Gorgeous (5 page)

“So was it real or a dream, then?”

“Come on, Roxie,” I said, feeling like an idiot for not realizing she’d obviously been teasing me.

“What?” she asked, all innocent and big-eyed.

“You don’t actually believe in the devil and neither do I. Obviously.”

“I don’t know,” she said with great seriousness, turning to face me. “My father believes in God, my mother believes in me, the Fascist believes I actually read all seven Harry Potter books, and everybody I know in this city believes I got into Dalton but that my parents had a midlife crisis that involved peat moss and sod. So who’s got a lock on what’s real?”

I wasn’t sure what to think about all that, so I just said, “Okay.”

She shrugged, agreeing, and then asked, “Doesn’t the devil usually make deals for your soul?”

“I don’t have one, apparently.”

“Awesome,” Roxie said. “Think he’d want my cell phone too?”

I laughed. “If he shows up again, I’ll ask.”

“Thanks!” She looked genuinely excited, her bright blue eyes all sparkly. “But about me not getting in anywhere…”

“I will never tell anyone your secrets, Roxie.”

She smiled, until her cell phone rang. She grabbed it, cursed, and picked up. “No!” she said into it, jumping up and dashing toward the door. “We’re at Grand Central, but…”

I looked up the clock. It was 2:53.

“Okay. Yup, yup,” she said, zigzagging through the crowds. “Track seventeen. We’ll be on it. Okay. Sorry, Mom!”

When she flipped her phone closed she shook her head and said, “See what I mean? Total airhead, and she still believes in me. Nuts, right?”

“That must be weird,” I said, and surprised myself when my voice cracked.

Luckily Roxie didn’t seem to notice.

We slumped against each other the whole way home, listening to Roxie’s iPod with one earbud each. Jenny dropped me at the curb, and I walked up the driveway feeling more okay than usual, despite the fact that I’d ingested more caffeine than in the rest of my life combined and also that I had just cut school and gone into the city without permission. Normally, any of those things would have me jumping out of my skin. Instead I was practically humming.

Then I saw that Mom’s car was already in our driveway.

I stood there paralyzed for a few seconds, feeling the best day of my year drain away fast.
I am so busted,
I told myself.

Think!

Think like the cat burglar you are.

There was a trellis leading up the side of the house, covered in rose vines but still climbable. I dropped my backpack in the bushes and headed toward it, hoping I wouldn’t fall off the roof at the top before Quinn could let me in through her window.

8

B
ANGING ON
Q
UINN’S
window unbalanced me, and I thought for a moment there that I was about to fall off the roof and splat to my death on the front walk. As I teetered, I had time to wonder if Tyler Moss would come to my funeral, and if Jade would give a speech talking about the depth of our friendship.

I clutched onto the shutter until Quinn whipped open the window and yanked me into her room, criticizing me in her whispery voice before my feet even hit the red rug.

I tried to explain to her that we’d missed the train, but she was interrupting me all over the place, and then I noticed that Phoebe, of all people, was standing there staring at me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her, really accusing Quinn, though. Leave it to Quinn to go blabbing about me when I confide in her, I was thinking. When I never would tell any of her secrets, especially not to Phoebe, who obviously knew something, because right away she asked if I’d cut school.

Fine,
I decided.
Screw it.
So I told her where I’d gone. She was shocked, which was kind of adorable, especially when she asked me why we’d gone into the city all by ourselves, like we were ducklings or something.

I told her we had gone to become fashion models.

Her face was priceless. Trying so hard not to betray the fact that she knew there was no way I could ever be anything of the kind, Phoebe puzzled that for a few seconds before rearranging her lovely features into a radiant smile and saying, “No, but really. Why did you go into the city?”

I had to laugh. She was right not to believe it. The devil in my bedroom was a more plausible occurrence than me trying to be a fashion model. “Yeah, thanks,” I said, and, when she looked sorry and about to correct my (actually correct) impression of her disbelief, continued, “Ugh. Don’t even ask. You try to do a friend a favor and you end up getting your picture taken by a bunch of creeps with fake English…”

I didn’t get to finish because Quinn was freaking out that I’d gotten my picture taken. Like it mattered anyway. To change the subject I asked what they were doing.

