You Should See Me in a Crown Read online

  Britt’s right. We’ve had a plan, practically since the day we met, that we’d all go to prom as a unit. Just the four of us, together, wearing Gabi Marino original dresses. It was simple, ideal. This was never part of that plan. Prom court is anything but simple.

  “Britt, why must you be so negative? This is going to be amazing!” Gabi offers me her warmest smile. “What you need to focus on now is the fact that you are officially in the running for Campbell County High School prom queen, and these are the logistics that are going to help you win. We’re going to need some major work if we want even the slightest chance of moving you from here”—she holds her hand down near the floor and then moves it up near her face—“to here.”

  Britt winces. “Are you going to get any more superficial, Marino? I just want to prepare myself now if you’re going to be firing shots like this for the next five weeks.”

  Gabi ignores her and smiles at me instead. It’s bright and reassuring, the one she uses when she feels confident and needs me to feel it too.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, Lizzie,” she says. She holds out her hand and wiggles her fingers expectantly. “If you would hand over your Declaration of Intent, please. I’ll take care of those signatures.”

  I reach into my backpack and give it to her hesitantly. This is really happening.

  “You’ve made the right decision, Lizzie.” She slips the paper into her purse and places both her hands on my shoulders, and although she’s so much shorter than me, it somehow makes me feel like we’re on completely even footing. “Call me tonight, okay? If you go into the prom court kickoff meeting tomorrow without me prepping you on what to expect, it’ll be like seasoning yourself and stepping directly into a lion’s mouth.”

  She shakes her head sadly as she slips her black, cat-eye sunglasses down from her hair and adjusts them over her eyes. She grabs her purse from the counter and slides it up onto her shoulder. Like always, her movements are elegant, graceful, and completely sure.

  “My God, imagine the carnage.”

  And just like that, I’m Campbell County High School’s newest prom queen contender.

  I’m running late for the prom campaign orientation meeting Sunday afternoon, speed-walking through the empty hallways of the school. I’m mentally running through the checklist of instructions from Gabi on how to handle this meeting and thinking about the candidates that she has projected will be in attendance, people I need to consider making an alliance with early in the game, how I’m going to look Jordan in the eye after so many years of avoiding being in the same room with him, and—

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, and the message couldn’t have come at a better time. G’s best-friend telepathy strikes again.

  I head inside the auditorium and find a seat in the back. From where I’m sitting, behind everyone else, it looks like there are about fifty people present, an almost even split of guys and girls. All the people I expected to see are here.

  There’s Lucy Ivanov and Claire Adams, two members of the pom squad (which is remarkably different from and definitely superior to the cheerleading team, and don’t you forget it) seated near the front, red-and-white sparkly bows in their high ponytails to match their perfectly pressed pom uniforms. I can also see our local catalog model and eternally peppy ray of sunshine, Quinn Bukowski’s bright blond head sitting near Jaxon Price, one of the football guys, giggling as he whispers something into her ear. I don’t even bother trying to ID everyone, because it’s pretty clear: All of Campbell’s elite, Jordan Jennings among them, are scattered throughout the first few rows. And there’s Rachel Collins, our class president and the PomBots’ fearless leader next to her boyfriend and varsity basketball captain, Derek Lawson, seated directly behind them.

  Thanks to my briefing session with G and an all-night cramming session with Ro, I know exactly who I need to be paying the most attention to in the race.

  My sights are set directly on Rachel. Her mom is one of only two people in the history of Campbell County to win queen both her junior and senior year. This prom stuff is in her blood.

  The thought makes me feel like I’m in an airplane getting ready to take off, all anxious and more than a little lightheaded.

  But there are plenty of wild cards too. A couple of guys who I know are running as either a joke or a dare (if the way they haven’t stopped laughing or talking since we arrived is any indication of their interest in making court), and girls like me who don’t exactly scream prom court at first look for one reason or another.

