The two other Princesses had waved us goodbye from the pavement wearing today’s furry back pack slung over their shoulders. They were wearing their matching boots and jeans. Even Mark looked twice. I made a note of this in our diary under the heading:
what to wear / dressing to impress.
Now, you might think we’re being uncharitable towards the Princesses since it’s obvious they are trying to make an effort but you don’t share the history. Perhaps it’s time I shared a bit of it as we head to the swim centre about twenty minutes from school.
Once, when we were in first grade at the Los Angeles School for Young Ladies, Teegan tried to make us pick her lunch up off the floor. She just dropped her grilled cheese and chilli fries all over our shoes. Splat. Then her twin sister, Tory, laughed and said, ‘pick it up and eat it. All of it.’
Then, it was our turn to laugh.
‘As if,’ Mouche said. Instead, we kicked those fries right back at her and ran in the opposite direction.
These war-like incidents happened between us all the way through grade-school.
In the beginning, we might have been friends. As we got older, we all aced fashion and theatre design but then Teegan hired a designer to do the costumes for our lame sixth grade musical and made sure Mouche and I wore the most hideous ones. Freya and Mouche had a fight over whose mommy was prettier and everyone started being catty with each other after that.
As girls, we weren’t really taught to support each other, just to compete with each other, which is
so
wrong if you ask me. Anyway, the Princesses were much better at ganging up than Mouche and I. Once they all conspired to get us into trouble for something we didn’t do (like writing horrible notes about our super-strict history teacher), we were defenceless against their conspiracies. For a start, it was always their word against ours. In the end, there were more of them; and sisters usually side with each other. Go figure. At least I had Mouche. And she had me.
The bus slowed and pulled over. Mouche, who doesn’t get car sick, is busy studying boyzamples. She hastily shuts down the images on her cell. We bunch up our belongings and grab our bags. This time, Mark hands me mine and our fingers touch. It’s kind of uncomfortable but, in a good way. Mouche sees my blush and starts to giggle as we head to the pool.
‘Alright everyone, you have three minutes in the changing rooms. Then I want you all out here and ready to go by 9.30am.’
Mr Frames was raising his voice. He has brown, curly hair, glasses and a nice smile. Although he teaches music, he doubles as a swim coach and is one of the best teachers at Sunrise.
Teegan was adjusting her goggles and talking to me in the bleachers as the boys lined up for the one hundred metres.
‘Take a look at Mark. He really grew up in England.’
I was stuffing my hair into the required bathing cap and trying to find my goggles as Mouche rolled her eyes and began the search for her missing ear plug.
We could hear Tory rating all the boys as they stood on the blocks: ‘nine, eight, six, eight and a half, three, ten, ten.’
The last two were Jet and Mark. The one who got three, well, he wasn’t exactly athletic. Teegan and Freya started smirking when Mark adjusted himself.
Mouche and I nearly walked into Mark and Jet as we hurried back to the bus a few hours later, but Mark just said, ‘excuse me,’ quite dismissively and walked past me without saying anything else. Jet paused and smiled at Mouche and I noticed she smiled back, but now Jet seemed hesitant to actually say anything. Boys are complicated.
That evening, after my mom and I finished our late night shopping at the market on Main Street, Mouche met me and together we tried on dresses for the dance. Mouche whispered into a changing room mirror as we swapped make-up, ‘I’ve been reading loads of classic dating guides, such as
Deal With It - He Doesn’t
Want to Date You
and
The Unspoken Laws of Romance
but I think we’re embracing unknown territory, our own
Dating Adventure for Teenage Girls.’
‘Because we’re such experts...’ I added sarcastically.
‘True,’ Mouche replied, ‘but I’m sure we can teach while we learn – look at Mr Frames.’
Mr Frames was our student teacher last year and we leaned into the store window to watch him and his new fiancée walking across the road hand in hand. We’d conspired to let Mr Frames know how much our other student teacher, Miss Love, liked him. Now they’re both fully registered teachers and we’ve received invites to their wedding this winter. We are obviously very good matchmakers for other people – why not each other? Why not all the girls in school? The whole town?
The universe even?
‘But what is the point of all of this, when, what we really need, is some money for our college funds?’ Mouche said. ‘You’re starting to take this whole
Emma
fixation a little too far. Forget about school plays and dating new boys, I’m starting to worry I may not get my college scholarship.’
‘Of course you will Mouche. You’re one of the smartest girls I know. Besides, money isn’t everything...’
