Belle of the Brawl (8 page)

Inside, Skye stood with her back arched, a sheen of sweat covering her strong limbs and making them blend in with her shiny silver boyshorts and dance cami. Breathing hard, she tensed in preparation for her solo, every molecule in her body vibrating along with Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” Skye locked her elbows and watched through ten splayed fingers as Triple and Prue launched into perfectly synchronized back handsprings when Lady Gaga hit the second chorus. Next to her, Ophelia readied her flexed legs to race into the mix. Skye shot a quick glance at Mimi, who stood in front of them in a black Capezio halter dress,
tango shoes, and thirty bangles jingling on each arm, yelling “ONE TWO THREE FOUR!” Pushing her B-cups out and waiting for her cue, Skye felt a giddy warmth, a delicious knowledge coursing through her veins, almost as good as a first kiss, or the first bite of food when you were really hungry: she was
back
, and she was
good
.

For the past two weekends and every night between, Skye had been working this routine. Like the Energizer Bunny, she kept going and going, even when everyone else was asleep or enjoying much-needed downtime. And now, Skye had done the routine so many times that she was on autopilot. Her senses weren’t dulled, though—far from it. The dance was etched so deeply into her muscle memory that she didn’t have to think—she simply flipped the switch and her body took over. The routine was as automatic as brushing her teeth, as tying her shoe, as flirting with a cute boy—or at least as automatic as flirting
used
to be, before Syd forced her to rewire that portion of her brain from
flirt
to
hurt
.

“Skye!” Mimi yelled, and Skye’s attention snapped like a rubber band, flying back into the routine with the force of a ballistic missile. Her body followed her thoughts, leap-step-ball-changing onto center stage as four other dancers parted to make room for her. Her face locked into a fierce-yet-knowing grin, she began to pop and lock to the lyrics, her hips twitching like a robot doing the hula. As she slid
onto the floor in a double split, she realized nobody could relate to the song more than she could. It was like Gaga had written it just for her.

I want your loving and I want your revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

As the other girls gathered around Skye to come in for the final moments of the routine, Skye’s smile grew even bigger. She had nailed this. To the wall. With a nail gun.

“Pause,” Mimi said to the voice-activated stereo, and Gaga instantly evaporated to nada. “Good work today, dancers. Andrea, as usual, you are owning the beat.” Mimi’s caramel features softened around a proud smile—on Mimi, a smile was almost as rare as the flowers on desert cacti that only bloomed once a year. Skye fought to keep her eyeballs from rolling in exasperation and swallowed a sigh. Her envious insides clenched as she waited for Mimi to torture her. And as if the cranky choreographer could read Skye’s mind, Mimi locked her golden cat eyes, dramatically dusted with MAC Shimmer Smoothie shadow, with Skye’s naked Tiffany box–blue ones. A half-smile flashed across her face. “Nice work, Sleeves. You’ve been practicing.”

Skye blinked, too shocked to speak. Mimi sounded
almost… proud. “Thanks,” she finally managed, afraid to say anything else for fear that Mimi would take back the compliment like it was a precious necklace—on loan for one night only.

Maybe all the drama with Syd had actually been a blessing, Skye thought, flexing and arching her feet. After all, the only reason she was so focused on practicing was so she wouldn’t drown in the sticky pool of his saccharine-sweet adoration. Without Syd, Skye might still be at the top of Mimi’s most-likely-to-suck list.

“Music, on!” Mimi clapped twice and put one hand on her muscled hip, her eyes scanning the room as the dancers sashayed into their positions and Gaga ushered the song in.

“And right, and left, and robot boogie!” yelled Mimi, bringing the group through their synchronized moves once again. Sandwiched between Ophelia and Tweety, Skye grinned with the joy of the dance, buoyed by the sensation of Triple dancing behind her, probably drilling a jealous hate-hole straight into her blond, bunned head.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the elevator doors opening.

Blinking her concentration back to center stage, Skye tried to focus on an arm-windmill sequence, not wanting to let herself get distracted by whoever it might be.

“
Breathtaking
,” someone whispered from across the room.

Uh-oh.

Of course it was Syd. Who else would be clueless enough to interrupt Mimi’s class?

With his dark jeans ripped at the knee and his navy blazer covered on one side with rock ’n’ roll pins, Syd looked half rocker-chic, half stalker-freak as he smiled at Skye.

