Beauty (12 page)

I looked down, feeling shy all of a sudden. “You really think so?” I asked quietly.

I felt something soft and round hit my shoulder. I looked up to see a tater tot bouncing down onto the table. “I know so,” Ashley said.

“Ditto,” Blair chimed in, tossing a tot of her own at me.

“Hey!” I said, chucking several back at them.

“You
didn’t
!” Blair squealed. And then we were all throwing tater tots, laughing and ducking and screaming as they flew wildly through the air.

“Stop it right now, girls!” the waitress demanded from behind the counter. “Stop it or I’ll … I’ll call Eddie!”

“Eddie loves us!” Ashley yelled out. Then she pegged a tot right at the waitress, and we all lost it, doubling over the table as we laughed into our tater tots.

It’s Not Just Clothes in That Closet

ON TUESDAYS AND Thursdays after school, I worked on set design for the school play. After Karen quit sets last year, I’d tried to get Kemper and Hayley to join, but Kemper’s schedule was already chock-full with debate team practice and sit-ins and protests, and Hayley had just laughed me off. “I’m not spending two days a week
hammering
,” she’d scoffed. “Besides, where’s the fun in getting splinters?” She’d tried out for the cheerleading squad this year instead, making it all the way to callbacks. But even after she was cut in the end, she wouldn’t join the set team with me. “I just don’t get what’s so fun about building things, Mol,” she’d said. “It’s such a guy’s job.”

So set design had become my thing, separate from Hayley and Kemper and our little group, and it turned out to be nice, having something that felt like mine and mine alone. The thing that I never could make Hayley understand was that it wasn’t even that I loved building all that much. I mean, I liked it. All that movement—hammering and painting and lifting—was a great way to shake off the last seven hours of school. It was like playing a sport, but without the need for real coordination. But the real reason I worked on set design was simply because it gave me an excuse to be involved with the play.

Acting wasn’t for me—I’d sworn off the stage after my last beauty pageant—but I loved the excitement of theater. I loved watching a play grow from nothing to something, a whole new world gathering at your feet. I loved the ups and downs of it, the camaraderie, the feeling that every problem was just another hurdle in this crazy obstacle course called
The
show must go on
. And more than anything, I loved that final week, when it all came together like puzzle pieces snapping into place. It was like the play became this living creature, something that breathed and grew right before your eyes.

This semester we were doing a modern retelling of
Cinderella
, set in the back streets of New York City’s West Village. I’d never been to New York before, but I’d spent hours looking at photos, drafting the perfect city set in my mind, filled with old brick brownstones and car-lined streets. Opening night was only three weeks away now, and everything was starting to come together. The set was almost done; the costumes were in final fittings; the lines were all memorized. We were in good shape.

Madame Loire had ended French class early today because of a toothache, so I expected the auditorium to be empty when I got there. But Stacey Learning was already there, hard at work in our office—also known as the auditorium floor. Other than occasional help from Mr. Murphy’s shop class, Stacey and I now made up the entirety of the set design team. “Hey, Molly,” she said without lifting her head. She was bent over the prince’s brownstone façade, painting finishing touches on it.

“Hey,” I said, dropping down next to her and grabbing a paintbrush. It had been my idea to sneak glass slipper details into the brownstone—a glass slipper door knocker, a glass slipper mailbox, glass slipper–printed curtains—and it was turning out great.

“Ooh, how about we add a glass slipper pot filled with flowers on the stoop?” I suggested.

“Love i—” Stacey began, but when she looked up and saw me, she fell abruptly silent. “Whoa,” she said, her eyes tracing over my face in a way I was starting to get used to. “Lanie mentioned you got a makeover but … whoa,” she said again. “You look amazing, Molly.”

“Thanks.” I dipped my paintbrush into the silvery-white paint we’d dubbed glass slipper white.

“Do you hear that?” Stacey whispered suddenly. I looked at her curiously, and she held a finger to her lips. “Listen!”

From somewhere in the distance, I heard a giggle. Then another. “Who is that?”

“I have no idea, but I had a free last period so I’ve been here for a while, and I
keep
hearing it. It’s been driving me crazy!”

“Did you look around?” I painted several strokes onto the set, a glass slipper–shaped pot slowly taking shape.

Stacey nodded. “As far as I can tell, I’m the only one here.”

“Ooooh.” I made a scary face. “The ghost of Miracle High.”

Stacey laughed, flicking a drop of paint at me. Suddenly I heard it again: a giggle, high-pitched and girly, coming from somewhere in this auditorium. “Ghost busting time,” I declared, standing up and wiping some sawdust off my butt.

I walked through the rows of the auditorium, peeking under chairs and behind doors. But I found nothing. Then I heard it again, louder this time. My eyes fell on the door in the very back of the room, the one that led to the costume closet. I signaled Stacey over. “I think we’ve found our ghost,” I whispered.

“On the count of three,” Stacey murmured. “One. Two.
Three!
”

I flung the door to the closet open.

Inside, Tia Gilbert, the understudy for Cinderella, and Ryan Mitchell, who played the king, were lying on the floor, tangled up in a mass of costumes and not much else.

“Whoa,” Stacey gasped.

