All That Glitters (3 page)

No sooner had I loosened my cranberry-colored Benetton scarf from around my neck than I felt a sharp pinch on my elbow. I spun around to see Camille's grimace as she practically yanked me off the bench.

“We don't sit here,” she hissed. “Upperclassmen do.”

For a second, I thought there might have been a tinge of real exasperation in her voice, but then she winked at me and tossed her long brown hair playfully
as she pulled me onto a more permissible bench in the third row.

“I've never been so glad to see you in my life,” I whispered to her. “Was I about to get thrown to the upper-class wolves?”

Camille nodded. “That's the senior bench. It's incredibly bad luck to sit there till you are one. You have no idea how insane the Thoney superstitions are.”

“I guess not,” I said, tucking my scarf into my bag.

“But you'll learn,” Camille said happily and produced two Dean & Deluca coffee cups from her tote. “Hazelnut latte, no whip, right? Be stealthy”—she nodded toward a hovering teacher—“they don't call her Professor Daggers for nothing.”

Before I could thank Camille for reading my caffeine-deprived mind, she nudged the girl to her left.

“Flan Flood,” she said, gesturing toward me. “Meet your new crew. This is Harper Alden,” she said, pointing to the wholesome, blond girl unbuttoning her black Searle coat to her left. “Watch out for this one. She's the captain of the debate team and she takes no prisoners.”

“Omigod, don't scare her, Camille,” Harper said, laughing and giving me a friendly wink. “Don't
worry, Flan, I only bring out the claws at the podium.”

Next to Harper was a gorgeous Filipino girl with amber-colored eyes and long black hair. “This is Amory Wilx, drama buff extraordinaire,” Camille said as Amory curtsied dramatically in her seat.

Finally, Camille pointed to the same curly haired girl who'd complimented me in the foyer a few minutes ago. “And this is Morgan Burnette, resident DJ.”

As Morgan turned off her iPod, I noticed that she was listening to the new Cat Power cover album that I'd been playing on repeat since I'd bought it the week before.

“We've heard so much about you from Camille,” Harper said.

“All good things,” Amory said, nodding enthusiastically. “We've basically been dying to meet you.”

“Still
loving
your blazer,” Morgan said, bobbing her head to some unheard beat, as if she hadn't just turned off her headphones.

These girls were so immediately likable that I quickly felt at ease. And when I glanced across the aisle, I was happy to see that I recognized my friend Olivia from Miss Mallards sitting next to two of her friends, Dara and Veronica, whom I'd met when Olivia and I bumped into each other while shopping
this past fall. I waved at them and all three waved back with big smiles and fingerless gloves.

When the doors at the front of the auditorium opened and a group of stern women in navy blazers walked in, a hush fell over the crowd. I had never seen so much gossip evaporate so quickly. Camille had mentioned that the faculty at Thoney could be severe, but this bunch looked like it was their mission to leave a sea of anxious, quaking girls in their wake.

A silver-haired woman with a loosely swept French twist and porcelain skin took the podium.

“Welcome back, girls,” she said with perfectly polished Manhattan enunciation. “I trust you all had relaxing and enjoyable winter holidays.”

“Yes, Headmistress Winters,” the room sang back collectively.

“Many of you are returning students, but for those of you who are new, it may do you well to hear some ground rules—rules that are taken quite seriously here at Thoney. Starting with the dress code …”

Winters didn't mince words. I was pretty sure that the dress code at Thoney was going to be a whole lot stricter than at Stuy, where basically anything went except bandannas and gang colors. But just as she was getting to the details of Thoney's sartorial
protocol (which basically amounted to nothing overly provocative and she'd “be the judge of that”), Camille lightly touched my arm.

“
Our
dress code is what matters,” she said in a low whisper. “A group of us started Theme Day Thursdays. An e-mail blast goes out Wednesday night with the details. It's so fun—you'll totally love it. During finals last semester we did Bad Christmas Sweater Day. It was hilarious. Oh, and Fridays we always wear jeans.”

I nodded, wondering half-jokingly if I should be taking notes. Because it seemed like for every official rule the headmistress had to offer to the group, Camille overruled it with a social rule of her own.

