Social Order (10 page)

Lauren decided to climb the final flight of stairs and look for Lili and the rest of the Ashleys. Pay dirt! The bathroom door was open and there was Lili, sitting on the marble countertop, legs swinging, chatting with three other girls and comparing lip glosses.

Lauren waved, and Lili fluttered her fingers in acknowledgment. Lauren hesitated, wondering if she should join her, but there wasn't any more space on the counter. She moved on.

In the giant home office, with sleek gray furniture, a flat-screen thirty-inch G5 computer, and a dinosaur-size telescope, she found Ashley and Tri in the corner talking to some other kids. A. A. always went on about how short Tri was, but that didn't take away from the fact that he was by far the handsomest guy in the Gregory Hall seventh grade. He was so good-looking he could be an actor—weren't they all short too?

Lauren ambled up to them just as Ashley stood up from the couch and pulled Tri to standing.

“You're leaving?” Lauren asked.

“Just to get some fresh air,” said Ashley. “It's finally stopped raining.”

“Have you seen A. A.?” Lauren hadn't seen her since they'd arrived at the party.

“Nope.” Ashley shook her head.

She felt shy about joining Ashley and Tri and drifted to another room. Lauren looked at her now-empty cup. Her bravado faded a little. She was at a party, but the Ashleys had deserted her once again. Maybe if she walked down to the kitchen for a refill, that would kill a little more time until Dex had to pick her up. She noticed an overweight guy who looked more like he was in college than high school standing alone in a corner, but he seemed kind of strange and not very friendly. He was staring into space, a backpack hanging off one of his shoulders.

“Oh, crap.” A guy came over to stand next to her. His face was flushed. He had a mess of dark blond hair and twinkling green eyes, and had a huge dark stain in the middle of his rugby shirt.

“Nice move, huh?” he asked, rubbing at it. “I wasn't even playing and I get sloshed.” He shook his head. “I guess it goes with this one,” he added, pointing to a red ketchup stain.

Lauren smiled and handed him a few napkins. She recognized him as one of the guys who hung with Tri Fitzpatrick. It was kind of cute how he cared about his shirt. Most guys were totally comfortable running around in rags.

“How bad does it look?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It looks okay. You can't even see it.”

“Good.” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Some Miss Gamble's girls would make me leave the room or tell me to go home and change.”

Lauren couldn't help looking over at Ashley, standing outside on the terrace, talking to Tri, not a hair out of place. Ashley would probably think that a soda stain was an insult and a ketchup stain was an abomination.

“As long as it's not blood,” Lauren cautioned.

“I swear it isn't. Unless a Reed Prep defender stabbed me on the way up the stairs. Crashers,” he said with a smile, motioning to a group of loud boys who had just arrived.

Lauren followed his gaze, and sure enough, there were a bunch of guys from the Reed Prep team making their way into the loft. The Gregory Hall guys didn't seem too fazed by the appearance of their rivals. Most of them were friends who'd gone to the same preschools.

“Then you'll live, I guess,” she said with a laugh.

“I guess.” He sighed. “If you say so.”

Could this be happening? Was Lauren Page actually flirting with a guy? And was he actually flirting back?

By the time his friends dragged him away—they
were hitting some other party in St. Francis Wood—Christian had asked for her phone number.

•  •  •

As soon as he left, Lauren ended up talking to another boy who'd wandered over looking for something to wipe up a spill on the coffee table. She happily supplied him with several napkins as well. Like Christian, he was a lax player, but he was in seventh grade at St. A's. It seemed it was her duty to save the boys from dirt that night.

He was easy on the eyes as well, but in a different way from Christian. Alex was dark, with olive skin and eyes that looked almost black. She helped him mop up the mess, and they fell into a deep conversation, taking about everything from the music at the party to the freakishly bad weather they were having in San Francisco.

