“Civics—that’s what they call social studies here. Plus I have Honors English, Algebra II, Environmental Studies, Latin, and Chorus. You know, the usual stuff.”
Usual for a brainiac like Jess, maybe. I’m not in honors anything, and there’s no way I could do high school math and science yet, let alone Latin.
“So how’s it going?” I ask, looking around the room, which seems really nice. It’s a big corner room with windows on both sides, and there are two twin beds, two desks, two dressers, and two closets. You can tell which side of the room belongs to Jess, because she has posters of animals on the walls.
Jess shrugs. “It’s okay. I really, really miss you guys, though.”
“Have you made any new friends yet?”
“A couple.”
Jess is a whole lot less shy than she used to be, but I can imagine how hard it must be for her, starting over at a new school. It would be hard for me, and I’m not shy at all. Plus, from what Emma has told us, her roommate is not exactly friend material.
“I want to hear more about Savannah Sinclair,” I say. “Is her dad really a senator?”
Jess nods. “Uh-huh. From Georgia.”
“So what’s she like?”
“Um, she’s new this year, like me,” she replies, a little cautiously.
“And?” I prod. “Emma tells us she’s kind of a pain, right?”
Jess nods again.
“C’mon, tell her what you heard yesterday at lunch,” Emma urges.
Jess sighs. “Look, you guys, I’m really trying to make the best of this. I don’t know why on earth the school decided to stick the two of us together—Savannah is . . . she’s, well, she’s like Becca Chadwick used to be, only worse.”
“A whole lot worse,” adds Emma.
“Yeah,” Jess agrees unhappily. “Anyway, yesterday I heard some of the other girls talking, and apparently she got kicked out of her last school. I guess she flunked out. She’s here on academic probation.”
“Wow.” My grades aren’t fantastic, but even I’ve never flunked anything. Digesting this news, I cross the room to the dresser on the far side and inspect the collection of silver-framed photos displayed on it. “Is this her?” I ask, pointing to one of them.
“Yeah,” says Jess.
I pick up the picture and study it for a moment. It’s a black-and-white close-up that looks like a professional photographer took it. “Nice clothes, but she totally has a fivehead.”
Emma stares at me, shocked, then starts to laugh. “Megan, that is so mean!”
I grin. “You know I’m right, though.”
“What’s a fivehead?” asks Jess, puzzled.
I point to the picture, which shows Savannah wearing her hair swept back off her face. “Bigger than a forehead.”
Jess starts to giggle too. I pick up another picture, this one of a distinguished-looking silver-haired man and an ultra-chic blond woman. There’s something scrawled across the bottom of it, and I peer at it more closely. For our darling Savannah, from Daddy and Poppy with all our love.
“Her parents?” I ask, and Jess nods.
Across the room, the door opens and I turn to see two girls standing there. “Don’t touch my things,” commands one of them in a steely Southern accent.
I quickly set the photos back down on the dresser. Savannah Sinclair is tall, almost as tall as Cassidy, with a long mane of chestnut brown hair. She’s wearing designer jeans and the exact same dove gray T-shirt the model on the cover of the new Flashlite that’s waiting for me at home is wearing, plus really expensive boots—I know, because I saw some just like them at the mall last weekend. It’s a little too early in the season for boots, but something tells me I shouldn’t point that out to her.
“So are these the friends you’ve been telling me about, Jessica?” drawls Savannah. “From your mommy-daughter book club?” She gives Emma and me a scornful glance. “Which one is Clementine’s daughter?”
Cassidy’s mother used to be a supermodel, the kind that everybody knows just by their first name.
“Uh, Cassidy didn’t come,” Jess replies. “She’s at baseball practice. You’ve met Emma before, though, and this is Megan Wong.”
Savannah flicks her eyes up and down my uniform. “I thought you said Megan was a fashion designer.”
I feel my face flush with embarrassment.
“We came straight from school,” says Emma defensively. “We didn’t have time to change.”
“I would die before I’d go to a school that made me wear something like that,” says Savannah, folding her arms across her chest and leaning against the doorway. “Wouldn’t you, Peyton?”
“Absolutely,” agrees her friend.
The five of us stand there, glaring at one another, until Emma grabs her backpack. “Time to go,” she tells Jess and me, and we grab our things and stalk out of the room behind her.
