Things Are Gonna Get Ugly (2 page)

Charm Mafia

After suffering through math and English, I finally sit down at our usual table in the cafeteria in front of the Quik Cart. For privacy, we, The Girls, perch as far away as possible from the feeding line and curious ears. This is, hands down, the best spot, and I staked it out the first day of school.

Petra eyes Maggie Milner sitting at the lower end of the cafeteria table with her two tragic wannabe
friends who try their best to dress like us. She says loudly, “Could those cows at least pretend to have their own conversation and stop listening to us?”

Maggie reddens. Sitting next to us at the lunch table has been her only claim to fame.

Gazing at me through honey-colored eyes that ooze sweetness, Maggie goes, “Hey Taffeta,
love
your necklace.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Your hair looks
so
good today,” says one of Maggie's friends, the one who always flanks her left. I'm never sure of her name so I call her Invisible Girl. At this, I half nod. My hair looks good
every
day.

“Are those new?” asks Maggie, eyeing my boots.

“Uh-huh,” I say, shrugging—as if I'd
ever
wear something old. Old is taboo at La Cambia Middle School; even the lost-in-the-seventies trailerlike buildings have been recently remodeled with sunroofs and green building materials. Petra clears her throat. This is the signal for them to turn around and let us eat our lunch and work on our decorations for Winterfest.

“This is going to make such a perfect moon,” Caylin says, shaking glitter onto her paper decoration. I sip my yogurt shake and stare at our stack of
Elle Décor, Teen Vogue
, and sheets of colored paper. I have just spent an hour scoping out the gym, thinking about decorating ideas. But, for obvious reasons, namely Winslow Fromes, I can't get into it now.

I'm sprinkling more glitter when Caylin clears her throat in a warning kind of way.

She points, and I can't believe what I'm seeing.

Insane Boy with Ponytail

“Winslow's waving at you!” Petra yells.

Yes, there in all his thickness is Winslow, in his duct-taped shoes and ALREADY DISTURBED T-shirt, waving at me.

His best friend Sneed bangs his fist on the table and stands up, swaying on his skinny legs. He looks like Abe Lincoln minus the hat and beard. “Taffeta? I've heard something very interesting about you. Winslow says that you and—”

Winslow clamps his hand over Sneed's mouth.

Noooo! Not in front of The Girls before I've had a chance to explain, not in front of Tyler Hutchins, who's absolutely cute, who wants to GO WITH ME to Winterfest and is already on TV commercials for his dad's Porche-Audi dealership. I glance over
at Tyler, who is sitting with his usual swimming buddies. With his fingers he combs through his blond hair, which looks almost albino white, except for this greenish glow from too much swim-team chlorination. He asked me to go to Winterfest but I put him off because I don't like appearing too eager since EVERYONE likes him. It's all because of his being kidnapped last year.

My heart whams against my ribs, but not because I'm excited. It's sheer terror.

SHUT UP!

“TAFFETA!” Sneed booms in front of the entire cafeteria. “Winslow says he's going to Winterfest with you. In a Hummer!”

Noooo! I'm Taffeta Smith!

There is a complete silence as everyone lining up at the Quik Cart to buy something orange—a slice of pizza, bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, mini-carrots, or maybe a
real
orange—stares at me, INCLUDING I-have-been-kidnapped Tyler Hutchins.

I can hear the crackle of Mr. Morley, the cafeteria monitor's walkie-talkie, and feel the stares of Olivia and her friend Ninai, their braces shining under the
fluorescent lights. Caylin and Petra are bugging out their eyes and Tyler, who's sitting with Justin Grodin, pulls on his beautiful hair.

My lips are
le
stuck. I can't take it anymore.

Sending Out an SOS

Winslow gets a wide grin on his wide face and shrugs. “Whoops. Guess I kinda told a few people and they told some friends and their friends told some friends and voilà—oh well!
C'est la vie!
” That means “that's life” in French, only he purposely slaughters the pronunciation so it sounds like
set la veeee.

