Comeback (11 page)

Heading to bed now. K's already snuggled in and reading a mag.
I've got a copy of French
Vogue
waiting for me.

Night!

Xoxo

Posted by Lauren Towers

•  •  •

I closed my laptop lid and pushed back my desk chair. I unclipped my
freshly showered hair and grabbed Bumble and bumble Prep and my smoothing serum from the
caddy in the bathroom. Then I walked back to my bed and picked up a brush from my
nightstand. Khloe had already dried her own hair and was in pjs—flowy baby-blue
pants and a white tank.

Two quick knocks startled me, making me glance at Khloe and then at the
door.

“No clue,” Khloe said. She put down her magazine.

I opened the door to a grinning Riley. Her slinky black hair shimmered
around her shoulders. She'd paired a boatneck shirt—with
PINK
emblazoned across the front in neon blue—with
black leggings.

“Hi,
Lauren
,” she said. “Can I
come in for a sec?”

“Um, sure . . .”

Riley breezed by me and walked to my desk, sitting down in
my
chair. She spun it around to face Khloe, who'd sat up
in bed.

“Hi, Khlo!” Riley chirped. “Read any good
gossip?”

“Not really. Must be a boring week in Hollywood,” Khloe said.
“What's up?”

Translation:
Why are you here, Riley?

“Omigosh, I had to come say hi to you guys!” Riley said.
“It feels like I haven't seen you in foreeeevvver. It felt like I was gone a
lot longer than I was.”

I sat at the end of my bed, seeing Khloe's thin smile.

“Funny,” Khloe said. “I thought time went by like
that
.” She snapped her fingers.

Riley's smile was as fake as the sixty-carat “diamond”
paperweight on my desk.

“I'm sure you all were so busy with school and riding,”
she said. “I'm lucky that my teachers are so generous—they're
giving me extra time for my makeup work.”

She covered a yawn with her hand. “I didn't have a second for
homework. I barely slept!”

“Car horns and sirens too loud for you?” I asked.

Riley giggled, shaking her head. “Oh, no way. I could barely hear
them. My aunt's apartment is on the Upper
East Side and on
the twenty-fifth floor. I couldn't sleep because I didn't have time—I
met with so many people.” She put a finger to her head and looked up to the
ceiling. “Gosh, I can't even remember all their names. Agents, casting
directors . . .”

“Wow,” I interrupted. Riley was such a brat! She had no reason
to come into our room and rub her experience in Khloe's face. Not when it was
Khloe's dream too. “I bet you're really exhausted.” I mimicked
Riley's yawn from earlier. “We were just about to go to sleep, so see you
tomorrow?”

Riley stood. “Totally. I'll tell you
every
detail at lunch!”

She let herself out, and I looked at Khloe. She held up a hand as if
holding a microphone. “And the Oscar for best actress in a drama goes to Khloe
Kinsella for her outstanding performance in
I Don't Care What
You Did in New York, Arch-Nemesis
.” Khloe bent her head in a bow and
flopped back onto her pillow.

“RILEY'S DOING AN
AWESOME
JOB OF MAKING
sure
everyone
knows that she's back on campus,” Khloe grumbled. “As if her
‘friendly' invasion of our room last night wasn't enough.”

We were walking together under Khloe's giant umbrella. It was
leopard print, with cat ears that stuck up and made it the cutest umbrella I'd
ever seen. It was a foggy Monday morning, and rain fell gently around us. The gray sky
was full of fat, puffy clouds that threatened to burst open into a downpour at any
second.

I loved rainy days—they gave me an excuse to break out my shiny
apple-red rain boots. I'd done my hair in a French braid this morning to avoid
looking like a giant puff ball by second period. (Thanks, Mom, for the frizzy hair
gene!)
Khloe, not knowing how to French braid, had asked me to do
her hair. Gladly, I'd taught her a new EBT (essential beauty trick). Now we both
sported
une tresse française
.

“At least the day's half over and we've got lunch
next,” I said. “We can ignore Riley and enjoy free time.”

I pulled open the door to the cafeteria and paused to shake off the
umbrella. Khloe followed me inside. We got in the lunch line, my stomach growling.

While we waited, I glanced around and saw something that made me want to
grab Khloe and drag her out of the cafeteria. Riley sat
on
a
lunch table, surrounded by a group of people in our grade. Her voice carried across the
cafeteria, and everyone was staring at her as if she was telling them the most amazing,
groundbreaking news in history.

“What're you getting?” I asked Khloe, trying to get her
attention. But I was too late. Her eyes were narrowed on Riley and her entourage.

“I'm
not
getting anywhere near
that,” Khloe said. “I can imagine everything Riley's saying without
hearing it. It's probably the long, epic version of what she wanted to tell us
last night. Sorry, not interested.”

I scrunched my nose. “I'm sorry, Khlo. It just shows how
classless Riley really is. There's a difference between sharing your experiences
with someone and bragging
about them. Sooner or later, trust me,
people will get tired of the me-me-me act.”

