Sloane Sisters (3 page)

“T
his is the formal dining room,” Andie offered at the top of the first flight.

Lola clutched Heath Bar to her chest and stared at the long wooden table. In the center of it sat a cut crystal vase overflowing with white peonies.

“Just be careful—these are from the eighteenth century,” Andie said, looking from Heath Bar to the antique-looking wood chairs, all upholstered in ornate brick red damask. “The house was my grandfather's, and my dad kept a lot of his antiques.”

Lola took a step back, trying to keep an arm's distance between herself and anything irreplaceable. She had a habit of breaking things, which was why her mum had loved the mod furniture phase that took over London a few years back—lots of plastics and indestructible materials.

Lola glanced in the gilded mirror on the wall, making sure her thick wavy hair concealed the tops of her Dumbo ears, as Stella had dubbed them. She didn't need Stella to reminder her she was
an awkward mess, of course. She was quite aware already. But now, it seemed, Cate would be reminding her as well.

Lola eyed Andie's greasy hair, a little relieved. At least
she
didn't seem like she'd go barmy over a new pair of Christian Lou-bou-whatevers.

“We're going to be good mates, I just know it,” Lola breathed as they made their way up another wooden staircase. “Stella and I are complete opposites.”

“I noticed,” Andie replied as they reached the fourth-floor landing. “And this…” she continued, opening a door, “is your room.” The teal room had a four-poster twin bed covered in a striped duvet, a narrow white dresser, an empty bookcase, a teal armchair, and completely bare walls. Five cardboard boxes were stacked in front of the window, lola's books scribbled on the side of each.

Lola set Heath Bar down and he slunk over to the armchair, digging his claws into the side of it. “Heathy, no!” she cried, swatting him away.

“My room is just through here,” Andie said, ducking into the bathroom that connected the bedrooms. “I'm going to go change.”

Lola sat down on her new bed and pulled the giant tabby into her arms, his stomach jiggling like a Jell-O-filled Ziploc. She scanned the room looking for his Kitty Castle, the three-story scratching post she'd bought him for his first birthday. It was missing.

But at least she was right next door to Andie. Maybe Andie would help her unpack her books, and then they'd go to Central
Park and get one of those giant pretzels that everyone in movies seemed to eat when they were in New York. Maybe they'd be in band together—Lola played the viola—and they'd sit tuning their instruments and laughing about the conductor's silly bow tie.

All the maybes swirled through Lola's head as the bathroom door swung open. Out stepped Andie, dressed in the same blue and fuchsia dress Stella had worn to her fourteenth birthday party. Her tiny pedicured feet teetered on wedge heels that triggered Lola's fear of heights. Her hair was smoothed back into a tight bun. Except for a freckle near her lip, she looked almost exactly like Cate.

All Lola could think was,
They're multiplying.

Lola looked around the room warily, afraid another label-obsessed, Marc Jacobs–clad robot would emerge from her closet, ready to flatiron her hair and torch her Gap wardrobe. She watched as Andie gazed at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

“What?” Andie asked, noticing Lola's stare. “Is the eye shadow too much? The girl at Sephora told me gold was in.”

“No…” Lola mumbled. “It's…pretty.” With big liquid brown eyes and a tiny button nose, Andie belonged in an issue of
CosmoGIRL!
, not playing Pachelbel's Canon in some dorky orchestra.

Lola hugged Heath Bar to her chest so tightly he let out a loud mew.

“So, you can put all of your stuff in these two drawers,” Andie said, pointing to the cabinet under the sink. “And you can totally borrow my hair dryer.” Andie leaned against the door frame, eyeing Lola's frizzy hair.

“I was thinking,” Lola said softly, looking around the bare room. “Would you want to go to Times Square with me?”

Andie laughed, but stopped suddenly when she realized Lola was serious. “Lola,” she said, enunciating her words like Lola was a toddler, “that place is the armpit of the city. Only tourists go.” Andie's face was scrunched in disgust, like Lola had just picked a scab in front of her.

Lola knew that face. It was the same one Cate had given her in the foyer. The same one Stella gave her every time she passed her in the halls of Sherwood Academy. The face that said,
Um…no thanks.

“I just thought…” Lola stuttered. She felt the airplane food churning in her stomach.

“Besides,” Andie interrupted. “I have to…clean my room.” And with that, she disappeared through the bathroom and was gone.

Lola set Heath Bar down on the floor and pulled her long legs into her chest. New York was going to be just like London, where she never had the right clothes, or the right hair. But at least in London she'd had her best mate, Abby. They'd sat in the back of English and made fun of Mr. Porter's arm fat, which flapped back and forth as he wrote on the board.

Lola dug her laptop out of her suitcase and signed onto IM. She scanned her buddy list, but it was after ten in London. Abby wasn't online.

