Gorgeous (7 page)

12

W
HEN
I
WAS YOUNGER
, I used to wish my mom would be around more, like other kids’ mothers. On playdates, their moms would sit at the kitchen table and ask us about our day and give us cookies or even sandwiches with the crusts cut off. At my house, no crusts were cut off and a snack was laid out by Gosia, our housekeeper, and it was sliced apples and cheese. Nobody asked about our day.

It wasn’t that I ever thought Mom was a bad mother or a slacker. I was actually very proud that she, like other kids’ dads, rode the train in to work and held the
Wall Street Journal
folded into a little origami square and read the hieroglyphics streaming across the bottom of the news on TV. I loved that she could walk faster in heels than other moms in their Merrills on the rare occasions she made it to a class breakfast, and it truly didn’t bother me that I usually had to read my haiku first because she’d need to slip out ASAP to get to her office.

But part of me did wish I could, once in a while, have her around when I got home from school and she would ask me what happened in my day and she would just know what my plans were for the weekend.

I had no idea how weird and invasive that would feel until I got home that Friday afternoon.

Figuring I had basically quit the tennis team, I took the early bus home by myself and wandered up the street feeling let loose on the world. After tennis practice, I knew, Jade and Serena would rush home to shower and pack, and then Jade’s parents would drive around the corner to pick Serena up. Jade’s little brother, Kyle, would be watching a movie or playing with one of his million little electronic games in one of the captain seats in the second row, leaving the back bench for Jade, Serena, and me—but I wouldn’t be there. I wasn’t worried that Jade’s parents would call mine to discuss my grounding; they were friendly, but not friends, with my parents now, and, like Jade, painfully appropriate and wary about social issues.

I had no plans at all.

There were probably parties planned all over town for those few who weren’t heading out to the Hamptons, and twice as many parties out there, but of course I wasn’t invited to any of them. I waited for the pain and self-loathing of that realization to hit me, but for once it didn’t. I could lie in bed all weekend and read if I wanted, or watch TV, maybe a marathon of Hitchcock movies. I used to live in fear of having no friends and being invisible, but right then it seemed like an okay possibility.

I walked up my driveway actually whistling, until I realized I must seem (if anybody were looking at me) like a refugee from a 1950s movie.

What a dork.

When I opened the door, Mom was there, smiling, in socks and sweats. I almost jumped out of my skin. When she said, “Hi, cutie! How was your day?” I actually turned and looked behind me, wondering who she might mean. Nobody there. Then I thought maybe I’d come to the wrong house, or was dreaming again.

“What’s wrong?” I finally asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Don’t you have tennis practice?”

I was still on the step, but the freezing wave of air-conditioning was wafting over me, which might (or might not) explain my sudden wooziness. “I quit,” I said.

“Oh,” Mom answered. “All righty then. You want a snack?”

“Who are you and what have you done with my mother?” I asked, not budging.

Mom laughed.

I didn’t.

“Are you the devil?” I asked, trying to get a look at her eyes.

“Allison, come in and shut the door,” she snapped. “You are letting out all the air-conditioning.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and followed her toward the kitchen, shutting the door behind me.

On the counter was a new bikini and a bottle of sunblock. She smiled tensely beside them. “I think it’s your size,” she said. “I hope so. And this is the sunblock you like, right?”

I nodded.

“For your weekend,” she explained. “Aren’t you going away with Jade’s family this weekend?”

“No,” I answered.

Her tense smile faded. “It was on the calendar.”

She looked so disappointed, I almost gave her a hug. That would’ve been weird. Instead I assured her, “Oh, it was the plan. I just…I told her I couldn’t go.”

“Why?” Mom asked. “It’s not because of my…situation at work, is it? Are you worried about spending money? Because this is just a temporary setback, Allison. I don’t want you to—”

“No,” I interrupted. “No. It’s just…we’re not…Jade has been kind of annoying me lately.”

“Really?” she asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “In what way? Tell me what’s been going on with you.” She sat down on one of the counter stools and cocked her head, ready to listen.

It completely freaked me out.

It was the exact thing I had pictured whenever I wished for her to be around more. It was my secret fantasy come true.

I hated it.

“I don’t know,” I said, turning away and passing by the plate of cookies on the counter. I opened the fridge and grabbed a can of Diet Coke. “So, anyway, I hope it doesn’t mess up your plans to have me around this weekend. You can just ignore me.”

