A Tale of Two Besties (14 page)

“Okay, that one sounded like ‘Greensleeves' meets Haim, for sure,” Drew huffed happily after Jug Judies rehearsal in the Pathways music room. It always took him awhile to catch his breath after thirty straight minutes of “tooting” (as he called it). “Lady Lily, why didn't you tell us you had such an amazing set of lungs?”

I grinned. “Is that your nice way of saying you don't like the way I strum my uke?” I gave my instrument a loud twang for good measure.

“Shush your face, just shush it!” Drew said, pushing his blond mop-top out of his eyes and grinning at me. “If I had your talent I would have sold it to Disney already so I could be the next Miley.”

“Oh, please, if there was anyone off today, it was me!” Jane said, pushing her chair away from her oversized harp, swooning over toward me, and laying her gigantic fluff of ebony hair into my lap. “Lileeee! Please sprinkle some of your magic dust on me, that I might play as fair a sound as you, m'lady!”

I threw my hair in front of my face and scratched at it furiously, sending a cloud of dandruff down on Jane's head. “Here ya gooo!”

“Settle down, you two!” mock-scolded Drew. “Remember, here at Pathways we're all about NAMASTE!”

We all giggled furtively. In the last week or so since we founded the Jug Judies, Jane, Drew, and I have become much closer friends. Nicole would probably be offended if she heard the way we sometimes laughed about NAMASTE, but that was only because she was so dedicated to her club that she didn't really have a sense of humor about it. We all agreed that it was really inspirational, the way Nicole was able to get up in front of a group and give a big talk like she did the first week of school, and that none of us would even be friends if it wasn't for her. We really owed her everything, but the truth was, I was still really shaken by the whole fairy wing thing, and I felt more relaxed when I didn't have to put one-on-one time in with anyone. But I felt bad for even thinking like that because Nicole was the kind of person who could definitely read your thoughts.

The fact was, Drew and Jane were a lot more laid-back than Nicole was, and easier to be around. I hadn't known this when we first met, but Jane's father was one of the first African American television network heads, which is how Jane became so media-and Internet-obsessed, having spent most of her life defending her dad against racist trolls in the comment section of
Deadline
,
Variety,
and
The Hollywood Reporter
.

Jane's blog, FancyFashionFeminist, gets thousands of hits and she's even been written about by
Teen Vogue
and Refinery29 and a bunch of other publications who keep putting her on lists about young tastemakers. Not that I know much about that world, but I think Jane sells herself a little short. She really does have amazing taste and a fantastic eye for fashion, and unlike most of the Internet, Jane's posts are always funny and well-written. She writes from a platform of body-acceptance and reaches such a large and diverse audience that she was once even mentioned by the ladies on
Good Morning America
.

I didn't realize how late it'd gotten until I glanced at the clock above a row of music stands. We had to go to a quick catch-up meeting for the NAMASTE officers, and then I had to hustle out to meet Harper, who I really, really owed. She was having a rough time at school, and I'd been so worried that I was maybe betraying her and our pact every single day I wore my wings at Pathways that I didn't even know how to talk to her like a real person anymore. Could she tell how shady I was being over text? I hoped not, but Harper is so socially intuitive that I was sure that was just wishful thinking. For the first time ever, I felt nervous about meeting up with my bestie.

“Guys, maybe we should pack up,” I said. “Nicole is supposed to meet us in five minutes and you know how pissed she gets if our ‘extras' make us late.” Nicole considered anything outside of sessions and NAMASTE to be an “extra,” i.e., “a nonessential part of the core growth opportunities offered by Pathways.” The Jug Judies seemed to particularly rub her the wrong way.

As we left the music room, Drew goosed me from behind, I screeched, and we all ended up running and laughing down the hall. There were small pockets of kids still roaming around, going to and from various activity groups, and you could tell one from the other based on the way each student-cluster was dressed and styled. But the one thing they all had in common is that when we flashed by one another, almost everyone waved and smiled at me. Someone even shouted, “Hey, it's Fairy Girl! Fairy Girl!” I turned back and give a dramatic bow. The hallway, I'm not exaggerating,
cheered
for me. I didn't even know a lot of these kids; a lot of them looked older, but they all knew who I was. It felt amazing. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was popular.

Not that it matters, or anything. But it's
nice
. Especially to have people like you for the right reasons, like how creative and unique you are. Is this what it's been like for Harper her entire life?

Nicole was walking toward us in the Lane. She was kind of hard to spot, as she was rocking a shoulder-length blond wig over her real hair, which she'd recently changed from bright green to a beautiful shade of blue.

“
Namaste,
friends,” she said as we all hugged hello.

“Oh! I almost forgot,” I said. “My friend Harper? I've told you about her, she's my best friend? She goes to Beverly High? Well, her birthday is coming up and I haven't been able to see her in a while, so I'm going to make a Walgreens run with her today after school.”

“A . . . Walgreens run?” Nicole said, wrinkling her nose. She had on metallic eye shadow and a black romper with a red vinyl belt and white stilettos. It was
trés
punk rock.

“Yeah, it's just this silly thing we do,” I said, looking to Jane and Drew, but they were both suddenly busy on their phones. “But it's kind of Zen-like, you know? Walking through all those aisles and finding the nail polishes with the craziest names and trying on Burt's Bees samples, or buying a giant container of Cheez Doodles for a dollar and then pigging out on them in the parking lot. We could spend hours in there, and definitely have. It's actually very relaxing. It's like . . .
flow
.”

