Alphas

by Lisi Harrison

  She’d had received word that the essay portion of her application has been misplaced last month, but hadn’t bothered to write another. She’d been too busy pursuing her other favorite pastime: boys. Skye had been hoping to discover whether surfer hawttie Dune Baxter’s lips tasted like saltwater taffy, but he’d turned out to be interested in eighth grader Kristen Gregory, instead.

  “It was really stressful,” Skye lied. “Let’s just say I have calluses on my hands to match the ones on my feet.”

  Winkie laughed with her mouth closed.

  Behind the camera, old instructors, school friends, and neighbors were starting to arrive. Greeting one another with hugs, they stuffed dumplings in their mouths and then chew-nodded their delight in this local success story.

  Winkie stuck a microphone under Skye’s barely glossed lips. “Tell us how it feels to be chosen by Shira Brazille, entertainment mogul. Icon. Alpha.”

  Skye reached up and pulled a silver chopstick from her artful bird’s nest, releasing a cascade of blond wavelets for the camera. “Shira’s a real hero of mine,” she said confidently. “Her outback-to-riches story is such an inspiration. It shows what a girl can do when she applies herself. And now to give back in this way—wow!” Skye inflected as if all this had just occurred to her and she hadn’t practiced a million times with her mother over the summer before the essay was lost.

  “And for those of us unfamiliar with the term, what exactly is an ‘alpha’?” Winkie asked through her pasted-on smile, air-quoting with her microphone-free hand.

  “If you have to ask, then you’ll never know.” Skye didn’t have an edit button. Girls like her didn’t need one.

  Winkie’s eye twitched but she moved effortlessly onto the next topic. “Skye, you are the only girl chosen from New York state. Are you nervous about no longer being a big fish in a small pond? Do you feel ready to leave this all behind?” She licked her lips, as if she’d hit her Barbara Walters cry-inducing question.

  Was Skye ready? She looked around at BADS, where she was the best dancer they’d ever had, and at the DSL Daters, who had been nothing more than well-dressed Nutcrackers before she brought them to life. Skye pinched her mini lips charm between her thumb and pinkie. She’d already kissed all the Best Westies (Westchester boys). She’d always suspected she was destined for bigger things.

  Natasha’s bony fingers reached for her daughter’s hand. A cue to return to the script. “My mom taught me that success is like ballet. You work until your feet hurt, until your muscles ache, until your body knows the steps without thinking. You challenge yourself every day to dance harder, better, longer. So when the lights come on and the performance begins, it looks effortless. ”

  Her mom’s round mouth and full lips moved along with her own. After a career full of interviews and TV appearances, Natasha always knew what to say. But Skye could never put her feelings into words. She was the type who had to get on her feet and show them.

  “Well, you’re certainly ready.” Winkie’s voice didn’t go up that time—there was no question about it.

  “Thanks for the party, Mom.” Skye followed Natasha to a pair of chairs in the corner once everyone had gone. “And for rewriting my essay.”

  “I didn’t write it.” Natasha crunched down on a piece of celery. “I added a few lines here and there, but you did most of the work.”

  Skye studied her mother’s pronounced jaw. It was pulsing from chewing, not tension. She lifted a silver box out from under her chair.

  “Hmmmm.” Skye looked up at the track lights. Maybe the essay had been found after all? Or maybe when the Alpha Academy admissions committee saw her video audition, they realized she didn’t need one?

  Natasha handed her daughter the box and Skye slowly untied the white bow.

  She lifted a lavender toe shoe from the tissue paper, its worn silver satin ribbons trailing behind like smoke from a blown-out candle. The pair had hung over her mother’s vanity forever. Like stamps on a passport, the scuffs, scrapes, and frayed silk told the story of her mom’s career: from Swan Lake at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Coppélia at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and Sleeping Beauty at the Royal Opera House in London, where a grand jeté gone wrong had landed her in King’s College Hospital with a torn meniscus and a fractured career.

  “They’re too big for me,” Skye said, hoping for a new pair. Maybe something in a soft gold. “Besides…” She searched the box for the other shoe, but the tissue was empty. “There’s only one.” Skye furrowed her brow, not sure what she was supposed to do with one big used shoe.

