The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth (4 page)

We found a table in the sun—not in the window, because that was forbidden, but close. Had I gotten out of class that much earlier than everyone else? Where was everyone? Around us, tables began to fill up as students trickled in, some still in uniform, and some in civvies like me.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” I took a big bite of salmon burger. Like everything else Dining Services produced (with the notable exception of the morning oatmeal, which I couldn’t bring myself to eat), it was delicious.

Emily nibbled at the foccacia bread on top of her salmon. “I just wondered… what you would do if… you were in a certain situation.”

“What kind of situation?” Ahhh, good wasabi. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth.

“If you knew… thought you knew something about somebody.” She breathed in, then out, too. “Something really bad. That might get them expelled. Would you tell?”

“Tell who?”

“Anybody. Ms. Curzon, maybe.” The headmistress.

“Depends on whether it involved fire, blood, or illegal substances.”

“I’m trying to be serious here, Lissa.”

“So am I. Those are the only circumstances where the school expels automatically.” And how did I know this, you ask? From personal experience. Not that I’d ever been expelled. But I sure tried hard at one point, during my first term here.

“No, it doesn’t involve anything like that,” she said slowly. “Except maybe the blood part. I wouldn’t know.”

I cut her a sideways glance. “Somebody’s not out there hurting anyone, are they?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s more of a… a moral thing. That’s why I asked you. Because you know about stuff like that.”

“What, moral things?”

“Yeah.”

That was a switch. Usually Gillian got to field the philosophy and ethics questions from people. “You’re not giving me much to go on. Can you be more specific?”

The doors swung open and Vanessa and DeLayne swept in. Since Emily and I were facing them, we saw their gazes rake over us and Vanessa’s face pinch up as though she’d stepped in a canine landmine on the grass.

“Honestly, Emily, how desperate
are
you?” she murmured as she passed us.

Emily turned as white as a table napkin. She shoved her chair back and left the dining room at a fast walk, practically mowing down Gillian and Jeremy in the doorway.

Gillian caught my gaze and came over, slinging her cardie over the back of the chair across from me. “What was that all about?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” I pushed Emily’s abandoned tray all the way to the end of the table. “She was talking in riddles, and then Vanessa scared her off. I’m glad you guys are here.”

At least with Gillian, a person knew where she stood.

A
DRESS
for the Senior Cotillion is probably the most important of one’s high school career. It will be seen by everyone, including the media, and you can make or break your rep on
WhoWhatWear.com
with one mistaken choice. This is why you need people like Carly and Shani on your side.

“What do you mean, you’re not coming?” Carly stared at Gillian, who had pushed aside her physics textbooks and set her chin in her hands as she watched me collect my bag and locate a sweater in case the fog came in later.

“If I don’t get my homework out of the way this afternoon, I can’t tutor Kaz in the morning. If he doesn’t get some help, he flunks his physics test on Monday. It’s kind of like nuclear fission. A chain reaction producing an explosion at the end.”

“Or an implosion,” Shani put in. “Come on, girl. You need a break.”

“She’s been studying practically nonstop all week.” I surfaced triumphantly from the wardrobe with a cashmere sweater as light as a puff of tropical air. “It’ll be fun, Gillian. And it’s Friday night. Even if you don’t find a dress, we can still go for supper and a movie.”

For a moment, I thought she’d waver and give in. Then she looked at the pile of books. “I really want to, but I have to prioritize. Homework first.”

“Can’t Kaz find help closer to home? What’s Danyel doing?” He probably had as much of a struggle with physics as Kaz did, but two heads were always better than one.

“Bio,” Shani said. “Not so helpful on the physics side.” Shani gazed at Gillian with a mix of pity and admiration. “You’re a better woman than I am.”

“No,” Gillian said bleakly. “I just have a heavier load this term than you do.”

Once she made up her mind, I knew there was no changing it. “Can we bring you something, at least? Popcorn? Printer cartridges? Red Bull?”

Gillian shook her head. “I’m good. Once I get through this pile, I’ll feel better about it. I’d rather do it now than ruin Sunday with it.”

She had a point.

“It’s not the same without all of us together,” Carly grumbled on the way downtown on the train. It was lucky for our social lives that San Francisco had such a great transit system. This place is like New York—people can go all their lives without owning a car. Spencer doesn’t allow student cars on campus anyway, so even if a person did have hers here, there was nowhere to put it. “No fair that she has to stay behind.”

“You know how she is.” I hung onto the metal pole next to their seat. “God first, school second, fun last.”

“As opposed to us, who scramble it up any which way,” Shani said.

“At least the second two,” Carly reminded her. “Mess with the first one at your own risk.”

Shani laughed and acknowledged the truth of that. “Not that I’m changing the subject or anything, but how weird is it that Emily Overton wanted to come with us today?”

“She did?” She hadn’t said a word since she’d run out on me at lunch. We got off the train at the Montgomery station and headed through the double doors into the massive food court and the escalator that would take us into San Francisco Centre. “She was talking weird in the dining room, that’s for sure. Wanted to know whether I would rat on someone if they had some kind of moral problem.”

“What?” Carly made a confused face at me over her shoulder as we rode the escalator up.

“It’s a mystery. Then Vanessa came by and snarked at her, and she ran away.”

“Girl’s off her meds,” Shani said.

“Maybe, but she’s also hooked in to what’s going on at school. Must be some scandal brewing.”

“There’s always a scandal brewing with Vanessa’s crowd, whether she’s speaking to them or not. She creates them just for her own amusement.” Carly led us into Nordstrom. “Ooh, check out the new Rag and Bone leather jacket.”

