All That Glitters Page 5

  “Hey, girl,” Olivia called out to me from one of the computer stations as I walked past. “Let’s grab coffee sometime this week.”

  “Totally,” I whispered back, noticing that the librarian was giving me the squint eye from behind her bifocals. “I’ll text you, okay?”

  At the next table, Ramsey was going over a math problem with a towheaded girl in a white Oxford shirt and a black cashmere vest. When she saw me walk past, she pointed her finger and said, “This is the Stuy transfer I was telling you about. We’re on for practice tonight, right, Flan?”

  “Totally,” I nodded. “Can’t wait.”

  Ramsey gave me a thumbs up. I returned the gesture, crossing my fingers that she didn’t expect me to be some great, untapped field hockey talent just because I came from a school where other people played it well.

  I was just about to sit down next to Camille when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Shira Riley grinning at me. Shira was one of the most popular girls in the senior class. Camille had told me that she was suspended for a week this past fall after the dean got wind of Shira’s role as ring-leader in the underclassmen hazing that went down during the traditional Thoney initiation the first week of school. She had a perfect body, hair that most girls had to pay hundreds of dollars for in Japanese straightening treatments, giant brown eyes … and just a little bit of a history with my brother, Patch.

  “Hi, Shira,” I said.

  Standing in my living room eating ice cream with Patch, Shira had always seemed pretty cool to me. But standing here in the middle of the Thoney library with its unspoken social seating and the darting eyes of a hundred other girls, Shira looked every bit the part of Queen Bee.

  “Hey, Flan,” she said, and then reached out in a surprise move to give me a big hug. I could almost hear the other freshmen girls around me gasp.

  “Patch called me yesterday and told me that his little sis was starting up at Thoney. He made me promise to look out for you and make sure you’re settling in okay.”

  For a second, I was surprised that Patch had called all the way from Croatia. But then, it would be like him to make sure there were reinforcements to look after me when he wasn’t around to do it himself.

  “Yeah, he was on a train to Sarajevo,” she continued. “I don’t know how he gets away with missing so much school! But the two of us should definitely join in on his spring break plans.”

  “Totally,” I said, a little breathless.

  “Fabulous.” Shira grinned and flounced back down the aisle toward the upperclassmen tables.

  I took a seat between Camille and Harper, aware that many eyes were still on me after my tête-à-tête with Shira.

  “Um, did Shira Riley just hug you?” Amory whispered over the top of her white fluffy Rebecca Beeson turtleneck sweater.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to sound like I hadn’t been totally caught off-guard myself. “She went on a couple of dates with my brother.”

  Harper’s jaw dropped. She leaned over the mahogany table and hissed, “She blindfolded Anna Jacobs and made her stick her hand in the toilet to touch a peeled banana during Freshman Haze Week.”

  Camille busted out laughing. “Omigod, is that why she got suspended? What a lame trick.”

  “Kind of,” Harper said, but she was laughing, too. “I’m still scared of her.”

  I cocked my head and looked at the table where Shira was sitting with her friends. Sure, they looked really cool and put-together, but they also looked like us, just a group of friends sitting around a table, laughing about some inside joke no one else in the world would find funny. I couldn’t imagine myself ever hazing any underclassmen, but I did get this weird momentary glimpse into the future—that in three more years, our table in the library might be one that looked just as intimidating to a group of new freshmen girls.

  “She’s not so bad, you guys, really,” I said. “Patch told her to look out for me. She said to let her know if there’s anything I need.”

  “Anything at all?” Camille asked, rubbing her chin and looking mischievous. “Why don’t you ask her to make Willa stick her hand in a toilet?”

  That mental image sent our whole table into hysterics, and we could barely pull it together even when the librarian came over with her finger over her lips to hiss us into silence.

  When we’d finally quieted down and even opened a textbook or two, I looked up to see Mattie standing at the head of our table with a handful of square purple envelopes in her hand.

  “Special delivery from the Student Senate,” she said, handing out heavy calligraphed envelopes to each of us.

