Birthday Vicious (17 page)

“Really?” A. A. spun to face him, shocked. “But why? Cecily's great.”

“You like her?” Tri seemed confused.

“Yeah! I mean, I only met her a couple of times, but she seemed nice and all. Too nice for you, anyway.”

“She
is
really great,” Tri agreed. “But I thought . . . I
thought you'd be pleased. I kind of hoped, anyway. You know, to hear that . . .”

He trailed off, staring at the counter again, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. A. A. didn't know where to look either. Or what to think. She'd broken up with Hunter, and now Tri had broken up with Cecily.

Both of them were free agents. They could date anyone they wanted. They could even—you know, in theory—date each other. Couldn't they? Was this why Tri had been calling her all week? Was this what he was attempting to say now? A. A. felt her cheeks grow hot. She couldn't trust herself to speak, let alone look at Tri.

“So that's it?” Someone was speaking in a really loud voice, and it took a second for A. A. to register that it was Alex. She looked back over her shoulder and saw Alex standing next to the corner booth, running a hand through his wild dark hair.

Lauren looked completely miserable. She was still sitting in the booth, hunched over the table, her head in her hands.

“I'm so sorry,” she was saying over and over, but Alex wasn't calming down.

“Yeah, you should be,” he announced, grabbing his
backpack from the floor where he'd dumped it earlier. “See you around, Lauren. Have a nice life.”

Alex marched out of Mel's Diner, clanging the door shut behind him. Lauren was still huddled in the booth. She was probably mortified, A. A. thought, because everyone else in the place was staring at her.

Without hesitation, forgetting all about Tri and his revelation, A. A. slid down from her counter stool and walked toward the booth, wishing that the jukebox wasn't playing the Everly Brothers singing “Bye Bye Love” at this very moment. It was only when she sat down on the red vinyl seat and curled a supportive arm around her friend's back that A. A. realized Lauren was crying.

SO THIS WAS HER PUNISHMENT
, Lauren realized. After flying too close to the sun, she'd got totally burned. All that double-dealing had bit her in the butt. Christian had bailed on her, and now she'd broken Alex's heart as well. She had to—it was the only fair thing to do, given the fact that all she could think about was Christian.

But it didn't make her feel any better.

“My mother might be home,” A. A. warned her. They were in the private wood-paneled elevator of the Fairmont, zooming up to A. A.'s penthouse suite.

After Alex walked out on them in Mel's Diner, too annoyed to stick around any longer, and Tri had discreetly melted away, A. A. insisted that Lauren come
home with her. The diner wasn't far from the Fairmont, and A. A. said that Lauren could wait for Dex to pick her up there. Lauren felt incredibly grateful. She didn't want to sit there in the diner listening to sad old songs while all the other customers whispered about her. A. A. really
was
the nicest of the Ashleys.

The door
ding
ed open, and Lauren was overwhelmed by the vast white apartment that opened up in front of her. Everything she could see, from the stone fireplace to the heavy silk drapes to every single piece of furniture, was a stark, snowy white. Even the beautiful woman lying flat on a chaise and reading a magazine, her dark hair cascading to the floor, was dressed completely in white—white jeans, white angora sweater, white velvet headband.

“Mom!” shrieked A. A., bounding toward the chaise and hurling her bag onto a white hide-covered stool. “What have you done?”

Jeanine Alioto dropped her magazine and stared over at Lauren, who was still lingering by the closed elevator doors.

“Who's there?”

“It's Lauren,” A. A. told her, her voice impatient. “I can't believe you've redecorated
again
. We only got that
raspberry sofa a couple of weeks ago!”

“I decided I'm allergic to berries.” Janine craned her head, scrutinizing Lauren from head to toe. “I thought they all had to be called Ashley. Why is she hiding over there?”

“Sorry,” said Lauren, inching forward. A. A.'s mother might be glamorous, but she was also kind of scary.

“Step away from the doors,” Jeanine said in an imitation-robot voice. She sat up, swinging her long legs to the ground. “Hey, Lauren, do you mind if I call you something else? Your name reminds me of a certain designer who fired me from his campaign. Can you believe he thought I was too old? I'll call you Lola instead. Much better.”

