us.
Right?
I’m still trying to figure out how to answer when Jacob and a couple of his lacrosse buddies sit down at the table, their trays heaped with mac and cheese so gloppy you could use it to lay bricks.
“Ladies,” he says, and I grin. “What’s up?”
“Just talking about newspaper stuff,” I say, shooting Chloe a look across the table. “We’ve got a print deadline at the end of the week.” I pop a grape into my mouth. “Actually, did you get those article pitches I texted you?”
Chloe nods, noncommittal. “I had a bunch of ideas too,” she tells me. Then, nodding at the mac and cheese on Jacob’s tray: “Do you want to write something about the new menu, maybe?”
I laugh out loud, I can’t help it.
“What?” She shrugs.
“It’s not exactly hard-hitting journalism, that’s all.”
Chloe frowns again. “Is that what you want to be doing now?” she asks. “Hard-hitting journalism?”
“I just—” I break off, not entirely sure why she seems so testy all of a sudden. “Isn’t that always what we’re trying to do?”
Chloe makes a face at that. “I mean, it’s a high school paper, Marin,” she reminds me. “Not the Globe Spotlight team.”
I’m starting to reply when there’s a commotion up at the front of the cafeteria—it’s Principal DioGuardi yet again, a miserable-looking Deanna Montalto in tow.
“Attention please!” he yells out across the room. “Since apparently some of you ladies have still not gotten the memo about the new uniform guidelines, I thought I’d have my friend Deanna here help me show you all what you should not be doing!”
“Seriously?” I look from Deanna to Chloe and back again. “Is he really about to make an example of her right now in front of everyone?”
“Looks that way,” Chloe murmurs, biting her lip.
DioGuardi paces back and forth at the front of the cafeteria like a basketball coach watching a scrimmage. “Now,” he begins, “who can tell me how Deanna is violating the uniform code today?” He nods at a freshman girl sitting at a table by the window. “How about you?”
“Um,” the freshman says, her small voice barely carrying. “She isn’t wearing tights?”
“She isn’t wearing tights!” DioGuardi echoes cheerfully. “That’s certainly one of the problems here. What else?”
Deanna stands silently as DioGuardi points out all her uniform violations one by one, from her untucked shirt to the too-big hoop earrings she’s wearing. He even has Ms. Lynch, the school secretary, bring him a ruler so he can measure the length of her skirt.
“This is awful,” I mutter, though when I look over at Jacob for confirmation I realize he’s watching the proceedings with a good-natured smirk on his face.
“What are you doing?” I ask, jabbing him in the ribs harder than I necessarily mean to. “This isn’t funny.”
“Aw,” Jacob says with a shrug, “it’s a little funny. Besides, Deanna doesn’t care. A whole cafeteria full of dudes looking at her at once is probably her dream.”
“You’re being freaking gross,” I tell him, even as his buddies bust up laughing. I look back at Deanna’s vacant face. I don’t know that I’ve ever sat back and thought super hard about why everyone says she’s a slut in the first place beyond the fact that her boobs are big and she had a boyfriend back in seventh grade. Even if she has been with a million guys, I think suddenly, even if she is dressing to get attention, how is that anybody’s business but hers?
“Ms. Montalto,” Mr. DioGuardi finishes finally, “I will see you in detention this afternoon. As for the rest of you ladies, please remember to dress yourselves in a way that’s befitting of the values we uphold here at Bridgewater.”
“Yeah, ladies,” Jacob teases. “Have some values, why don’t you?”
“I can count three different uniform violations on you right now without even trying,” I say. “You’re lucky DioGuardi didn’t drag you up to the front of the cafeteria in front of everyone.”
“Eh.” Jacob shrugs, unconcerned. I glance over at Chloe for backup, but she’s fussing with her phone inside her bag.
“Can I eat these?” Jacob asks, pointing to the rest of my grapes, and I hand them over without protest. Suddenly I’m not hungry at all.
Ten
That night I sit at my desk eating all the pink Starbursts out of a giant bag I picked up at CVS and staring at the blinking cursor on the screen of my laptop, trying with extremely limited success to put together a draft of this article about the new cafeteria menu. Normally I