Candace turns in her chair and looks behind her at Margo and Bridget on the couch. “Consequences? You mean like Margo having a lock on homecoming queen?”
Margo continues to examine her hair for split ends. “I get that you’re mad, Candace, but please leave me out of it.”
“Of course I’m mad, Margo,” Candace says to her, and then her eyes dart around to the other girls’ faces. “Wouldn’t you be if you were called ugliest when you are clearly not?” Her voice rolls, unsteady.
The other ugly girls look at each other sheepishly. Except for Sarah, who stares Candace down.
Principal Colby holds up her hands. “Girls, please. Don’t fight with each other. No one here is the enemy. You’re all victims.”
Margo raises her hand. “Principal Colby, I know you’re new at Mount Washington, but seriously, this is not a big deal.”
“Easy for you to say,” Danielle mumbles, surprised that she’s spoken up at all.
Jennifer steps forward. “I agree with Margo. I mean, if anyone here has a right to complain, it’s me. And I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me.”
Principal Colby locks eyes with Jennifer before she says, “I can’t believe you don’t care, Jennifer. You should care most of all.”
Jennifer’s cheeks turn pink.
Sarah groans. “What exactly are you trying to do here, Principal Colby? Force us into some kind of group therapy session?”
Principal Colby shakes her head. “Sarah … girls … look, I’ll concede that maybe it’s a bit too soon for you to be able to process what’s happened today. I’ve reached out to a few of you already, but I want you to know that I am here if you want to talk. And if you do have an idea of who might have made the list this year, I hope you will trust me enough to share that information. It’s time for this hazing to end, and I’d like for whoever is responsible for the list to be held accountable.”
Danielle looks around the room. Though she respects Principal Colby’s attempt at a locker-room pep talk, the reality of the situation doesn’t give her much hope. Although each of their names had appeared on the list, none of them seem to be playing for the same team.
Not even close.
Her Game Face would have to stay put. It is every girl for herself.
ridget wakes up bright and early. She showers, does her hair and makeup, and picks out an oxford shirt to wear with leggings and a long drapey cardigan. Once she hears Lisa turn on the shower for herself, Bridget hops down the stairs two by two, excited to get to the kitchen. Really, honestly excited for breakfast. Not faking her way through it, like she’s been doing.
Mrs. Honeycutt set out the cereal boxes, two bowls, and two spoons on the breakfast bar for her daughters, as she does every morning before leaving for work. Bridget takes her clean bowl and her spoon and puts them both into the dishwasher with the dirty plates from last night’s dinner. She ate the chicken breast and a couple baby carrots. No rice.
Not bad.
She takes a piece of paper from her front shirt pocket and flattens it out on the counter. Then she opens the cabinets and goes digging for the ingredients.
Maple syrup. Cayenne pepper. A lemon from the fruit bowl.
She found the recipe on the Internet last night. A cleanse. All the movie stars cleanse before big events, to make sure they look their very best. It’s not a diet, it’s a way to rid your body of toxins, of all the things that pollute your insides.
Most importantly, a cleanse is different from simply not eating. Not eating is not good for you. Bridget knows this. She knew it all summer. She didn’t go about losing weight the way she should have. She was too gung ho, got a little too carried away. She didn’t want to be the kind of girl who thought the things she did, who restricted herself.
But Bridget also knows that she was put on the list because she lost weight. It said as much, right there on the paper. How she’d spent her summer did make a difference.
Except you’ve gained almost all of the weight back, Bridget.
Bridget doesn’t want to let anyone down. She wants to be better, smarter this time. With the homecoming dance just five days away, this cleanse is the answer. All she has to do is follow the directions.
If you were sick, you’d just stop eating again.
But you’re not sick.
You’re healthy.
