Senior Week Fling

I always thought that the day I finished my last exam of senior year would be the best day of my pre-college life. 

The bell would sound, blue books would snap shut and I would jump up like a character in an awesome retro movie, shake my beautiful, wavy hair, and walk like a rock star through the open doors of the school and into my bright, carefree future. There might even be snappy 80’s music playing in the background.

Life, as it turns out, is never what you plan it to be.

Now, of course, I realize that I never wanted to be the peppy high-schooler with the perfect hair, but still, that famed day had finally arrived and there I stood, on the eve of my high school graduation, on the cusp of a college career, on the brink of a fascinating new life … on two wobbly, caffeine-loaded legs. Ten minutes into my newfound freedom, it was all I could do to not keel over.

Victoria, on the other hand, had enough energy for both of us. She was literally jumping up and down with impatience as she waited for me to finish clearing out my locker.

“We’re done, we’re done, we’re done!” she squealed, clapping her hands.

“I’d started to think that this day would never come,” I admitted as I heaved a stack of papers out of my locker. A picture from sophomore year of me and my best friend Adam fluttered to the ground. I peered into my locker and swept a crumpled quiz from September, a few pencils, and an old gym shirt into the garbage with my arm before catching a glimpse of myself in the little green-framed mirror I had hung on the first day of school. 

The last few weeks of late night cram sessions and end-of-the-year activities had taken its toll and now that it was all over, I looked, quite frankly, shell-shocked. Excitement warred with exhaustion on my face. My green eyes were suspiciously bright considering the purple bags that circled underneath. Birds could have nested in my usually manageable curly hair. I leaned my forehead against the cool locker door willing the excitement to take me over. Thank God it was summer.

“Hurry up, Eve, we’ve got to meet the guys,” Victoria nudged me.

Adam and our other friend Mark had lucked out in their exam schedules and had finished the day before. They were coming to pick us up so we could go out and celebrate the end of school. We were all headed off to college after one last summer together but first, before summer could truly begin and we said goodbye to Harbor High and our fellow inmates, there was one last thing we had to do. Senior Week.

Normally, Adam and I would have nothing to do with something so lamely school spirited like Senior Week. A vacation with the same group of people I’ve been forced to spend every day with since Kindergarten? Not exactly my idea of paradise. It sounded a little like hell, to be honest. 

But, as luck would have it, the Senior Week planners had chosen Wildwood, a beach on the Jersey shore, as the location since it was only a two-hour drive from our town. Wildwood also just so happened to be where Adam’s family owned a house. He and I had been spending our summers there since we were in diapers and had been planning on going there again this year. Since Senior Week was going to be there anyways, we figured we might as well check out the festivities. Besides, Victoria would have been heartbroken if we’d left her alone.

I shoved the few remaining notebooks from my locker into my book bag, scraped the mirror off the door with my fingernails, took one last look inside and slammed the door shut. “Let’s get out of here.” 

Victoria did a little hop next to me as we set off down the halls for the last time. We passed signs advertising different Senior Week events: a senior class cruise, beach volleyball tournaments, the list of hokey events went on and on until we reached the front door to the school and walked into the warm spring air.

The freedom hit me like a tidal wave; I took in a lungful of air and exhaled in one, slow breath. Call me crazy, but I truly believed that the sun never felt so warm, the air so sweet, or the wind so balmy as it did walking out the front door of Harbor High for the very last time. This is what I was talking about. Thank the Lord.

Seniors crowded the steps, talking in groups about Senior Week. It was all anyone had been capable of talking about for the past two weeks. The class as a whole was completely obsessed.

We made it halfway down the steps before we were pulled into a conversation.

“Vicky!”

I could feel Victoria cringe beside me. She hated it when people called her Vicky. There was some traumatic story involving a childhood crush and having a name that rhymed with hickey. She didn’t like to talk about it. 

We both turned to face Lindsay Miller. Cute, funny, perky Lindsay Miller—former friend and current bane of my existence. I’m pretty sure everyone has a Lindsay in their life. Someone who is always one step ahead. If you discover a great new band, she’s been listening to them for ages (and has somehow scored tickets to their sold out concert.) You tell a funny story, she has one even funnier. You’re going on a trip to Mexico with your family? How cool! She went on a tour of South America the summer before and can lend you her Spanish phrasebook.

She’s outgoing and personable and exudes more charisma and confidence than anyone else you know. 

And what’s worse, you can’t even dislike her because she’s nice to just about everyone. (Unless you are unlucky enough to end up on her bad side. Take it from me, you do not want to be on her bad side.) She fits in with everyone—athletic types loved her, science geeks adored her—name a group and she was a member. She could flit in and out of any crowd with ease and was adored by them all. 

Some call her a trendsetter. I call her a chameleon—a deceptively dangerous creature in the jungle that we call high school.

At that moment, Lindsay was playing the part of uber preppy queen bee, perched a step above a group of girls who were on the committee that had organized Senior Week. The group consisted of student council members and cheerleaders and Lindsay was playing her part to perfection, looking like a blonde Blair Waldorf presiding over her army.

Odds were we’d run into her later tonight at a local coffee shop where a lot of artist types and hipsters hung out and you better believe she’d be sporting horn-rimmed glasses and a beret, but for now she was the very picture of a joiner.

The thing is, Victoria could have been mistaken for a member of their crew from a distance. With her sundress and knockoff sunglasses, she looked like she should be . 

Luckily for me, fashion was where Victoria’s uniformity ended. I stood on the outskirts of their little group in faded cutoffs and a vintage tee from the Salvation Army.