  “This slipper is special,” Natasha whispered. “It will fit your hads.”

  “Huh?” Skye blinked. Her mom had been in the country for eighteen years, but every once in a while something got lost in translation.

  “It will fit your HADs,” Natasha repeated. “Your Hopes And Dreams.” She flipped open the tip of the shoe. “You write what you wish for for and hide it in the shoe. When the time is right, it comes true.”

  “Really?” Skye leaned in closer. “What did you wish for?”

  “Meeting your father,” Natasha mused, untucking Skye’s hair from behind her ears. Skye knew the story well. Her mom—the original DSL Dater—had come to America when she was seventeen to perform at Lincoln Center. After one dance onstage, she’d landed a marriage proposal from Skye’s dad and defected. “This dance studio,” Natasha continued. “And you.”

  Her mother’s words filled her muscles with the kind of warmth that comes after a good stretch. They softened and strengthened her at the same time. Who cared how her application had landed on Shira’s desk? All that mattered was that it had.

  Skye glanced around at the place she’d learned to dance, suddenly feeling too big for the small studio. The leaded windows, the track lighting with special bulbs that flattered blondes, the nick in the doorjamb where she’d spun and whacked the frame with her Tinker Bell wand when she was six. They were part of her past now, destined to shrink into wallet-size snapshots in her memory. Images that she’d flip through when she needed to remember where she came from.

  Weaving the shoe’s silk straps through her fingers, Skye glanced at her mom’s cheekbones. Her pale skin covered them like white tights over smooth stones when she smiled.

  “You will be the best dancer at Alpha Academy.” Her mother pulled her to her heart, like their hug was choreographed. The jingle of charms made her homesick even though she was still there. “What are you going to wish for first?

  Skye opened the secret compartment, discovering neatly folded squares of blank, lavender-scented paper. They smelled like home.

  “I dunno,” Skye lied. The truth was, she knew exactly what she wanted. She had hoped and dreamed for it her entire life.

  HAD No. 1 was to make her mother proud.

  2

  SOMEWHERE OVER THE MOJAVE DESERT

  ALPHA JET

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH

  9:24 A.M.

  At thirty-eight thousand feet above the desert, Allie Abbott tried to GPS her emotional state. It was somewhere between wow and whoa, what have I done!? Her emerald-colored contact lenses flitted around the womblike belly of the personal private plane. After two-plus hours of flying and crying, her eyes were finally dry enough to take in their surroundings.

  Hammered silver coated the convex egg-shaped walls, reflecting prisms and rainbows all over the cabin.

  “I’m made from sixty thousand recycled aluminum cans,” the wall announced in a woman’s warm British accent when she ran her fingers over its warped surface.

  She Purelled immediately.

  Still, Allie never would have known that she was flying “green” if the plane’s automated voice didn’t remind her every time she touched anything. She sank into her womblike recliner made from recycled tires. Allie liked that everything on the plane used to be something else—everything here had a fresh start, a second chance, and now, thanks to Alpha Academy, so did Allie. She took a
sip of wheatgrass lemonade, Allie J’s favorite.

  “Barf!” she choke-shouted and then dry-heaved. The tart sludge clawed at her taste buds, and then she reflexively sucked her cheeks in.

  “Problem with the wheatgrass lemonade?” asked a smooth, motherly voice over the intercom from the cockpit. It was the same voice that had welcomed her aboard. The same voice that had told her she’d be flying to a discreet location somewhere in the Mojave Desert. And the same voice that had reminded her there was no turning back as the wheels lifted off the runway in Santa Ana, California.

  “Nope. The lemonade is perfect,” Allie lied—a skill she’d mastered over the last few weeks. And something that she’d hopefully get even better at once she landed. Because Alpha Academy had outfitted this plane for a very different Allie Abbot. Allie J. Abbott, to be specific. The girl power poet–slash–eco-maniac songwriter. Not the heartbroken mall model who worshipped pop culture, pop songs, and Pop-Tarts. No. No one wanted that Allie these days.