Skye’s glare stuck to him like a fresh blow-out to a MAC Lipglassed mouth. His gapped front teeth peeked out from under his deep-red lips, and as he waved, Skye noticed a small red envelope between his index and middle finger.

Skye’s patience was already more frayed than the ankles of her oldest pair of J-Brands. She needed hand-delivered love notes from Syd the way Triple needed lessons in how to be annoying: not at all.

Skye attempted to subtly motion to him to GET AWAY, but she missed a crucial step, which put her in Tweety’s line of movement. Suddenly, like a house of cards, all the dancers toppled, and Skye found herself on the bottom of a pileup of sweaty, Lycra’d limbs. She cringed as her fellow bun-heads fell one by one.

“Ooof! Ow! Ugh!”

Uh-oh.
Skye struggled to breathe and to not burst into tears underneath Tweety, Prue, Ophelia, and the rest of the bun-heads.

“Ow,” Tweety whimpered, rolling off of Skye and rubbing her slender hip.

“Not cool,” moaned Prue, wrapping her light brown hair back into a high bun.

Skye staggered back onto her feet, her face burning with shame. “Sorry,” she murmured. “My fault.”

“Music, off! We’re done for today,” said Mimi, raising one eyebrow at Skye before turning away to make some adjustments to the holographic playback machine.

The girls dispersed, heading to the barre for a few cool-down stretches. As they sucked down spring water from their Alphas-emblazoned eco-friendly aluminum bottles, Skye refused to look in Syd’s direction, joining Ophelia at the barre.

“Aren’t you going to see what he wants?” Ophelia whispered, running a gold towel along her sweaty forehead.

Skye ignored her and threw her leg over the barre, leaning in for a deep quad stretch. Ophelia’s hazel-green eyes moved from her to Syd and back again. Skye grunted as she pulled her leg off the bar, and when she threw her left foot up to stretch the other side, Ophelia turned to the wall, stuck her tongue out, and approximated a loud fart noise with her lips.

Tweety giggled, and Skye felt her face go crimson. Triple and Prue looked over and rolled their eyes. Then Skye let
her eyes travel to Syd, who suddenly looked uncomfortable.

Ohmuhgud, maybe this will work!

“Again, Ophelia!” Skye whispered. “Keep ’em coming!”

As Skye went from first position to second, Ophelia let out a series of raspberries. “Ohmuhgud!” Skye shouted, covering her face as if she was mortified and hiding her smile in the process. “I shouldn’t have had that burrito for lunch!” The bun-heads started laughing hysterically, and it was hard for Skye not to join them.

But this was life-or-death—she had to get Syd off her back before he caused her to break a limb.

Skye lunged into a grand plié and Ophelia let it rip again. Skye covered her mouth and opened her eyes wide, turning around to face Syd as the whole room erupted in laughter. But Syd wasn’t laughing. His face had gone white with embarrassment, or nausea, or both. He began pushing the button on the elevator. Hard.

“How embarrassing!” Skye yelled merrily.

But Syd had stepped into the elevator, and for once his green eyes weren’t glued to Skye. In fact, Skye was overjoyed to see that he looked desperate to get as far away from her as possible.

When the elevator doors closed, Skye high-fived Ophelia. “You are a genius!” she yelled.

“I have two older brothers.” Ophelia shrugged. “Guess they taught me something.”

Skye’s spirits did a pirouette, rebounding after her mortifying maneuver during their last run-through. The prospect of being rid of Syd was a bigger relief than releasing a pent-up fart could ever be.

SOMEWHERE OVER ALPHA ISLAND
DARWIN’S PAP

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4TH
5:18 P.M.

Charlie sighed with contentment in the passenger seat of Darwin’s PAP (Personal Alpha Plane) as they floated higher in the sun-streaked sky. She pressed one hand against the cool glass of the curved window and gazed beneath them at the @-shaped island. To the west, the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon. It glowed a fiery orange as it hovered above the ocean, lighting up each building on the island in its wake. To the east, a brief spattering of rain had cleared only a few minutes ago, and a thin rainbow arched above the island like a silk ribbon decorating a wrapped gift.

