The Aristobrats (15 page)

The five rules of Fall Sosh:

1. Tiny totes are in for evening.
   
2. Girls should not wear tuxedos, even in an ironic sense.
   
3. No line dancing.
   
4. No white, flaky deodorant.
   
5. Never dance alone.
   

Kiki carefully unzipped the blue canvas dress bag from Langdon's and let it drop to the closet floor in a puddle beneath her brand new frock. The material of the ankle-length gown was a luminous, pale eggshell duchesse, ever-so-slightly ruched along the side, with tiny Swarovski crystals and pearls sewn in a swirl pattern around the bodice. The saleswoman at Langdon's said it took three seamstresses more than a month to make it. Francesca Brandon, she'd said, had worn a similar one to the Emmys.

The dress was, in a word,
smashing.

And Kiki
had
to have it. Her life depended on it. (At least it felt like it did at the time.) She'd used her jet-black Centurion Card to pay for it instead of her Langdon's house charge. It was a good thing because the black plastic had no limit.

Kiki unhooked the dress from its golden hanger, walked it carefully into the bedroom and laid it out on top of the lace coverlet of her princess bed. The layers of duchesse and tulle rustled as it all settled into place.

In her fuzzy slippers and PJs, she stood above the dress on the bed and ate all the marshmallows out of her box of Lucky Charms. She was careful not to drop any of the pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, or green clovers down on the silky material. She pictured herself wearing it—her soft updo with little tendrils hanging down, her delicate, radiant-cut solitaire necklace, her matching Duvelle shoes and handbag, her pale, pretty makeup.

Normally something like this would make Kiki so happy she'd be crawling out of her skin, counting down the seconds until she could zip it up along her back and ask Esmerelda to clasp the solitaire around her neck. Normally, she would've started the process already: getting the mani-pedi, soaking in the tub, texting Parker nonstop, posting shoe options on Facebook for everybody's vote, and doing the Birdie so hard that lifting off and flying like a helicopter over her house was not as improbable as it sounded.

Instead Kiki crawled back into her bed and hid underneath the covers. Her beautiful new dress laid in position on top of her as if she
and
the bed were wearing it.

She turned to one side and held her downy pillow close to her body. She took off her friendship ring and held it up to the light.
Friends Forever.

Her life really didn't depend on a dress. Or a pair of shoes. Or a radiant-cut solitaire. Or a soft updo with little tendrils. Without the Lylas, the dress was just a heap of material sewn together by a bunch of little old Italian ladies. Hair was just hair. The necklace was just a rock on a chain.

Without her friends by her side, she felt deflated. Like a dress with no one in it.

***

Plum plucked her eyebrows and listened to music as she got ready. The Black Daphnes was an all-girl emo group. All they sang about was hating boyfriends, hating super-perky people, and hating bands who sold their songs to be used in car commercials. Listening to all that depression always made Plum feel pretty good. It was like somebody she didn't even know understood what it felt like to be her.

She dreamed that she and the Black Daphnes could hang out.

The sharp smells of her mother's cooking dinner wafted up from the kitchen downstairs. Plum wasn't going to eat a plate of cheese pierogi before the dance. Pierogi were good and everything, but Russian food was something you needed to eat when there was a lot of time to recover. Her mother's cooking, she thought, rebuilt the ozone layer one toot at a time.

Plum put the finishing touches of the black liner over her eyelashes with a small, sharp swoop up at the end, like a cat's eye. She waved her hands in front of them so they would dry all the way before she blinked (made
that
mistake before).

While her cat eyes finished drying, she pulled a photograph of the Lylas down from the corner of her corkboard: a picture of the four of them in third grade tobogganing down the big hill together in Shenley Park. Parker was first, Ikea second, Kiki third, and Plum was at the top. It was snowing and they were all bundled up. Their cheeks were pink. Hot chocolates were waiting for them when they got back home. This is the way they were supposed to be, Plum thought—the four of them stuck together like a train: the Little Engine That Always Could.

Plum tacked the photograph back onto her board.
The whole thing was just so stupid,
she thought
.
It was supposed to be the best year of their lives, and instead, it was Fall Sosh and they weren't even speaking.

Kiki, Plum imagined, was probably in her closet stresserizing, frantically yanking expensive shoes off shelves, eating all the marshmallows out of a jumbo cereal box, and driving Esmerelda bonkies trying to figure out which handbag made her look the least fat. It'd be a miracle if Keeks made it out of the house before Fall Sosh was over. Plum had to laugh a little when she thought about it.

And at this very moment, Plum imagined, Parker was doing her mascara one eyelash at a time, fluffing bronzer onto every visible part of her body, and practicing kissy face with Tribb in front of her mirror. Parker might have been upset about how everything with the webcast had turned out, but at least she wasn't going to the dance alone. Parker always landed on her feet.

