“No.” Lala wiped her eyelids with a wet napkin. “It’d be a good thing if I couldn’t smell your burger breath.” She pursed her lips to avoid smiling in public.
Cleo, however, smiled out loud. Everything was back to normal.
It was time.
“I’m trying to decide what to model for the Teen Vogue shoot,” she said, as if they had been talking about it all morning. “I love the falcon necklace and the pear earrings, but wearing both together feels like overkill, you know?”
The girls knit their eyebrows in confusion. This scene couldn’t have played out any better if she had scripted it. Which she kind of had.
Cleo swiped through the iPhone lookbook she had photographed earlier that morning. At dawn to be specific, when the sunlight was at its richest. The orange glow woke the gold the way kohl woke her blue eyes. She shot the priceless pieces on the sandy island in her bedroom and framed them with bulrushes and wild grass. Forget Cairo couture—her collection was pharaoh fabulous!
“What do you guys think?” She showed them photos of the earrings and the collar necklace. “Too much?”
“I think you’d better pause and rewind.” Blue twisted her blond curls off her face and secured them with a pair of aqua-lacquered chopsticks.
“Fur real,” Clawdeen said. “Those pear earrings are even better than—”
“Angelina’s Oscar emeralds, I know.”
Lala leaned across the table, the ends of her pink-and-black-streaked hair dusting the top of Cleo’s pyramid cupcake. “Is there more?”
“Tons.”
Cleo showed them the hammered cuffs, the stone-covered crown, the glow-in-the-dark ring, the feather necklace, and the ruby-eyed snake cuff—plus a beautifully lit shot of Anna Wintour’s business card.
“Is it legit?” Lala asked, touching the screen.
“Of course! My dad found it in Aunt Nefertiti’s tomb.”
“No,” Lala said. “The card!”
Cleo waved the girls closer. Once they were inside her amber-scented circle, she told them about her father’s first-class encounter with Anna, the Teen Vogue shoot, the sand dunes, the camels, her upcoming modeling debut, and the limitless networking potential. Their eyes widened with each new detail.
“Rack off, Sheila! You serious?”
“I would eat meat to be in Teen Vogue.”
“I would go vegetarian!”
Intrigue had them wrapped around her like fine linen strips.
“Will you actually be on the camel?”
“Who are the other models?”
“Do they need any blonds?”
And banded them together with Herve Leger suction.
“Can we see the collection after school?”
“We’ll help you pick the best pieces.”
“Hey, mate, can we try anything on?”
By the grace of Geb, Cleo’s image as queen, their queen, had been preserved for at least another day or two. Crisis averted.
She could have gone on for hours, and they would have listened. But her chocolate chip pyramid, which had happened to be at the center of their huddle, rose off its plate and began disappearing in bite-size chunks.
“Billy!”
The last bite fell to the plate. “Sorry.”
Laughter blew the amber-scented circle wide open to reveal Frankie, Melody, and Jackson. They slid their white trays onto the rectangular table and sat as though they’d been invited. Which they hadn’t been—at least, not by Cleo.
“Hey!” Frankie beamed through a thick coating of normie-colored makeup. Her tiny frame was enveloped in a scarf and a black satin jumpsuit (which looked more like a flight suit). Cinching it at the waist with a thick woven belt was an admirable attempt to put some Cover Girl in her cover-up. But it wasn’t working. The one-piece garment had been made with the wrong kind of runway in mind.
“It’s so voltage being back,” she said, appreciating the hustle and bustle of the lunchtime crowd and bobbing her head as the song switched to Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro.”
Cleo rolled her eyes, unable to decide what bothered her more: the word voltage, Frankie’s constant spotlight-jacking, or both. “The dance was Friday night,” she pointed out. “It’s Monday. You didn’t even miss a day.”
“I know.” Frankie smiled. “Thanks to these two.” She applauded Melody and the empty space beside her. Jackson, Lala, Clawdeen, and Blue joined in. Cleo pushed her cupcake aside. The celebration was over.
