Cate squeezed into the tiny white bathroom and closed the door. The fluorescent light above them buzzed. “What were you going to say to Sophie?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” Blythe said, looking confused. “I just needed her tampons.” She combed her fingers through her dirty blond hair. “What’s your deal?”
Cate crossed her arms over her chest, annoyed. “I should ask you the same thing.” She needed to set B.B. straight: Either you’re second-in-command, or you’re out. She didn’t want to boot Blythe, boobs or not, from the Chi Beta Phis. But if that was what it came down to, Cate would do it. She’d have to…
“I know what you’re trying to do.” Cate leaned against the bathroom door and reached for the knob, pressing the lock down with a menacing click.
“What are you talking about?” Blythe squeaked, her orange face looking a little paler than usual.
“That comment at the sleepover. The eye roll at lunch the other day. You’re staging a coup.”
“Um…are you serious?” Blythe shook her head. “I’m not staging…a coup.”
“Right. Then where did you go after Barneys on Tuesday?” Cate demanded, tapping her Tory Burch flat impatiently on the floor. Cate had trusted Blythe ever since third grade. She’d been the only one brave enough to come to the house after her mom died and sit with her as she cried. She had even brought Cate a present: her stuffed bear Randolph. She wanted desperately to trust Blythe again, she did. But listening to her flounder was like watching the Home Shopping Network—Cate just wasn’t buying it.
Blythe looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “I can’t tell you,” she said softly.
“Stop lying to me!” Cate cried. She shook her head and a strand of dark brown hair fell in her face. “You’re phonier than a Canal Street handbag!”
“Fine!” Blythe snapped. She pulled her bag off the hook on the wall and started digging through it. “I wanted to wait until Sunday, but I guess I’ll have to do this now, in the freaking Jackson Hole bathroom.” She pushed a robin’s egg blue box into Cate’s hand, along with a balled-up piece of white satin ribbon.
Cate stared at the small black type that read TIFFANY & CO., suddenly quiet. This whole time Blythe was sneaking around…buying her presents?
“I wanted to surprise you…” Blythe mumbled, “At the wedding.” Cate opened the box. Nestled in a velvet pouch was a tiny sterling silver locket. “I know it’s hard for you with your dad getting remarried. And I know how you like to have something of your mom’s with you all the time.” Cate held the silver necklace up in front of her face. The oval locket had a tiny silver orchid etched on its front. It was beautiful. “I thought you could put a picture of your mom in it, and you could wear it all the time. See?” Blythe popped open the front of it. “Priya and Sophie helped me pick it out.”
Cate looked at the locket, then back at Blythe. The same Blythe who’d stayed up all night with Cate, helping her rehearse her lines when she played Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She’d sat in the front row with the script for all three performances, just in case Cate forgot her lines.
Cate felt a knot rising in the back of her throat. “Thank you, Blythe,” she said softly, putting the locket around her neck. “It’s perfect.” She leaned over and hugged her friend tightly, tears welling in her eyes.
She had been so stupid. Blythe was the same loyal friend she always had been—just with a bigger chest.
“I’m sorry,” Cate whispered into Blythe’s ear. She stood back and wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s silly—I got nervous you were tired of being so…behind the scenes. Like, in my shadow.”
“No…” Blythe muttered. She smoothed down the front of her purple striped button-down.
Cate opened the bathroom door, relieved. Everything was back as it should be. But as she moved through the restaurant, she suddenly remembered that Stella was the one who had planted the seeds of suspicion. You should watch your back, she’d said.
Stella was the schemer. She’d tricked Cate, to try to get into the Chi Beta Phis.
Cate glanced at her watch. It was five twenty-five. When Stella walked through the door late and empty-handed, this would all be over. No generous pardon for failing her final trial. No nothing. They had to be sisters—but they didn’t have to be friends.
Cate sat back down and Blythe sat next to her. All the plates were gone, but Sophie had ordered a milk shake and was using her straw like an eyedropper, feeding herself tiny strawberry sips. She stopped suddenly, her gaze resting on something behind Cate. Priya was looking out the window too, her brown eyes wide.
“What?” Cate finally asked, turning around in her seat.
