The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks Read online

  “I read it.”

  “But did you read it before you met me?”

  “No.”

  “No one reads it. It’s the irony of my life that editing this thing will get me into college, but nobody actually cares about it at all.”

  “Is that why there’s no salad?”

  “In the caf? There’s salad.”

  “Not really. There’s garbanzos and canned beets. And pimento olives. Zada says at Berkeley they have this huge salad bar with like, arugula and tomatoes and avocados and snow peas. And maybe ten different dressings.”

  But Frankie could tell Matthew wasn’t listening to her. His eyes were on Steve, who was jogging across the quad toward them. “Dog!” Steve hollered.

  “What?”

  “Come here, I gotta talk to you about soccer. Sorry, Frankie.”

  “All right. Baby, I gotta motor.” Matthew kissed Frankie on the lips and walked off.

  Frankie opened her laptop as soon as she got to class and spent second period inventing the Society for Vegetable Awareness, Promotion, and Information Delegation. Within twenty-four hours, the members of the Loyal Order, following her directions, had ordered bumper stickers, buttons, and flyers for the afternoon of Sylvia Kargman’s lecture. The day of the visit was unofficially declared Vegetable Awareness Day. Every student mailbox received a button; bumper stickers were in every bathroom, and a note was clipped to every clipboard on every dorm room door. The buttons:

  WHITHER ART THOU, CAULIFLOWER? KETCHUP IS NOT A VEGETABLE. I AM VEGETABLY AWARE.

  “Welcome to the Canned Beet Rebellion,” read the clipboard note.

  Today you will unwittingly and possibly

  unwantingly participate in

  The Canned Beet Rebellion,

  under the auspices of

  the Society for Vegetable Awareness,

  Promotion, and Information Delegation,

  in which,

  to be quick about it,

  we demand a salad bar at both lunch and

  dinner in the caf.

  Alabaster’s current vegetable offerings

  are canned and/or anemic. In fact, they

  are limp and grodie and not a proper

  salad bar.

  Viva not the Viva but the Veg!

  The requested salad bar will include

  (on a regular basis):

  lettuce and spinach,

  cauliflower or broccoli,

  carrots or celery,

  tomatoes,

  cucumbers,

  a vegetable of the day,

  maybe some fruit,

  at least five kinds of salad dressing,

  and

  those fun bacon-bitty things, which

  may or may not be real bacon. We are

  prepared to be flexible on this

  nonvegetable element of the salad bar.

  The Viva Soft Drink Company’s products monopolize the school’s food budget because Viva paid for the renovation of the caf. The caf is very nice, but it needs some salad. So: Even if you don’t give a $#%* about salad, wear your VAPID buttons to the Viva lecture this afternoon. If only to amuse us, as we have been amusing you.

  (no signature, only the basset hound rubber-stamp, this time in jolly green ink)

  The compliance level astonished even Frankie. Nearly every member of the Alabaster student body wore a button or displayed a bumper sticker plastered across a notebook. The Viva executive’s lecture was respectfully received, but at the end an envelope addressed to Ms. Kargman was passed through the chapel, hand over hand. No one knew from whom it originated. Kargman accepted the envelope graciously, opened it, and found a button: “Vegetable of the Day!”

  Puzzled, she thanked the student body and wore the button proudly all afternoon.

  Shortly before lunch, a Boston caterer arrived on campus to deliver an enormous platter to the central hallway of the main building. When unveiled, the item proved to be a three-foot-by-four-foot image of a basset hound, composed entirely of vegetables. Its droopy eyes were formed by grilled eggplants, its spots by overlapping roasted carrots and red peppers. Crispy jicama was used for the white fur, and the whole thing rested on a charming green background of cucumber, parsley, and broccoli. Underneath the hound was a small note: EAT ME.

  Headmaster Richmond, whose office was on the adjoining hall, was seen consuming several pieces of the basset’s left foot, in a display of tense good humor.

