“I guess, but the students—”
Ms. Lute talked over her. “Especially since I hear the full student council is to be elected, and I get to be the adviser of that too. Signups will run through this first week, and then we’re off to the races—or race, singular, in this case. The student council election will be the centerpiece of my course this semester.”
“StuCo? Sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Lute. But no one cares about student government here. You know the school mascot’s a sloth, right? Total self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Ms. Lute arched an eyebrow. “Life lesson for you, Cat: people care when someone makes them. Couldn’t be a teacher if I didn’t believe that.”
She grabbed her box and confidently strode down the hall, her red, white, and blue heels clicking on the tile floor.
Election fever. Accessorized.
But she wasn’t wrong. Local and national news, talk shows, podcasts, radio, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram—the race for president was everywhere.
The whole country was swept up in election fever.
Including, without a doubt, the Fit to Print judges.
But this was Acedia. The Red and Blue’s most-read issue ever featured Cat’s article on the previous year’s senior prank—the one that had turned Principal Schwartz’s normally fake-orange-tanned complexion Hot Tamale red. An unknown group of seniors had somehow reached the roof of the school, which was well above the height for any standard ladder. They’d glued down a lawn chair, and in it, they’d plunked a surprisingly lifelike doppelgänger dummy of the principal holding a sun reflector in one hand and a three-foot-tall sloth in the other. They set up a webcam that live-streamed “Schwartz” and “Slothy,” as he came to be known, on YouTube.
That’s what got Acedia engaged.
Cat leaned against the doorjamb. Down the hall, Ms. Lute carefully pinned a stars-and-stripes streamer around the edges of the bulletin board outside her classroom. She was officially the most committed teacher at Acedia, and she’d barely started. If anyone stood a chance of drumming up interest in student government, it would be her.
Covering the election, with in-depth candidate profiles and extensive campaign-platform analysis, would give The Red and Blue a focus, a purpose, one entirely timely and relevant.
Cat pulled her phone out of her back pocket. The last text she’d received was a dorm-room selfie from Jen the day she’d arrived at NYU, where she’d only just made it in off the wait list despite her internship at The New York Times and a family legacy at the university. Cat had neither.
She searched her contacts and found a number for Ravi. She texted him, asking if he was returning to the paper.
Because if she did this, if she killed it, the Fit to Print award was hers for the taking.
“Please let me kill it,” Cat whispered.
4
When Angeline’s Every Day Becomes Epic
29 DAYS TO THE ELECTION
Angeline stared at the little blue dot at the top of her inbox. A new message. She hadn’t changed the settings on her computer, but she swore the sender’s name was bigger than usual.
She sat up straighter in the nubby tweed chair—the last thing she’d let her sister pick out—behind the desk they shared in their bedroom.
All those hours in front of her laptop studying every YouTube channel from GamerGirlz to Car Builderz DIY to Bette’s Books to Bet On. Every grasshopper-topped sushi roll she ate, every chocolate laxative cleanse, every questionable and disgusting concoction she’d lathered on her body, all came down to this.
Her hand hovered over the mouse, but she couldn’t bring herself to click. Instead, she kicked off the pointy-toed loafers she’d worn to school that day, wincing as the air hit the raw pink welt on the back of her ankle. She’d said they were comfortable.
They weren’t.
But the endorsement had paid for her new laptop so . . . trade-offs.
She pressed her toes into the white carpet she’d freshly steamed before the school year began and fixed her eyes on her computer screen.
“Ask an Angel” leapt from the subject line, the YouTube channel Angeline had grown into a brand over the past two years. Influencer? Please. She was so much more. Part advice giver, part counselor, part confessor, she served her viewers by listening to and answering their daily dilemmas—even if that meant boots-on-the-ground research.
Okay, so truth?
She’d never admit it to Cat, but that elephant dung had nearly made her pass out.
Her sister thought it was easy. But had she ever tried to squeeze herself into the trifecta of compression underwear?
High-waisted capri britches . . .
Tummy cincher . . .
Hip slimmer . . .
After eating two pints of caramel gelato.
Angeline had come this close to dialing 911. But her lack of circulation had surely prevented others from asphyxiation.
Turn blue, and the followers would come.
She hadn’t read that in any influencer guide. But it had worked. As had a modest display of cleavage and pink lipstick. Pink, not red. She’d lost ninety followers before she’d realized that mistake.
Now she had more questions than she could answer, and her ad revenue crushed whatever she’d make working round the clock as a barista. But she was determined to take it to the next level.
Evelyn’s Epic Everyday: Make Every Day an Epic Day.
The pinnacle of lifestyle YouTubers, promoting positivity, following one’s dreams, and making each day an extraordinary one. An extraordinarily profitable one. Evelyn had raked in half a million dollars from her YouTube channel alone last year—a pittance compared to what she’d snagged from endorsements and book deals. Her second book, Girl, Talk like Everyone’s Listening, hit the bestseller list, joining her first, Girl, Match Your Bra and Underwear and Other Life Secrets, which had never dropped off.
And here she was: Evelyn’s Epic Everyday in Angeline’s inbox.
Angeline took a deep breath and clicked.
Her heart stopped.
And jump-started.
“Bring! It!” she screamed, and Tartan, Gramps’s orange-and-white cat, sprang from her lap.
She’d gotten the invite. The, all caps, underlined, circled, highlighted, invite. When Evelyn’s Epic Everyday had given her video on “5 Ways to Know He’s Interested” a thumbs-up over the summer, Angeline had known what it meant.
Evelyn was watching her.
Her.
Ask an Angel.
Which meant she had a shot.