Bridget carefully measures out the ingredients according to the recipe. She tips the measuring spoon over the lip of her plastic water bottle, sending a tiny pile of red dust to the bottom. Next, she slices a lemon and squeezes it into her hand. Her fingers trap the seeds, and the juice stings where she’s bitten the skin around her fingernails. The maple syrup is the last part. The glass jar is sticky, the cap fused shut with sugar crystals that break apart and powder her hands. She sends a thick chestnut stream into the well of her tablespoon. Bridget wishes there wasn’t so much syrup involved. Two tablespoons seem like a lot. She checks the calorie count on the syrup bottle, frowns, and makes the executive decision to cut the amount in half.
She uses the water filter on the refrigerator door and fills her bottle up to the tippy-top. If she takes small sips, she should have enough of the cleanse mixture to last her through the school day. She shakes the bottle, then removes the cap. Tiny specks of cayenne pepper float on the top of the frothy tea-colored water. Bridget holds it under her nose. It smells like lemonade on fire.
Lisa comes downstairs and sits at the breakfast bar. She’s got on a corduroy jumper that Bridget had picked out during their back-to-school outlet excursion. Bridget gets the milk out for her. “You look cute, Lisa.”
“Bridge, can we please go shopping for homecoming dresses after school? I feel like I’ve been looking at pictures online for weeks, but I want to try things on.”
“I don’t think I can today.” Bridget wants to give the cleanse time to work. The paper says she can lose up to ten pounds in a week. Only she doesn’t have a week. Just five days. “Maybe Thursday.”
Lisa’s mouth gapes. “Thursday? But the dance is on Saturday! What if we can’t find anything?”
“It’ll be fine.” Bridget senses the disappointment in Lisa, and quickly adds, “You can ask Abby to come with us, if you want. And I already talked to Mom about the makeup thing. I think she’s going to be cool with it, so long as it’s a light touch.” The last part is a lie, but Bridget will ask her mother for Lisa tonight.
“What are you making over there?”
Bridget quickly crumples up the paper and throws it in the trash with the squeezed lemon half. She puts the rest of the ingredients away. “It’s this health food thing that’s supposed to boost your immune system.” When she turns back to face Lisa, she puts a hand to her throat. “I feel like I might be getting sick. And I don’t want to miss the dance.”
“Can I try it?”
Bridget shrugs and hands it over. A guinea pig for the first sip.
Lisa puts her lips to the bottle. Almost immediately, Lisa puckers and gags. She pushes past Bridget and spits the liquid into the sink. “Ew, Bridge! This stuff is nasty!”
“It’s not that bad.” It can’t be. She’s not allowed to eat or drink anything else all week.
Lisa grabs a paper towel and starts wiping down her tongue.
Bridget groans. “Don’t be so dramatic.” And then she takes her first tentative sip of the cleanse. It burns the back of her throat, burns all the way down.
You know, it might be easier not to eat anything.
Bridget takes another swig. A big, bold, defiant gulp to drown her brain. She can do this. And then, after homecoming, the pressure will be off.
Lisa frowns and climbs back onto her stool. She pours herself cereal, her favorite kind, with marshmallows in it. Bridget likes that kind, too. The way the little bits crunch and dissolve, how they turn the milk sweet and a little bit pink. Bridget sips from her water bottle again.
“I can still taste that crap,” Lisa complains, and a dribble of milk rolls down her chin.
t’s the homecoming dance, and Abby is pressed against a boy, her cheek snuggled on his brushed flannel shirt. They shuffle to a song she doesn’t recognize, the music fuzzy and deep and far away, like when you hold your fingers in your ears next to the DJ speakers. Abby is in her perfect dress, the black one with the white ribbon sash, and the layer of tulle under the skirt rustles against her legs. A disco ball spins overhead, flashing tiny patches of light over the gymnasium floor. As Abby twirls, the light falls on the faces of the couples dancing around her. Everyone smiles in her direction. The whole thing is warm and soft, the way the best dreams are.
But then it falls away.
Abby loses the dream to the whip of fabric, the slap of morning cold.
She opens her eyes and sees Fern standing over her. Fern lets Abby’s quilt fall on the bedroom floor.
