Free Notes on a Near-Life Experience by Olivia Birdsall Page B

CLASS DURING school, I typically have practice either before or after school, which means that I usually get to see Kiki Nordgren five days of every week. At these practices, Kiki typically does one of the following three things:
    (1) ignores me.
    (2) talks about whoever she's dating in front of me— probably hoping that I'll talk to Allen about it.
    (3) tries to rechoreograph my routines.
    After seeing her in the outcast bathroom, I assumed this would change; I thought maybe Kiki would be nicer to me, so that I wouldn't say anything, or that she'd be even meaner to me because I'd discovered her secret. Truthfully, I hopedshe would change somehow, become a nicer person because she had problems or something. Yeah, right.
    At first she was a little different. She still did all the stuff she normally did, but it felt a little forced, kind of awkward. After a few practices, after I didn't say or do anything about what I'd seen, Kiki was her old self again.
    I guess a lot of people started getting asked to the prom around the time Julian asked me, because today at our after-school practice, everyone is talking about the prom. I am friends with most of the girls on the team; some are members of Kiki's legion of brats, but for the most part, the other girls don't really care whether I convinced my brother to break up with Kiki or whether Kiki likes me. Most of them can't remember who was dating who six weeks ago, much less six months ago.
    While we stretch, everyone talks. Mandy has been asked by a guy she doesn't really want to go with; Ana hasn't been asked at all, but Ben, the guy she has a crush on, hasn't asked anyone yet, so she's hoping she still has a chance. I'm dying to tell the entire planet that I'm going to the prom with Julian. I told Mandy and Ana at practice two days after Julian asked me, but no one else knows; I am sort of waiting my turn, waiting for someone to ask me whether I've been asked.
    Kiki Nordgren doesn't have to wait.
    “Kiki, who's asked you so far?” a sophomore in the Cult of Kiki wants to know.
    I hate the way people just assume that more than one guy will ask Kiki.
    “Jake Dowdle and Ryan Walker,” she says. She manages to sound bored by the whole conversation.
    I hate that she
has
been asked by more than one guy.
    “Are you going to say yes to either of them?” Mandy asks.
    “I don't think so. I'm waiting for someone else to ask me.”
    “Who?” half the team choruses, probably worried that Kiki has set her sights on their potential prom dates.
    “I'm pretty sure Julian Paynter is going to ask me, and I'm going to go with him,” Kiki says, glancing back at me. She leans forward, acting like she's letting the girls in on a big secret, like they have all suddenly become her confidantes. “I think the whole reason Allen and I had problems is because Julian liked me so much. Allen probably didn't know it until after we started dating because Julian was too shy to say anything. So when Allen found out, he broke up with me, for Ju-lian's sake. Plus, Allen's probably gay anyway; I think he was using me as a beard or something.”
    A few of the girls laugh when she says this.
    Kiki speaks as if there's no doubt that what she said is true. I freeze. I know I need to do something, but all I can think of involves running at her, screaming, jumping on her back, and clawing at her perfect face. I could ask Kiki if her lunches taste as good coming up as they do going down. I could tell everyone what I heard in the bathroom. I could spread rumors about her, the way she always does about me, make her look ridiculous for once. But I am frozen. And even if I weren't, I don't know if I could expose Kiki.
    Ana speaks before I can, though. “Kiki, Julian already has a date. He's going with Mia. He asked her a while ago. Right, Meems?”
    Every girl in the room turns to stare at me.
    “Yeah. He did.” This is my chance to tell it like it is, to get Kiki back for all the lies she's told, all the rumors