Perfect Match (14 page)

“Hey!” I whispered, when I was close enough to get SBB's attention. “I can't believe you got the dress. It looks
amazing
on you!”

SBB's eyes flicked over my trench coat, then looked past me down the hall. She said nothing, just kept walking toward her locker.

I followed her and put my hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off.

“SBB,” I said, feeling my nose wrinkle up in confusion.

“Don't call me that,” she huffed.

“Sorry,” I corrected myself. “Simone—”

“Actually, it's
Sally
now,” she said coldly. “Things have changed.”

“Huh? Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I saw your messages, but it was too late to call you back. The good news is that Alex and I—”

“Zip it, Flan.” She slammed her locker shut. “Do you have any idea what happened to me yesterday? I'll tell you. I ran into your favorite enemy, Willa, on the
street—and she seized me. I was literally captive in her French-manicured claws. Thank God I had my wig tucked inside my Birkin for just such emergencies. Anyway, I could have sworn she was about to out me on that little Chicago fib. But instead, because she
hates
you so much, she spent all day giving me a makeover—so I could be ‘cool' like her and not an ‘FOF loser.' Sorry,” SBB said, not sounding very apologetic. “Willa's words, not mine.”

“An FOF loser?” I said. I was reeling from all this talk of Willa's seething hatred for me, but something about SBB's behavior was throwing me even more. “What does that even mean?”

“
Friend of Flan
,” she said, looking around like she was making sure no one could see her talking to me in her new cool state. “After Willa put out tracers to all her bitchy cousins in Chicago, I had to scramble to come up with a story that I was just a normal girl from Hoboken. Like how I lied because you told me to, so I could seem more intriguing. I tried to call you all day, but you blew me off—and
not
for the first time since I've been at this school!”

“SBB, look, I'm sorry.” I didn't like the idea of my friend spending all day with Willa, but I was trying to stay rational. Maybe instead of getting jealous again, what I needed was to schedule some QT with SBB,
the way I'd done with Alex. “Let me make it up to you. Let's have lunch, just the two of us, okay?”

She shook her head. “It's just too little, too late. The thing is, after I started to go along with Willa's makeover yesterday, it was … fun. There, I said it. I had fun, with your enemy.”

I sucked in my breath. That was harsh.

“I can't have lunch with you today.” She paused dramatically. “Because I'm having lunch with Willa
and
Kennedy. They want to
include
me in their life—not keep me on the fringes of it. You never let me hang out with your friends.”

“That's not true,” I said, racking my brain. “You had lunch with us on the steps on Friday.”

SBB rolled her eyes. “If you call wearing a virtual muzzle ‘having lunch.' And that was only because I tracked you down. Because of you, I haven't had the high school experience I wanted at all. Do you know that six out of ten people at this school prefer a guy who shaves his chest? See, I'm learning things from Willa that will really help my career. When were you planning to teach me anything about being in high school?”

I didn't see what that statistic had to do with anything. And I definitely didn't see Willa as being all that in touch with the pulse of the student body here. But I could also see where SBB was coming from. Maybe I
had been a bit preoccupied with my own pursuits during the past week.

“I'll fix this, SBB,” I said. “Just promise me you won't let Willa suck you any further over to the underworld before I can make it up to you, okay?”

“Unlike some people,” SBB said pointedly, “I don't feel comfortable making promises I can't keep.”

“Sally, is that you?” I heard Willa's voice call out. “Awesome, I'm so glad you're wearing the dress. You're such a fast learner.”

Shocker, Willa was being totally condescending, but for some reason, SBB seemed to be eating it up.

Then Willa glanced at me.

“I thought we agreed,” she said slowly to SBB. “No more FOF-ing. It's not good for your rep.”

“Sorry, Willa,” SBB/Sally said. She'd lost all traces of her Chicago accent and was now another typical bitchy UES girl. “I was just saying good-bye.” SBB turned to me. “So—good-bye.”

Before I knew it, my best friend and my worst enemy were walking down the hall, arm in arm.