Nicole made a snorting noise, but didn't say anything. Neither did Drew or Jane. Sometimes when I talked about Harper, or about anything from middle school, really, they would all just get really quiet, and I didn't know why. I thought maybe it was because they thought I was bragging. Like, “Ooh, have I told you yet about this popular blond cheerleader-type girl who's chosen me to be her best friend?!” Seeing that Pathways was so alternative, I could understand why Nicole and the rest of them might not have ever fit in with Harper and her friends. Maybe they felt left out when I brought her up or told them stories about her, even though that was silly—Nicole was unlike any other person I'd ever met. That was kind of the point Nicole was trying to make: There was no one else like her, so don't even try.

“Maybe you guys want to come with us? Harper is so great, and she's always asking about all three of you!”
Shoot,
I thought, of course not thinking to think until
after
I'd invited them. What was I doing? If Nicole came along with me to Walgreens, then I'd have to wear my wings and then Nicole would mention how she'd bought a pair too, and then Harper will know I'm only wearing them because Nicole told me to. Even though the wings were my “thing” before I'd ever even met Nicole. And then Harper would meet my new NAMASTE friends and then we'd all become best friends and then Nicole, Jane, Drew, and I would make care packages to send over to Beverly High and—

I was broken out of my daydream by Nicole. “No, that's okay Lily, I think we'll pass,” she said, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. “Though you should totally have fun at your . . . Walgreens spree.”

“It's a
run
,” I said, still smiling like an idiot. “Not like a fashion spree or anything. More like a ‘Oh, let's crank up the radio and play Adele, get some frozen yogurt and do a Walgreens run!' run. You have to see some of these names they give their off-brand nail polish. One time, Harper and I found one that was called ‘Thanks a Latte' and we couldn't stop saying the name to ourselves over and over again in this really sassy Valley Girl accent, like ‘
uh, thanks a latte for this super tacky manicure!
'”

Drew cracked first and I smiled at him gratefully.

“Jane, I bet you could do a whole blog post just on the sheer ridonk of some of the stuff you'll find in their beauty section. Seriously, Wet'n'Wild has a whole line named after TV shows . . . ‘How I Met Your Magenta', ‘Gray's Anatomy', ‘Sa-green-a the Teenage Witch' . . .”

“Are you telling me that this mega-chain is actually stocking some meta-commentary on a Melissa Joan Hart show in the beauty aisle?” Jane was almost bouncing from excitement. “I've got to see this for myself.”

Jane looked to Nicole, as if asking for permission. Nicole picked up her book bag and started heading for the exit, and for a second I thought that she'd been persuaded, so I gathered my things and started following her out. But then she stopped and motioned for me to stay behind with her while ordering Jane and Drew to meet her at her car.

I loved Nicole's Tesla Roadster. It was hot pink, and everyone was jealous because apparently they hadn't even released the electric cars in novelty colors to the general public yet, but Nicole's parents had one special-ordered to arrive right before school started. Nicole had been giving me rides home every day, practically, except for my first day, when Harper and Rachel came to pick me up. Once I'd started up with all my extracurricular stuff, it didn't make sense for Harper and I to carpool anymore, which actually felt like a blessing in disguise since I wasn't sure what my new Pathways friends would think of my BFF. As much as I loved and was obsessed with Harper, I had to admit that her laid-back style didn't at all fit Pathways' intensely creative vibe. And when I saw Harper, I wanted to be able to fill her in from the beginning about NAMASTE and the fact that the Gawkward Fairy had started a fashion trend. In fact, I'd already started seeing a couple of pairs of wings pop up here and there around the Lane: DIY dragonfly blades made out of luminous cellophane on a girl dressed in a steampunk corset, feathery angel wings on a willowy boy who looked like a Bollywood star, and even a couple of kids who had taken to wearing backpacks shaped like monarch butterflies. Jane dutifully took photos of each new example of “NAMASTE-solidarity”—as Nicole called it—and even though Jane and Drew and Nicole were still waiting for their custom-made wings to arrive, the last thing I wanted was for Harper to think that I was wearing mine just because they had gotten trendy. I still couldn't believe that being trendy was even a thing in my atmosphere.

When Jane and Drew had walked out of sight, Nicole grabbed my arm and turned to me. “Look,” she said sweetly, but she was squeezing a little too hard. “I don't care what your friend Harper thinks about falling to the false idols of consumer packaging and corporate megastore commercialism. But I
do
care about what my friend Lily thinks of a store that exploits their employees.”

“Hey, they do not!” I said, because for once Nicole was really wrong. I'd done a paper in middle school about businesses with good labor practices. Walgreens was really not as bad as a lot of other places, which is why Harper and I chose it as our fun-day treat emporium.

Nicole sighed at me, as if I were some puppy she was training and she was just totally exasperated with me. “Lily, if you need to run to meet your friend, by all means,” Nicole said, stepping aside and loosening her grip and guiding me the rest of the way out of the building. She didn't say anything again until we'd caught up with Jane and Drew, who were standing by the Tesla in the parking lot. “I'm just so sorry that
we
will have to decline.” Jane and Drew looked down to the pavement and mumbled apologies.

“Hey look, it's the NAMASTE girls!” A senior boy in a derby hat and suspenders shouted as he drove by in a vintage blue Mustang. A couple girls giggled in the backseat and waved. “Love what you ladies are into!”

“NAMASTE!” The four of us yelled back, as peacefully as we could.

“Is that David Copperfield's son?” I asked, my eyes glued to the crystals hanging from the rearview mirror of the receding car. “The magician prodigy who froze himself in ice and then was dropped out of an airplane?”

None of my friends answered me, as they had all been busy getting into Nicole's Roadster. I still had no idea what her parents did for a living, because at Pathways it was considered gauche to ask (though usually people ended up telling you within the first twenty seconds of meeting them, so I didn't really understand that rule).