Then her eyes fell on a familiar screen name: Striker15. She did have
one
mate in New York.

Kyle Lewis.

He had lived next door to her in London for three years while his father was teaching at Oxford. They had become buddies, sliding down Kyle's den stairs in their sleeping bags, making mud soup in Regent's Park, loading up their buckets with dirt, sticks, and tulips. She hadn't seen him since she was ten, more than two years ago, but they'd started talking online this summer when she found out she was moving. He'd told her about New York: how she had to make sure to look left, not right, before crossing the street, how her savings—all one hundred and six quid—was going to double (
Ur gonna be rich!!! $$$,
he'd written). He'd even promised to take her to Madame Tussauds if she ever felt homesick—he'd said it was just as weird as the one in London.

She paused and ran her fingers over the keyboard. So far only two out of the five people she lived with liked her—and one of them was her mom. But he didn't need to know that.

Lola laughed, imagining Kyle with his massive baritone horn case. He was so skinny his mum had bought him a little trolley to wheel it on.

If Lola was uncool, then Kyle was a super geek. He wore thick glasses and had messy Harry Potter hair, a lanky body, and crooked teeth. In fourth grade he'd memorized all the constellations and had made Lola sit with him in the park for an hour while he found each one in the night sky.

Lola breathed a sigh of relief. She and Kyle would hang out on Monday and keep on about missing Christmas crackers and Cadbury Twirl chocolate bars. He'd show her Times Square, even if it
was
the armpit of the city. And they'd drag that silly baritone horn around together, not caring if it was cool or not.

Lola couldn't wait.

S
aturday afternoon, Stella and Cate strolled up Madison Avenue, their arms laden with shopping bags. Cate had taken Stella to a sample sale at the Peninsula Hotel and picked a dress out for her, insisting it would go perfectly with Stella's coloring. There were only three people Stella trusted with fashion advice: Bridget, Pippa, and her mum. But looking at her strapless turquoise Vivienne Tam dress nestled inside her shopping bag, she knew she could add Cate to that list.

“It really is a beautiful dress,” Stella noted.

“I told you!” Cate singsonged, swinging her Hermès bag in the air.

After the sample sale, Cate and Stella had stopped in all of Stella's favorite shops: Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan, Coach. Then they'd lunched at La Goulue. Stella wanted to hate New York, she really did, but it was nearly impossible when Cate Sloane, connoisseur of fine food and clothing, was her personal tour guide.

Cate squeezed Stella's arm. “It's so Zac-Posen-goes-to-Beijing,” she added approvingly.

A group of sixth-grade girls zoomed past on their Razor scooters. A girl in an Ashton Prep tee stared intently at Cate and Stella, almost crashing into a parked Audi.

Stella flipped her blond curls over her shoulder, buzzing from the attention. She could hardly wait to walk into her new school arm in arm with Cate. They'd spend all of English drawing pictures of Jane Eyre in Temperley dresses. They'd plan their shopping route in the cafeteria over Waldorf salads. Most of all, they'd dominate the ninth grade. They wouldn't just be the best BFF pairing Ashton Prep had ever seen, because they were more than that. They were practically sisters. What could be better?

They turned down Eighty-second Street, the humid August air making the city feel like one massive sauna. Cate pushed into the air-conditioned house and started up the staircase.

“So what are we doing tonight?” Stella asked, following Cate into her bedroom.

“My friends are sleeping over.” Cate dropped her shopping bags in a heap on the floor. Tonight was Chi Beta Phi's first sleepover of the year, and as sorority chair and all-around most popular girl, Cate had to tackle the most pressing issues: accessories for the first day of school, assessment of their current schedule, and strategies for keeping their lunch table by the window just that—
theirs.

“Brilliant—what are they like?” Stella followed her into her bathroom, hovering in the doorway.

“Well,” Cate said proudly, digging through her Kate Spade
makeup bag, “there's four of us. Blythe, Priya, and I have been friends since third grade, Sophie since sixth. We're kind of like…a sorority. Our name is Chi Beta Phi, and we have rules. We don't let just anyone in. And I'm pretty much in charge,” Cate went on, swiping Clinique mascara on her already long, already dark lashes. “We're supposed to vote for the position each new school year, but I was voted in three years ago and nobody has ever asked for a revote. It's just natural that I would be president—Priya is really funny but too easygoing, and Blythe is pretty and popular but always needs someone telling her what to do. And Sophie is just…Sophie is fourteen going on ten, she's so immature.” Cate pushed past Stella and out the bathroom door. She pulled Randolph, her stuffed bear, into her lap. “I love those girls, but honestly, they'd be lost without me.”

“So what does it mean to be ‘in charge'?” Stella furrowed her brows.

