twelve

“I HEARD SHE HAS DENTAL IMPLANTS in front because she got in a bar fight.”

“It wasn’t a bar fight. She got dropped doing a keg stand.”

“Those aren’t even my favorites,” Arugula said to Brooke as the two chattering students walked by their table. “I prefer the stories involving livestock. Very inventive.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brooke said airily, leaning back in her wicker chair with an innocent smile and toying gently with the sheath on her cardboard cup of organic mood-cleansing tea. But she mentally patted herself on the back for the stellar work she’d done, subtly allowing a “confidence” or two to be overheard, and making some anonymous comments on the few short blurbs that had popped up online about her and Molly. Even off campus—albeit not far; Café Munch was popular with Colby-Randall students precisely because they could get there during free periods without a car—the fruits of her labor were still the juiciest topic du jour. It was astoundingly easy to manipulate the grapevine when you knew how to find its roots.

Brooke turned her face to the sky and closed her eyes, enjoying a mood as warm as the weather (clearly, her tea was already helping). The week was on its way to ending on a high note. If Brick had any lingering doubts about that picture that ran in Hey!, they seemed to be fading, as he’d handed her two peanut butter PowerBars before he left for Florida that morning—which to Brick was tantamount to giving her a bag of diamonds. Shelby Kendall had been too busy at CR-One to get in her face yet. And Operation Lose the Hoosier was chugging along at a brisk pace. Molly had made no effort to join any activities, nor assimilate with the Colby-Randall crowd. Instead, she just absorbed everything that was thrown at her, by Brooke or anyone else. It would be a mere matter of time before she tucked her forked tail between her legs and toddled back to Indiana, where grody nylon backpacks were like Birkins and backbones were obviously optional.

Brooke lowered her head again and peered at the Crunch Gym across the plaza. She knew from careful attention to detail—which was different from stalking; a girl couldn’t help it if noteworthy things just happened to take place in front of her—that Bradley Cooper favored the afternoon spinning class, and running into him there was central to her scheme to marry him someday. But beyond the other Colby-Randall students milling around the outdoor café, scarfing all-natural beverages and organic muffins, she’d only spied an Olsen twin (wearing a wool overcoat over her yoga pants even though it was eighty-five and sunny). Bradley was AWOL. It was the only thing this week that hadn’t gone her way.

“I do have one query,” Arugula piped up. “Do you feel at all repentant for all this enmity, given that her mother has shuffled off this mortal coil?”

“Fewer five-dollar words, please?”

“Read your SAT prep books, Brooke.” Ari frowned. “What I said was, don’t you feel bad about freezing Molly out? The girl’s mom died. Have you even talked about that?”

“Okay, first of all, I resent the idea that I’m contractually obligated to like someone just because she had a death in the family,” Brooke said, feeling the effects of her soothing herbal blend begin to wane. “And Daddy gave me no leg to stand on at home, so I need some territory to call my own. It’s not like I’m disemboweling her.”

Arugula combed her hair thoughtfully.

“I both accede to your argument and appreciate your use of a multisyllable word.” She nodded.

Privately, Brooke did feel a tiny bit guilty, but that was exactly why she tried not to think about it. She didn’t have time for compassion. She was on a mission.

“Besides, it’s not like she’s all alone in the world,” Brooke continued. “Her happiness is, like, Brick’s number one priority. And she’s always hanging out on the balcony talking to her boyfriend. She’s fine.”

“She has a boyfriend?” Ari asked, furrowing her brow.

“Yeah, some dope she’s got on the hook back home,” Brooke said. “She tried to tell me once but I couldn’t handle the number of times she said ‘um’ in one sentence.”

Arugula stood up and brushed off her Thakoon pencil skirt. “Intriguing. A hometown sweetheart is so adorably rural.”

“Wait, where are you going?” Brooke asked, checking her Rolex. “We don’t have to leave for ten more minutes. I can’t be on time to my first rehearsal. I have to arrive.”

Arugula rolled her eyes and sat down again. “Five more minutes,” she countered. “I told Teddy McCormack I wanted to go over some stuff from chemistry this week.”

She then undid one of the top buttons on her collared shirt. Brooke giggled.

“Very studious.” She nodded.

“Oh, give me a break. It’s just a little extra epidermis,” Arugula said. “Men are visual creatures.”

“Dude, he drives a Toyota.”

Ari shrugged. “He’s smart. And I need to be intellectually stimulated. I don’t expect you to understand.” She paused. “No offense.”

“Some taken,” Brooke said, only half seriously. She checked her watch again and sighed. Her future first husband had obviously blown off his workout today, and she certainly didn’t need to stick around to watch the constant stream of D-list starlets wandering in and out of Crunch sporting booty shorts and sports bras, as if they were just waiting for someone to notice them and ask for an autograph. When she hit it big—soon, obviously, once Brick witnessed her mastery in My Fair Lady—Brooke resolved never to go begging like that. Spandex was so desperate.

“Fine, let’s get out of here,” she said, swigging the last of her tea. “I have an entrance to make.”

