“You know you can’t vidchat now,” I said. “Not until you’ve finished your homework.”
“I’ll get it done. Just give me a minute.”
“Layla—”
“Please, Elise.” She lowered her voice. “All the girls I know are talking online now. Their parents let them do it whenever they want.” She gripped the edge of the computer table. “I have to fit in here. I have to. Or I’ll die.”
“No one dies from not fitting in, Layla. Trust me.”
“It’s easy for you. You have Juliana. You guys are like the three musketeers.” I wasn’t sure about the math on that one. “You do everything together and I’m all alone. Kaitlyn’s too young—she’s useless. And ninth grade is like . . . like some futuristic prison state where everyone’s fighting to survive. And if I stand out like some kind of dork, I’m doomed.”
She did love her melodrama, my sister. “Don’t even try to keep up here,” I said. “We don’t have the same kind of money, and Mom and Dad are stricter than most of the other parents. You have to find friends who’ll accept you the way you are.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she said. “Really. These girls seem nice. Just let me talk to them for a few more minutes, and then I promise I’ll do my homework.”
“You better.” I moved toward the doorway—carefully sidestepping the rug bump this time—and then turned and said, “Look, Layla, vidchatting is no big deal. But don’t smoke to fit in. Or do anything else that you know is wrong. That’s just stupid.”
“I know,” she said, her eyes big and brown and a lot like Juliana’s. “I won’t.”
She was either sincere or a very good liar.
Yeah, I know which one, too.
Later that evening, alone in our room doing homework, I told Juliana what Layla had said. “I know she’s always cared too much about fitting in and being popular, but at least back home that just meant being a little cliquish. Here . . .” I ran my finger along the cold metal bed frame: it had been the upper half of a bunk bed in our old house that our parents had separated into twins when we moved because they were worried about earthquakes. “I don’t even know what trying to fit in here might involve.”
“Do you think we should talk to Mom about her?”
“Nah. Mom has enough going on. And you know how she’d react: we’d all end up living in a prison state. Let’s just keep an eye on Layla ourselves.”
As if on cue, the door burst open without a knock. “I’m back!” Mom sang out.
Juliana asked her how her day had been.
She adjusted her glasses so they went from tilting too much in one direction to tilting too much the other way. “I have my work cut out for me, that’s for sure. I don’t think anyone has been enforcing a single rule at that school. I had to confiscate seventeen cell phones today. Seventeen! And then of course the parents were up in arms, calling to complain that they couldn’t get in touch with their kids.” She shook her head. “You girls have no idea how lucky you are to have parents with real values, who care about raising principled children.”
Juliana and I were both silent. We had parents who liked to impose embarrassing restrictions on us. But . . . they cared. There was no denying that.
“So,” Mom said, leaning against the doorway, casually retying the bow on her shirt. “That seemed like a nice group of kids you were hanging out with today. They were all so—” She considered her choices before settling on “—interesting.” She liked the adjective so much that she immediately used it again. “I’m glad you found such an interesting group of friends so quickly.”
“We just ate lunch with them,” I said uncomfortably. “That’s all.”
“That Derek Edwards seems like an especially interesting [third time] young man,” she said nonchalantly. “Does he talk much about his parents?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I don’t think he likes to.”
“Really? What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because people get weird about it.” Like you right now, I thought.
“Huh,” she said. “Well, I hope he realizes that as far as the school administration goes, he’s just another student to us.”
I shot Juliana a look. She quickly changed the subject. “There’s leftover pizza if you’re hungry, Mom.”
“Oh, did you order in? Try not to make a habit of that.” We didn’t correct the misunderstanding. Her mind was on a different subject anyway. “There are so many famous people at this school. Did you girls know that James Bryan’s kids also go to Coral Tree? And George McGill’s and Beatrice Reilly’s and—” Before she could finish her recitation of all the celebrities—a couple of whom I’d never even heard of—whose kids were, supposedly, no different from the other students as far as she was concerned, Kaitlyn came rushing in and hurled herself at Mom, wailing, “Layla pushed me!”
“I didn’t push her!” yelled Layla, from right behind. “She crossed over onto my side of the room—after I had told her she couldn’t—so I just gently made her move away! She’s such a baby!”
“IT! WASN’T! GENTLE!” Kaitlyn screamed, turning and standing on her tiptoes so she could shout it right in Layla’s face.
My mother sank against the doorjamb. “Do you have any idea how stressful it is to have a hard day at work and then come home to this . . . ?”
“It’s not my fault,” Kaitlyn said, and burst into tears. “She’s so mean to me!”
“Could you guys continue this somewhere else?” I asked, with a meaningful nudge at my history binder. Kaitlyn and Layla were always going at it like this, and now that they had to share a room—which they hadn’t at our old house—the battles were constant. I was sick of the noise.
Juliana put aside her books and got up from her bed. “I’ll take care of it, Mom,” she said. “You go eat.” My mother thanked her and happily disappeared. Jules turned to Kaitlyn. “If you promise not to bother Elise, you can hang out in our room for a little while. Would you like that?”