Khloe smiled. Pink princess-cut cubic zirconia earrings—a loan from
me—sparkled in her ears. “You're a pretty decent best friend. Know
that?”

I shrugged. “You might have said something like that once or
twice.”

Lunch was buffet-style today. I gravitated toward the soup and salad bar.
I filled a bowl with creamed spinach and cheese soup, then threw together a salad.
Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, blue cheese crumbles, grape tomatoes, a few walnuts, and
raspberry vinaigrette.

Looking at the tray caught me off guard for a second. I remembered that
Mom and Dad had tried unsuccessfully for
years
to get me to
eat their fave salad. I'd only tried it when Becca promised I'd like it or
she'd eat anything of my choosing. As an eleven-year-old, that offer had been
impossible to pass up. Much to Becca's delight—her grin said
I-was-right-but-I-won't-rub-it-in-your-face
—I loved
the salad. A slice of strawberry cheesecake and a Sprite and I was set.

“Ready?” Khloe asked me. She had a grilled cheese and turkey
sandwich, a handful of Goldfish, and a strawberry Vitaminwater.

“Ready.”

We started toward our usual table. The caf
wasn't too crowded. I liked that Canterwood allowed students to eat lunch at the
on-campus restaurants twice a week. Khloe said it was a new rule this year. If only
Riley had chosen
today
to have pizza at the Slice.

“I want to eat as far away from
that
as
possible,” Khloe grumbled.

“I know it's easier said than done, but put on your poker
face. Become a character, maybe, who isn't affected by Riley. If you look upset,
you're giving her what she wants.”

Khloe looked at me. “Go into character. You're right.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. When she opened her eyes, her jaw
relaxed, and there was a friendly Khloe smiling at me.

“Wow. You are seriously a
très
talented actress,” I said. “I'm trying to look half as nonchalant as
you do right now.”

Khloe bumped her arm against mine. “You're doing a good job,
and your idea was brill. Let's go!”

She'd no sooner finished her sentence when an arm shot up and waved
from Riley's table. Clare stood and left the table, heading toward us. She
couldn't see Riley's expression. Riley was still talking to her new posse,
but her eyes were on Clare's back. Riley's nostrils actually
flared
, and a tint colored her cheeks.

“Hey!” Clare said, reaching us. She was
rocking army-green skinny jeans paired with a lace-knit white cardigan over a black
crewneck long-sleeved shirt.

“You know that Riley looks like she wishes she had a tranquilizer
dart to shoot into your back now, right?” Khloe asked, dropping her fake act.
“She wants to drag your unconscious body back to her table.”

Clare
rolled her eyes
.

She didn't chew her nails.

Or look over her shoulder.

Or start backing away to head over to Riley.

“I think Riley has plenty of company for the moment,” Clare
said.

“Wow,” I said. “I'm sorry, it's not that I
didn't believe you when you said you were going to start standing up to Riley, but
I didn't expect it to be like . . . well, like
this
. So soon.”

“It can't be easy,” Khloe said. “You can go back.
I'm glad you said hi to us.”

Clare shook her head. “Thanks, Khlo. I know what you're trying
to do. But I'm okay. I had a long talk with Riley yesterday about how I wanted our
friendship to change.”

“How did she react?” I asked. People walked around us to get a
table, but none of us moved.

“She didn't believe me,” Clare
said. “I could tell that she was thinking it was one of those times where I was
just saying stuff and not going to follow through. She kept telling me to do whatever I
wanted and that she didn't care. Riley
does
care,
though, and I know she was sure I'd sleep on it and not do anything. So I am.
Right now.”

Khloe smiled. “Proud of you!”

“Thanks,” Clare said. “I'm not going to ask you
guys to come sit with us—I'd never do that to you, but I did want to say
hey.”

We talked for a few more minutes before Khloe and I headed to our table
and Clare went back to her seat.

We put down our trays and sat down.

“That,” Khloe said, “was the biggest move against Riley
that Clare's ever made. Omigod.”

“I know! I felt bad after I said it for telling Clare that I was
surprised about what she'd done, but I was so shocked. She's such a quiet
girl who doesn't want to upset anyone. I never expected her to really follow
through with what she told us.”

Khloe sipped her drink. “Maybe things are going to change around
here.”

“We'll see, huh?”

AFTER FRENCH CLASS, I HEADED TO GYM. I'D
spent a lot of time in French thinking about Clare and Riley and Khloe. If Clare kept up
her independence, I had no idea how Riley would react. Would she drop Clare as a friend?
Retaliate against Clare? Against Khloe and me?

I stopped outside the gym doors and checked my BBMs.

Ana:

Happy (not!) Monday, LaurBell! Thought abt u this
morning. Mom actually let me have sugar 4 breakfast (!) & I had a blue rasp Pop
Tart. Remembered they r ur fav. Miss u.
L

I wrote her back.

Lauren:

Aww! Miss u 2, A! I haven't had a PT since I got
here. Promise
I won't till we're eating them
2gether during break. How's everything w The Boyfriend?