The Mosts (6 page)

I shrugged. “If Elinor straightened her hair or cut it and lost the headband and maybe got new glasses and new clothes and stood straight—”

“Madeline, you are way too nice,” Caro broke in. “Yeah, she could change her clothes and lose the stupid glasses. But what about her entire personality?” She added, laughing, “Mosts are
born
, darling. Not
made
.”

“I totally agree,” Fergie said. “Take you, for example, Madeline. You were a Most in boring clothes and blah hair before you went to Rome. But you were
always
a Most. I mean, don’t be so
shallow
. Being a Most is more than how you look on the outside; it’s the kind of person you are on the
inside
. And everyone knows that’s what really counts. Like, if you lost everything in a flood or something and had to fashion a top and pants out of a garbage bag, you’d still be a Most inside. Because you’d still be
you
. You’d still
rule.”

Wow. That was … so sideways.

And of course Caro was beaming at Fergie.

The Nots were in trouble.

Chapter 7

I
n history class, as Mr. Fortunata droned on about President Kennedy and Cuba, I tried to figure out how exactly I was going to impart my mighty wisdom to the interns. The Not list was always decided a few days before the Most list came out, which was on the Monday before school ended. That gave me almost five weeks to spin straw into gold.

Hmmm. I figured I could go through my stack of magazines and flag pictures of trendy clothes. And hairstyles. And maybe I could give the interns a list of TV shows to watch that might help them socially. I could give them a cheat sheet of things I picked up when I was in Italy.

But I couldn’t overwhelm them. I’d have to start small. For Elinor, the hair. Just doing something about the horizontal frizz puffs would make a big difference. For Joe, we’d untuck the shirt. And Avery … she would be tricky, because nothing was glaringly wrong. I glanced around the class, trying to get ideas.

And there she was. Watching me.

Avery was in this class? I’d never noticed.

I shot her a quick smile, and she smiled back. Did she always surprise people like that? Well, no wonder she had no friends. We’d start with mentioning things like
I’m in your history class
.

I glanced back and she was still staring at me.

So was Sam. He sat one row behind, diagonally across. I smiled, and he smiled that dazzling smile of his, then glanced down at his textbook.

He
did
like me. There was no denying it.

And there was no denying that it gave me a secret thrill. Not because he found me prettier than Caro. But because … I wasn’t sure exactly. I didn’t like Sam that way. Well, maybe a teeny, tiny bit if I was very honest.

The bell rang, and Avery was out like a shot. She was making this easy.
Lesson number two, Avery: Say hi to the popular person you actually know instead of fleeing the room
. That was how you made friends and showed people you were on chatting terms with the popular crowd.

I closed my notebook, full of useless notes about transforming the interns, slid it into my messenger bag, and checked my cell for a text from Thom.

Hey, thinking about you. Wish you were here. I keep saying that. XXT
. I grinned. His e-mails and texts and calls were getting fewer, but quick kisses were still kisses. I texted back a
Ditto
and some kisses of my own.

Soon I would be there. And maybe forever.

“Hey,” Sam called after me. “You forgot your textbook.” He handed it to me. “Lost in thought?” His gaze lingered on my face.

Again a funny feeling—but in a
good
weird way—attacked my stomach. I nodded. “Seems to be all the time lately.”

“Thom, right?” he asked as we headed down the hall.

“Thom and a lot of stuff, actually.” Like my father, who was getting married to a woman I’d never met. The weird vibe from Caro. And the bizarre way I was going to earn the money to fix the first two things.

“Well, you know, Madeline, if you ever need to talk … ”

He really was good-looking. No wonder so many girls were crazy in lust with him. I’d always known he was amazingly cute, but just then, the way he was focused on me, those warm brown eyes on me … for just a moment, I found myself unable to look away.

No. Look away, Madeline. And focus
.

“Um, Sam, actually, I could use your advice about something. If you were going to help someone change his image, how would you do it? I mean, how would you go about it? Where would you start?”

“I guess I’d start with asking what he wanted to change.”

Good idea. I could ask the interns what they wanted to change most, what they really wanted to accomplish. Maybe I could create a little questionnaire.

Then I remembered I’d have to leave a lot of space for answers. “What if he wanted to change everything about himself?”

He glanced at me. “Everything? Then I’d probably work on helping him like himself as he was.”

“But … what if he was, say, super-nerdy and couldn’t talk to a girl without stammering and turning bright red?”

He laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe changing how he looks would help build his confidence. Make him feel better about himself so that he can feel okay going up to a girl and asking her out.” He stopped at my locker. It took me a minute to realize he knew exactly where my locker was. Considering that every gray locker at Freeport Academy looked the same, this was significant.

“You two are deep in conversation,” Caro said, coming up behind us. The glint in her eyes was back. “Walk me to French, will you, Sam? I’m going to bomb the test. I’m completely lost when it comes to the past-tense conjugations. You can whisper them in my ear on the way.”

Caro had removed the ballet-style wrap cardigan she’d been wearing that morning. She had on a tiny tight microfiber tank top. And Sam clearly liked it. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Bye, Madeline,” she called over her shoulder.

As I watched them walk away, she turned back and shot me a famous Caro look, which said,
Don’t even think about it
.

During study hall, I created my questionnaire on one of the computers and printed three copies.

Name:

What do you most want to change about yourself?

Why do you want to change?

What do you think will be the hardest thing about transforming yourself into the you-est you that you can be?

Note: Forms will be kept strictly confidential.

I stole that “you-est you” part from my aunt Darcy and my mom. I didn’t really understand it, actually. If you wanted to change, totally change, transform from a nobody into a somebody, from most Not to Most, why would you want to be even more you? I put in the fine print about confidentiality because I wanted the interns to be really honest.

Elinor and I exchanged papers before gym class: I gave her the questionnaires to hand out, and she gave me a proposed schedule. The interns wanted to meet twice a week for four weeks, starting the next day. We’d meet for one hour at the farm after their shift on Wednesdays, and on Saturday mornings at one of their houses. A quick calculation told me I was earning fifty bucks an hour. Not bad.

In gym, Elinor missed three easy volleyball shots and then ended up practically breaking her nose while diving onto her stomach to hit the ball. She still missed it, and then it landed on her back.

“God, could you be more of a total dork?” someone said to her, and everyone in hearing distance laughed.

Except me. Elinor looked like she was about to burst into tears. The girl next to Elinor helped her up, but Elinor’s knee was so bruised she was excused from the rest of class.

As she hobbled away, there were giggled whispers of “What a loser.”

I felt bad for her. I’d never had to deal with anything like that before I became part of the popular crowd. I was just ignored—not picked on. And once I became popular, I was so focused on my friends that I never paid much attention to anyone else.

Like Elinor.

I just waltzed down the halls with Caro, Fergie, Annie, and Selena, oblivious to anyone else.

But really … why was I popular? Was it just because I was Thom Geller’s girlfriend? Or was it because I intimidated everyone the way my friends did? If I came to school with no makeup, flat hair, and ugly clothes, would I suddenly not be me anymore?

Caro would say it was Elinor’s fault for being such a total loser in the first place. That her dorkiness had everything to do with her. But if no one picked on her, she wouldn’t
be
a loser. She’d just be Elinor, being herself. Why couldn’t that be okay?

On the ride home from school, I posed that very question to Caro and Fergie.

“Omigod, Madeline, you are boring me to death,” Caro said, rolling her eyes and glancing out the window.

“It is kind of boring, Madeline,” Fergie added as she scrolled through her messages. “I mean, there is nothing to debate. It is what it is.” She tossed her phone into her bag. “I love that expression, don’t you?”

It is what it is
.

But it didn’t have to be.

Chapter 8

O
n Saturday, my mom gave me a ride to Elinor’s house. “Honey, did you speak to your dad about the wedding?” she asked. “Is he planning to book your and Sabrina’s flight?”

“Actually he said he couldn’t afford the tickets,” I told her. Sabrina hadn’t said I couldn’t tell the truth, just that I shouldn’t ask for my mom to pay my way.

Please offer, please offer, please offer
, I prayed. Then I could cancel this … 
thing
with the interns and spend the rest of the month dreaming of California, dreaming of Thom.

The night before, he’d called and we’d talked for an entire hour about his life, my life. And how much we missed each other. How much he missed the perfume I always wore. After we hung up, I just lay on my bed and closed my eyes and saw nothing but Thom. Once again, everything was forgotten. Caro’s beyotchiness. The itty-bitty crush I was developing on Sam—which clearly couldn’t be real. And the interns. I really wanted to forget them.

“I wish I could swing it,” my mom said, reaching over to smooth my hair. “But everything has gone up this year. We’re barely going to break even.”

