Beneath the Glitter: A Novel (Sophia and Ava London) (4 page)

She glanced around to see if she could get one last glimpse of Liam but all she caught was the top of his head surrounded by people near the main stage. Which was disappointing but it also meant that he hadn’t seen that mean guy yelling at her.

She arrived at Toast just in time for dessert. “No thanks,” she said when Lily offered her some of her Tarte Tatin and one by one every fork at the table clattered onto the plate.

“Did Little London just refuse dessert?”
MM
asked Lily in a stage whisper.

“Are you okay?” Sophia asked, her concern somewhere between joking and genuine.

“I’m in love,” Ava sighed.

MM
picked up his fork. “Oh, is that all? What is this, the hundredth time this year? You fall in love as easily as you fall asleep.”

“Which I saw you do the other day next to a fifty-percent-off sale rack,” Lily added.

“Ha ha. But this time it’s different,” Ava said. “This time it’s Liam Carlson.”

“Of course it—” Lily started to say, then stopped. “Liam Carlson? The actor?”

MM
’s boyfriend Sven said, “But he dates Whitney Frost, no? The one who is famous for making porno sex with the vegetables?”

“It wasn’t porno, it was an indie film,”
MM
corrected him. “And they broke up a month ago.”

Lily said, “I went to high school with her. Or with parts of her—she’s had so many enhancements there’s almost none of the original equipment left.”

Sophia, ever the big sister, had a different question. “Isn’t Liam Carlson a lot older than you are, Ava?”

“He’s only two years older than I am,” Ava said.

MM frowned. “Are you sure? I could have sworn—”

“Fine,” Ava huffed. “He’s three years, eight months, and seventeen days older than me. That’s hardly too old.”

“Wow.”
MM
leaned back like he was impressed. “Someone was Wiki-ing while walking.”

“I didn’t have to look it up on Wikipedia, I knew when his birthday was already. I’ve been in love with him since I was twelve,” Ava said proudly. “You see, it’s destiny. We were
meant
to be together.”

As they all put in money to pay the bill, Lily sighed. “I guess while Sophia and I are doing our boytox, you’ll be running a manathon.”

Ava hesitated, holding Sophia’s gaze. “Are you okay with that? I really want to be supportive…”

Sophia waved her away. “Don’t worry about me. It’s you I’m a little concerned about. From what I’ve read, Liam Carlson doesn’t sound like the safest choice in boyfriend material. Besides, I don’t need boytox company. Apparently, it’s all about getting your inner energy cleared out, which sounds like it’s all on me.”

“Well you can’t believe everything you read,” said Ava. “And anyway, all I did was give him my number. It’s not like I accepted his marriage proposal. And in the meantime, just because I won’t be boytoxing with you doesn’t mean I can’t help you with another essential step on the path to wellness.”

“And what’s that?” asked Sophia.

“The doctor says that one of the best cures for a breakup is retail therapy.”

“You’re not a doctor,” said Sophia.

“That’s a matter of perspective,” Ava told her.

“What perspective?” Sophia asked.

“If you look from the future, I might be a doctor there.”

Sophia put her hands up. “You win. I surrender.”

Ava high-fived Popcorn’s paw in a victory salute. “Yes! Shopping, here we come.”

As the London sisters set out, first to drop Popcorn and Lily at home and then to comb the Brit-chic racks of Earl’s Court, they had no idea that in the next fifty-six minutes everything in their lives was going to change forever.

LonDOs

Remembering to refresh your lip gloss even if you’re just taking the dog for a walk

LIAM CARLSON

The rule that whoever is driving controls the radio

Your future self being a doctor

LonDONT’s

Holy Muttrimony

Bossy little sisters

Stubborn big sisters

The rule that whoever is driving controls the radio

3

textify!

The bomb went off at Earl’s Court at 4:02
P.M
.

Not a real bomb, that was just how they thought of it afterward, the bombshell that changed everything, blowing them and their career up in ways they’d only dreamed of.