And
Ikea
—Plum thought—Ikea was just being confused. She couldn't be exactly what her father wanted her to be, but maybe that wasn't so bad. If every girl spent her life trying to be what her father wanted her to be the whole world would be filled with Yale lawyers, nuns, people who didn't kiss until they were married, and first woman presidents. There were a few girls on the planet who needed to do something other than those things. Maybe Ikea was one of them.

She wanted to tell Ikea that. She wanted to help Parker with her mascara and her terminal overuse of mineral bronzer. She wanted to assure Kiki that
both
sides were her good side. And she sort of wanted to tell them that she secretly
liked
Kirby Vanderbilt even though his one front tooth was bigger than the other and his neck was kind of skinny.

Plum lifted her new bra out of the box from American Coquette. It was the Fantasia II, a new and improved version of the original Fantasia. It was the strapless model with Featherlift and Volumizer Inserts.

She held it up to her body and looked in the mirror. She was finally developing, she thought. Sort of. Slightly. Maybe-possibly. Well, if nothing else, her bra was developing. At least it was something.

***

Parker put the blow dryer on its coolest setting and aimed it at her eyelashes. She'd layered them lightly with two coats of mascara, wiggling the wand on the uppers and the lowers like Plum had once shown her. She wanted them to dry completely before she blinked (made
that
mistake before). She wanted them to look as good as when Plum did them.

She got dressed faster than usual: underwear, dress, shoes, handbag, yada yada. It was easy to do things quickly when you didn't care that much (which she didn't). Care much felt like some emotion from the past. Definitely not meant for tonight. She'd spent so many hours dreaming about this moment and now it was here. And it sucked.

She didn't even look in the mirror at the pale azul dress with the really great neckline. She decided to go absolutely-no-jewelry even though she knew the corsage wasn't coming.
Jewelry was for celebrating
.

Completely ready and with nearly an hour to kill, Parker sat at her desk and opened her computer. She was tempted to go to the
Wallingford Academy Today
website and look at the show again.
Tempted—
like you're tempted to scratch at a scab on your knee or bite off a hangnail.

Instead she opened Facebook, a thing she hadn't done in weeks. Her status was so outdated it wasn't even funny. She couldn't bear to read the comments on her wall or look at her honesty box or check out any of the graffiti anyone had done for her. And the only Friend request still pending was her mother. And that was still pretty icky.

She scrolled to the section where you find people you know. For some reason she typed:

James Hunter

Hundreds of James Hunters came up. She skimmed through the first three-hundred or so, sure that the next page would be the one. There was a bald James Hunter from Minneapolis. A bunch from England. One from New Zealand. And there were tons of James Hunters with no profile pictures—but people with no pictures didn't really count. She hoped the James Hunter she was looking for wasn't one of them. He kind of counted. Even if he wasn't on FB.

She typed in Cricket Von Wielding's name. There weren't too many Crickets, and Von Wielding pretty much narrowed it down to one.

Despite the invitation, Parker still wasn't her Friend, but Cricket didn't seem to need the help—she had five-hundred-and-eighty-two Friends. One hundred and eighty-four more than Parker. Many of the faces were familiar: the Crickettes. Once
her
Friends.

The Lylas and the populadder. Gone for good.

Parker shut down her computer. It was time to get the worst night of her life over with.

***

Ikea's mother, Sunday, poked her head into Ikea's bedroom. Ikea was nearly finished getting ready—she just had to wrap the top part of her dress on and slip into the traditional sandals that went with it. Sunday came in and helped her with the knot.

“In Benin,” Sunday said, “this is a dress you might wear to a wedding. A very
elegant
lady would wear it.” She tucked a bit of material up under the knot until it was secure. “Your grandmother would not have known such a beautiful thing might be worn by her grandchild.” She smiled. Ikea's mother's face was impossibly beautiful, even without makeup. “She would be very proud of you.”

Ikea looked in the mirror and managed a sad grin. She liked thinking about her grandmother even though she'd died long before Ikea was even born.

Sunday walked over and stood behind her daughter. “And I know how hard this is for you to believe,” she said, “but your father is
very
proud of you.” She rested her hands on Ikea's shoulders. “He just doesn't always know how to say the words. That doesn't mean he doesn't feel them.”

Ikea looked closely at their two faces in the mirror. She tried to imagine her grandmother's face there too. And her great grandmother's—until all her ancestors' faces filled the mirror.

***

“I guess I'm ready.” Parker walked into her mother's room. She had to lift up the hem of her dress to avoid stepping on it.

“
Parker!
” Ellen Bell was standing by her closet, probably alphabetizing her clothes by designer and starting a card catalog for the whole collection. Ellen nearly dropped the sweater she was folding. “
Wow!
Sweetheart…”

“What?” Parker turned around because it seemed like her mom was talking to someone else.

