Page 23 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
The scent of fresh-baked muffins lures Fern from her room, and the storm cloud hanging over her when I found her on the sidewalk has returned.
While the little ones take their snack plates and settle down for some predinner screen time, I pat the barstool at the island and pull up the plate of muffins.
With a truly impressive sigh, Fern joins me. There’s nothing more cathartic than the heavy sigh of a teenage girl.
“Okay,” I tell her. “Here’s how this is gonna go. I feed you muffins. You feed me gossip. I am very hungry.”
She rubs her hands over her eyes to reveal a pained expression.
And then I realize that—oh shit—I am the adult here, so I start my line of responsible-adult questioning. “Okay, wait. Are you in danger?”
She shakes her head.
“Does this involve anything illegal?”
She smirks. “You have no idea how boring I am.”
“Boring can be good,” I tell her. “And since there’s nothing putting you in a compromising position that would require me to narc on you to your father, consider this discussion covered by attorney-client privilege.”
“It’s my ex,” she blurts.
“I am genuinely triggered by those three words, but please continue.”
A smile twitches on her lips before she takes a huge bite of muffin and talks through a mouthful, which is really the elite way to unload about an ex.
“We dated through eighth, ninth, and tenth grade,” she says.
“Wow, that’s like—”
“A long time, I know. Last year, at my family birthday dinner, my dad’s friend Sloane, who is basically my aunt, told my ex—to his face!—that he was robbing me of my youth.”
“Boss bitch move,” I tell her. “I want an Auntie Sloane. Okay, so what’s this little shitstain’s name?”
“Simon. So he’s been class president every year since seventh grade. And I’ve always run as secretary... which is—”
“A grunt work job.”
“Exactly. But I like it. I like to keep track of the minutes and make sure we stay on task. I’m sort of anxious about details, so it’s worked for me. Especially since Simon was more... the personality, ya know?”
I nod slowly. “He was charismatic, so I’m guessing you were constantly cleaning up his messes.”
“Yes! And figuring out how to deliver on these impossible promises he would make.”
“Did you see him at your student-government interest meeting today?”
“I did. Samira, who was elected last May to be the student body president this year, transferred to a boarding school in upstate New York unexpectedly. So now there’s going to be a special election to fill her role and Simon decided that he wants to step down as eleventh-grade class president to run for student body president. And he’s totally going to win and it makes me want to scoop my eyeballs out of my skull.”
I tear a muffin in half and eat a small piece, like I’d learned to in the etiquette class I took last summer. (At Gentry’s mother’s suggestion.) “Well, we can’t have any kind of eyeball scooping.”
“He’s already soft launching his campaign and taking credit for all kinds of stuff that I did over the last two years. Gender-neutral bathroom initiative in eighth grade? That was me. Organizing other students to go speak at school council meetings about lunch debt? Fighting against book bans? All me! He doesn’t even care about half of that shit!” Her eyes cut to me. “Sorry.”
I hike a thumb over my shoulder. “As long as you don’t have the twins running around screamingshitover and over again, I don’t care.”
She laughs. “Trust me, they hear plenty of cursing from my uncle Leo*and uncle Joey.”*
“Oh, I met Leo,” I tell her as I recall the unnecessarily handsome and pompous piece of work who had followed Bram into my classroom. I resist the urge to say her uncle Leo strikes me as a fuckboy. Fuckman? Whatever. “Back to Simon. You have to run against him. It’s the only way he’ll learn.”
Her jaw drops and then after a moment of shock, she’s shaking her head. “No. No way. Maddie, I get that you’ve only known me for a couple weeks, but that’s legitimately the last thing that I wouldeverdo. Or would everwantto do!”