“I can’t believe Bekka showed that video,” Lala said to Jackson. “Were you freaking?”
“Pretty much.” Jackson took off his black-framed glasses and cleaned the lenses on his crumpled brown-and-yellow-checked button-down. “I was running around looking for my passport when Melody texted me with the good news.” He playfully pulled one of the strings on the normie’s signature hoodie.
Cleo examined the new couple, wondering what Jackson saw in Melody. Feature for feature, she was undeniably attractive, maybe even super pretty. Long black hair, narrow gray eyes, a perfect nose, and zitless skin. But style-wise she had the whole Kristen Stewart I’d-rather-be-comfy-than-cute thing going on. Only she wasn’t Kristen Stewart. So she looked like a pretty girl permanently stuck in Sunday mode.
“Billy was a real hero,” Melody announced.
“The diversion tactic was your idea,” he said, snatching up the discarded cupcake. “And you should hear how Melody stuck it to Bekka in the end. She has to do something like two hundred hours of community service.”
“I heard about that.” Clawdeen laughed. “Not bad. But if it were up to me, I would have had her sent to the electric chair.”
“What’s so bad about that?” Frankie joked.
Melody cracked up.
“Why are you even here?” Cleo blurted, no longer able to censor herself.
Melody blanched.
“Cleo!” Jackson snapped.
“I mean, um, don’t you have allergies?” she backpedaled. “Shouldn’t you be sitting in a different zone?”
“I have asthma, but it’s been much better since I moved here,” she said. “This morning I sang in the shower for the first time in years, and it actually sounded—”
“You sing?” Blue asked.
“You shower?” Cleo mumbled.
“Both.” Melody said, ignoring the dig. “I used to perform when I was little. Why? Do you?”
“I play guitar,” Blue said, “and a little piano.”
“Still working on those scales?” Lala giggled into her napkin.
“Still working on those jokes?” Blue fired back.
Cleo continued flipping through the photos on her phone, hoping to reroute their attention back to what really mattered.
“Bekka got kicked out of math this morning and sent to Principal Weeks’s office,” Frankie announced with a snap of her electric-blue and black rhinestone-covered compact.
“Why?” everyone asked, shifting to face her.
“It was first period. And Mr. Cantor was late, so we started talking about the whole… thing. When Bekka came in, everyone started clapping and telling her how great the practical joke was. She tried to tell them it was real, but no one believed her. I guess she got so frustrated that she started whipping chalk around the room. And that’s when Cantor came in. He took a piece of blue chalk right on the forehead. Sent her straight to Weeks.”
“Nice,” Clawdeen said, swiping a chicken strip from Jackson’s plate.
“And her little friend too,” Frankie continued.
“Haylee,” everyone groaned.
“Yeah, Haylee. She tried to stick up for Bekka. Said she’s upset because Brett wants a break but—”
“You know why he wants a break?” Melody interrupted.
They giggled and looked at Frankie. Frankie looked down at the table.
“That’s ri-ight,” Melody sang. “He wants to meet you.”
The Allergy-Free Zone swelled with girly shrieks. Frankie sat on her hands. Jackson took cover
from the female hormones by hiding under his floppy brown hair. Cleo wanted to hurl her phone at Melody’s meddling face.
“It’s true. He begged me to introduce you.”
“That is so not safe!” Cleo snapped. “What if it’s a trap?”
“Are you gonna do it?” Lala chomped on a carrot. “He is kinda cute for a normie… no offense, Melody.”
She smiled to show there was none taken.
“I dunno.” Frankie sighed. “What about D.J.?” she asked Jackson. “I think he likes me.”
“I guess I could talk to him for you,” he offered awkwardly from underneath his hair.
“So, is that a yes? Should I go and find Brett?”
“No, don’t!” Frankie said. “Not here. Not in front of everyone. What if Cleo’s right? What if it’s not safe?”
“How about after school, then?” Melody suggested. “At the Riverfront. Jackson and I will go with you, just in case.”
Frankie sighed again.
