Bittersweet Sixteen

by Carrie Karasyov

  Kaitlin rushed over to Sophie, who already had a small gaggle of potential friends surrounding her. She had whipped a Gucci picture holder out of her Hogan bag and was showing aerial photos of her manse in Beverly Hills. Tack.

  “God, I forgot how juvenile everyone is here,” sighed Whitney. “I mean, I was hanging out with an older crowd this summer, and I’m sooo not used to this.”

  “Sorry, Miss Belle-of-the-Senior-Citizen-Ball,” I teased, calling Whitney out on her attitude. “We’re too fetal for you.”

  Whitney smiled at me. “Shut up. You know I’m not talking about you. You’re the only one I can deal with here.”

  “Come on, let’s go learn about rolling heads in France,” I said, taking her arm and leading her to history class.

  Throughout the morning, Whitney and Sophie were like two dogs, sniffing each other out, watching every move—the two most gorgeous girls each trying to see where the social chips would fall. I think it was what people refer to as a Mexican standoff. Whitney’s pretty territorial and doesn’t take well to potential rivals. And as the day trickled on, I could tell that Sophie was the same way. Here we had a classic evolution problem: two queen bees, one hive. But in our class of only forty-one girls, it was inevitable that at some point the titans had to clash.

  It didn’t take long for Sophie to figure out that Whitney held the throne of the social court. During badminton, Whitney was telling Ava about her lifeguard while Sophie watched, curious. I saw her scope Whit’s Cartier tank watch and Tiffany studs, and it was clear she knew this gal was a fashion leader of the pack.

  Then, in the science lab, Whit’s eyebrow arched ever so slightly as Sophie giggled flirtatiously with Mr. Everwood, the hottie teacher (who, rumor had it, had banged a senior the year before). Sophie = cute but semi-cheese, non? said the note that Whitney scribbled and slid across to me in English class. I tried to read it discreetly and nod sympathetically while keeping my head erect and my eyes focused on Mr. Houser, who was droning on and on about the brilliance of nineteenth-century Russian authors.

  I could see, out of the corner of my eye, Whitney glaring at Sophie, who was taking copious notes in her monogrammed leather-bound notebook. That morning I had observed in classes that I shared with Sophie that she had plastered snapshots of herself with various celebrities on the inside flaps of her textbooks and folders and would glide her finger along the photos every so often, causing every eye in the class to follow her nails running up and down Brad Pitt or Jessica Simpson’s beaming face. It was a surefire way to get noticed, as well as to annoy the hell out of Whit. Every time she did it, Whit would thrust another note on my lap (Could she be more of a star worshiper? Gag), and I would cringe in fear of getting busted by the teacher. They were pretty strict about that stuff at Tate.

  Just as Mr. Houser took a pause from his introductory rant on Dostoyevsky, Sophie’s hand shot up.

  “Yes, Miss Mitchum?” asked Mr. Houser, who, with his sad brown suit and mustard-colored mustache, always looked beaten down and surprised when anyone paid attention to him.

  “Hi. Since I’m new, I’m not sure how it all goes down here, but my father, Marty Mitchum, is like dear, dear friends with Julie Christie, and she was in Doctor Zhivago, so if you, like, want her to come in to class to discuss that book, ’cause I know it was written by Dostoyevsky, I can totally arrange it.”

  Mr. Houser looked surprised. “That’s very generous, Sophie. Actually Doctor Zhivago is by Boris Pasternak and is twentieth-century Russian literature, which we will be studying next year.”

  Now, I would have been totally mortified, but not Sophie.

  “Oh, well then, let’s plan for next year. Maybe we can all go to Russian Samovar for lunch with her—Baryshnikov owns it and he’s, like, another great friend of my dad’s.”

  I couldn’t resist turning to look at Whitney, whose eyes widened in shock.

  On our way to lunch, Whitney let loose. “Three words: tacky, tacky, tacky!”

  “Shh…she’ll totally hear you.”

  “I don’t care. She is yucksville. Could she name-drop any more? I mean, I’ve never even talked to her personally and I know that Mr. Chow is ‘like her kitchen,’ that they moved here because her dad was making a trilogy with ‘Marty’—not even Martin, but Marty—Scorsese, and that the guy who played the dad on 7th Heaven is her godfather. Barf.”