Despite the difference in appearance, Victoria and I had hit it off right away. She transferred to our school sophomore year and we’d both shared a deep aversion for phys ed. Me, because I lacked any athletic ability whatsoever and Victoria, because it posed the threat of ruining her perfect hair and makeup. I definitely wasn’t the obvious choice to be Victoria’s friend. 

At face value she seemed like a new recruit for a cliquey popular crowd—but appearances can be deceiving. Victoria was the perfect example of the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” cliché. She was sweet and bubbly and cute, which made her super popular but what most people didn’t know was that underneath that perfect exterior lurked the heart of a true individual. She hid it well but when you got her alone she was actually pretty goofy and silly and had a wicked sense of humor, something most students at our school sorely lacked. And that’s why she preferred to hang out with the three of us; with us she could be herself, dorky Zac Efron-obsession and all.

“Will we see you at the shore this week?” Lindsay asked Victoria, angling her shoulders away from me.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Victoria answered with a bright smile. She gestured to me, “Eve and I are both going.”

I appreciated her attempt to draw me into the conversation but it didn’t work. If she heard my name mentioned, she gave no acknowledgment. Lindsay was not about to include me in her precious Senior Week plans.

“Where are you staying?” she asked Victoria. “Because if you need a place to crash, we may have an extra bed at the suite Jenny’s mom booked.”

“Thanks, but I’m staying with Eve.”

Lindsay was forced to glance in my general direction. “Oh, right,” she said, with a forced smile. “I keep forgetting you’re coming.”

Riiight. Nice try, Lindsay.

“Of course she’s coming,” Victoria answered for me. “She’s a part of the senior class.”

Lindsay didn’t stand a chance. Her cattiness was no match for Victoria’s sweet sincerity. The overlords of hell would have a hard time being evil while staring into her baby blues.

“Well, of course she is,” Lindsay said. She looked right at me with a bright smile. “It just doesn’t seem like her cup of tea, that’s all. But the more the merrier, right? We’re all going to have the best time!”

“Can’t wait,” I said. To my credit, the sarcasm was heavily veiled. Only Victoria knew that what I actually said was, Shoot me now if I have to spend one minute of my vacation with this fake, manipulative witch.

“So,” Lindsay said to me. “Where are you staying?”

“A friend’s house in Wildwood,” I said. I admit, I was purposefully vague, I knew it would drive Lindsay nuts.

“Wow, so you’ll have the whole house to yourselves?” she asked.

Her eyes were wide with innocence but I knew what she was getting at. What’s more, she knew that I knew what she was up to but I refused to play along.

“No,” I said. “Others will be joining us.”

“Oh?” Lindsay was determined not to ask the million-dollar question but not knowing was obviously killing her.

“Will Adam be there?” one of Lindsay’s friends piped up. The poor girl either didn’t know the rules of the game Lindsay was playing or she just didn’t care.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Actually, it’s his parents’ house.”

Lindsay’s effort to seem unaffected failed miserably. Her eyes were wide with hope and I just didn’t have it in me to go on despising her. I mean, yes, she did try her best to make my life miserable whenever she got the chance. But she was a victim all the same. Just one in a long list of Adam’s heartbroken exes. The difference was that, unlike the others, Lindsay didn’t have the good grace to accept defeat and move on. She refused to believe that she, like all the others, had been given the gentle yet firm slip that Adam so often executed.

Victoria, in what I suspected was an attempt to distract Lindsay, asked, “What about you guys? What hotel are you staying at?”

“The Seaside Palace,” one girl answered.

“Wow, isn’t that expensive?” Victoria asked. The Seaside Palace was one of the few four-star hotels in the casual beach town.

“Yeah, Jen’s mom is paying for it,” she said. “It was her graduation present.”

I looked at Jen, a pudgy bookish girl I recognized from English class. She was perched on a step a little behind the rest, nervously tugging at her ill-fitting Burberry jacket. She blinked owlishly at me and I had to wonder if the hotel room was her mom’s graduation present to her or the price of admission.

“Have you bought your tickets for the senior cruise yet?” Jen asked. “I’m in charge of ticket sales and they’re running out fast.”

“I got mine,” Victoria said.

“What about you, Eve?” Jen asked. 

I managed to stifle a laugh so that only a little snort escaped. 

The senior cruise was our answer to prom and I had no intentions of giving anyone on the yearbook staff any ideas for the best candidate for the “Worst Dancer to Ever Grace the Halls of Harbor” title.

Lindsay was not amused. She shot me a withering look. “Don’t bother with her, Jen. Eve already has her ticket,” she answered for me.

“Uh, I do?” I looked to Victoria but she just shrugged.

“I sold Adam two tickets last week,” she explained.

Ah. Here we go again. 

Lindsay had literally refused to believe Adam when he told her that it just wasn’t working between them. It seemed her fragile ego was incapable of hearing that. She insisted that there had to be some other reason, something or someone who could be blamed for the breakup. So who did she blame? Me. 

In an act of pure lunacy she became convinced that there was something going on between the two of us, that we were secretly harboring passionate feelings for one another and it was our dark forbidden love that had driven them apart. 

Adam and I thought it was pretty hysterical—at first. But that was months ago. Her ridiculous accusations and snide comments were getting old.

She was waiting for me to respond. As a rule I opted to ignore Lindsay’s pointed remarks because it drove her crazy. 

“Did he?” I asked politely.

“Oh, like you didn’t know,” Lindsay rolled her eyes and shot her sympathetic friends a look that said “do you see what I have to put up with?” 

“Are you saying you’re not going as his date?” she asked with exaggerated patience. 

Her friends with starting to scowl in my direction. How exactly had Lindsay become the victim here? Really, the girl was a master manipulator.

I shrugged. “I didn’t even know he got tickets.”