Now I felt like the brat my sister always accused me of being. My mom and Mac were so good to me. They let me be me, even though that meant I hated everything about their lives and their dream—the farm. They never teased me about thinking I was Ms. Sophisticated, the way Sabrina did. I had to say, I was pretty lucky when it came to my mom and my stepfather. “That’s okay, Mom,” I said, my heart twisting. “I actually got a job. A weird job, but a job. A few of the interns have hired me to give them advice on how to be more popular and make themselves over. Like what I learned in Rome.”

She glanced at me. “They’re paying you?”

“It was their idea,” I said quickly. “If I didn’t need the money for the ticket, I wouldn’t have said yes.”

“Still, Madeline, that’s—”

“Mom, the way they dress and act at the farm is how they dress and act all the time. Elinor is tortured at school on a regular basis just for being herself.”

“I see. So you’re going to teach her and the others how not to be themselves?”

“Not
not
themselves, just not so … torture-able.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’ll be an interesting study, anyway.” She pulled into Elinor’s driveway. “Call if you need a ride home,” she said. She blew me a kiss, then drove off.

And left me in front of Elinor Espinoza’s house. Which meant I really and truly had to do this, had to help them.
Count to five. Okay
.

I raised my hand to ring the doorbell, but Elinor opened the front door before I could.

“Elinor, you shouldn’t be so … eager,” I said. “Wait for the knock. Count to five,
then
answer the door.”

“Why?” she asked. “I heard your car pull up. I was expecting you. Why not greet you?”

“Because, that’s why. You don’t want someone to think that you weren’t doing something else. That you weren’t busy.”

She furrowed her thick eyebrows. “Why would I be busy? If I was expecting you?”

“Just wait for the knock next time, okay?”

“You’re the Most,” she said, “so okay.”

Oh God
. For a while there, I’d thought that this wouldn’t be so bad, that it wouldn’t be so hard. Clearly it would be torture.

“Everyone’s here,” she said, leading the way up the stairs.

Elinor’s bedroom looked exactly the same as it had the last time I’d been over: really girly—the opposite of Elinor. Pale pink walls and pink and white ruffles on everything, from the curtains to the bedding to the rug, which had pink and white hearts.

Joe was at her desk, by the window, looking like he wanted to flee at any second. He wore a dorky striped polo shirt, bright blue and yellow, tucked into khaki pants. And huge white athletic sneakers that even my mom had stopped buying for herself like five years ago.

Avery sat on a pink beanbag under a framed poster of a fluffy white cat. She had on okay jeans and a yellow T-shirt with ruffles around the neck. Nothing that Fergie would ever wear, but nothing I hadn’t seen on some of the popular girls. She had standard hair, straight to the shoulders, with bangs that could use a little edge, maybe, but it was perfectly cute. With a little more makeup and better shoes, she’d look great. With her, it wasn’t about the clothes. It was something else. I just hadn’t put my finger on it yet.

“Hi,” I said. “Um, so … does everyone have their forms filled out?”

They all reached into their knapsacks and handed me their sheets.

“So, are you all okay with me reading them aloud?” I asked. “Or do you want to keep them confidential?”

“I’m okay with reading mine aloud,” Elinor said. “But I don’t mind if you guys want to keep yours private.”

“I’m okay with it too,” Avery said. “We’re all here for the same reason, more or less.”

Was that a little zing at Elinor and Joe for needing more work than she did? If it was, Elinor and Joe didn’t seem to pick up on it. Maybe I was just so trained at noting and decoding sarcasm and snarkiness.

“Um, I’m not sure I want mine read,” Joe said. “Not that it says anything you guys don’t already know, but … I don’t know.”

“You were honest in the questionnaire?” Elinor asked. “Maybe more than you planned to be?”

His cheeks reddened and he nodded. “I guess seeing the questions in black and white like that really made me think about this stuff. I mean,
really
think about it. I get called a dork all the time, but I’m not even sure why, you know? I don’t get what I’m doing so wrong. That’s the problem, though, I guess,” he added with a nervous laugh.

“That is the problem for all of us,” Avery said. “We don’t get what we’re doing wrong. But Madeline totally knows that. Firsthand.” She stared at me. “You were a total nobody in eighth grade. And then you transformed yourself into one of the most popular girls at school. I want to know your secrets.”

“Ooh, me too!” Elinor said. “Not that I expect to be voted Miss Popularity anytime soon.”