“Mom!” A. A. put her hands on her hips. “Don't tease her. She's had a traumatic afternoon. She had to break up with a boy and he got all mad and stormed off.”

“Now that's more like it!” Jeanine flashed a brilliant smile at Lauren and patted the seat next to her. “Come sit down, Lola. This is my kind of school report. Tell me everything.”

Lauren sat on the edge of the chaise, fumbling for a tissue in her pocket. All she could think of was Alex's flushed face, and the way his dark eyes flashed with anger. He thought she'd chosen him over Christian—
and now he really didn't understand why she was dumping him. Everything Lauren did was just wrong. How did she get into such a muddle?

A. A. pushed her bag off the low stool and plopped down, kicking off her Louboutin Mary Janes.

“Mind the new rug!” Jeanine gave a breezy wave of her fingers. “It came all the way from Zimbabwe.”

“Did it now?” A. A. asked sarcastically. “Lauren, all this looked completely different this morning when I went to school. It looked fine, perfectly fine.”

“A. A., you're such a traditionalist!” Jeanine complained, rolling her eyes at Lauren. She was even taller than A. A., as long and thin as an icicle, with the same well-developed chest. “How did I end up with such boring, normal kids? It must be your father's genes.”

“I'm not anything like Dad,” A. A. retorted. “Did you even think about Ned eating pizza in front of the TV every night? He's going to flip when he sees this.
You're
going to spaz the first time he drops a slice of pepperoni.”

“No more pizza in this place,” Jeanine sniffed. “You all have to eat white food from now on. Like white asparagus . . .”

“Yuck!”

“And white truffles . . .”

“You've got to be kidding!”

“. . . and white chocolate and meringues. And maybe mozzarella. Anyway, Lola, don't you think it looks seasonal? I was going for Winter Wonderland. I'm the Snow Queen. And I can tell you, it took many teams of elves working all day to get it looking like this. Something my ungrateful daughter fails to appreciate.”

“It does look really nice,” Lauren told Jeanine, even though her eyes couldn't focus exactly—the room was blinding white, and she was still obsessing over what had happened in the diner. Just a few weeks ago she had two boyfriends. Now she had none.

“So, Lola, tell me what went down.” Jeanine crossed her endless legs, pulled her fluffy sweater over her knees.

“Maybe she doesn't feel like talking,” said A. A., tugging loose her pigtails.

“It's okay,” Lauren said weakly, though she didn't really know what to tell Jeanine. The whole thing sounded like one big soap opera. “I was going out with these two boys, Alex and Christian, and I couldn't decide between them.”

“
Yeah
, baby!” cried Jeanine, her brilliant blue eyes sparkling. “
Now
I get why you're an Ashley! It's not
enough to look cute, right? You have to want total world domination.”

“Mom,” hissed A. A., and Jeanine clapped a hand over her mouth, pretending to be sorry, even though her mischievous eyes told a different story. Lauren shifted uncomfortably. Maybe Jeanine could see into her soul and knew about her secret plan to topple the Ashleys. Although A. A. was being so nice right now, Lauren couldn't remember why it was she wanted to break them in the first place.

“So anyway—they found out,” she continued. She couldn't believe she was telling a total stranger all about her sad love life. “They go to different schools, but it's a small town.”

“Tiny,” agreed Jeanine, forgetting her mock vow of silence.

“And they said I had to choose.”

“Cry me a river, baby,” lamented Jeanine. “Why do the dudes think it's all right for them to two-time, but the second we have more than one guy on the go, they get all clingy and exclusive? I say, dump them both.”

“Well, you see,” Lauren stumbled on, “then Christian, he told me he couldn't deal with it. He said we could be
friends, and just to go out with Alex. So I did.”

“So what's the problem?”

“The problem is, she really prefers Christian,” A. A. told her mother. “That's right—isn't it, Lola? I mean, Lauren.”

“I didn't realize it until Christian and I broke up.” Lauren nodded. “I just couldn't stop thinking about him. I guess deep down I always liked him more.”

“Usually I don't do
deep down
, sweetie, but I think I follow,” sympathized Jeanine. “So tell me—if you liked this Christian so much, why did you let him go?”

