Survival of the Fiercest (7 page)

T
hursday afternoon Andie sat at her desk, her hands trembling with excitement. For the third day in a row she was talking to Kyle Lewis on IM. It turned out Kyle went snowboarding every winter at Killington too, and they were both obsessed with the New England clam chowder they served at the lodge. They both agreed that
Sam's Town
was the Killers' worst album, with the exception of “Read My Mind”—which was by far the best song they'd ever written. They even went to the same soccer camp in New Hampshire last summer, just on different weeks. It was starting to feel like Kyle was the boy version of herself.

Andie's legs felt like they were made of oatmeal. The Living Room was a music hall on the Lower East Side that Andie had only read about in
New York
magazine. She pictured her and Kyle sitting at a table after the practice ended and his band had gone home. He'd lean over her shoulder, his hand on top of hers, showing her how to play a G chord. They'd walk around the neighborhood, stopping at Sugar Sweet Sunshine for the peanut butter pie Andie was obsessed with. It would be their first official date.

“Andie!” Lola's voice echoed off the bathroom walls.

Andie slammed the laptop shut, feeling like she'd just been caught stealing from Cate's closet. There was still one problem with her date with Kyle: Lola. But even if they
had
gone on a date to Madame Tussauds, even if Lola
had
“fancied” him, she hadn't mentioned anything about it since the fight on Saturday—not a word. Andie was starting to think she'd forgotten about the whole thing. After all, if Andie were the one meeting Gunther Gunta and his entourage of French socialites, or swapping calls with Ayana Bennington, she definitely wouldn't be obsessing over her childhood best friend.

“You were right!” Lola cried, bursting into Andie's room. She was still wearing her black chiffon dress and the shimmery white MAC eye shadow Andie had managed to apply two hours ago, even though Lola flinched whenever the brush came within an inch of her eye. “Gunther loved me! I'm heeezzz guttaaa and
light.” Lola clapped her hands in front of her face as she impersonated Gunther's accent.

“Wow.” Andie tried hard to smile, but her cheeks were numb, like she'd just gotten a cavity drilled. She'd been prepared for Lola to meet Gunther, but she wasn't prepared for Gunther to make Lola the next Kate Moss. Most models spent years doing minor advertising campaigns, switching agents, and even then few ever went on a go-see with someone as renowned as Gunther Gunta. Lola's modeling career had gone from zero to sixty in less than a week, while Andie's was in the same place it had always been: nowhere.

“Congratulations.” Andie wrapped her stepsister in a hug, her arms feeling like Jell-O. “I can't believe you're going to work for Gunther Gunta.” She took a deep breath, trying to steady her voice. Talking to Kyle was officially the only good thing that had happened all day. After Cate threw her out of the Chi Sigma open call, she was so mad, she'd picked two of Cate's favorite dresses out of her closet and hid them under her dresser. Then she'd written
Cate was here
on the top of her dad's rolltop desk with a ballpoint pen, so he would find it when he got back from the honeymoon. Sometimes she just wanted him to see that Cate wasn't perfect. Maybe she had better grades than Andie, maybe she was the lead in the play and the president of Junior Honor Society, but she had more sides than an octagon. And she could be cruel—even to her own sister.

“Oh, he's a complete nutter!” Lola continued. She threw herself on Andie's queen-size bed and rolled onto her stomach,
scattering the red and orange-embroidered throw pillows in every direction. “He kept on about me not ‘baaaathing,' and how ‘freeesh' looking I am. And he's even shorter than you!”

Andie sat back on the bed, a little stung. She knew Lola didn't mean anything by calling her short. It was just a fact. Andie was four foot ten and three quarters, and Lola was five seven and a half. But still, Andie didn't need any reminders.

Lola squeezed the throw pillow in her hand. “And this is going to change everything with Kyle.”

“Kyle?” Andie grabbed a fistful of blankets in her hand. His name suddenly sounded strange coming out of Lola's mouth. It was as if Andie had caught Lola wearing her favorite pair of J Brand jeans, or telling people
she
played soccer.

