Spoiled (15 page)

“I saw them drop out of your bag when you slammed your locker, but I was too far away,” the boy said, handing them to her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t run after you, but you know. I run ugly.” He grinned. “Plus I figured you weren’t going to get too far
without them.”

Molly tried to laugh, but because of her crying jag it turned into an awkward hiccup.

“Rough day?” the boy asked, peering at her. “You’re new here, right?”

“I must look so dumb out here, crying all over my car.” Molly groaned.

“Nah, everyone cries their first day at Colby-Randall,” he said, leaning against the SUV. “Take me, for example. Ninety pounds.
Five feet tall. Braces. My mom? The new headmistress. It was horrible. Some senior actually tried to stuff me in my locker.”

“Seriously?”

The boy nodded. “It gets worse. My mom caught him and gave him detention for three weeks. I think I would have preferred being
stuffed in the locker.”

“I didn’t even know that happened outside of eighties movies,” Molly said.

“I think all those movies were based on these people’s parents.”

Molly rubbed her watery eyes. “This place is so different from Indiana.”

“
Oh
,” he said, recognition washing over his face.

Molly nodded. “Yeah. I’m
that
girl.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a douche,” he said. “I just… We’ve moved around a lot, but nothing like what you must
be going through. My locker story seems kinda weak now.”

“No, no, I thought it was very moving. Two thumbs up,” Molly said.

“Next time I’m going to work in a natural disaster,” he said. “And maybe a wedgie. Unless you think that’d kill the sex appeal.”

“I’d normally say leave it out, but you just reminded me that a wedgie is the one bad thing that hasn’t happened to me today.”
Molly grinned. “I always figured high school BS would be basically the same from place to place, but this”—she waved an arm
at the massive mansion that marked the front of campus—“this is another galaxy.”

“It’s not all bad. Some of the kids here are cool, I promise. You just have to work a little harder to find them.” He stuck
out his hand. “Teddy McCormack.”

“I’m Molly,” she said, feeling a smile spread across her face. “And this is the longest conversation I’ve had all day.”

“Well, it’s a lost art,” Teddy said. “I’m just proud of us for getting through the whole thing without trying to sell the
other person a screenplay. It’s so rare these days.”

“Thanks again for my keys,” she said. “Brooke would have been furious.”

Teddy’s mouth curled sympathetically. “Hang in there. I’m pretty sure her bark is worse than her bite.”

“I’ll let you know if she ever stops biting long enough to bark at me,” Molly said. Then she caught herself. “Ugh, I’m sorry.
That was rude of me. I’m sure this whole thing has been as weird for her as it has been for me.”

Teddy looked impressed. “That’s pretty magnanimous. And don’t worry, it wasn’t rude. Anyone can see Brooke is a tough nut.
My sister Max is a junior, too, and she’s… not a fan.”

“Not a fan of what?” asked Brooke, stomping into view from behind a Range Rover.

“Thai food,” Teddy said smoothly. “Too many bean sprouts. Anyway, it’s been nice meeting you, Indiana. Brooke, a pleasure
as always.”

“I’m sure,” Brooke said as he walked away, but she sounded unsure as to whether or not she was supposed to take offense.

Molly bent over to repack her purse and let fly a small smile. For the first time in days, weeks even, she felt almost human.

“Hurry up, Jeeves,” Brooke crabbed. “Take me home now. I need some kombucha.”

Almost.

MOLLY RESOLVED TO REMEMBER
her conversation with Teddy McCormack if the day ever arrived when someone else was the new kid and she was the old-timer.
If she’d left Colby-Randall on her first day without a single cordial moment with
anyone
, she might never have had the guts to go back for more.

As it was, Teddy’s kindness had staved off any further crying jags or potential killing sprees. Instead, she’d kept her head
high, ignored everyone’s muttered taunts and jabs, and resisted the urge to throw a sharp elbow in response to being jostled
in the hallway. Laurel would have been proud of Molly—if she weren’t busy convincing Molly to slip an unlucky crystal into
the perpetrators’ book
bags. Her mother had been a pacifist, but as Laurel was fond of saying, pacifism was the birthplace of passive aggression.

