So, just how did Holly get into her present line of work? One seldom wakes up in the morning and says, "I'm going to go into that as a prime career opportunity!" In fact, one tends to try and avoid thinking of such non-options, especially if one has a halfway-decent yet precarious LifeVita score to preserve. The thing is, however, that Holly didn't even have that kind of score to begin with. She was strictly below-average, and for below-average people, there aren't a lot of legitimate career fields to go into anymore. Every occupation, from food service to hospitality to things like teaching and nursing, pretty much requires you to have a LifeVita score of 700 or above for entry-level positions. That leaves absolutely no room for Holly--or me--and so my friend has taken the so-called "low road". In this post-modern, post-religious age, however, it's become more like the "common road". Sure, people still disdain it, and look down upon people like Holly, but there is no longer the fire-and-brimstone fervor of righteous condemnation that used to surround her unorthodox career choice. There's always room for C-and-D students in the bedrooms of many a man with a much higher LifeVita score. Of course, if her "tricks" are found out, they'll be ruined, but my best friend knows how to keep secrets. If there was ever an inborn talent she had, that would be it. Another one of these is making friends, including all the wrong friends...
That's why the one person I can't stand on this entire planet is Jessica--the one who got Holly started. She's an acquaintance of hers whom I absolutely despise, and also her "employer". Jessica's got a LifeVita score hovering somewhere in the low 500's, but it's still higher than mine. She is a real businesswoman, that one, and she recruited Holly through K'nekt--the latest fad in social networking sites. In exchange for performing all the risky, score-obliterating online "hookups", which take real nerve (and real computer skills!) to conceal from the good folks at LifeVita, Inc., Holly does all the "dirty work" and pays Jessica a percentage of her "wages". I can't remember if it's 20% or 30%, but it's pretty high. The last I heard, Jessica had at least ten girls working for her, and that includes Holly. She's looking to "expand" because her K'nekt page, aptly titled
http://sexyjess.knekt.com), has gotten quite a bit of traffic lately. Hmph. I'll never work for Jessica. She is a complete and total--
The real kicker is that both of us knew Jessica in high school! She was the head of the Warren G. Harding High cheerleading squad, the "Harding HiLites". Certainly, Jessica had been light on her feet, but Holly and I also thought that she was a little light in another department--namely, the one inside her skull! One time, Holly had made up this cheer about Jessica that I had absolutely loved:
"MY name's JESSICA! I'M so DUMB!
Hee-hee, hi-hi, ho-ho-hum!
Just throw me in the air with a big, high swing--
If I fall down on my head, I won't damage ANYTHING!
Go, ME!"
Of course, Holly had told me not to tell anyone else this cheer, but I felt the instinctive need to go chanting it around the whole school to anybody else who hated Jessica. That was the biggest mistake of my life. Word got around, and rumor had it that I was the one who had made up the cheer, and not Holly. That was all right. I took the blame, because if the real source of the cheer would have become known, no one else would have considered it valid anymore. Plus, I wanted to save Holly from getting bullied by the Hi-Lites. Perhaps more than anyone else at Warren G. Harding High, with me being the "retarded" or "handicapped girl", I wanted Jessica to get her "just deserts".
You know what happened? I ended up getting mine, facing ostracism from Holly for betraying her trust, and bullying from the Hi-Lites for three years straight. My best friend and I made up fast, but the Hi-Lites? They continued to trip me in the hallway, scatter my papers and books all over the floor of the classrooms we were in, delete my computer files that I was about to turn in for homework, call me "a fat/ugly/retarded B-witch", and so on. In the end, Holly and the Hi-Lites came to an uneasy truce--witness Holly's recent "job", and her snotty "supervisor"--but the former cheerleading squad of Warren G. Harding High and I are still on the outs. Let them think I made up that cheer! Let them think I was the one to "stick it to them" where it counted. Let them think I took a stand! As it was, all I did was repeat the cheer to others and watch the fallout...
They deserved it--or, rather, Jessica deserved it. I wasn't the only target of their bullying. Anyone who wasn't "in" at WGHS basically got nailed. The Hi-Lites were the "low-lights" of anybody's school year, including my own, if they didn't have a high-enough rating on our unwritten popularity scale.
In a way, this was fantastic preparation for having a LifeVita score and dealing with it. Just like in high school, you had to keep "on top of things" every day, checking to see if you were still "in" or not, and still "good". Also, you constantly had to do things to try and improve your reputation--or try to keep from destroying it completely, whichever the case may have been. It was either triumph (winning scholarships, getting prestigious jobs, finishing your education, doing volunteer work) or triage (making online amends, publishing blog or message-board retractions, taking down risque photos, and of course, forking over a grand per piece of info that you wanted erased).
People guard their LifeVita scores as closely, or more closely, than their credit scores. In fact, many now care about their LifeVita scores more. These days, it's their genuine passport to employment, romantic and family relationships, sucess--life.
Why did I let mine get wrecked?
This may sound lame, but all I can say is that's not what I meant to do!