“Once he sees me in those ads, with my hair done and wearing a Gunther Gunta dress, he'll really fancy me.” Lola stared out the window, as if picturing Kyle looking up at her billboard in Times Square. “I've barely talked to him since Saturday, though. Every time I ask him to hang out he's doing homework, or going to dinner with his parents. I asked him if I could go to his band practice on Friday, but he said I'd probably be bored.”

“Really?” Andie squeaked. She reached for her ponytail, but all her movements felt slow and forced. There was her answer. Lola
was
still interested in Kyle.

Lola pulled a bright yellow throw pillow to her chest. “I don't know what I did. Everything was brilliant until Saturday. I know I shouldn't have pushed him out of the door, but still.”

“You probably didn't do anything.” Andie's palms were slick with sweat. The room felt hot, the way it had last August when
the central air was broken for two days. “Why don't we go get Pinkberry?” she offered, trying to change the subject.

Lola ignored her, her green eyes focused on a spot on the ceiling. “It's like he has a girlfriend or something.” The end of her freckled nose twitched. “Do you think I should ask him about it?”

“No!” Andie snapped. She pulled at the collar of her mint green Lacoste button-down, feeling like it was choking her. “Definitely not. Just…give him some time.”

Lola narrowed her green eyes at her stepsister. “You're acting barmy.” She'd never seen Andie so nervous before, even when they went to Ford Models to meet Ayana. Her cheeks were bright red and she kept staring at her patent leather flats. Lola had seen a special on the BBC once, on how investigators determine if someone is lying. Avoiding eye contact was the number-two way, right under stiff body movements. Lola looked past Andie, where a boy's gray hoodie was slung over the end of the bed. She eyed it, suddenly suspicious. It looked just like the one Kyle had worn to Madame Tussauds. “Why do you have that boy's sweatshirt in your room? Whose is that?”

“This?” Andie held up the sweatshirt. She'd completely forgotten about Kyle's hoodie. She'd been holding on to it since Tuesday, wearing it every now and then before she went to bed. She looked at Lola, her heart pounding like she'd just run ten sprints, one after the next, after the next. “This is…” She searched her brain, trying to think of something—anything. She couldn't tell Lola about Kyle now, not after it was so completely obvious she was still obsessed with him. “This is…
Clay Calhoun's
.”

“Clay Calhoun?” Lola furrowed her brows. “Why do you have
Clay Calhoun's
sweatshirt?” She'd only been at Ashton Prep a
week and a half, but she'd learned who Clay Calhoun was before she learned her homeroom. All the Ashton girls kept on about him like he was Prince Harry or something.

“He's,” Andie heard herself say, “my new boyfriend.” She shot Lola a smile that said,
Isn't that just so crazy?
So it wasn't the truth. It wasn't even a small sliver of the truth. But how could she have possibly explained the shirt?

“You're dating
Clay Calhoun?
” Lola asked, clapping her hands in front of her face. “Since when?”

“Since Tuesday,” Andie hugged the sweatshirt to her chest. “I just didn't want to say anything…” One lie came after the other, tumbling out of her mouth. She couldn't stop them now.

“I can't believe you didn't tell me.” Lola threw her pale arms around Andie. “And here I was keeping on about Gunther Gunta. This is brilliant.”

As Lola squeezed all the air out of her lungs, Andie stared at the digital picture frame on her desk. It was on a photo of her and Lola at the wedding. They were holding their bridesmaid bouquets, their arms wrapped around one another like they had known each other forever. Her stomach sank with guilt.

“I can't wait to meet him,” Lola said. “I heard he's the fittest bloke at Haverford.”

“Yeah…he's great,” Andie lied. Technically, Clay
was
“the fittest bloke at Haverford.” And he was an expert at making armpit farts, butt buddies with Brandon O'Rourke, and the son of Scooter Calhoun, who'd somehow managed to become the CEO of a major investment bank despite his name. Clay Calhoun was a lot of things. But he wasn't Andie's boyfriend. Not even close.

S
tella and Cate sat at the round cherry table in the kitchen, staring at the list of candidates from the open call. Margot was pulling things out of the refrigerator. Her hair was in curlers and she was humming to herself like some lovesick princess in a Disney movie.

