Rachel Vail - Gorgeous

I SOLD MY CELL PHONE TO THE DEVIL.

AFTER SUCCESSFULLY DODGING my nosy, annoying family by barricading myself

LEMON!

I MANAGED TO KEEP MY little flirt-fest to myself, luckily,

FRIDAY, JADE SAT DOWN next to me on the bus

I GUESS I WAS KIND OF a wreck in the

FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE I was one of the

BANGING ON QUINNS window unbalanced me, and I thought for

I CALLED ROXIE FIRST. While her phone was ringing, I

BY THE TIME THE FORMS arrived on Thursday afternoon, Id

THE NEXT MORNING ON the way to the bus stop,

WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I used to wish my mom

MY PARENTS WERE PROWLING our halls, trying to cheer us

WHEN TY AND I WALKED back into the party holding

NO HIDING TODAY, I told myself as I leaned close

MOM AND DAD WERE both sitting in the kitchen waiting

WHEN I HEARD A QUIET knock on my door about

I WOKE UP AGAIN WITH Quinn banging on my door.

MOM CAME INTO MY ROOM a little later and sat

WATCHING PHOEBE GIVE her speech at her middle school graduation,

THE REST OF THE WEEKEND was hell.

A SHORT WOMAN DRESSED all in white frowned at me.

IT WAS A TEXT FROM QUINN:

I WOKE UP TUESDAY INTENDING to confront Jade about why

DAD HAD DECIDED WE WERE grilling that night for dinner,

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL. Good-bye, ninth grade, and dont let

I WALKED THROUGH THE double-height glass doors on the thirty-fourth

I SOLD MY CELL PHONE TO THE DEVIL .

In my own defense, it had been a really crappy day.

The sun was in full show-off mode again, flattening our suburban town into a caricature of itselfrich, pretty, manicured. The lawns, the women, the girls my age: all manicured. Even many of the dads were manicured. Buffed, of course. No rough cuticles in our town. No rough anything.

What a gorgeous day, people kept saying, as if they were revealing a wonder, and as if the gorgeousness settled an unspoken argument about our worth. Absolutely gorgeous! they agreed with one another. Mothers couldnt stop themselves from marveling out loud about the low humidity, the cuteness of each others new sandals (and pedicures), the fact that our pools were all cleaned and opened already, weeks before Memorial Day. Can you believe it? Oh, I knowI love it! Knees and shoulders reemerged, fake-tanned to perfection, tulips and roses mingled condescendingly with the so-yesterday daffodils, and only a few of the puffiest, whitest clouds accessorized the sky, punching up its cornflower blue.

I was finding it hard to breathe.

Beyond even the migraine-inducing falsetto chatter about the shocking fact that in these days of holes the size of Texas in the ozone layer, it could begaspwarm in the late spring in the New York suburbs, my fascist social studies teacher had started my day off by being a complete hypocrite and giving me a Bon my paper. I completely couldnt give a rats butt about grades, honestlyit is my older sister Quinns job to bring home straight As, not minebut I had for once actually put in some effort, and the only comment on it at all was that I had not gotten my concept approved.

Which was a lie.

Wed submitted our concepts three weeks earlier. The assignment was to write about someone who had changed the course of world history. My best friend, Jade Demarchelier, was doing Eleanor Roosevelt; Serena Smythson, who was apparently not allowed to choose to study Jade, who would obviously have been her first choice, was therefore also doing Eleanor Roosevelt. Leonardo da Vinci, Beethoven, Gandhi, and Shakespeare were other popular choices. Id chosen to study Gouverneur Morris, a one-legged drunken carouser with multiple mad and murderous mistresses, who wrote practically the whole damn U.S. Constitution including the famous We the People section, despite the fact that he thought only some people (meaning rich people) could be trusted to self-govern. My thesis was that this genius exotic won power for the people in spite of his aristocratic worldview. I still had my thesis statement paper, with the Fascists two-word comment, the only one on that paper, in her tight-script purple ink: Interesting! Approved.

So when I got back my paper on Gouverneur Morris with not one correction on it but only the words Unacceptable Thesis! B scrawled across the top of it, I was beyond pissed. I marched up to the Fascist and said, Excuse me, this thesis WAS approved.

She tried to argue, but I shoved the thesis statement paper under her beady eyes. She relented but then started arguing that there were other problems, too.

She wouldnt say what, though I have a feeling she was referring to the section about his housekeeper/mistress who was accused of murdering her illegitimate child. But the Fascist said, End of discussion, an expression I seem to be allergic to because it sends me into fits of rage, and that is why I ended up tearing my report on Gouverneur Morris into tiny bits and hurling them at her face.

It is unclear who was the most shocked person in the classroom as the flakes of my report fluttered down over the Fascists head. The Fascist seemed pretty shocked. She may actually have been in shock, judging from how she froze, other than a slight tremor throughout her body. Or it could have been Jade, who would never ever talk back to a teacher, never mind throw stuff at one, and who stood there staring at me like Id just sprouted a second head. But I think it might have been me, honestly, especially when the Fascist didnt scream or send me to the principals office or anything. She just sat there, shaking slightly, allowing the scraps of my report to cling decoratively to her frizzy hair.

It was almost festive.

When the Fascist turned to talk with one of the nicer kids, I walked toward the classroom door. I could see Jade turning to whisper to Serena. I swallowed hard and kept walking, out into the hallway.

You okay? a girl named Roxie Green asked me.

I hate everything, I answered.

Lets cut second period, she suggested.

Okay, I said.

She didnt look surprised at all. I myself was by then totally blown sideways. And not just because Id never cut before.

We walked out the back entrance of the high school and wandered around a bit. We didnt really know each other that well, Roxie Green and I, so we didnt have much to talk about. She had moved out to our lovely suburban patch of hell from New York City over the summer. She lived on my street, down a bit toward the corner, in two housesone of which, supposedly, was being converted into a rec house: indoor pool, squash court, yoga studio, the works. The rumor was that her family was the richest in our town, which is saying a lot. Some people said Roxie had been a model in the city and the real reason they moved out was that her parents wanted to get her away from the wild life of clubbing and drugs. She looked like a model, that was for suretall, thin, and gorgeous. Jade and Serena and I had been eyeing her all year for signs of wildness, critiquing her hair (strawberry blond, very straight, jagged edges), makeup (lots of black eyeliner), and clothes (kind of out-there, weird combinations of pinks and reds, and lots of bracelets).

If she noticed nobody was really talking to her, Roxie didnt show it. She didnt seem to care. She didnt seem to give a crap about anything.

There is really nowhere to go here, is there? Roxie murmured.

Absolutely nowhere, I agreed, checking around and behind us. I wasnt sure if maybe there were security officers, watching for cutters. But even worse, if Jade saw me cutting second with Roxie Green, shed definitely give me the silent treatment.