#22. The Harley and the Ivy
Prompt: You pushed me down for all the world to see/ I guess that's your price for my loyalty (Blame, Collective Soul)
The worst part of it was that Ivy had been my best friend for years. I couldn't shake her.
Maybe Ivy just didn't want to be shaken. She just dug her nails into your shoulders and held on for dear life. Note the painful part, 'cause that's all Ivy really was.
I recall the time we met as a turn for the worse in my life - if you knew her you'd understand. In fact, I aim to make you understand. When I first saw the straight golden hair and her Hello Kitty backpack I was doomed.
Maybe a little dramatic, yeah, but Ivy is dramatic. Melodrama and death, that's her.
Okay, that's a little dramatic, too. Where was I?
Anyways, we were both in kindergarten, and she was the bold, outgoing type. When we were introducing ourselves and saying our names she yelled, "I'm Ivy and I'm six!" And we all gasped, since we were all five, and when you're a kid your age is as important as your name. A six year old in our classroom? Did people even live that long?
So Ivy kind of became a class leader - partly because of her personality (she was bossy as... you know, and just as stubborn) and partly because we all fell in line behind her. In kindergarten you're not trying to find where you stand with your peers yet, so we just stood behind her. She could be mean sometimes, like when she blatantly told me that my hair was the same every day and she thought it was a wig and not real hair, then pulled hard to see if it was real. Most of the time, however, she was a sweet towheaded little girl with a gap between her teeth and a big grin, the kid the parents and teachers always saw, but her friends knew her Communist-dictator side. Ivy was a model student, a leader, or so the teachers said. Her parents adored her, and she was an only child which made it worse. I couldn't get away with half of the stuff that Ivy did with Trevor around my house now, and her parents gave her pretty much whatever she wanted.
"Moon shoes? Sure, honey. You're going to be a great astronaut."
"Two American Girl dolls? You'll share them, right? That's a good girl." Ahem, she didn't share. Share was not a word in Ivy's vocabulary.
"A mini-sized Escalade car that runs on a car battery with full driving capabilities? Just stay out of the street, honey."
I can't fault her for that, only that it made her filthy spoiled. Like the first time she came over to my house,
"This is your house? Why is it so small? Why do you have only one car? I feel so bad for you."
In my parents' earshot.
I still have no idea how I became her best friend - trust me, not willingly. She grabbed my shirtsleeve and dragged me along wherever she went, sometimes literally. It was okay when we were kids, sure, where could we go? I'd ride bikes with her and get ice cream and whatever. It was okay before we got to the point when we had sleepovers, and the I could see how poisonous she was.
The first time I went to her house it was like stepping into the White House - gold inlay on the doorknobs! Two garages, four cars! Four TVs, two of which were Ivy's, a computer all of her own, you get the picture. This family was so rich you could smell it. I could almost imagine money poking out of their pockets or sewn into the lining of their clothes. Rich rich. So I was awestruck as I followed Ivy around, sliding on the wooden floors, and then she led me into her room, the size of the bottom floor of my house. Sweet, towheaded Ivy turned to me and clasped her hands together.
"Let's give you a makeover." She said.
Oh, the makeover. Who knew I was at such a loss without that kid makeup gook that comes in little packets - ugh.
First she coated my eyelids in sticky paste, then smeared powdery rouge over my cheeks and gooey tube lip gloss over my lips, one coat bubblegum pink, the next bright red.
"You look perfect!" She had declared. I looked like the Joker, but wasn't about to cross Ivy.
It kept going and kept going, just changing as we grew older. One day she wouldn't play with me on the playground because I had somehow fallen out of her favor and wanted to play with Ellen Marie. Ellen Marie? Ellen Marie had wet her pants every Friday for the last two years and was a conversation point of every gossiping second grade girl, why would Ivy associate herself with her? When I asked later she simply said, "You wore that ugly top again. I don't like it."
In my defense, it was a perfectly normal top. Don't even try to understand Ivy's whims.
Then it was music she would fight with me about. My dad is big into classic rock, and I was weaned on the greats, so when I told Ivy my favorite song was "More Than A Feeling" by Boston she went ballistic.
"Absolutely not! She had screeched, then pulled me into her room and played her bubble-gum-cherry-pop music at full volume, blasting it into my ears
"How can you not know who Hannah Montana is?" She screamed over the din, finding me similarly deprived in another aspect - television. I had never watched a lot of TV as a kid and she wanted me to binge-watch her Disney Channel obsession. Yeah, how about no? I faked going to the bathroom and called my mom to take me home. But the next weekend I found myself back at Ivy's house, reading a book behind the pillows of the couch while Ivy stared at Miley Cyrus' antics onscreen, dropping in comments occasionally.
"Oh, he didn't!"
"Aww, they're so cute!"
"Isn't this great, Harley?"
When Ivy got her first phone everything got complicated. Of course, her parents gave her the iPhone 4S, the newest and most up-to-date model complete with Siri (gasp), Ivy couldn't be separated from it. It was like the screen gave her life or sunlight or something she needed to survive. And she wasn't just looking at the teen gossip magazine websites, she was texting her other more popular friends that had phones, too. Maybe I had desire one to get a phone, but after seeing Ivy's addiction to it I avoided them as much as possible.