Lauren shrugged.

“Maybe . . . maybe I just couldn't admit it,” she confessed. “It was so much fun dating Alex as well. It was nice getting so much . . . attention. But now that it's just me and him, it's not so much fun. I wish I'd dumped Alex right away rather than wait so long. Because now Christian is probably over me, and Alex is all mad at me for leading him on.”

“Love is a battlefield,” Jeanine groaned.

“Mom, would you stop making lame eighties references? This is serious.” A. A. squeezed onto the chaise between Jeanine and Lauren, flexing her long, narrow feet and frowning. “Guys suck. You can't trust
them.”

“Don't listen to her.” Jeanine craned her neck to look at Lauren. “All she knows about keeping a man she learned from me, and that's not saying much. What you have to do, doll-face, is bite the bullet.”

“What do you mean?” Lauren asked, dabbing at her still-damp nose with a crumpled tissue. She had to pull herself together before Dex got her and started asking pointed questions.

“You know, bite the bullet. Seize the day. Grab the moment. Round up the wagons and start shooting back at the Indians.”

“Start shooting back at the
Native Americans
,” A. A. corrected her.

“Whatever! Listen, do you want this guy Christian back or not?”

Lauren nodded. Of course she did. Christian made her feel so happy whenever they were together. His kisses were soft, and so was his adorable face. Even if they were just hanging out and watching a movie, it was fun. But after she'd lied to him and then kept him dangling, would he take her back? More important, would he take her back in time for Ashley's party?

He'd been invited, of course. Ashley had issued invitations
to all the cutest guys from Gregory Hall and Saint Aloysius.

“Then,” said Jeanine, examining her pearly nails as though they were a crystal ball, “you have to do the following. Listen very carefully, and promise me you'll do exactly what I say.”

Lauren nodded again. She would do whatever it took. Even listen to A. A.'s mother.

FINALLY. FINALLY! IT WAS SATURDAY
night, the night Ashley had been waiting for all her life—the night of her Super-Sweet Thirteen birthday party. Her real birthday was tomorrow, but it fell on a Sunday and Saturday night was so much better.

Ashley sat in her bedroom, perched on a low stool, getting sewn into the first of this evening's outfits. Maria, one of the maids, crouched at her feet, carefully stitching the hems of Ashley's sparkling jersey Wolford leggings to the ribbon trim of her ballet slippers. So there was no way she could risk something distracting and potentially humiliating, like a shoe dropping off!

Originally she'd planned to make her grand entrance
on a Vespa, but Mona had persuaded her that zooming in on a trapeze would be more dramatic.

Over the leggings she was wearing a Gucci Grecian-style tunic, made from layers of delicate chiffon, each a slightly different shade of purple. Her hair was slicked back into an elaborate chignon, interlaced with iridescent ribbon and swansdown, courtesy of the San Francisco Ballet hairstylist who'd skipped the ballet's matinee so she could spend all afternoon at the Spencers'.

The whole look was supposed to say “shimmering otherworldly goddess,” flying in from another world and dropping—via a glittering silver trapeze—into the hub of the party.

Maria rocked back on her heels, prodding at Ashley's ankles with a rough fingertip.

“All finished, Miss Ashley.” She sighed. “I'll be waiting here, so when you're ready to change, I can undo all the stitches.”

Uh-huh. Ashley had no intention of standing around wasting valuable party time getting unstitched. Maria could just cut her out of this ensemble. What was she going to do with it afterward, anyway—donate it to an acrobat charity shop?

No, there wasn't that kind of time to waste. She
had another four outfits—three gorgeous dresses and a sleek, skintight Pucci jumpsuit for her grand exit on the Vespa—hanging on closet doors, waiting to make their downstairs debut. There were only so many hours in the evening, unfortunately.

Ashley stepped off the stool, flexing one foot and then the next to make sure her legging-shoe combo was gravity-proof. A glance at the LED digital display on her Bose bedside stereo system told her it was just after seven. Guests were beginning to arrive. The sounds of excited chatter floated up from the gated front yard. She hurried over to the window and kneeled on the window seat, peering down at the arrivals through her slatted bamboo blinds. It all looked so amazing!