But it was only 3:45 when they got there. The store was large and built like a cross between a nightclub and an industrial loft with pearl-gray concrete floors and dark steel beams with massive crystal chandeliers hanging low from the ceiling. There were overstuffed gray velvet sofas scattered around and a wall of all different-sized televisions framed with ornate gold-leaf frames behind the cash registers that played music videos.

Ava and Sophia headed to the side wall which held the racks of the latest dresses. Ava had seen something in
Seventeen
that she thought would be the perfect cool-but-cute first-date dress and she wanted to check it out in person. Assuming Liam called and asked her out.

“What if he doesn’t?” she said to Sophia as they browsed side by side.

“Of course he’ll call.”

“He might not.”

“Then he’s dumb. You are gorgeous! And funny.”

“Sophia, he’s used to dating celebrities. I’m—no one.”

Sophia faced her sister seriously. “That’s not true. You’re Ava London and you’re awesome.”

Sophia was rewarded with Ava’s smile. “And you’re Sophia London and you’re superamazing. Which I still say is one word.”

Sophia laughed and recalled the day a year earlier when that had come up. It had been the first morning of their fashion magazine internship, and as excited and nervous as they’d been before they arrived, it was doubled when they walked in and saw the other girls. They all looked so polished and confident, casually throwing off the names of their Ivy League universities and design schools and favorite indie bands.

The first activity had been an introductory exercise where you were supposed to say your name and one adjective to describe yourself that began with the same letter. Rose was resonant, Catherine was cultured, Eve was eclectic. When it got to Sophia she’d been at a loss—sweet suddenly came to mind. Or sincere—but Ava had stepped in with superamazing. One of the other participants had pointed out that it wasn’t a single word and Ava had sat forward with an I-Dare-You smile and said, “It is when applied to my sister.”

Which was so completely Ava, unshakable in what she believed and unflaggingly loyal.

It was hard for Sophia to imagine that just a few years ago she and Ava hadn’t even been close. The almost four-year gap in their ages had been big enough so that Ava was still in elementary school when Sophia was in junior high, and by the time Ava got to high school, Sophia had left for college.

Growing up they’d had separate rooms, separate friends, separate lives. Until Sophia’s freshman year of college when she’d come home for winter break and she and Ava had gone to the mall to finish their Christmas shopping together.

It was the first time they’d really talked, as peers, a fifteen-year-old and a nineteen-year-old, and they discovered not just that they had a lot in common but that they
liked
each other. A lot. And they both also liked makeup. It was in the
NARS
section at Sephora that Sophia had turned to Ava and said, “I have an idea.”

There was something in her sister’s tone that made Ava nervous. It was the same tone Sophia had when she was little and convinced Ava to help her block off the road into their neighborhood and request a “toll” from each person. Sophia had always been entrepreneurial, and who knew what she was thinking up now. “The way you said that makes me a little nervous. It’s not illegal, is it?”

“Yeah, you know me, I’ve always longed for a life of crime. No, it’s not illegal, it’s”—Sophia took a deep breath and said really fast—“I’m going to start making beauty videos on YouTube. Makeup tips, hairstyling secrets, fashion advice—that kind of thing. And I think you should make them too.”

Ava’s dark ponytail nearly knocked a mascara off a shelf, she’d shaken her head so insistently. “No way. I wouldn’t know what to say in front of a camera.”

But Sophia had convinced Ava to try and—

“Remember how I had to force you to make your first video by bribing you with ice cream?” Sophia asked now.

Ava glanced up from the deep purple sheath dress she was holding, startled for a moment, then gave a huge smile. “Yeah and you created a monster because after that first video, the ideas just kept multiplying and—”

“Yeah,” Sophia said, not needing her to finish the sentence to know what she was going to say. That had been the beginning of London Calling. But more than that, it was the beginning of their real relationship. As though before they’d been sisters by accident and now they were sisters by choice. Sisters and best friends.

“Remember how you were filming your videos in the bathroom at your sorority house and you didn’t think anyone knew?” Ava said.