  The following day Ms. Kargman, realizing in retrospect that she had been mocked and criticized, decided upon damage control rather than complaint. She promptly mailed a check to Richmond with a short note saying that student nutrition was important to the Viva corporation—and to her, personally—and she was pleased to make a donation to fund the building of a larger salad bar in the caf, and committed to stocking it with fresh vegetables for the remainder of the school year.

  Richmond gave a tedious speech at the next week’s Chapel meeting, explaining that there were appropriate and inappropriate ways to express a desire for change in one’s community, and there were appropriate and inappropriate ways to express artistic inclinations; and the two were different kinds of expression with different appropriate contexts. However, neither one should involve the infiltration of abandoned buildings, playing with electricity, the mockery of invited guest lecturers, or the delivery of perishable foods to public spaces at inopportune times.

  Frankie felt an incredible sense of happiness as Richmond droned on. She was busy—absorbed for the first time, seriously, in what she was doing. Deep in research for her Cities class on the activities of the Suicide Club and the Cacophony Society, scouring the Internet for places to make the Bassets order note cards, bumper stickers, holiday decorations, extension cords, dogs made of vegetables, and the like, she felt a rush of excitement on a daily basis that made her old interests—ultimate Frisbee, modern dance, reading, and debate—seem catatonically dull by comparison. Now she was the commander in chief of a squad of older boys, sending them on adventures that shook Alabaster to its foundations.

  That evening, Matthew blew her off for a Basset Hound meeting and Frankie didn’t even follow him— because she didn’t care.

  He might think he had a secret from her, but he didn’t.

  He was doing exactly what she told him to do.

  From: Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

  To: [email protected]

  You were right. I did like that one. But you’re still a psychopath. What do you want?

  From: [email protected]

  To: Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

  I am getting exactly what I want.

  Happy Thanksgiving.

  THE RETURN OF BUNNY RABBIT

  Matthew had gone quiet about Thanksgiving break. When they’d discussed it in early November, he’d told Frankie he was going home to Boston to celebrate with his parents. She had invited him to come down and visit her on the Friday after the holiday. “Rescue me from Ruth,” Frankie told him, hoping the idea of being her savior would override his lack of interest in meeting her family. “Because I may come back mentally deranged if I’m left alone with her for four days. Zada is staying in California.”

  Matthew had said yes. Of course he’d rescue her.

  He’d drive down and take her out to see a show in New York City.

  But he hadn’t mentioned it since.

  And he kept not mentioning it as the holiday grew close.

  “Are you coming to rescue me?” she finally asked him two days before the break. They were sitting in the library after dinner. Matthew had bought Frankie three rolls of strawberry Mentos, and they had opened them up and arranged the candies in a row between them while they studied. “Because my mother is going to be driving me crazy.”

  “If I can get away, I definitely will,” Matthew said. “Alpha wants to go do this crazy Alpine slide thing in western Mass.”

  “What is it?”

  “He�
��s a madman. You slide down these mountains on carts, like a baby bobsled with no snow.”

  A cold spot formed in Frankie’s chest. “Can I come?” she asked.

  “Oh, um.” Matthew ran a hand through his hair. “That would be great. But how will we get you?”

  “Can you pick me up?”

  “Not on Thursday night; my family’s dinner never even starts till nine.”

  “I could take the bus to Boston Friday morning.”

  “Um. I think we’re leaving early.”

  “Can’t you go later?”

  “You have to get there early, Alpha says.”

  “Matthew.”

  “What?”

  “You already made this plan, then.”

  “Kind of.”

  “But didn’t we talk about you coming to New Jersey on Friday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So I thought you were driving down, probably.”

  “I was, I—this came up, and I promised Alpha. You and I didn’t fix anything certain, did we?”

  “No. It’s—I’ll miss you.” She felt like she never got him alone. Felt like she was always in his world and he was never in hers. And here was evidence: that no matter how hard she pushed herself into his world—heck, she was running whole sections of his life at this point, not that he knew—no matter how hard she pushed her way in, he could always close a door on her.

