Kristen (4 page)

It was far from the reaction Kristen had been hoping for, but it wasn’t the one she’d feared either. Once again she was unsure of where she stood. And once again she would have to straddle both sides until she could figure it out.

THE PINEWOOD

KRISTEN’S ROOM

Saturday, July 18

9:13 A.M.

Kristen woke up in her white Pottery Barn twin bed spooning David Beckham. Her top arm rose and fell with his breath, a gentle rhythm like the lazy sway of a hammock. It had offered her solace many times in the past. Like the time she’d gotten a super-short boy cut. Or when she’d gotten kicked out of OCD. And even a few weeks ago, after her parents had announced she’d be spending another boring summer at home. But this morning, no matter how hard she side-hugged her fluffy white Persian kitty, Kristen could not get rid of the churn in her stomach. In fact, every time she thought about her visit to GAS Park it got bigger. But why? Was it:

A) Her inability to be instantly adored by Dune’s friends?

B) Dune’s failure to hint at follow-up plans when they’d parted ways?

C) Skye Hamilton’s Dune-or-die attitude?

D) Skye Hamilton and her good-luck-competing-with-my-hotness confidence?

E) Knowing that Dune would be at the country club in less than two hours flirting with Skye Hamilton and the DSL Daters?

F) Not having any plans on her day off?

G) All of the above.

The answer was clear. It was G, all of the above. And choosing G meant texting M, aysap.

Kristen lifted her arm off David Beckham and palm-patted her night table. She knuckle-bumped her hard copy of
The Daring Book for Girls
, an empty bottle of Vitamin Water, the base of her lime-green lamp, which matched the painted walls perfectly, and finally, her black Razr. Sitting up, she pulled David Beckham onto her lap, pushed back the sleeves of her A&F periwinkle blue sleep shirt, and flipped open her phone. Her thumbs took care of the rest.

K:
crush x 10 on Dune Baxter. Skye 2. How do I win?

Kristen dragged her gold locket from one side of the chain to the other while she waited for a response. Did she sound too desperate? Too insecure? Too—

Ping.

M:
Dune the SURFER?

K:
Y!

Ping.

M:
Is he endorsed?

K:
N.

Ping.

M:
Rich parents?

K:
N.

Ping.

M:
Then Dune’s done.

Ping.

M:
Dune = D-EW-N

Ping.

M:
Wave goodbye.

Ping.

M:
Get it?

“Ugh!”
Kristen snapped her phone shut and self-pity-whipped it across the room. It landed in the middle of her sea blue beanbag with a thud-hiss.

Gawd!
How many expensive lattes had she sipped listening to Massie talk about Derrington and Chris Abeley? And how insulting was it to dismiss Dune as a crush candidate just because he was ATM-challenged. Especially knowing Kristen was on scholarship. It was more un
fair
than Dune’s deeply tanned skin.

Even if Kristen
wanted
to turn to her mother for advice—which she didn’t, because she would be told to avoid boys and stay focused on work and school so she could learn to thrive in this world without a man—she couldn’t. Marsha Gregory was at Costco. And her father, Ray, was on a golf trip in Miami working on some potential new business venture. A trip that Marsha swore would be his last as a walking man if he didn’t return with a signed contract big enough to get them out of debt after his last “potential new business venture.”

There was only one place left to turn.

Kristen closed her bedroom door. Lowered her bamboo shades. Yanked her mother’s old yellow dishwashing gloves out from under her mattress and slid them on. Then she crouched beside David Beckham’s kitty litter box, dug in, and pulled out Dylan’s white hand-me-down MacBook. Tiny powder-scented rocks fell away to the sides and split like Demi Moore’s middle part. But the thick Saran Wrap coating kept the secret computer preserved and protected from feline waste. Not that it was necessary. David Beckham was fully potty trained and hadn’t used the box for years. Not even when he had had that bladder infection over Easter.

Under the dark cover of her blue and green polka-dot duvet, Kristen powered up the old laptop. It inhaled deeply, then whirred to life like an asthmatic. She unfastened a black code key from the tiny Velcro straps she’d secretly attached on the wall side of her bed. Then she flipped the face of her silver Guess Carousel watch over to its LCD screen side. As soon as the red flashes came, she inserted the code key into the computer’s USB port, then held up her wrist.

Beep, beep, beep.

Kristen pulled out the key and breathed a sigh of relief as the watch screen flashed.
SIGNAL SENT
.

Help was on the way.

THE PINEWOOD

KRISTEN’S BEDROOM

Saturday, July 18

10:07 A.M.

Transformation took thirty-four seconds. That was three seconds faster than last time. And it gave Kristen a chance to check her costume in the mirror before
they
arrived.