  “Yeah, she’s really something.” I wasn’t sure what to make of Sophie, actually. She both repelled and compelled me. On the one hand she was a brazen name-dropper, but on the other she seemed unabashed about it, and that was kind of refreshing. It could get irritating when someone at Tate tried to brag in subtle whispers that they had dined with Henry Kissinger the night before, but then had to give all these disclaimers like they don’t care about famous people, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, right.

  The jury was still out on Miss Mitchum. Lunch seemed like a good opportunity for further deliberation.

  Chapter Three

  Our dining room is not your average scene with a lunch lady in a hairnet glopping spoonfuls of tragic meats and powdered potatoes on trays. I’m talking Dutch still-life-worthy cornucopias of gourmet Dean & Deluca–catered smorgasbords. I’m talking Italian soda fountains, towers of fresh bagels, a freshly squeezed juice bar, and a thirty-foot salad bar with over sixty ingredients and two Malaysian choppers who slice ’n’ dice out designer lunches in large bowls and toss them with mini–sterling ladles of fat-free dressing. The wallpaper is the same as in the dining room in Buckingham Palace, a floral chinoiserie with some birds on it, handmade, like, a hundred years ago.

  We sat down with our china plates at our usual white tablecloth-covered haunt, in the back left corner, as far away from the faculty table as humanly possible. We had started eating when, suddenly, Whitney looked up and stared across the dining room. Uh-oh: Jaws music should have been playing in the background as our soundtrack. Sophie had walked out with a plate of…grapes. Just grapes. And she was scanning the tables to see where to plop her Pilates’d bum. Just then, Ava waved.

  “Stop it, Ava!” Whitney chided her in a harsh whisper. “Don’t have her come here. Quelle idiote!”

  “Whit, she’s cool, I swear,” she replied, smiling up at Sophie, who was already halfway across the room, approaching at mach-ten speed.

  “Great,” Whit said, shooting me a look.

  Sophie came up to us with a huge smile. It was hard to dislike someone who was so friendly.

  “Hi! I haven’t met some of you guys yet. I’m Sophie Mitchum.”

  “Hi, I’m Laura Finnegan,” I answered. “Nice to meet you.”

  There was a small pause. I continued. “And this is Whitney Blake.”

  “Hi,” Whit said, semi-coldly. Brrr! But Sophie took it in stride.

  “It’s so nice to meet you! Can I sit with you?”

  Ava, Kaitlin, and I all erupted in “absolutely”s and “sure, sure, sure!”s while Whit just ate her balsamic-splattered frisée.

  “I looove that Tiffany bean necklace,” Sophie said, looking at Whitney.

  “Oh, thanks.”

  Whitney kicked me under the table. It was our secret mode o’ communication. Sometimes I swear my shin is black and blue thanks to all the nudges from her pointed toes.

  “Actually,” Sophie continued, beaming at Whitney, “I saw Lindsay Lohan in the dressing room at Fred Segal, and she had the same one, so chic. God, I miss Fred Segal! You guys’ll have to show me the cool shopping here. I have zero winter clothing! Except for, like, the ski outfits I wear in Aspen.”

  “Well, Whitney knows all the great stores,” I said, trying to bring my arctic best friend into the conversational fold. It was so lame when she was rude for no reason, which tended to happen from time to time when Whit felt threatened. I mean, hey, Sophie was trying; give her a break. “She could replace Robert Verdi on the Style Network’s Fashion Police.”

  “Ew,” said Whitney, hitting my arm teasingly. “Verdi is so cheese. Hello, Goud
a! He’d win the gold medal in the tacky Olympics. And besides,” she said, looking Sophie in the eye for the first time, “Laura is so our style setter.”

  “Totally,” agreed Kaitlin. “She can in one nano make a lameoid outfit look trendy and hip.”

  “You guys!” I said, embarrassed but flattered.

  Sophie looked at me and nodded. “I can totally tell you are emitting a killer style vibe.” Then she turned to Whitney, knowing by now she was the tougher nut to crack. “And you—you are totally channeling Mischa Barton. You guys are, like, twins separated at birth!”