  “I’ll miss you too,” Matthew said, taking a strawberry Mento and feeding it to her. “But we’ll see each other Sunday night. Call me as soon as you’re on campus.”

  Frankie ate the candy. The touch of his fingers on her lips distracted her. He had brought her strawberry Mentos, after all.

  Shouldn’t that be enough?

  Matthew stood up to go to the bathroom down the hall, and while he was gone, Frankie looked in his backpack. It was wrong, she knew. But she felt like she was losing her grip on him. Two notebooks—calculus and history of Japan. Several pens, including highlighters. Three chocolate wrappers, and a roll of quarters. A letter from his mother, still unopened. A cough drop. A number of old flyers: a school calendar for October, a list of open electives, a memo about plagiarism. And a printout.

  In Matthew’s backpack was a printout of the e-mails between Frankie and Porter, just going this far:

  From: Porter Welsch [[email protected]]

  To: Frances Landau-Banks [[email protected]]

  Subject: Hey

  Frankie, what’s up? Hope your term is going well so far. I want to apologize for what happened with Bess last year. —Porter

  From: Frances Landau-Banks

  [[email protected]]

  To: Porter Welsch [[email protected]]

  Subject: Re: Hey

  You mean, you want to apologize, or you are apologizing? Your grammar is indistinct.

  That was it.

  Frankie shoved the printout back into the bag and returned to studying. Matthew returned and fed her another Mento.

  She couldn’t ask him about it.

  If she did, he’d know she’d looked in his backpack.

  Frankie sunk into her chair, a tangle of guilt and anger—but she didn’t say a word.

  Frankie spent Thanksgiving break in New Jersey with Ruth, her uncles, and the vile male cousins. Zada called from California, and Senior from Boston, to wish them all a happy holiday.

  “How’s our Bunny Rabbit liking school?” asked Uncle Ben, ruffling Frankie’s hair as she offered him a cup of hot apple cider. Ruth was in the kitchen making gravy.

  “It’s good.”

  “Great.”

  Uncle Paul came over and squeezed Frankie’s shoulders. “You got so tall since the summer. Did you start high school at that fancy place your dad’s so proud of?”

  “I’m a sophomore, Uncle Paul.”

  Uncle Paul pretended disbelief. “You’re kidding me. There’s no way you’re a sophomore. Last year, I swear it on my grave, I was changing your diapers.”

  “I agree,” said Ben. “Just yesterday, I tell you, she was dragging that dolly everywhere, you remember, the one with no arms?”

  Ruth came out of the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Frankie. “She’s as adorable as always, though, don’t you think?”

  “You got a boyfriend there at your fancy school?” Uncle Paul wanted to know. “Your mother says you have a boyfriend.”

  “Mom!”

  Ruth looked innocent. “I wasn’t supposed to tell?”

  Paulie Junior had found a tray of desserts hidden in the den and was stuffing chocolate jellies into his mouth, but he stopped long enough to chant: “Frankie’s got a boyfriend, Frankie’s got a boyfriend.”

  Frankie smirked at Ruth. “You don’t have to broadcast it.”

  “It’s a secret from your own family you have a boyfriend?” Ruth waved her hands dismissively. “I’m glad you have a nice guy to take care of you up there.” Ruth looked at Ben. “Zada says he’s from a very good family. Newspaper people.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good family,” muttered Frankie.

  “He’s nicer than that one you had last year, right, Bunny?” asked Uncle Paul. “I seem to remember there was some hocus-pocus with that one.”

  “You mean hanky-panky!” shouted Ruth. “There was hanky-panky.”

  “There was not,” moaned Frankie.

  “Anyway, this one’s better, right, Bunny?” said Ruth. “He treats her well, Zada told me. Takes care of you?”

  “He’s not a babysitter, Mom.”

  “A babysitter? Who’s talking about babysitters?”

