Confessions of a Hater Read online

  “I’ll make a point of watching it,” I said.

  “Andy,” Mrs. Kellar interrupted. “Why don’t you help Hailey and her family with the boxes? I need to start putting dinner together.”

  “That’s okay,” I offered, wanting to give him an out. I know I wouldn’t want to help some stranger move in, new neighbor or not. “You don’t have to. We have movers.”

  But Andy was already lifting a box off the truck, saying, “No problem.” Which suddenly made me feel like I should take one too, so I grabbed a box that was large but fairly light, spun around and headed for the house … and immediately tripped over the edge of the walkway.

  I went down hard.

  The box went down harder.

  It popped open—what are we paying those movers for anyway, did they even tape these things—and suddenly I saw why the box had been so light. The contents were my clothes. Specifically, the clothes from my top drawer.

  More specifically, my frigging bras and underwear.

  And now they were all over the lawn.

  “Are you okay?” Andy asked, setting down his box.

  “No!” I cried, meaning: No, just keep going into the house, Andy!

  “You’re not?” he said, alarmed.

  “Yes! I mean no. I mean I’m fine,” I said, getting up, but not before …

  “You take it easy,” he said. “I’ll get these.” Trying to be polite, Andy started picking up my underthings, cementing my mortification. He cradled underwear in one arm and scooped up a bra in another. I leapt to my feet and grabbed for the bra, and next thing I knew we were in a two-second tug of war that he instantly won, the bra popping out of my hands, snapping back at him and striking him, bam, right in the face.

  Oh God. Let’s just move back to Westchester now. It’s not too late. We can pretend none of this happened.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, wincing.

  Andy had a hand over his eye, his face scrunched up.

  “You’re not okay,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, removing his hand to reveal a small welt just underneath his eye. (Whew!)

  Thankfully, his attention was grabbed by something in the corner of his eye. We both turned to look.

  She was about three houses down, on the opposite side of the street: a girl about our age, with short, dirty-blond hair, fair skin and eyes so big and brown I could see them clearly from the distance. (Thankfully, so could Andy, because I had somehow managed not to blind him.) She wore skinny jeans, Converse sneakers and a flannel shirt with a T-shirt over it instead of under. She was very pretty and definitely had her own sense of style, but she looked really cool. My first thought was one of slight panic—don’t be Andy’s girlfriend, I just met a cute guy, and I didn’t quite make him a cyclops—but when I looked at Andy’s face, he wasn’t smiling.

  I saw the girl glance at Andy and then me, and I thought I caught a bit of a smile just at the end, before she turned into her driveway and disappeared into her house.

  Andy clearly was not pleased. I teased him: “Good friend of yours?”

  He didn’t answer at first, just finished up scooping up my undies. I almost thought he didn’t hear me when he quietly said, “That’s Anya.”

  “Okay … I’m guessing you guys don’t hang out.”

  “No,” he answered, almost too quickly. “I don’t. You don’t want to either. You’re new, there’s lots of cool people at the school. Not her. You should avoid her.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I shouldn’t have pushed my luck with this cute guy, and the old Hailey wouldn’t have, but Noel’s diary was in my mind. Be strong.

  “Come on, Andy,” I said. “You can talk to me. Sure, we’ve only known each other fifteen minutes, but, I mean you’ve already seen my underwear. You West Hollywood boys sure do move fast.”

  Wow? Did I just say that? Noel’s words, her confidence, coming out of my mouth.

  He smiled with genuine warmth. “Hailey, stay away from Anya, okay? Trust me. She’s a psycho.”

  “Really? She looked relatively normal.”

  “So did Ted Bundy.”

  “Ted who?”

  “Google it sometime. Anyway, I know you’re new and want to meet people, but don’t waste your time with her. Seriously, I know some cool people. I’ll introduce you. You’ll be fine.”

  I was confused, but Andy was being sweet and I’d pushed my luck far enough. He was being nice, maybe even a little flirty, and he cared enough to give me the lowdown on this girl who was obviously bad news.

