The Aristobrats (9 page)

Afterward, Wallys swarmed on the Lylas in the Freeman Auditorium foyer and told them how much they liked the show. It was kind of like a rule that everyone in the school followed even though it wasn't written down or anything. People had to say nice things to you like they actually meant it. Sometimes they even said super-nice things and made you feel like they actually meant it. But Parker knew when congratulations meant nothing. She'd been guilty of saying them herself.

“Cute!”

“Sweet!”

“Fantastilistic!”

“K-L!”

“G-Z!”

“I loved all the intellectual junk!”

“Way better than Allegra!”

Duncan Middlestat gave them all a double-thumbs up. “Abecedarian!” he said.

Whatever that meant.

“Keeks!”
McDweebs came up to Kiki and tried to do a fist-bump with her.

Kiki put both hands on her hips. “Okay, here's the thing, McDweebs…” she explained. “Kiki Allen does not do high-fives, low-fives, peace-outs, man-shakes, skin-its, and definitely, for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, bro-bumps.”

McDweebs took careful note of her directions and made sure she was completely finished with her list before he said anything. “But other than that, I can say hello?” he asked hopefully.

“Yeah. Sure.” Kiki rolled her eyes at Parker. It was the I-wish-things-were-back-to-normal look. “Why would I give a rat what you do?”

McDweebs did the hi-to-low-chain-yank, usually reserved for soccer players who just scored a goal. “Epic,” he chirped as he walked off to class.

The bell was about to ring, and Parker stayed put, watching as Ikea finally saw her father in the corner of the foyer talking on his phone—in his pinstripe suit, power tie, and flashing Bluetooth headset. His deep, forceful voice filled the two-story space. Ikea ran right up to him.

“Dad!”

He held a hand up to her as he spoke. “We won't accept, Jim…” he said sternly into his mouthpiece. He sounded like a bulldozer on the phone. “If Standish wants to obfuscate the issues with some
antediluvian
argument, he better know who he's dealing with because they
will
fail with that misjoinder—”

“Did you see my segment on milestone Supreme Court rulings, Dad?” Ikea pressed. Her smile was on all 500 Watts.

He put his fingers on the receiver. “
I'm on a call, sweetheart,”
he mouthed. “…What part of ‘we won't accept' don't you understand, Jim?” he continued.

Parker winced. Ikea stood there waiting patiently for her father to finish his call even though the bell had rung and the foyer was nearly empty. Parker saw Ikea catch herself doing the Birdie then folded her arms tightly in front of her for safekeeping.

“
Hutchinson v. Proxmire
spells it out clear as day…” Mr. Bentley put his fingers over the receiver again.
“A for effort, Ikea.”
He patted his daughter on the shoulder. “
Very decent,”
he said before he went back to his call. “An offer like that means nothing to me, Jim. It's just one less Picasso hanging on my wall.”

Ikea's smile melted from the enormous lightbulb into one of those squiggly lines they draw onto cartoon-people's faces when they're sick.

Mr. Bentley was still on his call when he left through the side entrance. He waved once more to his daughter before the door closed behind him.

Parker waited as Ikea stood there silently in the Freeman Foyer. She was ten minutes late for class.

The six rules of the Big Game:

1. No Snuggies. No Slankets. Not even cashmere. And absolutely no headbands.
   
2. Be nice to Kenneth (u know who u are). You're his only friend.
   
3. Totes are still in.
   
4. Cherry Carmex before kissing. Dot dot dot.
   
5. Mingle with the less popular—work the bleachers.
   
6. No stiletto heels (u still know who u are).
   

The night before the big game, Parker posted the Rules in the private section of her profile. Making up rules always got her back in a posimood. Rules were like happy pre-lated birthday presents—there was nothing bad about them.

It was already late, but Parker wasn't even near-sleepy. She was too excited about her first kiss with Tribb. In spite of everything that had happened, it was destiny.

She hadn't been on Facebook in ages and there were so many things to do. She kicked off her furry slippers, tucked her feet up under her on the Darcy chair, and made herself comfortable for the long haul.

“You want?” Ellen opened Parker's door with a pint of Double Chocolate Chunk in her hand and an extra spoon. She showed her daughter a glimpse of the dark, gooey contents.

Parker had been avoiding her mother, or more specifically, avoiding any bad news her mother might have to deliver. There were no new clients, no big sale of furniture on eBay, and Ellen hadn't put on a business suit in weeks.