  “Ooh, do you think this is for the January Virgil?” Morgan asked, as Mattie turned on her heel and went on her way, distributing the envelopes to the rest of the girls in the library.

  All five of us opened our envelopes and pulled out slate gray invitations with cream colored ribbon tied to the top. An iridescent opal font spelled out the details of the first Virgil party of the semester, which would take place at the Central Park Boathouse a week from this Friday.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “Virgil? Is this that oration challenge thing Thoney does with the Dalton boys?”

  “Whoa,” Camille said. “Pulling out the Thoney tradition trivia. Did you get that from some old story Mama Flood told you about her days as a private school girl?

  Harper folded her hands primly and put on her best debating voice. “Virgil used to be a night of debates between the guys and the girls. Everyone got all decked out and riled up to argue with each other. It was hot.”

  “So hot,” Camille said, teasing Harper about her obsession with all things debate.

  “But somewhere along the way,” Harper continued unaware, “the actual debating sorta fell by the wayside. What we do at Virgil now is—”

  “Drink cocktails!” Morgan and Amory chimed in at the same time.

  “Virgin cocktails,” Harper corrected. “But it’s totally swanky and fun.”

  “And the best part is,” Camille said, “one Thoney girl gets to be the social director for each Virgil event.” She looked down at the invitation and read, “Nominations will take place this week, and the host will be announced on Monday.”

  “And being host is a good thing?” I said, watching other clusters of freshmen around us whispering excitedly over their invites.

  “It’s, like, the hugest honor there is,” Harper said, looking serious.

  “You’re basically Miss Thoney of the month,” Morgan said, barely looking up as she flipped through The Pulse magazine.

  “Flan,” Amory said, “you should totally run. You’re the new girl, which makes you the ingénue. You have this air of mystique about you, and everyone will want to get to know you. This will be a great way for you to solidify yourself on the Thoney scene.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Wouldn’t people rather vote for someone they know?” Hosting sounded like a lot of work. I’d planned some really fun parties in my day, but I was also totally down with being the girl who just showed up and had an amazing time.

  Amory cleared her throat and nodded her head toward two tables over where Willa was sitting with Kennedy. “You mean like Willa? Queen Bitch over there is class president and thinks she’s going to win, but I personally will not be voting for her.”

  “I second that motion!” Harper added, banging her Paul Frank glasses case down on the table like a gavel.

  The rest of us covered our mouths with our hands to keep from laughing so we wouldn’t get kicked out of the library by the already pissed-off Miss Dorsey.

  As it turned out, the librarian may have been too engrossed in her microfiche to bother with us at the moment … but someone else had taken a particular interest in our conversation.

  In her purple Vera Wang turtleneck wrap dress, Willa nudged Kennedy and the two of them looked up and glared at us.

  “Yow,” Camille whispered to me. “If looks could kill, I’d be writing your eulogy right now.”<
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  Before I could respond, Willa held up her Virgil invitation as if it were a challenge and mouthed three terrifying words.

  Bring it on.

  Chapter 9

  “If you can’t be an Athlete, be an Athletic Supporter”

  After school, Camille and I swapped our skirts and Missoni sweaters for grubby sweatshirts, warm leggings, and field hockey skirts. We met up with Ramsey on the front steps of Thoney.

  “Let’s talk formations,” Ramsey said as she started walking, very briskly, toward the river. She had an enormous mesh equipment bag slung over her shoulder, and in her red Adidas track suit and white earmuffs she looked vaguely like a version of Mrs. Claus on steroids.

  “Formations?” Camille said. She practically had to break into a jog to keep up with Ramsey.

  I had to give Camille major fist bumps for jumping onto the field hockey team just because she knew I’d need a friend by my side. This was just what I’d always loved about Camille. She’d try anything once, she wasn’t afraid to screw up, and she never, ever complained.

