Picture Perfect (Geek Girl, Book 3)

  By the time the humming, dull neon lights of the planetarium are turned back on again forty minutes later, I have no idea where I am. And even less idea what Cal’s doing still holding my hand.

  I’d kind of forgotten I had one in the first place.

  “Are you OK?” Cal says, slipping his arm around my shoulders. “It looks like you’ve been crying.”

  I touch my wet cheeks in surprise.

  “That was …” There are 1,025,109 words in the English language, and at this precise moment I cannot find a single one of them. “Beautiful.”

  Cal smiles. “Just like you then.”

  And the real world comes back to me with a BANG.

  I stand up so quickly my knee smashes into the seat in front of us.

  “I think …” I say, wrenching my hand from his and looking at the door. “I think I should go home.”

  Cal’s face falls.

  “Oh,” he says flatly. “Sorry if I offended you.” He looks at the screen around us. “I was just trying to make up for you missing the photo shoot.”

  My insides twist.

  I am a horrible, ungrateful person. This boy has just given me forty amazing minutes of one of my favourite things ever, and my response is to run away.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, flushing. “Thank you so much, Cal. It’s just …”

  You’re not Nick.

  “I have to get home, my parents are going to be worried, I’m supposed to be grounded …”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says, shrugging. He stands up and starts walking past me to the exit.

  “But …” He looks so hurt. So deflated. “Cal …”

  “I said don’t worry about it,” he snaps. “Let’s go.”

  I follow Cal in meek silence to the exit.

  I’m so ashamed of myself, but I don’t know how to make it right. And now there’s just this awkward space between us where something else is supposed to go.

  Except I’m not sure exactly what that is.

  “Well,” I say nervously as we stand on the steps of the American Museum of Natural History.

  The sky has clouded over and it looks like it’s about to rain.

  Maybe there’s about to be a rainbow after all.

  That’s embarrassing.

  “Catch you later,” Cal says in monotone as I search for a suitably irrelevant fact to fill the silence with.

  And without another word he turns and walks away.

  watch Cal leave with a guilty lump in my throat.

  Miss Hall was right: I really need to work on my first impressions. And my second, and my third. Fourth might need a good hard think about too.

  It’s probably best if I find another subway stop to get back to Grand Central station. I don’t think that awkwardness needs to be extended to standing on the same platform together.

  My phone vibrates and I grab it quickly.

  OK. Flying to California for a last-minute shoot. Back in a few days. Nick

  Moths don’t have stomachs, and I suddenly know exactly how they feel. As I stare at the message, mine disappears completely.

  There’s no kiss. No LBx. No PS.

  Just ‘Nick’.

  As if his name isn’t in my phone and I can’t see it at the top of the message. As if I didn’t learn every digit of his phone number off by heart months ago, along with his agency number, email address and precise height in centimetres.

  Whatever it is Kenderall wanted to achieve today, it clearly hasn’t worked. Nick is just getting further away.

  I’m losing him completely.

  In a burst of panic, I hit a few buttons with sweaty fingers.

  “Kenderall,” I say breathlessly, “I don’t know what you wanted to happen but it didn’t and now I don’t know what to do and Nick sounds really angry and …”

  “Whoa there,” Kenderall shouts. “First. Are you wearing culottes? That is not a look your stylist encourages.”

  I thought they were pretty jaunty, as well as multipurpose: they double as both shorts and a skirt.

  “You’re not listening,” I say, tugging impatiently at them. “Nick isn’t happy one bit. He said he’s gone away and he didn’t call to say goodbye, and …” I stop. “How do you know what I’m wearing?”

  There’s a sharp whistle and Kenderall stalks towards me in bright orange leggings, silver high heels and a neon-orange crop top. She has an enormous gold bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Seriously, babe,” she says loudly into her phone, even though I’m stood right here, “you are making this an uphill battle for me. My hyphen is at risk here. These don’t make me look good.”

  I stare at Kenderall. How did she know where I was?