Tyler, looking stunningly Nordic god–like in his white polo, with his white-green hair, flashing his white teeth, elbows his buddy, Justin, the bad kisser and fire-alarm–puller. Petra and Caylin stare at me as if I've broken all of the rules we've ever believed in.

This is all much worse than I feared.

I want to scream. But that would be uncouth.

Petra throws up her arms in complete disgust. “Were his parents siblings? I can't believe he thinks
you'd
actually say yes to going to the dance with him.”

“Can you say
hallucination
or what?” says Caylin, twirling her finger in the air.

“So, Taf, what will you be wearing?” Winslow asks, his voice cracking with newly discovered hormones.

I can't say anything. The truth is I don't know what I'm going to wear because Mom won't buy me the $550 Max Heeder top I picked out. She says the price is obscene.

I can tell you exactly what and who is obscene….

Winslow Fromes!

To put a stop to catastrophe, I march up to Winslow, who's standing next to the Quik Food cart. Petra and Caylin shuffle after me. I stare at Winslow's freaky black notebook. He's actually flipping through the pages right now. What could possibly be in that thing? A lady elf in a bikini?

“I see you looking,” says Petra, like she can read my mind. “He intrigues you, doesn't he? Admit it.”

“No,” I hiss, even though I know she's joking. He doesn't interest me at all. He wears a chain on his belt that clanks down the hall. Yesterday, he posted…

A Lame Poem on MySpace

Why did I ever tell Winslow Fromes that my grandfather is French? Now he thinks this French thing is the key to unlocking me.

Winslow reties his ponytail. It's like he's getting ready at all times to attend a Phish concert.

Petra, her lips in full pout, wheels toward Winslow. “Look, eighties reject, Taffeta has a few other guys in mind for Winterfest.” She narrows her eyes and nods over to The Guy table that Tyler lords over. “Does the name Tyler Hutchins ring a bell?”

Of course Tyler Hutchins rings a bell. How many Nordic gods are there at one school with pearly
teeth, good manners, and junior-Olympic green hair, in car commercials, who have triumphed over kidnappers?

Winslow moves his brows up and down like he's Groucho Marx and puts his drinking straws in his hair like antennae. “Guess Tyler will be
jalouse
since I'm so sophisticated.
Non?
” Would he stop trying to speak French? Would he please stop talking to me in front of everyone? Winslow reaches out a hand. It's approaching my shoulder. If I don't move out of the way soon it'll be a direct hit. I sway to the left but it's too slow. His large paw grazes my shoulder.

Protocol breach!!

No!!

“Just get it out of your head, Winslow! This fantasy of me and you. Forget what I might have said. It's NEVER EVER happening!”

Winslow's face goes pale, and his lips fold into this pathetic upside-down
u
shape. Then he growls, leans over to me, and utters, “I'm so over you.” Pressing his fingers against his nose, he lopes away.

Winslow actually looked really upset. He should have adhered to protocol.

Normal

Leadership class is a blur. Miss Bines lets us talk most of the period while she flips through bridal magazines for her upcoming wedding extravaganza and fiddles with her triple-pierced ears. Since we already did our leadership stuff during math anyway it's no biggie. I'm relieved Winslow takes computer for his elective because I would DIE if he were suddenly in Leadership, which I feel confident he'd never get into anyway because it's for people who feel strongly about school spirit and I've NEVER seen Winslow dress in orange and blue for La Cambia school spirit day, not even once.

I feel SO relieved to talk about normal stuff like my upcoming b-day complete with Hummer limo. Taking out the
San Francisco Chronicle
magazine ad, I stare at my Hummer.

After much excruciating thought and pondering, I've finally settled on black as the color. White just seemed too weddinglike.

Little Things

In science, I am doing something with a group of girls that involves a microscope and paramecia. At least Maggie is willing to score props and write up the lab for us. I think paramecia are scary and I fear what would happen to the world if they got human size.

