“You broke up?” I wasn’t trying to rub it in, I was genuinely surprised.
“They didn’t break up,” Elise said. “They just put their relationship on hold.”
“We broke up,” Cassidy said.
Elise rolled her eyes and sighed. Apparently they’d disagreed on this subject before.
“He never said he wanted to break up with you.”
“He said he thought we should date other people. That’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not, because he only said that so you wouldn’t feel like you had to wait around for him while he’s at college.”
Cassidy lowered her voice. “Well, it would be a very considerate sentiment from Josh if it didn’t also involve him dating half a dozen different girls.”
Elise waved away her words. “Because he couldn’t be dating you. And besides, he’s just friends with all those girls.”
Cassidy put a blob of glue on her paper and then smacked a large picture of a book onto her collage. “You, of all people, shouldn’t be so naive.”
“Well, at least talk to him,” Elise said. “He’ll be home any day now, and none of those girls from college are coming with him.”
I tried not to sound eager. “He’ll be back soon? Why?”
“He's finished with classes. The only reason he’s not home now is that he has to fix his car before it can make the drive. Josh’s going to spend the summer working in my parents’
store.”
“That’s great,” I said, “I mean, that’s really nice he’s coming back to help your parents.”
“He needs the money." Elise shot Cassidy a glance. "And besides, I think he wants to be near Cassidy.”
Cassidy rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything.
Elise smoothed out a picture on her poster. “Well, he could have just as easily gotten a job where he was.”
“Except your parents don’t own a store where he was,” I said.
Elise glared at me. I ignored her and went back to working on my collage.
Josh was coming back for the summer. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, perfect Josh. Okay, he wasn’t absolutely perfect. He did have Elise for a sister, but I could overlook this detail. He and Cassidy had broken up, and that meant I had a chance with him, a chance to stop being second-best.
CHAPTER 5
*As I sat down in the cafeteria at lunch, I looked at the table where Cassidy and Elise were eating. Amy wasn’t even with them. She sat at another table across the room, which just goes to show you what close friends they all were.
I tried not to think about it.
When I was halfway through my tuna-fish sandwich, Doug Campton and his friend Matt stopped by our table. Doug wore an oversized black T-shirt with a pair of baggy jeans.
He looked as though he’d combed his hair sometime last week and considered that sufficient effort in the bodily care department. And Matt, well, Matt looked like a less well dressed version of Doug.
Doug stuck his hands in his pockets and tilted back on his heels. “Hey Samantha, I hear you’re running for president.”
“You heard right.”
“Well, I hope you catch him.” Both Matt and Doug laughed at this joke.
I continued to smile at them anyway. “You’re going to vote for me, aren’t you?”
“That depends,” Matt said. “Are you going to make it worth our while?”
Suddenly I understood why people talk about politicians having no standards. As I sat there smiling at Doug and Matt, I felt all of my standards fleeing to the lifeboats. I was not only going to have to suffer fools to win this election, I was going to have to actually pretend I liked them.
Still smiling, I said, “I think it will be worth your while to have a student body council that runs smoothly.”
“Tell us more about your student body,” Doug said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “I’d like to see it run smoothly.”
Chelsea put her fork down on the table with a clang. “Would you also like to see her student body slap your student body?”
I laughed as though this was just pleasant banter. After all, I needed all the votes I could get. “It’s great that you’re interested in student council. I’ve organized a lot of activities over the years, but I’d really like everybody’s input.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Matt said. “I think student council should throw free keggers after every game we win.”
Doug shook his head. “Naw, our teams are lousy. Better just make it after every home game.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Well," Doug said when I didn't say anything else on the subject, "we’d better go eat lunch now. We just wanted to wish you luck.”
“And remember the free keggers,” Matt added.
After they left, I shook my head slowly. Suddenly it seemed like this election was going to take a long, long time.
Rachel watched their retreating backs and in a lowered voice said, “Are those guys idiots, or what?”
I shrugged and took a sip of milk from my carton. “How did you expect them to turn out with names like those? Doug is just one H away from dough, and mat is something you use to wipe the mud off your feet. It’s their parents who should be blamed.”
Chelsea and Rachel giggled, and Aubrie swallowed a potato chip wrong and started coughing.
I leaned across the table to be closer to my friends. “Logan told me Doug wants to go out with me. What if he finds out Brad and I broke up, and he asks me to the prom?”
“Screen your calls at home,” Rachel said. “And avoid him at school.”
“He’s not afraid to come up and talk to me,” I said. “I mean, he just did.”
Aubrie took a drink to help her stop coughing. “He wouldn’t be so tacky as to ask you to the prom in front of all your friends, though.”
We simply stared at her for a moment, and then I said, “We’re talking about Doug Campton. Tacky is part of his genetic code.”
Rachel gestured to Aubrie. “The next time he comes up to us, you cause a diversion before he can talk to Samantha. Pretend to die or something.”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “That will only work once. I just have to find another date for the prom. Fast.”
I took a glance around the cafeteria. There had to be somebody decent who would like to ask me out.
Please, I thought, let there be somebody.
When I walked into the bookstore after school, Logan was kneeling by a book display with a picture of a knife above it. He looked up from the mystery novels he was stacking into it. “You’re early. What’s the occasion?”
“I couldn’t wait to be with you again, of course. Your charm, wit, and kindness just draw people to you.”
He put the last of his books into the display. “Yeah, I know.”
It occurred to me that for my campaign’s sake I should attempt to be nice to Logan.
He hung out with the smart crowd too and had a lot of friends who were potential votes. I thought this over while I checked the book cart. Nice was no good. He’d immediately know I was up to something if I was nice to him. Should I just count him as a loss, or should I strike a deal with him? If I agreed to go out with Doug once after the prom, to something really, really noncommittal, then Logan would owe me a large debt of gratitude. Exactly how much campaigning could I extract from a large debt of gratitude? Posters? Buttons? Would he perhaps agree to having VOTE FOR SAMANTHA tattooed on his forehead?
After I’d put away a batch of romances, I went and stood beside him in the western section while he shelved books. I tapped my finger over a group of book spines and waited for him to notice me. When he did, I said, “So . . . how’s the world of western novels going?”
Logan raised an eyebrow at me.
“Has Zane Gray come out with anything recently?”
“Zane Gray is dead.”
“Really? He sure writes a lot for a dead guy.”