One day later, and one FOF down, the day that I'd been waiting for since I heard the words
boy boycott
had arrived. No, it wasn't Valentine's Day, but it was an important preliminary step: GVNO (aka Girls Valentine's Night Out, aka the night we'd agreed to gauge whether Camille was emotionally healthy enough to be dragged to the Valentine's Dance).

We were meeting at eight at Stanton Social, and I was the first to arrive. From the coveted back booth overlooking the entire scene, I reviewed the valentines I'd made for my friends. The sophisticated doily-laden Victorian valentine for Harper, the programmable singing card for Morgan, the sleek, modern postcard Valentine I'd picked out at Crane's for Amory, and the platonic Mad Libs love letter I'd written for Camille. When I'd bought the supplies over the weekend, I'd bought enough to make a paper doll Valentine for
SBB, but after yesterday, I'd reached the breaking point. I was so over fighting with Willa over something that should have been rightfully mine. And more than that, I was sick of trying to keep up with who SBB was supposed to be on what day of the week.

Now, as I looked around the room at the other glammed-up patrons in the restaurant—girls in flashy stilettos and Siwy jeans, and guys all freshly shaven and showing a very calculated amount of chest hair—I understood that SBB wasn't the only one in costume. To a certain extent we all were. But costume or not, I reminded myself, there was no excuse for the way she'd ditched me yesterday for Team Willa.

“Hey, there you are,” Amory said as she slid into the booth next to me wearing a hot white Chloé slip dress with a plunging neckline. “Harper and Morgan are checking their coats. Where's Camille?”

“Right behind you,” Camille chirped. “And I brought a guest Valentine.”

She stepped aside to expose a very expertly done-up incognito SBB/Simone/Sally in a brilliant, shorter black wig and a Smart Fitzgerald patterned slip dress. She looked incredible again, but I had to muster some major willpower in order to suppress my groan. It was bad enough that she'd synced up with Willa; now she was moving in on Camille?

“Oh, hi—Simone, right?” Amory said, gesturing for SBB to sit down.

SBB shot me a nervous look. “Actually, it's Sally now. It's my middle name—Simone Sally … Struthers—and I think Sally's fresher, more New York, you know?”

As SBB babbled on about the very scientific explanation behind her name change, Camille pulled me aside. “I was leaving Thoney today and I spotted the poor, defenseless thing arm in arm with
Willa
. I figured since the headmistress assigned you to take Sally under your wing, I should help save her from the axis of evil. She's actually super nice—we should hang with her more often.”

“Totally,” I agreed halfheartedly. I searched Camille's face to see whether she was bluffing. It would be just like her to figure out who SBB was, then cover for me with a few covert winks. But Camille looked genuinely concerned about Sally's social acceptance into our clique. Exactly how preoccupied was she by all of this Xander stuff?

When we were all seated and had ordered enough Kobe miniburgers and halibut tacos to feed a modeling agency, we all passed out the valentines we'd made for one another. As I thumbed through the cards my friends had made for me, I realized that I wasn't the only one who'd personalized the cards
based on distinguishing traits: all four of the valentines I received were matchmaking-related. Camille had even sketched out a scene from the
Fiddler on the Roof
as a joke.

“Okay, okay.” I laughed. “I get it—you're sick of my obsession with fixing you all up with dates.”

“Not even.” Harper laughed. “We're just messing with you, Flan. I had a really good time with Trevor on Friday night. After you left, I even let him sketch my shoulder. He said I had remarkable clavicles.”

“Oooooh,” Amory teased. “You showed a boy your
shoulder
on the first date? Aren't you the girl who recently told me that boys don't buy the cow if they can get the milk for free?”

“He didn't get it for
free
,” Harper said shyly. “He agreed to be my date to the Valentine's Dance.” She quickly shot a look around the table. “I mean,
if
we decide to go.”

“Maybe we should go,” Amory said, sipping on her mango iced tea. “I'm sort of into Phil. He was so funny after the play; he was doing all these great impersonations of the characters.”