Kaitlyn happily flung herself on Juliana’s bed and Layla shrugged. “Good riddance,” she said and left.
“Can I sleep in here, too?” Kaitlyn asked, snuggling into a pillow.
“No,” I said, but Juliana patted her on the head and said, “We’ll see.”
A little while later I left to grab a snack and ran into my dad who was exiting the kitchen.
“Just keeping your mother company while she had some dinner,” he explained. “She’s been telling me stories about the parents at Coral Tree. An entitled group, to say the least—more money than sense, as the saying goes.” He hooked his arm in mine. “This is a strange new world we’ve found ourselves in, my friend.”
“No kidding.”
“Your mother also told me that you and Juliana are already connected to a very ‘in’ group of kids. I’m glad you’re making friends, Lee-Lee, but don’t get too caught up in the social whirl—remember you’re working toward a scholarship, something these other kids probably don’t have to worry about.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, and grinned at him. “My brain has yet to be corroded by the SoCal sunshine.”
“Yet? Let’s aim for never, shall we?”
I nodded. “I’m basically done with homework for the night. Want to do the crossword puzzle with me?” We liked to do the New York Times crossword puzzle together when we had time.
His face lit up. “Absolutely.”
A few minutes later we were settled in his office. As I studied the clues, I said, “Thanks for waiting. I know you could do it much faster without me.”
“Not true.”
I was sitting on the arm of his big office chair. I rested my cheek against his thinning hair. “Dad, it’s obvious you have it all done in your head before I even say a word. You give me hints so I feel like I’m getting the answers—but it’s all you.”
He shrugged and smoothed out the paper—the only man left in America who didn’t read the news online. “One day, Elise, you’re g
oing to outstrip me at everything, even crossword puzzles. And I won’t mind one bit.”
We had visitors for dinner Thursday night: my mother’s brother and his family.
Uncle Mike had a Hollywood-based catering company. Aunt Amy managed the business end. Their daughter, Diana, was three months younger than me.
When we lived in Massachusetts, we saw them only about once a year, but I always liked Diana, who was smart and unpretentious with a dark and self-deprecating sense of humor. We stayed in touch online, but one of the few consolations for having to move my junior year of high school was getting to see her more often.
Within a few minutes of their arrival on Thursday, Mom managed to let drop the fact that Juliana and I had become friends with Melinda Anton and Kyle Edwards’s son.
“Not friends,” I said. “We barely know him.”
“You’ve eaten lunch with him almost every day this week.”
So she’d been spying on us. Great. “I eat lunch with Jules who eats with Chase Baldwin—”.
“He’s Fox Baldwin’s son. The music producer,” my mother supplied helpfully. “I Googled him, just for fun, and you wouldn’t believe the photos and news stories that popped up. He’s very well known.”
“And Chase and Derek are always together,” I continued, trying to ignore my mother’s color commentary. “But that doesn’t mean Derek’s eating with us—I don’t think he’s said two words to me all week.”
“If he’s sitting across the table from you, he’s eating with you,” Mom said firmly.
Diana laughed. “She’s got a point, Elise. Plus there’s the transitive property: if A eats with B and B eats with C, then A is eating with C.”
“I met Kyle Edwards once,” said Uncle Mike, scratching at the ever-widening bald spot on his head as if he could uncover the memory below it. “He was at a dinner party I catered.”
“What was he like?” Mom asked.
“Vegetarian,” he said seriously. “At the time. But these movie stars change their diets constantly. They follow the current fad. Makes my life difficult.”
“Yes, they’re all on very strict diets until you get a glass of wine into them,” said Aunt Amy, who was cheerful and plump but had shrewd eyes that didn’t miss a thing. “And then they’ll eat anything you put in front of them. Most of them are half-starved.”
“We should start a charity,” Diana suggested. “Save our poor hungry movie stars.”
“We could have a bake sale,” I said.
“Or just feed them the cookies directly,” said Aunt Amy. “And skip the middleman.”
“What do you think, Elise?” asked Diana. “Will your pal Derek Edwards agree to bring home some cookies for his mommy and daddy?”
“Only if they’re raw,” I said.
After dinner, Diana and I were on dish duty in the kitchen.
“So, do you like him?” she asked.
“Who?”
She rolled her eyes and put a plate in the dish rack. “Derek Edwards.”
I shook my head. “Not really. That friend of his—Chase—seems genuinely into Juliana, and the feeling’s clearly mutual—even though Juliana won’t admit it yet—so we’ve gotten stuck together because of that. But Derek’s actually kind of a jerk.”
“How so?”
“He’s really standoffish. He assumes people only want to be friends with him because of his parents.”
“Well, he probably has reason for that.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. It’s still obnoxious.”
“Is he cute?”
“Very.”
She shoved her chin-length hair behind her ear so she could look sideways at me. “You sure you don’t like him?”
“Pretty sure.” I covered some leftovers with tinfoil.
“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully.
I glanced over my shoulder at her. “What means this ‘hmm’?”