“Just say yes,” Melody urged. “He really likes you.”
“Fine. Yes.”
The girls squealed with vicarious delight.
“Can we go too?” Lala asked.
“Yeah! We’ll ride the carousel and pretend we don’t know you,” Blue added.
“Let’s sneak out early or my brothers will follow us,” Clawdeen said. “They don’t think it’s safe down there.”
“Hold on! I thought we were going to look at the jewelry,” Cleo said, unable to mask her disappointment.
“I know!” Blue, the peacekeeper, lifted a finger. “Why don’t we do the Riverfront today and Cleo’s tomorrow?”
“No way!” Cleo answered.
“Why not way?” Lala asked. She wasn’t one for being told what she could and could not do.
“Because,” Cleo said, stalling. “Because of the surprise.”
“What surprise?”
“Um… I was going to tell you at my house but… Clawdeen and Blue are going to be models with me,” she blurted. “And Lala, I was going to have you help the stylists, since you don’t really show up on camera too well, but—”
Another round of squeals filled the casserole-scented air. As usual, all the other students in the zone turned to see what they were missing. And as usual, Cleo grinned, loving the attention.
“But if you’d rather go to the Riverfront and chaperone, that’s fine. I just need to know because I’d have to find replacements. Your call.”
The girls assured her that replacements would not be necessary and that they were totally committed to the shoot.
“Golden,” Cleo said, hoping to Geb that the editors at Teen Vogue would take the news with the same level of enthusiasm.
LOST CHAPTER
(WHOSE UNLUCKY
NUMBER SHALL GO
UNMENTIONED)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
VANISHING ACT
It was the go-to topic of conversation in the lunch line and at parties, especially for the Wolf brothers.
“So, Billy, dude, be honest, how many times have you sneaked into the girls’ locker room?”
“How hard would it be to get a camera in there?”
“Ever go to one of their sleepovers?”
“How about the locker room at Holy Oak High? Ever go in there?”
“The boys’ school?”
“Yeah, to hear their basketball plays. Whadja think I meant?”
“No way, bro. He’s too busy hiding out in the dressing rooms at Victoria’s Secret.”
Billy would pretend to laugh. But honestly? Billy didn’t want to be that guy. The invisible horndog who followed hot girls and eavesdropped on their conversations. It was so predictable. Not to mention way slimy. Besides, only one girl captured his interest.
Captivating eyes. Fearless determination. Honesty. Innocence. The terrible outfits she had to wear to school and how she managed to smile anyway. The way her hands could light up a room.
He’d bought her a cell phone. Thrown a get-together at her house. And put his life in danger to save hers.
Now she was on her way to the Riverfront to meet a normie boy named Brett. Walking between Melody and Jackson. Sunshine warming her face. Her shadow trailing behind, giddy with the promise of new love.
Billy was following the shadow. Being that guy. The guy he didn’t want to be. Each untraceable step brought him closer to knowing whether he’d ever have a chance with her. But something about her jittery fingers, her bouncy steps, her nervous laughter, told him that even if she knew he was there, even if he put on clothes and painted his face so she could see him, even if he declared his feelings on bended knee… he would still be invisible.
So he stopped walking and watched her go.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TO NORMIE IS TO
LOVE ME
Honey-colored sunlight saturated Riverfront Park, emptying the last bits of lazy heat onto the grassy lawns and walkways. The weatherman had promised a beautiful day, but he had said nothing about the thick golden rays that seemed to track Frankie’s face like a spotlight. That charged her from the outside in. That warmed her black hair and left the sweet smell of cherry-almond shampoo in her wake. No, he had said nothing about perfect weather for falling in love. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to spoil the surprise.
“So, this is the infamous lucky bench?” she asked her escorts as they motioned for her to sit.
“Yup.” Melody grinned. “This is where I met Jackson.”
“I bet you weren’t wearing a full-piece bodysuit, ten tons of makeup, and a scarf,” Frankie said, wishing she could wear something a little more her.
“No, but I was,” Jackson joked, offering her some of his popcorn.
