The Alpha For Her

Chapter 11

“Boooring,” Alaiah said.

Jennifer just stared at the girl. The disappointment in Billie was visible. Candy shook her head. Vera laughed.

Alaiah had come disguised as a maid. She brought a lunch tray full of cheeseburgers, French fries and milkshakes, saying how she was sometimes sick of epicurean meals. The five dug in, and Candy began sketching their ideas and showing the girl what they had. Jennifer knew that they were going to strike out as she saw the teenager’s eyes glaze.

“I mean,” Alaiah said, “It’s okay. I mean, it’s good and all, but…”

“But it’s boring,” Candy said.

“I mean, it does the job. And I really like the way that you guys got two tracks; and I know that I’d be on the exploratory track. And it navigates easy. And you got some real cool pics…but, you know, this school just looks like every other.”

“But,” Jennifer said, “aren’t they all? I mean, we’re not going to go about redesigning the American secondary school system.”

“Why not?”

Team-Emo-Plus-One looked at Alaiah. The girl’s face was earnest.

“I mean, think about it,” she said. “See, they got all these magnet schools that are supposed to draw kids into particular specialized subjects, right? You know, like science or music or stuff. And you wanna attract entrepreneurs, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, my friends and I been thinking about this. So, what if you made your school a little different? Yeah, you can keep your course catalogue and all of that. But, what if you made it a requirement that, every freshman class is given a task; a goal. Something that they have to complete by their senior year.”

“Like what?” Candy asked, leaning in.

“I dunno. Like maybe designing and building an affordable, solar powered ultra-light plane that can seat four.”

The others just looked at her.

“That’s in addition to their regular course load,” Alaiah went on. “See, that way they’d not only have to learn about physics and math and all about engines and materials by themselves, but they’d have to learn to work together as a group and learn all kinds of social and work skills and stuff like that. Then, in the end, they’d have a product that maybe they could market. Your little entrepreneurs could head off to college with their own business.”

“Wow,” Jennifer said.

“Cool,” Billy added.

“But, couldn’t they just get a plan for an ultra-light off the web?” Vera asked.

“That was just an example,” Alaiah replied. “The task could be anything: build a pool for the school; figure out a way to get kids to eat their vegetables.”

“Get the ultra-light plans from the web,” Jennifer said, thinking, “then build a factory that employed the homeless.”

“Yeah.”

“Develop a marketing campaign,” Candy suggested, “that would give people an incentive to vote.”

“Sure. It could be abstract.”

“Find a way,” Billie put in, “to make animal rescue shelters profitable.”

“Bingo.

“Build a better condom,” Vera said.

All five burst out laughing, and then the ideas began to flow; some weird, some wild, some brilliant. But everything that they suggested made them all laugh or ponder, and Jennifer felt the same spirit that they had on their first challenge. And then she had a thought.

“Guys,” she said, grinning, “this so smacks of what Flint is doing to us.”

There was a moment’s pause, and then, again, everyone burst out laughing.

“Throw it back in his face,” Candy said. “I like it.”

“We, are so stealing this idea,” Billie said.

“Sure,” Alaiah replied with a shrug. “But I get a percentage.”

“Like father, like daughter,” Vera chuckled.

And so, armed with a fresh notion, and a flood of ideas, they set to work, and that work was a joy. Even Vera was engaged.

After a while, though, Alaiah had to go. But as she gathered her tray and things she looked to Jennifer and said,

“Um, Jenny? So, like, you know, the roads are finally open, and so I’m having some of my BFFs over this afternoon. Just to hang, you know. And so. I was, like, thinking – I mean, I know that you got all this work to do and all, but maybe later.”

“I’d love to join you,” Jennifer said.

“Jenny’s gone above and beyond in this project,” Candy put in. “She deserves a break. We got it from here.”

“Just let me get my make-up stuff,” Jen said.

“Coowell!”

Alaiah snuck her through the kitchen and down the service halls. Along the way, she stopped at the maid’s locker room and got rid of her uniform.

“Alaiah,” Jen said, when she saw that they were alone. “Who is Marla? The woman who gave the talk last night?”

“Oh, she’s been with my dad, like forever. She’s in and out all the time. She’s with his business stuff, kind of like a silent partner.”

Alaiah changed into simple, yellow cut-off jeans and a tank that had the word Sassy written in glitter.

“Are they, like, you know…?”

“Dunno,” Alaiah. “But I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s, like, gorgeous. C’mon. They’re waiting.”

Alaiah’s friends turned out to be so refreshing. One girl was the dark, coal black of the Caribbean. One was a creamy white girl, covered in freckles. One was Asian and sort of plain and plump, and one was another white girl who had some acne problems.

When they saw Jennifer enter, they squealed like the school girls that they were, and Jen felt immediately so comfortable. After introductions and the usual small talk, the girls launched into discussing their favorite Jenny’s Gems posts. But, when Liza, the girl with the acne, timidly asked Jennifer if there was anything that she knew to do about her pimples, Jennifer had a brainwave.

“Yes, I can,” she said. “And I got an idea. Alaiah, do you have a video cam?”

The girl nodded eagerly.

“Liza, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to do a make-over that’ll send shock waves through the blogosphere.”

“You mean…” Liza said. “You mean that you wanna post it…I mean, online?”

“That’s where the blogosphere is.”

To anyone listening at the door, the cries might have sounded like a massacre. Inside there was absolute, giddy joy, as Jennifer directed, and Liza’s BFFs turned her into a starlet.

“You know,” Robyn, the Asian girl said, “you should do this. On your site.”

“What?” Jennifer asked. “Get a bunch of goofy girls in and tape a seminar?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.”

Jennifer had to tear herself away from the adulation and gratitude; her team needed her back, and there was really only so much adolescence she could handle. She found her way back through the service hallway. She thought about what Robyn had said, and she thought that it would be something new and refreshing on her blog – not all the time, but something that people could look forward to. She started to develop the idea, to plan, when someone called,

“Jennifer.”