Operation Beautiful

“So, how is everyone?” Spike asks, sitting down with our smoothies. He starts handing them out.

“Well, I want to hear about Janice,” Haley says. “I haven’t talked to you in forever.”

Janice shrugs. “There’s been some cheerleading drama going on,” she says. “But other than that...nothing much.”

“Cheerleading drama?” Matt asks, surprised.

“It’s politics, babe,” she says, patting his arm. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Matt opens his mouth to defend his intellect but Clarice cuts in. “How’s Steve?” she asks.

“Yeah, how is your butler?” Trevor asks. He and Haley switch smoothies, take a sip, make a face, and switch back.

“Your taste sucks,” they say in unison.

“Her butler?” Emmaleigh whispers to me.

“Yeah. He’s only three years older than her. He works at her house part of the week.”

“Is he her boyfriend?” She asks, confused.

“Clarice thinks he should be.”

“Whispering away, are we?” Janice remarks dryly from her end of the table.

“I was explaining who Steve was,” I say. “Now don’t avoid the question. How is Steve?”

“Umm, he’s fine. He’s taking a semester off from school to do an internship down in Hollywood.”

“Really?” Clarice asks, her eyes wide. “What’s he interning for? Is he still staying with you?”

“Yes, he’s still staying at my place. There aren’t too many apartments down there that can beat his room,” Janice replies with a smirk. She lives in the...richer part of town. “And he wants to go into public relations. He’s a weird guy, Steve. But enough about me, what’s new with you guys?”

“Emma’s coming to stay with us for a couple weeks,” Matt says. There’s a moment of silence while everyone looks from me to Emmaleigh, and then at each other, knowing smirks on their faces. What’s going on?

“Still friends with Jessica?” Janice asks Emmaleigh. She just shrugs.

“Yeah.”

“Be careful. She’s a devious bitch. She’ll trample you.”

“Hey!” Matt yells, standing up. “Don’t say that about my sister!”

Janice eyes him coolly. “And you’re a devious bastard. It runs in the family.”

I look at Matt who sits back down, glowering. “He is?” I ask.

“So, we’re in sixth grade right?” Spike cuts in. We all nod. “Matt’s going out with some eight-grader’s sister. The guy gets all protective and when they break up he sends a bunch of his pals to beat Matt up.”

“Dude! I think I remember you telling me about this!” Trevor says. Spike just grins.

“Yup. So Matt waits until they have that eighth grade biology frog dissection lab, right?” We nod again, apprehensive about where this is going. “He sneaks in and steals all the dead frogs, puts them in this kid’s backpack and replaces his lunch with a couple of them.”

“Aww! That’s gross!” Clarice yells.

“You shoulda heard him scream like a girl,” Matt says with a grin. “And he got in trouble for stealing the frogs and no one would go near his backpack for days because of the formaldehyde smell.”

“Devious,” Janice says. “Like I said. And it runs in the family.”

“She wouldn’t do anything mean to me,” Emmaleigh says angrily, standing up. “She’s my best friend. Don’t talk about her like that!”

There’s an awkward silence as we stare at Emaleigh and she stares back. Then, hesitantly, she picks up her smoothie and walks off.

“That could have been a little more dramatic,” Janice says.

“Janice! Go apologize!” I say angrily.

She just raises an eyebrow at me. “Next time I see her I will. For now, why don’t you go see if she’s okay. We’ll be riiight here waiting.” As I get up to leave I hear her yell loudly. “Everyone DIIIIIITCH!” And by the time I turn around, they’ve all disappeared.

“Emmaleigh, are you okay?” Her smoothie is sitting outside the bathroom, so she must be inside. She appears in a matter of seconds.

“Ah, sorry.Just had to use the restroom.” She wipes an angry tear away quickly.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She nods. “Yeah. I just...even if it’s true, Janice shouldn’t say that about her. She’s been my best friend since preschool. She can be mean sometimes, but she’s a nice person. Really.”

I nod. “Don’t worry about it. Janice said she wanted to apologize, so I’m sure she will later. Why don’t we talk about something else.” She nods but doesn’t say anything else. “So, Matt says you need some help in math?”

“Oh, yeah. I keep falling asleep in class. We have a quiz on Friday and...yeah. I need some help catching up.”

“Well, today’s Wednesday so...why don’t I come over to your place tomorrow and we can go over everything?”

She smiles. “Okay.”

***
School the next day is pretty exciting. The coach is ecstatic about the amount we got and made an announcement over the PA system to congratulate all of us. We’re all wearing our jerseys today so everyone knows who’s on the soccer team.

“Nice job, Corey!”
“Hey, I heard about the game!”
That’s what I hear all day. You’d think we’d won a championship or something. I guess nothing gets people excited like money.

“Basking in the glory?” Haley asks as we head to lunch. I shrug, noticing Trevor and Christa talking by Trevor’s locker. As we pass them, Haley reaches out and gently tickles her boyfriend’s side. He twists his head to see us walk by, his face breaking into a strained smile.

“You know what, Christa?” I have to go.”

She just shrugs. “I’ll leave it in your locker,” she says, giving him a look of grave importance. “I think you’ll want to see this.” She slips a white envelope through the vent of his locker.

Trevor ignores her and comes with us, his hand reaching out to take Haley’s. She’s too proud, I guess to ask what just happened and Trevor is too oblivious to realize that he should explain.

“What was that about?” I ask. Haley shoots me a grateful look.

“Christa wanted me to look at something. It’s not important.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know. It’s in my locker now, I guess.”

At the time I didn’t think anything of it. Little did I know that Christa had quite effectively plotted the end of my already-shaky relationship with Trevor.

***
I come out of 6th period, ready to invite Trevor skateboarding with me and the other guys. We didn’t get much of a chance to hang out during soccer season. But when I reach Trevor’s locker, I notice two things: a slightly-bloody fist and a sizable dent in the middle of his locker.

And it all went downhill from there.