Текст книги "If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince? "

Автор книги: Melissa Kantor

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Chapter Ten

I would have said that nothing could make me not like Ms. Daniels, but after she told us we'd be

spending the next two months working on self-portraits, I wasn't so sure. As far as I'm

concerned, the whole point of making a painting is you can stop thinking about yourself for as

long as you're working. What's the fun of an art class spent looking in the mirror?

At lunch, just as I was explaining to Madison and Jessica the difference between a still life and a

portrait, Kathryn Ford came over to the table where we were sitting. She was with a girl so

beautiful she actually gave Kathryn a run for her money. With her thick, curly brown hair and

enormous blue eyes, she looked like a Victoria's Secret model in the flesh. This was one woman

who definitely did not need a padded bra.

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"Hey," said Kathryn. She tossed her Prada bag on the table and dropped into a chair.

"Hey," said the other girl, tossing her own Prada bag down and collapsing into a chair next to

Kathryn.

"Hey," I said. Madison and Jessica said, "Hi."

"So, what's up?" Kathryn asked, like her sitting with and talking to us was something that

happened every day.

"Not a whole lot," said Madison, playing the same game of pretend. "What's up with you?"

"Not much," said Kathryn. She looked over at me. "I like your shirt," she said.

"Oh, thanks." I was wearing an ancient Ramones T-shirt my dad got at a concert back before I

was born. My mom had tie-dyed it all these wild, psychedelic colors. It's pretty faded now, but I

still like it.

"So, you're going out with Connor," she said.

Was she asking me or telling me?

"Yeah, she's going out with Connor," Jessica piped up. She spoke defensively, like Kathryn had

better watch herself.

Kathryn laughed. "Chill," she said to Jessica. Then she turned to me. "Connor's adorbs. He's practically like my brother." She laughed. "And anyway, I don't go out with high-school guys."

She laughed again, and so did the rest of us, as if the idea that Kathryn Ford would date a high-

school guy was nothing short of hilarious. When we all stopped laughing,

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Kathryn bumped her beautiful friend's shoulder. "No offense," she said. "None taken," purred the beautiful girl, and the two of them started laughing again.

"Anyway," Kathryn continued, "I just wanted to know if you need a ride to the game Friday."

"Oh, no," said Madison. "We're good."

Kathryn kept looking at me, as if Madison hadn't even spoken. "Thanks," I said evenly. "We're all set."

"Suit yourself," said Kathryn. She stretched her arms over her head, and her tiny tee slid up to reveal her perfectly flat stomach. "I guess we'll see you there."

"Yeah, sure," I said.

As soon as they were gone, Madison turned to me. "She is such a phony." She made her voice high and squeaky. "'Do you need a ride? Connor's practically my brother. I like your shirt.' God."

"I know," Jessica said. "Adorbs? Puh-leeze."

I didn't say much as the conversation wound past all the ways Kathryn Ford was a phony, two-

faced hypocrite who wasn't nearly as pretty as she thought she was. Because there was only one

aspect of Kathryn Ford's phony, two-faced, hypocrisy that had the slightest effect on me.

I don't go out with high-school guys.

Somehow I got the feeling that if Kathryn ever decided to change her policy, I was going to be in

serious trouble.

***

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Friday afternoon a few people had stayed in the studio after class ended, including Sam Wolff.

Except for me and Sam, everyone was talking more than they were working. Sam was focusing

really hard on his painting, and I was focusing really hard on the clock, wishing the hour I'd

sworn to spend drawing would pass faster. And it wasn't just because I had zero ideas for my

self-portrait. All I could think about were my plans for the night. I'd take the late bus, which left

at five and would get me home at five-thirty, plenty of time to shower, get dressed, and let my

hair dry before Madison and Jessica picked me up at seven. Not only was tonight a crucial game

for making the states, there was a huge party afterward at some senior's house. And the coach had promised the guys that if they won, they could have a night with no curfew. Needless to say, I

wasn't going to be mentioning that to Mara. Just thinking of all the hours I'd get to make out with Connor gave me goose bumps. I wanted it to be five o'clock now.

