor’s hands and flapped it furiously toward Spencer’s rear end, trying to make a strong enough breeze so her skirt would flutter up even higher. The rest of the team fell all over each other in a fit of laughter.
A sour feeling rippled across my stomach.
Spencer spun around and pressed up against her locker, a look of pretend embarrassment, feigned modesty, painted on her face. The same one I’d fallen for a moment ago.
“Looks like Spencer’s grown up to be quite a lady,” Autumn said.
She meant it as a joke, I think. Except neither of us laughed.
I left extra, extra early the next morning, and picked up two egg sandwiches and two Oranginas from the bagel shop on Main Street. It was the first official day of student council elections, and I wanted to get my posters hung up before anyone else, claim the best wall real estate. When I got to Autumn’s house, I beeped my car horn along with the song snippet played in between NPR news stories. Across the street, an old lady in a flowered nightgown stared me down from behind her screen door. I mouthed an embarrassed apology.
Autumn finally appeared, darting across her lawn in bare feet. Her black flats were perched on top of the books clutched in her hands, a pair of wrinkled cream-colored knee socks slung over her shoulder. My campaign posters were tucked under her arm.
“Careful you don’t bend them!” I called.
I could tell Autumn hadn’t bothered to shower that morning, preferring instead to sleep an extra twenty minutes. I had always been an early riser, but Autumn loved to sleep, so I’d make sure to always have a book underneath my pillow whenever we had sleepovers. Lately, I only read SAT prep guides, but that’s how I devoured the entire Goosebumps series during middle school — next to my snoring best friend.
Autumn crouched down to the open passenger window and tipped her books forward, causing her shoes to fall onto the seat. She brightened when she saw the white paper bag. “Ooh! Breakfast!”
“Your reward for getting up early to help me.”
“I don’t need a reward,” she said, throwing her books in the backseat and then gently laying my posters on top. “After all, I’m your unofficial campaign manager.”
“I wish you’d be my official vice president,” I said under my breath.
Autumn sighed as she dropped into the passenger seat and clicked her seat belt into the latch with way more force than necessary. “Natalie. You have to let this go.”
I’d posed the idea countless times during the summer and as recently as this weekend, when we’d stayed up until three in the morning painting campaign posters. I’d painted one poster with both of our names on it, but Autumn just complained that I’d wasted a perfectly good piece of oak tag. “Good ideas are hard to let go,” I said.
She took a big bite of sandwich and got some ketchup on her face. I handed her a napkin. “Look,” she said, in between chews. “It means a lot to me that you think I could actually do something like this. But it’s not like I need to be vice president to help with all your projects. I’ll still be at every student council meeting, just like I’ve been the last three years.”
“It’s not about you showing up to meetings. It’s about you living up to your full potential, Autumn. You always say that you’re more of a behind-the-scenes person. But that’s not true. It’s just a convenient excuse not to be noticed. College admissions counselors don’t just want to know that you’ve participated in extracurricular activities. They want to see leadership skills. That you can take charge of something.”
Autumn opened her Orangina and chugged down about five huge gulps. A tiny part of me thought she might be considering it. Then she changed the subject, asking, “What were some of those funny slogans we came up with? I was trying to remember them this morning.”
I couldn’t force my best friend to run for student council. I knew she had to want it for herself. But that didn’t make it any less frustrating.
For the rest of the ride to school, we tried to remember the corny slogans that made us laugh so hard this weekend. Like Vote For Natalie — She’ll Do Things Nattily! Except without being sugar-drunk on Dr Pepper and cookie dough, they weren’t really funny at all.
Ours was the first car in the student parking lot. Ross Academy looked beautiful, the sun rising behind the fieldstone walls, sparking off the dew on the thick lawn. I was so taken with the beauty of our school that it wasn’t until