  “You act like I need a boyfriend to take care of me.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” said Ruth, busying herself mixing butter into a bowl of mashed potatoes. “I’m a feminist like anyone. I’m just saying—”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t worry about you at school when Zada was there. But now you’re there all alone, I like thinking you have this nice guy to watch out for you— that’s all.”

  “You always underestimate me.”

  Ruth shook her head. “I think the world of you. Now, can you carry the potatoes out to the table? The bowl is very heavy.”

  THE FISH LIBERATION SOCIETY

  A way from her boyfriend for four days

  and feeling neglected, Frankie reasoned through the meaning of what she’d found in his backpack thus: if Matthew had looked at the Frankie–Porter e-mails on Frankie’s laptop, he wouldn’t have been able to print them out—unless he’d forwarded them to himself for later use. Frankie checked her sent-mail folder, and he hadn’t. Unless he’d thought to erase the sent-mail record.

  More likely, she figured, Matthew had seen the e-mails on Porter’s laptop—but even then, he would also have had to forward them, and in any case, where they were forwarded for printing, the e-mails would read as forwards, whereas these printed out clean, no trace of Matthew’s e-mail address.

  So. Porter had given him a printout.

  Yes, that was the most likely conclusion. Porter had given Matthew a copy of those e-mails. But why?

  Could Matthew have forced Porter to apologize to Frankie? And demanded that Porter deliver him a copy of the apology? However, Porter must have then committed the insubordination of asking Frankie to lunch in order to warn her against Matthew.

  That would explain why Matthew had been so upset about Frankie going to lunch with Porter. According to the hierarchy of the Bassets, Matthew was supposed to control Porter—but Porter had proven himself unwilling to be completely controlled.

  If Frankie had done what Matthew asked of her and stood Porter up, that would have been a win for Matthew. But as it was, she had gone to lunch against his wishes—and Porter had gained some power. Though Frankie never told Matthew that Porter had warned her against him, Porter’s defiant lunch invitation marked him as the least loyal of the Basset Hounds. As such, he was a potential liability.

  Something to remember.


  Though she was pleased with the conclusions she drew from her reasoning, Frankie wandered around her mother’s house in the days after Thanksgiving, staring out of windows for long periods of time. The knowledge that Matthew had forced Porter to make the apology hung over her like a damp washcloth.

  She ate too many brownies and felt a little sick to her stomach. She opened books and didn’t read past the first page.

  She wished Matthew would call. But he didn’t.

  The Loyal Order’s next large-scale venture occurred in early December. It was the kidnapping of the Alabaster Guppy and its replacement with a large plastic lawn ornament in the shape of a sad-eyed basset hound. The basset came with a plastic sign at its feet that had previously contained the phrase, “Consciousness: That Annoying Time Between Naps!” It now featured a notice, carefully laminated in case of rain:

  Sprung free of its bonds by members of the Fish Liberation Society, the Alabaster Guppy will journey to its natural home at the bottom of the pond, unless it can be convinced to return upon delivery of a ransom. More to follow.

  A ransom note was then delivered to Headmaster Richmond, printed in block letters on an adorable card of a basset hound wearing a stethoscope, the inside of which had formerly read, “All those doctors can go to the dogs! Get well soon.” The note demanded the cessation of mandatory

  Chapel on Monday mornings:

  The Guppy feels that the implied Christianity of required Chapel attendance, even though the assemblies are technically nondenominational, is an affront to those Alabaster students who are Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, or whatever else. Mandatory Chapel is also highly irksome to those who, like the Guppy himself, prefer to consider themselves atheists.

  The Guppy defends each student’s right to hear about sports schedules, charity initiatives, and school dances without the big pictures of Jesus on the cross dominating the proceedings. Even for Christian students, it is inappropriate to mix religious awe with announcements concerning the PSATs.

  The Guppy respectfully requests that school assemblies be henceforth held in the auditorium of the new arts complex. It will be pleased to return when this change has been made.

  Photocopies of this note were delivered to every mailbox.