“Cafeteria commandments,” Camille went on, as the headmistress gave her honor code spiel. “Never get anything but the salad bar. Or the mac and cheese. Or the fries. Basically, all lunchroom meat and dairy products are frowned upon.”

“And we always sit at the third table in any room we go into,” Harper leaned over to whisper, her curtain of blond hair hiding her moving lips from Winters. “It's easier to remember that way. Third bench in the auditorium, third table by the windows in the cafeteria, third study cluster in the library. You'll start to see that all the groups sit in similar places, so
you'll always know where to find the various cliques—and there are a
lot
.”

I squinted at them. “Is it really that divided?”

Camille shrugged. “You'll see. It's not that bad. For the most part, everyone gets along. It just, you know, makes it easier to keep organized.”

Just then Headmistress Winters bellowed out, “
Organization
is the key to your success at Thoney,” and Camille, Harper, and I had to bite our lips to keep from laughing.

“Okay,” Camille went on, sneaking out her BlackBerry. “I made you a list of the clubs that are cool to join and those that are kinda off-limits. I'll e-mail it to you before the Activities Fair this afternoon. Now, I'll just have to give you the bare-bones basics about who's social suicide to talk to.”

I think Camille may have noticed my wide eyes—social suicide? Just from talking to someone? She put her hand on my knee.

“I know, I know, it sounds completely ridiculous even to say it out loud, but I'll just throw it all out there so you won't say I didn't warn you. This is Thoney, after all.”

I nodded. It certainly was. Had I been stupid to think that I'd be busy enough keeping track of my new locker combination and what room my French
class was in? Obviously there would be a social protocol to follow here, just like there had been at Miss Mallards, and even at Stuy.

I took a covert swig of my latte and squeezed Camille's hand for her to go on.

“Okay,” she whispered, “the obvious first person to steer clear of …”

Just then, from across the room, I felt a pair of icy green eyes settle on mine.
Kennedy
. I knew I was bound to see her today, but whatever Camille was saying washed right over my head as Kennedy flipped her wavy black hair from side to side. How could she make such an innocent gesture look so deadly? How long had she been staring at me? And who was that bombshell sitting next to her with the similarly bitchy look on her face?

“Hold up,” I asked Camille. “Who's the satanic model over there?”

Camille followed my eyes. “Oh, Kennedy's friend? That's Willa Rubenstein. One word: rhinoplasty. Four additional words: Don't mess with her. Her father owns the Rubenstein Fund, and she's not afraid to play the daddy trump card in a pinch.”

Just then Willa's blond hair spun around, and she looked down her perfect nose at us. She pressed a finger dramatically to her lips and narrowed her blue
eyes with an exaggerated shushing sound.

Suddenly I felt the whole room turn to stare at me. There was a rustling and a murmuring and even the headmistress looked up from her rule book.

“I trust there's no problem, girls, so early in the semester. Am I correct?”

I bit my pinky nail. It sounded less like a question and more like an icy command.

“No problem, Headmistress Winters,” answered a sing-songy chorus of voices. Well, at least there seemed to be one front that the Thoney girls were united on.

Camille shrugged and rolled her eyes at me conspiratorially. I wanted to roll mine back, but I felt Kennedy still staring me down. I tried to avoid looking back, but her glare was like a magnet. Just before the bell rang to dismiss the assembly, we locked eyes once more and Kennedy's arched eyebrows and snarky wink could only mean one thing.

What happened in Nevis wasn't going to stay in Nevis. I was on her territory now … and this was war.

Wherefore art Thou, Brain?

“Okay, take these stairs to the third floor and hang a left,” Camille was saying minutes later in the hallway as she sketched a rough map on the back of her Dean & Deluca napkin. “Avoid the temptation to write on the Welcome Back Wall”—she drew an X over its location in the east wing—“it's controlled by the Student Senate, and who cares about them? And
never
use the bathroom at the end of the hall.”

“Couldn't agree more,” Amory said with a shudder. “Jenna Davidson used to Nair her mustache in there last year, and let's just say the scent has lingered.”