“No way!” Sophie squealed.
Cate couldn’t believe it either. Stella was strolling around the corner…with the entire Haverford basketball team. Tall, blond Braden Pennyworth was in front, then a boy with peach fuzz brown hair, followed by a kid who looked like Josh Hartnett’s stunt double. Cate counted fourteen of them, and all of them were cute. She looked at her watch, hoping against hope that it was past five thirty.
But it was five twenty-nine.
Braden opened the glass door of the restaurant so Stella could step through. Every head in Jackson Hole turned toward the doorway as Stella strutted confidently down the central aisle, the collar of her cherry red Lacoste polo shirt popped up. She approached the table, picking up the hem of her pleated uniform skirt and curtsying. “You said to bring back the shorts,” she said smugly, her olive green eyes shining. “I hope it’s okay that the team is still in them.”
Cate gritted her teeth.
Priya eyed the Josh Hartnett look-alike. “It’s definitely okay!” she cried, shooting him a little smile.
“Definitely…” Blythe pulled her shoulders back, sticking out her chest.
“Good.” Stella kept her eyes on Cate. “This is Braden,” she said, pointing to the blond boy, “and this is Ryan, Nate, Kevin, Drew…”
Cate stopped listening after the fifth name. She hated that Stella was introducing her to Braden Pennyworth. She might as well have been telling her what subway to take to Union Square, or recommending the pumpkin waffles at Sarabeth’s.
The boys crowded around the table. Blythe was talking to five of them at the same time, telling them about her summer in Greece. Sophie and Priya stood up to talk to Braden, whose biceps were perfectly toned, as though all he did was eat, sleep, and play basketball. Cate stayed in her seat, feeling like she might puke up her tuna melt.
She squinted her eyes, trying to pretend the boys were the Haverford chess club, and Braden Pennyworth was just Fillmore Weitz, the four-foot-nine pizza-faced eighth-grader who’d actually had the nerve to ask her to the Haverford formal last year. But it was useless. Braden Pennyworth was still Braden Pennyworth, and Stella was still blond, gorgeous, and determined to weasel her way into the Chi Beta Phis.
When all the boys had filed out the glass door, Stella pulled up a chair and sat down at the end of the table—the head of the table. She had done it: completed the final trial, on time, and given the girls a much-needed dose of hotness. She was as good as in.
“Omigodomigodomigod!” Sophie cried, pressing her hands to her face. “I cannot believe that just happened.”
Priya kept gawking at Stella like she was a celebrity. “How’d you do that?” she asked, twisting her shiny black hair into a ponytail.
“Did you see the boy with the moppy hair?” Blythe breathed. “Drew? I touched his six-pack.”
Cate cleared her throat. “You know, technically the trial was to steal the shorts,” she pointed out. “If I order filet mignon, I can’t accept Spam.”
Priya grabbed Sophie’s milk shake and took a sip. “What are you talking about? I would much rather meet fourteen Haverford guys than sift through a pile of smelly gym shorts,” she laughed.
“We never hang out with guys,” Blythe agreed.
Cate looked down at the beat-up wood table, a little hurt. Fine, Cate had never
set up any Haverford meet-and-greets, but had they forgotten about last spring, when she’d held a sleepover at the W hotel penthouse? Or the time she’d hired a driver to take them to East Hampton for the day, where they ate oysters at Della Femina, next to Natalie Portman?
“Forget waiting until Saturday to vote,” Priya added, “I think Stella should be in.” Stella straightened up in her chair, looking pleased.
“But I specifically said steal,” Cate said desperately. She looked around for support, but Blythe and Sophie were staring at the table, staying Switzerland-neutral. “Fine, let’s vote then,” she growled. She stared at Sophie, who was carving an S into the table with her fork. “Who wants Stella to be in?”
Priya and Blythe looked at Stella and slowly raised their hands.
Sophie was still working at her S. “I don’t want to vote,” she said nervously, shaking her head. Ever since sixth grade, when Sophie joined the sorority, she had always voted with Cate—always.
“You have to,” all four girls said at the same time.
“Fine.” Sophie put down her fork, then slowly raised her hand. “I think Stella should be in,” she said, cringing.
Cate let out a deep breath.