“What’s going on?” Abby mumbles, still half-asleep and suddenly freezing. She pulls her sheet up around her.
“Our alarm didn’t go off.” Abby hears the accusation in her sister’s voice, as if Abby had been the one to screw it up. “I’ve totally missed academic decathlon practice.” Fern clicks on their bedroom light. “Hurry up and get dressed. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
Abby sits up and shields her eyes from the brightness. Fern is already dressed, her bed made. She tosses her textbooks into her bag. “Five minutes? But I need to shower!”
“There’s no time,” Fern says, and walks out of their room.
Abby stands so fast she gets woozy, but manages to make it to the bathroom without falling. Five minutes tick down to four.
Her hair is unwashed and dented from having been slept on, so she twists it into a little knot at the nape of her neck, and then braids the front section so it runs across the edge of her forehead and down behind one ear. She washes her face, brushes her teeth, puts on a touch of blush. Because there is no time left to actually plan an outfit, Abby throws on a navy wool A-line dress with cream kneesocks and her new brown loafers, and wraps a striped scarf around her neck. She loves the fresh-faced schoolgirl look, even if her grades don’t match up to her studious image.
Abby stops at the foyer mirror on her way out the front door. She looks fine. Better than fine, considering the five minutes she had, but it disappoints her that she won’t be looking her absolute best this morning. She hopes her classmates won’t take one look at her and think her inclusion on the list was a mistake. Already the list has made her a person to notice. She’s never had so many people smile at her before. Strangers, girls and guys from every single grade, acknowledging who she is, congratulating her for being prettiest. She spent four weeks as an anonymous freshman to most, and as Fern’s stupid little sister to her teachers, but now Abby is somebody in her own right.
Only one person didn’t mention the list yesterday. Fern. Maybe she is hurt about the genetics comment. Or maybe the only list Fern cares about is honor roll.
Abby runs out of the front door, closing it so hard, the knocker taps a couple of times. Her family is already in the car, waiting. She hears the monotone voices of news radio through the closed windows.
Fern coughs as Abby slides into the backseat. “God, Abby. How much perfume did you put on?”
Abby pulls her arms inside her dress sleeves. “I only used two squirts.” And anyway, it’s her cupcake perfume. Who doesn’t like the smell of freshly baked cupcakes?
Fern inches away until she’s pressed against the passenger-side door and then opens the window, even though it’s cold outside. “I feel like I’m going to throw up a pile of icing.”
Abby leans forward to the front seat. “Hey, Dad? Can I get ten dollars for my homecoming dance ticket?”
“Sure,” Mr. Warner says. He pulls out his wallet.
“Fern?” Mrs. Warner asks, eyeing her older daughter in the rearview mirror. “Do you want money for a ticket, too?”
“I’m not going,” Fern says in a way that implies they should have already known that.
Abby watches her mother share a look with her father. “Oh? Why not?”
“Because the Blix Effect movie is opening this weekend and all my friends are going to see it.”
“Why don’t you see the movie on Friday?” Abby asks. “Then you can go to the dance on Saturday.” Not that she cares if Fern goes to the homecoming dance or not. She’s just saying. It is possible.
Fern doesn’t look at Abby while she answers. Instead she speaks to their parents, as if they were the ones who’d posed the question. “Because we’re going to see the movie on both nights, two different theaters. Once in 3-D and once in regular.”
Abby stares at Fern, utterly perplexed. She knows the Blix Effect novels are super popular, but who wants to see the same movie twice, back-to-back? The homecoming dance is so much more exciting, more special. It’s a once-a-year thing, and the only dance at Mount Washington High that every grade is allowed to attend.
Her sister must see her staring, because Fern suddenly pulls her hair out from behind her ear and lets it cover her face. The morning sun lights up Fern’s split ends. Fern’s hair is the flattest shade of brown, without any of the reddish highlights Abby had gotten when she was at the beach.
Abby scoots across the backseat and takes Fern’s hair in her hands. “Do you want me to twist up your hair for you, Fern? I could do it like mine, so it’s up off your face.”