Ryan scrambled up, frantically grabbing at his clothes. “It’s not what it looks like,” he sputtered, his face turning several shades of red. He looked frantically around the closet. “We were … we were … sewing!” Then he sprinted out of the auditorium, leaving a half-naked Tia behind. She opened and closed her mouth several times, no words coming out. Then she jumped up and, pulling her shirt over her head, ran out after Ryan.

Stacey and I looked at the empty closet, then at each other. “I think I need to take some sewing lessons,” Stacey said.

Play practice flew by after that. Neither Ryan nor Tia showed up, and the cast spent the day practicing the play’s closing rap. I chanted along under my breath as Stacey and I finished painting the last of the glass slipper decorations onto the set. Margot, our Cinderella, had been having trouble memorizing her lines, so I’d been running through them with her in study hall. By now, I knew pretty much every single word to the play by heart.

I grew up in New York City.

Always hearing I was so pretty.

I was lucky; life was good!

I loved my dad; I liked my ’hood.

Then my dad decided to get hitched.

To a woman who was such a—witch.

Clean the toilets; scrub the floor!

That’s not enough, Cindy. Do more, more, more!

She told me I was ugly. That made me sad!

Until the rat in my wall said: It’s time to get mad.

So what’s a scorned girl to do?

Go to a ball of course, and lose a shoe!

Now my hubby’s a finance millionaire.

And my stepmother’s on the street, begging for a penny to spare.

That’s life when you’re the prettiest girl in NYC.

Looking for Mrs. Cindy-stinking-rich-Rella? Oh, wait—that’s me!

They rapped that song thirteen times before Sally, the director, was pleased with it. “All right, enough for today. See you Thursday!” she called out, dismissing practice. With a wave to Stacey, I headed to my locker to grab my things. When I pulled out my phone, I saw I’d missed a text from my mom.

Dear Molly, Dad and I are working late again. Seth is going to Matty’s for dinner. Left your favorite mac and cheese in the fridge! Love always, Mom

I laughed, typing back
K!
My mom had yet to fully grasp the concept that texts weren’t actually written letters.

“I’ve got an idea.”

I spun around to see Hayley in a fully pink-bedazzled outfit: pink-bedazzled short-shorts, a pink-bedazzled wife beater, and a pink-bedazzled beret. “What are you wearing?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Oh, this little thing?” Hayley did a little spin. “This is the uniform for the dance team I’m starting. I made it myself, though I know it’s, like, impossible to tell. I’ve decided: who needs cheer team when you can be on dance squad? Pom-poms are so passé, anyway.”

“Passé?” That was the third time I’d heard her use that phrase in two days. “What does that even mean, Hayl?”

Hayley looked at me like I’d just asked her what the word
yes
meant. “Passé. You know, French for
over
. Done with. Old news. It’s, like, the new saying, Mol.
Everyone’s
using it.”

“If you say so.” I decided it was safest to just change the subject. “So what’s your idea?”

“Oh!” Hayley brightened, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Here’s what I’m thinking: you, me, and the mall.”

I glanced at my watch. It was already four thirty. “I don’t know. It’s getting late and I still have homework to do… .”

“Come on,” Hayley pushed. “My mom said she’d drive us, and it will let us take your new face out for a little spin… . Plus, you could use some new clothes for your new look, don’t you think? I mean, old Molly’s style was fine, but new Molly’s style should be
amazing
.”

I blew out a breath, thinking. Hayley did have a point. The clothes that once seemed to suit me so well suddenly seemed a little too … plain. Plus, I couldn’t remember the last time Hayley had asked me to go to the mall with her. And it wasn’t like either of my parents were home anyway. I would just do my homework in study hall the next day. Wasn’t that what it was for, after all? “All right,” I said to Hayley. “Let’s shop.”

Hayley beamed at me, weaving her arm through mine. “The best two words in the world.”

Hayley’s mom stopped at the bank for me, so I could take out some cash. Normally I liked to get away with taking as little money as possible out of my account, but as I stood in front of the ATM, I found myself typing $300 into the screen. The machine whirred, spitting out my money. A smile spread across my face as I tucked the thick wad of twenties into my purse and jogged back to the car. I wasn’t usually a huge fan of the mall—all the dressing rooms and crowds and lines—but today, in this body, I suddenly couldn’t wait to shop.

It’s What’s Inside (Your Purse) That Counts

“HOME SWEET HOME,” Hayley said as we were greeted by the beige walls and fake marble fountain of Miracle Mall. I breathed in the smell of recycled air, shivering a little beneath a blast of too-strong air conditioning. Normally the mall made me anxious: all those stores and shoppers and salespeople to maneuver, like a very pricey maze. But today I felt a burst of energy as I stood there beneath the mall’s florescent lights.

“Okay,” I said, ignoring the two guys in private school uniforms giving me a blatant once over. “Where do you want to start?” I patted my purse. “I’ve got
three
hundred dollars to blow.”

“Wow.” Hayley raised her eyebrows, looking impressed. The last time I’d dipped into my babysitting money to shop for clothes, we were in eighth grade and I was buying a graduation dress. And even then I’d kept my budget to one hundred. “You really are the new and improved Molly.” She laughed, grabbing my arm. “Don’t worry, just follow me. I have a route down.” Holding firmly onto my arm, she pulled me along behind her, and for a second I felt like we were ten years old again. She was always the most excitable of the three of us: moving faster, talking louder, wanting more.