She's So Money (17 page)

“Awesome,” I said, stopping him before he started getting too worried. “It’ll be fine. It’s just that, I mean, Nat’s way too busy with Science Olympiad and all that stuff to be able to do it anyway. Can you guys think of anyone else?” I picked the pencil up again, grabbed a legal pad, and we started making a list. The people we could trust, and who had the ability, and who would likely be willing, comprised a small overlap indeed—if I’d drawn a Venn diagram, the middle part would have barely been a pinpoint.

But two days later, there were seven of us smart kids doing more than thirty rich kids’ homework assignments.

The day after that, I fell asleep in all six of my classes.

The day after
that
, I did a quick calculation and realized that I could make enough money to pay the fine off by commissions alone. Barely, but I could do it.

And the day after that, I told Camden I wanted to retire.

“That. Is. Awesome,” he said. We were in his car, he was speeding as usual, and he kept one hand on the steering wheel while holding up the other for a high five. “You’re gonna rock it like me? Pimp-daddy style?”

“Indeed,” I said, tapping my palm to his. “If that’s how you insist on putting it.” Seriously though, retirement sounded good. Wait, no. It sounded
great
.

“Sweet. Then we have time to hang now,” he said.

“What?” I glanced at him sideways, somewhat taken aback.

“You’ve been all zonked because you’ve been working too hard, but now you won’t be anymore,” Camden said, as if the idea of spending time together outside our little business was the most natural thing in the world. “Come out with me and the girls. They’ve been hounding me about getting you new clothes.” He glanced at my outfit—jeans and one of my brother’s Michigan hoodies—with a small smile.

“What, they’re still on that?” I asked. “Seriously? Why?”

“Even they get bored of shopping just for themselves sometimes,” he answered matter-of-factly.

“I don’t want any new clothes,” I said defensively, putting my hands in my hoodie’s front pocket.

“You should.” He took his eyes off the road for a long moment and looked me up and down again. “And you might after you hang with them. They’re pretty convincing ladies.” Camden grinned at me. “Tell you what. I’ll buy you something. My retirement gift to you.”

I pondered this. What the hell, I deserved a break for working so hard. “Okay,” I said finally. “We’ll celebrate my retirement.”

“If I could make one request, though?” asked Camden. We were almost back to school, and he pulled the car over to the side of the road and looked at me. “Can you only semi-retire, and at least keep doing my homework?”

“Seriously?” I looked at him, surprised. “You actually care who does it?”

“Just the Algebra. The typed stuff can be whoever. I’ve gotten used to your handwriting.” He shrugged.

“I thought you said my handwriting sucks,” I said.

“I’ve gotten used to your sucking, then,” he said. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he actually reached over with a finger and moved it back down. A second later, we both burst out laughing.

chapter twelve

It’s the weirdest feeling when suddenly, people at school
know who you are. If there were such a thing as paparazzi at Weston High, they’d have been following the likes of Camden and Derek and Stacey and Dani around, and eventually they would’ve started getting me, and eventually Jonny and Cat, in the corners of their shots. It started with that day I went to the mall with Camden, Stacey, and Dani. They insisted on dragging me into Bebe and A&F and not letting me anywhere
near
the sales rack, which is the only place I’ll even look in stores that expensive, even though the sale stuff usually costs too much as well. Then Stacey and Dani shopped for themselves for a while, parking it in the middle of the Juniors section at Nordstrom and throwing on a succession of skimpy little tops over the tanks they were already wearing. Camden would then pass judgment—he pronounced most of the items “hot” on Dani and “sorta skanky” on Stacey . . . which was exactly what each of them was going for.

Finally, the three of them hauled me into Forever 21 and insisted I start trying things on. Fine, I’m not unfamiliar with the concept of the twelve dollar fitted tee, but they had other ideas. I said no to the gold sequined deep V-neck tank, no to the pre-distressed skinny jeans, and
heck
no to the miniest miniskirt I had ever seen in my life when Dani shoved it at me with a wicked smile . . . only to find it stuffed into my backpack later when I got home. There was a Post-it note with Camden’s writing on it that said,
Your assignment tomorrow is to wear this. You will be paid $0.

“Oh, for chrissakes,” I said, taking it out of the bag, looking at it, and then putting it back in. I tossed the bag into a corner of my room, on top of my history books, and resolved to give the skirt back to Camden the next day so he could return it.

Later that night, I took it out of the bag again and tried it on.
Hmmm
. It was red and black, with a teeny tiny houndstooth pattern just barely big enough to see, and it was so short that it actually made my legs look longer and made me look taller. I stared at myself in the mirror, surprised. It didn’t look bad. It didn’t look bad at all.

No. I took it off and put it away, resolving to forget about it. I couldn’t wear a skirt like that. It totally wasn’t me.

Who am I kidding? I totally wore it the next day, albeit with black tights. The damn thing looked great on me. I offered to pay Camden back, but he just waved me off, and after school that day I went shopping with Dani and Stacey again. I figured I could buy some stuff if I unretired and did maybe
one
extra assignment, which would take me twenty minutes . . . which meant I would lose twenty minutes of sleep, but possibly gain a new wardrobe. Yeah, the trade off was worth it.