The new Brick Berlin Theater for Serious Emotional Artistry sat near the edge of campus on an unassuming stretch of grass. Brick had chosen a nondescript setting because “the stage is a canvas to be painted by your souls, and also, if there’s nothing to do outside, people are more likely to get back to their seats after intermission.” The 2,500-seat building, modeled after one prong of the Sydney Opera House, sported an orchestra pit, dressing rooms, and a concessions area run by the freshman class. Even to Brooke’s biased eye, it was over the top, but she liked it as a brick-and-mortar reminder of her own social superiority.

“No, Jake, you can’t wear your letter jacket to play Freddy,” Jennifer was saying as Brooke entered. “Freddy isn’t a jock. Freddy is, like, sensitive.”

“So football players can’t be sensitive?” Jake asked, combing back his blond hair with his fingers. “Tell that to my sprained pinky. It hurts like a bitch.”

Brooke winced. Jake insisted he needed the diversity on his transcripts, and Jennifer swore she could turn him into a great actor—“Like Peyton Manning!”—but Brooke already suspected his casting had been a mistake. He lacked subtlety.

Still, being inside the theater got her blood pumping. They’d staged small-scale plays in the past, but this was Colby-Randall’s first major production, and she was going to make it great. Molly could steal her precious closet space, but she couldn’t take that away. Brick’s approval was all but assured.

“Our Eliza Doolittle is here!” crowed Jennifer, ushering Brooke front and center. “Take a bow, Brooke.”

Obligingly, Brooke curtsied as the cast applauded.

“Please, no, this is going to be a team effort. It’s not just me,” she said. “It’s me and Jennifer.”

“Oh, but it’s mostly Brooke; she has such vision,” Jennifer gushed. “I’m just a professional consultant. My acting coach wants me to understand the other side of my art.”

“Right,” Brooke said dismissively. “Anyway, thank you all for coming here on a Friday afternoon. Postponing the start of your weekend is a test of your commitment as actors, and I am happy to see that you’ve all passed. Now, do everything we say, and this will be an enormous hit. Ignore us, and perish. Got it?”

Everyone blinked, then the applause resumed in a scattered, nervous way.

“Fabulous!” Brooke beamed. “I assume you all learned your lines over the summer. Let’s do an off-book run-through to see where we are.”

“I have a question.” Jake put up his hand. “Why do you call it My Fair Lady if the book says Pygmalion?”

“Because Pygmalion sounds like a skin disease,” Brooke retorted. “We’re using the title from the musical. Now please, let’s get started so we’re not here all night. Jennifer will read the stage directions. Go.”

Brooke wished Brick could see her now, running her cast with authority, jotting intelligent comments into her notebook—for instance, the more Julie Newman talked, the more obvious it became she could not carry off a bonnet—and basically already kicking ass. She’d spent all summer sketching out the blocking and set ideas, dropping hints to Jake that the lead actress always gets flowers….

Suddenly, she realized nobody was speaking.

“What happened?” Brooke asked. “Did we forget our lines already, people? Seriously? You had three months. I—”

Jennifer cleared her throat and nodded toward the spot just over Brooke’s left shoulder. She turned in her seat and saw Molly standing there, a pained look on her face. Brooke clenched her jaw. Why was she always everywhere?

“Yes?” Brooke hissed. “Are you lost again?”

“No. I’m here…” Molly gulped. “I’m here to work on the play.”

Brooke’s laugh sounded tinny and hollow, like dropping an eyelash curler in the sink.

“Hilarious!” she said. “Now run along. I’m in the middle of something important here.”

“I know, but… Headmistress McCormack said she’d enforce this personally,” Molly told her. “I guess Brick told her I can do costumes, like my mom, and… I don’t know, he said something about the trenches, I think from that Vietnam movie he did. And then he said he can’t wait to see our production. So… we don’t really have a choice.”

Brooke felt her stomach churn. In her periphery, the cast exchanged apprehensive glances. Surely, Brick couldn’t expect her to work with Molly on the play. Her play, that she had slaved over all summer while he skulked around the house and made plans for his secret, stupid love child to move in with them and ruin her life. How would he like it if she stormed onto the set of Avalanche! and told him he had to let Quentin Tarantino direct all the action sequences? (Brick and Quentin had a falling out over Uma Thurman and hadn’t spoken in years. Privately, Brooke was relieved. Quentin had a habit of coming over for dinner and crashing in the pool house for three weeks.)

What’s she going to ruin next? Is she going to shave my head and start wearing my hair?

Brooke felt like she finally understood what Dr. Hedge Von Henson experienced that time the flesh-eating virus went on a rampage through Lust for Life. Despite her best efforts at containment, Molly was contaminating every single aspect of Brooke’s life, and it was beginning to seem like a fight she couldn’t win. So she went with the first plan B that leapt to mind.

“Where were we?” Brooke asked the cast. “Jake, I think it’s your line.”

Everyone stared at her.

“Hello?” Brooke trilled. “The sooner we finish the read-through, the sooner we’ll all get to start our weekends!”

“Um,” Jennifer started, nervously twirling a lock of hair around her index finger. “Don’t you need to finish…?”

“Finish what?” Brooke chirped.

Jake scratched his head and shot Jen a concerned glance. “Is she… okay?” he asked.