  “So,” she adds, putting the phone down and air-kissing a metre from my cheek as per usual. “Let’s see this text.”

  I click on Nick’s reply and hold it up.

  “He’s furious,” she agrees happily. “That is one unhappy guy, right there.”

  Sugar cookies.

  “I should ring him and apologise,” I say, grabbing my phone back. “I should explain who Caleb is. No, I should get a taxi to the airport and run through the departures lounge with I’M SO SORRY written on a big white board and he’ll see it and all the airport staff will start singing and—”

  “My God,” Kenderall says. “No wonder you British girls lose your guys. Talk about needy.”

  Oh. “So what should I do?”

  “Nothing, babe. He gets angry, then he gets jealous, then worried. When he’s terrified he’s lost you, he realises he loves you. This is how it works.”

  That seems like an awfully long sequence of emotions to predict accurately, given that each of us has our own chemical make-up.

  “Right,” I say doubtfully. “But isn’t that …” I try to find a word that doesn’t sound accusatory. “Manipulation?”

  “Exactly,” Kenderall says cheerfully. “And while we wait for this Nick boy to sort his feelings out, we’re going to party.”

  She hands me an envelope. Inside it is a piece of cream card stamped in the middle with swirly gold and silver letters saying:

  Gotham Hall? Isn’t that where Batman lives?

  Then I look at the envelope. It has HARRIET MANNERS written on it in huge letters, and was clearly opened before she handed it to me.

  “Who gave you this?”

  “That funny little stylist, William or whatever. I bumped into him at LA MODE yesterday. I said I’d be seeing you and he asked me to pass this on. Except apparently they’ve run out of invitations so you’ll have to take me as your Plus One.”

  “It’s Wilbur,” I say distantly. “With a bur and not an iam.” Then I look at the invitation again. “I can’t go. I need to get home before it gets dark.”

  “We can’t not go,” Kenderall says. “Everyone who is anyone will be there. And we need to be the anyones.”

  “But …”

  If they haven’t already, Annabel and Dad will surely work out I’m missing by nightfall. I’ve got to get back to Greenway before it’s too late.

  “Oh,” Kenderall says tensely as I desperately search for an excuse that sounds more grown-up than I’m grounded. “So I do all this stuff for you, but you won’t even go to a party for me? I thought we were friends.”

  I flush with guilt.

  I am being incredibly selfish.

  Again.

  “I suppose we could just pop in?” I suggest tentatively, quickly trying to do the maths. If we just drop in, I can be home around 8pm. That isn’t that late, is it?

  “Awesome,” Kenderall says, holding out a bag.

  “Oh, and you left these at Fred’s. Your Ump will never work if you don’t actually wear them, y’know.”

  Inside the bag are the lobster shoes.

  Sugar cookies.

  “We’ll just be there for half an hour, right?” I check as Kenderall grabs my elbow and starts dragging me down the road behind her.

  “Babe,” she laughs. “Hal
f an hour is all we’re going to need.”

  otham Hall was built in 1922.

  It was originally the Greenwich Savings Bank, and was inspired by an Ancient Roman prototype with columns of limestone and sandstone. Inscriptions are written all over the inside: about Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom, and Mercury, the god of Commerce.

  And Batman has never lived there.

  None of which is of any interest to Kenderall.

  As we walk through the Upper East Side of Manhattan, down Fifth Avenue, past the Four Seasons and Prada and Gucci and Tiffany & Co. and Armani, I crack out my guidebook and find out as much as I can about where we’re going. Partly because I’m genuinely curious and partly because studying is what I automatically do when I’m really nervous.

  But mostly because if my head is burrowed in a book, I can pretend I can’t see all of the people staring at me.

  Half an hour ago, Kenderall dragged me into the Bloomingdale’s’ toilet to get ready. I now look like the enthusiastic love-child of disco Barbie and a rainbow macaw.

  My dress is bright red and yellow and blue and green. It runs in a tight column all the way down to my feet and then explodes into a mass of yellow feathers at the bottom and in a stream along the floor.

