Social Order (6 page)

“I don't remember . . . ,” Lauren began, and then stopped herself. Ashley smiled: Lauren was learning fast. You should
never
admit to not knowing something, because that just told everyone else what an out-of-the-
loop loser outsider you were. A. A. and Lili didn't know anything about this either—mainly because Ashley was making it up on the spot—but they weren't drawing attention to themselves. They'd learned to go along with whatever Ashley wanted, anyway.

“But doesn't Miss Gamble's have a policy against cliques?” asked Lauren a little sharply, when Ashley was done describing her awesome idea. Ashley bristled. Lauren must have forgotten the importance of being a team player. Maybe she wasn't such a fast learner after all.

“Yeah,” said Lili, her pretty face troubled. She placed her glass of iced tea carefully on its ivory paper coaster. “I don't know if Miss Charm is going to like that idea very much.”

Lili could be such a goody-goody sometimes.

“She'll like it. She likes anything I suggest,” Ashley said. “I could turn the whole class against her in a second.”

“I wish we were filming right now. I can tell you guys are the arbiters of what's in and out at school,” Jasper observed with a wry smile.

“Exactly.” Ashley brushed a hank of blond hair away from her face. “Once in a while we get into a
little
trouble, mainly because girls are so jealous of us. That kind of thing happens a lot when you're as popular as we are.”

“Well,” said Jasper, shaking his head and grinning at Lauren, “I can see why you girls are the right ones for our show.”

Lauren said nothing and gave an embarrassed half smile. Maybe she was upset that the Ashleys were running
her
show. She should just deal. Last semester, the only person Lauren hung out with carried an oxygen tank instead of a Proenza handbag.

“That's why the Friendship Ceremony is brilliant! We'll be promoting unity among the class,” Ashley said, not even bothering to look at Lili. What was up with her? Ashley had come up with a save-the-day brainwave and Lili was trying to sabotage it!

“It sounds perfect,” said Tiffany. “And the four of you are best friends, right?”

Ashley nodded. One by one, the other girls followed suit, Lauren nodding too. Ashley figured that was all right for now. After all, they had agreed to play Lauren's BFFs for TV.

“We just need to get permission from the school to film that, of course,” Jasper said.

“Oh, you'll get permission,” Ashley reassured him. She'd make sure of it. Even if her father had to finance a new library wing for Miss Gamble's, she was going to get those cameras into that classroom on Thursday. As far as she was concerned,
Preteen Queen
was now
The Ashley Show
.

A. A. ARRIVED AT DANCE-TEAM
rehearsal on time—four o'clock on Wednesday, just as Lili had asked, although it was a pretty last-minute request, especially for Lili. Ashley and Lili were both driving her crazy with their secret plans. First Ashley sprang her “Friendship Ceremony” idea on everyone at the
Preteen Queen
meeting yesterday, and now Lili had decided they needed to come up with a special routine for the big lacrosse semis next week.

Why those games were so special all of a sudden, A. A. did not know. To be honest, she was kind of tired of boys. Between Ashley cooing over Tri and Lili gushing over some Reed Prep stud in her French class, A. A. was feeling like a total spinster.

She had nothing romantic to look forward to right now—nothing. By the time she'd figured out that her secret online love, laxjock, was probably Tri, he was already smitten with Ashley, asking her to dance, feeding her (okay, unwittingly) nut-infested cupcakes, and then waltzing off into the sunset with her.

Not that she cared. It was only Tri. They were just friends, and she didn't think of him in any other way. She just couldn't believe he actually liked Ashley. A. A. liked Ashley too—she was a lot of fun and surprisingly sweet underneath all the snobbery—but she never imagined Tri falling for someone so . . . superficial.

Rehearsal today was in the Little Theater, a multi-use space that was part auditorium and part gym. A. A. busied herself with yoga stretches. If all else failed, working out always helped clear her head.

A few minutes later Lili bustled in with an entire entourage—Tiffany, one of the producers from the day before; several cameramen; a boom operator; a sound guy; two production assistants wielding clipboards; and someone else whose job seemed to be holding all the power cords. Lili looked exuberant, and behind her was Lauren, walking just as briskly.

