Sealed with a Diss (26 page)

The idea was to quadruple the weight of her lips, transforming them into an impenetrable wall. That way, her insecurities would be trapped inside her body, unable to escape. Better they stay churning and burning in the pit of her stomach than make themselves known on this crucial day, where first impressions could make or break the entire year.

“Are you sure we need to do this
now
?” Claire’s desperate whine forced Massie back to reality.

“More than sure.” Massie reached into her Be & D silver-and-black Venus bowler bag and pulled out a purple glitter-covered placard. She slapped it into Claire’s clammy hands.

Claire lifted her canvas beige bucket hat and scanned the glistening script with her wide blue eyes. “Table eighteen reserved for the Pretty Committee?”

“That’s what it says.” Massie beamed. The shiny, swirly letters were symbolic of her secret pledge—to sparkle and shine every day in the eighth grade.

Over the weekend, she’d ransacked the Westchester Mall, and bought up anything and everything that reflected light. But now, as the bright morning sun flooded the vacant halls of Briarwood-Octavian Country Day, Massie’s long-sleeved indigo sequin Tory Burch top suddenly reminded her of a tacky
Dancing with the Stars
contestant. And that made her snippier than Katie Holmes’s hairdresser in 2007.

“Kuh-laire!” she huffed. “Eighteen is
our
table. I don’t want some LBR seventh-grader or a pack of Briarwood boys to claim it. Do you?”

Claire knit her blond brows, which looked whiter than usual against her sun-soaked skin. “Why don’t I just wait here, so when they open the doors, I’ll be the first one in?” She glanced over her shoulder and checked the big white clock above a
BOYS “R” US
banner the student council had spray-painted on a white Frette sheet.

“Um, are you my favorite Chinese takeout dish?” Massie tossed her long dark bangs past her gold-dusted cheekbones.

“No, why?”

“Then why act all gung ho?”

“I’m not.” Claire reddened. “I just don’t understand why I have to break into the Café and risk getting in trouble on my first day back.”

Massie twirled the purple hair streak below her right ear, which she’d dyed during her summer stint in Southampton. If anyone asked, she’d say a Parisian fashion insider had entrusted her with this soon-to-be-international trend. It was much easier than explaining the truth. And a lot more believable.

“We’re not
breaking in
.” Massie air-quoted Claire. “This is
our
school.
Our
Café.
Our
right!” She hiked up her stylishly slouchy charcoal gray satin knee-length shorts. “Why should
we
be punished because the rooftop wave pool at Briarwood imploded? It’s not our fault the entire school is flooded, is it?”

Claire opened her mouth to respond, but Massie quickly cut her off.

“Smell that?” She lifted her tiny ski-slope nose and sniffed. “Paint fumes. The number-one cause of red, itchy eyes. And look.…” Her head tilted left, toward the blue stick figure that had been superglued to the door of her favorite bathroom. “Say goodbye to the only mirror in school opposite a window. From now on, we’ll be glossing under fluorescents. Which, by the way, will make us look like Kermit the minute our tans fade.”

Claire surrender-sighed.

“Now let’s move. The girls are waiting outside.” Once again, Massie leaned against the silver door handle, and after a single pump, they were in.

“Eh. Ma. Gawd,” she gasped.

Claire removed her bucket hat. “What
is
all this?”

They stood in awe, gazing at the Café, which had been transformed into a massive, sun-drenched greenhouse. The new walls were made of glass, and the room’s perimeter was lined with mini vegetable gardens framed by low white picket fences. The gardens sprouted ripe red tomatoes, carrots, scallions, peas, cucumbers, and fresh herbs. Rows of new bamboo tables and chairs displayed photos of the happily wrinkled local Westchester artisans who had crafted them. The Starbucks kiosk had been replaced by a charming, old-fashioned stagecoach. It stocked skin-clarifying Borba water (imported from Hong Kong) and drinkable low-fat yogurt guaranteed to speed up hair growth (head only) and increase shine in less than a week. Quaint country chalkboard signs listed the day’s freshest produce (edamame and carrots) and the breakfast specials (buttermilk pancakes with chicken sausages, organic eggs Benedict, granola with locally grown fruit), lunch specials (mac ’n’ cheese sprinkled with nitrate-free bacon, free-range-turkey burgers, pizza with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella), and desserts (protein-packed chocolate brownies, calorie-burning mint-chip ice-cream cake, tooth-whitening lollipops).