“Fine,” Cate sighed, defeated. “You’re in.” She leaned back and crossed her arms.
“Cheers!” Stella cried. She clasped Priya’s hand, overjoyed. Now that she was an official member, it was only a matter of time before she was telling Sophie which pair of sandals she should wear with her teal Cynthia Rowley dress, or telling Blythe to stop using so much bronzer. Stella never had been good at following orders—but giving them? That was something she excelled at. “We should go to the Pierre to have tea Saturday to celebrate—it’s supposed to be just like the Ritz,” she said confidently.
“Let’s do it,” Priya agreed.
Cate shook her head, seething. Stella had made it into the Chi Beta Phis and now she was stuck with her—forever. Every sleepover, every sample sale, every Sunday afternoon in Sheep Meadow—Stella would be there, hanging out with her friends. And once someone was voted in, they were in. It was practically impossible to get them out.
Or was it?
Suddenly Cate remembered the day after Finding Nemo on Ice, when she took the Nemo hat Beth Ann Pinchowski had bought her and gave it to Sophie’s dog Peanut to use as a chew toy. Beth Ann had stormed out of Sophie’s room and stopped talking to them completely. She’d become friends with Tabitha Ferguson, a mousy girl with a gap between her front teeth.
Cate pulled her iPhone out of her purse and held it up to Sophie. “Sophie,” she said loudly, waving her phone in the air. “Can you help me pick out a new ring tone?”
Stella was describing Braden Pennyworth’s cologne—something between Old Spice and Drakkar Noir. Sophie turned away from the conversation and pushed a flat piece of light brown hair out of her eyes.
“What?” she asked, a little annoyed.
“I need a new ring tone—I was thinking of using that new song, ‘Kick It’? By Cloud McClean? You know who she is, right, Stella?” Cate raised her eyebrows suggestively.
Stella stopped talking, her face ashen. Her face looked confused, then betrayed, as though Cate had taken a picture of her picking her nose and sent it to every newspaper in London. Cate felt the slightest pang of guilt. That was sort of hitting below the belt. But lying and friend-stealing were equally bad crimes.
“You are not using that song,” Priya said, whipping her head around. The jeweled stud in her nose caught the light. “She wears unitards.”
Stella sat up straight in her seat and cleared her throat. She wanted to crawl under the table and cry, but she would never give Cate that satisfaction. “Don’t you guys vote for the leader every year?”
Blythe, Priya, and Sophie all looked at each other, then at Cate. “Um…yeah, technically.” Priya let out a nervous laugh. Sophie rested her chin on her hand and started humming softly.
“We should have a revote,” Stella pressed on, glancing around at the girls. She looked directly at Cate and smirked. She didn’t know how Cate had found out about the affair, but that comment was just cruel. And cruelty deserved retaliation.
“That’s a good idea,” Blythe agreed, tucking her hair behind her ears. “It is a new year…and we are in the upper school now.”
Cate dug her nails into her palm. Blythe was agreeing to this? She must’ve been angry about the interrogation in the bathroom. None of them were thinking straight—did they really want some random British girl bossing them around? They’d be drinking tea every Saturday for the next four years, their teeth slowly turning a dull yellow.
Priya tilted her head from one side to the other. “Yeah, let’s do it,” she said. Sophie nodded slowly in agreement.
“Brilliant,” Stella cried, clasping her hands together and grinning. “Then it’s settled. We can vote at the Pierre on Saturday.” She shot Cate a sweet smile.
Cate clenched her fists. Stella was out for her throne. Now it was really on.
WINNING PRINCE CHARMING
Lola leaned in close to Elton John’s shiny face, studying the gap between his teeth. “He looks so real,” she said softly.
“I thought you went to the one in London.” Kyle pushed his bangs off his forehead. He walked past a wax figure of Tina Turner and touched her hair. She looked like she’d been attacked by a crimping iron.
They’d decided to go to Madame Tussauds tonight, while Kyle’s parents went to see a new off-off-Broadway play where a man disassembled a television set while singing opera.
“No, never,” Lola said, staring at Kyle for a second too long.