“No thanks.” Parker attached the cable to her camera and began uploading an album she titled “Summer.” She was determined not to get distracted from her mission, not even for Double Chunk.

“It's starting to get cold out, don't you think?” Ellen asked.

Parker was suspicious of the question and didn't want to answer. Besides, it was kind of rhetorical.
Of course it was getting cold out. That's what “fall” does.

“I need you to keep your room straightened up,” Ellen said. “The real estate brokers could need to get in here without much warning.”

“Okay.” Parker poured all of her attention on Facebook, but she still heard every word her mother was saying. She watched as her photos appeared on her screen. The whole summer flashed by quickly: lobster rolls at Larsen's in Menemsha, making faces on the beach with Andy Raskin (just friends, JSYK), Kiki showing off her “favorite, new” (now “icky, old”) sunglasses before her trip to London.

“The house won't sell right away,” Ellen said. “It might not be everybody's cup of tea, right?”

The nicest mansion on one of the nicest streets in neighborhood? Completely renovated by a neurotically neat architect? “Right,” Parker mumbled.

“How's school going for you?”

“Good.” Parker looked up and smiled. “Really good.”

“Don't stay up too late,” Ellen said with a spoon of Double Chunk in her mouth.

“K.”

“And I'm really glad school's going so well,” Ellen said before she closed Parker's door behind her.

“Me too.”

“G'night.”

“G'night.”

Parker stared at her work. She now had twenty-six albums in all on her profile, including photos from every year of her life. The albums said everything you needed to know about Parker Bell. Not bad…

Maybe Facebook is my actual home? Wherever you go, there it is. Facebook Friends stay with you.

***

What R u wearing for game? : - ?

A text from Kiki came up on her phone.

No clue. U?

DGT!! n0thing in closet! >: [ Urrgh!!

You'll find sumthng. (-.-)

Me2. L8r. LYLAS

LYLAS 2 ; )

Parker shut the phone and went back to her profile. She was almost afraid to open her Friend requests—she'd gone the whole two weeks without checking in. A serious Facebook felony for which she would be surely punished. She hated when she got this backblogged. Nervously she clicked it open.

You have 4 friend requests.

Ex
queeze me? Four? Just four?

She had to close Facebook and open it again to be sure it was right. She shut down her computer and rebooted. She looked to make sure all the cable thingies were in the right socket thingies. She even tried to write the Facebook help desk, but that only sent her to a FAQs page. But no matter how many times she turned things off and on, the words were still the same. Four requests? In two weeks? She usually got that in an hour.

She opened the requests page.

There was still the one request from Ellen Bell. (Still? Really? Couldn't she take the hint?) Then there was one from McDweebs, one from a girl who lived in a place called Christmas Island, and one from Pringles.

She stared at the Friends, or more specifically, the lack of Friends, but it just did not compute. She was Parker Bell. She paid attention to these things. She continuously updated and polished. She'd even told Cricket Von Steal-a-Seat she'd definitely confirm her if she Friended.

So where were all her new Friends?

Reluctantly she accepted McDweebs. (It sort of felt like he deserved the cred after pouring through all those outtakes of Kiki and her best sides.) She accepted the girl from Christmas Island on GPs. (A person who lived on an island called Christmas might give her profile a festive edge.) She deleted Pringles. (Because no one with any self-respect should have potato chips as a Friend.) And she left her mother in limbo. (Obvs.)

It was almost midnight when she clicked on Tinsley Reardon's profile.

Tinsley still had under three-hundred Friends. But she'd added this cool new app that animated her main profile pic—She was waving over and over again in the simple but realistic, looped video-slash-photograph. Even though her Bumpit barely moved, the pic was fully animated.

Parker had never seen any app like it before.

Frantic, she clicked on another Friend, and another, and another. They all had the new app. Laurel had a goldfish swimming around in a bowl. Natalie blew kisses. Tribb held up his Tiger's team shirt and gave the rock-on sign with his hand again. Samantha. Emily. Jason. Beaver. Even Pringles had it. The only Friends whose faces were frozen in one spot were Kiki, Ikea, and Plum. None of them moved anything anywhere. They looked like mere Muggles by comparison.

It was 1:00 a.m. when Ellen Bell cracked the door open again.

“Parker?! Why aren't you in bed?” But Parker was still combing through the new apps pages, trying desperately to find the program that pretty much everyone else on the planet now had.