At four fifty-five, I grabbed my bag and Connor's jacket, shoved my sketch pad in my drawer,

and started for the door. As I passed his easel, I couldn't help noticing the painting Sam was

working on.

"Wow," I said. It was a still life of a dining room table after a massive meal has just been

consumed– there were half-eaten plates of pasta, empty serving dishes, crumpled napkins, and

abandoned knives and forks. The painting was spectacular: a still life in tiny, colorful squares. I

leaned in to see the squares up close

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and realized the designs in them weren't just designs; each was actually a tiny image. The wine

bottle was made of bunches of grapes, the melting ice cubes were actually a minute, snow-

capped mountain range. Stepping back from the finished section of the painting you saw the

contour of each thing made from the shapes and shades within the squares. Only when you were

standing right at the canvas could you see the specifics of the little images.

"That's amazing." I wanted to touch the rich, thick paint. "You know who it reminds me of?

Chuck Close." Chuck Close is an artist I'd first seen years ago, when my dad and I made a pre-

Mara trip to New York and went to the Museum of Modern Art. Ever since then he's been one of

my favorite artists. Close does the same thing Sam had done, squares of shapes and colors that

create a figurative image.

Sam didn't say anything. In fact, he didn't even look at me.

Once again I felt what I'd felt that day in the museum: the urge to put him in his place. "You

know," I said, "it's customary to acknowledge when someone directly addresses you. It's called

being polite."

He didn't move his eyes from his easel. "I wasn't exactly ready to have a public viewing."

The truth was Ms. Daniels always made kind of a big deal about not looking at other people's

artwork before they were ready to show it.

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"Oh," I said. "Well, sorry."

Sam nodded and looked back at his painting. Whatever. He probably hadn't even heard of Chuck

Close. And why did he have to act like I'd gone snooping through his drawer? Would it have

killed him to just say thank you? I mean, is that so much to ask for? Thank you.

I walked out of the room without saying good-bye, making it to the late bus just as the driver was

shutting the doors.

I could hear Avril Lavigne blasting from the Princesses' room as soon as I opened the front door.

Sometimes I think my stepsisters aren't actually people so much as the epicenter of some cultural

Venn diagram.

As if in response to my thinking about them, both Princesses stuck their heads out of their room

and, spying me in the entrance foyer, came racing down the stairs. They were wearing vaguely

nautical velvet dresses.

"You guys going sailing?" I asked, hanging Connor's jacket in the closet.

Their dresses–one blue, the other red–were a kind of horrible variation on a theme. The tight

velvet clung to their bodies, which lacked a crucial curve or two. Both girls wore heavy blue eye

shadow and sparkles on their cheekbones, and coming down the stairs, each teetered slightly in

her platform shoes. When they were just a few feet away, I saw their dresses still had the tags on

them.

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Princess Two was brushing Princess One's hair, which was growing increasingly frizzy with

each stroke.

"Mom's really pissed," Princess One informed me. Then she raised her eyebrows and sighed, cultivating a bored supermodel mid-photo-shoot look.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips in what I realized too late was the stance they usually took with me.

"Did you get that shirt at Marmara?" asked Princess One, distracted from the pleasure of bearing bad news by the pleasure of talking fashion.

"What?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Marmara? It's only, like, the coolest store at the Miracle Mile." The Miracle Mile is a posh outdoor shopping mall a few minutes from our house. To the Princesses, it is a

holy site akin to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

"Yeah," said Princess Two, "their stuff is soo nice. There's this girl in our class and–"

"OUCH!" Princess One jerked her head away and whipped around to glare at Princess Two.

"You're hurting me."

"Well, sorry," Princess Two snarled. "But it's all knotted."

