Popularity Takeover (11 page)

22

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE

FINALLY LAUREN HAD FOUND A
way to spend time with Sadie that didn't involve buying Sadie clothes, listening to her brag about the S. Society's style influence at Miss Gamble's, or sitting around while she flicked through
Marie Claire
, whining that she should really have Nina Garcia's job as fashion director.

Instead, in a brief moment of clarity, Lauren had remembered how just a few weeks before, Sadie had tried to get her to do something they used to do all the time on Saturday afternoons in the old days, when Lauren still had frizzy hair, Sadie still wore thick glasses, and nobody named Ashley had even
noticed
them.

When Sadie had brought her doll to Lauren's house
last semester, Lauren had turned up her nose at their old pastime. But perhaps she shouldn't have been so snotty. So on Saturday afternoon, after watching A. A. in action at the film shoot—kissing Rake Parkins not just once but eight times, because they had to do tons of takes—Lauren dragged herself over to Sadie's house with her arsenal.

“Look what I brought!” Lauren said as she unpacked shoeboxes of clothes and produced her dolls, Monterey Mandy and Sacramento Susie, from her duffel bag.

“Omigod! You still have yours, too!” Sadie immediately reached under her bed and dragged out Ventura Vicki, redheaded Pasadena Polly, and a scuffed-up baby doll, Big Sur Sally.

“You always had way more doll clothes than I did,” Lauren lamented. Her mother used to sew some of Monterey Mandy's outfits because they couldn't afford to buy them from the California Dolls catalog. Lauren always kept those at home, or hid them if Sadie came over to play.

“And I've been to the flagship store in San Diego,” boasted Sadie, brushing Big Sur Sally's tangled mop of hair. “They have a theater and everything. And you can dress up as one of the dolls and get your picture taken.”

“I would have loved that.” Lauren sighed. She was telling the truth; she really would have loved to go. But back then her parents didn't have enough money to go to San Diego. Her father was a struggling grad student, and her mother took jobs here and there to help make ends meet. Neither of Lauren's dolls were new when she got them: Her mother had bought them both on eBay for a bargain price. At the time, Lauren pretended not to mind.

“You should try that poncho on Mandy.” Sadie was the soul of generosity all of a sudden. “It'd look good with her dark hair.”

Even though Sadie was often hard to take these days, she was almost her old self again this afternoon. Lauren couldn't help enjoying sitting around on Sadie's bedroom floor, rifling through the boxes of clothes and shoes. It was kind of fun being a kid again, dressing up dolls rather than worrying about their own outfits.

“Remember when you wrote the California Dolls company a letter asking them to make a doll with glasses?” Lauren reminded her.

“I was so sure they would do it!” Sadie gave a rueful smile. “All they did was send me a form letter and a coupon for five dollars off my next catalog order.”

“And you used it to buy Ventura Vicki a boogie board!”

“Which I
lost
when I tried to get her to ride it at the beach. Her hair's never been the same since that day.” Sadie was right: Vicki's hair looked like it had been plunged into a toilet bowl.

“And that one day, remember, we took one doll each to Great America, so they could ride the roller coaster?” Lauren started to laugh. It was her one and only trip to a theme park, ever. Sadie's mother had offered to take them for Sadie's birthday—maybe her tenth? Lauren had been so excited she'd thrown up her entire dinner the night before.

“Yeah! And one of Polly's shoes dropped off! That was so funny.” Sadie was laughing as well. “Hey, you know—we could do that again. Take our dolls to Great America, I mean.”

“Sure.” Lauren shrugged. “Or maybe Disneyland. My father could fly us down sometime, maybe over the spring break.”

“No, silly—I mean next week, for Congé. Oops!” Sadie clapped one hand over her mouth. “I wasn't supposed to tell you.”

“That's your idea for Congé?” Lauren tried to sound
casual, but her heart was already on the roller coaster, soaring up and down. Sadie had finally blabbed!

