Not Here to Be Liked: Chapters 1–4

It’s a hallowed ritual, occurring around the same time every spring—and this year, being a junior, I finally get to be in the running.

For almost three years, I’ve been the most prolific, hardest-working, most no-nonsense staff member the Bugle has ever seen.

“The Bugle isn’t like that, Kim. It’s a meritocracy.”

“If I wanted to participate in a farce, I’d be running for student council.”

It’s an unexpected prick, sharp and inconsequential like a paper cut.

Mom is still pontificating on my facial calisthenics. “It’s such a bad habit.”

The original staff was a small, dedicated group led by Harold “Harry” Sloane, class of ’87, a young man with a preternatural view toward posterity. We can trace just about every Bugle tradition to this remarkably fertile mind.

At some point that first year, he showed up with an actual brass bugle, which he purportedly stole from St. Agatha’s Academy down the street (then known as St. Agatha’s Military School for Boys).

Eton Kuo, class of ’88, the inaugural artist and erstwhile Bugle cartoonist, hand drew every portrait with real India ink and continues to do so for each new editor in chief elected (even though he is now an endodontist in Irvine).

I sidle away from the Wall of Editors and set my backpack down on my usual desk.

Recently, someone started renovating the abandoned strip mall across the street from school, next to the Presbyterian church that puts up funny sayings on its marquee (Jesus wants to give you an extreme makeover).

Buoyed by the praise, I sashay back to my desk—but as soon as I sit down with Len’s article on Ms. Velazquez, my effervescence takes on a new, competitive charge.

Buoyed by the praise, I sashay back to my desk—but as soon as I sit down with Len’s article on Ms. Velazquez, my effervescence takes on a new, competitive charge.

“Just fine? Why just fine?” Aarav asks, like he can’t understand why I think that’s a sane response to his question.
I humor him with an impassive look.

He flashes a contrite smile, trying to smooth things over in that half-needling, half-whining pretty-boy way of his.

Since when has Natalie been funny?
I look away. Now is not the time to ponder enigmas of the universe.

“They will work hard to deserve their place on the Wall of Editors. They will spend tireless nights living up to the honor bestowed by this inviolable token, this symbol of clarity and responsibility.”

Remember, deliberations will take place at lunch, at the end of which we’ll take a vote, so come prepared for a lively debate.

He eyes me for a second, coolly combative, and the frisson that passes between us is electric.

“All this is to say that I’m not totally inept. But for me, that’s not what this is really about. No, this is about giving back to the Bugle. This is about giving you a choice in who leads you next year. This is about democracy, and making the Bugle the best it can be.”

Winona is sitting at one of the lunch tables, ostensibly doing AP Chem homework, and I’m pacing around with the onion-flavored chips.

“People said you’re kind of intense, Eliza. And harsh with edits. Overly critical, I guess, was the general gist.”

“Yeah, right? Just because we’re friends. But since when have I been ‘establishment’?” He seems genuinely nettled by this.

But I can’t decide what to say. I have too many thoughts, all of them caustic.

“Hey, are you okay?” He puts a tentative hand on my shoulder.

It’s also the reason why James can be bombastic and particular, but why I can’t be...whatever I am.
Because everyone loves a girlboss until she tries to tell you what to do.

I jab the backspace key until my intellectually milquetoast drivel disappears. The truth is, I have nothing original to say about the US economy right now.

Today, I was passed over for the position of editor in chief of the Bugle. My fellow classmates have chosen another to be their leader next year. This would be fine, except that it's a blatant gesture of misogyny and I am appalled that in spite of our enlightened age and the supposed progressiveness of our generation, it is an outcome that we are forced to confront.

Today, I was passed over for the position of editor in chief of the Bugle. My fellow classmates have chosen another to be their leader next year. This would be fine, except that it's a blatant gesture of misogyny and I am appalled that in spite of our enlightened age and the supposed progressiveness of our generation, it is an outcome that we are forced to confront.

But I am also the most qualified candidate for editor in chief this year, and that is an unequivocal fact.

No, they are not interested in how much experience a candidate has, or how many hours she has put in. They are not interested in the number of articles she has written, or what concrete plans she has. No, they will be won over by nothing less than the patriarchy, cloaked in cheap sentimentality.

Because I’m “not very nice.” Because I “try too hard.” Because DiMartile told a good story in his speech, and that was enough to convince everyone that he, despite his typical reserve, is more of a leader than I am. Because DiMartile presented himself as approachable, and that was taken as a revelation, not a fluke.

The cacophony, briny and cold, is indifferent to my dismay.

She plucks a bag from my hoard and suspends it in the air with the kind of distaste ordinarily reserved for, say, a dying cephalopod.

She turns back to her phone, but a second later, with the bored finesse of a poker player who’s been sitting on a winning hand for a while, she tosses out a question—in Cantonese, just to make sure Mom doesn’t miss it.

Mom drags us over so that we’re almost flush against a display of Paris by Night DVDs.

Today, though, this rite of frugality seems almost acceptable. Why not take time to be a vigilant consumer?

Why not be so engrossed in such a preoccupation that you don’t have a chance to lecture your aggrieved daughter?

You know how there’s often that one thing someone, usually a parent, becomes convinced is the solution to all your problems? And even though the thing is so specific and trivial that no otherwise rational person could possibly believe it’s the driving factor behind anything, they still manage, with prodigious creativity, to find ways to make everything about it?

“That’s what you always say, can we not talk about this, can we not talk about that,” she chides.