Princess One grabbed the brush from Princess Two. "It's not knotted. You're just a spaz. And it's

going to be straightened next Saturday anyway," she said. "We just got these," she informed me, gesturing

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at their dresses. "For Jason Goldberg's bar mitzvah."

"We're going on the QM Two next week," said Princess Two.

"The QM Two?" I asked. "I thought you just said you were going to a bar mitzvah."

"Hello! The Queen Mary Two. It's, like, a huge ocean liner.

"I know what it is. But I thought you were going–"

"It sails to Europe," Princess One explained. "You're sailing to Europe?"

"Duh. You can't sail to Europe and back in one night," said Princess Two. This from a girl who,

just two weeks ago, lost points on a geography quiz for not knowing England is an island.

"Yeah, duh," Princess One echoed. "We're just going on the boat. For Jason Goldberg's bar

mitzvah."

"It's on the QM Two?"

But they were tired of wowing me with their triumph on the bar mitzvah circuit.

"Mom said you didn't clean up your room and it's a federal disaster site," said Princess Two.

Despite being uttered by her daughter, the words were obviously Mara's.

"Gee, maybe that's because I lack something called furniture," I suggested.

They shrugged and turned away in unison, two slightly unsteady runway models. "Whatev," said

Princess One.

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"Yeah, whatev," said Princess Two.

I grabbed an Oreo from the kitchen and went downstairs to my room. Looking around I had to

admit it would not be winning the Good Housekeeping seal of approval anytime soon. But what

was I supposed to do about that? I had no drawers. I had no closet. Surely even vile Mara could see I was doing my best to keep some semblance of order in the chaos that was my unfurnished

life.

I lay on my air mattress wondering when my dad would be home and if the first thing I was

going to hear from him was a clean-up-your-room lecture. If I hadn't been leaving for the game

in less than an hour, I might have put together a counterargument, but given that getting

grounded would put a huge crimp in my plans, I decided I'd better just suck up his lecture and

agree to spend the next day doing something about the mess.

I thought about the post-game party, wondering if Connor and I would drive together or if he'd

come later, like he had to Piazzolla's. I imagined him getting to the party after I was already

there, how he'd find me in the crowd, come up and put his arms around me. Hey, Red, he'd say.

Hey, Connor, I'd say. And then while everybody stood there, pretending not to watch, he'd give

me one of his amazing kisses and I'd–

There was a knock at my door. "Lucy?" It was Mara.

This was an unexpected development. "Yeah?" I sat

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up quickly, hiding the Oreo I'd been nibbling under a pillow. Mara doesn't like it when we have

snacks outside of the kitchen.

She opened the door and called down. "May I speak to you for a moment?"

"Yeah, sure. Of course."

A minute later she appeared at the foot of the stairs, totally glam in stilettos and a tight black

dress with a slit up one side.

"I came down here earlier today, and I was extremely surprised to see what a mess this room is."

Her lips were pursed tightly together, and she had her hands folded in front of her, like

everything in the room was so filthy she was afraid to touch it.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I keep thinking I'll straighten everything up once I have, you

know, drawers and stuff to put my clothes in."

She nodded her head while I spoke but kept her eyebrows raised, as if commenting on the

ludicrousness of my alibi.

"Quite honestly, Lucy, I don't see how not having a few pieces of furniture is an excuse for what

a mess this room has become," she said after I'd finished.

"Well, I mean I'm not excusing it," I said. "But it would definitely be easier to put my clothes away if I had something to put them away w." I slid my hand out from under the pillow, leaving

the Oreo behind. Like a bird of prey, Mara followed the movement with her eyes.

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She sucked on her lower lip for a second before answering. "So it's my fault that your room is a

mess," she said finally.

"No, I'm not saying it's your fault,'" I said, though I didn't exactly see whose fault it was if not hers. I mean, had the woman never heard of Ikea? "I'm just saying that normally, you know,

when I have a closet and a dresser and stuff, I'm a lot neater than this."