  “Okay, Andrew,” I said, having no idea where that came from. “It’s a deal. As long as you’ll please hand me back my underwear before I die of embarrassment.”

  As we continued to help the movers unpack the truck, I thought about how odd this all was. Little did Andy know, he’d probably be warning me against myself if he’d met me just a few weeks earlier, but somehow he didn’t sniff out the Old Hailey working beneath my New Hailey façade—and it still felt like a façade sometimes, but sometimes it didn’t. Right then it felt pretty good.

  I wondered about Anya, but not all that much; Andy just helped me dodge a Loserville bullet. Noel’s diary had become my center of gravity, and her inadvertent “advice” was to be ruthlessly political when deciding whom to befriend:

  Eat fattening foods, you’re going to gain weight. Hang out with losers, you’re going to become one. Be ruthless when choosing your friends. You are who you hang out with.

  I saw Andy only twice more before the first day of school. I was hoping I’d run into him closer to that Monday, just so I could hint that I’d like him to show me around or introduce me to a few people or just remind him that I knew utterly frigging nobody, including the (quite possibly psycho) girl who lives just three doors away. But no matter how much time I spent lingering in our driveway, the chance run-in didn’t happen.

  I saw Anya walk by a few times, but I never crossed the street, and neither did she. She’d look over on occasion and smile, and I felt the urge to wave but resisted. I managed a soft nod, because anything less would be a dick move.

  She might be a psycho, and I might be New and Improved Ruthless Hailey, but I’m not an asshole.

  * * *

  The last Sunday before my first day at the new school was spent trying on outfits and hairstyles and practicing smiling in the mirror.

  “Hi, nice to meet you. Hi, I’m Hailey.”

  Hand extended. Hand not extended.

  “Hey, there. Great to meet you.”

  Leaning in a little, scrunching my eyes, why the hell am I scrunching my eyes, leaning back, eyes wider now, too wide, now I really look like a lunatic, “Hey. Hi. Hey, how’s it goin’?”

  Ugh.

  “You talkin’ to me? Are you talkin’ to me? You must be talkin’ to me, because no one else is standing here. I’m standing here; you make the move. You make the move. It’s your move.”

  I never should have watched Taxi Driver.

  “Sweetie, how’s it going?” Mom called from outside my door.

  “Good,” I responded, trying to cover. No, I wasn’t just having introductory conversations with myself. In front of my mirror. Perfecting a casual-yet-friendly greeting while simultaneously making sure not to frighten anyone with my gums and occasionally slipping into classic De Niro mode. That certainly never happened. That would be weird.

  Of the three outfits competing for the new-school debut, I vacillated between the J Brand jeans, Repetto flats and simple white Splendid cap-sleeve T-shirt, and the vintage-inspired Marc Jacobs tiny flower dress with to-the-knee flat boots. Again I thanked the powers that be for giving me the same size feet as Noel’s. Ultimately, the jeans and tee won out. It was cleaner. Simpler. Not trying too hard. While, of course, totally trying hard not to look like I was trying hard. The delicate balance that I’m guessing never stops.

  The night-before-first-day jitters made i
t impossible to fall asleep. I spent the entire night unintentionally practicing math. If I can fall asleep right now, I’ll still get six hours of sleep. Which devolved into five hours and nine minutes and then four hours and seventeen minutes and then three hours and six minutes. The time I spent counting how many hours of sleep I’d get if I fell asleep right then was probably more math than I did the entire last semester in school.

  The digital alarm clock just mocked me.

  If I hold my breath until I pass out, will I just wake back up, or will I keep sleeping? Is that dangerous? That’s probably dangerous. Yeah, don’t do that.

  Go to hell, alarm clock.

  I eventually wound up negotiating with myself that a “cat nap” is supposedly quite energizing and if I could just get twenty minutes of sleep, I’d be good to go.

  No such luck.