  My skin is covered in thick foundation, my cheeks are pink, my lips are red and on my eyelids are fake black eyelashes so large that every time I look up I think a couple of enormous spiders are trying to attack my face.

  On my feet are the lobster shoes.

  And – between the extreme tightness of the dress and the highness of my heels – the only real method of transporting myself is to shuffle in tiny pigeon steps, like a traditional Japanese geisha.

  Or, you know: a pigeon.

  In the meantime, Kenderall looks beautiful in a simple orange minidress with a gold chain belt.

  “What?!” she says as I look at my outfit and then at hers. “Babe, orange is my brand.”

  In the animal kingdom, colour has many uses. It can be used as camouflage or as a warning. It can be a way of communicating, of attracting or repelling, of scaring or appealing.

  It can even be a way of pretending.

  The Monarch butterfly has bright colours to let the world know it’s poisonous. The Viceroy butterfly has bright colours to make the world think it’s a Monarch.

  I think I know which category I fall into.

  On the upside, at least nobody’s going to try and eat me. I look extremely inedible.

  We turn the corner on to Broadway and Gotham Hall looms in front of us. It’s tucked away, as only an enormous eight-column Romanesque building can be tucked away in New York: smallish and antique against the vast skyscrapers.

  An American flag hangs at the front, a red carpet curves down the stairs, and blue lights are shining from underneath and wrapped in tiny sparkles around the trees outside so the whole thing looks enchanted.

  As we walk nearer I realise with a lurch that New York has changed again.

  Gone is the sunny tourist buzz of a New York day or the quiet calm of a New York early morning. Gone is the far-away twinkle of New York when you look at it from a distance.

  At dusk, it’s like the inside of a kaleidoscope. The bright reds and greens of traffic lights, the yellows and pinks and oranges of shop signs and cars flashing, the blues of fairy lights, the whites and yellows of lamps and lit offices, the purples and blacks and silvers of the people walking past.

  And across the road, next to Gotham Hall, people are emerging smoothly from black cars in short bursts of colour, like butterflies from a chrysalis.

  They walk up the red carpet into Gotham Hall, glittering and shimmering. A blonde with an enormous, pale pink dress with embroidered lace down her back; a brunette with dark ringlets and a green gown with sequins like stars all over it. An older lady with a silver chignon and a navy blue high-necked gown; a young girl in lilac decorated with pale blue flowers.

  The men follow them: monochrome and rigid in black and white, like gallant penguins.

  I look nervously down at my dress for the umpteenth time.

  I still don’t like parties. They terrify me. And this one looks like the most daunting one I’ve ever been within a mile of.

  Maybe Kenderall will let me ‘make an impression’ from Pronto Pizza takeaway opposite. I can stand on a table and twirl round every time she points in my direction.

  “Umm,” I say, trying to prop myself up against a bollard. If I fall over, I suspect I’m going to go down in a straight line, like a tree. “Are you sure I look … appropriate?”

  “Babe,” Kenderall says. “You look remarkable.”

  The word remarkable comes from the sixteenth century French word, remarquer, which means: observable, extraordinary, conspicuous.

  But that just means I stand out.

  It doesn’t actually indicate whether it’s in a good way or bad.

  “She does,” a voice says from behind us. “She looks incredible.”

  My cheeks are red before I’ve even spun round.

  “Hi, Cal,” I mumble. “How are you?”

  “Brilliant,” he says, flashing his blinding smile.

  There’s no sign of the awkwardness of just a few hours ago. No sign, in fact, that he remembers the planetarium, or holding my hand, or seeing me at all.

  I feel myself relax a little.

  Maybe I didn’t offend him. Maybe he just feels awkward around girls that cry in cinemas because the solar system is really pretty.

  I’m not sure I can entirely blame him.

  “So,” Cal says. “Do I get to walk into this party with the most beautiful girl in New York on my arm?”

  I look at Kenderall expectantly.

  “He’s not talking about me,” she says, rolling her eyes. “My God, Brits are ridiculous.”

