All That Glitters (2 page)

Turns out, this legendary wanderlust is hereditary, because both my sister, February, and my brother, Patch, could literally be anywhere in the world at any
given moment. We joke about how I'm the homebody, how I'm happiest curled up on our big suede couch in the living room, watching the flow of Manhattanites go by our Perry Street windows. But the truth is, I rarely am happier than when I'm home
with
the added bonus of my crazy family.

Sunday night happened to be one of those uncommonly lucky nights: the whole Flood crew was present … if only for a few fleeting hours.

“Yes, I'm calling to confirm a limo for five-thirty tomorrow morning,” my brother was saying into his cell phone when I walked in the door with my shopping bags loped over my arm. “To Kennedy airport … Flight one hundred to Dubrovnik.”

Even though it was five o'clock, Patch was wearing his gray silk Armani pajamas, and his dirty blond hair was sticking out in all directions from a recent nap. I met his raised palm with my own for a high five and started up the stairs.

In the bathroom I shared with Feb (on the rare occasions when she was actually around), I found my older sister rummaging through the cosmetically overstuffed cabinets. Her long, straight blond hair was piled up in a knot on top of her head and fastened with a giant green batik patterned scarf. She was speaking—very emphatically—into her phone.

“Of course, I have three hair straighteners, Jade,” she said, counting the flatirons laid out on the tile floor. “I just can't find my adapter for Asia. So make sure you bring whatever we need for Cambodia. It's more humid there than Bungalow 8 on a Saturday night in July.”

I was used to this flurry of activity from my siblings, and usually I'd plop down next to Feb and help her sort through her stash of adapters. But at the moment, I was feeling pretty wound up, too. My mind was still spinning with Kennedy's cutting words about her recent hook-up with TZ.

It was weird. I mean, TZ was a cool guy and everything, but mostly, he was someone for my friends to tease me about—not someone I genuinely wanted to date. So it wasn't jealousy I was feeling, the way that Kennedy had made it sound. It was just that I didn't want to give her any more ammunition that she could use to lord over me once school started.

I lay down on my canopy bed to recompose myself and, as if on cue, Noodles, the world's greatest Pomeranian puppy, made an appearance on my pillow, circled three times, and plopped down in my arms.

“Oh, Flan! I didn't hear you come in, dear.” My mother's blond head appeared in my doorway, waving her nails out in front of her to dry. When she was in
town on Sundays, her manicurist-waxist, Heleva, came downtown from Bliss to give my mom her special home treatments.

“How was shopping?” she asked, then held out a perfectly manicured hand. “Do you think
Keys to My Karma Red
was a bad choice? Be honest—is it too ‘Garish Cousin Linda at the annual Flood regatta?'”

“Not at all; it's very classy,” I told my mom. “More like ‘Princess Grace hosts the Kennedys for dinner.'”

She nodded her head. “Good. I just got so caught up in
Bruno vs. Carrie Ann
that I barely paid attention to what Heleva was doing. I wouldn't want anyone at the Taj Mahal to look at your father and me and think ‘tourist'—not that that would happen—but I'd hate to think it
could
.” She looked at her watch. “Speaking of your father, he's going to be home in ten minutes … maybe. Definitely less than an hour. We're having a family dinner tonight.”

“Really?” I asked, a little giddy. It was a rare thing for the five of us to be in the same area code, let alone the same room for a Sunday dinner.

“Of course, darling,” my mom said. “We need to do a little celebrating in honor of your return to the female half of the family's alma mater.”

An hour later, I was sitting at our dining room table watching the sun set over the West Village as my mom brought out heaps of food served on our best china.

“Did someone cook?” my father asked, looking suspiciously over the top of his Oliver Peoples hornrimmed glasses at the gilt-edged china, which I'm not sure any of us actually recognized.

“Yeah, the sous chef at Otto,” Feb said, retying her green scarf like a headband instead of a turban. “Mom had everything delivered.”