It turned out Phoebe hadn’t canceled her graduation party after all, and the invitations to it had just come in the mail. And even worse, Mom’s check for the deposit had bounced, so our financial situation was about to become the talk of the town.

Poor Phoebe was practically shaking.

And Quinn, the tightass, was just making her feel worse.

I told Phoebe I’d help her get money, and she looked so grateful I couldn’t help hugging her. Poor thing, she had no idea how to handle friendship stress or any kind of stress—everything had always fallen into place for her.
Must be nice to be the baby of the family,
I thought. I was the baby for just over a year but didn’t know enough as an infant to take full advantage of the situation.

Surprisingly my generous offer didn’t perk Phoebe right up; she started to do that trembling-lip thing she does when she cries that could just break your heart (if you had one; mine, I figured, was probably on vacation in Tahiti with my soul; but still, even I felt a little bad for her).

The three of us all scooted into Quinn’s gigantic closet and sat on her chaotic mess of stuff. I tried not to look around too much. How can a person who is so perfect in every other way be such a slob? Little by little Phoebe coughed up the rest of the story—her friends, basically, were dumping her.

I promised Phoebe we’d come up with the money she needed for her party, but Quinn was all like,
No way, you can’t, Mommy and Daddy will never let you
, blah blah blah. She was totally destroying Phoebe, right there in the closet, breaking her into little bits. I couldn’t believe it. Usually I was the nasty one.

Of course, Phoebe just lumped me right in there with Quinn’s meanness despite my (probably creaky from disuse) sweet generosity, and stomped out of the closet, out of Quinn’s room, cursing and slamming doors behind her as she went.

I turned to Quinn to ask her why she was being so awful to Phoebe, but got a dose of it for myself before I had a chance.

“Grow up,” Quinn spat at me. “You have to get your head out of your ass, Allison. This family is falling apart and what are you doing? Cutting school, climbing onto the roof, convincing Phoebe you can…what? Rob a bank for her?”

“Rob? My own account, you jerk,” I said. “I wasn’t offering
your
money, you tightass.”

I managed to get up off her war zone of a closet floor and out into her room. “You can pretend you’re a martyr all you want,” I said, heading toward her door. “Is it really helping anybody? Is it getting Mom her job back? And thanks for showing me I can really count on you to keep my secrets. Not.”

I opened her door and slammed it shut behind me before I saw that Mom was standing there in the upstairs hall staring at me.

“Hi,” I said, trying to smile.

She stared at me for a few more seconds as curses and strategies chased each other through my brain. How much had she heard? Did she know I hadn’t come in through the front door? What should I say if she confronts me on whether I cut school? Cutting was bad, but lying about it would be way worse, unless I didn’t get caught, so…

“Everything okay?” she asked me.

My heart was slamming against my ribs again. “Um, yeah,” I said. “You?”

She let out a sigh/laugh. “I’ve had better weeks, actually.”

She took a sip from the mug in her hand, and glanced at the papers in the other.

I was scared to move a muscle, so I just stood there and said, “Mmm.”

Then my phone rang and vibrated in my pocket. As I was grabbing it, she turned away, but then turned back and said, “Did you know everything you text on a cell phone is recoverable?”

“Um,” I said. The call was coming from a number I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know whether to answer or not.

“So be careful,” Mom said, and drifted away, sipping her coffee.

“I will,” I said to her back, and flipped open my phone.

“Allison Avery,” said an unfamiliar voice.

“Yes?”

“This is Natasha Mendel.”

“Okay,” I said.

“From
zip
.”

My first thought was that I must have left my backpack there, but no, it was down in the bushes, which reminded me I should go get it after I hung up, despite the fact that, since I cut, I wouldn’t know what the homework was anyway. As I was thinking all that, I was walking across the hall to my own room but not saying anything.

“Hello?” the voice said.

“Yes,” I said, and sat down on my little beige couch, my favorite thing in my thankfully neat, clean room in shades of beige and white that Jade had helped me pick out. Jade’s mom had said neutrals are calming, and Jade pointed out the obvious, that I needed all the help with achieving calm I could get.