“You won't say anything to the Ashleys, right?” Sadie put down the doll hairbrush, and Lauren solemnly shook her head. “We're presenting to Miss Charm next week. So don't say a word! I mean it, Sheridan would kill me!”

“You know you can trust me,” Lauren said.

Sadie looked around, even though they were the only two people in the room. “Okay, so here's our plan. Our dads are going to rent Great America for the whole day, so Miss Gamble's has the run of the place. How cool is that?”

“Way cool,” said Lauren, her fingers fumbling with the Velcro fastener on the back of Susie's tennis dress. Her mind was whirling. “How did you know which day to book?”

“We know Congé is the week before Spring Break, so it's one of only five days. So they've put a deposit down for each day. As soon as the plan's accepted, and we find out the exact day, they'll pay the full fee. You won't believe how much it's going to cost!”

“Tons, I'm sure.” Lauren wanted to start packing up her dolls that second, but it would have looked too
suspicious. She needed to get out of here and
think
. A private day at Great America? Man, that was going to be hard to beat. And they only had a day left—the committee leaders had to meet with Miss Charm on Monday morning.

But whatever the Ashleys came up with, one thing was certain. They had to give Lauren kudos for cracking the S. Society and uncovering their plans—even if she'd done it by accident!

The main thing was, she'd been given a mission, and she'd aced it. The Ashleys were going to be thrilled and relieved and—most of all—
grateful
. For once, things were finally going Lauren's way.

Of course, telling the Ashleys meant betraying Sadie's trust. Lauren felt a stab of remorse at that. She'd totally lied to Sadie without a backward glance. But hadn't Sadie betrayed Sheridan by blabbing?

And all was fair in war and Congé, right?

23

INTO THIN AIR?

LILI WAS MAKING A LOT
of sacrifices.

First of all, she had cleared four hours in her usual Saturday afternoon schedule. She had begged her mother for permission to go on a short hike in the hills around Golden Gate Park, telling her she was going with a friend (only a small white lie, since Max was a boy
friend
), and promised to register with the park ranger and text her precise coordinates (latitude and longitude) every thirty minutes.

She had dressed in all the unflattering, nonfashionable outdoor gear she'd bought to go on the fateful camping-trip-from-hell back in December. She was pretending not to mind that the wind was blowing a
gale, or that the track was still muddy from last night's rain. And she was not pointing out that her idea of a “short hike” did not involve scaling what appeared to be a Himalayan-size slope.

But Max didn't seem to appreciate any of that.

After French class the other day, they had kissed and made up. Apparently the Lana Del Rey look-alike was his cousin—Lili had been jealous for no reason. Max had suggested they spend the day together hiking, and Lili had agreed in order to show him that she could have fun in the outdoors after all, if it was only the two of them and she didn't have to deal with the doomsday chorus of Cassandra and Jezebel.

But things weren't working out that way.

“I can tell you're not enjoying yourself,” Max said as they trudged up the hill, wind gusting Lili's hair into her face. “We can just go back if you like.”

“No!” she protested. “Everything's fine.”

“Then why haven't you said anything for the last ten minutes?” He hurried on ahead.

“Maybe because I'm out of breath climbing Mount Everest!” Lili couldn't help herself.

“This isn't steep at all.” Max spun around to face her and stopped dead. “This isn't as steep as the hill you walk
up from Starbucks every day to get to school!”

“But
that
hill isn't all muddy and rutted,” Lili complained. She kicked one hideous boot against the ridges of the track. The boots had been black when she left home—now they were a crusted clay brown. Flecks of mud had sprayed all over her fleece vest. Gross.

“See—this is the problem.” Max looked exasperated. “You're way too high maintenance!”

“I am
not
high maintenance,” argued Lili. She tugged at the strands of her hair that were sticking to her mouth and felt the grit of windblown dirt salting her lip gloss.
Disgusting.