She told him about her parents, and he told her about his family. His grandmother was Catalan, he said, and she used to sing to him in Spanish when he was a little boy. When he got all embarrassed and apologized, saying he didn't usually talk about his personal life, Lauren's heart melted like a gelato on a hot day. Something about Alex's dark, brooding eyes and the way his hair flopped over his face made her feel squishy and
silly. When he asked for her number, she gave it to him without hesitation.

Lauren looked around the room. There was still no sign of the Ashleys anywhere, but she didn't mind. Two boys had asked for her number, and neither of them had tried to drag her into a closet.

Boys liking her. How weird was that? Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. But then again, that was LBTA. Life Before the Ashleys.

LILI SPOTTED MAX AS SOON
as he arrived at the party, and she knew he'd seen her, too. Their eyes met from across the room (really from above the room, since she was gazing down at the first floor from the second). He gave her a shy smile and her heart flip-flopped, but she tried not to show it, focusing on the makeup advice one of the eighth graders was dishing.

She had to play it cool and not act as though she was a desperate sports groupie with a massive crush on a lax star.

Even though that's exactly what she was.

Lili gave herself one hour to float around the party,
check out the entire loft, air-kiss everyone she knew, and flirt with as many random boys as possible. One hour to let Max see her walking up and down the curving iron staircase wearing her cute dress with the super-short hem and her new tango shoes with the three-inch heels. One hour for him to notice her glossy hair swinging and her pink lips smiling. After the hour was over, she would make sure she got as close to him as possible and stayed there.

Like all of Lili's plans, this one worked like a charm.

After sashaying the length and breadth of the loft numerous times, she found herself in the middle of a crush of people standing in the hallway. They were all waiting to get onto the terrace, where someone was supposed to shoot fireworks. She wormed her way through until she was near-but-not-too-near him, hoping it would look natural that she was just by his elbow.

Max turned around and looked pleasantly surprised. “Hey!”

“Hey, you,” she said lightly, as if she had just noticed he was standing there. “What are you doing here? Aren't you guys, like, the enemy?”

“We were invited!” Max protested. “What's a victory party without the real victors?” he joked.

Lili smiled. A few people behind her jostled her to the front, pressing her closer to him. “Oops. Sorry!”

Max steadied her and returned her smile. Lili thought the two of them must look a little funny, just standing there smiling at each other, but she felt really happy. She was sure she was getting a vibe off him. He liked her, too.

“Madame LeBrun's a real trip, isn't she?” asked Lili.

“I think I counted fifty-five sneezes last session.” Max laughed. “Is she allergic to everything?”

Lili nodded eagerly. “That's nothing. Last year it got so bad she fainted!”

“Really?”

“You should have seen it. She was sneezing so much, and then she kind of swooned and tripped over the rug and hit her head on the floor. She was bleeding so badly, me and Greg—the other guy who used to be in the class—thought we'd have to call 911.”

“No way!”

“Yeah. It didn't happen. I made it up.” She winked. What had gotten into her?

Max looked confused for a second, and then he laughed. His shoulders relaxed, and he grinned down at her. “You're a real trip too.” He moved closer to her
to make room for a couple of people who'd squeezed past them to get to the terrace. Outside, they could hear the first whiz-bangs of the bottle rockets. More people crowded into the hallway in an attempt to get out to the terrace, and the next explosions were so loud Lili had to hold her hands to her ears.

“Wanna duck in here?” Max asked, finding a door that led to a small butler's pantry. “Just until it's all clear?”

Lili nodded, glad to be away from the mob and the noise. The pantry was a small, dark space. They stood so close to each other that his denim-clad knee was almost touching her bare one.

“So Madame didn't faint. How can I trust you now?” asked Max, arching an eyebrow in the dim light.

“Are you calling me a liar, Maxwell Costa?” she demanded, pretending to be completely indignant.

“Your words, not mine, Ashley Li.”

It was the first time he'd said her name. And he called her Ashley, which no one ever did, which made it sound more intimate, more special. Then the two of them were standing so close together she was practically in his arms, and his head was bent down very close to hers. Someone's elbow—hers? his?—brushed the light
switch, and then it was so dark she could barely make out his face. Neither of them spoke, and Lili knew what was about to happen.