"Well, the fact is right now you don't have those things, and this is an unacceptable way to keep your room. I'd like to know what you're going to do about it. Or were you just planning to wait

until I can make time in my busy schedule to run around and shop for furniture for you?"

I love the idea that Mara has a busy schedule. It's like getting to her weekly mani/pedi and hair

coloring appointment makes her the CEO of a multinational corporation.

"But, Mara, you didn't want me to bring my stuff from San Francisco, and you keep saying you

want to be the one to furnish the house, so I don't see how I can go out and buy myself furniture."

Not to mention my lack of a car and several hundred dollars of disposable income.

"I'm not sure I like your using that tone of voice, Lucy," said Mara, raking a step toward the bed and pointing at me. In spite of myself, I leaned away from her advance.

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"I'm not taking a tone," I said. "I'm just stating a fact."

"Hello?" It was my dad calling from upstairs. "I'm home! Where is everybody?"

"I'm down here, Doug," Mara called. I'd been about to say, I'm in my room, Dad, but instead I just sat there.

He came bounding down the stairs, giving a low whistle when he saw Mara's dress. "Hi, honey,"

he said. Wearing jeans and a worn gray sweater, he looked relaxed and happy, like he was really

glad to be home. He kissed Mara hello and then came over and kissed me.

"How was your week?" he asked. Mara's joining in our phone conversations had finally gotten

too annoying to bear, so after Monday I'd just avoided talking to him when he'd called.

"We seem to have a little bit of a problem," said Mara, before I could answer him.

"Oh, yeah, what's that?" he asked, dancing toward her and slipping his arm around her waist.

"They found a cure for diabetes and the benefit's off?" Ever since we moved to New York,

Mara's been dragging my dad to all these fund-raisers. In theory, she hopes to cure every scourge

that threatens the planet. In fact, she just wants to show off her new man on the charity circuit.

"Lucy seems to be under the impression it's my fault her room is such a mess," Mara said.

"That is so not true!" I said. "I just said I couldn't

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put my clothes away until I had some furniture to put them away in."

"And then she took a very snotty tone that I did not appreciate," Mara continued, ignoring me.

"Oh my god, it's like unless I'm kowtowing to you every second I'm taking a snotty tone," I said.

I could feel tears brewing and I choked them back.

"Hey, hey!" said my dad, who wasn't smiling anymore. "I just got home. I don't want all this fighting." He put his arm around Mara. "Lucy, I'd like you to apologize to Mara, and I want this room straightened up."

"I'm going to straighten it up. I'll straighten it up tomorrow."

"No," said my dad, "you'll straighten it up tonight."

"Dad, I'm supposed to go to a basketball game tonight."

I was sure I could see my dad hesitating, but then he said, "I'm sorry, but you're not going out

tonight."

"WHAT?!" It almost wasn't a word, just a strangled yelp.

"We want this room cleaned up, and we want it cleaned up tonight." The way my dad said "we"

as they stood next to each other, his arm around Mara's waist, only highlighted how the two of

them comprised a perfectly coordinated team. I suddenly felt very conscious of being the only

person on my side of the room.

"Why can't I just clean it up tomorrow? If you let

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me go to the game, I promise I'll get up early and clean everything." I was fighting back panic.

My dad was about to relent, I could tell. He'd never been one of those parents who cared what

my room looked like, and I knew he wouldn't mind if I cleaned up in the morning. But just as he

opened his mouth to say something, Mara spoke.

"Lucy, your father and I said tonight, and we mean tonight," she said, turning on one heel and

heading upstairs. My dad took a step toward me just as Mara said, "Doug, we're going to be

late."

He hesitated a second and then said, "I'll see you in the morning, Goose."

"What?" I said, and I was crying for real now. "Are you saying this conversation is over?"

"There's no conversation," he said. "We asked you to do something and we want you do to it."

The way he repeated we almost took my breath away.

"And that's all you have to say?" I asked finally.