“No thanks.” Frankie rubbed her fluttering belly.
Organ music swelled, and the carousel began to spin. Bobbing up and down on their chosen horses, normie kids laughed and waved to their parents. And their parents waved back, eyes flooded with joy, moved by life’s simplest pleasures. Children’s laughter, a warm afternoon, the smell of popcorn in the air.… If they only knew that their innocent landmark was the cork that topped the RADs’ underground lair, built by monsters for monsters, because their world—the normie world—was too dangerous.
Frankie sighed, giving in to her own confusion. What am I doing? Her goal was to educate and enlighten the enemy, not to flirt with him. Not that Brett was the enemy himself, but he had dated the enemy. So his taste was questionable. “Remind me why I’m here?”
Melody grinned, waving at someone in the distance. “That’s why,” she murmured. Frankie turned. Brett was treading toward them in hiking boots. His swagger was deliberate—determined but not anxious.
“Right. Now I remember.”
His jeans were the same navy blue as the Willamette River, and his black T-shirt had faded to comfy perfection. Green Ray-Bans concealed his eyes but not his megawatt smile.
Enemy who?
Away from the fluorescent lights of school, he looked different. Fresher. Boyish. Free. Out of his Frankenstein costume. No longer on TV. Without Bekka. He held a fistful of daisies in one hand and Frankie’s cartwheeling heart in the other.
“Are those for me?” Jackson teased.
Frankie giggled quietly, not quite ready to be noticed.
“Hey,” Brett greeted Jackson with a high five and an awkward chuckle. “How’s it going?” he said to Melody with a good-to-see-you-again grin.
Everyone exchanged glances, unsure of who was supposed to do what next, while Frankie stood slightly off to the side and waited for her introduction… and waited… and waited.…
But for some reason Melody and Jackson stared expectantly at Brett, like the next move was unquestionably his.
No longer able to handle the suspense, Frankie stuffed her sparking hands into her jumper pockets and then stepped forward.
“So,” Brett asked, his eyes passing right over her. “Is she here?”
“Hey.” Frankie smiled.
Brett
looked at her, confused.
“It’s me,” Frankie pulled her scarf aside and quickly flashed a bolt. “See?”
Brett suddenly snapped to. “Oh, of course,” he stammered. “You can’t just walk around looking all—I didn’t realize—it’s you!” Brett finally made the connection between the girl in his geography class with the cool neck piercings and the hottie with the green skin who had rocked his lips. He was stunned into openmouthed silence.
“Should we get away from all these people?” Frankie asked, fearing he might faint and cause a scene. She had promised her parents she wouldn’t do anything that would attract negative attention, and this time she intended to keep her promise.
“Sure,” he said, trying to recover with an easygoing shrug.
They began walking toward the water.
“Oh!” He handed her the daisies. “These are for you.”
“For what?”
“They’re kind of a sorry-I-ripped-your-head-off gift.”
Frankie pulled her hands out of her pockets and accepted the flowers with a genuine laugh, releasing an entire weekend’s worth of tension, frustration, and shame into the breeze. From that moment on, their hands swung freely. Her fear of sparking vanished a little more each time their fingertips accidentally grazed.
Melody and Jackson followed them to a sunny patch of grass by the river.
“Man, I can’t believe I’m hanging with some—” Brett paused and then sat. “Wait, what exactly are you guys?”
“We like to be called RADs,” Jackson explained, snapping a dandelion from the ground and pulling its stem apart in strips like string cheese. “Regular Attribute Dodgers.”
“Nice.” Brett lay back and folded his hands behind his head. “So, are all of you RADs?”
“Not me,” Melody said.
“That’s right,” Brett said, recalling. “You’re a NUDI.”
“A what?” Frankie giggled, fluffing her hair so he could catch a whiff of her cherry-almond shampoo.
“Normie Uncool with Discriminating Idiots,” he recited proudly.
Melody applauded. “Nice memory.”
“So, Jackson, that video of you was real?”
The Ghoul Next Door Page 10
