Chapter 40: Rumors
The week moved with the specific momentum of a school counting down to something.
Summer League banners had gone up in the main hallway on Tuesday. By Wednesday, the football players were getting the particular treatment that Medford High reserved for its athletes in the days before a game — the nods in the hallway, the extra patience from certain teachers, the ambient awareness of the whole school turning in the same direction.
Mike trained through all of it with the focused consistency of someone who had a number to hit and was hitting it.
By Friday afternoon, running his post-practice circuits in Connie's backyard while the Texas heat finally started to concede to evening, the system updated cleanly:
[Physique: 140]
He stood still for a moment, breathing, letting it settle.
One week. Target reached. The Summer League was two days out.
He went inside and made dinner.
The cheerleading squad had been deployed to the Main Street shopping district on Saturday morning — a community presence event ahead of the Summer League, the kind of thing that small Texas towns did well and took seriously. A folding table, a banner, a sign-up sheet for residents to show their support for Medford High football.
Amy had organized most of it, which meant it was enthusiastic and slightly over-decorated.
Regina ran it, which meant it was efficient.
Cady, Karen, and Gretchen worked the table in rotation while the rest of the squad circulated. Janis and Damian had been recruited as general volunteers — Janis under protest, Damian with genuine enthusiasm for the event's social dynamics.
The Saturday morning foot traffic was decent. Families stopped. A few older residents signed their names with the careful pride of people who remembered when Medford had been good at football and were hoping this was the year it came back.
During the mid-morning break, Regina pulled Cady to the side of the booth with the specific energy of someone who had been sitting on a question and had decided it was time.
"The drink," she said.
Cady kept her expression neutral. "What about it?"
"I've gained almost two pounds this week." Regina said it the way she said most uncomfortable things — directly, without drama, but with an undercurrent that suggested she expected the information to be acted upon. "That's not what a health drink is supposed to do."
Cady had prepared for this. She'd prepared for it since the moment she'd handed over the first bottle.
"That's actually normal," she said, with the calm authority of someone who had done research. "My mom explained it — the first few weeks, your body is recalibrating. It's retaining some water, building up reserves. The visible results come after that phase." She paused, then added with careful timing: "Have you noticed your skin? My mom always says the skin improvement comes first."
Regina considered this. She touched her cheek briefly — an unconscious gesture, the kind that happened before the performance layer engaged.
"It has been better," she said, reluctantly.
"That's the first sign," Cady said. "It's working."
Regina looked at her for a moment with the expression that ran its calculation and then, apparently, accepted the result. "Fine. But if I don't see results in the next few weeks—"
"You will," Cady said.
Regina straightened her jacket and walked back to the table.
Cady exhaled slowly through her nose.
Across the booth, Damian caught her eye. She gave him the smallest possible nod. He turned away and found something to look at on the sign-up sheet.
An hour later, during another rotation break, Regina's attention snagged on something across the street.
Cady followed her gaze.
Ms. Ingram — the math teacher — was standing at the corner near the coffee shop, talking to a man Cady didn't recognize. He was in his thirties, wearing work clothes that had seen a long week, and the conversation between them had the easy, unhurried quality of two people who knew each other.
As Cady watched, Ms. Ingram reached into her purse and handed him something — cash, from the look of it. They talked for another minute. He nodded. She nodded. They parted ways in opposite directions.
"Interesting," Regina said, beside her.
"It's Ms. Ingram," Cady said. "She's our math teacher."
"I know who she is," Regina said. The expression on her face was the one Cady had learned to recognize as the notebook expression — the specific quality of someone cataloguing something for later use. "Who's the man?"
"I have no idea," Cady said, which was true.
Regina was already moving back toward the table. "Neither do I. Yet."
Cady didn't have time to think about it because Ms. Ingram had spotted her.
"Cady." The teacher crossed toward her with the purposeful walk she used when she had something specific to say. "Do you have a minute?"
"Of course," Cady said.
Ms. Ingram glanced at the booth, then steered them a few steps away from the noise of it. "I wanted to talk to you about the Math Olympiad. The rules changed this year — participating schools need at least one female student on the team." She looked at Cady with the direct, unhurried attention of a teacher who had formed an opinion about a student and was acting on it. "You're the strongest math student I have in the senior class. I'd like you to consider it."
Cady blinked. "The Olympiad."
"End of year. It carries weight for college applications — especially the research programs." She paused. "I'm also planning to pull some juniors into the mix this year. There are a couple of strong candidates." A brief pause that suggested she had specific people in mind. "Think about it. You don't have to decide today."
Cady nodded. "I will. Thank you."
Ms. Ingram started to turn away.