"Lucy, I'm sorry," he said. "But you need to do what you're told." Then he, too, turned around and headed up the stairs.

Trying to stop crying, I picked up my cell and dialed Connor's number.

"Yo, what's up? It's Connor. You know what to do."

"Um, hey, Connor, I–" a sob almost escaped, and I took a deep breath. "I can't come to the game tonight.

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I–this whole thing happened at home, and I'm grounded. I'm really sorry. So, good luck and ...

have fun at the party." The last part of my message nearly pushed me over the edge. I hit end call

as quickly as I could. Then I dialed Jessica's number.

"It's Jessica. Leave me a message and I'll call you back."

"Hi. It's me. My stepmother is trying to win some kind of bitch-of-the-year award, and I'm

grounded tonight. So have fun for both of us."

After I hung up I sat staring at my cell for a long minute, wondering what happens if Cinderella

never makes it to the ball. Does Prince Charming spend the night pining away for her, crying

into his royal beer? Or does he just meet someone else, some girl who doesn't have a wicked,

stepdaughter-grounding stepmother?

Some girl who no longer doesn't "go out with high school guys"?

The answer was too obvious. I turned my phone off and shoved it into my bag. That way I

wouldn't have to listen to it not ringing all night long.

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Chapter Eleven

I'd forced myself not to check my messages before I went to bed, knowing how bad I'd feel if

Connor hadn't called. But the first thing I did when I woke up in my immaculate room was check

voice mail.

Two messages. My hands shook so much I could hardly manage to dial in for them.

"Hey, Red." I let out a tiny, involuntary scream. "Do you need me to take out a hit on one of your family members? 'Cause I'll do it." Just the sound of his voice made last night's fight with my

dad seem like a bad dream. "You better not be grounded all weekend, Red. I'm picking you up at

seven on Saturday and taking you out for dinner."

I played the message three more times before saving it. The second call was from Jessica. "Can I

just say that your stepmother totally gets my vote for bitch-of-the-year?

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Call me when you wake up. We're going shopping tomorrow." I played that message again, too.

Guess what, Mara, not everyone takes your side, you dumb cow.

I'd barely hung up the phone when it rang. "Hello?"

"We'll be at your house in twenty minutes," said Jessica. "We're going to Miracle Mile."

"Connor's taking me out to dinner tonight," I said.

Jessica screamed. "Oh my god! He loves you."

I couldn't think of what to say to that, so I just screamed. Then I remembered something.

"Jessica, I don't have anything to wear."

"Okay, do not panic," said Jessica. "They don't call it Miracle Mile for nothing."

Madison's mom dropped us off at Bistro des Filles for lunch, where Madison, after telling us

how many millions of grams of fat were in each of the entrées we'd ordered, just got a glass of

water. Then she ate about two-thirds of Jessica's Croque Monsieur before Jessica threatened to

stab her with a fork if she didn't get her own sandwich.

By four o'clock, despite my duet of personal shoppers, I still didn't have anything to wear on my

date with Connor. Madison and Jessica dismissed everything I liked as boring, while everything

they wanted me to try on cost about a thousand times what I'd planned on spending. Finally,

since we were running out of time, we

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agreed to split up. Madison went to Chanel to get a mascara, while Jessica and I headed to Ralph

Lauren to look for a dress for me.

As soon as we walked in the door, I saw Jessica notice a blue linen tank top and hesitate for a

second before continuing past the rack.

"That's nice," I said. "You should try it on."

She shook her head. "We're here to find you a date-worthy dress."

But I nudged her toward the top. "Go for it," I said.

"Are you sure you don't mind waiting?" she asked. "I'll be really fast."

"I'm sure," I said. "Take your time." While Jessica went to look for a dressing room, I wandered around looking for something I could possibly wear on my date. But unless Connor was taking

me for a cruise on his yacht, there was nothing in Ralph Lauren that would be right. Finally I

gave up; in a wood-paneled alcove stocked with evening dresses, I found an empty chair and

collapsed into it, dropping my head back, closing my eyes, and sighing.