“You never know,” Avery said, running her hands through her fine brown hair.

Note to self: watch Avery like a hawk
. There was something just slightly “I’m going to strangle you in your sleep” about her.

I glanced around the room for somewhere to sit. The only place left was the padded white bench next to Elinor’s vanity. I sat down and felt everyone’s eyes on me. Yup, they were all staring. Talk about pressure. “Okay, so I’m just going to read through the forms—out loud. But not Joe’s.”

Name:
Elinor Espinoza

What do you most want to change about yourself?

Everything. How I look, how shy I am around people
.

Why do you want to change?

I don’t want to be a Not again
.

What do you think will be the hardest thing about transforming yourself into the you-est you that you can be?

Sometimes I think I’m just stuck like this, that this is the me-est me
.

P.S. I’m also planning to try out for the Lobster Claw Teen Queen Pageant, and I think a head-to-toe makeover would really help me. My stepmother won when she was a teenager, but every time she tries to suggest things to make me look better, I just want to kill her. She thinks I’m hopeless, I know. If I can just place and get her off my back, I’d be happier, I think
.

“Omigod, Elinor,” Avery said. “That’s so sad about your stepmother. That must be really hard.”

“It’s not so bad,” Elinor said. “I only see her every other weekend, when I go to my dad’s.”

“All the more reason she should accept you as you are,” Joe put in.

I thought about telling her about Tiffany, my soon-to-be second stepmother, who I wouldn’t meet until the wedding. I had no idea if Tiffany even liked teenagers or had any interest in me and Sabrina. She didn’t seem to.

But I didn’t really want to share details of my life with this group. They already knew too much about me. I wondered if Elinor had told Avery all about how I used to be a nobody with no friends. I could see her saying it in a totally unsnarky way, just to illustrate that I had experience in what they were paying big bucks for.

“You know what?” Joe said, tugging his shirt collar. “You can read my form out loud.”

“Go, Joe!” Elinor said with her accompanying little claps.

Okay, I had to say something. Enough with the dorky clapping and jumping. “Um, Elinor, I just thought I should tell you that clapping like that isn’t really something you’d see the popular girls doing. Except the cheerleaders during a game.”

Her cheeks reddened. “Oh. Oh! That’s great—thank you so much, Madeline. It’s exactly the kind of thing I need to know.” She reached onto her desk for a little notebook and jotted something down.
No clapping
, I assumed.

“It’s just a little too much,” I added. “It’s great to be happy for someone or happy period. Just don’t overdo it.”

“This is just perfect,” Elinor said, writing furiously.

“Okay, Joe,” I said. I had no idea what to expect from his form.

Name:
Joe (Joseph) Georgeoff

What do you most want to change about yourself?

I really don’t know. See why below
.

Why do you want to change?

Is this confidential? If it is, the answer is that I like someone and right now she doesn’t even know I exist. No girl’s ever been into me before, so I figure she’s not, so I’m not exactly okay with just talking to her or anything, but I want to
.

What do you think will be the hardest thing about transforming yourself into the you-est you that you can be?

I don’t know. Why aren’t any girls into me? Is it how I look? Do I smell?

“You totally don’t smell,” Elinor said to Joe.

Except faintly of cow. But they
all
did.

“Oooh, so who do you like?” Avery asked, her blue eyes twinkling.

Joe’s cheeks were now flaming. “Um, can that part be confidential?” he asked me. “I mean, it’s no one in this room, if that makes it less weird.” Now his whole face was really red. “Not that you’re all not … I mean … ”

“Joe, totally confidential,” I said before he spontaneously combusted. “Anything that anyone wants to keep to themselves is okay.”

I was feeling better about this. I’d forgotten how good it felt to help people. And to have people appreciate me—for doing something good. For doing anything other than walking down the hall.

“You know, Joe,” Elinor said, “I’ll bet girls have been interested in you. But because you keep to yourself and walk with your head down a lot, you’re kind of unapproachable. Do you think that could be it, Madeline?”

“Definitely,” I said. “That was really good, Elinor.”

“Ditto,” Avery said, eyeing me.

“Okay. Whew,” Joe said. “That wasn’t so bad, then. I guess maybe agreeing to do this was a good idea.”

I smiled at him and he perked up a little.

“Okay, now Avery,” I said. I couldn’t wait to read hers. She’d been pretty honest so far.

Name:
Avery Kennar