“Just admit it.” Max folded his arms, staring her in the eyes. “That's why things didn't work out between us before, right? It wasn't about my friends or your friends. We're just too different.”

“I thought it was because one of those mean girls you hang around with told you a whole lot of lies about me,” Lili snapped.

After they'd finally stopped kissing that day at French, Max had confirmed what Lili had suspected all along. He'd confessed that Jezebel had told him that she'd seen Lili out with another guy on the same night that Lili was at home, totally grounded. Why, why,
why
Jezebel had made up such a malicious story, Lili wasn't sure. She was probably in love with Max herself. Hello! He was
much
cuter than
her
boyfriend.

“It wasn't just that,” Max said now, looking kind of sheepish when Jezebel's Big Lie came up in conversation. “We're very different as people.”

“No, we're not!” She felt like she was going to cry.

“Look, Lil, you can't even get dirt on your shoes. . . .”

“I can so!” Lili held up one foot, almost tumbling over onto her butt.

“You hate this.”

“I do not!”

Max was laughing, shaking his head. He walked up a steep incline, using his hands to pull himself up to a narrow ledge jutting out of the mountain. “Come on up here! The view is amazing!”

Lili looked at her nails. They were freshly painted. If she scrambled up after him, she would ruin them. “I can't!”

“C'mon!” Max called. “Of course you can!”

“But I'll get . . .” Lili was about to say
dirty
, but she knew that Max would just mock her. “I mean, what if I fall?”

“You won't fall. I'll pull you up once you get close,”
he assured her, gazing down at her, his dark eyes sparkling. “Don't be scared.”

But Lili didn't make a move.

“You can't do it, can you?” Max sighed. “Just admit it. You're one of the most high-maintenance girls in the Bay Area.” He climbed down from the ledge and stood next to her.

Lili dropped her head so Max couldn't see her crying. He was right. She knew it. She was high maintenance. She liked everything to be clean and tidy and perfect, which was why she and Nature had never gotten along, exactly. Nature was so random and messy.

And Max was a free spirit. He didn't care about things like wearing a smart blazer or using the right knives and forks at a formal dinner.

“It's all right,” he said kindly, stroking Lili's arm. She tried not to flinch at the thought of his muddy hands messing up her fleece vest. “Let's just cut our losses and go back.”

She nodded and turned to follow Max back down the hill. Maybe he was right: It was time to cut their losses.

Maybe they just weren't meant to be.

24

ALL IN THE STEPFAMILY

“AND NOW A TOAST!” JEANINE,
A. A.'s mother, held her goblet of sangria aloft and beamed around the table. This was the closest thing to a family dinner A. A. had experienced in a long time—even if it was after ten o'clock on Saturday night, and they were sitting in the chic, minimalist restaurant Limon in the Mission rather than around their own dining room table, eating Peruvian delicacies rather than chicken potpie.

“A toast,” echoed Marty, raising his glass. A. A. tried to ignore the calamari bits stuck in his beard.

“To our little actress, A. A., who just made her film debut!” Jeanine was talking in too loud a voice, but the restaurant was still pretty crowded, luckily. “And to my
family,” she added, gesturing at Ned and A. A., “meeting
your
family.”

Marty clinked her glass with his and smiled across the table at his son, Jake. A. A. smiled at Jake too—why not? He was fifteen, with straight, shoulder-length dark hair and intense dark eyes. His mother, Jeanine had stage-whispered earlier that evening, was an Argentinian actress. She and Marty had divorced five years ago, and Jake spent most of his time in Los Angeles these days, living with Marty in the Hollywood Hills.

And he wasn't just cute: Jake was really friendly and fun. He and Ned were already buddies, apparently, because they'd met at some statewide track meet earlier in the semester. When the talk turned to soccer, A. A. liked the fact that Jake didn't patronize her, the way some guys did, because she was a girl. He didn't even turn on her during a big conversation they had had about South American soccer, when she'd argued that the Brazilian soccer giant Pelé was a much greater player than the old Argentinian star Maradona.

