The Girls: Melissa Moon, Charlotte Beverwil, Petra Greene, Janie Farrish
The Getups: Handmade party frocks (to be revealed)
The “Tag — You’re It!” party was set for Saturday night, which meant (unless you were planning to look like a total slob)
primping prepped on Tuesday. Everyone knows the first rule in looking good is booking good. The coolest girls at Winston secured
appointments with The Pore House, the trendy new spa on Robertson Boulevard. From buffing to blowouts, pedicures to paraffin,
seaweed to salt scrubs, teasing to tweezing to professional squeezing, The Pore House promised everything short of a whole
new skin, for a price that stopped just short of your soul.
And yes. That was debatable.
As a thrifty alternative, Janie convinced Jake to drop her off at Bloomingdale’s. She spent Saturday morning floating from
makeup station to makeup station like a nectar-binging butterfly. She lacquered her lashes in Lancôme, shimmered her cheeks
in Chanel, boosted her brows with Benefit, and plumped up her pout with Prada. She even fortified her follicles with Frederic
Fekkai (whatever that meant). By the time Jake picked her up, Janie’s face boasted $360 worth of makeup. And (unless you count
the mint gumball she bought at the Origins counter) she hadn’t spent a dime.
Leave it to Petra to spend even less.
“I’m so excited you’re having friends over,” Heather Greene said as she breathlessly arranged their formal dining room table.
Already, she’d laid out every piece of her wedding silver and china. Their crystal wineglasses blossomed intricately folded
linen napkins. The Arte Italica candleholders sprouted smooth white candles. Everything floated on lily pads of antique lace.
“It’s so nice to have people over,” she remarked, polishing an impossibly tiny fork.
The Trend Set voted Petra’s house as the most convenient place to congregate before the party. Petra had been too stoned to
refuse. As she watched her mother flit about the table, she realized she’d made a terrible mistake.
“Why are you putting out crab forks, Mom?” Petra could barely contain her frustration.
“Aren’t they darling?” Heather tenderly placed each fork next to a pair of hand-painted chopsticks. “They should have a chance
to get out and
breathe.
”
“Mom,” Petra pleaded, glancing out the window. The others would be arriving any minute. It was one thing for her mother to
discuss her fork’s respiratory health in front of her own daughter, but in front of
them
? Petra felt the blood drain from her face. Her Potential for Embarrassment Quotient was through the roof.
“You know what we need?” Heather remarked, gazing about the gilded rose-and-cream room. “Fresh cut flowers.”
“Mom! These kids are gonna be here for, like,
ten
minutes. You really don’t have to do all this!”
Heather stared at the table, patting her hair like a bird that might fly away.
“Mom!”
Petra covered her eyes with her hands. “Do you have
any
idea how weird and, like,
embarrassing
this is?!”
“How
dare
you talk to me in that tone!” Her mother blew up. Petra swallowed, storming from the table. She ran upstairs to her bedroom,
the plush white carpet muting the thud of her angry footsteps. And still, for all her dramatics, she preferred it when her
mother yelled. At least she sounded like a real parent and not some zonked-out mental patient.
Petra slammed her bedroom door. She yanked her underwear drawer open, clawed apart a chaos of cotton bras, underwear, and
lavender sachets, and located her stash, which was kept inside a dented Sleepytime tea tin along with her collected seashells,
Devendra Banhart ticket stubs, and a photo-booth picture of her parents in their twenties. They were laughing.
When she first starting smoking, in eighth grade, she’d been paranoid about getting caught. She took every possible precaution.
She rolled up damp towels and shoved them beneath her locked door. She sealed her weed in film canisters and hid them in bottles
of shampoo. She lit incense and stocked her room with munchies, preventing future (and possibly incriminating) runs to the
kitchen. But then one day she got lazy. Joaquin, Theo, and Christina Boyd came over, and they started a round of shotgun.
She started the game, exhaling a stream of smoke into Theo’s mouth. Theo inhaled, smiling like a toad. As he turned toward
Christina, Petra glanced at the doorway. Her heart skittered like a stone.
Her father had been standing there the whole time.
“Now I know why you’re not picking up your phone.”
“What do you want?” Petra snapped. She was weirded out by the amused expression on his face. It was like,
hello.
She was doing drugs under his own roof. Wasn’t he supposed to be pissed?
“What do I want, what do I want . . . ,” he began, his eyes resting on Christina. For the first time, Petra noticed the sheerness
of Christina’s paisley cotton blouse. Her father ran his hand around and around his trendy shaved head. “Do you know where
the remote is?” he asked at last. “Lola can’t find it.”