This plane ride
was
a gift, Charlie mused as Darwin grinned at her and pulled the throttle on the PAP so the plane faced the rainbow. Darwin had
been flying since he was twelve, and the ride was as smooth as foundation primer. Charlie looked around at the postcards Darwin had taped up on the PAP’s white leather interior—each place was somewhere they’d been together, and each one sparked a different, gooey-sweet memory. Belize, where they had swum with sea turtles. Rio, where they’d been in a parade during Carnival. Nova Scotia, where Darwin and Charlie had learned to pilot a sailboat. Iceland, where they’d eaten fermented shark and swum in steaming hot springs. Madagascar, where a monkey had stolen Darwin’s guitar.

“Did you
plan
that?” Charlie whispered, pointing to the rainbow and half-believing that Darwin had, in fact, found a way to orchestrate the perfect combination of rain and sun. After all, he was a Brazille, which meant he had access to technology most people didn’t even know existed yet.

“I’m good,” Darwin said, flashing a half-smile and crinkling his gorgeous hazel eyes, “but I’m not
that
good. The universe just wants to entertain us, I guess.”

“Guess so.” They were doing a pretty good job of entertaining the universe, too, thought Charlie. She shivered as she recalled the dark cloud of hurt moving across Darwin’s face as, one by one, she’d shot down four of his proposed meeting places (the beach? No way—too public! The Zen Garden? Uh-uh. Mount Olympus? Nixed. The yacht? Was he crazy?). She’d been the one to propose a ride in the PAP—it was the only place safe from prying eyes and picture-snapping aPods. Because no matter how badly Darwin wanted to be with her, Charlie just wasn’t ready to go
public. Not until the Allie mess was cleaned up, anyway.

“Girls must be throwing themselves at you left and right,” said Charlie, trying to steer the conversation in a less romantic direction. “Now that Shira lifted the ban, you five are all anyone can think about.”

“A little, I guess,” said Darwin, running his finger along the touch-screen steering panel and sending the plane swooping beneath the rainbow. “I’ve gotten some texts. I just delete ’em. My brothers are having the time of their lives, though.”

“What about Mel?” Charlie asked, hoping to keep her voice light. She didn’t want Darwin to think she was desperate for Mel to hook up with Allie. He would see her desperation as controlling and manipulative instead of what it was—the only way for all four of them to be happy.

“He’s into Allie, I think.” Darwin stuck a cinnamon-scented toothpick between his lips. “But he’s probably into a lot of girls. His phone beeps more often than R2D2.”

Charlie wondered if there had been any scientific advances in recent years on love potions that actually worked. She’d ask her fellow IM’s. Someone had to be making progress with pheromones in a lab somewhere.

Darwin executed a hard left in the PAP, sending Charlie’s puff-sleeved shoulder into contact with his blazer-covered one. An electric surge of longing rippled through Charlie’s arm and shot through her body, down to her toes. She snuck
a peek at Darwin and saw a dimple sinking deeper into his cheek as a lopsided smile emerged on his mouth—a sure sign that he felt it, too.

“Remember when we built that house in the favelas?” He sighed wistfully.

Charlie nodded, her mind traveling back to the slums outside of Rio where shacks made of nothing more than cardboard and corrugated metal dotted the mountains. She and Darwin had spent a week working with other volunteers to construct a house for a family with six kids. They’d hammered nails and drilled screws in hundred-degree heat, and Darwin had even injured himself when a cinder block fell on his foot, but it was all worth it when the family saw the simple house once it was built. The mom and the two oldest kids burst into tears, hugging Charlie, Darwin, and the rest of the crew over and over.

“Of course I remember. That was amazing,” Charlie said quietly. “I hope we can do something like that again this summer.”

“I was just thinking about the foundation of that house. How we had to flatten it and measure it a thousand times before pouring the concrete. And then, the rest was easy.”

“Yeah… ,” Charlie murmured, not quite sure where Darwin was going. It hadn’t been that easy to build the rest of the house. And more experienced people did a lot of the hard stuff, but she guessed she saw his point. In some ways,
Charlie thought, they were so different. He could be so enigmatic and abstract, where she was all about practicality. He was drawn to music and philosophy, and she liked taking stuff apart and rebuilding it, working with her hands to get tangible results.

“That’s what I want. With you. I want us to build our foundation again, to make it rock solid.” His hazel eyes met hers, and Charlie was surprised to see they shone with emotion. “Once our foundation is strong, we can do anything. We can build our dreams.”

Charlie swallowed hard, pushing a pining ache for him back down her throat. “I want that, too.”