  I wound up convincing myself that relaxing with your eyes closed is good enough—not that I was relaxed. But my eyes were closed.

  So there was that.

  No one’s gonna fool around with us.

  —ELLIOTT SMITH

  “Angeles”

  CHAPTER

  4

  West Hollywood High School boasted a proud history in Los Angeles for being both excellent in academic achievements and architecturally outstanding. It was everything you’d expect it to be. Perfectly manicured lawns, impressive architecture, the Swim Gym—an indoor swimming pool hidden beneath a basketball court (!) and, inside, an intricate, maze-like infrastructure that guaranteed I would spend at least the first few weeks being two things I couldn’t stand: lost and late. That’s expected freshman year, but I was a sophomore now, so all my peers already went through this. They knew their way around, knew the ins and outs, knew the secret shortcuts, and I knew …

  Jack crap.

  I tried to blend in as I walked up the front steps. I caught my share of glances—who’s-the-new-girl looks, I assumed—but nothing disdainful. If anything, just curious. Which was a first. Heck, that’s a big-time win in the History of Hailey.

  And then something surprising happened.

  “I wore my Repettos too,” said a girl just to my left. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a multicolored wrap sweater. She was about an inch shorter than I was and had her long blond hair in a simple ponytail, her eyes hidden behind large-framed glasses. “Cute and comfy. Perfect back-to-school choice.”

  “I know,” I said. “It was a no-brainer.”

  “I’ll bet Skyler wears hers too.”

  “She obviously has good taste,” I replied, wondering who the hell Skyler was, or what the hell a Skyler is, and realizing there’s no time like the present to ask. “I’m new. Who’s Skyler?”

  The girl’s head tilted and her brow furrowed slightly. “But you’re not a freshman, right?” I could sense the tips of her thorns appearing ever so slightly, just beneath the surface of her perfectly tanned skin, ready to surface in case I answered wrong.

  Thankfully, I had the right answer.

  “Sophomore. I just moved from New York. I’m Hailey.”

  She seemed relieved. “I’m Jericha.”

  I smiled but still wondered what she would have done if I had been a freshman. We walked together, making our way to the entrance. Going through those massive front doors with Jericha made it about a thousand times easier. Kids swarmed the hallways, navigating their way to their first-period classes.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked.

  “No clue,” I admitted.

  “Let me see your schedule.”

  I handed it over, grateful for the moment, our chance meeting, Repetto flats.

  “You go to room three hundred,” she said. “Go down this hallway and up the stairs. You’ll see, the doors are all numbered.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said, wondering if this meant we were now friends, even just sort of say-hi friends, or if that was my send-off. She was pretty and fashionable, just the kind of friend I was looking for, but I didn’t want to appear needy. I mustered some confidence, like Noel would have had from the get-go, and smiled as I turned to the stairs. “See you around.”

  I found my first class with a few minutes to spare. I chose my seat cautiously, not wanting to be right up front, but also not wanting to be in the last row. To my right was a girl wearing vintage glasses, dressed like she’d stepped off the pages of a sixties-themed Vogue magazine spread. In contrast, to my left was a boy with bad acne who wore a skate-rat hoodie. I smiled and nodded to both of them and got a polite smile back from the girl but only a grimace from the Tony Hawk-a-be. Fine. Be that way.

  Our teacher had glasses, curly brown hair and ears that stuck out like a monkey’s. He turned his back to us and picked up the chalk, writing a big A on the chalkboard.

  “I’m Mr. Preston,” he said. “And as of right now, you all have an A in my class.”

  A few whoops and cheers escaped from the students’ mouths, but Mr. Preston held up a hand that clearly communicated: Not so fast.

  “Your job is to keep it.” Therein lies the rub.

  We did the usual boring introductory stuff you do on a first day at school. Nothing out of the ordinary happened in that class and nothing catastrophically embarrassing happened on my way to or during my next one. Then again, nothing good happened either. I didn’t see Jericha again, not that I expected to be instant BFFs, but the only person I knew was Andy and I barely knew him either. I was totally alone.