“Peachy!” Brooke said. “Let’s get back to work!”

“I promise this wasn’t my idea,” Molly said. “Can’t we just—”

“Jake,” Brooke said, her voice getting uncontrollably higher than she’d prefer, “please continue.”

Jake looked blankly from Brooke to Molly and back again.

“Or I’ll give your part to Neil Westerberg!” Brooke snapped.

“But my part is better than—” Neil began.

“Are you kidding me?” Molly asked, from somewhere behind Brooke’s shoulder.

“Brooke, I’m sure it’ll only take a second to deal with her,” Jen said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brooke said. She turned around and pretended to look for something, then let her gaze drift past Molly. “There’s nobody here.”

Their eyes met for a second. The hurt in Molly’s, and their likeness to Brick’s, was surprisingly hard for Brooke to withstand without losing her composure and apologizing. She turned around quickly and clapped her hands to avoid betraying any reaction.

“Onward!” she said.

The cast stared at her with a mixture of disbelief, awe, and a little fear. Maybe more than a little. But then Jake nervously picked up with his last line, and the read-through continued.

Brooke held her breath until she heard footsteps behind her getting fainter and fainter. The door slammed, and she knew Molly was gone. She wanted to exhale, but her body was still tense and her stomach hurt. What was wrong with her? She ought to feel victorious. This was war—an ugly, but necessary, war. And war always had casualties.

Molly let the theater door slam behind her. She’d never felt dumber. Her strenuous efforts to rise above all the rudeness, to behave in a way that wouldn’t make her cringe when she looked back on her life in twenty years, were being spit back in her face. Why couldn’t she have stood up for herself more? Why did she always have to be the one acting like an adult? She didn’t look like the better person. She looked like a fool.

What am I supposed to do, Mom?

Usually, Molly could conjure her mother’s voice with ease, in part because Laurel had a lot to say about a lot of random topics, and always yielded something Molly could put in her figurative pocket and apply to other situations. For instance, after an odd encounter with a guy in Whole Foods, Laurel had made Molly promise never to date a man who owned a ferret; this helped the summer she and Danny broke up and she met a fellow camp counselor who seemed awesome until he started talking about his pet rat.

But her mother was strangely silent today.

“I can’t believe how rude that was.”

Molly lifted her head and met Shelby Kendall’s sympathetic gaze.

“You saw that?” she asked.

“The best reporters know where the story is before it even happens.”

“That’s… I’m sure that’s true,” Molly said, unsure what else to offer.

“You’re incredibly brave, you know, Molly,” Shelby said. “I’ve been watching you all week. Honestly, I’m concerned.” She paused dramatically, biting her red lower lip. “I knew as soon as I heard you were moving here that her pathological tendencies would rear up and bite.”

Molly stayed silent. She didn’t want to fuel the fire, but Shelby wasn’t exactly wrong, either. Brooke did seem a little unhinged.

“I’m sure you’re aware that Brooke and I are not close,” Shelby said softly. “I don’t know if it’s because Brad Pitt once told me I look just like Angelina, or because her mother skipped town and she’s resentful of my stable and loving family situation…. But I think perhaps no one understands what you’re going through quite like I do.”

“She did this to you, too?” Molly asked, feeling a small flood of relief.

“Let’s not dredge up ugly details from the past,” Shelby said. “We’re talking about you now. You need a shoulder. And I have two.”

That this was a quote from one of the Dirk Venom movies—Shoot Before Dying—did not escape Molly’s notice. What kind of sales pitch is this, anyway?

As if she heard the question, Shelby reached into her Michael Kors bag and pulled out a small sterling-silver case the size of a deck of cards, from which she extracted a small rectangle with one reflective gold side. She handed it to Molly and said, “Why don’t you give me a call sometime? Perhaps I could be of help.”

The card was embossed with the Colby-Randall crest, had the Hey! logo tucked down near the bottom, and read, “Shelby Kendall: Reporter, News Anchor, Student Leader.” Molly had never encountered anyone her age with her own card, but then again, she’d also never encountered a teenager who treated socializing like a business transaction.

“Fancy,” she said, for lack of a better reaction.

“They’re terribly handy,” Shelby noted. “I once ran into a very famous reclusive redhead in the parking lot of Gelson’s, and if I hadn’t had official documentation, I’d never have introduced myself, and then I wouldn’t have seen that she was buying two boxes of laxatives. Hey! ran with that story for three weeks in a row.”

“Well, thank you, I, um, I really appreciate this,” Molly said.

“Don’t thank me. Call me,” Shelby said, reaching out to squeeze Molly’s shoulder. “You won’t be sorry.”

She turned away, then stopped and looked back at Molly.

“See?” she said, a tiny smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “I told you we’d meet again.”

The memory came rushing back: She’d bumped into Shelby, almost literally, the night of the party. While she was drunk. In retrospect, Molly remembered Shelby had seemed to be enjoying that entire fiasco. And that she’d been wearing Molly’s Marchesa.

Molly glanced down at the card in her hand, then over her shoulder at the closed doors of the theater. Monday, she wouldn’t have known what to do with this. But today she had a pretty good idea where to start figuring it out.