I laughed, remembering how poor Jenna had had that mustache problem since the fourth grade at Miss Mallards. It was cool how quickly I was bonding with Camille's friends—but it also made me a little nervous to realize that as soon as Camille was done with her
napkin mapmaking, she and Amory would scoot off to gym together, and I'd be left to roam the halls on the way to first period English all by myself.

Camille put the finishing touches on the map, sticking her tongue out as she drew, just like she'd done ever since we were swapping Bratz coloring books back in the day.

“
Voilà
!” she said, handing over her masterpiece, which had dotted lines to take me through my classes and which showed me where to meet her and the other girls in the gym after school for the Activities Fair.

“Thanks again,” I said, giving both girls air-kisses. “Wish me luck!”

“Naturals like you don't need luck,” Camille said as the two of them disappeared around the corner.

I followed the route to my first class, breathing through my mouth as I walked past the bathroom, and stepped inside a brightly lit room looking out over Madison Avenue. The first thing I noticed was that, unlike every classroom back at Stuy, these walls were not plastered with posters of cheesy motivational quotes set against snowy mountaintops. Here the walls were tastefully decorated with framed quotations from famous works of literature—some of which I recognized, many more of which I didn't.

There was no “third table” to sit at, just a cluster of desks, and I wanted to sit somewhere not too close to the front. I spotted an open seat in the middle of the room and moved toward it. I had just plopped down when I noticed Mattie Hendricks taking out her notebook to my left.

The last time I'd seen Mattie was in Nevis, and I remembered being happy to watch her let loose at a couple of the parties. I'd always liked Mattie, even though some of the girls called her “The Barker” behind her back. So what if she had a slightly awkward and badly timed laugh? She was sweet. Today she was wearing her standard issue Mattie uniform: a white Gap T-shirt and the same straight leg jeans she'd had since middle school.

“Hey, Mattie,” I said, hanging the strap of my bag over the back of my seat.

“Flan!” she called with her usual enthusiasm. “I heard you were coming back to private school, but now that you're here, I can't believe it. This place needs you!” Her barking laugh rang out across the room.

I chuckled with Mattie to be nice, even though nothing funny had happened. I was also looking around the room to get a feel for the other girls in the class. They didn't look too scary. Actually, they looked
pretty normal, just trying to squeeze in one last text message or nail file session before the bell rang. I'd been hoping Olivia might be in my class. We'd had English together back at Miss Mallards, and our notebooks had been filled with more games of Would You Rather than notes on Edgar Allan Poe.

“So, what's the scoop on freshman English here?” I asked Mattie.

“Oh, it's a breeze,” she said, waving her hand at me. “You'll totally be fine. You like Shakespeare, right?”

“Uh, sure. ‘To be or not to be,'” I stammered, trying to remember what little I knew of Shakespeare from Miss Mallards, although I didn't actually know where I'd pulled the reference from.

“Oh, we've already done
Hamlet
. I think we're picking up with
The Merchant of Venice
, even though
Romeo and Juliet
is totally my favorite. I'm such a romantic,” she said, breaking out the bark-laugh for the second time. “Speaking of romance, are you going to go to the pizza party tonight with the Dalton boys?”

“Oh,” I said, trying to figure out how to field this one. I hadn't had time to hear Camille's list of social suicide no-no's, but if I had, I would guess that The Barker would be near the top. But as I looked at
Mattie's big grin and eagerly clasped hands, I found myself nodding. Social demarcations be damned, right? I hadn't come back to Thoney to be snotty, and I could use all the friends I could get. “Sure,” I found myself telling Mattie, “I'll be there. You should head over for some pizza, too.”

“Oh, I really wish I could, but I have to dog-sit for my neighbor's cockapoo tonight,” Mattie said, laughing so loudly that I could feel the rest of my new classmates staring at us both.

And of course, at that moment, Kennedy paraded in with Willa in a cloud of Betsey Johnson perfume. Both of them set down their corresponding Marc Jacobs leather satchels, then turned toward Mattie and me with correspondingly raised eyebrows. Somehow the room seemed quieter now that they were there, and each of my classmates was giving Kennedy and Willa the type of once-over glance that I usually reserved for models at Fashion Week.