“Not at all, Allie Cat,” she said. Okay, I was officially freaked. She hadn’t called me Allie Cat since I was in third grade.

“I gotta go get a head start on my homework,” I told her, heading fast for the back stairs before she, like, kissed me or something. “Big project to work on.”

I took the stairs by twos.

My cell phone buzzed as I was crossing the upstairs den.

It was a text from Roxie:

I know u’r grounded but can you still use your cell and IM?

I texted back:

Can u keep a secret?

Yes,
she sent back immediately.
Like u. Absolutely.

In my room by then, I flopped down on my couch and texted:

I’m not really grounded. I just couldn’t stand the idea of being stuck with them all wknd. Is that horrible? They r my best friends.

It took a minute or two for her to respond, during which time I made long mental lists of why I am a terrible person. But then I read her message:

Not anymore. I am ur BFF now.

I read that about twenty times, and then texted back,

True.

13

M
Y PARENTS WERE PROWLING
our halls, trying to cheer us up and reassure us (which I must say is the most worry-making thing parents can do to their kids) in between long sessions of going over papers in the study. Friday night, Quinn and I watched TV in my room for a while and fell asleep in a tangle of blankets and pillows like we used to when we were little. But when I woke up Saturday morning she was gone, and after both my parents repeatedly asked me how I was doing, I realized I had to get out of there, too.

I texted Roxie and when she said,
Absolutely come over right now!
, I was packed and out the door within ten minutes.

I slept at Roxie’s Saturday night and we found out from Facebook and various other sources where everybody was headed party-wise. We counted ourselves lucky to be out of it and settled in front of the TV with pints of Ben & Jerry’s frozen yogurt.

“Maybe
we
should have a party,” Roxie suggested during one commercial break.

“I think we’re having it,” I told her. “All the guests who would come are already here.”

“Oh,” Roxie said, and laughed.

Next commercial break, she said, “It totally makes no sense at all for me to be depressed about not making the callback for
zip
.”

“They made a mistake,” I said, meaning more than she knew.

She turned and smiled at me. “You’re the best.”

There was nothing she could have said that would have made me feel worse. “No, really. I suck.”

She laughed out loud. “You just think you suck.”

“I’m pretty sure. I’ve known me for a long time.”

She laughed again but then interrupted herself. “You know what?”

“What?”

“Let’s crash that party tomorrow night.”

“The one at the girl’s house? Madeleine freaking Smith? We don’t even really know her. It’ll be all, like, seniors.” There was no way I was going to that party.

Twenty hours later we were in Roxie’s huge bathroom, getting ready to go to the party.

I already felt so guilty for getting her
zip
spot (I knew it made no sense really to think that, but I couldn’t help it) and also for not telling her about it (which was so wrong and I knew it, it’s just that it would’ve been even more wrong to tell her and probably it would amount to nothing, so why make her feel worse?) that I had to do anything she wanted to make up for it.

With family I am all, “Screw you.” With friends I chase myself around in circles trying to make it up to them.

I sat down on the stool next to Roxie’s while she pulled her hair back in a headband to start her makeup. She casually threw a spare, still in the wrapping, to me. I pretty much gave up makeup at the beginning of ninth grade, after using way too much eyeliner in eighth. I often came home from middle school looking like a raccoon, despite Jade’s sign-language indications to me to wipe beneath my eyes. Jade said I looked better without eye makeup anyway. More innocent. Just a little lip gloss, she recommended because of my lip issue, and waterproof mascara for special occasions. Jade thought I should de-emphasize my eyes so I wouldn’t look so much like an alien. Thus the long bangs I cut for myself. Nothing de-emphasizes eyes like not seeing them.

But I slipped Roxie’s spare headband on, for something to do, and tried not to make eye contact with myself in the mirror. Instead I searched around pointlessly through her limitless supply of makeup.

“You want to do smoky eyes?” Roxie asked. “I downloaded a how-to yesterday.” She opened the laptop on the counter beside her and clicked on a clip of a makeup artist talking about what she was doing to some girl’s eyelids.

I did whatever she described, left eye then right, left then right, painting my face as if it were a canvas in art class: thick line, smudge it, blend toward the crease. Shadow, highlight, blend. Curl the lashes with the medieval torture device, then mascara, two coats.

“Wow,” Roxie said, when the how-to ended.

I checked myself out in the mirror. I didn’t look familiar, or not completely. I looked older, harder, tougher.

I liked it.