“No,” Petra answered. “I don’t watch TV, remember?”
Her father nodded absently, shutting the door with a quiet
click.
Petra’s shotgun buddies collapsed to the floor, clutched their sides, and rolled with laughter. “I don’t watch TV!” Joaquin
gasped, his red-rimmed eyes watering with joy. Christina crammed her face into a pillow and cackled.
Petra didn’t think it was funny.
While her mother was undoubtedly polishing another crab fork, Petra stepped outside and lit up. Her bedroom balcony, which
she’d decorated herself, was the only place in the house where she felt truly safe. The balcony was as big as some bedrooms.
Watered silks fell along the walls and oversized Moroccan pillows cluttered the floor. Jewel-encrusted lanterns dangled from
the ceiling, and at night the lanterns glowed their amber light, illuminating the needles of a nearby pine.
Petra rested her pipe on the banister and peered into her neighbor’s vast yard. One night in late July, she’d glimpsed a guy
her age strip down to his birthday suit and dive into the neighbors’ pool. He swam one lap and got out, squeezing water from
his dark hair. He looked up at the moon, still and pure and perfect as a statue. She couldn’t understand it. Her neighbors,
Miriam and George Elliot Miller, were pretty old — in their seventies at least. What the hell were they doing with a Naked
Moon God in their backyard? Petra didn’t have the nerve to ask. After all, what if she’d hallucinated the whole thing? What
if she really had fried her brain, just like everybody said?
Petra’s cell phone rang and interrupted her thoughts. She stared at the small flashing screen and frowned. She was supposed
to do something now. What was she supposed to do?
“Hello?”
“Does everyone’s phone need beauty sleep but mine?!”
Melissa barked from the other end.
“What?”
“This is the fourth time we’ve called,” Charlotte took over in calmer tones. “We’ve been on the sidewalk outside your house
for, like . . . ten minutes?”
“What are we supposed to do out here?!” Melissa’s voice squawked in the background. “Sell
lemonade
?!”
Petra peered around the pillar at the edge of her balcony, craning her face around the ivy-covered south wall. “Over here!”
she cried. The three girls looked around. She could see them squinting through the trees, using their hands as visors. They
looked like a troop of tiny saluting soldiers. Petra giggled, flinging her arm in greeting.
Melissa snatched the phone.
“Are you gonna let us in? Or are we supposed to get to you by magic carpet?”
“Sorry!” Petra yelled. Melissa winced, holding the phone from her ear.
Petra punched the
OPEN GATE
button and ran downstairs. “What’s going on?” her mother called from the living room, removing her noise-cancellation headphones.
(She was listening to her Deepak Chopra tapes.) “Why are you running?”
“Didn’t you hear the doorbell?” Petra asked. “Where’s Lola?”
“What do you mean,
where’s Lola
?” Heather fluttered with panic. “She’s not picking up Sofia and Isabel?!”
Petra flung open the double French doors to a crowd of faces: Melissa, Charlotte, Janie, Lola, Sofia, Isabel, and some random
guy with a Thai takeout flyer. They looked like a mob of angry villagers except, instead of torches, almost everyone carried
a bulging shopping bag.
“Oh, Lola!” Heather pressed her hand to her heart. “Petra had me so
worried.
”
“Mom,”
Petra pleaded in her best
please shut up
tone. Sofia and Isabel writhed away from their nanny and clutched Petra’s legs. They turned around, peering shyly at the
three mysterious older girls.
“Come in,” Petra said as Melissa stepped inside. Charlotte glided in her wake, and Janie followed soon after. Petra accepted
the Thai takeout flyer, closed the door, and repeated her mantra:
No one can tell you’re high, no one can tell you’re high, no one can tell you’re high.
“Finally.”
Melissa pushed her gold Roberto Cavalli sunglasses to the top of her head. She punched something into her metallic-pink sidekick.
Emilio Poochie watched with interest from the crook of her arm.
“Look at the dog,” Sofia whispered.
“Are you famous?” Isabel asked.
“Not yet,” Melissa replied, bending to shake Isabel’s tiny hand. “I’m Melissa.”
Sofia stared into her shimmering cleavage, mesmerized. “OOoo . . . ,” she breathed, pressing Melissa’s boob like a doorbell.
“Sofie!” Petra’s mother gasped while Charlotte snickered into her wrist. Heather lifted Sofia with her thin arms, balancing
her on her hip.