“In a sec…” she said. “Just one more thing…” Nearly deranged, she scrolled through another page. “I need this one thing…this one little thing…” She sounded like a psycho. Even
she
knew that.

“Go to bed, Parker.” Ellen shut off the lights. “Now.”

E.O.D. = End of Discussion.

Parker had to accept the fact that she wasn't going to find the app tonight. She was tired and cross-eyed. Not to mention un-updated and unpolished. Worst of all, she hadn't even picked out her first-kiss-with-Tribb outfit. After her mom shut the door, she sat on the edge of her bed and placed the laptop on the table beside her. There was just one more thing she had to do. She went to her home page.

Parker stared hard into the blank status box.

Parker
is…

The cursor blinked hypnotically. She nearly fell asleep watching it. Her mind was weak but she still found the words tumbling around like Tic-Tacs in her head.

Parker
is…crossing her fingers. Go Tigers!

She shut the laptop and crawled under the covers.

Worst. Status. Update. Ever…

You up?” Kiki asked as soon as Parker picked up the phone.

It was Saturday morning, 7:30 a.m. On the nose. Only six hours until the Big Game. The Lylas had to get ready.

“U
r
g
sh
rg,” Parker replied in the only way she could after just six hours of sleep.

“Tell me about it.” Kiki agreed.

Plum's cell phone rang a minute later. “You up?” Parker asked.

“
Nico, you air biscuit! Gimme back my stupid undershirt, toolhead!
” Plum answered. “I'm up.”

Ikea's cell phone rang a minute later. “You up?” Plum asked.

“I'm eating breakfast.” Ikea crunched. “Grape Nuts!”

Their watches were synchronized. Their phones were charged. They would meet on the north side of the big tree in front of the stairs in exactly five hours and forty-five minutes. They reviewed the Rules and wished each other luck.

***

Kiki sat on the pink satin chair in her five-hundred-square-foot, climate-controlled closet. She ate a bowl of Fruit Loops while she contemplated her outfit. Both crystal chandeliers had been turned on as well as the gallery lights that lit the many rows of shoes and dresses from above and the ones that illuminated the glass shelves from below. The inlaid gold stars in the marble floor sparkled in the light.

She pulled a Diavolo blouse out from the Diavolo section of the closet and hung it up on one of the gold hooks on the far wall. She took another spoonful of cereal. That's when the freak-out began. Her flat head low riders (the perfect jeans for the blouse) were at the cleaners.

Placing her cereal on the floor, Kiki bolted out of the closet to tell Esmerelda, the second floor housekeeper, to call the dry cleaners and demand they put a rush on the jeans.

The jeans, according to the cleaners, according to Esmerelda, couldn't be ready in time.

The freaking out persisted.

It took the next four hours to even semi-sort out the outfit sitch. By the time it was over, thirty-four blouses had been detonated like bombs all over the marble floor.

On the other hand, the finished outfit was even better than she'd imagined. It was her own personal brand of spectacularity. A ledge in the making.

“Yes,” she said when she looked in the mirror. “Distressingly good.”

***

“I saw an ad…” Plum told the saleswoman at American Coquette. “In a magazine…”

“The Fantasia!” The saleswoman exclaimed. “The Fantasia is our bestseller,” she confided more quietly.

The saleswoman led Plum to a dressing room in the back and laid a dozen styles of bras across a gilded chair in the corner of the room. Plum had no clue how long it took to try on bras but it seemed to take far longer than she imagined. There were clips and straps and crisscross thingies and they all needed to be adjusted, tightened and clipped. All behind a locked and barricaded dressing room door, of course. There was turning to the side wearing a bra, singing into a hairbrush wearing a bra, standing on tippy-toes wearing a bra, putting on Lipglass wearing a bra, and pretending to talk to Kirby Vanderbilt in the mirror. You know, just saying “Hey, Kirby. Yeah, I know. Totally. Me too.”

All while
wearing a bra!!

***

Ikea sat on the edge of her tub and waited for the hot comb to heat up. She divided her hair into tiny sections and applied Seal N' Shine to the ends. She started with the pieces in the back at her neckline and clipped the other sections out of the way. She glided the hot comb down each small, course segment in turn.

That was the key—only doing a little bit at a time. She had to reheat the comb a bunch of times and apply a few more coats of Seal N' Shine before all of her hair was done. She finished by pressing down at the top on either side of her part as flat as it would go.

When she was done, her hair was as soft and silky as any other Wally's. You couldn't really tell what it was like when it was natural. Even
she
didn't remember.