My father nodded, as if this made much more sense than someone in our family actually preparing a meal. “Your mother is a genius,” he said, brushing his salt and pepper hair off his forehead.

“That's where Flan gets it,” Patch said as he walked into the dining room, tousled my hair, and took a seat next to me. He'd changed out of pajamas into a wrinkly T-shirt and a pair of hemp jeans; his hair still mussed in that just-fell-out-of-bed way. “You ready to knock their private school socks off tomorrow?”

I hesitated. If there was anyone in my family I'd tell about the horrific scene with Kennedy this afternoon, it would probably be Patch. He was the closest to my
age, and he'd hung out with Kennedy a few times at parties his friends had thrown. But somehow the ugly topic of Kennedy Pearson didn't quite fit in with our very happy family dinner, so I just gave Patch my best private school grin and nodded.

“It'll be just like old times,” I said. And despite my nerves about Kennedy's self-declared Thoney domination, I really was excited to return to private school. My first semester of public high school at Stuy had been really important for me, and not just because I got to go to a real high school football pep rally or because of the liberal dress code policy—which revealed the endless options of body piercing and confirmed for me forever that such adornment was so not my thing. It was because after a couple of not-so-great experiences, I learned that Camille and my old friends from Miss Mallard's were the girls with whom I wanted to make the rest of my high school memories.

Feb's BlackBerry beeped, bringing my mind back to the dinner table, and she sighed heavily as she chewed a big bite of escarole.

“Seriously?” She rolled her eyes. “In the future, someone please remind me to limit my travel with obsessive French designers. It's like Jade thinks we're packing for a year-long getaway to the moon. This
is just a quick trip in and out of Cambodia.” She fumbled with her scarf again and rewrapped it pashmina-style over her shoulders.

“Jade Moodswing?” my mom asked, cutting delicately into a slice of heirloom tomato pizza. “I just saw on TV that she was involved somehow with the president of Belgium.”

“Purely speculation,” Feb said. “Jade has already said
pas de comment
to
Le Figaro
.” I bit back a laugh. Leave it to Feb to get involved in an international social scandal.

As we polished off the rest of the Otto feast, I got a slew of parting words of wisdom from each of my family members.

“Find your way to your classes first,” Feb said after a bite of olive oil ice cream. “Then find out where your friends hang between classes. Every girl in that school knows how crucial it is to mark territory. And you know what they say: location, location, location.”

“One word,” Patch said, pointing his finger at me with a half-joking grin. “Upperclassmen.”

“Study hard,” my mom said, unabashedly tearing up now and using her napkin to wipe her eyes. “And show the school your beautiful smile.”

My father looked at me last. “Just be yourself, Flan. Follow that advice and a Flood has nothing to worry
about.”

I leaned back in my chair and breathed a sigh of relief. I could always count on my family for good, calming advice when I needed it.

So why did Kennedy's mocking face keep popping into my head?

Weren't Rules Made to be Broken?

Bright and early the next morning, I clung for my life to the overhead bar on the beyond crowded uptown 4 train. Usually I took a cab to school, but since I was all about fresh starts these days, I figured I'd start by breaking in my Metrocard.

Then again, maybe I should have known that expressing my independence via mass transit wasn't such a good idea, given how my morning had started out. So far, Noodles had turned the brand-new Bendel's cashmere socks Feb had given to me for Christmas into an argyle war zone on my bedroom floor. My flatiron had short-circuited the left side of our house, so I couldn't even make coffee or pop in my usual multigrain toast for a quick peanut butter and banana sandwich. Not that I felt like eating much anyway. My stomach felt like it might be tied permanently in a knot the size of Feb's green batik head scarf.

Now I was squished up against about a hundred other commuters, probably wrinkling version 2.0 of my back-to-school outfit (the studded leggings hanging in my closet just didn't look as appealing after I'd seen them in Kennedy's shopping bag).