Both had changed out of their school uniforms.
Lili was wearing Y3 Adidas head to toe, while Lauren unzipped her Wild Fox hoodie to reveal a body-hugging lycra top and blue Title Nine cutoff Pilates pants.

“What's going on?” A. A. asked.

“They're filming us!” said Lili.

“Yeah, I can see that. Why?”

“I told them that after-school activities are a normal part of a preteen's life, and they wanted to capture it,” Lili explained, as if it made perfect sense.

“But I thought they weren't going to start filming until the Friendship Ceremony meeting,” said A. A., still confused. “And where's Ashley?”

Lili blithely ignored A. A.'s questions as she stretched her hamstrings. A. A. would have liked to get to the bottom of it, but the sound guy was waiting to put a mike on her, and she didn't want to appear uncooperative.

“Coach is just parking,” Lili called, dropping her cell phone into her bag. “Tiffany, you're going to
love
him. He gives good TV.”

A. A. nodded as she clipped the microphone to her jogging bra. “Trent's a total Carson.” It looked like Lili was running the show, and she wasn't about to get in the way.

The heavy door clanged open and A. A. looked up,
expecting to see Ashley in her usual rehearsal gear—a pale blue one-piece with a gray cashmere shrug. But instead a very tall, very gay guy in his thirties, with a shaved head, dressed in gray sweatpants and a white muscle tee, bounded into the room.

“Hello, Lady Miss Ashleys!” he called, clapping his hands. “Miss Lili, where is my entrance music? Gimme the beat!”

“Just getting it ready!” Lili bent over the CD player, cuing up a disco remix of Diana Ross's “I'm Coming Out.” “Tiffany, Lauren, everybody, this is Trent, our coach. He's a trainer at Crunch, a former backup dancer for Britney Spears, and a five-time national dance-team champion.”

“And a former pageant queen, but we won't get into that now,” said Trent, accepting his microphone gladly and sticking the receiver into the waist of his sweatpants. “How do I look?” he purred, throwing kisses at the camera.

Trent stopped mugging long enough to notice Lauren's presence. “And who are you?”

“She's a new member of the team,” Lili said quickly.

“I'm Lauren, a big fan of your work on ‘Wrecking Ball.' ” Lauren smiled, extending a hand. “Putting Miley on one was genius!”

Trent looked charmed immediately. “Oh, go on.” He blushed. Then he pursed his lips. “But where is Miss Ashley?”

Nobody knew.

“Should we have left her a message?” Lauren was asking, but Lili shushed her as Trent clapped his hands to get their attention.

“Now, in a line please,
tout de suite
. Let's see your moves.”

“We're not going to wait for Ashley?” A. A. asked Lili. It was aggravating to be waiting around all the time for Ashley, but it seemed strange to start rehearsing without her. And how were they going to work Lauren into this new routine?

“I don't think so,” said Lili breezily. “She's so busy getting ready for the presentation tomorrow, she may not even show—I don't really know.”

Lili was lying, A. A. could tell. Maybe she hadn't even told Ashley about this rehearsal: A. A. wouldn't put it past Lili. After the meeting with the producers yesterday, things were strangely tense between Ashley and Lili. The show seemed to have ramped up their usual competitiveness times ten. How Lili hoped to keep all this from Ashley, A. A. didn't know. Wasn't everything
going to be on television? But it wasn't her problem. Let Lili take the flak when Ashley found out they were rehearsing behind her back. All A. A. wanted to do was get her dance on.

She looked up and out of the floor-length windows of the Little Theater. She thought she'd noticed someone lurking by the curtains. Ashley? But why wouldn't she just join the rehearsal?

“Enough chatting, Miss Thang!” Trent turned his back to them and clicked his fingers. “I'm going to go through the steps and then we'll try it with music. Repeat after me!”

By the time Trent decided, a few minutes later, that they were ready for music—a cool old-school techno song, Shannon's “Let the Music Play,” because he said it would get those lacrosse players “all worked up”—two things had happened.