“You look
absolutely
stunning,” she said. “You take my breath away.”

“I don't feel absolutely stunning,” Parker replied. “I feel like a lump of
bleh
wearing a fancy dress.”

“Well, you wouldn't know to look at you.”

Ellen walked close to her daughter and put her arms around her. In heels, Parker was almost the same height.

Parker rested her head on her mother's shoulder. She felt like crying but she'd spent so long doing her eyelashes, she just sort of snortled, breaking a two-year-old rule:
Never snortle in public.
Her mother stroked her hair but was careful not to mess up anything. (That's kind of the way mothers were. They messed up other stuff, but Hair & Makeup was rarely one of them.)

“Cricket Von Wielding has about a million Friends,” Parker said sadly. “And I have exactly
none
.” She tried to use the moment to wriggle away but her mother held on.

“It's not always about a number.” Ellen lifted Parker's face and looked her in the eye. “You know what I mean?”

Parker nodded. She knew what her mother meant but it didn't make her feel any better. She just wanted everything to be over with already.

“I got a call from the real estate agent today…” Ellen said into Parker's ear.

“Fox Chapel will be okay, Mom,” Parker reassured her mother. “I can make new friends.”

“Someone from Orion Computers called and asked about shooting a television commercial here at the house for a new product called a holoPod,” Ellen said. “It's only for two days, but you can't believe how much they pay. It's enough money to get us through Christmas! Maybe longer if I pick up a small client.” Ellen exhaled when the last few words came out. “So you can stay at school!” She wrapped her arms tightly around Parker. “Isn't that amazing news?”

Parker closed her eyes
.
She wasn't sure what to think about it—leaving was beginning to feel like the best thing to do.

“I've got just the thing for you…” Ellen abruptly ended the Mom-hug-moment and ran into her bathroom. She opened her vanity and pulled out a cut-crystal bottle with a black tassel dangling from its stopper. The bottle was tiny but the golden liquid was potent as Ellen dabbed a drop from the glass stopper on either side of Parker's neck.

“There,” Ellen said when she was done. “Gardenia.” She smiled. “
That's
what you needed.”

It had been simple to turn Wallingford Academy into a celebration of “A Harvest Moon,” the theme of this year's Fall Social. Hotchkiss just had to push a button on her Tablet and the upper Super-Screens were filled with dark, starry skies. The wind rustled through the trees on the lower ones. Shadows of clouds seemed to pass overhead. If you looked at it all long enough, you could feel the chill of the autumn night. Or maybe that was some new special effect. Knowing Fitz Orion, he'd probably figured out how to make the
actual
wind blow.

Parker held up the hem of her dress and walked quickly into La Cachette. She couldn't imagine touching up her lipstick anywhere else. Or maybe she just wasn't ready to go into the ballroom. Maybe she could just hide out in La Cachette all night.

There was the sound of giggling behind two of the three stalls. Parker half-hoped it would be the Lylas, but it was just Cosima and Suzanne.

“Hi, Parker!” They washed their hands and dried them with one of the embroidered linen cloths folded in a stack beside the sink. “OMGorgies!” they said. “We're loving the dress!”

“Yours are even nicer,” Parker managed. “Très gorgies.”

Their dresses
were
nice. Cosima's was periwinkle satin with a simple empire waist. It was one of the “need-need” dresses at Langdon's that Kiki had tried on for her lunch menu segment, Parker remembered. Suzanne's dress looked familiar too—another of Kiki's rejects.

“You've been, like,
invisibla
since Matin!” Suzanne said.

“
Everyone's
talking about it,” Cosima added.

“It's all the goss!” Cosima giggled and checked her hair in the mirror. Suzanne started laughing too.

“OMGasp for air, Coz!” Suzanne said to Cosima through her fits of laughter. “That thing you said before…
that thing
was soooo funny, I'm in
hysterica
!”

“I know, right?!” Cosima nearly choked on chuckles.

Parker knew what Suzanne meant. It's not like she'd never done that trick before. It was pretty
obvy
what they were laughing about.

“Bye
hahaha
, Parker!” They were both nearly ROFL when they walked out of La Cachette.

Parker's hands were shaking when she reached into her tiny tote and pulled out her lipstick.
Tiny totes were in for evening.
She'd followed the Rule. The Rules felt like all she had left of the Lylas. She ran a layer of the frosty pink gloss over her lips and tried to think of some reasons why she shouldn't just stay in La Cachette all night.

“Hi, Parker.”

Ikea walked out of the third bathroom stall. She'd been so quiet (or Coz and Suzanne had been so loud) that Parker hadn't heard her in there. The colors of Ikea's dress were as vivid as a rainforest. Parker understood what her mother had meant about “taking your breath away.” Or maybe she was just so happy to see Ikea, she couldn't use her lungs.