Brooke did her best to thwart Molly’s efforts to rise above it all. Tuesday morning, she threw herself out of the Lexus screaming
that Molly’s breakfast Bloody Mary habit was going to kill them both, and her Facebook status on Wednesday—which had been
read aloud near Molly by Jennifer Parker about twelve times, all while pretending not to see her—announced that alcohol had
broken Brooke’s family and three of her nails. Thursday, Brooke’s brawny friend Magnus actually smacked a Post-it on Molly’s
back that said “Breathalyze me,” which had sparked a series of imitators from his circle. Molly’s favorite was, “I’m Molly
Dix. Ask me about my middle name.”

So Molly developed a morning routine: Every day, after Brooke made her customary sharp exit from the car, Molly slowly got
out and scanned the crowd for one new thing to laugh about to herself whenever she needed to affix a pleasant expression to
her face. Today, she noticed a girl in unhemmed jeans talking a mile a minute at her friend, then tripping over her pants
and tumbling to the sidewalk. Her companion, that Shelby Kendall girl from CR-One, had simply glanced down at her fallen friend
and kept walking without a word. Involuntarily, Molly shivered.

“Dude, this is the fifth day in a row you’ve been standing out here gawking like some freshman loser. Go inside. Face the
craps.”

Molly recognized the green-haired girl’s voice. “Face the
what
?”

The girl grinned, pushing overgrown bangs out of her heavily kohl-rimmed eyes. “It’s an acronym,” she said. “Kind of. Colby-Randall
Preparatory School. You’ll see it on signs at football games.”

“Your rivals must love that,” Molly noted.

“So do our students. Our team is terrible,” said a male voice.

Molly turned to see that Teddy McCormack had fallen in step alongside them. His light blue polo was only half tucked in and
he was carrying a Pop-Tart.

“Want some?” he asked. “Strawberry. Max here thinks they’re poison.”

“I just can’t believe Mom lets you eat those but she won’t let me get my nose pierced,” Max said, making a face. “They look
like someone ran over a roll of SweeTarts.”

“I love them,” Molly admitted. “But I’m okay, thanks. Brick made the cook do eggs Benedict. Or in Brooke’s case, grapefruit
Benedict, hold the Benedict.”

“Ah, an anti-Benedictite.” Teddy nodded. “So sad in someone so young.”

“Hey, she’s obviously doing something right,” Molly said. “She’s got the body of a supermodel.”

“Yeah, but how happy can a person be without hollandaise sauce?” Max said. “Seriously, look at Jennifer Parker. I don’t think
she’s eaten once in the last two years and she’s always complaining about something.”

As if on cue, the pointy girl and her jock boyfriend from Molly’s first day breezed past them, squabbling.

“You do
sometimes
use your foot on the ball,” Jake was saying.

“Yeah, but, like, only one or two people!” Jennifer trilled. “Honestly, they should call it
handball
. I’m totally writing my English paper about this.”

Max shook her head as the couple disappeared inside the school. “Jake tweeted something yesterday about how super hot Scarlett
Johansson is, so this morning Jennifer’s Facebook update said that Jake couldn’t spell QB if you said it to him and asked
him to repeat it,” she said, sounding slightly awed.

“Jennifer isn’t smart enough to have come up with that on her own,” Teddy mused. “Must have been Arugula.”

“Who?” Molly asked.

“Brooke’s other BFF,” Max explained. “The one who looks like Tyra Banks. Teddy thinks she’s dreamy.” Max batted her eyelashes
exaggeratedly.

“Indeed, and Maxine, why are you following Jake on Twitter?” Teddy twinkled, but he’d turned a bit red.

“It’s, um, anthropologically interesting,” Max replied loftily.

“I bet,” he snorted. “Catch you later, Indiana.”

Molly waved as they followed Jennifer and Jake into the school. Max peeled off toward Headmistress McCormack’s office, muttering
something about reclaiming the cell phone her mother confiscated on Wednesday, leaving
Molly in the familiar position of having to navigate the halls by herself.