"I don't know," said a familiar voice, "you're the one who told me what black-tie means."

My eyes snapped open. Sitting a few feet away from me was the last person in the world I'd have

expected to find in the evening-dress section of the Ralph Lauren store at the Miracle Mile.

Sam Wolff.

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He was hunched forward over a sketch pad, and he didn't see me. In his faded jeans and a torn

Red Grooms T-shirt, he looked a little out of place sitting on the overstuffed chintz chair. But he

didn't seem self-conscious, like most of the other guys who were sitting around waiting for their

wives or girlfriends to show off a dress they were considering buying. Instead he looked totally

oblivious to his surroundings, like he could just as easily have been on the Left Bank of the Seine

or the median of the Long Island Expressway. While I was watching, he pulled absently on a

corkscrew curl at the back of his head, then suddenly let it go and drew a series of lines on the

page.

Just as I turned to look around for Jessica, the door to the dressing room right in front of where

Sam was sitting flew open to reveal the beautiful girl who'd sat down at my table that day with

Kathryn Ford. The slinky black cocktail dress she was wearing showed off her amazing body.

"Okay, this or the green one?" she asked. To my amazement, she was addressing Sam.

He didn't look up. "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe," he said, still sketching.

"Sam," she said, "you're starting to piss me off."

He sighed and flipped his sketch pad closed.

"Okay," he said. "Turn around." She spun around on her heel. "The green one." Considering how gorgeous she looked in the dress she was wearing, I couldn't even

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begin to fathom what the green one must have looked like.

"Oh, please," she said. "You have the worst taste."

"And you're asking my opinion because ..."

"Just forget it, okay?" She looked at herself in the mirror, frowning, though what she could

possibly have seen that made her frown was completely beyond me. "Obviously, if I want this

done right, I'm going to have to do it myself."

"Jane, you're gorgeous in everything you tried on, up to and including the very first dress I saw

you in three hours ago."

Now I was starting to feel weird about how thoroughly I was eavesdropping. What if Sam

suddenly turned around and saw me?

"Could you just be quiet for a minute? I can't even hear myself think." She studied herself in the mirror. "I hate this stupid rehearsal dinner, I hate this stupid wedding, and I hate my stupid

sister."

"Amen to that," said Sam, flipping his sketch pad open again.

She shot him a look. "I'm getting both and I'll decide at home," she said. Then she opened the

dressing-room door and disappeared behind it just as Jessica appeared holding a shopping bag.

"There you are," she said. "Oh, hey, Sam."

Sam turned around lazily. I froze, sure he'd be all, Enjoying listening in on my conversation

much? But the

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only thing he said was, "Hey." Then he kind of lifted his head in my direction in a move that was somewhere between a nod and a nothing.

Now I was totally confused. How did Sam not only know A) the most beautiful girl in the senior

class, but also B) Jessica?

Jessica put her hand on my shoulder. "So we should probably hook up with Madison," she said.

"Yeah, let's go," I said. I stood up, and the ache in my feet that had disappeared while I was

sitting came back.

"See you," Jessica said to Sam. Without really looking up from his pad, he gave us a salute.

When we got outside, I was about to ask how she knew Sam, but she beat me to it.

"He's in my art class," I said. "But you know what's really weird? I think he was there with that girl who hangs out with Kathryn Ford."

"Oh yeah," she said. "Jane Brown. They go out."

I almost tripped over a nonexistent crack on the sidewalk. Sam Wolff, the most antisocial person

on the planet, had a supermodel girlfriend?

"She's such a mega-bitch," said Jessica. "But guys totally love her. Can you believe that of all the hot guys at Glen Lake she picked some random junior artist who's a total freak?"

Something about the way Jessica said artist and freak rubbed me the wrong way. I thought of Sam's

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beautiful paintings and stopped walking. "What's freaky about being an artist?"