Dani and Stacey were actually really easy to hang out with, because they spent most of the time talking to each other, so it wasn’t like I had to worry about keeping up my end of any conversation. That afternoon, they spent half the time debating the relative merits of Stila Lip Glaze versus the Sephora store brand gloss (Stila, while more expensive, won because of its flavor), a third of the time gossiping about particularly sketchy school hookups (“Shut up, Derek’s little sister and that hottie student teacher? What is he, like, twenty two? Nuh-uh! Shut up! She’s fifteen? Nuh-uh!”), and about two seconds debating their chances at getting into their top choice colleges (Stacey’s was Central Michigan; Dani’s was Eastern—which surprised me, as I’d always thought that everyone wanted to get as far out of the state as possible, like I did). The rest of the time they spent wondering what my workout program was.

“Nothing,” I said. I’ve never worked out a day in my life.

“But look at your arms,” Dani said, stopping in the middle of the food court to pull my cardigan off of my shoulder and push my T-shirt sleeve up.

I looked at my arms. They looked the same as they always did. “I wait tables, so I carry a lot of plates and trays and stuff,” I offered.

“Ohhh,” said Stacey. “That’s why they’re so toned! Oh my God, maybe I should get a waitressing job! Then I can work out and make money at the same time!”

“But, Stacey, at the gym you can work out and
watch TV
at the same time,” Dani said, flashing me an amused “Ain’t she a character?” sort of glance. I giggled a little.

“Oh. Yeah!” Stacey brightened. “Oh my God, did you see last night’s
Road Rules
?”

Of course Dani had seen it.

The next morning, Cat waved at me as she approached my locker, then stopped dead in her tracks, staring at me from six feet away. After a second, she started moving again, very slowly, and came all the way up to me, staring and frowning the whole way.

“What?” I asked.

She frantically gestured at my face, down to my toes, and back up again. “Since when are you shopping at Pacific
Slut
wear?” she demanded.

“What? Not everything there is slutty,” I said, self consciously backing away a little.

Cat glanced down at my stomach, a half inch sliver of which was showing beneath my shirt. “It is if you buy it in that size.”

I yanked the shirt down. It immediately rode back up. “It shrank in the wash,” I said defensively. It hadn’t, of course—it was a brand new, very cute (I thought) cap sleeved baby tee, which I was particularly psyched to be wearing because it was warm enough today to ditch the whole cardigan, hoodie, or jacket thing, which had to be taken advantage of. I was expecting the Michigan spring to snap back to freezing at any point, like it almost always did at least once before finally succumbing to its own warmth.

Cat stared at me, unconvinced.

“Yeah, okay, fine, it didn’t shrink. So sue me,” I said. “You should come shopping with us next time,” I added, trying to deflect her suspicion. If I got Cat in on the whole thing, she couldn’t very well give me any grief for it.

“Who’s
us
?” Cat asked.

“Uh . . . it’s me, Dani, and Stacey?” I smiled a weak, hopeful smile.

“Ha!” She started laughing. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I said, picking up my phone to text Sarah.

It couldn’t hurt to invite her along too, and the thought of hanging out with my old friends and my new sort of friends all at the same time sounded pretty fun . . . well, as long as nobody talked about anything to do with homework cheating. “They’re actually kinda good at picking out stuff you wouldn’t normally wear but that ends up looking good—”

“Good to who?” Cat gestured down at her own outfit, which could most accurately be described as “Japanese cartoon Goth field hockey player plus, for some reason, a purple corduroy newsboy cap.”

“Just come next time,” I said, looking glumly at my phone—Sarah had texted back almost instantaneously with a polite, but cold,
No thx
. I looked up at Cat, hoping she’d be more agreeable. “Just come?” I repeated. “Then we’ll have something to talk about besides
The Hills
.”

“I freaking love that show,” said Cat.

“Well, then you’re halfway there.” Of course, halfway seemed to be about as far as it was going to get that day—Stacey and Dani, upon their first glance at Cat after school, immediately looked at each other and screamed, “Makeover!”

“Never,” said Cat. There ended that discussion.

“What is Cat short for?” asked Dani.

“Catalina,” said Cat.

“Ever think of going by Lina?” asked Stacey.

“Never,” said Cat. There ended
that
discussion.

We still had fun shopping that day. Stacey and Dani were in full on dress mode—Stacey needed something for Spring Fling, having already lined up what she was wearing to prom, and Dani had the opposite problem. They tried to rope me and Cat into their mania too, as they practically ripped apart the racks at Nordstrom and Macy’s, and they looked absolutely flabbergasted when I told them that I wasn’t going to either event (my parents were making me work the night of Spring Fling, and while I might have had a better shot at ditching my shift for prom, considering it was almost three months away, it wasn’t like I had anyone to go with). Cat’s excuse floored them even more—she
was
going, in a group to the Fling and with Jonny to prom, but she was wearing the same thing to both: a vintage dress she’d found at the Salvation Army for eight bucks.

“Salvation?” Stacey asked, clutching her purse in shock. She squeezed the metal clasp so hard the nail polish on one of her nails chipped off.

“Army?” Dani asked, pausing with her lip gloss wand halfway to her mouth.

“Yeah,” Cat said, exchanging an amused glance with me. Neither of us could believe that they couldn’t believe it.

“It’s really pretty. I’ve seen it,” I said, attempting to calm them down. “It’s black lace, with sort of a scoop neck and a satin ribbon around the—”

Dani put up a hand, stopping me. “Dude, whatever you need to tell yourself, but you don’t need to tell us,” she said melodramatically, then grinned. She finished applying her lip gloss and chucked it back in her bag, then looked around the section of Macy’s where we were standing. “Forget this. We’ve looked at literally everything in here. Wanna take a drive to the outlets?”