Beauty (14 page)

I nodded wordlessly, thinking about how perfect Ashley always looked. I swallowed back a laugh as I remembered her showing off her brand-new blue Keds. I wondered what Renee would have to say about those. “Anyway,” Renee went on. “I think you’d be a great candidate for the program. Girls like you are opinion leaders, Molly. If you think Haute is cool, then—believe me—it’s cool. I mean, who wouldn’t want to look like you?” She winked at me. “So, what do you say?”

“I, well …” I didn’t know what to say. This sounded too good to be true. There had to be some kind of catch, right? I was about to ask what it was when Hayley popped her head out of her dressing room. She’d unbuttoned the periwinkle dress in the back and hiked it up to her waist, but it was clearly stuck there, bunched so tight it was digging into her skin.

“She says yes,” she squealed. “Definitely yes.”

“Yeah?” Renee looked at me questioningly. “It’s pretty easy, Molly. You just have to sign a contract saying you’ll use Haute’s name seven times a week. Plus we’ll give you a cute key chain to put on your car keys for a little extra marketing.”

“I have a bike,” I told her faintly. My head was swimming. Free clothes? Any free clothes I wanted? I thought of the three hundred dollars tucked into my purse. If I did this, it could stay right there, where it belonged.

Renee laughed. “Okay, so your house keys then. So … ?” She waved temptingly at the periwinkle dress. “You in?”

“I’m in,” I said.

“And I’ll do it too!” Hayley exclaimed. She did a little jump in excitement, clapping her hands together.
Riiiiiip
! At the loud sound of fabric tearing, Renee, Hayley, and I all froze. My eyes darted to the dress bunched up on Hayley’s hips. It had split open along the seam, revealing Hayley’s neon pink underwear.

“Oh!” Hayley gasped, backing up into the dressing room. “I …I …” Suddenly her voice grew angry. “What a piece of crap this dress is! I can’t believe you’re charging two hundred dollars for it. All I did was take one step and it ripped. I should really call the designer and lodge a complaint!” She let the door to the dressing room slam shut again behind her.

Renee and I were both silent for a moment. Then Renee said, in a tight voice, “I don’t think you’ll be right for our program, Hayley.”

“You can just borrow my clothes, Hayl,” I jumped in quickly.

Hayley was quiet for a minute inside her dressing room. I heard another
riiiip
and then a loud grumble. “Whatever,” she said. “This store is so passé anyway.”

Flirting With(out) Disaster

THE HOUSE PHONE was ringing as I walked back into my house, lugging two bags of Haute clothes with me. I dropped the bags on the floor of the kitchen and grabbed the phone out of its stand. “Hello?”

“Hi, hon. It’s me.” My mom had her I’m-calling-from-the-office professional voice on.

“Hi, Mom. You still at work?”

“I am.” She sighed. “I had a late open house and now I have to do a bit of paperwork to tie some loose ends up. Dad’s stuck at the office too, so I just wanted to check in. I tried calling your cell, but it was off.”

It was? I pulled my cell out of my bag and saw that it was completely and totally dead. “Oh, sorry,” I said. “I think I forgot to charge it last night.”

“I figured,” my mom said. “Just making sure you’re okay.”

“I am,” I promised her. I glanced down at the bags I’d brought in with me. Better than she could know.

“All right, I’ll be home in a little bit, okay?”

Barely a minute after we hung up, the phone rang again.

“What did you forget this time?” I joked. My mom was famous for doing that: hanging up only to call back an instant later with more instructions.

“I forgot something?” My heart skipped a beat. I knew that voice, and it definitely wasn’t my mom’s.

“Sorry,” I said hastily. “I thought you were my mom. Well not that
you
were my mom but that it was my mom calling back, because she always does that, but then it was you instead, which obviously you know—” I took a deep breath. This was not going well.

There was a low laugh on the other end of the line. “I get that a lot, people thinking I’m their mom. But nope, just Hudson.”

“Hey,” I said quickly, wishing I could erase my momentary spaz-out. I couldn’t believe Hudson was calling me. Why was Hudson calling me? “What’s up?”

“A bunch of us are going to Scoop tomorrow night, and I just wanted to see if you might like to come.” There was a strange note to his voice, higher than usual. Was he
nervous
? “Hang out for a bit? Get some ice cream?”

My heart skipped another beat. It felt like one of those old records my dad liked to play around with, the kind that skipped and jumped all over the tracks. “Sure,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “Sounds like fun.” I couldn’t believe I was being invited to Scoop, and by Hudson Taylor of all people. I dropped into a chair, my legs feeling wobbly all of a sudden.

I’d only seen Scoop from a distance on Wednesdays. Sometimes Kemper, Hayley, and I would walk past on our way to Dominoes or the Main Street Arcade, taking turns sneaking peeks in the window. But we never dared go in. It was common knowledge at Miracle High; you just didn’t, not without an invite. Hayley had been hoping for months now to score an invite from Ashley or Blair, but so far, nothing. “Could I bring a friend or two?” I added quickly. Hayley hadn’t seemed too thrilled with me after the whole Teen Ambassador thing at Haute—she’d made up some lame excuse afterward about having to get home to do some reading—but she’d have to forgive me if I got her into Scoop on a Wednesday.

“Sure,” Hudson said. “It’s a date.”

A date?
I fiddled with the napkin holder on the kitchen table. Did he mean that like, it’s a plan? Or like, we’re going on a date? I coughed nervously. The line was silent between us, the only noise the slight static of a bad connection. So I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “I was thinking about it, and you probably should get your mom some dog mints.”