Jessica shifted her bag to her other hand. "Oh, no offense," she said, putting her hand on my arm.

"I didn't mean he was a freak because he's an artist. I just meant ... He, like, never talks or anything. Why would she want to go out with him?"

We started walking again. "I don't know," I said, remembering the scene in the store. "If she's such a bitch, maybe it's weird that he goes out with her."

"Is he, like, a friend of yours?" asked Jessica. "Because you're being kind of defensive about him."

"No, we're not friends." Suddenly I realized Jessica was right; I was being defensive about Sam.

Which was pretty weird considering our total lack of anything that would resemble a friendship.

"He, like, never talks to me," I admitted.

"Well, don't feel bad," said Jessica. She spotted Madison walking toward us and waved. "Like I said, he's a total freak."

"I don't feel bad," I said. "I don't even care." It was true. I didn't care. I was about to tell Jessica about how rude Sam had been to me that day at the museum when she grabbed my shoulder.

"Oh my god, look!" she said. She was pointing at a red minidress in the window of Zinna, the

store right next to Ralph Lauren.

Before I could respond, Madison came up to where

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we were standing. "Hey," she said. Then she saw the dress. "Wow, that's hot," she said.

"You would look so good in that dress," Jessica said to me.

I pointed at my hair. "Red," I said. Then I pointed at the dress. "No," I said.

"Come on," said Jessica. "Redheads can totally wear red. Try it on."

"Connor would die if you wore that to dinner," said Madison.

"Yeah, so would my dad," I said. Were they serious? The dress was smaller than my cell phone.

"Just try it on," said Jessica.

"Yeah," said Madison. "What do you have to lose?"

I let them pull me into the store and waited while the saleslady found the dress in my size. They

stood on either side of me talking about how sexy the dress was and how great I was going to

look in it, while I pretended to be considering purchasing it.

Once I'd put the dress on, I didn't even need a mirror to confirm what I already knew: there was

no way I was going to buy it. Looking down, I saw that the neckline plunged below my bra, and

I could feel how the tiny skirt barely grazed my thighs. Not to mention the color. I stepped out of

the dressing room.

Jessica and Madison both gasped. "Oh my god," said Madison, jumping up and down. "That is

soooo sexy."

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I turned away from her to see myself in the full-length mirror. For a second I was sure I was

looking at someone else's reflection.

"Lovely," said the saleswoman. "So mature. And it's on sale. Fifty percent off."

"Guys," I said, waving my hand in front of their faces. "I can't buy this dress."

"You have to get it," said Jessica. "You look amazing in it."

"Yeah," said Madison. "If I looked that thin in a dress, I'd totally buy it."

"It's a beautiful dress," said the saleslady.

I looked back at myself in the mirror. It was like I'd been transformed into my incredibly sexy

older sister. Or maybe my incredibly slutty older sister. I turned around. You could see the lines

of my underwear through the tight fabric.

"Come here," said the saleslady, beckoning me over with her finger. When I got to where she

was standing, she spun me around and in one move, unclasped my bra, slipped the straps off my

shoulder, and whipped it off. "There," she said. "Much better." Then she pointed at my butt.

"Also, you need a thong."

"A thong?"

"Yes," she said. "A thong is–"

"I know what it is," I said quickly. "I just don't own one."

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"Oh, we'll go to Lace Escapes," Madison said. Then she started to giggle.

Jessica giggled, too. "Yeah," she said, giggling harder, "they have really nice stuff."

Their laughter was contagious. "Guys, stop," I said, laughing. "I don't know ..."

But I did know.

I was getting it.

Jessica's mom pulled up in her car just as the three of us were stepping out of Lace Escapes. She

honked and waved. "Hi, girls," she called. Then she pointed at Jessica's bag. "What'd you get?"

Jessica waved at her mom. "I got the cutest tank top at Ralph Lauren. You're gonna love it."