No more steel bars, plastic trays, or orange heat lamps. The Café had become a fabulously ah-dorable, eco-friendly farmer’s market gone twenty-first century.

Claire fanned her flushed cheeks with the
RESERVED FOR
placard. “This is totally—”

“Lame!” Massie barked.

“Huh?”

“How could they do this to me?” Massie gripped her roiling stomach. “I feel like someone replaced my entire wardrobe with, with… with
yours
.”

Claire rolled her eyes.

“I’ve been violated.”

“How? It’s ten times nicer than—”

“The old Café was
mine
. The pine-scented wood, the shortcut to the sushi bar, the Picassos my grandmother donated—I
knew
that place. And now it feels like it belongs to someone else.” Massie tugged her purple hair streak. “Someone who loves Birkenstocks and political bumper stickers.”

“But—”

“All the more reason to claim our table.” Massie cracked her knuckles for the first time in her life. “We need to send the message that things are going to stay the same.” She elbow-nudged Claire. “Now will you puh-lease go do it already.”

“Fine.” Claire shot Massie an
if-I-get-in-trouble-it’s-all-your-fault
look. To which Massie responded with a
stop-being-so-pathetically-dramatic
glare. After another sharp exhale, Claire made a run for it.

If anything, Massie still had control over her friend. But whether she still had control over anyone else at the brand-new BOCD remained to be seen.

BOCD
THE GREAT LAWN

Tuesday, September 8th
7:38
A.M.

Massie slid on her oversize gold D&G sunglasses and descended upon the Great Lawn to regroup with the Pretty Committee after their summer apart.

“Look at all these boys,” Claire panted, scurrying to keep up with Massie’s frenzied pace. “They’re everywhere.”

“A total infestation,” Massie hissed at a pack of eighth-grade BMX-ers who skidded by on their muddy black dirt bikes. They dropped their rides on the grass, unclipped their sticker-covered helmets, and shuffled off to greet the rest of their sludge-brothers, who were slouched on the stone stairs below the school’s entrance. When a gaggle of Paris-wannabes made their way up the steps, the boys tilted their heads, hoping to see up their skirts. There was no way they actually saw anything, but they snicker-punched one another as if they had.

“We
never
dressed like that in the seventh grade.” Massie sneered at the girls’ display of bright fuchsia, turquoise, and tangerine ultra-mini halter dresses and lace-up espadrille wedges. “Um, I thought we left Orlando last week.”

“Hey!” Claire smacked her playfully on the arm.

“Sorry, but it’s true. They dress like your Florida friends,” Massie said unapologetically. “I mean ex-Florida friends.” She managed a glossy smile in case anyone was watching them. “Relaxed confidence” was proving hard to pull off since no one—not the pervy bikers, the lowly seventh-graders, or the eighth-grade LBRs—had yet stopped to admire her. Not her shimmering outfit. Not her grown-out bangs. Not the royal purple hair streak below her right ear.

Nuh-
thing
!

It was as though everyone suddenly had a brutal case of social amnesia, and all knowledge of her being this year’s alpha-alpha had been deleted from their memories. Were girls so easily distracted by boys? And were boys really so easily attracted to girls with horrific style? A visit to
CosmoGirl’s
FAQ archive was a must as soon as she got home.

Massie stepped onto the cold, dew-covered grass, which poked at her paraffin-waxed feet and most likely stained the leather on her black snakeskin Prada sandals. “This place is so over,” she grumbled as she zigzagged through clusters of overdressed, borderline tacky bodies invading
her
lawn.

“Huh?” Claire hurried to keep up, leaving a trail of baby powder–scented deodorant in the wake of her warming pits.

The sun was getting stronger by the minute. Instead of stopping to recharge her tan, Massie wished the ah-nnoyingly cheerful blue sky would cloud over and deliver a cool taste of fall—something to remind her that the Summer of Stress (SOS) was officially over.

But the universe sent a very different message.

It came in the form of a semi-cute, green ski cap–wearing, guitar case–carrying boy, who passed them and smiled.

At
Claire
!

Claire shy-grinned, then lowered her head.

Had the entire world gone mad? Were mass-produced canvas bucket hats and overbleached blondes “in” now that the boys had arrived?

Trying to see her friend from Semi-Cute’s perspective, Massie side-glanced at Claire, who
did
look good. For her.

