STAIRWELL B
Monday, September 21st
4:04 P.M.
After waiting in the lobby for fourteen minutes, Kristen began climbing the two hundred and ten steps to her apartment, wondering the whole time if her mother had spite-stalled the elevator because she’d found out her daughter was showing leg.
Once her horror-film panting downgraded to human breathing, Kristen exited the stairwell and scanned the dimly lit hall for signs of her mom’s early arrival, keeping an eye out for giveaways like:
A) White nurse shoes on the teak welcome mat.
B) A forgotten grocery bag dangling from the doorknob.
C) David Beckham running loose in the hall.
D) The smell of tomato sauce and/or fabric softener.
Thankfully, Kristen noted none of the above. Apartment 10F and its perimeter were secure. The only things that stood out were the new neighbor’s creepy totem pole and the team of First Rate Movers who were force-jamming it into the narrow entryway. Then she saw the elevator. It was stuffed with boxes and propped open by an elephant-tusk coffee table.
Kristen turned her key with silent precision. She vowed that if she made it across the parquet floor to her bedroom undetected, she’d never risk wearing her Range Rover–replaced outfit home again.
Marsha Purdy Gregory + plaid short shorts + a gray V-neck bell-sleeve sweater + knee-high black moccasins = being forced to don a burka until college graduation.
“Heeeey, Beckham,” Kristen whisper-squealed when she saw the fluffy white Persian curled on her twin bed like a croissant. The kitty lifted his head, but Kristen denied him love until her knee-length sweat shorts and loose matching gray T-shirt were on and her illegal fly-arrhea-stained outfit was gone.
“Safe!” She fell back on her blue and green polka-dot duvet and spoon-hugged Beckham. Then she tried to imagine the Pretty Committee hanging in her bedroom.
The lime green bedside lamp was the same lime as the beanbag, which was the same lime as the polka dots on her duvet, which were the same lime as the walls. The room was so thoroughly coordinated she could probably convince them that someone other than the online shopping assistant at potterybarn.com had decorated it.
“Not that I’d ever have the chance.” Kristen sighed aloud. “We’re ah-bviously not good enough for them.” She squeezed Beckham’s warm belly and buried her face in his fur. He smelled like coconut shampoo, a little something she’d invested in to remind them of Dune.
“Seven more sleeps and he’ll be back.”
Beckham sighed.
Kristen rolled onto her back and blew a kiss at the photo of Dune Baxter taped to her ceiling. The sun was setting behind him, drenching the background in golden light that matched his skin. He was lying on a longboard, brown eyes staring straight into the camera, his smile relaxed yet stoked. For a moment, Kristen could smell his tropical fruit–scented sunscreen.
Dune grinned back, like he was thanking her for being smart enough to have scored a summer job tutoring his younger sister, Ripple, so they could meet and become C-pluses. Well, at least that’s what she liked to believe his grin was saying.
“You’re welcome,” Kristen mouthed back. “Thanks for being a CLAM,” she whispered to her cute, loyal, athletic, middle-class crush.
“He likes coming over,” she mumbled in Beckham’s triangular ear. “He’s not a snob like certain OCDivas we know,” she said, recalling Dune’s nickname for the Pretty Committee. Her insides warmed just using his term. It made her feel closer to him, like he wasn’t surf-modeling on some heart-shaped, impossible-to-get-cell-service-on island in the South Pacific, but right there beside her.
A startling crash, immediately followed by a muffled shouting match between an angry woman and an apologetic Russian First Rate Mover, came from next door.
“Reeee-ow!” Beckham bolted under the bed.
Kristen buried her face in a pillow. “Thank Gawd,” she mumbled, suddenly relieved that Massie had turned down her après-school invitation after all. Thin was in when it came to waists, nawt walls.
Her black Razr rang “Need U Bad”by Jazmine Sullivan—something it only did in extreme emergencies.
Boy I need U bad as my heartbeat,
Bad like the food I eat . . .
Kristen shot up and speed-answered. “Why aren’t you using the WCC?” she whisper-hissed. “What if Massie was here? What if we got caught?”
“Relax,” the girl on the other end whisper-hissed back. “This isn’t official Witty Committee business, so I didn’t want to use the Witty Committee computer. It’s an abuse of power.”