  The lights shut off in the room, and I swear to you, the Olympics theme music starts playing.

  I practically jump out of my skin when the first horns start blaring, but the spotlight hits Madame Simoné where she stands onstage, her long black kimono dragging on the floor as she gestures at the screen behind her.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you have entered into a time-honored Campbell tradition that will soon change the course of your life forever!” The room erupts in applause. She speaks with an incredibly convincing French accent, like she wasn’t born and raised in Campbell County and like we haven’t all seen her photo in the Gallery with her very own placard underneath: Roberta Simon, 1987.

  Madame Simoné is talking about all the powerful men and women who have left this race and gone on to great things, when the doors in the back bang open, and she shuts her mouth with a snap.

  “Sorry I’m late!” a blur of a girl whisper-shouts as she bursts through the doors. She has a skateboard tucked underneath her arm, and a messenger bag that keeps slipping down her shoulder as she makes her way up the center aisle. “This school is surprisingly labyrinth-like. They don’t mention that on the website.”

  Everyone stares at the intrusion, but the girl doesn’t seem to notice. She just keeps going. She reaches my row, the last row where people are seated, and climbs over the two people closest to the aisle to work her way inside. She’s speaking to everyone and no one in the room, her eyes never fixing on any one person for long.

  “I didn’t realize that the auditorium and the performing-arts space were two different things, you know? Most schools only have one. But this place is massive. I was just telling my dad that—”

  Madame Simoné coughs dramatically and the girl finally stops talking. Rachel and her crew don’t even bother to conceal their giggles as they turn back to face the front.

  “Now that everyone has finally decided to arrive, may I continue?” She shoots a pointed look at the girl, who is slumped down in the seat next to me, before continuing her speech.

  “I have her for second-period French,” the late girl whispers in my ear, and I can feel her breath on my neck. “I like her energy. She seems pretty no-nonsense.”

  I don’t want to look away from the stage, to miss even a moment of what Madame Simoné is saying, but I can’t help myself. This girl is bold enough to come in late and talk during her lecture? I gotta know who I’m dealing with here. I’m sure Gabi would be proud of me for being vigilant about the competition.

  I turn to face her, and seriously, her eyes are the kind of green that I thought only existed in books and on models post-Photoshop. Just a little bit south of olive, with brown flecks in them and everything, like someone painted them by hand. It trips me up for just a second.

  “Wait, what?”

  “She’s cool, right? I’m getting a cool energy from her.” She bites her thumbnail. “I’m not super good at French, but I feel like she takes no prisoners.”

  I just nod, because I’m not sure what to say. I mean, I’ve taken honors and then AP French with Madame Simoné for the past three years, but I don’t know that it’s even all that relevant to this girl. She seems to just like to talk for the sake of talking. And I’m not into that, noise for the sake of noise.

  “You all know how this works, les élèves. But if you want to have your chance at making prom court, you’ll listen very closely to the nuance.”

  Some of the rules Madame Simoné goes into next m
ake sense, are obvious even, but some are completely antiquated. She covers all the bases for the campaign as well as prom night itself: no drinking, no vaping, the usual. But the hardest ones to hear are the ones she says with the most authority: Girls will run for queen, and boys will run for king—there’s definitely no accounting for people who might not identify as either. And the hardest for me to ignore, same-sex couples aren’t allowed to attend together. They can dance with each other once they get there, maybe, if no chaperones care enough to stop them, but they can’t officially go as dates. And just in case they hadn’t made their prejudice clear enough, if your gender identity doesn’t explicitly align with the one you were assigned at birth, you can’t come dressed the way you might want. Girls wear dresses, and boys wear tuxes. And that’s the end of it.

  The whole thing royally sucks in my opinion.