Squaring her shoulders, Molly marched over to her locker amid the now customary sea of faces glaring in her direction. Everyone
wanted to see how she’d greet whatever new indignities were foisted upon her. This morning it was a flyer for a binge-drinking
symposium at UCLA, taped to her locker next to a brochure for the famed rehab center Promises. But today she felt immune to
it.

“Excellent,” she said aloud to no one—and everyone—as she tore them off and pretended to read them with interest. “At least
at Promises I’ll have my own room.”

As she opened her locker, she heard nothing. No taunts, no whispers, no barn-door jokes. It was a small victory, but a victory
nonetheless.

Buoyed, Molly decided to take things one step further and eat outside with the rest of civilization.

Colby-Randall’s landscaped garden cafeteria was, in a word, ridiculous. With a hand-dug stream skimming the edges and a retractable
roof in case a whiff of frost or rain dared penetrate their utopia, it was closer to a man-made Eden than a dining hall. Most
of the best tables were taken: Brooke’s was in the prime spot, of course, close enough to enjoy the giant fountain but far
enough away that its trio of spitting mermaids didn’t rain on her carefully shaped
curls. From her central nexus radiated the social strata of people in her circle: devotees, casual followers, and then fringe
riffraff. Molly noticed a similar pattern down at the end with the rock garden, which was populated mostly by student government
types and academic clubs, at the center of which usually sat the mysterious Shelby Kendall—who still hadn’t said a word to
Molly, despite appearing to watch her intently from afar.

Molly chose an empty table as close to neutral territory as possible and sat down with her food. She fished around for her
phone and sent Danny a quick text:

BREATHING FRESH AIR AT LUNCH. YOU’D BE PROUD.

Across the way, Brooke looked up from her conversation with Mini Tyra—who Molly gathered was Arugula—and narrowed her eyes.
Molly ignored her and bit into her apple.

“So what’s the deal? Are you radioactive, or just antisocial?”

Molly looked up at Max. “Nope, I’m a crazy, violent, unrepentant drunk. Haven’t you heard?”

“That’s to be expected. You’re the new kid at a private school,” Max said. “People here do not embrace change.”

“I know the feeling,” Molly said. “Do you want to sit down, or are you afraid I’m going to corrupt you?”

Max paused, her head cocked. “Well, I’m definitely bored of all the old drama,” she said, her eyes flicking over to Brooke’s
table, where Jake had picked up Jennifer and
was pretending to throw her into the fountain. “But it would make my mother, like, all tearful and proud to see me reaching
out to the new kid, which could be irritating.”

“She might let you get your nose pierced as a reward, though.”

Max considered this. “Sold,” she said, dropping her bag and sitting down next to Molly.

“So, who were you texting?” she asked.

“My boyfriend. I think.”

“You think you were texting him, or you think he’s your boyfriend?”

Molly shrugged. “Both, at this point. We never actually broke up, but he missed our Skype date last night.”

“Skype anagrams to ‘pesky,’ ” Max said. Then she flushed. “Sorry, dumb habit. But it fits.”

“It does,” Molly said, impressed. “Got one for Colby-Randall?”

Max wrinkled her nose. “Not really. The best one so far is ‘carnally bold,’ although sometimes when I’m talking to my mother,
I prefer ‘cornball lady.’ ”

Molly cracked up. “That’s awesome. I was going to ask if there was anyone normal around here, but I think you just answered
that question.”

“Oh, this place is a hotbed of abnormal,” Max said, cracking open a Tupperware container of what looked like wilted greens
and sweet potatoes. “See that dude over there, by the soft-serve?”

Molly turned around to see a very short kid with a Mohawk apparently attempting to find out how high he could fill a cone
with vanilla fro-yo before it overflowed.

“His dad is some bigwig at NBC, and last year, I swear to God, he brought a peacock to school,” Max said. She tilted her chin
toward the black-haired beauty Molly recognized from the school news. “Shelby Kendall’s dad runs
Hey!
so she’s all up in the TV station trying to break news, like it’s genetic or something. And Jennifer Parker used to be some
kind of sitcom child star.”