Cate looked at Stella's curious face and grinned—she loved a rapt audience. “Well, I hold the first sleepover of the year. And it's always the most important—we catch up and make plans for September. I also decide where we go and what we do, I get to say who's in and who's not, and I know everyone's secrets,” Cate said smugly, smoothing down Randolph's ears. “That's not an official rule or anything, it just seems like everyone comes to me when they have problems.” She shrugged nonchalantly, as if to say,
Being charitable and understanding comes naturally to me
.

Stella stared out the window at the gray town house across the street, its curtains drawn. Her mates in London didn't have any rules. Bridget and Pippa always wanted her to decide where
they were going for brunch, and took her fashion advice very seriously, but Stella wasn't “the sorority leader” or anything like that. She just had good taste.

And wasn't afraid to share it.

Cate's “sorority” sounded a little like a cult. She pictured them drinking goat's blood and tattooing Phi Beta Chi into each other's arms with a Bic pen.

“It's a lot of pressure,” Cate continued, smoothing down her glossy dark brown hair. “But the secrets are little things—like Blythe's. She's a serious spray tan addict. If there were a rehab clinic for spray tanners, I'd have an intervention and send her there. She'll disappear for a whole weekend and she'll tell Priya and Sophie that she's in Cabo, then she'll go spray tanning three days in a row.” Cate giggled, the words spilling out of her mouth. “And Blythe wears a ‘Little Lady' training bra. Because she doesn't have boobs yet.”

Stella's eyes widened. “No way—even Lola doesn't wear those anymore!” She erupted in a fit of giggles.

“I know. And Priya tells everyone she goes to sleepaway camp in the Adirondacks, but her parents have been sending her to science camp for the last three years, where she's gotten obsessed with dissecting things. Seriously, Lola'd better keep an eye on Reese's Pieces.” Cate paused, wondering if she'd said too much. But who was Stella going to tell, her loser sister? Besides, she loved a rapt audience. Every time she spoke, she imagined herself up onstage, delivering the lines to a theater full of enamored fans. This was better than when she'd played Nellie in
South Pacific
.

“Sophie's secret is the funniest,” Cate went on. “She still plays with Barbies.”

“No!” Stella gasped.

Cate raised her hand up as if she were being sworn in at court. “She has a whole collection of them—she keeps them under her bathroom sink. She says she never plays with them, but every time I go over there they're in different outfits.” Cate cackled, remembering the last time she'd looked under Sophie's sink. One Barbie had her hair in a French braid and was wearing a neon green wet suit.

Cate eyed Stella, her perfect blond ringlets swinging as she threw back her head and laughed. Cate loved the Chi Beta Phis, but Stella was different. Stella would never buy Barbies or cover up a spray tan streak with a giant Band-Aid. It was nice to finally have…an equal.

 

The deck was lit by tiki torches. Chenille blankets were draped over the padded teak couch and the big chaise lounges, and citrus-scented candles sat on the small side tables, making the warm night air smell like lemonade. There were bowls of each girl's favorite snack: Terra Chips for Priya, apple-and-brie sandwiches for Blythe, and gummi bears for Sophie. Mojito and cosmo mocktails sat on the coffee table in pink polka-dotted martini glasses.

Tasteful and elegant, but it doesn't seem like I tried too hard,
Cate thought.

She had been waiting for tonight all summer: the night she'd get to hear the full story of how Blythe met Jake Gyllenhaal
in Mykonos, the night they'd finally steal Priya back from her camp bestie—some French girl named Audrey who had tried to convince her to wear power-washed denim—and the night she'd tell them all about Charlie, her first kiss. They'd spent two blissful days together on Kapalua Bay beach in Maui, snorkeling and laying out near the coconut groves, sipping virgin piña coladas. Sophie was going to be so surprised, she'd choke on her retainer.

Cate laid out five sleeping bags in a spiral on the roof deck, then stood back to admire her work. Four of them were perfect pink plaid, with mauve lining that matched Cate's couch. The fifth was Winston's old camping bag from the eighties, a huge battered black thing complete with a hood. Cate cringed. It looked like they had invited a dead body to the sleepover.

Cate pulled her iPhone out of her pocket to text Blythe.

Her phone instantly buzzed with a reply.

Cate frowned down at the glossy screen of her phone. Ever since she'd heard Emma's spawn were moving in, she'd complained to her friends nonstop about the injustice. She didn't want to seem like a total schizo, suddenly falling all over her new sister and inviting her to their sleepover.

Just then the intercom next to the door crackled and Winston's
voice called out in the warm night air. “Cate—your friends are here.” Stella walked to the sliding glass door, tugging it open.

