Paula Stokes - The Art of Lainey

“Sounds promising.” I line Bianca’s upper and lower lids with deep charcoal eye pencil and hit her lashes with black mascara. I highlight her eyelids with blue and gold shadow to match her dress. I’m in the process of picking out a lip shade when I stop. She looks perfect. Radiant. There’s no need to smother her in makeup so she’s unrecognizable.

“You’re finished,” I tell her.

She crinkles her nose at her reflection. “No lipstick? No blusher? No bronzer?”

“Bronzer?” I laugh. “You’re the most naturally bronze person I know.”

Bee smiles. “I love it. I look like me. Only better.”

“You’re stunning,” I agree. “But you could have gone in your running gear with no makeup at all and you’d still be stunning.” My voice almost cracks. “You’re always stunning.”

“Lainey.” Bianca’s dark eyes turn liquid. “Are you really going to leave things like this with Micah? If you can’t talk to him, why don’t you at least text him?”

I slump my shoulders. “Because I’m afraid he won’t text back.”

“Aww.” Bee throws her arms around me. “I feel bad leaving you alone when you’re sad. Maybe we can go someplace more casual and you can come too.”

“Dude,” I say, swallowing back the lump in my throat. “This is your big date and you’re letting me make everything about me. You are totally the best friend a girl could ever have. Sometimes I wonder why you don’t just tell me to get lost.”

Bee reclines back on my bed. “Elaine Mitchell. I’ve been your friend for ten years. You’re family. Maybe I want to strangle you every once in a while, but I will never tell you to get lost, okay? I would miss you too much.”

I pull her up off my bed and twirl her around in a circle. “The best. Seriously. Go enjoy your fancy dinner. I can’t wait to hear all the intimate details.” I wink. Bianca reddens again.

After she leaves, I flop down on my bed with my laptop and skim through a few gossip websites. I can’t really get into them. I check my email. There’s a message from my brother.

Hey L—

Wow. The summer has really flown by, hasn’t it? I’m heading to London for the weekend to drink warm beer with some of my friends before we all head home. We’ve got tickets to a soccer game, oh wait, make that a football match, and I couldn’t help but think of how much you would love it. I promise to take lots of pictures of whichever players the girls tell me are cute. I’d tell you who is playing but apparently there are a ton of football teams just in London and I can’t remember the names. Here’s hoping they have cheerleaders.

See you soon,

S

I click my laptop closed and dig through the magazines on the floor next to my bed. Last month’s Soccer Illustrated has a feature on some of the London football clubs. I pore over the pictures, but none of the players are as cute as Caleb Waters. No one has his stats either.

The faded red corner of The Art of War peeks out from beneath the glossy magazines. I finally quit carrying it around, but like I said, the whole freaking book seems to be tattooed across my brain. Well, maybe not the whole book, but at least my highlighted passages. Maybe I should bring it up to work and hide it amongst the flowing locks and poufy-shirted pirotica, where no one else is likely to find it and become an obsessive warrior person.

Flopping down on my bed, I open to the very first page and start reading. I’m not sure why, if I’m just bored or if some little part of me is hoping I missed something, some secret little trick that will win back Micah. But the more I read, the more I realize there’s a lot more to it than the simple top ten list Bianca and I made.

Certain passages stick out to me now, words that I skimmed past or interpreted differently the first time I read.

Part III:

SUPREME EXCELLENCE CONSISTS OF BREAKING THE ENEMY’S RESISTANCE WITHOUT FIGHTING . . .

THEREFORE THE SKILLFUL LEADER SUBDUES THE ENEMY’S TROOPS WITHOUT ANY FIGHTING; HE CAPTURES THEIR CITIES WITHOUT LAYING SIEGE TO THEM . . .

Two pages later:

HE WILL WIN WHO KNOWS WHEN TO FIGHT AND WHEN NOT TO FIGHT.

Part VIII:

THERE ARE ROADS WHICH MUST NOT BE FOLLOWED, ARMIES WHICH MUST NOT BE ATTACKED . . .

Part XII:

NO RULER SHOULD PUT TROOPS INTO THE FIELD MERELY TO GRATIFY HIS OWN SPLEEN; NO GENERAL SHOULD FIGHT A BATTLE SIMPLY OUT OF PIQUE.

Next page:

A KINGDOM THAT HAS ONCE BEEN DESTROYED CAN NEVER COME AGAIN INTO BEING . . .

It’s like I’m reading a whole different book. Maybe Bianca missed the point. Maybe we all did. As much as The Art of War looks to be about military strategy, I’m pretty sure what Sun Tzu had really been trying to say was that the best plan was the one that didn’t require marching into battle. That the true goal of strategy is victory without having to fight.

But how does that apply to me? I’m fighting with almost everyone. Jason. Kendall.

Micah.

What do you do when you’re knee deep in battle and don’t want to fight anymore?

You stop fighting. You fix things. . .or try anyway.

I’m going to start with Kendall because as scary as she is, she’s way less scary than Micah. She shouldn’t have gone all rabid pit bull on him, but she did it to defend my honor. Besides, I kind of miss her, and if we’re going to be soccer cocaptains together this year we need to at least be civil.

She shocks me by apologizing as soon as she answers. “I shouldn’t have caused a scene,” she says, so loud that I have to hold my phone away from my ear. “I should have let it go.”

“Where are you?” I ask. “Is this a bad time?”

“I’m at Jay’s. He’s got people over.” I hear music and muffled voices in the background. “He says to tell you he misses you.”

“That’s sweet. Tell him I said hi. Look, I called to apologize too. I know you were only trying to help. I should have just admitted I liked Micah.”

“Right.” Kendall seizes on this information like she’s just secured an airtight alibi for a horrible crime. “Why would you lie to me?” she asks. “None of that would have happened if you had told me the truth.”

“Come on, K. You made it seem as if liking him would be social suicide.”

“It probably would be,” she says. “But you still didn’t have to lie to me about it. I thought best friends told each other everything.”

Which is total bullshit because Kendall tells me almost nothing. She didn’t even tell me she was back in town. Besides, I thought best friends supported each other.

“I knew if I told you that you’d harass me and try to fix me up with other guys or your brother until I gave up on him,” I say.

“Okay, you’re right,” she admits. “I would have tried to make you forget him. I mean, get real, Lainey. Dating is hard enough. Dating someone like that—it’d be überhard, like interracial dating used to be. All those questions from kids at school, the mean looks from people who assume you’re acting out some prison role-playing fantasy. It’d be like that fairy tale with the princess who falls in love with the monster.”

There’s no reasoning with Kendall, but I give it one last try. “Uh, just because Micah isn’t a pretty-boy soccer star doesn’t make him a monster,” I say. “And that fairy tale had a happy ending, in case you forgot.”

“Let’s stop arguing about this,” she says brightly. “Mohawk Boy will get over it eventually, or not. But who really cares? There are plenty of hotter guys without criminal records, and you shouldn’t sell yourself short. How about we focus on the now, as in where I’m going to take you to cheer you up tomorrow night.”