I picked up a concealer and dabbed it under my eyes and around my nostrils, then spread some tinted moisturizer over my forehead, chin, and cheeks.

“Red lips, I think,” Roxie suggested, handing me a tray of choices. I lined my lips in the reddest pencil I could find and then filled them in.

“Holy crap,” Roxie said. “Who the heck are you?”

“No idea,” I answered from behind the mask.

“I think maybe the devil went beyond his side of the bargain. Nobody could think you’re anything BUT gorgeous.”

“You’re just a good friend,” I told her, feeling myself blush beneath the makeup.

“I am that,” she said, her bright blue eyes all sparkly within her smoky-eyed makeup, and turned back to add some gloss to her pouty lips.

“Roxie,” I started, determined to come clean and just tell her I’d gotten the callback.

She stood up abruptly. “But meanwhile, what are you going to wear to go with all that gorgeousness?”

I sat on the edge of Roxie’s bed while she started tearing things out of her closet. After a few false starts, we settled on a tank dress of hers with a tiny cardigan. She wore a tight T-shirt and a short skirt with boots. We stood in front of the mirror in her front hall, sticking out our tongues at our hot selves.

“We are absolutely gorgeous,” Roxie gushed. “We are clean-cut but with an edge. That dumb magazine missed out, I tell you.”

My stomach was churning as we piled into the backseat of her housekeeper’s car to get driven to the party. On our way there, with Roxie singing along to a “get-psyched” song, as she called it, I made a promise to myself:
Tonight, I will pretend to be somebody who has fun at parties.

We could hear the music blaring from down the block, where we got Roxie’s housekeeper to drop us off. Despite the fact that it was still warm out, I shivered as we waited on the top step for the front door to open. A senior guy with broad shoulders and a spiky ’do flung open the door and, waving his big red plastic cup toward the kitchen, announced, “Come in, come in!” Beer sloshed out behind him, narrowly missing a dark ponytail that swung away just in time, its owner putting on a pout before getting engulfed in the big guy’s thick arm.

“Are we the only ninth graders here?” I whispered to Roxie.

“Let’s go,” she answered, or didn’t, dragging me toward the kitchen.

I reminded myself to pretend I was somebody else, somebody gorgeous and fun, and followed her. Within a couple of seconds there was a red plastic cup in my hand and two guys, one on either side of me, vying for my attention.

It was surreal.

I lost track of Roxie pretty fast, but looking for her gave me something to do. I smiled with my lips closed at the two guys and left. Behind me I heard one of them ask the other, “Who
was
that?” and made a silent prayer not to let those two Neanderthals eat up my allotment of admirers. I only had five or maybe four more to go, if you counted somebody making decisions at
zip
. I obviously couldn’t afford to waste any on partially evolved boys.

Just as I spotted Roxie across what was either the family room or the living room of Madeleine Smith’s highly decorated, vibrating house, my arm was touched.

“Allison Avery?”

I turned to look right at Tyler Moss.

“Tyler Moss,” I said.

“Having fun?” he asked.

“I always do,” I lied.

“Yeah,” he said with that crooked smile just starting. “Me neither.”

“Hello,” said Jade, beside him, unsmiling.

Her smooth brown hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, and her pale pink lipstick glinted in the dim light. She looked, as always, exactly the way I would want to look.

“Hi,” I answered, willing myself not to sound shaky. “What are you doing here?”

“I think I should ask you the same thing.” Jade raised her perfectly tweezed eyebrows and scanned my outfit, down then up. I forced myself not to gather the suddenly even skimpier cardigan over my nonexistent chest. Jade didn’t have smoky eyes, far from it. She had only her mascara, and was wearing a white short-sleeved button-down with a very cute light blue flared skirt.

Clearly sensing the tension despite his boyness, Tyler asked us, “You two know each other? Jade Demarchelier, Allison Avery?”

“We used to,” Jade answered.

“Why aren’t you in Sag Harbor?” I asked, remembering that Serena’s older sister was best friends with Madeleine freaking Smith. Ugh.

“We came back early because my grandmother got sick,” Jade answered so coldly icicles formed around the words. “I texted you.”

“You did?”

“Yes, twice, and called you. I left three messages on your voice mail. I was really upset about my grandmother and needed you.”

I grabbed my phone. As soon as it was in my hand, the
You have voice mail
chimes went off. I looked: three new voice mails, two text messages.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I never heard—”

“I figured maybe your parents took your phone away,” she practically growled. “Aren’t you grounded?”

