Never Have I Ever (12 page)

Chapter 17
X Marks the Spot

Thursday afternoon, during the last period of the school day, Emma, Charlotte, and Madeline stood backstage in the auditorium, dressed in black cocktail dresses and high heels. Old play props and sets, abandoned scripts from last year’s production of
Oklahoma!
, and several full-length mirrors were littered in the otherwise barren space, but the situation on the other side of the curtain was another story. That morning, with the help of the committee’s party planners, the girls had transformed the stage into an elegant, ghostly replica of the
Titanic
, complete with chandeliers, a sweeping faux-staircase, gilded fixtures, and tables set with fine china.

Emma shook her head in awe. “This is really beautiful.” It was too bad
this
couldn’t be the décor for the dance Friday night. But that would be held in the gym, not the auditorium.

Charlotte paced back and forth, tapping a clipboard. Her type-A personality made her the perfect detail-organizer. “Okay,” she said. “So after everyone files into the auditorium, we’ll announce the court nominees’ names. They’ll walk in and waltz with their escorts. The party will last until the late bus is called.”

Madeline gestured to the caterers in white uniforms scurrying around backstage and setting chrome tureens, platters, pitchers, and glasses on a long folding table. “We’ve got sparkling cider, hors d’oeuvres, cheeses. Non-dairy stuff for Norah, gluten-free stuff for Madison.”

“And don’t forget about Alicia Young,” Laurel said, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle on her cocktail dress. “She’s on that grapefruit-and-cayenne-pepper cleanse.”

Charlotte looked like she was going to explode. “That diet is nasty. She’s just going to have to suffer.”

A pang overcame me as I watched the preparations. I vaguely remembered planning last year’s Homecoming Court party. The theme and decorations were no more than wisps, but I remembered the moment I’d stepped out to announce the winners, knowing I looked more glamorous than all of them combined. And I remembered a faceless guy—my date—catching my arm afterward and telling me that I was the most gorgeous girl on the stage. “I know,” I’d replied, shooting him one of my signature Sutton Mercer smiles.

Sharp, staccato, high-heeled
clack
s filled the room as court girls filed in, each with a black garment bag slung over her arm and perfectly styled hair piled atop her head or cascading down her back in soft ringlets. They oohed and ahhed over the set design, letting out little gasps and appreciative squeals. Gabby and Lili entered last, noses in the air, hairdos bigger and bouncier than anyone else’s. Emma turned away fast and pretended to fix a frayed ribbon on one of the tables, but she could still feel their eyes burning on her.

“Gabby! Lili!” Laurel shot across the room and linked her elbows through the Twins’. “Let me show you your dressing rooms! We ran out of room down here, so you guys get to change upstairs in the lighting booth.”

Gabby extracted herself from Laurel’s grip. “Lemme just finish my tweet, ’kay?”

Laurel rolled her eyes and waited while Gabby’s thumbs flew across her phone at warp speed. When Gabby finished, she let out a satisfied sigh. “We’re ready to be taken to our chambers now,” she said in a queenlike voice. As Laurel steered them up a staircase, both twins leveled stares at Emma. Laurel twisted around, too, signaling a covert thumbs-up to Madeline and Charlotte.

“Okay, girls!” Charlotte clapped her hands and drew the rest of the court members into a circle. “You all need to get changed for your big entrance! People are filing in here in ten minutes. Don’t forget heels and a fresh coat of gloss! And remember, the makeup artist is going to come and put blood in your hair and paint blue circles under your eyes.”

The girls pouted. “Do we really have to do that?” Tinsley Zimmerman whined.

“Yes,” Charlotte answered sharply, her slight smirk revealing just how much she loved being the boss.

Tinsley eyed Charlotte’s party dress. “
You’re
not wearing corpse makeup. We’ll look uglier than you!”

That’s the point
, I thought.

“It’ll make you look avant-garde and chic,” Madeline said, sounding like a fashion editor. “You’re dead beauties of the
Titanic
. You drowned in the ocean. How do you
think
you should look? Like a Bobbi Brown spring campaign?” She gestured to a bunch of dressing rooms at the back. “Now go change!”

The court girls turned, giving one another cryptic, I-know-something-you-don’t smiles, reminding Emma that none of them knew exactly who was getting pranked today. Tinsley slammed a dressing room door shut before anyone could join her. Alicia Young—she of the nasty cleanse diet—ducked into a tiny, curtained-off alcove to change. Madison Cates looked around furtively, then slipped into the shadows and pulled a black sequined gown over her stiff hair. The other girls disappeared as well. When they emerged from their respective dressing rooms in their black gowns, their faces registered notes of surprise.

