Kristen (9 page)

“At least someone did.” Kristen smirked.

Skye lifted her blond brows in a did-you-
really
-just-talk-to-me-like-that sort of way.

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?” asked Tyler, who was getting his cast decorated with napkin flowers by two of the DSL Daters. “If Skye hadn’t shown up, we’d all be in juvie.”

“Is
that
what you think happened?” Kristen glared at Ripple, who was crouched down by Jax’s chaise, massaging his callused feet. “Because I have another theory.” She glared at Ripple’s cell phone, wondering if the text messages she’d more than likely sent to Skye were still on there.

“Let’s stop talking about last night.” Dune removed the braid.

“What are you doing here anyway? You’re not a member,” Skye whisper-announced just loud enough for everyone to hear. Ripple and the DSL Dater in a melon-colored bikini snickered.

“I have a meeting with the manager, Garreth Ungerstein.” She lifted her nose in an eat-your-heart-out sort of way.

“Why? Are you gonna rat us out for last night?” Tyler lifted his cast at her in annoyance, sending three tissue flowers into the pool. Everyone watched helplessly as they sank.

“No!” Kristen snapped. Did they think she was
that
lame?

“Trying to join?” Skye smirked.

Kristen shrugged coyly. Why not let them think she could if she wanted to?

“I thought you hated this place,” Dune whisper-insisted, sounding slightly disappointed.

“I thought
you
hated this place?” she whisper-hissed back, dodging Skye’s question. At that moment, Kristen didn’t care if she came off bitter or angry. He had sold his soul to Skye, Katie Holmes–style.

“We
did
hate this place . . . until we tried the pool,” Tyler cut in. Just then Scooter floated by on a blow-up dolphin raft.

“And the clam sauce.” Jax rubbed his finger along Ripple’s back where DSL DATER IN TRAINING was written in red goo.

“Well, you guys can be my guests all summer if you want,” Skye sighed. “It looks like I may not be going to Alphas.”

“What?
Why?
” Kristen gasped, giving away just how much she’d been counting on the dancer sashaying out of Westchester for good.

Apparently too full of herself to realize that Kristen’s reaction was one of disappointment, not sympathy, Skye took off her white frame Ray-Bans and lowered her blue eyes. “My application was lost in the mail. I could do it again and send it in, but that would mean writing another ten-page entrance essay on a winning attitude, and I’d rather spend the summer with”—she brushed her fingers along Dune’s shoulder like she was checking for dust—“these guys.”

“Awwwww.” The DSL Daters dog-piled her for a group hug, taking Dune with them.

“Hey, let me in!” Jax jumped in.

“And meeee.” Ripple dove on top of the heap.

In an effort to protect his arm, Tyler stood over the hugfest and rested his butt on Ripple’s back as if she were a giant beanbag.

Once again, Kristen stood to the side like an LBR and watched. “Don’t you have the essay saved on your computer?” she tried.

“I had to handwrite it,” Skye giggle-yelled from the bottom of the love pile. “They wanted to analyze our penmanship to gauge our personalities.”

“Well, did you press hard with your pen?” Kristen tried again.

The group broke apart and Skye went through the motions of taming her wild curls. “What does
that
have to do with anything?”

“Sometimes, if you run a pencil over a pad of paper really softly, you can see what was written on the page before it.” Kristen smile-shrugged like she was just trying to help. “It may be worth a try.”

“The only thing worth a try are the club’s virgin mango daiquiris!” Skye threw her arms in the air like she’d just jumped out of someone’s birthday cake. “Who wants?”

“Meeeeee!” they all shouted.

Skye summoned the waiter by gracefully lifting her finger, the way a ballerina might complete a plié.

Kristen hid her tearing eyes by checking her Guess Carousel watch. “I better go. Garreth is probably waiting for me.”

Skye shielded her eyes from the sun and looked out at the green. “Doesn’t look like it.” She tilted her head toward a tall man in white linen shorts and a green polo. He and a stout bald man wearing too much madras were getting into a cart, their clubs sticking out the back. “He probably won’t be back for hours.” She smirked.

Kristen felt like someone had shot a golf ball straight into her gut. “I’ll just come back later,” she managed. “I have tons to do today. See ya.”

Without another word Kristen turned on her silver Pumas- and bolted back to her mother’s car, where she would begin a long afternoon of lying to Marsha about Garreth and all the wonderful things he’d said about her. And
that
would end up being the best part of her day.

THE PINEWOOD

KRISTEN’S ROOM

Wednesday, July 22

4:44 P.M.

Nothing is more pathetic than spending a beautiful summer day hiding out in bed when you’re not:

A) Sick.

B) Jet-lagged.

C) Coming off an all-night study session.

D) Recovering from surgery.

E) All of the above.

And Kristen was definitely E. She was depressed in a way that made Victoria Beckham look cheerful. Massie had been right from the very beginning. Dune was done. Skye had won. Seeing them together at the club had eliminated any last bits of hope she had been clinging to. And the only thing left to do now was cry about it.

Beep . . . beeeeep . . . beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

David Beckham climbed up the side of Kristen’s C-shaped body and licked her cheeks.

“I hear it. I hear it.” She pushed the REPLY button on the left side of her watch, then stared up at the white ceiling, her body too heavy to do much more. Finally, with a groan, Kristen sat and went through the necessary steps needed to get ready for her conference. But there was no joy in any of it. Suddenly, the Witty Committee felt like a goofy consolation prize, a second-place ribbon for those not pretty enough to win the crown.

Once she had been transformed into Cleopatra, Kristen powered up her screen and managed to turn on the charm. There were the familiar quadrants and four famous faces staring back at her through the LCD monitor.

“What do we stand for?” Kristen asked like someone who cared.