“I don’t know. Just . . . don’t write him off too quickly.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m sure he’s not that bad . . . and if there’s any chance that you could become friends with Melinda Anton’s son, you should do it.”
“You’re the last person in the world who I would have expected to say something like that.”
She laughed. “Relax. I’m not saying you should make out with him because his mother’s famous, Elise. Just don’t be rude to him.” She transferred a stack of dishes from the counter to the sink. “Although if he asks you to make out with him—”
“Yeah, that’s going to happen.”
“I’m joking.” She started rinsing off the plates and putting them in the dishwasher. “Seriously, though, my dad would kill for an in with Melinda Anton. Work’s slowed down so much for him the last couple of years. All the studios are cutting back—no one’s throwing parties anymore. But someone like Melinda Anton will always have money, you know? If she started using him . . .”
“I had no idea,” I said. “About your dad and work, I mean. I’m sorry.”
“He doesn’t like to tell people.” She shrugged. “Anyway, things are tough all over.”
“You wouldn’t know it at Coral Tree. Girls come to school in five-hundred-dollar outfits, and the cars they drive are unreal.”
“Maybe people who send their kids to private school are so rich to begin with that they’re not affected by the economy.”
“Some of them could be getting financial aid, too, I guess.” We were, even with Mom and Dad’s faculty discount. And I assumed Webster was, too, since he had said stuff about not having as much money as other kids at the school. But it wasn’t something people talked about. “It’s not like you can tell who’s getting it and who isn’t,” I added.
“Anyway, my dad said if things don’t get better pretty soon, we may have to move to a less expensive city.”
“Like where?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t want to move.” She paused to scrub at a platter way more intently than was necessary. “There’s this guy . . .”
“You’re dating someone? Diana, that’s fantastic.”
“Don’t get too excited,” she said. “He’s a total nerd.”
“I’m sure he’s cute,” I said sincerely.
“I think so. But it’s not like I can be choosy.”
“Stop it,” I said. “Any guy would be lucky to have you.”
“Spoken like a true cousin.”
Studying Diana’s intelligent and good-natured face as she leaned over to put the platter in the dishdrain, I felt a flicker of uneasiness: even she saw advantages to cultivating Derek Edwards as a friend, without knowing or caring much about either his personality or his principles. Honest, straightforward, decent Diana.
It made me sad for her. It made me sad for him. It made me sad for the world.
And it made me all the more desperate to prove that I wasn’t like everyone else that way: I valued people because of who they were deep down, not because of their names or their parents’ clout.
And I intended to prove that to myself and everyone around me.
Chapter Six
No,” I said to Juliana at school on Friday. “No way. Nein. Nyet. Non.”
“I’m not going without you.”
“Then don’t go. I’ve run out of languages I can say no in, anyway.”
“Forget I even asked.”
But she looked so disappointed that I groaned and actually surrendered. “I hate it when you’re all noble and self-sacrificing! Fine—I’ll go. But not happily.”
She threw her arms around me. “Thank you, Lee-Lee! You’re the best sister ever. I’ll call Chase right now.”
So that’s how I found myself committed to going with Jules and Chase to a party thrown by Jason Bigelow, the captain of the lacrosse team, and a guy I’d never even met.
It was Layla who first alerted the rest of the family to the fact that a stretch limousine had pulled up in front of our house on Saturday night. “Oh my God, oh my God!” she squealed, loo
king out the front window. “It’s like a block long! You guys are so friggin’ lucky!” All her squeals brought my parents and Kaitlyn running into the hallway to see.
“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” my father said as Juliana and I arrived downstairs. “This kind of excess. Please, girls, remember that this isn’t normal, okay?”
“They know that,” Mom said. “Our girls have good heads on their shoulders.” And then she strode out the door.
Juliana gasped and we both lunged for her, but she was already charging down the walkway to where the chauffeur was opening the door of the long dark car. Chase emerged, gracefully unfolding his slender body. His dark gray khakis and blue-and-white striped oxford shirt were very collegiate and blessedly clean-cut, given that my parents were watching. “Good evening, Dr. Gardiner,” he said, holding out his hand and shaking hers. “Thank you for trusting me with your daughters tonight.”
My mother smiled at that. She liked polite young men. “I appreciate that very much, Mr. Baldwin. And whom do you have in the car with you?”
“My sister and my friend.” He called over his shoulder, “Come out and say hi, guys.”
Chelsea exited the limo with a very put-upon expression on her face. She was wearing extremely tight blue jeans and a corset top that revealed a lot of slender arm, white shoulder, and bright pink bra strap. I was afraid my mother might say something disapproving, but—for better or for worse—her attention was completely focused on the other passenger coming out of the limo. “Mr. Edwards!” she exclaimed with genuine delight. “My girls didn’t tell me you were coming, too!”
Ten moderately mortifying minutes later, we were on our way. My mom had insisted on thanking Derek over and over again for picking us up in his limo—she didn’t seem to absorb his muttered, “It’s not mine; it’s Chase’s dad’s.” She was still thanking him when we were all climbing into the back of it.
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