The straight, shoulder-length white-blond hair that in the winter framed her ghostly complexion like limp spaghetti on a hard-boiled egg looked radiant against her tanned, cashew-colored skin. Her light blue eyes glistened like sea glass, and her waxy ChapStick had been replaced (thanks to Massie) with a frosty shade of Be Rosy lip quencher. Even her outfit was semi-decent: a woven long-sleeved cream-colored cotton shirt, fitted olive-colored knee-length Dâ-Nang cargos, and gold Sigerson Morrison gladiator sandals—a gift from Massie if Claire promised to toss her stinky summer Keds, which of course she had.

“There they are.” Claire pointed to the middle of the crowded lawn.

“What? Who?” Massie’s stomach dip-clenched. Was Derrington in range? Were the soccer guys with him? She had spent months wondering how their first post-breakup encounter would go. Would he beg for forgiveness? Act like nothing had happened? Publicly snub her? There were endless ways for this confrontation to play out. And surprisingly, Massie didn’t feel ready for any of them. And she wouldn’t until…

a)… she was reunited with the Pretty Committee.

b)… she got at least ten ego-boosting compliments.

c)… she applied more peach gloss.

Massie gripped Claire’s thin arm and pulled her close. “Who’s where?” she asked again, this time through a fake smile, in case the boys were watching.

Wiggling out from Massie’s tightening grip, Claire pointed at the massive oak in the center of the lawn. “The girls. They’re under the tree.”

A giddy flutter snaked through Massie’s insides when she saw her best friends. The Pretty Committee hadn’t been united for three whole months. And summering without them had left a lonely, gaping hole behind her abs that all the spicy tuna rolls in Japan couldn’t fill. But seeing them now, standing bare leg to bare leg, comparing tans in their favorite meeting spot, renewed her hope. And made her feel 110 percent again. Together, they would stop this Briarwood virus from spreading. Then they would reboot and come out even stronger. Because that’s what alphas do. And they were true alphas—whether anyone remembered it or not.

BOCD
THE GREAT LAWN

Tuesday, September 8th
7:47
A.M.

“Heyyyyy.” Massie walk-waved as she hurried toward the oak.

“Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” the girls squealed back. They dropped their designer purses on the moist grass, ran to her with open arms, and collided in a forceful group hug, Massie blissfully at its center.

A blend of familiar fruity and exotic perfumes enveloped her, calming her even more. Alicia was still wearing Angel (spicy chocolate), Dylan was dabbling in Missoni (exotic amber notes), Kristen had stayed true to Juicy Couture (crushed leaves meets green apple), and Claire smelled like drugstore-bought vanilla-scented body oil. Or was it marshmallow? Either way, it smelled like cheap.

By the time they separated to scan each other’s outfits, the smile on Massie’s face was 100 percent toothy and 200 percent genuine. Maybe now the new kids would see how deeply she was adored. You couldn’t slap a dollar amount on that kind of advertising.

“Let’s sit.” She linked arms with her BFFs and led them back to the oak with back-and-better-than-ever bounce.

“So, has anyone seen them yet?” Alicia asked in a hushed tone.

A heavy silence followed.

“Not even a distant sighting?” Claire snapped, obviously starving for some word on Cam Fisher.

Everyone shook their heads no.

Massie pressed her high-glossed lips together, fighting back the army of expletives marching up the back of her throat. Why was
everyone
so obsessed with boys these days? Wasn’t she enough anymore? What had she done to deserve this? And who could she pay to make it all change? She thought of the light blue bag inside her purse and hoped to Gawd its contents would put her back on top—at least with the Pretty Committee.

“Soooo…” Dylan hand-fanned her pits once the girls ducked under the leafy shade of the tree. She pulled out the black hair stick that held her red hair in place. After three quick neck tosses and a rapid finger-comb, she put her hands on her hips and smiled for a camera that wasn’t there. “You like?”

But the Pretty Committee was too busy propping their purses like beanbags to notice. Once they lowered themselves onto their designer leather cushions, she tried again.

“Um, thoughts please?” Dylan stroked her new hip-length, professionally straightened hair like a precious chinchilla. “Ay-sap!”

“Ehmagawd,” they gasped in awe.

“I got it done at the spa in Hawaii.”

“Love it!” Massie air-clapped.

The others followed.