She squeezed solution onto each of her contact lenses and looked in the mirror at her dark, brown eyes. It only took a moment before they turned back to normal again. First the left, then the right. Colorfresh Pure Hazel. As clear and cool as the sea. Her signature color.

She remembered the quote that she and Divya had liked so much. She could almost hear the words being spoken. They felt like a warm blanket being wrapped around her. She looked up at her bulletin board on the wall beside her desk and at the photographs of some of the inspiring people she'd tacked to the board.

In her mind, the picture of Mahatma Gandhi began to move. He sat on the ground like a yogi with a white sheet draped around him and reached his hand out toward Ikea. “Be the change, Ikea,” Gandhi said. He even pronounced her name correctly—like the lodge, not the store.

Martin Luther King agreed. He held his fist high above his microphone. “Be the change,” he yelled to the crowd and then turned to Ikea and nodded.

Now it was Tyra Banks's turn—looking fierce in her red dress with her hand on her hip.

“Be the change, Ike,” Tyra concurred with a gleaming smile.

***

“Capital O, capital M, capital G!” Ikea gasped. “You. Look.
Good!
”

Parker
did
look good, yes. But not in a conceited, she-thought-she-was-so-great kind of way. More like in a positive-self-image kind of way. (Seriously big diff.)

The weeks in the production studio had actually helped focus her energy on the morning. The first outfit she picked out (chunky beige cashmere sweater, vintage leather belt, soft, worn-in, super-approachable jeans, a minor touch of bling) worked. No makeup look—flawless. Tanning lotion—not an orange streak anywhere. She didn't even have to do her hair twice. The first blow-dry came out just right.

It was the perfect first-kiss outfit. A very touchable look.

Or maybe it was
too
touchable, she worried…a look designed for close-up flirtation only.
Would it work just as well from far away?
If she didn't catch Tribb's attention in the first place, there'd be no first kiss. No need for the fuzzy sweater and approachable jeans. Maybe she should have worn something brighter to flag him down (in a perfectly subtle way)? Or maybe it wasn't about the outfit at all. Maybe it was about action. Big gestures. A little drama. And she wondered if her breath smelled good. If his breath smelled good. If he'd want a big wedding—like a Plaza blow-out with all their friends. Or would he rather save the money and do something small. In a wine cave in France maybe. Something completely gorgeous and candlelit. A night everyone would remember. Maybe she should have worn her other jeans.

For an uncomplicated species, boys made things way too complicated.

“Thanks, Ike,” Parker said. “You. Look.
More
good!”

Birdies all around.

It was impossible not to notice Plum as she sauntered up to their meeting spot, the big tree near the stairs. She had on a new pair of black Converse that zipped up to her knees like boots. Her short, hot pink kilt matched the streak in her hair. Her zip-up hoodie was tiny and tight.

Plum was glowing! Plum was beautiful! Plum had
breasts
!?

“Wow.” Parker and Ikea said at the same time.

Neither mentioned the new addition to Plum's front yard. They just smiled and nodded.

“Nice…
shirt
and stuff,” Parker said.

“Your
hair
looks fantabulous!” Ikea added.

“Yeah…” Plum tucked a shock of hair behind her ear. “I used some new product.”

“I'll say!” Kiki sashayed up to them in shiny, black, over-the-knee boots and skinny, raw selvage jeans made by a company so exclusive and undiscovered that nobody but the Super-Futures had ever heard of it. The broad collar of her red tunic was up over her head like a hood, and mirror-black sunglasses covered half of her face. She was pretending like her outfit was no big deal when everyone knew perfectly well that she'd just turned her zillion-square-foot closet inside out for that look. (Kiki would turn her closet inside out just to find the right pair of pajamas.) “Nice
boobs
, Plum,” Kiki added bluntly.

“Thanks.” Plum crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Yours are
way
nicer,” she teased. “Way.”

Parker chewed a handful of Ikea's Tic-Tacs and reapplied her Lipglass. She could already hear the Wallingford Academy marching band going through the old favs. Warm-up would be over and the Big Game would be starting soon.

“
Noblesse oblige
,” Parker reminded the Lylas as they turned in unison and marched toward the bleachers via the shortest and most nervy route: straight through the soccer field. Kiki had to walk on the balls of her feet so that the stiletto heels of her boots wouldn't sink into the muddy field.