“Lindsey Krauss?” Stella read from the Moleskine notebook in front of her.

“Who?” Cate set her head down on the table. She couldn't muster any enthusiasm for Chi Sigma, not after her run-in with Blythe at the basketball game. They were in a serious clique war, and right now all she wanted to do was fly the white flag of surrender. Blythe had Priya, Sophie,
and
Eli Punch. On all sides, she was winning.

“Well, I guess that's our answer. She's quiet, just transferred from public school. Kind of looks like she got hit in the face with a frying pan?” Stella raised her eyebrows as if to say,
Does any of this ring a bell?

“She's obviously forgettable.” Cate doodled on the spiral notebook in front of her. She drew a crude picture of Blythe, complete with devil horns and fangs. All she needed was an orange crayon to color in her skin.

Margot dumped a whole avocado, milk, and some honey into the blender. “Hope I'm not bothering you!” she yelled over the electronic mixing sound. “I'm just making my secret anti-aging masque! I've been using it since the '80s!”

“It's fine, Grandmum.” Stella pressed her fingers to her temples until the blender stopped. Margot had gone to “Capri” for three weeks last year and come back with flawless skin that was three shades lighter than her neck. Still, she insisted she owed everything to that avocado sludge.

“Yes, Lindsey is too forgettable,” Stella continued. “We both say nay. But we also don't want someone who needs to be the center of attention.” She studied Cate's face, giving the words a moment to sink in. She hadn't brought up Myra's makeover yet. First she wanted to show Cate that all of the other candidates were inadequate—a task that seemed easier and easier with each name she read off. There'd been more nays than on the horse path through Central Park. Cate hadn't even given an official “nay” to Shelley DeWitt, but had simply writhed in pain, like someone was poking her with a hot iron. “That said, I don't think Paige Mortimer is a good candidate. I say nay.”

“Me neither. Nay!” Cate grabbed the notebook from Stella's hand and glanced down the list. “Last year Corynne Handler spread a rumor that I had lice, and Marissa Marks chews too loudly.” Cate crossed off ten names in a row. “Nay, nay, nay,
nay—I don't like any of these options. This is hopeless. Blythe is going to date Eli, and everyone will always think of Chi Sigma as my lame attempt to start a sorority after she kicked me out of hers.”

Cate banged her forehead hard against the table. She imagined going to the winter formal with Stella as her date. They'd hover by the refreshments table, stuffing their faces with Brie and crackers while Blythe slow danced with Eli, her arms wrapped around his neck. She and Stella would sit in English class sophomore year, watching
Ashton News'
s coverage of Blythe's second term as class president. At graduation they'd be forced to listen to Blythe deliver her valedictory address, while Cate was ranked third, the close-but-not-quite spot of every year.
I'd like to thank my best friends, Priya and Sophie
, Blythe would say, and my loving,
supportive boyfriend, Eli Punch
. Her gray eyes would settle on Cate.
I couldn't have done this without you three.

“It's not
that
awful,” Stella said. She chewed the end of her pen. Ever since the basketball game, Cate hadn't stopped talking about Blythe's date with Eli, or how Priya and Sophie had looked at her like she was just another pom-pom-waving basketball mom. Even worse, Cate was still wearing that bloody Tiffany locket under her Lacoste button-down, and the stuffed bear Blythe had bought her was still sitting on her bed. Yes, she'd burned most of her memories of Chi Beta Phi. But Stella was worried she'd forgotten how Chi Beta Phi had burned
her
. If things kept on like this, it wouldn't be long before Cate was begging Blythe to be back in Beta Sigma Phi, pitching a vice president position. Stella would come into school on Monday and be friendless, again,
doomed to spend study halls chatting with Mrs. Perkins about her recent vacation to Mohegan Sun.

“You have got to try this,” Margot cooed, oblivious to Cate's despair. She mixed the green paste around in a bowl and dabbed some on her face. It looked like someone had sneezed on her.

“Ew, no thanks.” Stella winced.