“Oh. Yes,” I spluttered.

“So you snuck out?”

“Kind of,” I said.

Jade shook her head slowly.

My phone played a short series of high-pitched bird screeches and went dead in my hand. Not feeling up to explaining it, I asked Jade, “How’s your grandmother?”

“Better, thank you for asking,” she said formally. My cheeks felt frostbitten as I slipped my dead phone back into my clutch. “You’re looking…different,” Jade added, moving her gaze to my other hand, the one holding the beer cup.

“I am different,” I lied.

“So I see,” Jade agreed, and then, clearly done with me, flicked her flirty eyes up at Tyler and blinked them twice. “Anyway, Tyler, what were—”

“I think I need some air,” I said, turning away from them. No way was she dismissing me, not again, not in front of Tyler Moss, not with me wearing my mask of invincibility. I was a jerk. Fine. I never thought anything better of myself than that. I didn’t need her shoving my face in it, was all.

I was maybe two steps away, stretching my fingers to dispel their sudden numbness, when I heard Tyler, behind me, say, “I’ll go with you.”

I didn’t trust myself to turn around, no matter how much I wanted to see the look on Jade’s face. I could feel him following me through and then out of the house.

We walked side by side up Madeleine Smith’s walk as I poured out my stinky untouched beer in her bushes. I tossed my cup in her trash can and we took a left onto the sidewalk, still without a word. It was only when we rounded the corner that I said, “Now she’ll hate me more than ever.”

“Jade? Why?” Tyler asked.

“We’re best friends.”

“But you just said—”

“I just keep disappointing her. Because I am a screwup and she is perfect. Are you going out with her?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not going out with anybody. How about you?”

“No,” I said. After that we didn’t talk again for a while.

“You leave places abruptly,” he observed, finally.

I shrugged. “I have bad manners.”

“Manners are overrated.”

“Yours are good.”

“You don’t know me very well,” he said, and put his arm around me. Next thing I knew he was kissing me.

We had stopped just in the rim of light from a street lamp, so our faces were half-bright, half-shadowed. I didn’t wrap my arms around him, but I didn’t pull away either, until I felt him start to.

My first kiss.

I found it a bit hard to breathe during it. It was equally hard to breathe after.

“You’re right,” I managed. “That was pretty rude.”

His cheeks burned red instantly, and he blinked hard twice. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

“No. I was just making a…That’s not…Don’t be,” I said. “Except for the…I don’t think red is your color, lipstick-wise.”

His fingers flew up to his lips and rubbed until all traces of the kiss were obliterated. “Yeah, well…” he started.

I turned away. He wasn’t going to reject me, either. No way, not tonight, and not right after being the first boy to ever kiss me. “I should get back,” I said, and started walking back toward the party.

He caught up by the corner. “You’re pretty fast,” he said.

“No,” I countered. “Just quick.”

“Can I call you?” he asked, producing his cell phone out of his pocket and handing it to me.

“My phone is dead,” I said, keying in my number. “Either that or possessed by the devil.”

“Right,” he answered, taking the phone back and pressing one button. “Either that or you just gave me a fake number. Let’s see.”

I felt my phone vibrate in my clutch, so I dug it out and answered, turning my back to him. “Hello?”

His back pressed up against mine as he said, “I guess you didn’t lie.”

“I never lie,” I lied.

“Me neither,” he said. Lied? How to know?

We leaned against each other and didn’t say anything for a couple of breaths. Eventually I thought,
Somebody has to say something
, so I asked brilliantly, “How’s it going?”

“Hard to say,” he said. “There’s this girl…I just kissed her?”

“Yeah?” I said, feeling the giggles rise in my throat.

“And I can’t tell if it was the right thing to do or the stupidest thing ever.”

“Did she kiss you back?” I asked.

“Um,” he said. “I think so.”

“Do you want to kiss her again?”

He breathed out, or maybe laughed one
ha
, and whispered, “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why?” His back pulled away from mine. I cursed silently, a nice variety of curses and self-criticisms, in the two seconds it took him to go on. “Um, I don’t know. Because it was…nice? And she’s smart, independent, funny…”

“…-looking?”

“No,” he said immediately. “She’s gorgeous. I just don’t know…if…”

And then, nothing. I turned around to see what he was doing when I couldn’t stand waiting anymore, and he was standing there with questioning eyes, his phone down at his side. I lowered mine, too, took two steps toward him, and got my second-ever kiss.