“Fivehead,” I whisper, but only when we’re safely out of earshot. It’s hard to hurl a good comeback at someone like Savannah when you’re wearing something as ridiculous as I am. “Sheesh, Jess, how can you stand her?”
“I don’t have a choice,” Jess says gloomily. “We’re stuck with the roommate they assign us for the whole year. Some stupid school philosophy about learning to get along with others.”
“With Savannah Sinclair?” I reply. “Good luck.”
“Too bad Becca and Cassidy aren’t here,” Emma says. “They’d have cut her down to size.”
We cheer up at this thought, and, laughing about what our friends might have said or done, the three of us head across town toward Lowell Road, and Mr. Hawthorne’s waiting meat loaf.
Cassidy
“Nothing so fosters facility in literary expression as letter writing.”
—Daddy-Long-Legs
“So Jess, how’s it going at Colonial Academy?” asks my mom.
Our whole Mother-Daughter Book Club—except for the Chadwicks, who are late—is crammed into the Hawthornes’ little kitchen, getting ready for our first meeting of fall. We’re having a potluck supper—potluck because Mrs. Hawthorne joked that no one would come if she offered to do the cooking. Emma’s dad is away for the weekend at some football jamboree with Emma’s older brother, Darcy.
Jess’s eyes slide over to Emma and Megan and me. “Um, okay I guess.”
Which isn’t exactly true. Jess likes her classes, and she’s made a couple of new friends, but she really, really doesn’t like rooming with Savannah Sinclair. I haven’t met her yet, but from what Emma and Megan have told me, Savannah’s main goal in life seems to be to make Jess miserable. She’s constantly making snarky comments about her clothes, which—let’s face it—can’t compete with a senator’s daughter’s wardrobe, not that that should matter. It didn’t help that Jess accidentally wore her barn jacket back to the dorm last Sunday night after being home over the weekend. I guess Savannah kicked up a huge fuss and complained to their housemother about how stinky Jess was and how she couldn’t possibly be expected to share a room with a girl like her. Emma did a funny impression of Savannah’s tantrum at our lunch table yesterday, complete with Southern accent, but even though I laughed, it still made me mad. Jess has been through enough in that department, what with the way Becca and her wannabees used to call her “Goat Girl.”
“Jess is still settling in, aren’t you, honey?” Mrs. Delaney says as she arranges a platter of crackers and goat cheese and fresh vegetables from their farm. “Her father and I are very proud of her, though. It takes a lot of courage to try something new—especially a new school. But of course it’s a wonderful opportunity.”
Mrs. Wong nods. “Wonderful,” she agrees, taking some plastic wrap off a bowl of brown and green noodles. It’s probably supposed to be a salad, but you can never tell with Mrs. Wong. She’s always bringing weird stuff. For all I know, it’s dessert. She glances over at Megan and sighs deeply. It’s no secret that Mrs. Wong always wanted Megan to go to Colonial Academy.
Megan picks
up a carrot stick. “Don’t get any ideas, Mom,” she says, reading her thoughts. “Besides, it’s not like I could get in with my grades.”
I grin at her. Unlike Jess, who’s practically a prodigy, and Emma, who’s pretty smart, too, except for math, Megan and I are probably tied for bottom place in our class. Maybe not quite the bottom, but let’s just say our report cards aren’t the kind that parents stick on the refrigerator.
“So,” says Mrs. Hawthorne, “tells us about your roommate, Jess.”
Jess fidgets with her long blond braid, letting her gaze wander around the room. She loves the Hawthornes’ pink kitchen. I’m not a big fan of pink—too girly—but even I have to admit it’s kind of cheerful. Emma’s dad is always threatening to sneak down in the middle of the night and paint it some other color. “Something more manly,” he says, arguing that he’s really entitled, since he does all the cooking. But he only says it to tease Mrs. Hawthorne. This is her dream kitchen and he knows it. Mrs. Hawthorne got the idea from a house she stayed at in England when she was a college student. It had a pink kitchen, and she decided that when she had a house of her own someday, she’d paint her kitchen walls that color too.
“Jess?” says Mrs. Delaney. “Mrs. Hawthorne asked you a question.”
