All That Glitters Read online

  As I watched her, I started to think about how strange it was that here she was, shopping for her boyfriend’s premiere, and the person whom she was really dressing to impress was a girl—a girl she didn’t even like. It made me think about Thoney, and about how the pressure to stack up in girls’ eyes felt a whole lot more intense than the pressure to impress a guy.

  And it hit me that, even today, when I thought I was getting dressed for Alex, I was mostly stressing over what I thought a Thoney girl was supposed to wear. As soon as I got to Wollman Rink, I knew that Alex didn’t care what I wore. He was just happy to be hanging out. So even though I could recognize that what SBB said was totally backward, I did get where she was coming from. And I had to admit that I didn’t feel absolutely terrific about it.

  SBB’s cell phone interrupted both of our thoughts. The ringtone was set to JR’s new single, “I’m Taking Hot With Me,” and she seized it on the first ring from the top of a stack of bejeweled sweaters.

  “Shay?” she practically panted. “Tell me you’re en route.” In a second, her mouth dropped open. “Oh, hi … Gloria,” she said, drawing out the name. She turned to meet my eyes. “Didn’t I tell you not to call me? Didn’t I divorce you just six months ago?”

  Gloria was SBB’s movie-star mother, who I’d always thought meant well, but who drove SBB to even crazier dimensions than she was capable of on her own. After Gloria had fired SBB from the set of Turn Signal, a mother-daughter road trip movie they were starring in together in an attempt to “bond,” SBB had filed for divorce and had been struggling with her lawyers over the whole mess for months. I took SBB’s hand to show my preemptive support.

  “A break in your schedule?” SBB said, kicking the green heel off and clutching a clothing rack for support. “You want to come to Jake’s premiere?” Her eyes locked on mine and her voice was stiff. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Gloria. You can’t just read an article about me in a magazine and waltz back into my life. I’m trying to pick up the pieces and move on…. Yes…. Well, things have been very hard for me, too.” More pacing. “What do you mean, it’s not my decision?” Big sigh. “Then why did you call me in the first place? What? I can’t believe—fine! I will see you there!” The second SBB clicked off her phone, she let out a howl that sounded like a cross between an enraged elephant and a crying cat. She threw herself down on the zebra print area rug at our feet, closed her eyes, gripped her hands into fists, and let out another giant screech of frustration as she curled into the fetal position. I put my arms around her in a hug.

  “We’re fine.” I motioned to the terrified salesgirl, who’d popped out her head again in fear.

  “No, we’re not!” SBB wailed.

  “You can do this, SBB,” I said. “It’s just now you have to look doubly extra-specially amazing next week.”

  Luckily, at that moment, the door chimes jingled again and in walked Shay McCruthers, dressed head to toe in black leather with two Polaroids slung over her shoulder, a wheeled garment bag, and a portable aromatherapy set.

  Instantly I felt relieved on SBB’s behalf. Shay may have caused SBB some grief in the past, but she definitely knew how to calm her down.

  “You’re late,” SBB fumed, uncurling herself from the carpet.

  “Save your breath,” Shay said before SBB could go on. “I came prepared, and it’s better late than never, and I really don’t have the time or the energy right now to hear about it from you. Let’s just get down to business.”

  For a second SBB looked like she didn’t know whether to kick Shay or hug her, but finally she just nodded and said, “You’re right. We don’t have any time to waste.”

  Soon the two of them were in full dressing mode. Shay snapped pictures of SBB in a floor-length gold lamé get-up, a fitted red crepe cocktail dress, and a shimmery brown tulle gown. I could tell that SBB was already in a much better place, so I sank into the hot pink chair and let out a deep breath.

  When SBB emerged from the dressing room in a green retro shift dress, I gasped. “That might be the one,” I said.

  She bobbed her head. “One of the ones,” she corrected. “But you’re right. I’m feeling the good vibes, too.”

  She climbed up on a platform while Shay marked places for alteration with a mouthful of straight pins.