Winslow keeps on throwing me these really nasty looks, which, I'm sorry to say, is completely uncalled for. Do you see me doing the same to him? No, I'm being completely mature about this and not alerting Mr.—oh, Mr. Something. I'm still not sure of my science teacher's name. There are a lot of teachers in this school!

For Real?

“Ready, girls?” I ask, as we stroll up the decomposed granite driveway, which is lined by these massive palm trees, to my house, a large French Colonial. Whizzing down the hill on skateboards, some
seventh-grade guys are trying to hit hummingbirds with rocks. The idiots are helmetless, of course.

“If they're trying to impress us, it's REALLY working,” I say sarcastically, as the taller of the skateboarders is almost hit by a large white Mercedes.

“I LOVE DEAD BIRDS!” yells Petra.

“IT'S SO HOT!” adds Caylin.

We all crack up as the boys skate away, heads down, rocks dropping from their fingers. I'm glad the boys are gone. Most of all, I'm thrilled to be rid of Winslow for the day. It's like I could write my own Declaration of Independence.

I look up at my house which won't be mine much longer. In fact, tomorrow, the packers come and relocate all of our belongings into the Sierra Garden Apartments. I swallow hard and my stomach burns. It's so hard to think about leaving this place. I love the steel blue wooden shudders, and the gray tiled roof that slopes over the top-floor windows like eyelids. Somehow I can't imagine having Caylin and Petra over to the Sierra Garden apartments.

This is the last time,
I think. The very last time I can have my best friends over at my real house. My true home where both of my parents once lived with me, predivorce.

I close my left eye, trying to block out the dumb Coldwell Banker Realtor's sign—the one with Petra's mother, Aldea Santora, Realtor CRS, GRI, CLHMS Luxury Home Marketing Specialist, smiling, and the SOLD sign hanging down by the little chain—but it's still there.

It's a great house, close to Sharon Heights Park, high enough in the hills that in the backyard you can see the Bay and the Oakland hills beyond. Fog clouds the mountains, and the city of Menlo Park below is blanketed in so many trees you'd think it was a forest of pine and eucalyptus. You can even see the Stanford Tower and imagine all of the cute guys swarming the campus.

I grab my keys, open the front door, which looks like a bar of Hershey's milk chocolate, and let Caylin and Petra into the house. We pass through the near-empty living room and kitchen and meander into the great room, sitting down onto the only couch. Dad took the sectional and coffee table with him to Santa Monica because after we move we're not going to have room in the apartment. With packing boxes lining the rooms, and the pictures off the walls, the house feels embarrassingly undressed to me.

Soon, Caylin is sitting at the computer table,
working on some algebra problems and glancing at her list of potential volunteers for Winterfest. She's probably the best person I know at multitasking because her mother always has her signed up for at least ten activities. Petra's taking an inventory of the decorations we still need and I'm flipping through some magazines, trying to get some ideas.

Real Names

It's hard to believe Caylin and Petra were almost not my friends. Two and a half years ago things were very different. We had been living in Narbeth, which is right outside of Philadelphia, when Dad got an offer with Apple Computers, so we moved across country to California. I was so different then, read all of the time, and had one best friend, Claire. We mostly went around looking for sparkly rocks to add to our collection and trying to spy on people like in
Harriet the Spy
. My first day at La Cambia, Maggie the Mushroom showed me a map she had made of lunch.

I knew right then I wanted to be Purple—having everyone look at me, talk to me. I wanted to be adored the way Maggie the Mushroom adored the Purples. The next day, I came to school and changed my name from Ernestine to Taffeta. Taffeta is a kind of silk, and yes, it's expensive. But that's moi. I have expensive taste. I don't even need to know the price of something when I'm in a store because, every time, I'll pick out the priciest thing there. It's a disease. I'm going to have to get rich or marry rich when I get older. I know that. It didn't take long for me to bury Ernestine until I couldn't remember her anymore. I became Taffeta.