Luckily Camille and SBB had been there to do conference call triage, and we'd come up with a pretty sweet alternative. I'd decided to go with the same notched blazer and white tank, but I paired them with gray leggings and a just-long-enough pleated schoolgirl skirt. The skirt had been my find of the season at Beacon's Closet, the funkiest consignment store in all of Williamsburg.

As the doors of the train thudded open, I clutched my Fendi messenger bag and made my way through the masses toward the exit at 86th Street.

I hurried across Park Avenue, clutching my coat against the cold wind, and instinctively glanced up at my ex-boyfriend Adam's apartment on East 88th Street. It'd been a couple weeks since our breakup, and we'd spoken only once or twice. Catching a glimpse of the football trophies lining his windowsill, I felt a tiny pang. Still, I had to admit, even as I waved shyly to his doorman, Adam—and my whole life back at Stuyvesant—felt pretty far away.

With four minutes to spare, I found myself jogging
up Thoney's majestic front steps. This place looked more like the Met than a high school. I'd been here once before, but I guess I'd never paid close attention to the building's haute aesthetics. Now there was just an ornate wrought iron gate between me and the five-story brick mansion where I'd be spending the bulk of the next three and a half years.

Hordes of chic girls I didn't know poured out of town cars and through the front doors. All of them looked chatty and exited, like there was an Intermix warehouse sale going on inside. My eyes searched for just one familiar face, but I couldn't make out a single girl I knew under the barrage of the latest outerwear from Searle.

Then, at my waist, I felt my iPhone buzz with a text from Camille. Thank God. Hopefully she'd just tell me where to meet her so I wouldn't have to enter the lion's den alone.

SNAFU AT DEAN & DELUCA…. CUTE BARISTA STRUCK DOWN BY FLU. NEW GUY TOTALLY LAGGING ON FROTHED MILK FOR MY MOCHA. SO SORRY—SAVE ME A SEAT AT ASSEMBLY!!!

So much for a familiar face. Hmm. Even under my peacoat, shearling hat, and Moschino all-weather boots, I found myself shivering. But wait. I could do this. This was what I'd wanted. All I had to do was take
a deep breath and open the doors. The rest of my life was calling—and so was the tardy bell.

I pulled open the giant heavy door and stepped inside. Thoney was way nicer than stuffy, tapestry-laden Miss Mallard's, which I used to think was pretty ritzy. Dark purple drapes tumbled from the high ceilings down to the iridescent marble floors of the foyer. Large, framed composites showcased classes of Thoney alums over the years. A quick scan of the faces showed women from all walks of life—from four state senators to the current chair of Lincoln Center, all the way to the socialites of my generation, whose romps around town dotted Page Six of the
New York Post
on a daily basis. I couldn't help but feel a swell of pride when I saw my own mother's senior shot. Her black off-the-shoulder shell was so classic that not only was it still hanging in her closet, I'd worn it to the Bergdorf Christmas gala with SBB as well.

When I turned away from the photos, trying to mimic the confident smile my mom wore in her picture, I accidentally caught the eye of a girl wearing an iPod and a green headband in her curly mop of blond hair. She returned my grin.

“Love your blazer,” she said, before disappearing into the horde of girls heading into the North Wing assembly room.

“Thanks,” I said, fingering the buttons of my jacket. It didn't matter that she was already gone. I'd just had my first girly moment at Thoney. As I joined the stampede of girls funneling into the assembly, my boots clunked on the marble floor a little bit more happily than they had a minute before.

The auditorium was abuzz with post–winter break chatter. I could barely hear the bell ring over the chorus of all the “Omigod, I love your—” ringing out, and suddenly my “I'm confident” smile faltered. Even though Stuy had about a million more students than Thoney, the vibe there had always felt so much more diverse and mellow than this. There was something about so many of the same type of girls having the same type of conversation all in one room that was a tiny bit overwhelming. Almost dizzily, I sank into an open seat on a bench at the back of the room.