A FEW NIGHTS LATER I’M blogging about how Coco Chanel’s rise to fame began during WWI, and how that’s likely because her no-frills approach to fashion coincided with the severity and practicality of the time. My blog’s comment section has been livelier than ever, and this post might be another hit! I keep trying to brainstorm exactly how to turn my love of fashion into my leadership project, and I have a few ideas, but I keep coming up against one huge problem: Sturtevant wouldn’t even let me teach my fashion course at a nursing home, and I have a sinking feeling that’s because she thinks fashion is pointless and superficial. So how is she ever going to approve a fashion/military leadership project? I don’t want to sell out and do the kind of leadership projects everyone else is. But how am I going to convince Sturtevant?
Right before lights-out, I shut down my computer. I don’t try to write just five minutes past the mark like maybe I would have weeks ago. Figuring out how to be creative within the confines of the Academy feels like it’s finally getting a little easier—I’m not perfect, but I’m getting there. (And I’m also ranked cadet #145 now, to be exact—because of my accidental windstorm bull’s-eyes!)
I pull the covers all the way to my neck and think about Jack. The weather plummeted to single digits this week, so we haven’t run since my talk with Joni, which means we’ve had zero alone time. I just don’t know what he’s thinking after our conversation at the lake. Does he trust that I like him, and that I’m not some flight risk? We’re so different—he’s so disciplined and sure of himself. I’ve been trying hard lately to balance studying with blogging, so maybe I’m actually getting more disciplined, too . . . but still, do opposites really attract? Or is that just stuff people like to sing about in pop songs?
I check my phone. There’s only another minute to go before lights-out and Joni still isn’t here. I want to ask her where she goes when she breaks curfew, but even though we’ve gotten so much closer, she’s still way more private than me. I don’t want to push.
Right before lights-out, Joni bursts into our room and says, “Hey!” Then she gets her hair shiny and perfect with a few rapid-fire brush strokes. She’s like a race car driver, changing into her pajamas at top speed, and then flipping off the light, shrouding us in darkness. There’s only the glow of her phone.
“Is that a new perfume?” I ask. She smells like lemon.
“Um, I don’t think so,” she says quickly. “And do you know you’re cadet 136?”
“I am?!” I blurt. Sturtevant must have just adjusted it! We did this sidestep drill in PT where you have to shuffle sideways over ropes like I’ve seen NFL players do on TV, and apparently I’m weirdly adept at moving laterally, which was a surprise to everyone, especially me. Sturtevant said I should take up tennis, but I told her I’m conflicted about that sport because I hate those all-white outfits.
“I think it’s because you made it over the climbing wall for the first time,” Joni says. “It’s so much harder to do without the fake rocks. I can’t believe they took those off. Maybe you’re at an advantage since your tiny feet can fit through the cracks?”
I totally almost forgot how I got over the climbing wall for the first time!
I can feel myself flush with pride, even though #136 is still far from the top half of the class and the final War Games rankings are going to be posted next week.
“Hang on,” Joni says, “lemme turn off my phone, and then we need to debrief about the drills O’Neil’s adding tomorrow, because it’s like this army-crawl drill and I have some tips for you that could bump you up even more, and . . . oh God.”
“What?” I ask from my bed.
Joni’s staring hard at her phone. “Okay, it’s not a big deal . . . it’s just, it looks like someone posted a photo of you when you fell off the monkey bars . . .”
“What?!” I shove off my covers—I need to see the picture. I stumble over the carpet to my desk and open my laptop. The screen glows like a light bulb.
“What are you doing, Frankie? You’re gonna get us in trouble!”
“It’s only a minute past curfew,” I say. I click and find the photo. “Ugh!” I yell. It’s a picture (posted anonymously!) of me lying facedown in the wood chips beneath the monkey bars! And the three other students in the photo are all adeptly swinging from bar to bar! And then beneath the photo is a caption that reads: Which one of these is not like the others?
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Joni says. “I mean, everyone already saw this happen, and this is just silly that someone would post it.”
I stare down at the image of me lying in defeat—it’s everything I’ve been trying to work so hard not to be anymore! “It’s like proof I don’t belong!” I say, feeling my cheeks get hot. I don’t want to cry about something so stupid as this picture, but it’s embarrassing.
“How can you say that?” Joni asks. “You do belong, Frankie, you’re doing awesome here!”
I turn to Joni. Tears fill my eyes. “Do you really think that?”
“I know that,” Joni says.
The sound of a key grinding into our door’s lock makes us both turn. The door swings open, and Sturtevant’s unmistakable frame is silhouetted in our doorway.
Oh my God.
Sturtevant flips on the light. Her makeup-free face is scowling with lines that frame her chapped lips like parentheses. She’s wearing her starched uniform and staring at me like we’re on the battlefield and I’m her sworn enemy.
“And this demerit,” she says, “would be your third and final.”
The way she says it strikes me as sort of overdramatic, and, frankly, I’m really only comfortable with my own overdramaticness. A part of me wants to be mouthy, because that’s my defense mechanism when I’m embarrassed, but there’s another part of me that doesn’t, the part of me who admittedly wants to make War Games, the part that wants to stay here, to keep trying. And that part of me is probably why I start crying.
“Wait,” Joni says, but Sturtevant shakes her head like I’m some pathetic stray poodle mix drooling on her floor. I have to stop crying all the time!
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t have you expelled,” Sturtevant says.
Because I don’t want to have to repeat a grade! Because I don’t want to have to wait an extra year to get to New York City and start my fashionista life! Because I don’t want my friends to move on without me!
I could say those things, because they’re true, but instead I say something else that’s also true. “Because I want to be here,” I say, my voice quavering.
“But that’s not enough,” Sturtevant says, and I know she’s right.
Joni’s quiet. The air goes still. What I want feels like it’s floating between all three of us like butterflies. But I have to say it. “I have no excuse for what I was doing and I’m sorry,” I say, “but please, let me stay.” I meet Sturtevant’s eyes. “Let me prove to you I belong here.”
Sturtevant stares back at me, and this time I don’t break her glance like I did that first day I met her. She gives me a curt nod.
“One more chance, Brooks, and that’s it,” she says. “Here’s what you’re going to do to prove to me that you belong here. By Sunday you’ll arrive at five p.m. at my office with a clear plan of your leadership project for my approval. If I don’t approve your leadership project on Sunday, you will be expelled effective immediately. You will pack your bags Sunday night, and you will be sent back to Mount Pleasant, where you will repeat your sophomore year of high school.”
I shudder.
Before I can say anything, Sturtevant whips her hand into a salute. Joni and I jump from our beds and salute back.
My hands are shaking, but I still reach for the brand-new pot of La Crème lip balm on the post of my bed. “Here, take this,” I say, carefully holding the balm out for Sturtevant. “It works wonders on dry lips.”
“Frankie has a lifestyle blog, so sometimes she gets beauty samples,” Joni says both nervously and proudly. “FreshFrankie dot com.”
Sturtevant looks down at the chic pot of lip balm nestled in my clammy palm. She looks kind of offended that I called out her chapped lips, but she takes the lip balm. “Good night, cadets,” she says, flipping off the light and closing the door behind her, leaving us standing there in the darkness.
I turn to Joni. I can just make out her form in the darkness. She lets out a big breath of air and then opens her arms. I’m hopeful and giddy as I fold into her embrace.
Lt. Sturtevant’s keeping me here even though I made a mistake, at least for a little longer. She’s asking me to prove myself, and she’s maybe even hoping I do.