Hate to say I told her so, but…

“The rules are there for a reason, Keek,” Parker said.

They both looked down at her half-sunk shoes.

The autumn sun was warm but the air was chilly enough to merit a sweater. In other words, it was the perfect weather to be someone's girlfriend.

Parker picked up a handful of colorful leaves from a pile on the ground and tossed them into the air above her head. (And it wasn't just because she knew that kind of thing would look really cute if Tribb was watching her…which he
definitely
was…and that from far away your gestures had to be big to be noticed…she actually liked the way the autumn leaves smelled when they were tossed up into the air. She couldn't help it if some people, aka Tribb, noticed it.)

Kenneth Accolola saved the highest visibility spot on the bleachers for Kiki and the rest of the Lylas. “Are you still all miffed at me about the carb-binge incident, Keeks?”

“Moi? Miffed?” Kiki slid in next to Kenneth and linked her arm through his. “Of course not, darls.”

“Because I'm dying over those boots! They are totally ferosh,” Kenneth admired. “Your closet must be a mess.”

Kiki giggled. “Esmerelda and I aren't speaking.”

The rest of the Lylas slid in beside Kiki and Kenneth.
The
Bleacher Spot: top row, center, shoes resting on second-to-top row. Nothing but blue sky behind their heads.

Parker surveyed the field and saw Tribb kicking the ball around with Beaver and Kirby. Tribb never looked better than he did in his soccer uniform, she thought. Parker reached into her pocket to make sure the tube of Carmex was there.

Cherry Carmex before kissing. Dot, dot, dot.
Check.

She'd passed the test. After a month of being holed up in that horrible studio, Tribb would see her and realize his destiny as the perfect EGB for Parker Bell. And she would know—she made the EGB Dream List in sixth, refined it in seventh, tweaked it at the beach…and then there he was all along: Tribb. The list in human form.

• Dimple
  
• Fair-to-tall height
  
• Not fat. But not a twig
  
• Tiny imperfection: nose or crooked tooth
  
• Tans easily
  
• Uses fork correctly
  
• Nice ears and hands
  
• Athletic but nothing dangerous
  
• Has friends
  
• No fart jokes
  
• Doesn't blow-dry
  
• Doesn't judge others
  
• Likes me for me
  
• Smells like Outdoor Fresh fabric softener sheets
  

She tried not to let herself get too excited about Fall Social but she couldn't help it. For everyone else it was the first black tie event of the school year and certainly the most important social event before Christmas, but given the way things were going at home, it would probably be Parker's last event ever. It was her last chance to be who she was…

Kirby stopped warming up and turned when he saw Plum climb into her seat. The soccer ball whacked him in the face.

“Smooth move.” Plum rolled her eyes.

“Hey!” Tribb called up from the field. He held both hands up in the same rock-on gesture he had on his profile.

He'd noticed the autumn leaves toss!

Parker stood up in the bleachers and yelled back to him. “Go Tigers!” She was excited to have a better reply to “Hey” than “Hey.”
Score one: Parker—

“Hey!” A voice echoed from the bleachers below.

It was Cricket in the first row waving in Tribb's direction, her macramé bracelet flopping around. Her blond hair looked like tinsel in the sun.

Parker's eyes narrowed. She squinted at Tribb and tried to determine exactly where his rock-on fingers were pointed—at Parker's bleacher? Or at the governor's daughter? But the whistle blew before she could get an exact coordinate on things and Tribb ran into position.

And speaking of tinsel, Tinsley Reardon was no longer plucking her eyebrows, from what Parker could see. And neither was Courtney Wallace. And neither was Natalie Taylor, Parker's sixth best friend. All their eyebrows looked remarkably
natural,
just
like Cricket's. A row of clones. At least they all were sitting in the front—the worst place on the planet to sit.

“What's with the Crick
ettes
?” Kiki asked, reading Parker's mind.

“They're seriously weirding me out,” Plum said as she counted up the matching headbands and unplucked brows.

“We're
loving
the über-matchie thing. Aren't we?” Kenneth smiled in admiration. “It's very Diavolo-meets-Mar-a-Lago,” he gushed. All the Lylas gave Kenneth the Hairy Eyeball. “But that's just me,” he quickly added. “Me, myself, and moi.” He laughed. “What do I know?”

“Hey, Court! Crick! Tins! Nat!” Parker forced herself to wave and smile—
noblesse oblige
and all that stuff.

“
Hello
…” Natalie enunciated.