Лорен Кейт: The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

O nce upon a time, you knew nothing.

It wasn’t your fault — you were just a kid. And growing up where you did, most people assumed that this was for the best. The longer it took a small town southern girl to catch on to the backward ways of her world, the better off everyone was.

Back then, your biggest worries were not getting caught stealing that pack of Juicy Fruit from the drugstore. . oh, and making it out of elementary school with some semblance of a soul.

The danger was real. Remember that dress code? The mid-calf-length pleated pea-green skirts? Remember your troll. . er, role models? Every last one of your teachers was of the dingy-slip-wearing, needs-to-Nair-her-mustache, hasn’t-gotten-laid-in-your-lifetime variety. It took everything in you to stay awake as year after year, they stood up at the board, rattling off the titillating trivia of your state.

South Carolina , you’d jotted. Eighth state to sign the Constitution. Home of the Palmetto tree, the golden wren, the yellow Jessamine, the saccharine social climber —oh wait, that one wasn’t on the test (not yet, anyway).

If you were anything like Natalie Hargrove, you couldn’t have cared less if you passed or failed that week’s pop quiz. But what they don’t tell you in Dixie is that one day down the line, something as benign as the South Carolina state tree just might be a matter of life and death.

I t was the biggest week of my life. It was ten minutes before the bell. I was perched outside the sophomore bathroom door, honing one of my very favorite skills. Oh, eavesdropping is such an ugly word! Especially when I make it look so good. Admit it: the decoy cell phone at my ear, the coolly absorbed look on my face — I had you convinced that I was just retrieving some private late-night message from Mike, or double-checking the pre-party details for Rex Freeman’s Mardi Gras soiree this weekend. Didn’t I?

But when were things at Palmetto High ever really what they seemed? Anyone with a pulse knew that the sophomore girls — a.k.a. the Bambies — were the go-to playthings of the senior boys. The few of us at this school lucky enough to be blessed with a brain had figured out by now that the Bambi morning primp sessions were seriously ripe for eavesdropping. Bambi-bathroom-perching was merely precautionary, to keep oneself in the know.

Through the door, in between bursts of omnious-sounding thunder from the storm brewing outside, I made out some Bambi whining: “Can we discuss how unfair it is that this weather is so foul?” February in Charleston was particularly unpredictable. Black clouds had hovered all morning, threatening to open up at any moment and drown us.

“It’s like God wants our hair to pouf at the game tonight,” her Bambi friend agreed. “Hey — who took my concealer?”

“Honey,” a third Bambi drawled. “Next week’s church bells are too far away for you to be all godded up already. Pass the Citre Shine.”

Christ, these girls were a drag. If I wanted to get anything good out of them (read: whom the senior boys were rallying behind for next week’s long awaited Palmetto Court vote), I was going to have to go in there myself. I flipped my phone shut and gave my stage smile to the polyamorous thespians passing me in the hall. Then I sidled through the bathroom doorway.

Inside Bambiland, I raised my eyebrows, pursed my lips, and stepped into a cloud of orange-scented hairspray to butt my way in front of their mirror.

“Sophomores,” I said. “Move.”

After a chorus of Hi Natalie’s, and Sorry Natalie’s, the Bambies shut their mouths and stepped aside. All talk of the storm clouds and subsequent hair frizz seemed to be forgotten.

Even Kate Richards, sophomore ringleader and the least objectionable of the bunch, put down her curling iron to scooch over. Kate had earned her street cred with me during her freshmen haze last year when a senior handed her a pair of scissors and asked Kate to show her respect by sacrificing her waist-length locks. Half my class still hadn’t gotten over Kate’s great defiance when she stormed out of her own haze, but personally, I had to respect a girl with that much verve.

This morning, Kate knew — as they all knew — that it wasn’t like a senior to primp on Bambi turf. In one fell swoop, she stacked her entire clique’s cosmetic cases in the crook of her arm and cleared a space for me on the countertop. I winked my thanks and she winked back, tossing the curled portion of her now-famous honey-colored hair over one shoulder. Casually, I plunked down my own cosmetic case. I glanced in the mirror. My dark hair fell effortlessly around my shoulders, making my dark brown eyes shine. My skin was smooth and clear. But there was an annoying worry wrinkle right in the middle of my forehead. I took another breath and pulled out my eyelash curler.

Through the one eye not clamped by what Mike called my medieval torture device, I surveyed my effect on the now-silent scene.

“What’s the matter, girls?” I said, turning my back to Kate so she’d know I wasn’t implicating her. “Nat got your tongue?”

Steph Merritt, your basic sophomore born-again blonde, looked at her feet and stammered. “We were just talking about how much we love your Palmetto Court posters, Nat.”

“Were you?” I asked.

Steph’s button nose flared in alarm. Normally, I respected a little white lie — a girl had to do what a girl had to do — but today Steph’s faux flattery was as low rate as her dye job. Before I made my presence known, these girls had been totally consumed by their ratty hair and acne. If the guys they were banging had mentioned anything about how they were casting their votes, the Bambies were probably too stupid to remember. Yes, they were sleeping with the enemy, but at their age, one senior football player just blended right into the next.

I hated wasting time before the bell rang. By the time my mascara dried, I knew I was going to have to get my information elsewhere.

The junior class definitely wasn’t as tight with the senior guys as the Bambies were. Juniors were hot, but too new agey for their own good, and they usually hung around in the low-country marshland with scruffy out-of-towner guys who drove minicampers stocked with all-you-could-puff vaporizers.

Then again, strange things had been known to go on in their bathroom before school hours. There were rumors that the crème of their class had predicted when Lanie Dougherty would lose her virginity — down to the hour — and been right. And just last month, those very same juniors had been the first to know about the whole mortifying embezzlement scandal that got Principal Duncan fired and replaced with the temporary and painfully dweebish Principal Glass.

In the mirror behind me, Darla Duke stood picking at a large red zit in her T-zone. Believe me when I say that the Double D didn’t just rub me the wrong way because her father was dating my mother. With her bacne, permanent brown nose, and all-too-visible cleavage, the girl was legitimately gross. When she caught me watching her zit-pick with my eyebrows raised in horror, the way a vegetarian might look at, say, pork gristle, she dropped her hands to her sides.

I popped open my Mary Kay compact and dabbed the pink pouf around my nose. “Don’t worry, D,” I said. “It might clear up by this afternoon.”

The sophomores gasped. There was nothing polite about mentioning another girl’s blemish, even in the privacy of the powder room.