“Sorry,” Jess replies, snapping out of her daydream. Jess drifts off like that sometimes. I always figure she’s solving equations or something.
Jess looks over at Emma’s mother and smiles politely. “My roommate’s name is Savannah Sinclair.”
“Do you like her?”
“Um . . .” She hesitates, and looks over at Emma and Megan and me again.
How could she even begin to explain Savannah Sinclair? Like us, Savannah is in the eighth grade. But unlike us, Savannah comes from a Very Distinguished Family. We know this because she’s told Jess so at least seventy-five times already. To hear Savannah tell it, she says, the Sinclairs not only came over on the Mayflower but actually built it, and then single-handedly founded the United States once they landed on Plymouth Rock, which they seem to have had a hand in placing conveniently near the shore too.
“Savannah’s father is a senator,” Mrs. Delaney tells our moms. “From Georgia.”
Mrs. Wong raises her eyebrows. “Oh,” she says. “That Sinclair. Wow. Well, I’m sure it will be very educational rooming with his daughter. You’ll learn a lot.”
Jess shrugs. So far, all she’s learned from Savannah is that she was right about Colonial Academy. The students are a bunch of rich snobs.
“Cassidy, would you open these for me?” asks my mother, passing me a paper bag full of plastic containers. She puts the slow cooker we brought onto the counter and plugs it in.
“Mmmm,” says Mrs. Hawthorne, lifting the lid and taking an appreciative sniff. “It smells fantastic, Clementine. What is it?”
“Tortilla soup,” my mother replies. “We’re taping the Super Bowl special this week, and I thought this would be a fun alternative for viewers to the traditional corn-dogs-and-nachos junk-food binge.”
My mother has her own TV show—Cooking with Clementine. It’s kind of a hassle, because our house is the set, and there are always film crew people around redecorating everything, depending on what season is the focus of each episode. But the food really helps make up for it.
“It has a vegetarian base,” my mother continues, going into full TV-host mode. She smiles at Mrs. Wong. “That’s for you, Lily.” Megan’s mom doesn’t eat meat, or much of anything else for that matter, and what she does eat has to be organic and natural and all that stuff. “Then I brought toppings for us to choose from. There’s chicken, and shrimp, and grated cheese, and avocado, and corn, and cilantro. Oh, and tortilla strips, of course.”
My stomach growls. “Can we eat soon?” I beg. “I’m starving!”
“Me too,” echoes Emma. “I wish Becca and her mother would hurry up and get here.”
Right on cue, the doorbell rings. Emma races down the hall to answer it. We can hear her talking to the Chadwicks, and then—
“Let the party begin!” cries Mrs. Chadwick, flinging her hands into the air and striking a pose as she makes a grand entrance.
There’s a shocked silence as we all turn and stare. Becca slinks in behind her.
“Do you like it?” Mrs. Chadwick asks, twirling around. She’s draped in some sort of a flowy leopard-print top over black leggings, and it swishes out as she spins. Melville, the Hawthorne’s cat, runs for cover.
“Uh . . .,” my mother begins.
“It’s a whole new me, right?” trills Mrs. Chadwick.
“You can say that again,” I mutter under my breath, and my mother shoots me a warning look.
“I took Stewart down to New York for his first modeling gig over the weekend,” Mrs. Chadwick continues. “They call photo shoots ‘gigs,’ you know.”
My mother raises an eyebrow. “You don’t say,” she notes drily. She used to be a model, a really famous one, before my sister and I came along, and before Dad died and before we moved here to Concord and she got her own TV show. “How did it go?”
Stewart Chadwick is Becca’s older brother, and Emma’s boyfriend—well, sort of. Emma keeps saying they’re just friends, but I’ve spotted them holding hands a few times when they don’t think anybody’s looking. Stewart’s kind of dorky, but last spring, when we put on a fashion show to help raise money to pay the taxes on Jess’s family’s farm, he got “discovered,” as they call it, by the editors at Flash magazine. Now he’s working part-time as a model for their teen spin-off, Flashlite.
“Wolfgang said Stewart handled it like a pro,” Mrs. Chadwick brags. “He was a bit overwhelmed at first, you know, but he’s a Chadwick and we Chadwicks are made of stern stuff.”
Very stern, I mouth to Jess, whose lips quirk up in a smile. Mrs. Chadwick is known around Concord for her sharp tongue.