‘I just have this feeling,’ Mouche said.
‘What?’
‘That we’re going to be seriously sidetracked...’
‘Well, maybe that’s a good thing, because sometimes the real world lacks excitement...’
‘Really Pheebs, you are my best friend, but I’m not so sure...’
I smiled and pulled out the copy of
Wuthering Heights
that I was being forced to re-read and review for an English assignment. I’d just finished skimming
Emma
, another Austen story, but Mouche had preferred the movie version. ‘Life’s kind of like that now,’ she had said one afternoon when we watched it, ‘except faster and with more sex and swearing.’
We sat in the Sunrise cafe and viewed the world going past our window booth, each of us adding to the
Boy Rating Diary
as we waited for our food.
Joel Goodman worked in the diner. He was kind of hot but monosyllabic. I should know. I tutored him in English once a month and in return he helped to fulfil my credit quota. He’d been brought up speaking English as a second language and although he spoke almost without an accent, he sometimes wrote the words around the wrong way.
‘Hey,’ he said as he took our orders wearing all black and his usual wife-beater shirt, ‘the usual?’
‘Yes please,’ said Mouche, who was unfailingly polite in public. Joel smiled at her then me, in turn. I looked away, because Joel was a huge flirt.
‘You know how long we’ll need to work Saturdays just to get enough money for even a year in New York?’ Mouche asked.
‘Do not fear...I have a feeling everything will come together in the end. It always does and money worries are no reason to change our plans...’
We expanded our ideas on napkins after eating the special burger deal, watching the Sunrise world go by. Most of the people we saw through the window we knew or had met at least once. That was one of the things I liked about Sunrise, though Mouche and I mostly wanted to get out. Maybe she wanted out even more than I did.
Later that evening we continued to plot.
Mouche dropped her purchases next door at her house, then came over.
I was sitting on the porch eating ice-cream having my musical theatre star fantasy and waiting for my agent to call.
Oh, that’s something else I haven’t told you much about yet. I’ve been acting, or rather auditioning professionally, part-time, since I turned twelve. I try not to spread this about as I was teased mercilessly at HSYL. I got to do a commercial a few years ago for breakfast cereal but since then the money has kind of dried up. It’s so weird how I can be outgoing when I’m pretending to be someone else, although lately, I’m starting to fear stage-fright. I have to really psyche myself up to perform. But I’ll get over that. All the best actresses do.
My agent, Thom, says I need to wait until I’ve made the transition from ‘child to woman,’ which would be a bit creepy if Thom were even vaguely interested in females for anything apart from ‘art or fashion.’ Although Mouche liked dance and drama, she never seriously considered the artistic world in her career prospects.
But when I looked up that evening, I suddenly noticed a possible usurper for my junior year glory. Mouche was framed by the moonlight and actually looked much more like a star in repose than I did.
Mouche was so pretty. I believe Mrs Jones may have referred to her as ‘
breathtaking.’
Have you ever felt like someone else has stolen your life? Well, Mouche is so perfect and so perfectly nice that you’d almost give her your life if she asked, but then you’d totally regret it.
The thing was, she could steal your life or the hottest guy in school, if she was so inclined. She was much prettier, if you ask me, than even the Princesses; although I’m fairly sure she never thought it. Mouche had
Alice in Wonderland
hair and cool jeans and perfect boots and was wearing bright pink, frosty lipstick.
I forgot about the slight pang of envy I felt as we were trying on our Fall Fling dresses again and deciding what shoes and accessories to take. As we stood in front of the full length bedroom mirror, I knew it was wrong to be jealous or envious of your best friend forever, but it didn’t
feel
wrong at the time.
Chapter 7
Scandal
Mouche had us sorted. She’d read the entire contents of
Dating Yourself into Oblivion
and used her instincts to ‘encourage’ Jet to consider coming to the Fall Fling.
As social monitors of the year, we were totally prepared to attend, cameras in tow, by ourselves: but arm candy always made the other girls jealous. And who could resist that? Mouche left an old-fashioned note in Jet’s locker, waiting for Jet to take the bait. When she pulled into my driveway that morning looking very excited, I thought he’d maybe replied.
‘Not so much, turns out I might have been a bit previous with the note, I’ve been up half the night doing extra research. I think I should’ve made the pursuit more of a challenge for him...meanwhile...’ Mouche thrust a handful of highlighted pages in my face.