“Suit yourself, but it's great for your complexion. I've got a date this Saturday night and I need to look refreshed.” Stella suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. After her grandpa died five years ago, her grandmum had lost her bloody mind. Stella and Lola had spent last summer with her in Florence, watching in horror as she chatted up Italian waiters in the Piazza della Signoria. “It's with Walter Hodgeworth—the retired oil tycoon.”

Just yesterday, Stella had seen Walter Hodgeworth on the cover of her grandmum's
Time
magazine, under the headline “The New Rockefeller.” Even if he was the most well off bachelor in Manhattan, his white hair receded in an M and his face looked like a shriveled apple.

“Walter's taking me to Masa. I'll need you luvs to keep an eye on Lola and Andie. If everything goes well, I won't be back until late.” She winked at Stella before heading out of the kitchen, the green muck concoction in one hand and a dirty martini in the other.

“Repulsive,” Cate mumbled under her breath. But Stella was smiling like Margot had just offered to take them to Spain for the weekend. “What?”

“This is
perfect
,” Stella whispered. She didn't want to think of her grandmum snogging a walking prune either, but this was the
opportunity they needed. “We'll throw a party. We'll invite all the ninth-graders, and you can invite Eli.”

Cate suddenly perked up. “Keep talking…”

“We'll use it to show Ashton Prep what Chi Sigma is all about. Imagine this.” Stella turned to the wall of windows overlooking the garden. She spread her hands in the air dramatically, framing the teak patio furniture. “You're sitting in the garden. It's filled with Ashton girls and Haverford blokes talking about how great Chi Sigma is—how great
Cate Sloane
is. Eli Punch walks in and sees you in your new Kate Spade dress—”

“Nope,” Cate corrected, holding one finger in the air. “Kate Spade dresses make me look frumpy.”

“Fine—your new Phillip Lim dress—and he completely forgets about Blythe Finley. It's like—
poof!
She doesn't exist.” Stella studied Cate's face as she considered it. No one was going to pay any attention to them if they were just eating turkey burgers at Jackson Hole, or walking down Fifth Avenue, mixed in with the other eight million people in New York City. If they wanted to get Chi Sigma off the ground, they needed to make a big statement—regardless of who their third member was. They needed to do something that said,
Here we are. Prepare to worship us.

“I think”—Cate smiled—“you're a genius.”

Stella scrawled
Party
on the top of the page and underlined it with one swift flourish. Just last weekend, she and Cate had planned a small, tasteful wedding in the garden after Winston and Emma called off theirs (which was partially her and Cate's fault, but still). They'd found caterers, a florist, even a band, all
in less than twenty-four hours. If the Chi Sigma party was even half as successful, Stella would finally be known at Ashton Prep as more than “the new girl with the funny accent.” If everyone came to
their
town house Saturday, for
their
party, she'd be Stella Childs again: the girl who was studying Vermeer before she was ten, the girl who was featured in
Allure
magazine for her fashion designs, the girl whom everyone in school—including the security guards and cafeteria ladies—knew by name. And standing alongside Stella in Chi Sigma, Cate would realize she never needed Blythe to be popular. She needed
Stella
.

“There's still one problem.” Cate drummed her manicured nails on the table. “We can't have a party without a third member. It's just embarrassing.”

“I was thinking about that…” Stella began. “What about Myra Granberry?” She mumbled the name so it came out sounding like “maybe cranberry.”

“
Myra Granberry?
” Cate waited for Stella to laugh or say
kidding
. But her green eyes stayed focused on Cate. “The same Myra Granberry that I kicked out of our open call because I couldn't look at her caterpillar lip?” As far as Cate knew, there was only one Mug the Slug. Had Stella lost her mind? “I take that back. You're not a genius. That would be social suicide.” They might as well stop shaving their armpits and start wearing sweatpants every day, and simply resign themselves to life as Ashton Prep bottom dwellers. Maybe, if they were lucky, Blythe would let them check coats at their next Beta Sigma Phi soiree.