My call waiting clicked. I looked and, weirdly, it was Jade. Had she sensed me thinking about her?

I was about to ask the woman from
zip
to hold on, but then I remembered how freaky my cell phone had been acting and, out of fear I’d lose her, decided I’d call Jade back later, and realized the woman from the magazine was asking me in kind of a snotty, annoyed voice if she was calling at a bad time.

“No,” I told her. “This is fine.”

“You didn’t drop off a picture today,” said Ms. Natasha Mendel.

“I didn’t know you had to,” I said.

“You didn’t,” she said. “We were just wondering if you have management.”

“Um,” I said, because I didn’t know what that meant.

“Is there an agent or manager we need to speak with?”

“About what?”

“About you,” Natasha Mendel said.

“What did I do?”

“You photographed strikingly,” she said.

I sank down onto the floor. “Strikingly?”

“You are among our twenty semifinalists,” she said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, and then realized what it must be. “Who is this? Roxie? Is that you?”

“Who?”

“Come on, Roxie, I know it’s you,” I said, pacing around my room. “You had me there for a second, I admit it, but I know your voice, you stinker!”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Fifteen, same as you! Enough already, seriously, Roxie. Are you three-way calling me?” I was starting to sweat again. If there is one thing I hate, it’s getting punked on the phone.

“I am far from fifteen,” the voice said. “We will be mailing you some parental consent forms to move forward with the next step, and I require your address, Allison. I have no time for adolescent behavior.”

I didn’t say anything. I was too confused.

“Your address?” the voice, which actually didn’t sound remotely like Roxie’s, repeated.

Knowing I was never allowed to give out my address to a stranger over the phone or the computer, I listened with some surprise to myself reciting my address.

“Return the forms promptly,” she said when I finished. “And meanwhile, I have you down as unrepresented. It will be best for you if you keep that status. We are looking to discover new talent in this competition.”

“Okay,” I said, and hung up not knowing really what had just happened, or what to believe.

9

I
CALLED
R
OXIE FIRST
. While her phone was ringing, I talked myself down. It was probably a prank, and if it wasn’t, if somehow a person from
zip
had actually called me, I must have misunderstood—like maybe there was a fee for getting my picture taken that I hadn’t realized I was supposed to pay or something.

“Hey,” Roxie said, picking up. “How’s it going, Double Shot?”

“Um, fine,” I said.

“You’re not in trouble, are you?”

“Um, no,” I said equally eloquently. My legs were shaking as I paced fast around the room, waiting for her to shriek that she had just gotten a callback from
zip
. If she did, should I tell her I had, too?

“You okay?” she asked. “You sound stressed. Still hyper-caffed?”

“No, no,” I told her. “Well, maybe. Yeah. But…I was…It’s the weirdest—you didn’t just call me, did you?”

“No, I was just peeing. Why? Oh! Is your phone freaking out? Maybe it’s the devil!”

“Probably,” I said. “There wasn’t a…We didn’t…”

“Spit it out, Double Shot!”

“I just was thinking,” I said. “When do you think we, or you, might hear from the, you know, people at the magazine?”

“Within the week,” she said. “They move fast. If we don’t hear anything by Thursday night, we’re out. Hey, wouldn’t it be so awesome if we both got into the running?”

“Yeah, wow, that would be, but…”

“I know, I know you’re not into it, but trust me, it’s so fun getting your picture taken for stuff like that. I’ve never done editorial, but even a catalogue—I mean, there’s a lot of boring time, just sitting around, but you have all these people putting on your makeup and doing your hair and dressing you in wacky clothes, and the photographers are all like, ‘Oh, you are so gorgeous’—well, most of them anyway—but trust me, it’s great.”

“I think I’d throw up,” I said, feeling exactly that way already.

“Oh, look down your nose at the whole thing, you’re probably right. It’s not curing cancer. But the girl who got the cover in the teen issue last year has her own TV show starting next fall.”

“Really?”

“Not even kidding. Anyway, the odds are never good on something like this, I know. You almost never get to be moe, right? My mom says all the time you just have to keep a good attitude, but anyway just cross your fingers for me, okay? I could use a win.”

I crossed my fingers, closed my eyes, and said, “Okay.”

“You want to come swim or watch a movie or something?”