  Ladies and gentlemen, Point One for Miss Mitchum. This clearly registered well with Whit because I happen to know she thinks Mischa is überchic and one of the only young stars that passes red carpet muster with us (no tacky cleavage, no whorefest getups). I could see Whitney brighten. But the thaw would not come that easily. See, Whitney is pretty black and white about everything. She loves you or hates you. Something’s either “totally in” or “soooo out.” Whitney would keep playing hard to get until she could pass a positive verdict on Sophie.

  “Well, I’m not sure about that,” said Whit, still not completely ready to concede. “Mischa is pretty chic, but unfortch still has a little bit of that California thing going on. No offense.” She smiled enigmatically at Sophie. I could see Sophie still had some work to do. Whitney wanted to make absolutely sure that she knew who was the ruler of our little fiefdom. (I had always considered myself consigliere, which was fine by me.)

  “None taken. All of us from the coast have our own style, which is often misunderstood by the rest of the world. Except for Donatella Versace. She says she gets all her inspiration from Angelinos,” said Sophie, who didn’t seem to bristle at all from Whitney’s semijab.

  “Well, Donatella is not exactly what I would call chic,” began Whitney.

  “You’re right, Sophie,” I said, trying to avoid a style debate. “Los Angeles style may as well be martian style for us stiffs in the Big Apple. We’re pretty reserved.”

  “I can tell. The headmistress gave me daggers when she saw how tight my shirt was. Do they, like, want us to forget that we have boobs? Why don’t they just suit us up in nuns’ outfits and strap them down?” said Sophie.

  “That’s for the convent girls across the street,” said Ava, laughing.

  “Well, a sinner like me will never be able to darken the doors of a convent,” giggled Sophie.

  Sophie seemed to have passed muster with Whit, at least for now. By the end of lunch, even Whitney was cracking a smile at some of Sophie’s jokes.

  I stayed late after school to meet with our Russian teacher, Mrs. Federov, to talk about organizing a Russian club. As I was packing my gigantic book bag in the lounge, Sophie came out of Madame Hurley’s office, looking a little flustered. Uh-oh. Madame Hurley was the head of Upper School and known to be kind of intimidating. Sophie smiled when she saw me.

  “Hey,” she said, trying to put on a chipper voice. I could tell that this was not the cheerful and confident Sophie that I had seen a few hours before.

  “Hey, Sophie. How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Oh, just amazing, thanks,” she said, burying her head in her cabinet so that I wouldn’t notice the tearstains on her cheeks.

  I walked over to her. I felt totally bad, remembering the first time I went to camp and felt like a total outsider. It was a bummer to be the new kid on the block, that’s for sure. “It must be really sucky starting a new school and everything.”

  She turned and looked at me and smiled with total sincerity. “It is…it’s just, soooo different from my school in L.A. I mean, in L.A. we could call the teachers by their first names and we had boys!!! It was really more like a giant premiere. But here…”

  “I know, it’s hardly a festive atmosphere,” I said, smiling. “But don’t worry, Sophie. You’ll do fine once you get the hang of it.”

  She took a deep breath. “I guess…”

  “You will,” I said, suddenly giving her a reassuring hug.

  “Thanks, Laura.”

  We walked out of the building together and I filled her in on all the teachers, who to avoid, who to get as an advisor, and the whole scandal with the previous piano teacher. I could tell she cheered up a little as we walked, and we hugged again before we set off on our separate ways.

  “One more thing,” she said before we departed. “How do I get through to the queen bee?”

  “Whitney?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yeah. I can tell that it’s her fiefdom and I totally appreciate that. I was like that at my old school. But I think we could all be friends. I just don’t want her to feel threatened, because I won’t step on her toes.”

  I smiled. Sophie was smart—she had totally nailed Whitney in one day. “Um, maybe come bearing gifts?” I suggested.

  “Done,” said Sophie, smiling.

  I liked Sophie. She was flashy and brassy, but there was a chewy center to her. I hoped we could be friends.

  On the phone that night, Whitney and I recapped the day.

  “So what are we thinking about L.A. chick?” Whit asked. I could practically hear her twirling her hair through the phone, her trademark I’m thinking long and hard gesture.

  I decided not to tell her about Sophie’s confession and display of vulnerability. I don’t know, I just felt like it was a private moment that Whitney didn’t need to dissect.

  “You know what?” I said. “I really like her. At first the jury was out, and I thought maybe she was a little vacuous, but I don’t think so now. She’s cool.”