  Still, if our early days playing Little League T-ball on the Rockettes back in third grade were any indication, I was guessing Camille wasn’t exactly going to be the star forward of the team. I remembered the day our coach had decided to move the team up to a more competitive league—he called Camille’s mom to politely suggest that Camille retire her purple and green uniform (complete with elbow and knee pads for all the sliding we did) and trade in T-ball for something less active, like piano.

  Sure, Camille had been heartbroken for about an hour—after all, every single one of our friends played on the team, and she didn’t want to be kicked out of the party. But as we sat on the tire swing near 68th Street in Central Park and moaned about how awful life was, Camille came up with an idea. She didn’t have to trade in her Rockettes uniform at all. She’d just be our cheerleader.

  From that day on, I’ve never stopped being impressed by how good a sport Camille really is, regardless of whether she was winning, losing, or completely banned from the team.

  “Okay,” Ramsey said. “So the first thing you have to learn is: Defense is not the only thing. It’s everything, except for offense. Get it?”

  I was hoping that getting banned from the Thoney field hockey team wasn’t anywhere in Camille’s future, but as I listened to Ramsey spit out strategic sound bites, I noticed the panic in Camille’s eyes and made a mental note to help her out on the field as much as I possibly could.

  “It’s a bummer we don’t have enough girls to even get a real scrimmage going,” Ramsey said. “Usually we do a lot of two-on-two exercises, just to get a feel for some of the plays.”

  “Great,” Camille muttered to me under her breath as we fell a couple steps behind Ramsey. “I can just see it now—you and me pitted against Kennedy and Willa.”

  “Totally,” I shuddered. “I just hope Ramsey’s got extra shinguards in her bag o’ fun up there.”

  “What’s that?” Ramsey turned around. “You girls need shin guards?”

  Camille and I started laughing. “Oh no,” I said. “I was just making a joke. It’s not a big deal.”

  “But it is,” Ramsey said, looking serious. “A team like Stuyvesant would take one look at us with this equipment and think we don’t have dedication or people at our school who truly care about our sport.” She hung her head as we turned downtown at the East River. Camille and I followed her toward 90th Street and wondered what to say to lighten the mood.

  “We were supposed to get this donation from the Morphew Fund over break,” Ramsey went on. “It was going to cover all the gear and replace our grub uniforms, but at the last minute, the money didn’t come through.” Ramsey sighed and rummaged through the bag. “It looks like we’re stuck with what we have for now, which is one-and-a-half pairs of shin guards. Which one of you wants ’em?”

  Camille and I looked at each other. Was she asking which one of us was the easier target?

  “Give them to Flan,” Camille said. “Who am I kidding? I’m more of a ‘Run around the sidelines’ girl myself.”

  By then we’d passed the only field I knew of this far up on the Upper East Side, and Ramsey didn’t show any signs of slowing down. I turned to Camille.

  “Do you have any idea where we’re going?”

  Camille shook her head.

  Just then, Ramsey swung a left onto a huge barge, which I quickly realized was covered in Astroturf.

  “Whoa,” Camille said. “Does anyone else feel like Roger Federer playing on top of that helicopter landing pad in Dubai?”

  The “field” jutted out into the East River, and as we walked out to center court, I could see the teeming Triborough Bridge to my left and the giant Coca-Cola sign across the river in Long Island City to my right. New uniforms or not, this was a pretty prime spot to play field hockey.

  And apparently, we weren’t the only ones enjoying the view. No sooner had the three of us tossed our bags down on the sidelines than I noticed a small crowd of familiar faces tossing a Frisbee right behind us.

  “Omigod,” Camille gasped. “What is Xander doing here? My defense is so not cute.”

  “First of all,” I told her, “he already thinks your defense is cute. Second of all, I don’t know what he’s doing here, but whatever it is,” I said, scanning the sidelines, “he’s doing it with Rob.”

  “And Danny,” Camille added, giggling when we saw Danny leap dramatically into the air to catch a Frisbee he could have easily caught by just standing there.

  “And Alex,” I said as we watched him jog over to meet the other guys. “What are they doing here?”