  “Prom court is decided by a point system, determined by your attendance at a combination of both mandatory and volunteer community service events and public appearances, and your class rank.” A chorus of groans erupts again, and I feel a little giddy inside. Finally, some payoff for being the nerdiest nerd this school has ever seen! “This is about more than where you sit in the cafeteria, les élèves; this is about your overall ability to represent the best of what Campbell County High School has to offer! Each event is worth twenty points, and the eight of you with the highest scores—four boys and four girls—will be selected as this year’s prestigious prom court. And in the event of a tie, the administration will weigh in to make the final call on who gets to represent the best and brightest of what Campbell County High School has to offer!”

  Five weeks of campaigning for prom court, and if you get selected, one more week to campaign for king and queen specifically. Five weeks to take myself from “Liz Lighty: Unapologetic Wallflower” to “Liz Lighty: Slightly More Apologetic Prom Queen Contender.”

  Everyone begins clapping, and I chance another look at Jordan and his teammates. This time, my eyes meet his. I’m so mortified to have been caught staring like a creep, I snap my head forward so quick I swear I hear the girl next to me giggle. If my skin weren’t so brown, I’m sure I’d be beet red. But because I’m a glutton for punishment, I cheat my eyes in his direction again.

  “Excuse me, Madame Simoné?” Rachel Collins’s hand shoots straight up, her pastel-pink manicured nails wiggling in the air. “I just have a question about the scoring process.”

  Madame Simoné, clearly annoyed with having been interrupted before asking for questions, tells her to continue before she “cashes out her pension.” Or at least I think that’s what she’s saying.

  “Okay, well, I just wanted to make sure there isn’t going to be any funny business going on with the scoring process. Like we’re not going to have to deal with an”—she turns around to look pointedly at me—“affirmative action aspect, perhaps?”

  Here’s the thing: Rachel and I have never liked each other. We’ve been battling back and forth for everything since the second grade: spelling bee champion (I won), field day distance winner (I’m not an athlete, but my legs are incredibly long—I beat her by half a second), and now valedictorian (all mine, baby). And this victory, having the highest rank in our class, has made this a rivalry with the likes of Burr versus Hamilton. I’m half convinced that she’s going to challenge me to a duel at graduation.

  But she’s never said anything like this to me before. Anything this obviously racist. I cycle through like eight different emotions before I settle on a combination of rage and embarrassment.

  The voice beside me pipes up immediately.

  “Actually, Rebecca, before you start concerning yourself with skewed scoring, you should probably know that the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women.”

  The girl’s smile is cloyingly sweet as she stares Rachel down. A couple of people laugh and “Ooh, she got you!” after she speaks. When I look around, Rachel is narrowing her eyes and mumbling, “It’s Rachel,” under her breath loud enough so that we can still hear it from where we are.

  “Ah yes, now, if that’s all, I think I’ll continue.” Madame Simoné nods at the girl and finishes her speech. “While court is decided by your civic engagement, your king and queen are decided by popular vote. By the sheer will of the people.”

  “You didn’t have to do that, you know—respond to Rachel,” I whisper to the girl without taking my eyes off the stage. “She’s been like this since we were in elementary school.”

  “Of course I did.” I can feel her looking at me, but I can’t bring myself to make eye contact. My heart is beating faster than I know what to do with, and I’m not sure why. I’m used to Rachel saying shady stuff, but I’m not used to people outside of my friends jumping in to defend me. Especially not beautiful girls I barely know. “I have rules.”

  I look at her then—I can’t help myself.

  “What kind of rules?”

  “Well, for one”—she smiles at me with a flash of something that looks like trouble in her eyes—“I never let terrible people get away with doing terrible things. And two, if something is wrong, I say something about it. Always.”

  “Aren’t those pretty much the same thing?” I’m smiling too, because there’s just something about how sure she is, how secure in those ideals, that makes me happy.

  “Maybe. But terrible people aren’t always the ones doing something wrong. Good people mess up too, but that doesn’t mean we should let it slide.”

  I swallow and nod.