"Ms. Ingram—" Cady said.
The teacher stopped.
Cady glanced across the street at where the conversation had happened. She wasn't sure why she was asking, except that the notebook expression on Regina's face had made her want to know first.
"The man you were talking to just now," she said carefully. "Is everything okay?"
Ms. Ingram looked at her, then across the street, then back with the expression of someone who had found the question unexpected but not unwelcome.
"That's Marcus," she said. "He lives two streets over from me. His daughter's been in the hospital for the past week — some kind of respiratory thing. He was short for the co-pay." She said it simply, without the self-consciousness of someone who needed the good deed acknowledged. "He'll pay me back when he can. He always does."
"Okay," Cady said. "Good. I'm glad."
Ms. Ingram looked at her for a moment with the specific attention of a teacher reading something between the lines.
"Is there something going on I should know about?" she said.
"No," Cady said. "I just wanted to make sure." She smiled. "I'll think about the Olympiad."
Ms. Ingram nodded once and walked away.
Cady turned back toward the booth.
Regina was already at the table, leaning toward Karen and Gretchen with the lowered voice and specific energy of someone sharing something she'd decided was information.
Cady moved quickly.
She arrived at the table in time to hear the tail end of it — something about Ms. Ingram, the man, the cash exchange — and the particular framing Regina had put around it that was not what had actually happened.
Karen was listening with the expression she wore when she was receiving something she didn't want but couldn't interrupt. Gretchen was looking at the sign-up sheet.
Two of the other squad members had clearly already heard it. One of them had the bright, slightly guilty expression of someone who had found gossip interesting before they'd decided whether to be troubled by it.
"That's not what happened," Cady said.
Everyone looked at her.
She kept her voice level — not confrontational, not soft. Just clear. "I talked to Ms. Ingram. The man is her neighbor. His daughter is sick and he needed help with a medical bill. She lent him money." She looked at Regina. "That's it."
The table was quiet.
Regina looked at her with the calculating expression that preceded most of her significant responses. "You talked to her."
"She came over to talk to me," Cady said. "About the Math Olympiad. I asked about the man because I'd seen you watching them." She held Regina's gaze. "It's a good story. It's just not the one you told."
Something moved through Regina's expression — not embarrassment exactly, but the specific recalibration of someone who had been caught in the gap between what they'd said and what was true, and was now deciding how to land.
The two squad members who'd heard the rumor exchanged a glance.
Karen looked at the table with the expression of someone who had been hoping for this moment and didn't want to show it too obviously.
Gretchen said nothing, which for Gretchen was always its own kind of statement.
"Well," Regina said, after a moment, with the composed ease of someone who had decided the correct response was to not have made a big deal of it in the first place. "I was speculating. I didn't know the context." She picked up her water bottle. "Now we do."
She said it like a correction she was issuing on her own behalf, which was the most Regina George response possible, and Cady recognized it for exactly what it was — the minimum viable retreat, executed with full control.
It wasn't an apology. It was close enough that the people around the table could treat it as one if they wanted to.
Cady let it land that way.
Janis appeared at Cady's elbow ten minutes later, having watched the exchange from the periphery.
"You handled that well," she said.
"I handled it the only way I could without making it worse," Cady said.
"Same thing." Janis watched Regina at the far end of the table, back in her composed hosting posture, talking to a family who'd stopped to sign. "She retreated."
"She retreated gracefully," Cady said. "She'll be fine by this afternoon."
"Does that bother you?"
Cady thought about it. "No. I wasn't trying to humiliate her. I was trying to protect Ms. Ingram." She paused. "Those are different goals."
Janis was quiet for a moment.
"Damian was right," she said. "You're good at this."
"I grew up reading groups," Cady said. "Different continent, same dynamics."
Janis almost smiled. "Sure. Except the animals on this continent talk back."
"Some of the ones on that one did too," Cady said. "You just had to know what to listen for."
That afternoon, after the booth was packed up and the squad had dispersed, Damian fell into step beside Cady on the walk back to the parking lot.
"The Olympiad thing," he said. "Are you going to do it?"
"Probably," Cady said.
"She mentioned pulling juniors in."
"She implied it."
Damian looked at her sideways. "You think she means Mike."
Cady was quiet for a moment. "Ms. Ingram's been watching him in class since the first week. Yeah, I think she means Mike."
"How do you feel about that?"
"Good," Cady said. "He'd be good at it."
Damian nodded, with the expression of someone who believed her and also believed there were several other feelings present that she wasn't naming. He was too good a friend to push it.
"Waffles tomorrow?" he said.
"Waffles tomorrow," Cady confirmed.
(End of Chapter 40)
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