  “Stand still,” she commanded, “or we’ll be here all night.”

  SBB gritted her teeth and stared down at Shay. “I have an idea. How about don’t jab your pins of death into my multimillion dollar–insured skin? Then I won’t have to squirm, will I? Anyway, Flan,” she said, sucking in her breath and turning to me, “how much longer do I have to wait to hear about your date with the Prince? If I have to think about Gloria for one more second, I swear I’m going to explode.”

  I smiled. And blushed. “Oh … it was good,” I said. “It was really good.”

  “Boring!” she cried. “I still have images of my mother in my head! Give me details! Give me hot moments! Give me something to work with here! I’m practically pinned down on a platform and all you can offer me is ‘good?’”

  Shay shook her head. “Do you want to be permanently pinned to this platform?” she asked. “Because you can take your attitude and—”

  “And what?” SBB said, hands on her waist. “And go out and hire your nemesis to be my next personal shopper? Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been working with Ashleigh Ann on the side.”

  Shay looked up and pointed a finger at SBB, like she was going to come back and tell her off. But instead of saying anything, she just held out her finger and her death stare until, miraculously, SBB sniffed and looked away.

  “That’s what I thought,” Shay muttered. I’d never seen anything like it.

  “Well, it was just a first date,” I butted in, trying to break some of the tension. “I think he likes me, but he’s a little edgier than the other guys I’ve been out with, so …”

  I trailed off when I realized they were still too busy with their power struggle to listen. Maybe SBB and Shay would be better off if I scooted out of the way. And didn’t I have something else I needed to do tonight? Oh yeah … that little thing called homework. And that’s when I realized that it was already nine o’clock and the store would’ve been closed except that the poor shopgirl was still stuck behind her curtain. I went to check on her and there she was, leaned against the wall with her arms folded, half asleep.

  “You can come out now,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  The girl smiled at me and immediately darted past SBB, who didn’t even notice her.

  “Hey, SBB,” I said, standing up to gather my things. “I should probably get going. I’ve got a quiz tomorrow morning. You’re going to look incredible in that dress next week.”

  A look of panic washed over SBB’s face.

  “But this is only Option One. What about Option Two?” she said. Then, looking down at Shay and dropping her voice to a whisper, she added, “Just in case of … you know … WS.”

  I felt the weight of my school books in my bag and the weight of SBB’s puppy dog eyes full of Wardrobe Sabotage worry pulling me in opposite directions. I didn’t know what to do.

  “Well, what if I come over on Friday and check out what you come up with for Option Two? That will still give you enough time to make adjustments if you need to, right?”

  SBB exhaled gratefully. “That sounds great. Good luck on your quiz.” Her hand went to her neck where she fiddled with the clasp of a necklace.

  “You’re still fidgeting!” Shay shouted from below.

  “Silence or I’ll step on you with these heels!” SBB said. She turned to me: “Flan, I can’t believe I almost forgot!”

  “Forgot what?” I asked.

  She handed me the gold necklace she’d been wearing. “It’s for you. Penn DiMontagne gave it to me when we were shooting Loan Shark of Venice Beach. I thought it might give you good luck in class.”

  I opened the locket and read the phrase: All that glisters is
not gold.

  As I leaned forward so SBB could fasten it around my neck, I recalled the scene in The Merchant of Venice where the Prince of Morocco reads this line inside the gold casket. Maybe I was finally picking up this stuff.

  “This is great, SBB,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

  “Good night, fair Flan,” SBB called out as we air-kissed, and I started for the door. “You’re more Shakespearean already!”

  The good news was, I loved the necklace. The bad news was, I didn’t think it was going to do much to help me on my quiz tomorrow morning.

  Chapter 14

  Who wears the Pants?

  “Good work today, girls. Shower off and meet back here in ten for a huddle,” a red-faced, sweaty Ramsey called out the next day after practice. All fifteen of us were back in the school’s locker room, although Ramsey looked like the only one who actually needed a shower.

