So I accepted the compliments without believing them and tried to use my social power for good. I wouldn’t be friends with anyone who was mean or cliquish and I rallied people to join the Gay-Straight Alliance and Diversity Council and things like that. Teachers called me a “natural leader,” which only made me realize that the adults were as likely to fawn over me as the kids were. It didn’t go to my head: I knew people weren’t following me because I was so wildly charismatic; they were following me because I was Luke Weston’s stepdaughter and they all wanted to meet him.
I was most proud of having increased student participation in the Holiday-Giving Program by like tenfold or something ridiculous like that. My freshman year, I signed up to help out with the annual Christmas party at the shelter our school supported, and my closest friends all signed up too. Then the next year, I volunteered to head the gift drive, and got Riley to do it with me—of all my school friends, she was the most organized and reliable.
Luke and Mom came with me to that year’s Christmas party, which totally freaked people out—everyone who went was giddy with delight at being at the same event as Luke Weston, and everyone who didn’t go regretted it. Junior year, I ran the Christmas party and everyone assumed Luke would show up, so literally half the school signed up to bring presents and help out with games for the kids. Luke actually didn’t come that year—he was in Chicago, shooting a remote segment for the show—but with all the help and donations, we had an incredible party, and I ended up being asked to co-run the entire program with another rising senior named Ben Simmons, who had run that year’s gift drive.
Ben and I had texted a little over the summer and agreed we’d get together after the first day of school, along with Riley and Skyler, who I’d coaxed into co-running this year’s Christmas party, and a junior named Arianna Hawley, who Ben had put in charge of the gift drive, since she’d helped him the year before.
Ben took the meeting seriously, which I appreciated. He was there on time, was focused on making a plan, and had some good ideas.
Riley had briefly had a crush on him in eleventh grade—he was darkly good-looking in a sort of Joaquin Phoenix kind of way—but after she had spent some time with him at a party, she lost interest and said he was boring. He definitely didn’t have much of a sense of humor, which would have been a deal breaker for me in a romance but was fine in someone I only needed to work with. We were pretty efficient as we put together a calendar of deadlines and events based on the previous year’s schedule and this year’s available dates supplied by the vice principal.
It all went smoothly except for one awkward moment, when Arianna suddenly said, “Oh, I was thinking we should get a celebrity parent to come to the party—I hear that one year Luke Weston showed up and people went nuts. If we could promise that he or someone like that would be there, everyone would sign up. How’d we get him?”
There was a slight pause and then Riley said, “Um . . . because of Ellie?”
“Do you know him personally?” Arianna asked me eagerly.
“He’s her stepfather,” Riley said, and Skyler added, “They live together.”
“Oh, God.” Arianna’s hand flew to her mouth and she gave a mortified laugh. “I am so sorry, Ellie. I didn’t know. You have a different last name. No one told me,” she added with a glare at Ben.
“No problem,” I said.
“Will he come again this year?”
“I don’t know. I’ll invite him, but his schedule can be kind of crazy.”
As we were leaving the student center after the meeting, Arianna pulled me aside. “I just want to apologize again,” she said. “I must have sounded like such an idiot.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“I’m really excited to be working on this. Everyone says you’re like the nicest senior girl at the school.”
I smiled and thanked her, but I felt a little tired.
She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me good-bye.
eleven
Heather said, “I hate reading comprehension! You never have enough time to read the whole thing, and the questions try to trick you every way they can.” It was Sunday and I had invited her to join me for tutoring again. “And I don’t see how you’re supposed to study for it,” she went on. “They’re going to give you completely different passages, so it’s not like you can actually prepare.”
George said, “It’s about having some strategies.”
“You always say that,” I told him.
“Oh, what’s the point.” Heather slumped down in her chair. She was wearing a short full skirt and a tight knit top with puffy sleeves. She looked like a little schoolgirl, and the braids she was wearing only added to the impression. “I’m useless.”
“That’s the spirit!” I said. “Give up before you’ve tried.”
“Shut up,” she said. “I’m not smart like you and we both know it.”
“I’ve just studied more than you have.” That was a total lie. I hadn’t studied at all. I was good at reading comprehension because I read so much as a kid—there wasn’t much else to do in our apartment when I was little. I didn’t have a laptop and we didn’t have cable or satellite TV. But Mom took me to the library every week, so I always had books. We’d curl up together and read for hours. Mom once said that even though she hadn’t gone to college, she could keep up in a conversation with almost anyone who had, because of all the reading she did. “You can do this,” I told Heather. “Just a few more weeks of hard work and we’ll be together for the next four years.”
“Or you’ll go to different good schools,” George said.
I shook my head. “We’re going to Elton together.”
“What other schools are you thinking about?” George asked Heather.
“I don’t know. . . . My dad went to Steventon College. He wants me to apply there.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “You can do better than that.”
“It’s a good school,” George said, an edge to his voice.
“Whatever. Heather and I are going to get into Elton early decision. I’ve already decided that.”
“It’s not exactly up to you,” he said.
I shrugged. The truth was, I had a secret plan: I was going to ask Luke to call the school once we’d submitted our applications. He was Luke Weston; the school would be thrilled to get a call from him and they’d instantly push our applications through—especially if he offered to perform there at some point.
I knew this would work. He had gone with me on the tour of Coral Tree Prep when I was applying there for ninth grade, and everyone in the admissions and head offices came out to meet him and shake his hand after the tour had ended—and then, of course, I got in. It would be like that all over again.
But I wanted Heather to believe she could get in all on her own—she needed the self-confidence boost. So I just said, “You can do this. I know you can. But we both need to study hard. Give us another reading passage, George.” Heather and I bent our heads together over the laptop. “Done?” I asked her after a few moments.
“Not yet,” she said. Then, after a few more minutes: “It just doesn’t make sense.”
I sat back in my seat, avoiding George’s eyes.
A while later, Mom and Luke and Jacob came home from a trip to the park. Luke was wearing a baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and nondescript clothing, and it occurred to me that celebrities and thieves dress a lot alike.
Mom put Jacob on a chair and dropped into another one, flinging out her legs and arms. “Thank God we’re home. All he wanted to do was swing. We tried to get him to play with the other kids in the sand, but he kept screaming and kicking until we put him back on the swing.”