“Just listen,” Stella started, ignoring Cate's outburst. She had
already thought of every possible argument against it. “Myra's like a blank canvas. She'll do whatever we say. You never have to worry about her getting jealous or trying to stage a coup. And she's genuinely nice and smart and,” Stella added, raising her voice before Cate could object, “all she needs is a very thorough makeover.”

“I don't have time for makeovers.” Cate ran her hands through her dark brown hair, like she was about to pull it out at the roots. “I have a hot neighbor to stalk.”

“Stalk away!” Stella insisted. “I'll do everything for the makeover. In two days I'll turn Myra into the BFF you never knew you needed.” Stella looked into Cate's deep blue eyes. Yes, she was pushing this because she'd already promised Blythe a new Myra, but it would be good for Cate too. Cate needed someone who wouldn't argue if she wanted to go all the way to the Lower East Side for Sunday brunch. She needed someone who would not only remember her birthday, but would bake a banana bread “cake” because she knew Cate hated sweets. Myra Granberry was a good choice—the best choice.

Cate shook her head. “I'm not into it.”

“Well, that's a shame,” Stella started. If
she
couldn't convince Cate, there was one person who could. She hadn't wanted to play this card, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “Because I bumped into Blythe today. She was keeping on about how we could never turn Myra Granberry into sorority material.”

“
Blythe
said that?” Cate's face twisted in anger, like someone had poured paint all over her new Antik Batik boots. “What does she know about the capabilities of Chi Sigma?”

“The greatest satisfaction is to do well what Blythe said we could not do at all.” Stella leaned forward. “Myra could be our Mu.”

“Our Mu,” Cate repeated. She imagined Myra strolling down the staircase at the party in a Marc Jacobs dress, her blond hair pulled back in a tight bun. She'd be like some
What Not to Wear
success story, and Chi Sigma would be the ones who'd made it happen. “It
would
be pretty impressive if you could pull it off. If we can transform Mug the Slug into the new Ashton It girl, think of how that would raise our profile.”

“Just trust me,” Stella added, her pen perched in the air. “I'll make it happen. Saturday, at the party, she'll make her big debut.”

Cate twirled her dark brown hair around her finger, considering it. Myra had been an outcast ever since third grade, when her mom sent her to school wearing those awful knee-high socks. It was something Cate never questioned, like grass being green or the sky being blue. But besides the obvious things—her M.U.G. backpack and bleached 'stache—there wasn't anything
that
wrong with Myra. Technically, she was the reason Cate's mock trial team had won last year in Mr. Hertz's social studies class. Knee-highs or no knee-highs, she'd delivered the most persuasive closing arguments Cate had ever heard. “Okay,” Cate finally agreed. “I trust you.”

Stella scrawled
Myra Granberry
across the top of her notebook, just because it seemed like a satisfying thing to do. She studied her writing, excited. Blythe could go on a date with Eli. She could beg Cate to return to Beta Sigma Phi without Stella. It
wouldn't matter. Stella and Cate were finally on the same page, and Blythe couldn't stop them now.

 

An hour later, Cate paced the living room in her Juicy Couture sweats. “Yes, Dad,” she said into her iPhone. “We're being good for Margot.” She glanced at Stella and winked. “Right, love you too.” With that, she hung up. Winston had called ten minutes ago, as though he could sense they were planning a party, even from Tahiti.

“What did he say?” Stella asked nervously.

“Just that he and your mom went snorkeling today. As long as we have everything cleaned up before Margot gets home, we'll be fine.” Cate stood between the chaise lounge and the fireplace. “Now…let's see. We can set up the Bose sound dock here; we just need to bring it down from the den.” She and Stella had carefully put together a guest list, being more selective than a gluten-free vegan at an all-you-can-eat buffet. They'd even found a bakery online that could make chocolates in the shape of Greek letters. If Chi Sigma Mu's first official soiree was going to establish their dominance, every detail—right down to the customized M&M's—needed to be perfect. “If we have the food in the kitchen, we can keep everyone on the first floor and in the garden.”

“Brilliant. Then we can use the den as a VIP area. Every party needs to have a
flow
,” Stella agreed. She was wearing her red Topshop shorts, and her curls were pulled back in a ponytail.