Oh, crap—I
still
needed to figure out how to play off the whole Phil situation. Feb had sent a slew of pics of muscle-y Aussie men, any of whom would be a great substitution. My only problem now would be
swapping Phil out without seeming suspicious. In my head, I started scrambling for a tactful way to talk to Amory, but I snapped back to reality when Morgan cleared her throat to speak.

“I know I was the loudest voice for the boy boycott last week.” She looked at me and smiled. “But Flan did such a killer job setting us all up last week, I think I'm changing my tune.”

“Morgan loves Bennett, Morgan loooves Bennett,” Amory sang.

“We've been texting all week,” she gushed.

While everyone else started oohing and ahhing over Morgan and her new love interest, I started to get that sinking feeling in my stomach again. Even in the guise of her new persona, SBB was watching me to see how I was coping.

She'd been remarkably quiet all through appetizers, but when she caught my eye, she spoke up. “So what's the problem here, girls? Sounds like you all want to go to this dance. Why the self-imposed boycott?” She flicked her eyes at me, and I felt like this was an attempt to get back on my good side.

The rest of the table had their eyes on Camille.

“What?” She finally shrugged. “It wasn't my idea to start hating all men in the first place. If you guys want to go to the dance, I'll go. I don't think Saxton's
my next great love, but he'll do for picture taking.”

I could tell that Camille, who thrived on being a good sport, was trying hard to take one for the team. But the fact that she didn't seem to care whether we all went to the dance or not reflected her general ambivalence toward everything these days. I wished there was a way to snap my fingers and take away the residual Xander pain.

“What about you, Sally?” Harper said to SBB, passing around a plate of fruit skewers. “Are you planning on going to the dance? Is there a special someone in your life?”

“You know, it's hard for me to date high school boys,” Sally said, “because I have something of an obsession from afar with a certain movie star–pop singer. Confession: ever since I rented his film,
Demolition Dudes
, on DVD, I've been hopelessly in love with … Jake Riverdale.”

The way she said it was so hilarious—especially because my friends all believed her pathetic crush-from-afar act—that even in my annoyed state, I had to join in with the rest of the table and crack up.

When the laughter died down, SBB/Sally turned to me and said, “You're quiet, Flan. Do you have a date to the Valentine's Dance?”

“Oh, Flan has the best date of anyone,” Morgan said, shocking me with her enthusiasm. “She has this totally amazing boyfriend named Alex—”

“The Prince of New York,” Harper chimed in.

“And he's crazy about her,” Amory said.

It was hard to believe how much the tables had turned. Last week, my friends had been giving me death stares anytime I brought up Alex's name. Now they were cheering me on. It was funny how much easier it was to gush over your crush when your friends wanted to hear it.

“Things with Alex are great,” I said, taking a final bite of my sinfully dark chocolate ice cream. “But we can hang out anytime. I'm just glad to hear you guys all get on board for the Valentine's Dance.”

By the end of dinner, we'd sampled just about everything on the menu, dished on just about every boy in Manhattan, and come to the group decision that it was Valentine's Day Dance or bust. I buttoned up my Dior trench and we stepped back out into the cold.

“Which way are you headed, Sally?” Camille asked, hailing a cab.

SBB, who lived twenty feet away from me, would have offered to split a cab, but Sally squinted at me and skirted the question. She pointed at a black town
car across the street. “Toward my driver. See you later!”

Everyone else grinned and called good night, but I couldn't help wondering about the icy distance between me and SBB. What if the new
Sally
didn't keep
SBB's
Valentine's Dance promise to help me keep everyone's dates fixed on the right girl? With my track record so far, I wasn't sure I could do it alone.

On Wednesday, just before last period, I was thrilled to see my phone light up with the signature ring I'd set for my favorite French fashion designer friend, Jade Moodswing. Jade was an old friend of Feb's, and when she'd been in the states for Fashion Week last month, I'd lucked into a spot as a model in her show at the Armory. But ever since Feb had become Feb'n'Kelly, our household had been lacking its token ninety-seven-pound, chain-smoking, perpetually pouting designer.