“Anyway, I had a chat with Wolfgang afterward, and he gave me some fashion advice.”
Wolfgang is the fashion director at Flash, one of the magazines my mom used to work for. My sister, Courtney, calls him “Mr. Hip.” I can only imagine what he thought of Mrs. Chadwick.
“He convinced me that I needed a new look,” Mrs. Chadwick continues.
“New look” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Becca’s mother’s blond hair used to be poufed up into one of those bouffant things that look sort of like a football helmet, one you maybe take off at night and set on the bedside table. Now it’s about two inches long and spiked up all over her head. She looks like a porcupine. A really big porcupine. Mrs. Chadwick has been working out more—she’s in the same yoga class now with all our moms—but she’s still on the large side.
“It’s very, um, fresh,” says Mrs. Delaney politely.
“Fun,” adds Mrs. Hawthorne.
“Quirky,” offers Mrs. Wong.
“Lively,” echoes my mother.
Emma elbows me in the side. Our mothers are playing the synonym game. The Hawthornes invented it—they play it at dinner all the time. Emma’s family is crazy about books and words and stuff. I guess that’s what happens when your mom’s a librarian and your dad’s a writer. Kind of like the way my mom talks about fashion and food and decorating all the time. Only I’m not crazy about that stuff at all and we haven’t made up a game about it.
Mrs. Chadwick doesn’t seem to notice. She laughs, a strange tinkling sound compared to her usual foghorn guffaw. “Wolfgang says I need to connect with my playful side.”
She bats her pale, robin’s-egg-blue eyes. Emma’s father says that in addition to her temper, Mrs. Chadwick has a piercing gaze that can pin a poor unsuspecting sap to the wall at forty paces. Right now, though, that gaze is peeking out at us from behind a pair of glasses whose leopard-print pattern matches her shirt. I squint at her. And are those rhinestones sparkling in the corners of the frames?
My mom is biting her lip. I can tell she’s trying not to smile. Mrs. Hawthorne and Mrs. Delaney suddenly get really busy rearranging
the crackers on the platter. Becca looks like she wants to crawl under the kitchen table. It must be hard having someone like Calliope Chadwick for your mother. Especially the new and improved Calliope Chadwick.
New and improved Calliope Chadwick turns to her daughter. “Smile, Becca,” she barks, sounding more like her old self.
Becca jumps, startled, then bares her teeth at us.
“You got your braces off!” exclaims Mrs. Wong.
Becca gives us a real smile this time. “Yeah.”
“Congratulations!” says Mrs. Hawthorne. “I remember when Darcy got his off—it was a big deal.”
I slap Becca a high five. “No more metalmouth!”
“And you’ve done something with your hair, too,” notes my mother. She puts a finger under Becca’s chin, turning her head this way and that. “Highlights?”
Becca nods.
“Flatiron?”
Becca nods again.
My mother nods back approvingly. “Very nice.”
Becca looks ridiculously pleased. I guess for some people, getting a compliment from a former supermodel is a big deal. I frown, looking at Becca’s hair. I honestly can’t tell the difference. It looks the same as always to me. But then, I’m about as clueless about anything to do with fashion as, well, Mrs. Chadwick. Okay, maybe not that bad.
Mrs. Chadwick puts a big round loaf of bread on the counter. “I picked up some sourdough for us from Nashoba Brook Bakery.”
My stomach growls again. “Can we eat now?” I plead.
“Cassidy Ann,” warns my mother. “Manners!”
“No, no, she’s right—we’re all hungry,” says Mrs. Hawthorne. She passes a bowl to Mrs. Chadwick. “You first, glamour-puss. We can continue our conversation in the dining room.”
I get in line at the counter with Emma, who makes goggle-eyes at me behind her mother’s back. “Glamour-puss?” she whispers.
I extend my fingers like claws and paw at the air, growling softly. We start to snicker.
“Shut up,” snaps Becca.
We take our bowls into the dining room, where Emma has made a big WELCOME BACK TO BOOK CLUB—YEAR THREE! banner and hung it between the front windows. Once we’re seated, Mrs. Hawthorne turns to the Chadwicks. “We were discussing Jess’s first month at Colonial Academy,” she tells them.