“No, I should deal,” I mumbled.

“Okay. Call me later,” she said, and hung up.

I stared at my phone for a few minutes, daring the devil to call me to check in. He didn’t, so I called Jade back.

“Hello, Allison,” she said in her deep, raspy voice.

“Hello, Jade,” I said.

Then I waited.

“You weren’t in school after first today,” Jade said.

“No,” I said, and nothing more, knowing that if I rushed her, Jade would just hang up on me and the whole episode would be needlessly extended. She was angry—obviously—again.

“Are you sick?”

“No,” I said.

“So you cut?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“With Roxanne Green?”

“Yup,” I said. I was being more of a jerk than usual with her, and I knew it. I wasn’t sure why. I guess I just wasn’t in the mood.

“What did you and Roxanne Green do?” She kept saying
Roxanne Green
as if it were the name of a bacterium.

“We went into the city and became supermodels, and then we took drugs and prostituted ourselves. Then we had a coffee and came home.”

She didn’t respond.

“Kidding,” I said. “We didn’t take drugs.”

“Listen, Allison. You can be sarcastic all you want, but you should know that your friends are worried about you.”

“Worried?” I sat down on my couch, feeling the energy drain from my legs.

“It’s just not like you,” Jade said softly, her voice more confidential than condemning. “Cutting school? Assaulting a teacher? Hanging out with Roxanne Green? Acting all slutty?”

“What are you talking about, slutty? Me?” It had to be a joke. I’d never even come close to kissing a boy, or even flirting with one, unless you count getting hit by a mitten, or falling on my butt. Which you really can’t. The only thing was, Jade didn’t joke. Especially not about sluttiness.

“The way you’ve been strutting around lately,” she said. “It’s like, I don’t know. Like you want to be somebody you’re not. I love you the way you are; you know that. I don’t know if you did something different with your makeup or what, but you look…different.”

“I sold my cell phone to the devil to become gorgeous,” I explained.

She didn’t respond.

After a minute, I said, “Seriously, Jade. I had the weirdest dream the other night—”

She interrupted me. “Fine, Allison. Go ahead. Be sarcastic, fall in love with your own obnoxiousness. Hang with wild Roxanne Green and abandon your true friends. I shouldn’t care, I guess, but you’ve been my best friend for a long time, so I—”

“I wasn’t kidding,” I tried to explain. “This has been the craziest week, and just now, a woman from
zip
magazine called and said they want me to…”

“Allison, stop! Can you quit being ridiculous for one second? I am trying to talk to you. I’ve been defending you all day and now you’re making me wonder if everybody was actually right.”

“Right about what?” I asked.

Jade sighed. “I think I owe it to you to tell you people are talking about you, and it isn’t pretty.”

My call waiting buzzed through. Roxie. I ignored it and sank down deeper into the couch. Everybody was talking about me? Oh, hideousness.

“I wouldn’t say anything if I didn’t care about you,” Jade said.

“I know,” I answered, feeling the knot in my stomach tighten again. “I know. What are they saying?”

“Just—you know what, who even cares? That’s what my mother said when I told her about it.”

“You told your mother?” I knew she told her mother everything, but I mean, please.

“Not the details, don’t worry,” Jade said, in her talking-me-down voice. “Just, like, the general stuff people were saying about you, because I was so upset. But she was like, ‘Allison is your best friend. Don’t even listen to all that awful gossip—it will rot your soul.’ And I think she has a point, don’t you? That kind of talk is just beneath us. You know?”

I didn’t know if I knew, so I didn’t answer.

“Screw them,” Jade said. “They don’t know you like I do. You want the homework?”

“Um, yeah, sure,” I said, getting out a scrap of paper, since my backpack was still in the bushes. “Thanks, Jade.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, in her near-whisper voice. “You’re my best friend. You know I’ll always be there for you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. It’s just been a weird week.”

“That’s exactly what I was telling everybody,” Jade said. “‘Everybody has a weird week at some point. It doesn’t mean Allison has changed.’ I must have said that twenty times today.”

“Thanks.” I closed my eyes. “What would I do without you?”

“You’d be lost,” she said quietly, and then told me what homework I had to do.