  The rest of us were still glad to take the ten-minute break as we changed back into our street clothes. It was Thursday, and just as Camille had promised, it was Theme Day among our group of friends. Last night, Morgan had sent out the email detailing the directive to dress as “punk rock chic,” and Camille and I had met in the locker room this morning to compare vintage graphic tees and black leather Derek Lam berets.

  Now, as we pulled on our rocker duds for the trip home, Camille groaned. “I’m so done with the huddling,” she muttered to me, rubbing some MOR Pomegranate lotion on her hands. “I’ve been huddling for the past two hours, and I’m tired. The only good thing about huddling on the field is that it gives me three shielded minutes away from Xander seeing how much I completely suck at field hockey.”

  “Camille,” I teased as I slipped out of my cleats and back into my ancient Doc Martens, “remember what we talked about?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said in a rehearsed voice as she tugged on her fishnets. “You think Xander already likes me enough, so it doesn’t matter that the field hockey ball seems to have a magnetic attraction to my face.” She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m psyched that he comes to watch practice, but the whole time I’m so focused on him that I’m definitely not getting any better at the game.”

  Even though I wasn’t quite as field hockey challenged as Camille, I knew what she meant. As soon as I saw Alex join the sidelines with the other boys, my heart started racing, and it wasn’t from the long sprint I’d just taken toward the goal. But after a few minutes of blushing and heart-thumping, I decided it was cool that he’d shown up—especially when he gave me a hello hip check on the sidelines after practice.

  Looking over at Kennedy and Willa, I felt relieved that Alex had been the only person hip checking me tonight. The two of them were already seated on the bench for Ramsey’s post-practice huddle, but in the meantime, it looked like they were gathering in a huddle of their own. Half the team was standing around them, listening to Willa go on and on about the after-party for her father’s movie premiere.

  “And then Darren Shaw—you know he’s in that new cowboy movie—he wanted to take me to Pastis, but I told him, ‘I won’t set foot in that place after what happened to my father.’”

  “What happened to your father?” Faiden asked expectantly, playing right into Willa’s hands.

  “Well, it was two summers ago and Daddy ordered the lobster bisque, but when they brought it out …”

  “Somebody put me out of my misery,” Camille groaned to me under her breath. “Do you think she ever gets sick of hearing her own voice?”

  “What I can’t understand is why no one else does,” I said, fitting my beret back over my hair.

  “Oh my God,” Willa said, interrupting her own riveting story and using her thumb and pointer finger to pick up a pair of track pants that were lying on the floor. “Whose are these? You could fit, like, four of me in them.”

  Within seconds, every girl in the locker room had disowned the pants with some version of “no way” or “those are massive.”

  What no one was saying, and what we all knew, was that the pants belonged to Ramsey. I gritted my teeth.

  Sure, Ramsey was a big-boned girl, but there was nothing outrageous about the size of her pants. The only thing that was outrageous was Willa making such a big deal out of them.

  Kennedy busted out laughing, and the two of them jumped up to take turns holding the pants to their own much smaller waists.

  “Wanna see if we can both fit inside them?” Kennedy whispered to Willa. “You take the right leg, I’ll take the left.”

  I shot Camille a look. I’m sure she was also remembering the stunts Kennedy had pulled in the locker room back at Miss Mallards. Back then I didn’t have whatever it would take to stop her. But as I listened to Ramsey showering not ten feet from where Kennedy and Willa were making a huge joke of her pants, the only thing I could think of was that someone had to stop them before Ramsey saw what they were doing. I mean, Ramsey didn’t deserve a cruel practical joke—all she ever wanted was to run a great freshmen field hockey team.

  “Give me the pants, Kennedy,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “Oh, are these yours, Flan?” Kennedy said. “I mean, I knew you’d put on some weight, but not that much.” The two of them doubled over with laughter. A couple of the girls laughed with them, but the others just looked uncomfortable.

  Then I heard the sound of the shower stop and, without a word, I yanked the pants out of her hands. “This is stupid,” I said, “and it’s mean. Don’t play on the team if all you care about is making fun of the captain. You can be bitchy from the sidelines if that’s your thing.”