  Thumbing away another tear, Allie nestled into her ergonomic recliner. It was made of what looked like Bubble Wrap filled with water, and felt like getting a massage from a hundred different people at once. If her intestines weren’t contracting from the shot of wheat-ass, it might have felt incredible.

  “Um, hello? Can I watch a movie?” Allie asked the empty cabin. Maybe the flight attendant was sitting up front with the pilot? Suddenly the lights dimmed and an electric cart filled with organic popcorn pulled up beside her. A hemp blanket slid out of the armrest like a fax and wrapped around her entire body until she felt like a crab hand roll.

  Leonardo DiCaprio’s Eleventh Hour began immediately. “This film will be shown in high definition using patent-pending Smell-O-Vision, a feature that sprays a scent to match the image on-screen,” the British voice informed her over the intercom. Just then Leo appeared on screen, accompanied by the fresh aroma of jojoba and eucalyptus, the notes in Fletcher’s Intense Therapy Lip Balm.

  Allie’s mouth began to involuntarily pucker, longing for the taste of her ex-boyfriend’s kisses. Serious-leh? If flying on a talking personal jet to the most exclusive academy in the world while committing identity theft didn’t help her forget him, a lobotomy was the only remaining option.

  Allie had first seen Fletcher Barton at the Riverside Palace Mall in downtown Santa Ana. They’d locked eyes on the north escalators—she was going up, he was going down. Her arms were full of bags. His were full of muscles. Goose bumps sprouted all over her spray-tanned body that had nothing to do with the frigid air-conditioning and everything to do with his leather jacket. He was tall and fit, with product-enhanced light brown hair and narrow blue eyes. She was the same. For a second, Allie wondered if they were related. Maybe fraternal twins separated at birth. But their attraction had been too strong for something that creepy.

  “Wait!” he shouted, pushing past moms and their kids, taking the steps two at a time as he darted up the down escalator.

  They met at the top.

  “I’m Fletcher,” he panted, holding out his hand.

  Allie immediately put down her bags and stuffed her hands in the kangaroo pouch of her suede tunic. She pocket-pumped some Purell onto her palms and rubbed them together. Not because she thought he looked germy—in fact, he looked more sanitary than any boy she’d ever seen—but because he had been gripping the rubber rail for at least twenty seconds, and that was more than enough time for a virus to adhere to his fingertips.

  “You want?” Allie extended the clear bottle.

  “No, thanks.” He smiled with his entire face. “I’ve got the wipes.” He pulled a square package out of his back pocket, tore it open with his tartar-free teeth, and rubbed. With a swift toss, the used cloth soared straight into the trash can and Cupid’s arrow straight into Allie’s heart.

  From then on they were inseparable, and quickly became known for their combined physical perfection and strong immune systems. Everyone joked that when they got married and had kids, they would be studied for advancing the human genome. Allie said it too, only she was serious.

  And the best part was that her BFF, Trina, who was single, and much less attractive than them, never got jealous or made Allie choose. In fact, she seemed just as inspired by their beauty as everyone else. Always wanting to be around them and nibble on the by-product of their love. But what Trina lacked in beauty she made up for in artistic talent. She’d even offered to tag along with the couple to Disneyland for their eleven-month anniversary, and sketch picturesque moments of their enchanted day in charcoal.

  “Ha!” A bitter laugh escaped Allie’s waxy Burt’s Bees–coated lips—the natural balm was an unfortunate favorite of Allie J’s.

  “Everything okay back there?” the voice asked from the cockpit.

  Um, if by okay you mean wanting to shove my bare unpedicured foot up my ex-friend’s butt like a shish kebab skewer, then yes, everything is fine, Allie wanted to shout. But that would blow her cover faster than a DNA sample. So she simply nodded yes and forced a smile in case the omniscient voice could see her from behind the aluminum wall.

  “Good,” it replied, satisfied.

  But it wasn’t. Nothing was good. Not since the happy threesome had boarded the yellow-and-blue submarine on the Finding Nemo ride. Not since everything went dark when they had been “swallowed by a whale.” Not since the lights flashed back on and Fletcher’s neck was covered in charcoal fingerprints. And Trina’s lips smelled like jojoba and eucalyptus. And they both looked more caught than Nemo.