Sophia laughed. At that point Sophia had just been doing it for herself. She loved having a voice, even though the girls in her sorority already considered her their “fashion stylist.” There was something calming about filming videos, uploading them, and having no idea who she was helping out.

She remembered how having this secret had made her feel different than she’d ever felt before—somehow free and powerful and unstoppable. So that when the cute football player who otherwise she would have flirted with immediately walked up to her at a party and said, “You look like someone I should know,” she’d said back, “Nice line, but I’m on my way to another party,” and turned her shoulder to him, guaranteeing he’d be panting after her for days.

For the entire first year they’d been dating, Clay still talked about how she was the only girl to ever give him the cold shoulder—“Literally,” he’d add every time. How much that intrigued him and made him respect her. He chased her for weeks before she would give him the time of day, and that made him fall for her, hard. After weeks of asking, Sophia finally agreed to a date, only to cancel on him last-minute, just to seal his fate. Sophia knew she had him at that point.

Until she didn’t anymore.
Enough!
Sophia mentally scolded herself.

Yes, it was true that she was convinced Clay was The One. But it turned out she was wrong. And now she was making a conscious decision to move forward and rebuild her life without him.

The breakup had been one of the hardest things she’d ever gone through, in large part because it was so unexpected. One minute they were perfectly happy. And the next, Clay was breaking up with her. He was so cold about it too. She was all dressed up for his fraternity’s Valentine’s Day dance, but when he arrived to pick her up, she could tell by his sullen expression that something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” she asked, putting her hand on his arm.

He pulled away and looked at his shoes, shaking his head. “I can’t do this anymore, Sophia. I’m not ready to be serious.”

What he
was
ready for was to go to the dance solo and make out with three different girls over the course of the night. And in the weeks that followed, he proceeded to make a series of appearances all over campus, each time with a different girl.

She’d found out later that he had cheated on her, multiple times. She had trusted him so much that she hadn’t even seen the warning signs, but looking back she should have known. That lipstick in his car that wasn’t hers? He had said it was his sister’s … but now she knew.

Gossip about him followed her all over campus, and as much as she tried to avoid hearing about his exploits, she couldn’t seem to escape the details. It had been agonizing. And it didn’t help that she’d been so unprepared for it. She’d never seen it coming, hadn’t even had an inkling of it. Sophia, the ultimate planner, the girl whose schedule was organized fourteen months in advance, taken completely by surprise.

She understood why now. After weeks of soul-searching, she knew that none of it was her fault. Clay was simply wrong for her, and in a way, it was a good thing he was out of her life, so she could find someone who was right for her. She still believed in love and wanted to find it, but sometimes it felt really far away.

Her phone pinged with an e-mail. It had the subject line: “Congratulations you’re a winner!”

Great, now your heart rate is getting a lift from junk mail,
she thought. But she clicked on it anyway.

Ava must have done the same thing because Sophia heard Ava’s gasp at the same moment as her own. Turning to the next rack, Ava was standing there with her phone in her hand.

“Did you—”

“We—”

“And not just—”

“But—”

Giving up on words, they stared at each other in shock. The two of them had just won a super-prestigious award for being Best Webstars of the Year. Not best vloggers or best bloggers or best haulers. Best of the entire Web.

They were so gobsmacked that they completely forgot they were in public in the middle of a store until a shy voice near them said, “Excuse me?”

A little girl with thick black-rimmed glasses stood tentatively next to a rack of distressed silver leather jeans.

“Sorry,” Sophia said. “We didn’t mean to block the path.”

“You weren’t,” the girl said. “I mean you were but that’s not”—she swallowed—“you’re Ava and Sophia London, right? Could I have your autograph on my shopping bag?”

“Of course,” Ava said, smiling hugely as she took the bag from the girl and then gave it to Sophia to sign.

Sophia handed the bag back to the girl. “Thanks for visiting our site.”

The girl looked at her blankly. “I don’t. I mean, I hadn’t until just now.”

“How did you know who we were?”

The girl eyed Sophia like she was crazy and pointed behind them. They followed her finger to the wall of television monitors. Each
TV
was now showing a picture of their faces with a star around it.