“I am so sorry,” she clucked, widening her eyes.
“It’s fine.” Melissa shrugged. Marco pulled stunts like that all the time, and
he
didn’t have the excuse of being four.
“You have a lovely home,” Charlotte said.
“Yes,” Janie agreed, looking around. Her parents loathed houses like Heather’s, and Jake and Janie were trained to agree.
A minute inside the house, however, and Janie felt her hate subside into something like appreciation. Who cared if it was
a McMansion? It sure beat a Happy Meal box in the Valley.
“I love the yellow wallpaper,” she added.
“Well,
thank
you!” Heather smiled brightly. “Would you girls like some apple pie? I baked it myself.”
“We actually have to go, Mom,” Petra interrupted, pushing the girls toward the east wing stairs. Melissa turned around. She
hadn’t seen her own mother for almost six years. And still. Even when she
was
sober, Brooke was never the type to bake pies. Melissa didn’t think moms like that existed. She watched Heather with a tourist’s
sense of wonder.
“Have fun, girls!” Heather chirped, ushering Sofia and Isabel into the kitchen.
“It was nice meeting you!” Melissa called, following Petra upstairs.
“Sorry about that,” Petra groaned, kicking a wad of laundry under her rumpled futon. Melissa stared at Petra with contempt.
Only kids with perfect, pie-baking moms had the nerve to complain.
“I like your mom,” she bristled. “She’s really nice.”
“Oh,” Petra said, pausing. “Yeah. She is.”
Charlotte brushed the arm of Petra’s overstuffed velvet chair and sat down. “Were you smoking pot?” she asked with a suspicious
sniff.
Petra’s face froze. “What?”
“Oh relax,” Charlotte sighed. “I was just gonna ask if I could partake
un petit peu.
”
“It’s on the balcony.”
“Oh goodie,” Charlotte said, retrieving the pipe. She held her platinum Zippo to the bowl and lit up. “Anyone want?” she asked,
exhaling with the delicacy of a teakettle. Charlotte could make freebasing crack look like a subtle feminine art.
“I don’t do drugs,” Melissa snapped.
“Janie?” Charlotte asked, ignoring the previous comment with a dainty cough.
“Not today,” Janie replied, as if on any other day she’d be game. The truth was, despite her increasing curiosity, she’d never
tried pot before. And she didn’t want her first time to be with
them.
What if she did something stupid?
“Okay,” Melissa said. She shook her watch as if to wake it. “It’s five o’clock.”
“Petra?” Charlotte asked. “You have the pirate’s chest?”
Petra disappeared into her walk-in closet and emerged with a medium-sized, jewel-studded mahogany box with four brass padlocks.
The chest — a prop from
Pirates of the Caribbean
— was a gift to Petra’s father from a powerful Hollywood talent agent (Dr. Greene had squeezed her in for an “emergency”
lip injection the night of the premiere). As Petra lowered the chest to her bedroom floor, Janie’s hands went cold and clammy.
She’d been dreading this moment all week.
Melissa flipped open her glittery white notebook and jotted something inside.
“Alright,” she began, “as you know, we’re here to exchange the outfits we designed for each other. And we agree to wear them
with
pride.
. . .”
“Or at least a good imitation of it,” Charlotte clarified.
“Exactly,” Melissa agreed. “As extra insurance that we do
not
back out, we agree to lock the outfits we’re currently wearing into the pirate’s chest. That way, we have no choice but to
wear each other’s designs. Unless you wanna go naked.”
“Okay, do we
have
to do this?” Janie blurted, folding her arms across her flat chest. “I mean, shouldn’t we just trust each other?”
“Trust is something you earn over a long period of time. And we don’t have
time
for time.” Melissa crossed her arms and pinched the corners of her shirt. “Now
strip.
”
The three girls pulled off their tops with the ease of Las Vegas showgirls. Charlotte tugged the silk string of her fuchsia
disco skirt until it split apart, sliding to the floor. Petra and Melissa shimmied out of their jeans, lifting their dainty
feet like ponies. Charlotte ran her slender fingers under the waist of her light pink Hanky Panky thong, making sure it lay
flat on her hips. Janie couldn’t help but notice her nipples through her matching pink La Perla pushup bra. She blushed and
looked away, only to be bombarded by the more overwhelming sight of Melissa’s enormous double-Ds. Petra’s perfect in-between-B-and-Cs
were cradled by light blue cotton, a simple United States of Apparel number Janie recognized. She happened to be wearing the
same one. The bra looked different on her. A lot different.