Since her “lesson” on Tuesday, Lola had been studying nonstop—tossing her hair in the mirror and walking down the sidewalk so carefully an old lady with a walker had passed her. She’d even memorized the Wikipedia article on football (er, soccer) word for word and knew all the field positions (goalie, fullback, forward, midfielder). She was ready.
Kyle sniffed the air like a dog trying to pick up a scent. “I keep smelling vanilla cake batter in here,” he said. “Weird.”
“That’s just my perfume,” Lola said softly, tossing her hair over her shoulder flirtatiously, the way Andie had shown her. She had on her favorite pair of Gap jeans, the only ones that actually came down past her ankles, and one of Stella’s “casual tops”—a bright green silk blouse. This morning had been better than Christmas. She’d discovered Stella’s missing boxes under her bed—DRESS TOPS III AND BEAUTY SUPPLIES—just in time for her date. She was considering them payment for Stella hanging out with Cate all week.
“Since when do you wear perfume?” Kyle asked, furrowing his eyebrows. Next to them, three older boys with Mahwah High sweatshirts tried to look up Tina Turner’s sequined skirt.
“Since always,” Lola said, turning away quickly. Her face felt hot and red. She felt a little silly acting, but it seemed to be working. Kyle had already complimented her once on her shirt, telling her she looked so…girly. He hadn’t mentioned the ice cream disaster, either. It was like he had selective amnesia, forgetting only the things Lola wanted him to.
“Look!” she cried, spotting a few familiar friends. “The Spice Girls!” Scary Spice was sticking out her tongue, showing off a silver stud. Victoria Beckham was crouched down in Posh Spice mode, her arms raised above her head. Lola smiled, seeing an opportunity. “I wish I got to see Becks play when he was on Manchester United.”
“Totally,” Kyle agreed, resting his hands on the waist of his mesh shorts. “Wait…” He paused. “You never told me you liked soccer. Or do you just like Beckham?”
Lola stared into Kyle’s big brown eyes and then shoved his shoulder playfully, just like she’d rehearsed with Andie. “I love football,” she lied. “It’s my favorite sport—right after snowboarding.”
“You snowboard?” Kyle smiled at Lola, revealing his dimples. A church group in blinding fluorescent yellow T-shirts strolled through, pausing to take pictures with Miley and Bil
ly Ray Cyrus. “Impressive.”
Lola’s whole body warmed up. “Cheers.” She smiled, walking alongside him into the Hall of Presidents.
Lola stood next to Kyle, staring at a man with a nose so big it needed its own zip code. The rehearsal dinner was Saturday night, and her mum had told her she could bring anyone she wanted. Stella and Cate were bringing those daft girls who were always at the house, and Andie had said she’d probably bring Cindy. But Lola only had one person in mind. Her palms started to sweat just thinking about it.
“Do you know who any of these people are?” Kyle asked, glancing at a white-haired man with a saggy neck and a Will Smith look-alike. They were standing behind debate podiums in one corner of the room.
Lola laughed. “I don’t have a bloody clue.” She could stare at the big-nosed man all day long and she still wouldn’t know.
“Well, this is Richard Nixon—we learned about him in history class.” Kyle pulled his gum out of his mouth and pinched it between his fingers, a mischievous grin curling over his lips. “Dare me to stick some gum up his nose?”
“No!” Lola squealed, swatting him in the arm. She glanced around the hall, but the tourists had disappeared. There was only a middle-aged man in a tracksuit muttering furiously to “Bill Clinton.”
“Oh, come on. Remember when we used my mom’s hair dryer to melt all those crayons?” Kyle grinned wickedly, and Lola smiled too. Growing up, she and Kyle were always doing things they weren’t supposed to—using the buds of his mum’s rhododendrons as ammunition in their fort war, mixing Stella’s different creams to make a “potion.” She’d never had so much fun breaking the rules.
“Fine,” Lola said softly. “I dare you.” She put her hands on her hips. Kyle looked both ways before stuffing the wad of blue gum up Nixon’s big nose. Lola clapped her hands in front of her face and laughed.
“We have to get out of here—fast,” Kyle said, grabbing Lola’s thin arm. He pulled her toward the Hall of Sports Figures, the two of them erupting in a fit of giggles.