“It's really hard to go to the bathroom in this thing,” Ikea said, yanking at the bright material layered around her waist.

“You look really great, Ike,” Parker said
.
“Like you could be a historical figure or something.” The two of them stood still and far apart, as if inching any closer might cause one of them to suddenly disappear.

“You look even better, Park,” Ikea said
.
“Your mascara came out really well.”

“You think?” Parker turned and checked her lashes in the mirror. “I did that little trick-thingie Plum showed me.”

“I'm sorry I didn't reply to your Facebook pokes,” Ikea said. “Or your Skype pings. Or the texts. Or the
actual
note
you left in the mailbox.”

“Yeah,” Parker laughed, “I decided to go primitive.”

“I just
couldn't
, Park…” Ikea said regretfully. “My dad's been at the office all day and I was barely able to get out of bed.” She looked down. “I just wish he'd go away forever so I'd never have to see him again.”

“You don't mean that.” Parker walked over and held Ikea's hand.

“I guess not,” Ikea admitted.

“You know, I'm really, r
eeea
lly sorry,” Parker told her. She tried to find better words to say but it wasn't like she'd practiced this in the mirror. “I feel like I haven't been myself since this whole thing started. I feel like I let the Lylas down—like I let
you
down.”

“You don't have to be sorry, Parker,” Ikea said. “I was thinking about it and I decided I'm proud of what I did. I was so busy worrying that I was going to fail at something that I never took any risks. But that's not the kind of person I want to be.” She looked at herself in the mirror. “And you helped me see that.”

Parker smiled. She was proud of Ikea too—it was the boldest thing anyone she knew had ever done. “I actually thought it was really pretty cool.” She laughed. “I heard Divya had like
eight
guys ask her to Fall Sosh!”

“Really?!” Ikea seemed excited for the first time since before Matin. “Where's Tribb?” she asked. “I bet he looks hawt in a tux!”

“…Alterations completely messed this up!” Kiki burst through the door with Plum following behind her. Kiki looked as if she'd just marched offstage of a couture production of Cinderella. The voluminous layers of her dress took up most of the floor of La Cachette. “The seams are in all the wrong places!” She fiddled with her zipper in the mirror. “I can't even
breathe,
it's so tight.”

Parker and Ikea just stood there staring. Kiki had been known to overdress upon occasion, but she'd truly outdone herself. Neither of them could speak.

“What?” Kiki asked, looking down at a dozen yards of hand-sewn eggshell duchesse and enough Swarovski crystals to hang a chandelier. “I say if you're going to fall off the populadder completely, you might as well be a ledge at it. Right?” She fluffed up her skirt. “And you guys look ferosh, BTDubs.” She turned around to fix her hair in the mirror. “You two all made up? Because I'm truly not loving the whole no-one's-talking sitch…” Kiki didn't miss a beat. “For one, it's completely daft, and for two, Esmerelda is having about ten nip fits a day because I have no one else to whinge to.
OMGroan
, this dress is so t
iiii
ght.” She wiggled then turned to the side and sucked in her stomach.

Kiki tried to look innocent but everyone in the room knew that it wasn't the dress that had changed sizes. “All I ate today were some Lucky Charms,” she swore.

“Well, you
do
look magically delicious,” Parker admired.

“
Charm
ing, I would say,” Ikea added.

“LOL.” Kiki tried to exhale just a tiny bit at a time. “Hey…where's Tribb?”

“I was
so
hoping you guys would be here…” Plum had a puffy winter coat wrapped around her lavender dress with matching All-Stars high tops. Even the streak in her hair was dyed lavender. As soon as the door shut behind her, she whipped open her coat to reveal a bust the size of Barbie's.

Kiki gasped. “Is that the
Fantasia II
?!”

“What do you think?” Plum lifted the foam rack up a little and adjusted her dress. She admired herself in the mirror. “Good, right?”

“Really natural,” Parker said quickly.

“Super-native,” Ikea observed.

“As fab as it gets,” Kiki added. (Lying to each other was definitely against the Rules, but flattery wasn't.
Flattery was always in
.)

“Like you think someone…
Kirby,
for an example…” Plum asked, “would think I looked completely normal?” She took off her puffy coat and shoved it into a little hiding place under the sink.

“Kirby
Vanderbilt?”
Kiki asked (the question nearly popped her zipper).

“You look unbelievably great,” Parker told her. “Kirby's going to die when he sees you, Plum.”

“Good,” Plum said. Parker wrapped her arm around Plum's waist and they all took each other by the hand. “Oh yeah…where's Tribb?” Plum remembered as she pushed open the door of La Cachette.

“Not coming,” Parker said. “At least not with me.”

“Oh.” Plum managed a half-a-smile. “Got it.”

Parker didn't have to say anything else to her friends and that was just fine by her. The Lylas knew exactly how she felt—even without any more words.