  “I hear that,” Whitney said, considering this. “But I’m still not sure. She could be our next best friend or the suckiest bi-atch ever. I haven’t decided yet.” Like I said, extremes.

  The next day, I knew by first period that Sophie was going to power through Whit’s black-and-white spectrum to gleaming white when she entered the lounge with four tiny shopping bags with little striped ribbons.

  “Hi, gals,” she said as we were unpacking our book bags into our closets. “Prezzies for my nuevo pals!” She gave us each a little Olive and Bette’s tissue-stuffed bag, in which we found small chocolate-brown leather pouches with our initials in pink. Pretty cute. I looked up at her and she winked at me. “I saw these and just couldn’t resist.”

  “Oh! I worship this!” squealed Ava, hugging Sophie. “Thanks, love!”

  Kaitlin and I thanked her, too, as our eyes turned to Whitney to gauge her reaction.

  She looked at the cute lowercase w and then up at a beaming Sophie. “I almost bought this at Olive and Bette’s, but they were totally sold out. They’re so hard to find,” she said, looking at Sophie gratefully. “J’adore.”

  The ’bergs of Whit’s cold front melted away as we all admired our matching new accessories. I could tell our posse had a new member.

  “I’d love to go do Madison after badminton. We can find you a cute shearling at Searle, Sophie,” said Whitney.

  “I’d love that!” beamed Sophie.

  Chapter Four

  “Hid,” sighed Whitney when Sophie popped out of the dressing room to model a dark brown coat. “What do you think, Laura?”

  Sophie twirled around. I walked over and tied the belt. “Well, I think it’s just too boxy, not well made. It makes you look a little stocky, which is obviously insane because you are like Lindsay Lohan, so I think you should try on the other one.”

  “Why can’t I just get a little mink coat?” asked Sophie. “That’s what I had for Aspen. I mean, I’ve outgrown it now, but I could get the next size—”

  “No, no, no,” Whitney and I said in unison. “Teenagers can’t do the fur thing,” Whitney said solemnly.

  “But isn’t shearling fur?” asked Sophie.

  “Yes and no,” I said.

  “Mink’s too gauche,” said Whitney. “Flashy.”

  “Okay, I trust you guys,” said Sophie, retreating to the three-way mirror across the room. “But all these rules se
em so bizarre! I mean, the point is to stay warm and look fabulous, isn’t it?”

  As she disappeared to try on the next possibility, Whitney and I exchanged smiles. Our new friend needed a lot of help, and that was good news for Whitney. I think she sensed Sophie was hardly a wall-flower in her old school but that she’d need assistance acclimating to her new world. Our world, where Whitney was in charge.

  “Ta-da!” said Sophie, jumping out of the dressing room in a camel-colored coat.

  “Perfection,” pronounced Whitney.

  I went over and pulled down the sleeves a little and knotted the belt. “Yes, this one’s good,” I said, nodding.

  “Finally!” said Sophie, excited. “Now, how many should I get? Three? How about the black and the chocolate and the cream, too?”

  “Whoa.” Whitney’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “You only need one.”

  “One? I’m supposed to wear the same coat every day?” asked Sophie, shocked.

  “If it does the job,” I said.

  “That seems so weird. People do that?” asked Sophie, still perplexed.

  “You’re only wearing it from the door of your house to the front door of your car, and then from the car to the school. Who’s going to notice?” I said.

  “Everybody only has one,” Whitney said with assurance.

  Sophie was still skeptical. “Okay, I’ll just get one for now, but maybe next week we’ll regroup and go on the hunt for another. It seems weird, one coat! My parents will literally have coronaries when they see how restrained I was. But I trust you—you guys are so chic. Laura, where did you get that rad outfit you’re wearing?”

  “Actually, I made it,” I said with a mixture of embarrassment and pride.

  “Get out!” boomed Sophie so loudly that two salesgirls in the front frowned at us.

  My ultimate passion was clothing design. In my dreams I would fully head toward a career as the next Karl Lagerfeld. And I had become more than handy with a needle, if I do say so myself. It wasn’t just a financial thing, although it did help to make your own duds when you can’t slam down the plastique like Whit and Sophie. But more important, it was my “artistic outlet,” as Whitney described it. And she was right. I was way into it. I wish I had the focus or the time or the guts to actually design a line for people other than myself, but I was too scared to try it. For now it was just couture for one.