Kiss & Sell (4 page)

I took a deep breath as I arrived outside Principal Howard’s door and then knocked on it three times.

“Come in,” his voice boomed from inside the room.

Here goes.

I SAT NERVOUSLY
in a chair directly across from Principal Howard, who was planted sturdily behind his big oak desk. This was my first time inside his office and I
so
did not want to be there. Everything was intimidating. The furniture was all a dark shade of cherry or black, and every decoration screamed “Scary adult.” He didn’t even have any family pictures on his desk or anything.

I started to bite at my nail, as he sat there staring at me with a blank look on his face. Like he was sizing me up. I’d never talked to Principal Howard before, but I’d had a chance to observe him at the opening day assembly. He seemed
suspicious
of the students, like at any moment we might start a riot or something. The guy never really smiled, in fact, his personality sort of screamed, “law enforcement.” Before I could wonder any longer why I was in his office in the first place, he cleared his throat.

“Miss Sawyer. Do you know why I asked you to come down here?” he asked, his voice monotone.

Why do adults always ask that question? I mean, if we knew, why would we admit it, and if we didn’t, you were going to tell us anyway. Seriously, I wished you would just cut to the chase, so I don’t have to sit here ruining the nails I just polished last night.

But I just answered, “No, sir.”

“Well, I wanted to speak to you concerning this little
eBay
situation,” he said, his expression remaining the same.

I laughed nervously. “Oh. You saw that too?”

“Well, it
was
e-mailed to the entire school, Miss Sawyer,” he answered with what I assumed was his attempt at sarcasm.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, silently cursing McCartney and Phin. Note to self: When you send out a mass e-mail regarding your plans to score your first kiss to your entire school, it’s not such a good idea to
also
send it to the faculty. No matter how clever you think you are, they will
not
be impressed. You’d think this would be common knowledge, but here I was, having an incredibly embarrassing conversation with the principal. Not exactly my finest moment, I admit.

“I’m not sure if this is exactly a safe or smart thing for a young lady to be doing,” Principal Howard continued. “Selling sexual favors on the Internet—in this day and age? it’s not appropriate and I’m afraid that it will be a distraction for students.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be too much of a distraction, sir. You know how teens are. By tomorrow everyone will be talking about something else,” I said, although I knew this wasn’t entirely true. This juicy bit of gossip had legs.

“Even so, I’m going to have to call your mother about this,” he said, already reaching for the phone. “I can’t imagine an intelligent woman such as herself would think this was a wise decision.”

“Actually,” I interjected as he began to dial. “My mom was the one who gave me permission to do the posting.”

Principal Howard cleared his throat awkwardly and then continued to punch numbers into the phone. “I think I’d like to hear that from her, if it’s all the same.”

“Whatever you say, sir,” I said evenly, leaning back in my chair and crossing my legs at the ankles. As I waited, I looked up at the ceiling and started to count the little holes in the tiles.

After a few rings, I could hear my mom answer through the earpiece of the phone. For a psychologist, she sure could raise her voice when she wanted to.

“Hello? Mrs. Sawyer?” he asked. “This is Principal Howard. I’ve got Arielle here with me in my office.”

He paused and I could imagine my mom asking him a million questions all at once. Was I okay? Was I in the hospital? Had there been an accident at school?

“No, no, nothing like that,” he answered quickly. “It’s actually concerning an e-mail that was sent to the entire student body today.”

Another pause.

“Actually, it was regarding her intention of selling a kiss on eBay?” he answered, looking straight into my eyes as he said it. “I told her I couldn’t imagine
that a professional, upstanding woman such as yourself would actually agree to something as potentially dangerous as this, but…”

I tried to hide the growing smile behind my hand as my mom cut Principal Howard off mid-sentence. Without saying anything, he turned his chair slightly to face the wall.

“You really condone this sort of behavior?” He tried his best to whisper, but I could hear every word. “You don’t at all fear for her safety?”

Again, I heard my mom’s squeaks coming from the phone and took this opportunity to reach into my pocket and apply some Chapstick to my dry lips.

“Oh. Well, I guess if you set certain
rules
for her, that changes things slightly,” he sputtered, spinning around even further. “And I guess it
is
more like a school fundraiser if the money is going toward the new gymnasium.”

Silence.

You could practically hear the crickets chirping outside the office window, it was so quiet in the room.

“No, Mrs. Sawyer, I’m not in the business of stifling young people’s personal growth,” Principal Howard said through clenched teeth.

I almost lost it then, but somehow managed to hold back my giggles. There was no way I was giving him another reason to make me spend more time in this stuffy room. In fact, I was starting to miss being in class—and I wasn’t exactly student of the month if you know what I mean.

As the silence grew on Principal Howard’s end of the convo, I knew my mom was convincing him that not only was this kissing thing not something to scold, but in fact, it was something that should be commended. And the truth of the matter was that I was beginning to think that myself. I was realizing that if I wanted something to happen in my life, I had to reach out and take the bull by the horns.

Or, the boy by the lips in my case.

I plastered a blank expression on my face and stared back up at the ceiling as Principal Howard turned back around and placed the phone back on its receiver.

“Your mother and I discussed it, and I suppose we don’t have to take any disciplinary action today,” he said.

