The Revenge Artist - Philip Siegel Page 0,15

means squat. This scheme is so flimsy I couldn’t balance a feather on it.”

“That’s a terrible analogy.” She folds her arms and keeps smiling, thinking she has some upper hand when she’ll forever be two-bit. “If this is such a bad scheme, then why are they broken up?”

“Because she’s a Red Sox fan.”

“Sure.” Judy laughs, a helium giggle of pure glee. “You have no idea who this person is. If you did, you wouldn’t be accusing me.”

I grit my teeth. She’s right. I hate when she’s right.

“Looks like you have some competition,” Judy says.

“Actually, she’s your competition,” I say. Her words dig into me, burrowing inside my mind. Another Break-Up Artist. Right under my nose. “But not for long.”

Sometime overnight, I get an email to my relationship engineer account. I open my blinds to let in first rays of sunlight. Each second I don’t check the email, the speculation and mystery build within me like compound interest. Who is my new client? Who here at Ashland is looking for love?

Message from Steve Overland

What?

I slump back into my bed, holding my phone above my head.

Becca—

How are things? College is alright, but I miss Huxley. I can’t stop thinking about her, and I hate how things ended. It’s not what you think. I want her back. Are you able to help?

—Steve

He has got to be kidding. I should be laughing at this, the sheer ridiculousness and obliviousness of Steve. I send back a pithy but effective response.

Steve—

Fat chance.

—Becca

I flit around school the next week, speaking to anyone I can who can help shed light on Bari and Jay’s break-up. During gym, I jog extra hard to catch up to some of her friends on the track. They sweat the way guys imagine girls sweating, i.e. not at all. Their semi-damp hairlines are a stark contrast to my “I just showered with my clothes on” look. Considering Bari’s friend hired me to break up her last relationship, I figured those closest to her are the logical first suspects.

“What’s fantasy football?” half of them say back to me. Those who are aware of the game seem to be genuinely rooting for Bari and Jay to stick it out. My BS detector is finely tuned, and I get no beeps from her friends or squad mates.

I have Jay print off a list of all the people in his league. Only a handful go to Ashland. I make my way down the list, nervously interrogating guys who I’ve only seen in passing. They, too, seem upset about Bari and Jay. Stonewalling gives way to crestfallen pouts and even some looks of fear when they realize that someone tampered with their precious fantasy football. They can’t believe FF could be hacked, that such evil could exist in the world. I hesitate to tell them that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

I would never admit this to anyone, but I feel a touch out of my league. I was a good schemer, but not hacking-into-websites good. To think that somebody at this school, who walks the same halls as I do, could possess such skills and not be afraid to use them… Ashland didn’t feel so small anymore, nor did I feel as big. Then again, maybe nobody hacked anything. Maybe this person already knew Jay’s password.

Or maybe Jay dumped Bari because she’s a Red Sox fan and kinda surly.

I debate both sides before class, during class, and after class. They battle in my head and push me around. I lumber down the hall like a drunk person. Whoever did this is either a computer hacker extraordinaire, or they are connected to Jay somehow.

I ask Fred’s friend Quentin, who’s the closest to a computer whiz I know, if only because he fixed my phone once. He’s pretty techy, but the only people he knows at Ashland with those types of computer skills have no interest in petty high school drama.

“What if they’re being paid?” I ask him.

“They make more money on online poker and hacking into banks and stuff.”

Fair enough. I also remember that this new Break-Up Artist called Jay “Jayby,” something only Bari called him. How would a hacker know that? They wouldn’t. Only someone with personal access to Jay and Bari could be privy to such information.

I watch Jay and his friends walk through the halls. I make inventory of potential suspects. The problem is, all of Jay’s friends are genuinely nice. I can’t see any of them breaking up their boy and his girl.

“She was cool,” one