  Cal holds out his elbow. “Only as friends,” he says, winking.

  I take it as gently as I can. I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever had a boy offer me his arm before. And at least if my ridiculous shoes defeat me on the stairs I won’t fall over on my own.

  Maybe that’s what I should have been looking for.

  “Now,” Kenderall shouts with glee. “Let’s P.A.R.T.Y.”

  he Oxford English Dictionary defines grand as:

  The Grand Ballroom of Gotham Hall is exactly what it purports to be.

  As Cal, Kenderall and I walk up the red-carpeted stairs and push open the ornate golden doors, it unfolds in front of us like an enormous, circular Aladdin’s cave.

  Above us is a huge gilded ceiling with a circle of blue stained glass in the middle, through which you can just see the sky. A huge gold and crystal chandelier hangs, suspended in a sparkling globe, and below it is a marble floor with gold leaf in spirals and circles scattered across its surface.

  It looks like the ballroom has been overgrown by a magical ghost forest: there are pale white trees everywhere, covered in tiny, paper-thin white leaves which seem to grow out of golden holes in the floor.

  Gossamer-thin blue chiffon has been draped from the ceiling, and on the walls are the shining silhouettes of blue trees and birds, as if the entire room has been submerged under water.

  Tiny lanterns hang from the ceiling, and hundreds of white candles are placed at intervals around the room, flickering and shivering.

  Purple and blue flowers have been wound around everything – around white linen tables, around marble columns, around seats covered in white muslin – and in the corner a girl in a pale blue dress plays a white harp so the room is filled with a tinkling, water-like sound.

  It’s so beautiful, so other-worldly, that for a few seconds I can’t even speak. I feel exactly like Cinderella.

  Cal and Kenderall don’t appear to be quite so bowled over.

  “Nice,” Cal says as he hands our bags in at the cloakroom, then grabs a tiny canapé from a silver tray gliding past.

  “Not bad,” Kenderall says, shrugging. “Oooh, is that the editor of Vogue? I must go and introduce myself.” br />
  She glances at me.

  “Stay here,” she adds firmly, “and try to turn around as much as possible. If anybody asks, I styled you, OK? Give them these.”

  She hands me twenty or thirty business cards from her tiny orange handbag.

  Kenderall Angel Dua

  Top Model-Stylist-Pig Owner

  Bring your BRAND to LIFE

  BE UNFORGETABLE

  I’m not entirely sure whether to tell her she’s spelt ‘unforgettable’ wrongly or not.

  Although at least that’s one way to achieve it.

  Instead, I nod obediently and take them. There’s nowhere in this dress to put them, so I grab a stretchy gold bangle off my wrist and strap them to my arm instead.

  “HELLO?” Kenderall shouts across the room. “SUSAN? It is Susan, isn’t it? What a spectacular dress. Why don’t you reconsider the shoes you’re wearing with it?”

  And she stalks towards a woman wearing a gold gown and a darkening expression on her face.

  Cal leans forward. “Can I just say,” he says underneath his breath, “that of all the pretty girls in the room tonight, you are by far the most—”

  “Bubba-lloo!” a familiar voice interrupts. Wilbur skitters towards me, dressed in a silver suit, covered in thin, translucent sequins. From a distance, he looks somewhat like a portly tuna. “Don’t you just look …”

  And then he stops and his eyes widen.

  “What the billybuttons are you wearing, Munchkin? You look like somebody accidentally tried to play paintball with a parrot.”

  “Kenderall did it,” I say as loyally as I can, handing him a business card. “It used to be white, but she dyed it and added the feathers for a more unique take.”

  “Oh, sugarmonkeys,” Wilbur sighs, staring at the card and then looking around the room. “Nancy is going to kill me.”

  On the other side of the room, Kenderall shouts: “Babe, that dress is just foul. You need help. Call me on 858 …”

  Wilbur shivers.

  “My mistake. I should have sealed that invitation with wax or arsenic,” he says. “Or just given it to you directly, like a non-insane person.”

  Then he looks at the space behind me.