She stared at me with surprise. “About Josh?”

“Well, I was talking about those flyers; but sure, now that you mention it, I was wrong about Josh too.”

“What do you mean you were wrong about Josh?” Her voice was edged with anger, like she thought I might be insulting him.

“I just mean it was wrong of me to go out with him when he was so clearly interested in you.” A mistake I wouldn’t repeat if for no other reason than my ego couldn’t take more of that type of abuse.

“Oh.” Relief softened her face, but a moment later it was gone. “He’s only interested in me now because there’s no one else around.”

“Thanks. I was around.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that, well . . ." She took a deep breath, and I could tell she wasn’t sure whether she should say more—that she wasn’t sure whether or not she could trust me with her feelings on the matter—but then, perhaps because I’d just apologized to her, she said, “When Josh was at college surrounded by other girls, he didn’t want a long-distance relationship with me. That wasn’t good enough for him. But now, now that he’s home for the summer, he’s being nice to me.”

“You don’t want to be second-best. I know the feeling.” And suddenly it seemed almost funny that Cassidy and I had something in common. We could have formed the Rejected by Josh Club. Only I suppose since neither of us wanted to be second-best, we would have had a hard time deciding who should be vice president.

Cassidy nodded. “It’s like he just wants a summer girlfriend. Once school starts again, it will be all over, all over again.”

Part of me wanted to nod in agreement and say, “Yeah, men are horrible creatures, and Josh is especially horrible because he never liked me.” Another part of me, the better part, felt obligated to say something else.

“If he just wanted a summer girlfriend, he could have chosen anyone, and I can testify that he’s not the least bit interested in me. I think he’s being nice to you because he likes you.”

She smiled, then forced it away. “Well, maybe it’s not his choice this time. Maybe I don’t want to be his girlfriend again.”

“Uh-huh. He’s gorgeous, premed, and can’t take his eyes off you when you’re in the room.”

“Really?”

“I’d tell you all about the prom, but I’m trying to repress that memory.”

“He couldn’t take his eyes off me?”

I laughed. It felt nice to talk to her. It felt easy. As we turned to walk to the cafeteria I said, “I give you approximately one week till you’re back together.”

“Definitely not. My pride can hold up at least two weeks.” She bit her lip. “Well, maybe a week and a half.”

My friends were already eating their lunches when I arrived. They all looked at me with uncertainty as I sat down, so I knew Chelsea had told them what happened between the two of us at the prom.

“There you are,” Rachel said. “We were wondering if you were at school today.”

“I had some biology stuff to do this morning, and I was late to lunch because I went to talk to Cassidy, you know, trying to make amends.”

Aubrie leaned in closer and shot me a wide-eyed look of sympathy. “What did you say?”

“Basically that I’d been wrong, and I was sorry.”

Chelsea winced, and then put her hand near mine on the table. “Really, Samantha, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. It must have been awful.”

“Not in the way you think. She was nice about it.”

“I bet she really laid a guilt trip on you, didn’t she?” Rachel said.

“No, she was nice about it.”

“Like right,” Chelsea said. “Just wait and see what happens the next time she’s out campaigning for Amy.”

Rachel nodded in agreement. “She puts on such an act of being sweet. You’d think her main goal in life was to be sprinkled on the top of breakfast cereal.”

“She was nice about it,” I said again, this time more firmly.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Chelsea asked.

“She’s still on her no-insult kick,” Aubrie said.

Rachel looked over at me. “Wasn’t that supposed to be over on Friday?”

I shrugged as I took my sandwich out of its bag. “Maybe I’m just tired of being so critical. Maybe we all could stand to be a little nicer.”

Chelsea opened her mouth as though about to protest, but then didn’t. She probably still felt so guilty about the flyers she would have supported me even if I’d just suggested that we all take up clogging.

Rachel leaned back in her chair and took a bag of chips from her lunch sack. “Oh, come on.”

But Aubrie nodded. “I don’t suppose it would hurt if we were less critical.”

Rachel humphed. “I’m not that critical to begin with.”

“Think you could go two weeks without criticizing someone?” I asked.

“Probably,” she said.

Chelsea shook her head, then picked up her fork. “I think Doug is going to get a date out of this one way or the other.”

“Yeah,” Aubrie said, “but it might be with you.”

And then we all laughed, at least we all laughed except for Rachel, who went on to vigorously protest that she wasn’t the critical type.

CHAPTER 15

On Tuesday three things of importance happened—the first one being that when I came to school I ran into Logan passing out flyers in the front lobby. When I got close to him, he winked at me, then handed a flyer to a passing student and in a loud voice said, “Vote for Samantha, she’s really not all that bad.”

“Very funny.” I took a flyer to see what it said. It had my name down one side, and in the middle of the paper it said, VOTE FOR SAMANTHA. SHE’S TAYLOR-MADE FOR THE

PRESIDENCY. A little candy bar was taped on the bottom of each flyer. “Catchy,” I said.

“Where did you get them?”

“Chelsea made them. She’s passing out more of them upstairs.”

“That's nice.” I knew it was her way of apologizing, and despite the last couple of days, I knew everything would be all right between us.

The second thing was that I talked to Amy. I hadn’t said much to her, well, ever, but I had said even less to her since the campaign started. Now I sought her out. I walked around the hallway by her locker until she finally showed up. While she pulled colo r-coded folders from her locker I went and stood beside her. “Look, I’m not really good at apologies; but I thought you made that flyer about me, so I tore down your first set of posters. I’m sorry I did it, and if you turn me in— well, I’ll understand.”

She stopped shuffling her folders for a moment. “Oh.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I shifted my weight uncomfortably while I waited for her to say something else.

Finally she said, “I wouldn’t feel right about getting you in trouble. I mean, if I win this election, I want it to be because the students like my ideas and want me as their president. Not because the only other choice was some guy whose platform consisted of beer and anarchy.”

“Thanks.” And then because I really respected her at that moment, I added, “And if I win, I’d like your help running things. I think you’re really smart and organized.”

She smiled. “Thanks. And if I win, I’d like your help too. I think you’re really . . . um . . . popular.”

Sometimes it’s just better not to compliment people. Still, I smiled. “I’m glad there are no hard feelings.”

And there weren’t. I mean, I couldn’t hold it against Amy that she couldn’t think of any presidential skills I had. After all, the only thing she’d ever seen me do was lead cheers.

Once this was all over, though, I was going to make an effort to get to know her better.

The third thing that happened was that I met up alone with Rick.

Ever since I noticed the poster at the prom, I’d thought off and on what I’d say to him the next time I had a chance. Part of me wanted to scream at him. I wanted to take him by his shoulders and shake all his safety pins loose. I wanted to tell him he and his stupid flyers were the root of all my problems, and everything bad that had happened to me over the last couple weeks was his fault.