You discussed it? More like Mom put the smack down on you, like those beefed up guys on WWE.
But I kept my opinions to myself.

“And since all proceeds are going to the school, I guess I have no problem with it,” he said. “Just let me in on these little ‘fundraisers’ before you do them in the future, okay?”

He actually used air quotes when he said “fundraisers,” like we didn’t both know what he meant.

“I will definitely do that, sir,” I said. And then, drawing on all my acting skills, I kept my face looking as innocent as possible and added, “Thank you for looking out for my well-being. If only every school had a principal as concerned about his students as you, this world would be a much safer place.”

I wiped away an imaginary tear and then placed my hand over my heart. He actually started to beam as I turned to go back to class.

And the Best Actress award goes to…

AFTER SCHOOL THAT
day, I found myself sprawled across McCartney’s enormously oversized, round bed. We’d gone back to her house to hang out and check on the status of the auction. The three of us spent a lot of our free time at McCartney’s place, mostly because her family was seriously loaded. “The Manor” as Phin and I had dubbed it the first time we’d seen it, had six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a living room, a den, a huge kitchen, and a pool and hot tub in the back yard.

“Is this a new comforter?” I asked, pretending to make snow angels on her bed.

McCartney looked up from her laptop and nodded. “Yeah. I was sick of the old one.”

“Didn’t you just get that ‘old one,’ like, a month ago?” Phin asked, pushing me aside and then plopping down beside me.

“Yeah. But the polka dots just started to get…old,” McCartney answered. “And don’t even start lecturing me about my shopping habits.”

Phin held up his arms in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. Then he leaned over to me and whispered, “I couldn’t handle it if she banned me from the Manor. The lack of pool access would definitely suck.”

I giggled and then abruptly stopped when I caught McCartney’s glare. Clearing my throat, I thought it best to change the subject.

“So, you won’t believe what happened when Principal Howard called me to his office today,” I said, quickly.

“Oh, yeah!” McCartney exclaimed, her annoyance disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. “What was that about, anyway?”

“Little Miss Perfect was called down to the principals office?” Phin asked, faking a horrified look. He tisked at me with his pointer finger and mouthed, “Naughty, naughty,” and only narrowly escaped being smacked in the side of the head with McCartney’s pillow.

“Shut it, Phin. Besides, it was partly your fault I was down there anyway,” I said, crossing my arms in my best you’re-on-my-list way.

“How is it
my
fault?” he asked.

“Well, Captain Obvious, Principal Howard received the genius e-mail you two sent out to the
entire school
, and thought it would be a good idea to lecture me about my safety and what is, and is not, proper for a young lady like me to be doing.”

“He did not!” McCartney said, her mouth hanging open.

“He most certainly did,” I answered. “Then he made the mistake of calling my mom to see what she thought of the whole thing. And, well, you know how my mom is. By the end of the phone call, she had him believing that it was a great idea. Mostly, because she promised that any money I made on the kiss would go toward making repairs to the gym.”

“Way to go, Mrs. Sawyer,” Phin said, shaking his head in awe.

“Speaking of kisses and money,” McCartney said, typing fast and furious on the keys of her laptop. “Let’s take a look-see at how those lips are selling.”

“There better be at least one bid, or I’m going to end it right here and now,” I said in my best drama queen voice and fell back into the soft pillows on McCartney’s bed. “Seriously though guys, these lips were made for kissing and I can’t finish my freshman year without putting them to good use.”

“Now, you’re talking my language,” Phin said. I watched as he began to smooch on one of McCartney’s stuffed animals. I had to turn away from the perv as his animal hijinks began to get a little too animated for my taste.

“I just finally realized that it’s time,” I said still averting my eyes. “Time to join the rest of our class in the world of making out. I mean, it’s fun, right? And why shouldn’t I have a little fun every once in a while?”

“You’re preaching to the choir, man,” Phin said and threw his furry kissing buddy at me.

“So, I’m in this thing one hundred percent. Yep, I’m going to be a kissing machine before the end of the year,” I said, making up my mind then and there.

“Well, you’re definitely getting kissed this year,” McCartney cut in and looked up from the computer screen.

“Somebody bid?” I squealed, kicking my feet up in the air.

“Not somebody,” McCartney said slowly, and turned the laptop to face us. “Some
bodies
.”

“Seriously? More than one guy bid on these lips?” I asked, pointing to my mouth.

“Uh, twenty seven guys to be exact,” McCartney answered. “Your kiss is already up to $75!”

“Nuh, uh. No way,” I said, scrambling off the bed to examine the screen. After I confirmed that it was true, I leaned back against the bed, slightly dazed—and confused. “Do they
know
what they’re bidding on? Maybe they thought they were bidding on something else. Like a cool painting, or maybe a bike or something.”

“Sorry sweet-thang,” Phin said with a big grin. “They want those hot lips of yours.”

“Ewwww. When you say it that way, it makes it sound so dirty,” I said, making a face.

“Do you know what this means, Arielle?” McCartney interrupted.

“People feel sorry for the lame freshman?” I asked.

“No, loser,” McCartney said, rolling her eyes. “It means, no more lip virgin for you. In exactly one month, you
will
be kissing one very lucky boy.”