“You should wait here.” Cate stopped her. “
I'm
excited you're coming to the sleepover, but I don't know how Priya, Sophie, and Blythe are going to take it. Let me warn them first.” She smiled sweetly, then slipped through the door and descended the stairs to greet her guests.

Warn them?
Ohh-kay.
Stella shrugged off the weirdness and dipped her finger into the yellow candle wax. She rolled it in a tiny ball and flicked it off the roof. On a terrace across the street, a man in blue silk shorts smoked a cigar. A car alarm blared in the distance. New York, Stella realized, had its own sound track—even the ambulances sounded different than in London. It would take a while to get to know its smells, sights, and sounds.

Just then, the sliding door opened and Cate emerged, followed by three girls, each clutching a puffy paisley Vera Bradley tote.

A girl with dirty blond hair and gray eyes stopped when she saw Stella. Her skin was so tan it looked like she'd eaten radioactive oranges. Blythe. Stella zeroed in on her boobs, but they looked too big to be contained in a “Little Lady” training bra.

“Blythe,” Cate said, “this is Stella.” Stella stood and reached out her hand, but Blythe just pressed her lips together into a smug smile.

“Hi.” She threw her bag down on the deck and walked over to the couch, where she kicked off her bumblebee yellow flats. Stella glanced at the two other girls, wondering what
that
was about.

Priya had pale brown skin and sleek black hair. When she tilted her head, a silver stud in her nose sparkled. Sophie was shorter, and younger looking. Her nose was a little sunburned and she had light brown hair that looked like it had been straightened with a one-hundred-degree industrial iron.

“This is Priya and Sophie,” Cate said. Priya nodded and joined Blythe on the couch, picking up a mocktail. Sophie and Cate settled in between Priya and Blythe, taking the last remaining spots.

Stella dragged over a chaise lounge and sat in front of them. Across from her, Sophie was blatantly staring at Blythe's boobs, which looked like they might pop out of her white strapless Juicy Couture dress. “What's the deal, Jessica Simpson?” she finally asked.

“Funny.” Blythe smiled mysteriously. “Let's just say Greece was good to me this summer.”

Cate eyed Blythe's chest suspiciously. “Becca Greenleaf grew boobs last summer but it turned out it was just the Victoria's Secret water bra.”

“What about my nose ring? No one even noticed,” Priya pouted.

“I noticed,” Sophie squealed. “I told you at the door!”

“I noticed too,” Stella added, but still none of the girls looked at her. She was beginning to suspect that Chi Beta Phi might actually stand for Cold Bratty Prisses.

“I have some news too,” Cate said, going over to the table where her MacBook Pro was sitting. She smiled as she sat back down with the laptop. Stella went around to the back of the couch to look over her shoulder.

Cate pulled up iPhoto and clicked through a few pictures of her vacation in Hawaii. “These are pictures from Maui.”

She clicked past one of her and Andie next to a palm tree, white plumeria flowers tucked behind their ears. Andie was laughing, and for the first time Stella realized how pretty she was. She had wide, round brown eyes and thick rows of dark lashes. Her cheeks were rosy, and her features were tiny and delicate, like a porcelain doll's.

“And this,” Cate cooed, stopping on a picture of her and a tan, rugged-looking boy with a dimpled smile, “is Charlie.”

It had been taken on the first day she met him, after they came back from a group diving trip to the Molokini reef. He had sat with her on the top deck after she scraped her ankle against a piece of coral.

“O M to the G!” Sophie screamed, crawling over Priya to get a better look.

“He's really cute.” Priya nodded at the picture, hypnotized.

Stella leaned against the back of the couch. The boy was wearing a white T-shirt and had light brown bangs that fell in his face.

“Real fit,” she agreed, under her breath.

“Fit?” Sophie asked curiously, turning around.

“He's from Minnesota,” Cate continued, reveling in the attention. “He even calls soda ‘pop'!” Her voice squeaked with excitement. They had e-mailed a few times over the summer, and Cate had suggested New York as the destination for his next family vacation. The only thing better than telling her girls about Charlie would be introducing them to him.

“Adorable,” Blythe proclaimed, as Cate clicked through to another photo of her with Charlie sitting on the lime green surfboard he'd rented from the thatch hut on the beach. She shut the laptop and tucked her legs underneath her.

“We kissed!” she cried, the words tumbling out of her mouth.

“O M
Freaking
G!” Sophie squealed again, grabbing Cate's arm.

Cate stared dreamily up into the starry night sky. “It was after dinner,” she said slowly, savoring her friends' jealous looks. “We were sitting on deck chairs by the infinity pool, and he was telling me about the snow in Minnesota and then…he just leaned in and kissed me. His lips were so soft, it was like kissing a pillow.” Cate took a sip of her virgin cosmo and let out a deep sigh.