“Dog mints?” Hudson asked, sounding confused. “For my mom?”

I cringed. That had
not
come out the way it was supposed to. “Not for her to
use
, obviously,” I corrected quickly. “But I’ve been thinking about how to convince her to let you get a dog and, really, I think you just need to go at her from all sides. You know, weaken her resolve with pictures of their cuteness, then go for the empathy vote by bringing her to Paw Prints Shelter, and then finally, strike with the dog mints to show her that
your
dog never has to have dog breath.”

“Wow,” Hudson said. “That’s, like, a full-fledged
campaign
. I like it.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” I told him. “To convince our mom to let us get Spaghetti, Seth and I made an entire PowerPoint presentation for her entitled ‘Mission Dogpossible.’”

Hudson burst out laughing. “You know, maybe I should name my campaign too,” he said thoughtfully.

“Probably a good idea,” I agreed. I was surprised by my tone. It was light and easy … flirtatious even. I felt emboldened. “How about … ‘The Dog Days of Hudson?’ Or: ‘Every Dog Has Its Hudson.’”

“Molly Davis,” Hudson said solemnly, “I think you just earned yourself a role as my new campaign manager.”

“My dream job,” I laughed.

“We should really meet to discuss in person,” Hudson said. “You know, finalize my campaign strategy …”

“Make posters and buttons,” I added.

“Exactly. How about over lunch tomorrow?”

I broke into a smile. “I’ll pencil you in.”

“Ha. You probably
should
, considering how miserably my attempts to sit with you this week have failed.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. I kept my voice light as I did a little victory jump in my chair. So he
had
been trying to sit with me at lunch! “Lunch has been crazy this week.”

“Hey, you can’t help it if you’re popular.”

A laugh escaped my lips. I was pretty sure that was the first time I’d ever heard anyone describe me as that, and even after the two days I’d had, it still seemed to ring a little false.

“What? It’s true.” Hudson’s voice softened and I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes. Surrounded by darkness like that, his voice in my ear, I could pretend he was sitting right next to me. “Everyone just wants to be around you, Molly. It’s really … I don’t know, it’s kind of amazing.”

I could feel my face flush, and suddenly I was glad he couldn’t see me. “Thanks,” I whispered.

Hudson cleared his throat. “Let’s just hope you don’t cause a mob scene at Scoop tomorrow,” he said. “Or I might be stuck waving to you from across the room.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. I could feel that flirtatious tone creeping back into my voice. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

By the time we hung up twenty minutes later, I was practically glowing. Not only had Hudson Taylor called me, but we’d talked for over a half hour, and he’d asked me to hang out—very possibly on a date. I smiled to myself as I carried my bags upstairs and plugged in my dead cell phone. Plus, Hayley was going to be thrilled when I told her about our Scoop invite. This week couldn’t get much better.

Beep beep beep beep!
My phone let off a long series of beeps as it powered on. “Whoa,” I muttered as I looked at the screen. I had seven voicemails and thirteen texts. It was more messages than I usually got in a month, let alone a
night
. Quickly, I went through them all.

Kemper wanted to remind me not to breathe a word to anyone about Josh. Josh wanted to know if Kemper and I needed a ride to school the next day. Ashley, Blair, and Zach Martin all wanted to know if I planned to meet up with them at Scoop tomorrow night. And it didn’t stop there. Renee called to check on my new clothes. Karen, Ali, and Mark all thanked me for sitting with them at lunch that day. And five different guys—only one of whom I’d ever even spoken to before—called to ask me out on dates.

I stared at my phone for a minute in shock. Apparently, I’d been wrong. This week
could
get even better. I realized the only person I hadn’t heard from was Hayley. Opening up a new text, I plugged her number into it.
Guess who’s going 2 Scoop tmrw night?
I typed.
WE ARE! Hudson invited us. U in?

Hayley’s response came within seconds.
OMG!!!!!
DEF!!!

I smiled. That took care of that. Sitting down at my computer, I logged into my email. I hadn’t checked it all day and after all those missed calls, I figured I probably should. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the number of new emails I had:
123?
Slowly, I began scrolling through them. Friend request on Facebook. Friend request on Facebook. Friend request. Friend request. Friend request. I kept scrolling. They were
all
friend requests. I leaned back in my chair, my heart beating fast as I clicked accept over and over again—123 new friends? I blew out a long breath. Suddenly I couldn’t wait for school tomorrow.

When They Said Walk a Mile in Someone
Else’s Shoes, They Didn’t Mean Literally

JOSH’S BLACK SUV was waiting out front for me the next morning. “Hey,” I said, sliding into the backseat. Kemper was already in the front seat, looking extra Kemper-stylish in torn jeans, clunky brown leather boots, and a long, loosely knit orange tunic that I had a feeling was her own handiwork. The strand in her hair was still black, but she looked anything but in protest as she stole glances at Josh out of the corner of her eyes. I bit back a smile as I rolled down my window, letting the wind trickle in.

When I’d woken up that morning, I’d sprinted to the mirror again. But this time when I saw my flawless reflection starting back at me, I didn’t sag with relief so much as straighten up with excitement. Three days in and my skin was just as dewy, my hair was just as shiny, and my bone structure was just as defined. I was still the new me.

“So, you guys coming to Scoop tonight?” Josh asked. A car passing by beeped and a pretty senior leaned out the backseat window to wave hi to me.