“BOB,” they answered.

“And what does BOB stand for?”

“Brains over beauty!”

“Whatevs,” she muttered to herself with an eye roll so mini it was virtually undetectable. “What’s going on?”

“We intercepted a text between Skye and Dune,” Einstein panted in a way that suggested the task had required more from her than simply sitting in front of Danh’s computer and watching him work.

“And?”

“
And
he’s sneaking into the club tonight to go for a swim with Skye. After they made plans she texted the DSL Daters and told them they were going to lip-kiss.”

Kristen lowered her head so her bangs would cover her moistening eyes. “It doesn’t matter.” She grinned. “It’s over. I’m fine.”

“Yes!”
Bill Gates made a fist and squeezed.

“Bill!” Oprah huffed. “That’s not very supportive.”

“Wha’d I say?” He looked genuinely confused. “She said she’s fine. I thought she was fine.”

“A sad clown, at best.” Shakespeare sighed despondently.

“I say you get out there and break them up,” Einstein said with tremendous authority. “I think you two have some real chemistry.”

“What do you know about love?” Kristen pouted.

“Um, does nineteen twenty-one mean anything to you?” Layne countered.

“You won the Nobel Prize in physics,” Bill scoffed. “What does that have to do with
love
?”

“It proves I’m not an idiot.”

Everyone giggled. Even Kristen.

“We also have proof that Ripple tipped Skye off the other night in exchange for a fast-track initiation into the DSL Daters,” Bill Gates offered.

“I knew it!” The spark of Kristen’s competitive nature returned. “She cheated!”

“Exactly!” Oprah smacked her own thigh. “And doesn’t that just burn you up?”

“It does!” The molten lava stream of WC adoration flowed through her body once again. “What can I do?”

“We figured out a way for you to execute Dune’s Jell-O prank,” Einstein beamed.

“It took all night.” Bill Gates removed his wire-frame glasses, rubbed his eyes, and put them back on. “And while I think you could do a lot better than this guy, I am anxious to see if we got the formula right. So I will acquiesce.”

“I’m in!” Kristen hugged David Beckham until he meow-coughed.

“Stand by, people,” Oprah bellowed. “By midnight we’ll know if he’s the yang to your yin.”

“Or if you’re star-crossed lovers,” Shakespeare added.

“Or if Love = K&D².”

“Or if we can chill seventeen thousand gallons of Jell-O on a hot summer night,” Bill Gates guffawed.

Their enthusiasm was infectious, and hope returned to Kristen like a loyal puppy. And that made her feel beautiful. Even if Dune was too Skye-struck to notice.

THE COUNTRY CLUB

BEHIND THE BUSHES NEAR THE POOL

Wednesday, July 22

11:49 P.M.

Dressed as their favorite Gifteds, Kristen (Cleopatra), Aimee (Shakespeare), and Rachel (Oprah) were breaking down three hundred empty Jell-O boxes, trying not to complain about the paper cuts, leg cramps, and mosquito bites they were getting from crouch-hiding. They had been behind the shrubs that surrounded the pool area for three hours, while Einstein and Bill Gates tinkered with wires and homemade refrigeration mechanisms, in a nail-biting race against time to chill the strawberry flavor-crystals before Skye and Dune arrived for their midnight swim.

Kristen’s watch beeped after the guards made their ninth security pass. “It’s time,” she whisper-announced.

Oprah and Shakespeare nodded. Without a word they made a mad, barefoot dash across the golf course, each with a lemon yellow pillowcase (Martha Stewart Collection) stuffed full of empty Jell-O boxes. Their plan was to bury them in the sand traps on the golf course, then make an anonymous call in the morning so they could be dug up and recycled. And they pulled it off in record time. After a quick burial, they were back behind the bushes, silent-high-five-giggle-panting at the success of their mission.

Kristen’s forehead was sweating under her wig. Her hands were clammy. And her mouth was dry. Not so much because of the humidity, but because this scheme was by far the most ambitious one she had ever been a part of—Pretty Committee included. And while failure would mean going back to the drawing board for her accomplices, for Kristen it would mean game over. No Dune. No fun. No reason to get out of bed until September.

“Ready!” Bill Gates whisper-announced while Layne scurried around the deck collecting blue Post-its filled with schematics and formulas that had dropped out of Bill’s overflowing code binder.

Kristen sigh-peered through the dense leaves, fighting her urge to call the whole thing off. Yes, it was an incredible accomplishment—speed-chilling Jell-O on an eighty-degree night—but beyond that, their plan would never work: Skye would
never
jump into the oversize strawberry-flavored Jell-O bowl and become too goopy to lip-kiss Dune. As soon as she arrived, she’d see the gigantic pink gelatinous slab where seventeen thousand gallons of water used to be. Dune would arrive, and then they’d have a big laugh about it, falling into each other’s arms. Then Skye would take credit for the whole thing and Dune would give up surfing to spend his days drifting in her sea blue eyes.

“We’re almost set.” Bill Gates licked his lips hungrily and opened his silver MacBook Air. “I need room—can everyone
please
give me some room?”

Oprah, Shakespeare, and Cleopatra did a three-step reverse crouch-walk, like sumo wrestlers in rewind.

Einstein pulled a Tupperware container of blue water and a slim flashlight from the inside pocket of her tweed blazer. “Ready?”

Bill Gates nodded.

She lifted the lid, shook the water ever so slightly, and shone her light on it. Bill Gates captured the image with his computer’s camera and somehow managed to send it to a projector he had perched atop the snack bar roof. With a few quick right clicks, the image was sent to the pool.

Kristen gasped, then quickly covered her open mouth with her sweat-drenched palm. The pool suddenly appeared to be full of gentle lapping water.