Looking at clothes was much more fun than wondering what was up with Emily. When we finished with the mall, we walked up Post to Union Square, where Macy’s, Saks, and Neiman Marcus held down three of its four corners like the
grandes dames
they were.

“I’m heading over to Britex to find some fabric,” Carly told us. “Meet you here on the steps at five thirty?”

“You know, it’s so much easier just to buy a dress.” Shani folded her arms and stuck out a hip.

“I have a rep to uphold,” Carly told her, nose in the air with
faux
snootiness. “Everything I make goes into my portfolio.”

“You don’t need a portfolio now,” I said. “You already got into both schools you wanted.”

“There is life after college. I’ll need samples of everything I’ve done when I’m interviewing in costume departments in Hollywood and with designers.”

“Man.” I glanced at Shani. “How did I wind up with you guys as friends? All of you have everything so planned out. I feel like a doofus. Or like the grasshopper in that fable.”

Carly slipped an arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze. “Some people figure out the talents God gave them early. With other people it takes more time. Besides, no doofus ever short-listed for the Hearst Medal.”

“Point taken. Okay, see you right here at five thirty.” I glanced at Shani. “Come on. We’re on a mission.”

But even as we filled dressing room after dressing room with beautiful dresses, it kept nagging at me—how they all knew what they wanted to do and I… didn’t. Don’t get me wrong. When you’re seventeen, who really knows these things for sure? People change, circumstances change, you go from school to college to who knows where. Life is change, and you put your trust in God that He knows what He’s doing.

But I guess what was bothering me most was that my friends had a handle on their talent and I didn’t. I mean, look at Carly. Most people look at five yards of blue chiffon and see five yards of blue chiffon. Carly doesn’t. She sees a Grecian draped sleeve and a high waist and a flowing skirt cut in a fishtail train. And Shani? Well, though they’re night and day to look at, she and Mac are sisters under the skin, which is probably why they’re always e-mailing each other. They’re career girls from the word go, and graduation isn’t so much something to work for as an annoyance to kick out of the way on the road to bigger and better things.

Even Gillian knows her talent. Talents. She may not know which of them to pick or what school will help her channel them the best, but she knows she has them.

And what do I have?

I don’t have a Hearst Medal, despite what Carly said. It was great to be a finalist, but who ever remembers the person who came in second? Other than the admissions people at UCSB, which was good, okay, I get that. But who else?

I rest my case.

The Valentino babydoll I’d just tried on made me look fat. Who came up with the dumb idea that bubble hems were cute? They made everyone look fat. I tore it off and hung it up with the rest of the colorful plunder hanging on the back of the door. Clearly I was not destined to find a dress today.

I knocked on Shani’s dressing-room door. “How are you doing?”

She opened it in a sleek LBD with crystal beading all over the bodice. “I don’t know why I’m torturing myself. I know I’m not going to buy anything.”

“It’s your Cotillion dress, Shani. It’s once in a lifetime.”

“You say that about every school event you get a new dress for.”

“But graduation really is only once in a lifetime. And you’ve got two mil—”

“Shh!”

“Well, you do. You can afford one dress.”

She shook her head and closed the door. Behind it, I heard the mosquito shriek of a zipper. “Nope. I’ll wear the Lagerfeld. No one will have seen it since the premiere of
The Middle Window
, and who cares if the fashion sites make snide remarks? I’ll be on my way to Cambridge, Mass.”

“I hope not. I hope you guys will take at least a week and come and stay with me like last summer.”

Clothes rustled, and then she opened the door again, back in her street look. “That’s a deal, girlfriend.”

I may not be able to count on myself to know what I’m doing, but I know I can count on my friends.

NORMALLY, IF WE
weren’t shopping, the girls and I would do something fun together on the weekend, like go down to the beach or get a ride up to Napa to hang out with Brett’s family at their vineyard. But Gillian’s work ethic seemed to have infected Carly, too, and when I couldn’t even convince Shani to go over to Telegraph Hill on Saturday to grab a coffee and watch the wild parrots, I gave up.

Resigning myself to homework, I pulled on a comfy denim mini, a (sloganless, per school rules) T-shirt, and flip-flops and drifted down to the library. May as well start on my English paper. Technically, I could have waived English in my final term of senior year, but I liked it. Papers were interesting, and in this class, The World of Jane Austen, what was not to like? My paper compared
Sense and Sensibility
with Elizabeth Gaskell’s
Wives and Daughters
. All I needed was some literary criticism and some feminist theory to back up my arguments, and I’d be good to go.

I cruised the stacks, happily debating the merits of books with interesting titles like
Diversionary Tactics: Feminine Authority in the Novels of Burney and Austen
and
A Galaxy of Disagreeable Women
, when I turned a corner and nearly tripped over Emily, who was sitting on the hardwood floor.

“Watch it!”

“Sorry.” I grabbed for the stack of books teetering beside her before it fell over. “You need a cart.”

“Nah. I only want one of these. It’s picking the right one that’s the hard part.”

I couldn’t remember ever seeing her looking at a book in public. This was a rare sighting. “I didn’t think you were into studying.”

She gave me a glance that was this close to an eye roll. “I still have to pass Senior Lit. Besides, it’s not like I have anything else to do.”

I wasn’t touching that one. The girl needed some new friends and some inspiration, in that order. Much as she exasperated me sometimes, there was a vulnerability about her that made me want to reach out to her. It was this same vulnerability that got her picked on by people like Rory Stapleton. Which, in my opinion, was all the more reason to reach out.

“I’m looking for some backup for my paper, too.” I glanced over the spines above her, my head tilted to read the titles.

“Lissa, have you thought any more about what we talked about before?”

I straightened. “We didn’t really talk about anything. If something’s bugging you, just spit it out and help me understand how I can help, okay?”