While the kids talked, Jeanine and Marty leaned all over each other, feeding each other morsels from their dinner plates and giggling like children. So embarrassing.

A. A. and Ned and Jake just ignored them. It was nice to see her mother happy like this, even though A. A. wasn't sure this romance would last any longer than Jeanine's other passions and obsessions. Oh well, at least if she married Marty, A. A. would get another cool stepbrother.

When Jake and Ned started talking about people they knew through track meets, A. A.'s attention wandered. Holding her phone under the table, she surreptitiously sent Tri a text. No reply. The only text in her in-box was from Lauren:
SS PLAN GT AM FOR CONGE
. That was good news and bad: It was great that Lauren knew what the S. Society had up their polyester sleeves, but Great America was going to be a hard destination to beat. How were the Ashleys supposed to top that?

She sent another message to Tri and then folded up her phone so she could eat dessert. Ten minutes later she checked again—still no reply. That was weird. The other day, when Tri was over at their apartment playing video games with Ned, A. A. overheard him saying he was lying low this weekend, hanging out at home. Maybe he was blowing her off—but why? What had she done
this
time?

Actually, he'd been kind of keeping his distance
from her for ages. Ever since that day she'd gone over to his place and helped his mom with some cooking, he'd acted like he barely knew her. This didn't make sense at all. At Ashley's party, they had agreed that it was probably best that they forget about everything that had happened before and just go back to being friends. It was nice to have their old friendship back.

But now he was acting cold and distant, as though he needed to send her some “message.” Well—message received, idiot! He didn't even want to be friends anymore, obviously.

But wait a second. Hadn't that been Tri in the crowd earlier today, when she was filming? If he wanted to avoid her, why come along to that? Ned must have blabbed about it. How annoying. If only her brother was sitting closer to her, A. A. would have kicked him under the table. Luckily for him, he was just out of leg's reach. And she certainly didn't want cute Jake to think she was trying to play footsie with
him
. . . .

“A. A.!” Her mother was snapping her fingers in A. A.'s face. “Wake up! We're leaving. Jeez, Marty—I hope she wasn't this out of it on the set!”

“She was just fine,” rumbled Marty, his squinty eyes disappearing as he smiled. A. A. felt her face flush.
Maybe Tri had come along earlier to see how horrible she was at acting. Give her a break: She was hardly a professional! All they told her to do was walk up and down the street over and over, and then kiss Rake over and over. At first it was kind of exciting, and then she noticed Rake had bad breath, and then it was just tedious.

And so what if Tri saw her kissing Rake. He didn't even
like
her these days. Right?

“I heard you sucked,” Ned teased, almost tipping his chair over when he got up.

“Who told you that?” A. A.'s heart thudded. She squeaked along the banquette, trying to shrug on her jacket and getting the arms all twisted in the process.

“It was on
Entertainment Tonight
,” he drawled. “Preteen nonactress ruins multimillion-dollar pro­duction with terrible acting.”

“Shut up!” A. A. glared at her brother. This wasn't the time for his stupid jokes!

“I thought you were great.” Jake flashed her a sympathetic grin.

“You were there?” A. A. was confused. She didn't remember seeing Jake on the set.

“Yeah—I was standing with Ned near the catering truck.”

A. A. shook her head. So Ned was there today,
and
Jake,
and
Tri. Did they
want
her to feel self-conscious?

“I was going to get Tri onto the set,” Ned told her as they all walked toward the restaurant's front door. “But something was up with him. He said he just wanted to stand on the street. Weird.”

Weird was the word for it. A. A. sighed, bracing for the brisk evening breeze blowing in from the street. Her mother zoomed from one grand passion to the next, but to A. A., all this boy stuff was way too confusing.

Who knew why they did the strange things they did? Who knew
what
they were thinking?