“No thanks,” Fern says, jerking her head so her hair pulls out of Abby’s grasp.
“Come on, Fern. It’s all ratty in the back. Trust me. It’ll look so much better this way.” Abby doesn’t know why she’s being so nice, seeing that Fern is giving her major attitude. But it feels mean to know Fern looks like crap and not do anything to help her, especially after the list had compared them.
Fern whips around. Her eyes are big and angry, but she sighs and pulls an elastic off her wrist. “If you want to do two French braids for me, fine. But I’m not walking around school looking like I’m your twin.”
It is the last thing Fern says to her. Abby does the French braids, and the rest of the car ride is silent.
When they pull up to Mount Washington, Fern bolts past Freshman Island and goes straight into school.
Lisa sits, leaning against the base of the ginkgo tree, doing homework. “Morning, Abby!” she calls as Abby walks over.
“Hey,” Abby says and kneels down next to her. The ground is cold and hard, and not all that comfortable in a dress, but she doesn’t feel like standing. She doesn’t feel like doing much of anything, to be perfectly honest.
“What’s wrong? You look upset.”
“Nothing.” What was there to say, after all? She and Fern hadn’t fought, exactly.
“Well, I’ve got some news that might cheer you up. Bridget said she’d take me shopping for homecoming dresses on Thursday. I know it’s kind of late in the week, but she hasn’t been feeling well. Anyway, do you want to come with us? She said it’s totally cool if you do.”
Abby picks at some dead grass and wishes that she could have the kind of relationship with Fern that Lisa does with Bridget. But Lisa has so much in common with Bridget. Abby and Fern are as different as could be. Abby wonders if she and Fern would even like each other at all if not for the fact that they were related.
Probably not.
“That would be awesome, Lisa. Thanks. And tell Bridget I said thank you, too.”
Lisa doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, so Abby looks up from the ground. Lisa is staring off into the distance.
“Oh my god, Abby!”
“What?”
“Act natural,” Lisa whispers tersely, “but practically every sophomore boy on the varsity football team is coming over here right freaking now.”
“Seriously?”
Lisa pushes her black hair behind her ear. “Like t
his?” Then she shakes it out. “Or like this?”
Abby threads the hair back for her friend. “Like this,” she says. “What about me? Do I look okay? I had, like, zero time to get ready this morning.”
Lisa pouts. “Are you kidding? You always look beautiful.”
It is a little compliment, and not even one that Abby is inclined to believe. But it still is nice to hear.
About six sophomore boys walk casually across the lawn toward Freshman Island. It is unheard of, really, for any non-freshmen to be seen around the ginkgo tree.
“Hey, Abby,” the biggest boy says. His name is Chuck. Abby knows this because Chuck is the biggest sophomore boy in the school, and he usually smells like musk. “Nice job on the list yesterday.”
“Thanks,” Abby says, quickly looking over the rest of them. A few of the boys are definitely cute. Chuck, not so much. But he is the only one making eye contact with her. So that’s where Abby focuses.
“I wanted to let you know that a bunch of us are going to be hanging out at Andrew’s house after the homecoming dance.” Abby doesn’t know who Andrew is, but she assumes it’s the skinny boy who Chuck punches on the arm. “His parents are going out of town, and we’re going to get some beers. If you two want to stop by, you can.”
Abby looks at Lisa, who is grinning a smile of metal. She can tell Lisa is excited, and Abby herself is excited, too. But she tries to play it cool. “Thanks for the invite, but I’m not sure what we’re doing yet.”
“We’re probably not doing anything,” Lisa quickly adds.
Chuck laughs. “Well, don’t spread the word, okay? We don’t want every freshman thinking they can come over. It’s just you two who are invited. And maybe a couple of your other friends, if you want. But no guys.”
“It might not even happen,” Andrew says. “My parents might come home early. Who knows?” From the grimace on Andrew’s face, Abby can’t tell whether he’s upset or relived that his party might be canceled.
The List Page 7