  “And TZ,” a nasty voice said from behind us. Kennedy and her scary sidekick were both in matching Burberry field hockey getups. “And since you asked,” Kennedy continued, “they’re here because TZ is my boyfriend, and he understands how important it is to support my extracurriculars.”

  “Does he also support your extra-bitchy attitude?” Camille asked.

  “Ha ha,” Kennedy barked, hands on her hips.

  “Okay, girls,” Ramsey shouted, clearly oblivious to the drama she was interrupting. “Let’s huddle up and get going.”

  At first, a few of the other girls on the team seemed to defer to Willa and Kennedy, but once Ramsey started leading warm-ups, it was clear she was the leader. Even without the right equipment, and even with the bad juju between the players on her team, Ramsey managed to run a pretty tight ship. We did sprints up and down the field, squats, push-ups, and then what I thought might be a never-ending set of jumping jacks. By the time we’d finished warming up, I was so tired I’d almost forgotten we had an audience.

  Almost, but not quite.

  It was so obvious that all the girls were consumed by not wanting to look awkward and unathletic in front of the boys. The only thing more obvious was that the Frisbee the boys had brought with them was just a decoy so they could watch us all run around the increasingly windy field in skirts.

  And sure enough, Camille was a little klutzy. She tripped over her own feet a couple times, and each time, I’d glance over at Xander to see what his reaction was. Willa may have been snickering, but the look on Xander’s face was so genuinely concerned that I knew Camille could fall a hundred times, and he would only find her more and more adorable.

  When we split into two-on-two scrimmages, Ramsey paired Camille and me up with Willa and Kennedy. At first, it made me a little nervous, but once I got going, I realized that all that time I’d spent playing roller hockey with Patch during the summer wasn’t for nothing, and that I was actually pretty good at this whole field hockey thing.

  “Flan, you are totally kicking butt out there,” Ramsey called out to me, and I couldn’t help but look over to see whether maybe Alex had heard. Our eyes met and he gave me a thumbs-up.

  Wham!

  Something hard and cold had collided with my shoulder. It was Willa’s bony body edging past me toward the goal.

  “Way t
o have your eyes on the prize, Flood,” she called out, her long blond ponytail blowing in the wind.

  “Hey,” Ramsey said, jogging over to the spot where I’d landed on the ground. She put her arm on my shoulder, and I thought about what a great coach she’d make someday. “Listen,” she said, “Willa’s tough on the field, and I’m not saying everyone should play like her. But it doesn’t hurt to have a couple of offensive plays up your sleeve.” I knew Ramsey was all about the sport and not at all invested in the social drama going down, but I figured any little offensive tip could help. “Let me show you how to hip check,” she said.

  Ramsey positioned herself in front of me, and as I dribbled the ball past her, she lightly bumped my hip with hers and used her momentum to gain possession of the ball.

  “Hey,” I called, “nice play.”

  Once I got it down, I was eager to try out my new offensive moves on Willa and on Kennedy. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait too long.

  The next time I got the ball, both of them were on me like glue. While Camille lagged behind, I could feel them both narrowing in on me—Kennedy implementing her powerful death glare on my right, Willa baring her designer orthodontic fangs on my left.

  And to think—all this time, I’d been under the impression that the games at Stuyvesant were intense. I felt myself moving faster and even sort of growling. Hopefully in a cute way, but still, I was deeply into it.

  Sticks flashed, ponytails flipped, and our three sets of cleats pounded down the field. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep dribbling the ball under this sort of pressure when suddenly, without thinking, I tried out the double hip check.

  “Oww!” Kennedy bellowed.

  “Argh,” Willa growled, and amazingly, my one-two punch knocked both of them out of my field of view. Before I knew it, I’d blown past them, and I went on to score the goal.

  When I looked behind me, Kennedy was fuming. She definitely wasn’t a pretty sight when she was angry. Seeing her all red-faced and panting made me wonder—not for the first time—what it was exactly that TZ saw in her.