Kristen rolled her eyes. She was just as serious as Layne about their secret underground society of five, who paid homage to their favorite historical Gifted people by dressing up as them and meeting online to discuss all things intellectual. But if Massie ever found out Kristen was:
A) Cleopatra!
B) Friends with LBR Layne Abeley, who dressed up as Albert Einstein.
C) Friends with LBR Rachel Walker, who dressed up as Oprah.
D) Friends with LBR Aimee Snyder, who dressed up as Shakespeare.
E) Friends with LBR Danh Bondok, who dressed up as Bill Gates (and who Massie called Candy Corn).
F) All of the above. 
Massie would cover her in meat-flavored Glossip Girl and feed her to Bean.
“We need to talk,” Layne insisted. “Not Einstein and Cleopatra. As us.”
“But—”
“Butts are for sitting!” Layne interrupted. “School has been in session for weeks, and I haven’t made any progress with Dempsey.” She whispered her lifelong crush’s name like he was a wanted criminal. “None. I thought the Wizard of Claus callbacks would be my chance for romance, but Massie was there and completely Block-blocked me!”
“What? Why was she there?” Kristen’s forehead barfed sweat. Her best friend and her secret best friend were crushing on the same boy. Her two worlds were hurtling toward each other like Heidi and L.C., doomed to collide. “She wasn’t auditioning, was she?”
“No, Joe, she was giving Dempsey acting advice,” Layne scoffed.
“How does she know—”
“She said she learned a lot on the set of Dial L for Loser. Can you believe it?”
“Yep.” Kristen nodded as if Layne could actually see her. When Massie Block wanted something, the truth was a ball and she could bend it like Beckham (the soccer player, not the cat).
“Wanna see?” There were a few beeps and then: “Check out the video.”
A quaking shot of Massie and Dempsey’s backs filled the Razr’s tiny screen. They were seated in the rear of the auditorium giggling at some guy’s off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
“Zero presence,” she could hear Massie mutter. “Zero connection with the audience. Zee-ro! I don’t believe he’s really wishing someone a happy birthday. I don’t believe he cares.”
“Yeah, I totally see that.” Dempsey nodded.
“You need to cuh-nect,” Massie insisted, “or you’ll never make it in this business.”
The video ended abruptly.
“She doesn’t like him, does she?” Layne squeaked. “Because if she does, you have to break them apart. You promised me. I helped you get Skye Hamilton away from Dune this summer, and you promised you’d help me get Dempsey. Remember?”
Kristen bit her throbbing hangnail.
“Re-mem-ber?”
Of course she remembered. That was why she’d spent all morning trying to convince Massie that her new crush was an LBR.
Kristen paced across her green shag rug. The fibers that usually tickled her feet seemed unusually coarse.
“Reeeee-meeeemmmmm-berrrrrrrr?”
She stomped her foot.
“Yes. Yes, I remember, okay? But it’s not that easy.”
“Neither was breaking into the country club, filling the pool with Jell-O, creating a video reflection so it looked like water, and timing it so that Skye jumped in before Dune. But I did it. And now if you’d kindly place your hand on your neck and feel the shark tooth, I think you’ll agree that the plan worked and—”
“Okay, okay! What do you want me to do?”
“Find out if he likes me,” Layne cooed sweetly. “And if he says no, then make him change his mind.”
Kristen’s ears began to ring. It was hell calling.
“Layne, I totally want to help, but I hardly even know the guy,” she tried. “Can’t you just have an honest conversation with Dempsey? You’ve been opposite-sex best friends for years.”
“We were opposite-sex best friends.” Layne sighed. “Now that I like him, I can’t talk to him anymore. I’m too—”
“Hold on,” Kristen interrupted. “What, Mom?” she called into her empty apartment. “I’m on the phone!” She paused like she was listening to her mother. But the only shouting woman she could actually hear was the new stressed-out neighbor next door. “Okay! Stop yelling. I’ll be right there.” After an extra-long sigh Kristen moaned, “I gotta go.”
“No prob, slob,” Layne replied. “Looking forward to the good word, yellow bird. I’ll check in tomorrow.”
The line went dead.
With shaking hands, Kristen reached under the bed and grabbed her soccer ball—the only thing she could kick repeatedly without being arrested.