He was going to kiss her.

She closed her eyes and their lips met.

Whatever the Ashleys believed, Lili
had
kissed a boy before. But it wasn't anything like this. Just like she told her friends, she'd kissed a boy in Taiwan last summer. The boy was a friend of Lili's cousin, a thirteen-year-old who was cute, shy, and nervous. That was the problem. He was so shy and nervous that when he went to kiss her, he actually missed her mouth and kissed her on the chin! It was pretty icky. Wet and cold and unexpected, totally disappointing, and the boy was so embarrassed he never came anywhere near her again.

Her friends didn't have to know
all
the gory details, and there was no way they'd ever find out. Unless Ashley was planning to send spies to Taiwan to track down the truth, of course. Lili wouldn't put anything past her.

But this kiss was completely different. This kiss was soft but confident, utterly intense. Her mouth went dry, and she could barely remember how to speak English, let alone French.

She lost herself in his kiss, and all the stress in her
life—the competition with Ashley for the Preteen Queen crown, the parental pressure to succeed academically, the constant surveillance and assessment on AshleyRank—floated away. She soared ten feet into the air.

When they finally pulled away from each other, Max drummed his fingers on the wall and looked away. When he turned back to her, an alarm rang in Lili's head. Something was up. His cute face was troubled, as though he'd just remembered something really bad.

“Is everything okay?” she managed to say, still breathless from the kiss.

“Yeah, yeah.” He couldn't even look her in the eyes. “It's just . . . weird.”

“What's weird?” Now she was nervous. Now she was
terrified
.

“I mean, uh, I'll see you around, okay?”

See you around?

Uh-oh. Lili didn't like the sound of that.

“Look, I'll call you. . . .” Max let her hand go and opened the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked. “Can't we talk about this?” What was going on? Why was he acting so freaked out? It was just a kiss. Did she have cooties or something? Why was he acting like he wanted nothing
more than to be really, really far away from her? Was this what happened when you kissed a bad boy? Was her mom right?

“Bye,” Max said, moving so fast that he knocked into some fat guy with a backpack.

Then, just like that, he walked away, leaving Lili to walk out alone into the now deserted hallway, her face crumbling into tears.

Our hearts are still pounding from all the Red Bull we drank at the first B-G (that's Boy-Girl) party of the year! Whoohoo!

STYLE: 10

We heart that Free City sweatshirt she was wearing, which had a silhouette of a little boy and a silhouette of a little girl with a heart between them. So apropros!

SOCIAL PRESENCE: 10

Because she's one-half of the seventh grade's

It Couple.

SMILE: 10

Bestowed upon one and all.

SMARTS: 9

Took a pass on the chip selection. Probably a good idea. (Burp!)

CUMULATIVE SCORE: 39

STYLE: 10

Always looks effortlessly chic. Bet her cool asymmetrical top was yet another hand-me-down from her model mom.

SOCIAL PRESENCE: 9

Disappearing into a closet with a new boy? If she doesn't watch out, she'll start to get a reputation!

SMILE: 8

The Closet Queen didn't look too happy once the doors opened.

SMARTS: 8

Not sure it's wise to get another boy all hot and bothered about you when you just got rid of your former stalker!

CUMULATIVE SCORE: 35

STYLE: 10

Looked so girly-pretty in a breezy, romantic, dove-gray minidress accented with a floppy bow.

SOCIAL PRESENCE: 10

Smooth operator, dazzled all the boys at the party, including one particular Reed Prep player.

SMILE: 8

Never seen her looking more joyful at the beginning, but she left party looking upset. Does anyone know what happened??

SMARTS: 7

Skirt looked a little short for constant up-and-down on the stairs.

CUMULATIVE SCORE: 35

AND THE REST OF THE WORLD . . .

STYLE: 10

Her silk jersey Rachel Comey dress (we asked!) was just too cute!