  Sure, I might not have looked like a total outcast to everyone (from what I could tell so far), but last-minute makeover aside, the reality was settling in that I was starting completely from scratch. I wasn’t popular at my old school, but at least I had people I could be unpopular with.

  I found myself searching the eyes of students in the halls, looking for a friendly face, waiting for some fairy godmother to magically appear in the form of a benevolent (and preferably popular) student to take me under her wing and show me the ropes.

  At third period, she materialized … in the form of Andy.

  “Hey hey hey,” he said.

  “Hi!”

  “Guess we have history together.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’ve kinda been feeling a bit loserish, what with not knowing a single person here and all.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous. It’s only your first day. And anyway, you know me.”

  Exactly what I was hoping he’d say.

  “Well, yeah,” I said as I twisted my mouth into a half smile.

  “Hey, meet me at the quad at lunch,” he said. “You know where the quad is?”

  “I don’t even know what a quad is.”

  “It’s where everyone will be. I’ll introduce you around.”

  Surely it can’t be that easy? I thought.

  But come lunchtime, I found my way to the quad, a patio-like area just outside of the cafeteria. There were about twelve individual seating areas with concrete tables and mounted umbrellas overhead. Kids divided themselves into culture clusters as happens at every school—some based on ethnicity, some on a shared love of music, math or meth—your usual self-imposed segregation … stoners, rockers, geeks, jocks, the in-crowd, the outcasts and everything in between.

  In one corner of the quad I spotted Anya, my supposedly psycho neighbor. She was sitting alone, wearing headphones and laughing. I felt a strange relief, because I knew that the Old Hailey was so desperate that halfway through the first day of school, she would have given in and tried to talk to the loser girl. (If she is a loser girl. Or a psycho. Or whatever she is.) Sitting there by herself, laughing, most people would consider that rather losery. Perhaps even crazy. The popular kids certainly would.

  But New Hailey had higher standards. New Hailey knew how to be a hater. New Hailey was following Noel’s diary to the letter, which helped her make friends with Andy, who is going to take her away from all this. Whatever this was. So where the hell was …

  Andy! I spotted him standing beside a table of four girls, and
I had their number instantly. This was a popular group, and quite possibly the popular group. You could tell just from the way they sat, the way they talked, and certainly the way they dressed. Sure, every girl picks out something “just so” for the first day of school, but their “just so” was just so … amazing.

  They’d all have been BFFs with Jemma back at Hamilton, popular girls, girls who … would want nothing to do with me.

  That was the old me, I reminded myself, shaking off the butterflies that started buzzing in my stomach. Actually, they felt more like piranhas, but whatever.

  Andy caught my eye and waved at me, and the girls looked up. One smiled, two looked me up and down, and the other, I was pleased to realize, was Jericha.

  I made my way over and said hi to Andy. He nodded and turned to the group.

  “This is the girl I was telling you about,” he said. “Hailey, this is Skyler, Daniella, Cassidy and—”

  “Jericha,” I interrupted. “We met this morning.”

  “We bonded over shoes,” Jericha confirmed, tilting her flats to the heavens.

  I wasn’t oblivious to the closer once-over Skyler bestowed upon me—of course I was used to popular girls granting them to me with great generosity—but what I wasn’t prepared for was the slow half smile that appeared on her face.

  “Hailey,” she said warmly. “We’ve heard all about you.”

  What did she hear? I wondered. About the bra-snap incident? About my lame attempts at flirting?

  Chill! What would Noel do?

  Go hard or go home.

  “All about me? Everything? And I’ve only been here one morning,” I said, surprising even myself with the next words to come out of my mouth: “Hell, by Thursday you’ll be writing my biography. Just make sure to get the spelling right. There’s an i in there.”

  Skyler looked almost shocked, but not a bad shocked, more like a Damn, girl! shocked, a broad grin appearing on her face.