I don't know if 'friends' could define my relationship with Ivy back then, but it changed from whatever it was to me as an object for Ivy to grow in status. She was seeing where she stood with the other kids and wanted to be higher in rank than she was. That's when the texting came in. I had a phone by then, just a flip phone that I never ever used, and it would blow up with texts from numbers I didn't know.
>Hey loser why are you reading all the time what a nerd<
>I don't see why Ivy even hangs out with u ur such a loser<
Thankfully we were in fourth grade and didn't know any swear words, but when we got into sixth grade they turned nasty. Ivy was ascending the social ladder in high heels, though, batting her eyelashes at the mediocre guys in our class, stealing her mom's makeup and freshening up in the bathroom for all to see.
I hated her for it, even if she couldn't fully see what she was doing herself. I hated being used, and I hated being batted around because she wanted to be friends with someone else. How low could you get? I got a new number and shared it with no one but my family and my new best friend, Eleanor, who could appreciate my love of books and Star Wars, and she was so nice and awesome I thought, 'This is what friends are like?' I would distance myself from Ivy, sitting with other people at the lunch table, or finding a different partner during class. Ivy knew what I was doing, though, and would always pull me back, belittling me in front of her popular friends.
"OMG, Harley, you wore that shirt, like, two weeks ago. Why do you even still have it? I would, like, die if I had to wear that."
Okay, let me shove it over your head and you'll be out of my way. Of course I didn't say that, I just laughed along. Later I would simply storm away, furious at Ivy, for the first time wanting to get back at her.
Eventually Ivy went too far. She decided she wanted to steal the teacher's phone.
Now, Mrs. Figueroa's phone was nothing to be desired, except that she was on it all the time. When we took tests she was hunched over her slide phone, trying to make the screen scroll with her fingernail. Sometimes even when she was teaching us she would have it clutched in her clawlike hands. Ivy wanted to take it. But how? Mrs. Figueroa's phone was with her constantly, how could we slip it away?
Ivy's plan was this: She sat the closest to the teacher's desk, so when Mrs. Figueroa left her phone on her desk Ivy would take it and put it in her backpack, turning it on silent so it wouldn't ring if she called looking for it. Then they would have the phone! Ivy would take it home and look through all the things Mrs. Figueroa was sifting through during class.
I was totally opposed to this - what if we got caught? And we totally would, this was school. Stealing a teacher's phone was unheard of, and that's why Ivy wanted to do it. The popular crowd knew her plan and were fawning over her all week, with Ivy in the middle basking in their attention. For once I wasn't the one doing all the dirty work - Ivy had volunteered to take the phone herself, in front of the entire student body. So that afternoon Mrs. Figueroa dragged herself out of her chair and Ivy struck, whipping her hand out and clutching the Nokia brick phone in her hand, then slipping into her pencil bag with a smirk. The entire class was tittering with laughter, all eyes focused on Ivy's triumphant face, but poor old Mrs. Figueroa ignored them.
It happened when Ivy waltzed into the cafeteria like a model on the red carpet, to the applause of the students - I kid you not, they were clapping - and then a hush fell over the crowd. Footsteps were approaching, at the brisk military-time pace every student had memorized since day one at school. The footsteps of Principal Hames, West Point graduate and ruler of the school. Rumor had it he could smell trouble like a bloodhound and drank the tears of students to make him immortal, and Ivy was a beacon of 'trouble.' Hames was on the prowl.
He approached both of us, eyes flicking to Ivy, a repeat offender who he knew well, and then to me, who he knew from when I did office aide on Wednesdays and Fridays. His lips twisted into a savage smile and he loomed over Ivy, hands behind his back.
"Mrs. Figueroa has lost her cell phone. I heard you might have it."
The students gasped. How could Hames have found out so fast? He was inhuman. Ivy, however, never to be daunted, simply stuck up her chin.
"No, sir. Sorry." She even had the gall to wink at Hames as she brushed past him. Then she uttered those fateful words, "But you might want to check Harley's bag. She might have it."
I was rooted to the spot, then reached into my lunchbag and pulled out, with trembling fingers, Mrs. Figueroa's Nokia phone. No way. Ivy must have slipped it in my bag to avoid getting in trouble. I was livid, absolutely furious, rounding on Hames.
"I didn't, I swear!" I cried, and Hames nodded, not even in a menacing way, then he turned to Ivy.
"I know you didn't. We have it all on tape. You didn't know there were classroom cameras, did you, Ivy?"
Ivy turned sheet-white under her makeup. She reached for her backpack like it might offer her some form of protection. Thankfully she didn't even try to protest, just hung her head in defeat.
"Good. I'll see you in my office." Hames sneered, then stalked out of the cafeteria to the uproar of the students. Ivy was caught!
It wasn't enough for me, though. I stormed over to Ivy and shouted, "How could you?"
Now it was my turn to utter the sentence of severance, feared by all.
"I'm not your friend anymore."
And I wasn't. And that, my friends, my real friends, was that. I guess this story has a happy ending after all, awesome. Now, if you'll excuse me, Eleanor and I are having a Star Wars marathon. Get back to you later, okay?
- Harley
P.S. Hey everyone! Personal side-comment - Collective Soul is one of my favorite bands, so check out some of their other music! If you want, you know. No pressure. ;)
Also: KimberlyTate, remind you of someone?
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top