  Allie slammed her compact shut without the satisfying click. She just didn’t get it. With puffy O-shaped lips, narrow navy blue eyes, skin that looked lit from within, and a nose so perfectly sloped that a girl two towns over had requested it for her fifteenth birthday, beauty was her backstage pass. It got her everything she ever wanted. So why hadn’t it been enough to keep Fletcher? Or rather, how had she lost him to a girl who was a mere 6.5 out of 10 after Photoshop?

  She’d asked him that one day after school.

  “Alliecat, you’re a hottie, no question.” Fletch leaned back like there was a wall behind him, even though they were in the middle of the basketball court during practice. “But Trina’s talent is more attractive than being a perfect ten.” He caught the ball and began dribbling it down the court. Allie followed despite the angry coach and his threats to call the police. Fletcher shot and scored. His teammates smacked him high fives. In the empty stands, Trina speed-sketched the moment. Allie began to cry.

  “I’m sorry.” Fletcher wiped his sweaty forehead with the bottom of his jersey. “But it’s not about looks for me.”

  “Since when?” Allie mumbled, eyeing Trina’s witchy black bangs, asymmetrical brown eyes, and pressed-down nose with borderline envy. Maybe if she had been born ugly she would have had to develop a talent too. But she hadn’t been. And that wasn’t her fault! Yet here she was, paying the price.

  “Since always,” Fletcher insisted, obviously lying. Because for the last eleven months he’d had no problem posting her pictures on his Facebook page. “I want to be inspired. And she does that.”

  “Real-leh? How? By drawing pictures of you out of barbecue ash?” Allie felt the grip of his coach’s meaty hands on her shoulder. “Her binder doodles are just another way for you to admire yourself. They’re like mirrors or pictures—” The meaty hands tightened and began pushing her toward the exit. “Ow!” Allie squealed all the way to the double doors.

  Once outside, she Purelled her shoulder until she heard eleven boys and one girl applauding. It sounded like a thousand tiny slaps.

  Word spread quickly about the scandal, and even more quickly about their on-court battle. There was only one thing left to do.

  Hide.

  Allie retreated into her room with the intention of never leaving it again. She’d lost her boyfriend and best friend all in one afternoon, and the loneliness and betrayal hurt more than a lip wax. Her mom came in frequently with all her favorites from the
food court. But the pit in her stomach was too deep to fill, even with Hunan Pan’s crispy fried wings and pot stickers.

  Until two days later, when her lo mein arrived with a heavy gold package.

  Allie sat up in bed and asked her mother to kindly close the door behind her.

  It’s about time! She sniffled, tearing through the vellum. She wondered if Fletcher would just apologize or actually grovel, and what kind of gift he was sending to make it up to her. A gold mobile device fell onto her duvet-covered lap along with a letter. It looked like an iPod dipped in glitter. Huh?

  Dear Allie J,

  Welcome to the inaugural class of Alpha Academy…

  Allie whipped the letter onto the ground and beat her Tinker Bell pillowcase. It figured Allie J would be hitting a high note when Allie was at her lowest.

  Allie had been getting the girl’s fan mail for years. The songwriter had grown up on the Applemay Farm Commune just five miles outside Santa Ana. But ever since she’d left on some save-the-melting-ice-caps mission in Antarctica, the letters had been coming more frequently. Allie could have notified the post office, but that would have involved forms and post office people. Both of which were boring and probably covered in germs. Besides, Allie J’s songs had shown up on the sound tracks of three teen summer flicks, and according to a blind item in Page Six, a certain trio of Disney brothers were fighting over more than her body of work. And who knew what one of them might send. Maybe himself?

  Allie lowered her head, succumbing to a new generation of tears. Through salty blurred vision the gold seal of the envelope had caught the light and winked at her from the floor. Like they shared a joke. Or a secret. Or the need to escape.

  Allie raced to her laptop and Google-imaged Allie J. Only three pics came up:

  1. A green eye behind a mess of black hair.

  2. Her thin body photographed from behind. She was onstage, facing the audience at New York’s famed Nuyorican Poets Cafe in a white dress and bare feet.

  3. A grainy camera phone pic of her face with what appeared to be a very large mole.