“I was hoping the joke was on you,” Tinsley, who wore a strapless gown, said to Norah Alvarez.

“Well, I hoped it was on
you
,” Norah snapped back, smoothing the feather collar on her flapper dress.

Makeup artists whirled around, swiping each girl’s mouth with corpse-blue lipstick. Emma leaned toward Charlotte. “So we’re sure Gabby and Lili don’t suspect anything?”

Charlotte glanced at the dressing room on the second floor. The door was shut tight. “Last I checked, they had no clue.” Pulling a walkie-talkie from her hip, she pressed
TALK
. “How’s everything going, Laurel?”

“Great!” Laurel’s voice blared fuzzily through the speaker. “I’m just helping Gabby and Lili get dressed. They look fabulous!”

A crafty smile appeared on Charlotte’s lips. “Perfect. We need them down here in five minutes, okay? Stay up there until then. We’ll send the makeup artists up.”

“Aye aye!”

When Laurel radioed off, Charlotte rubbed her hands together. “We need to keep them up there until the very second they have to go on stage. They’ll have no time to change.”

Madeline joined them, giggling. “This is going to be
so
good.”

“I hope so.” Charlotte stared at the velvet curtain that separated the back stage from the front, a serious look suddenly crossing her face. “Just as long as we don’t land Gabby in the hospital again.”

Madeline stiffened. “
We
didn’t land Gabby in the hospital.
Sutton
did.”

Both of them turned and glanced at Emma. Emma felt a sharp punch to her stomach. They had to be talking about the train prank. She waited for either of them to elaborate, but Madeline started fiddling with her clipboard and Charlotte strode away.

The final bell rang, and the doors to the lobby flung open. Emma peeked out from behind the curtains. Students poured down the center aisle and filled the plush red seats. Freshman girls gaped at the
Titanic
set, squealing about how they couldn’t wait until
they
were old enough to be on the court. A group of girls Madeline and the others called the Vegan Virgins—for reasons Emma wasn’t entirely sure of, though she had a pretty good guess—plopped down next to a couple of the corpses and screamed. The entire football team sat together, shoving one another and jockeying for attention. Nearly everyone in the audience pulled their phones from their bags and sneakily checked the screens.

Charlotte’s words swirled in Emma’s mind.
Just as long as we don’t land Gabby in the hospital again.
What exactly happened that night? Had Sutton hurt Gabby? The message in the box with the train charm flooded back:
I will always be seized with the memory.

“Showtime!” Charlotte scurried to the court nominees, who were all inspecting their drowning-victim makeup in the full-length mirrors. Emma let the curtain close and stared at the ceiling, as though she could see straight up to the Twitter Twins’ dressing room. “Everyone line up! I’m going to announce you to the school in a couple of minutes!” The six non-prank court girls found their dates, six cute guys who looked absolutely mortified to be in tuxedos.

Charlotte glanced over her shoulder, waving her hands around like an air traffic controller. “Mads, you’re going to welcome the crowd. Sutton, you’ll enter from stage left—your mark is a big
X
on the floor—with all the Homecoming Court sashes for the girls and guys. I’ll come in from stage right. Sutton, can you open the box of sashes? They’re by the mirrors.
Sutton?
”

Emma blinked, breaking out of her trance. “Uh-huh.” She walked toward the box of sashes to the left of the stage.

Laurel’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. “Uh, Mads? Can we come down now?”

Madeline checked her watch. “No! I need you to stay up there for a little while longer.”

“Uh . . .” Feedback screeched through the walkie-talkie speaker. “Actually? I’m not sure that’s possible.”

The door to the lighting booth flung open, and the Twitter Twins appeared on the landing. They were dressed in skimpy string bikinis and tall silver stilettos. Their tanned skin gleamed. Their legs stretched for miles. But they also looked naked compared to the glamorous court girls in their gowns. Laurel stood behind them, shooting a helpless look to Charlotte, Madeline, and Emma on the ground. “I tried!” she mouthed.

As Gabby and Lili pranced down the stairs with proud, pageant-queen smiles on their faces, Emma was able to pinpoint the exact moment they noticed the other court nominees in their gowns. Their mouths dropped. They halted in their place. Norah nudged Madison. Alicia began to giggle. Everyone was suddenly in on the joke.