“Good morning, Cleopatra,” she greeted her reflection with a proud smile. It was too bad she couldn’t wear the black bob-with-bangs wig in public, because it really brought out the green in her eyes. And the white goddess dress dripping with gold chains showed off her toned shoulders. The creamy blue eye shadow would have looked better had Kristen’s cheeks not been bright red from yesterday’s sunburn. But the gold headband with the snake emblem pulled attention away from her face and drew it up, toward her royal brain. And
that
was her most important asset. Because Kristen Gregory was the alpha of the ultra-exclusive Witty Committee.

She had founded the secret underground organization last June after her first week of gifted extra-credit summer classes. The Pretty Committee was gone. Soccer was done until September. The
New York Times
crossword puzzle just wasn’t challenging anymore. And she was so emotional that repeat episodes of
The Hills
were moving her to tears. She was hovering over that place—right before rock bottom—where she could either rise up and turn her life around or fall flat on her face.

Around the same time, her teacher, Ms. Lobe, asked all five students in the class to write a paper on a gifted person—living or dead—whom they admired most. Kristen had picked the queen of Egypt.

Cleopatra had learned how to speak Egyptian (hard times ten) and was the leader of an empire, the mother of four, and hawt! Not even Angelina Jolie could claim all of that. Her other classmates had picked their favorites, and for the rest of the week they’d had to come to class in costume in order to
be
their alphas. It was the most fun Kristen had ever had. Even more fun than Massie’s Friday night sleepover where they’d photographed Bean in eight different bikinis and e-mailed the shots to
Teen Vogue
.

When the exercise had ended and life had returned to normal, a heavy listlessness had weighed on the students like a humid afternoon. Without exchanging a single word or glance with her classmates, Kristen could sense that for them, as for her, a part of them had died.

But without the excuse of “class assignment” or “Halloween costume,” no one dared go out in public dressed as their favorite Gifted, unless of course they wanted their house wrapped in Cottonelle by snickering neighborhood kids. And that was nothing compared to what Massie and the Pretty Committee would do to Kristen if they discovered she enjoyed dressing up with LBRs more than shopping with the PC.

So for now, and probably forever, the Witty Committee would be Kristen’s biggest secret. Biggest savior. And biggest joy. When they were together, money and looks didn’t matter. Brains did. And the only other place on the planet like that was the Genius Bar at the Mac Store. It was
that
rare.

“THE COMMITTEE IS ASSEMBLED,” announced the computer-generated voice from the speaker on Dylan’s white ex-MacBook.

Kristen hurried away from the mirror, sat on her bed, and propped the computer up on her lap.

The screen was divided into quarters, each quadrant containing one of the members’ faces. (Bill Gates’s idea, obvs.)

“Thank you for gathering,” Kristen told her betas, starting into the eye of her MacBook. “What do we stand for?”

“BOB,” they answered.

“And what does BOB stand for?” Kristen asked.

“Brains over beauty!”

She smile-nodded at each one of them, then proceeded, before they were interrupted and forced to demobilize.

“I’m in crush conflict,” she whispered, leaning in toward the screen.

Bill Gates took off his glasses and thumb-rubbed his eyes. Behind him was a poster that read
MEGABYTE ME!

“I tutor-sit a surf girl named Ripple who hired me to teach her math, but only because she wants to know about Massie. I was going to quit, but then I met her brother. And he’s a ten.”

Danh Bondok/Bill Gates started blinking rapidly. His fluttering black lashes revealed a yearlong crush on Kristen. But inter-committee relationships were forbidden, a rule she’d instated last Valentine’s Day after Dahn sent her e-roses and figured out a way to make their sweet smell waft out of her computer.

“He’s a surfer/skater who’s totally down-to-earth and loyal to his friends.”

“Loyalty is an important quality in a mate.” Rachel Walker/Oprah grinned peacefully.

“I
know
.” Kristen beamed, feeling proud of her boy-choice. “He’s anti-OCDiva, which had me scared at first, but I was doing a good job of showing him the
other
me,” Kristen’s cheeks turned red with shame as she suddenly realized the
other
her was actually the
real
her. “And he was into it, until a blond alpha named Skye Hamilton came along and invited him to hang at the country club. A place he says he
hates
.”

“Then
why
did he accept her invitation?” Oprah put her thumb under her chin and leaned forward in anticipation of the answer.

“A chemical we produce called pheromones may be at play here,” explained Layne Abeley/Einstein. “He may not be able to control his attraction. It’s quite possibly physiological.”

Kristen huffed. She didn’t want the case closed so quickly and resented Einstein’s theory.

“I think he may have a crush on her. But he
claims
he wants to check out the pool for a prank.”

They looked confused.

“He wants to drain it, skate it, then fill it back up with Jell-O,” Kristen explained, and then wished she could take it back. Her crush was coming off as a tool bag, and she didn’t want the Witty Committee to lose respect for her. But if anyone understood fools in love, it would be the girl on the lower right of her screen. “Shakespeare, what should I do? How do I turn this love triangle into a heart?”

Aimee Snyder/Shakespeare cleared her throat and straightened her bald-in-front, curly-in-the-back wig. “Let’s start by clarifying the true nature of a love triangle.”