First, A. A. had completely forgotten to be self-conscious in front of the cameras, because she was enjoying herself so much learning all the new moves and grooving to the lyrics of the dance-team warm-up (“
He's dancing his way back to me . . . he's dancing his way back to me . . .
”). Somehow the image of Tri came to mind, but she tried to shake it off. And second, Lili had pointed
out, in a silky and smug voice, that Lauren's inexperience was showing, so it would be better if she herself danced in the middle of the group.

In other words, in Ashley's usual place.

This is going to be interesting,
thought A. A.

WHEN DEX DROPPED LAUREN OFF
in her father's silver Tesla the next morning, he had a few words of caution. “Take it easy,” he said, motioning to the satellite truck parked outside the school with the Sugar cable network's pastel logo on the side door. “Don't get too caught up in all that crap now. Remember, you shouldn't care so much what other people think. You're great the way you are.”

“Dex, it's
me
,” Lauren assured him with a grin. “You know I think reality TV is totally bogus. Don't worry.”

This was not the Lauren of just over a month ago, who had been so nervous about coming back to school
she'd almost puked during the morning car ride. No, this Lauren was ready for battle.

Sure, she'd taken a little more care with her appearance than usual, meticulously flat-ironing her chestnut shoulder-length hair, applying a deeper shade of lip gloss since she'd read that makeup had to be more dramatic when one was in front of the camera, and selecting a gorgeous ruffled silk shirt to wear with the uniform skirt instead of the mandatory button-down. But that was only because yesterday afternoon she hadn't had time to beautify since Lili had sprung the cameras on them at the last minute, so she wanted to look extra good today.

And for the first time this semester, she wasn't wearing her high-heeled black-and-white spectator pumps. She'd called Ashley last night and told her that while
Preteen Queen
was filming, she thought she should wear a pair of red-soled Louboutin Mary Janes like them. She'd even bought a matching Pucci scarf as well, to complete the picture. Just on filming days, of course. Ashley had agreed it was a great idea.

Lauren was gratified. Maybe if she pressed hard enough, the Ashleys would forget they were only
pretending
to be friends.

Instead of going straight into class, Lauren made
a beeline for the bench by the playground where the Ashleys held court before school each day. They were there as usual: A. A. on Ashley's right, Lili on Ashley's left, doing their usual before-school fashion-and-hair scrutiny.

If she was worried about what Lili or A. A. would say about her copycat shoes and scarf, she needn't have been. Neither of them raised an eyebrow.

“Oh my God,” said Ashley. “Did you
see
Guinevere Parker? Those earmuffs she's wearing make her bizarro bobblehead even larger. It's not even winter and she's already dressing like a yeti!”

“I don't know, it is kind of cold,” Lauren said softly.

“Whatever. It's sixty degrees. When is it not sixty degrees in San Francisco?” Ashley harrumphed. She took a sip from her chai latte and nudged Lili. “Look! Cass Franklin's doing the Michael Jackson again!” True enough, the poor girl was wearing a white hospital mask over the lower half of her face, just like the weirdo pop star. The three Ashleys dissolved into hysterics, and Lauren attempted a laugh but didn't have the heart for it.

“They're going to film us here at recess,” Lili said, changing the subject.

“Hey, Lauren, did you get your notes last night?” A. A. leaned forward. They'd all been sent “talking points” to keep them on track. The producers wanted them to discuss what they had planned for the “Friendship Ceremony.”

“Yeah, easy enough. I think I have it all down.” Lauren nodded. Truth be told, she didn't have a lot of lines. She could already see where this show was headed, and the producers had already written her off as the boring, nice one. Not that she minded too much—she was only using the show to get in with the Ashleys so she could take them down one day.

“Remember,” said Ashley, smiling at her in a shark-about-to-devour-goldfish way, “I'm the one who's going to make the presentation to the rest of the class this morning. This whole ceremony is my idea, after all.”

Lili nodded serenely. Lauren figured out that Ashley didn't know about the secret dance-team practice that had also been taped for the show. Boy, was Ashley in for a surprise. Lauren would love to see her face when she found out.