  “Now, if everyone will just bring up their Declaration of Intent and Petition to File, I will give you your calendrier officiel of both the mandatory and optional events for this week.” Madame Simoné pushes her wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose and puts her hands on her hips. “And I will leave you with this advice: Do not think pour un moment that the next month will be a walk in the park. I expect all of you to take this seriously.”

  When everyone gathers their stuff, I stand quickly. I look at the new girl, who smiles at me brightly.

  “This should be a lot of fun,” she says, tucking her board under her arm. “I’ll see you soon?”

  I simply nod, even though a part of me wants to keep talking to her. As she waves and heads toward the stage, I realize I’m more than ready to get out of the auditorium, back home, and to my music. I can’t wait to close the door, put in my headphones, and turn up Kittredge’s new album so loud I can’t focus on anything else. Some sort of escape from thinking about how in the world I’m supposed to do any of this, with these people, for the next month of my life.

  I’m practically a zombie in school on Monday morning. The prom meeting ran long. Way longer than I thought it would. Even after Madame Simoné finished her speech and we handed in our forms, there was at least another half hour of waiver and photo release form-signing to be done.

  With all the papers and signatures and talk of photoshoots and public appearances, I felt like Beyoncé’s personal assistant (because I’m sure Queen Bey doesn’t have to actually use her holy and precious time for that sort of thing anymore).

  I went home to finish my homework and practice my solo for the spring concert but ended up helping Granny cook dinner and then debriefing on the phone with Gabi about who was at the meeting and what was said for two hours afterward instead. By the time I finished my lab report for AP Chem and the rough draft of my paper for AP Lit, I was almost too tired to run through my music, but I forced myself through it anyway. I barely got any sleep.

  So believe me when I say I’m definitely too tired for the fifth-degree interrogation I’m currently getting from Gabi.

  “I told you that I never actually got her name.” I grab my case from my locker in the back of the band room as Gabi grabs hers. “I just know that she’s new and she seems to be … different. But, like, in a good way?”

  “Well, I don’t like it one bit.” Gabi tsks as she sits down and adjusts her music stand. “Do you think she’s an agent of R
achel’s sent to scope you out? I wouldn’t put it past her. You know she’s wanted to find a weakness in you since the day you beat her out for line leader in the second grade.”

  I pause. “Let me just get this straight. You think the new girl’s … a spy?”

  Gabi looks at me with her carefully plucked eyebrows raised to her hairline. “You kid! But I’m telling you, watch out. Remember: There are no real allies in war, only people who are valuable enough at the moment to delay the inevitable destruction they will eventually face at your own hands.”

  “I can’t tell if you’ve been reading The Art of War again or The Hunger Games.”

  “Both. Obviously.”

  The bell rings, and something inside me settles. The world may be spinning at a thousand miles per hour, and I’m not sure where I’m headed or how to get there, but here, in front of my music, I’m grounded. I’m centered.

  Mr. K stands in front of us to make his announcements before we start playing, and—

  “Sorry I’m late!” The girl from the meeting—the double agent with the gorgeous eyes—rushes in, late again. She doesn’t have a skateboard this time, but she’s just as frazzled as she was at the meeting yesterday evening.

  Gabi elbows me and mouths, Is that her?

  I nod back and try to keep my face impassive as Mr. K brightens. Even if I hadn’t already met her, she would have been hard not to clock as a new student.

  Everything about her screams “I’m not from around here!” and has an edge of “But don’t even think about messing with me.” Her red hair is cut into an asymmetrical bob that reveals a dandelion tattoo behind her right ear, and her outfit looks like she walked straight off a Thrasher Magazine cover—rolled black mom jeans, dirty bright-orange-and-white Vans, and a camo jacket over her FEMME THE FUTURE hoodie that she clearly has carefully bleached and distressed herself.

  Her nose is pierced with one simple emerald stud in the right nostril and two silver hoops in the other. I think for a second she might be ready to give Britt a run for her money as the most idgaf-I-wear-whatever-I-want student at Campbell.