“Priceless,” Charlotte murmured excitedly.

“Sweet,” Madeline whispered, arching onto her toes in anticipation of the reveal to the crowd.

Emma tensed, waiting for their reaction. But the scantily clad Twitter Twins simply shared a private look, then Lili marched to a dark alcove at the back of the room. “Fear not, Gabs!”

She unearthed a wrinkled Saks shopping bag from the nook, a bag that had clearly been planted hours—if not days—before. Tissue paper crinkled as she reached her hand inside and pulled out two slinky black dresses.

Charlotte and Madeline gaped at each other, while Laurel looked sheepishly on.

“Where did these Yigal Azrouël wrinkle-free jersey dresses come from?” Gabby said in exaggerated wonder. “And, wow! They’re even in our size!”

The Twitter Twins slipped the dresses over their heads, whipped around, and glowered at Charlotte, Madeline, Laurel, and Emma. “Nice try,” Lili said icily as one of the makeup artists rushed to her and swiped blue shadow under her eyes. “We could see your lame trick from a mile away.”

Gabby turned to Emma. “We’re not as stupid as we look,
Sutton
. You of all people should know that.”

Emma pressed a hand to her chest. “I never said you were stupid.”

A sarcastic snort escaped from Gabby’s mouth. “
Right.
” Without averting her gaze, she marched up to Emma, reached into the Saks bag, and pulled out a pill bottle with the same pink top Emma had noticed the other day. The prescription name, written in bold black letters, flashed before Emma’s eyes.
TOPAMAX.
Emma flinched. She’d been sure Gabby was popping Ritalin or Valium or some other party drug. But Topamax sounded serious.

Gabby removed the top and shook two capsules into her hands. She belted them down without water. After she swallowed, she shook the medicine bottle like a castanet, her eyes on Emma once more. “Don’t you think you should get our sashes and take your place now, Sutton?” she said in a taunting voice. “You’re at stage left, right?”

For a moment, Emma couldn’t move. It was like Gabby had cast a spell on her, paralyzing all her limbs. Charlotte nudged her side. “This blows, but she’s right. It’s time to go. Places, girls!”

“One sec!” Lili shouted, heading for the stairs to the lighting booth once more. “I forgot my iPhone!”

“You don’t
need
your iPhone!” Madeline growled. “You’re going to be busy onstage!”

But Lili didn’t slow down, her heels clacking on the metal stairs. “It’ll just take a second.”

The door to the lighting booth slammed. Emma turned, grabbed sixteen orange silk Homecoming Court sashes, and found the
X
on the side of the stage where she was supposed to stand, behind a side curtain and completely isolated from the rest of the court and planners. “Pull the curtain!” Charlotte commanded.

The crowd’s murmurings grew louder. The court nominees, save for Lili, who was still upstairs, did a few last minute hair-fluffs and blush-brush sweeps. But when Emma looked past the blinding floodlights to the stage, Gabby was staring at her with a whisper of a smile on her face. In her corpse makeup, blue circles under her eyes, stitches across her cheeks, bloody gashes on her neck, she looked menacing. Evil.

Emma took a step back. And then she noticed something else, something she hadn’t seen before: a silver charm bracelet hung from Gabby’s wrist. Tiny objects dangled from the chain—a little iPhone, a tube of lipstick, a mini Scottie dog. They were made out of the same silver as the miniature locomotive engine that rested snugly in Emma’s purse.

A chill came over me and Emma. The Twitter Twins had killed me. I could
feel
it.

“Greetings, Hollier High!” Madeline boomed into the microphone, so loudly it made Emma jump. “Everyone ready for Homecoming?”

A cheer rose up, and Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” blasted out of the speakers. The noise was so thunderous that Emma barely heard the snaps of cords breaking above her head. By the time she looked up, the heavy light fixture in the rafters was hurtling swiftly toward her. She screamed and jumped away just as it crashed to the ground with an earsplitting crack.

Amber glass spewed everywhere. Someone yelled—maybe Emma herself. She felt her body go limp and fall to the ground, the court sashes slipping from her grasp and landing on the hard floor. Just before her eyes fluttered closed, she saw Lili join Gabby in the wings. Emma tried to call out, to maintain consciousness, but she felt herself slipping away. Gabby shook the pill bottle up and down, up and down. It sounded like chattering teeth.