  Willa sneered. “Don’t act like it’s not your thing too, Flan. You think you can come in here and play the sweet innocent card this week just to win Virgil Host? I hate to tell you, but you’re a whole lot more transparent than you think. Deep down, you’re not any different from us.”

  As I looked at Willa’s perfect features all twisted up in a smirk, the first thing that went through my mind was SBB’s reference to Willa being a chubby kid—and here she was making fun of Ramsey for being tall and athletically built. How many people here knew what she used to look like? But the second thing that ran through my mind was that if I used that as my trump card now, I wouldn’t be any different from Willa and Kennedy.

  For so long, I’d been wanting to have the perfect comeback to their catty comments, but maybe not having that talent was the point. I didn’t want to play their games. I didn’t want to be anything like them.

  I shook my head at Willa, because at that moment, I genuinely felt sorry for her. “Drop the pants,” I said. “It’s stupid.”

  “There a problem?” Ramsey’s voice echoed throughout the room as she crossed the cement floor with a towel wrapped around her head.

  “Not at all,” Kennedy said, sickly sweet, taking the pants from Willa’s hand and holding them out to Ramsey. Ramsey seemed to notice nothing and just slid them into her bag.

  “Good,” she said, motioning for us to gather around her. “Now, I need to ask your help with a serious issue we’re having on the team.”

  We sat down on the benches around Ramsey. “Some of you may know that I’m not really one to get all obsessed with ‘fashion,’ but I’ve been given a directive that the team needs new uniforms. For some of you, the way you look might affect the way you play, so I want everyone to weigh in on what our move is here.”

  “Why don’t we just pick them out from a catalog and buy them?” a blond pigtailed girl named Jane asked. “It’s not like anyone can’t afford it.”

  Ramsey shook her head. “You know the Thoney policy—no individual purchases. We have to raise the money ourselves.”

  “Well, how much do they cost?” Camille asked. “We could do a bake sale or a car wash or something.”

  “What is this, nineteen eight-five in Indiana?” I heard Willa mutter to Kennedy. “A bake sale? And who among us knows how to wash a car?”

  Ramsey nodded, combing through her wet hair. “It’s
an idea, but the problem is that our first game is coming up in less than two weeks, and we need the uniforms made by then. Can we organize a bake sale by then that would make enough money? You wouldn’t believe how expensive …” She trailed off.

  I wanted to help. Ramsey fretting over clothing sounded almost funny to me because it was so not her territory.

  And just like that, I had an idea. I turned to Ramsey, who was looking more and more dejected.

  “I’m not sure whether or not it will work, but I have a friend who might be able to help. Can I get back to you tomorrow?”

  Ramsey grinned. “Of course!”

  The huddle broke up, and I was just starting to work out the details of how to make my plan happen when I felt someone grab my elbow.

  “I know you were really into Ramsey’s pants,” Kennedy said. “But some of us don’t want to look like clowns on the field.”

  Willa brushed her silky blond hair over her shoulder and said loudly, “Don’t worry about it, Kennedy. A hundred bucks says she’s lying about having a fashion contact. This is just one more pathetic attempt to get Virgil votes.”

  They giggled as they exited the locker room. The door swung shut behind them, followed by the sound of a couple of snickers. But I could barely hear anything over the sound of blood rushing to my head. Being nice might have been the right thing to do, but at that moment, I really wanted to take the evil duo down.

  Chapter 15

  Favor for a Favor

  As soon as I left the locker room, I dialed Feb’s number, praying as it rang that she was still on this continent.

  “Allo?” a distinctively French voice answered.

  “Feb?” I said. It was so like my sister to chameleon herself into whatever her pet project du jour was.

  “Non,” the voice responded. “It’s Jade, chérie. Is this my model? Is this Flan?”

  “Oh … oui,” I said, already feeling nervous about thinking I could get Jade to agree to my plan. “Where are you guys?”