Thinking about Gaby would probably make tonight even harder. So I forced a bright tone as I responded to Joshua.
“Making new friends. At Kaylen Patton’s house. Yay.” Just for effect, I shook my fists in a fake little cheer.
“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” he said drily. “But you promised to show up to this sleepover. And ‘show up’ means you actually have to show up. No going invisible.”
I sighed heavily. Then, since my feet were already dangling over the edge, I slid myself fully off of the daybed and turned around to face him. I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jean skirt—borrowed from Jillian—and gave him a small smile.
Joshua, however, didn’t return my smile. He studied me, suddenly serious, and even a little . . . sad, maybe. Then he reached out to let his palm hover by my cheek, almost as though he could cup it.
“You know,” he said softly, “that I’d give just about anything to touch you again?”
I didn’t trust myself to answer him aloud. Not without my voice cracking. So I just nodded. We stayed silent for another beat, until he cleared his throat.
“Have fun tonight.”
All I could manage was a rough “I’ll try.”
Before I did something I’d regret, like lean into his hand and pretend, just for a second, that this wasn’t our new normal, I spun around and raced out of the gazebo.
Chapter
THREE
Cramped into Jillian’s tiny car and listening to yet another generic hip-hop song, I couldn’t quite believe I’d left my gorgeous boyfriend sitting on an equally gorgeous bed . . . for this.
Before leaving the Mayhews’ house, Jillian had forced me to try on about a hundred different outfits until I looked presentable. It was ridiculous, considering the fact that most items in my wardrobe once (and sort of still) belonged to the most famous actress in America. Next came an inch-thick layer of makeup, something I’d stopped wearing the day Gaby disappeared. Worst of all, Jillian spent most of our drive lecturing me on how to behave once we reached Kaylen’s house. Which made me wonder—yet again—why I’d been invited in the first place.
“And another thing,” Jillian continued, “you need to treat Kaylen’s mom with a lot of respect. Like, a lot.”
I turned away from my open window, back toward the interior of the car so that Jillian could see my exasperation.
“What do you think I’m going to do, Jill, run naked through her living room?”
Jillian laughed, but she began to drum her fingers nervously against the steering wheel. “It’s not that I think you’re going to do something stupid. It’s just that I’m trying to, you know, prepare you.”
“For what, the Miss Wilburton pageant?”
“Something like that,” Jillian muttered.
Before I could ask her what she meant, Kaylen’s house came into view, and I was momentarily struck speechless.
The home was absolutely enormous—at least three stories tall, maybe four. But the building’s most striking quality wasn’t its size. Its façade boasted every imaginable architectural element: columns, balconies, copper awnings, weather vanes. Best of all, two life-sized statues of lions flanked the double front doors. It was a triumph of wealth and excess.
“Whoa,” I eventually managed. “It kind of looks like Better Homes and Gardens threw up all over this place.”
“Yeah,” Jillian said, pulling her car onto the circular driveway. “This is what we call a McMansion.”
I let out a low whistle and stared up at the house while Jillian parked alongside several other cars. We kept quiet, almost reverential as we removed our overnight bags from the trunk and made the long walk to the front porch.
Finally, standing between the stone lions and waiting for someone to answer the doorbell, Jillian broke our silence with a torrent of words.
“Okay, so Mr. Patton is an oil guy and a state senator,” Jillian hissed in a rushed whisper. “So he’s gone, like, all the time. That leaves Mrs. Patton alone a lot with Kaylen and all this money. And, well, Mrs. Patton is a former Miss Oklahoma, which should mean that she’s super nice. But in Mrs. Patton’s case—”
At that moment, the front door swung open to reveal Kaylen, unbelievably glammed up and looking regal in the marble-tiled foyer. Except the person standing in the doorway wasn’t Kaylen. She was at least six inches taller, not counting her five-inch stilettos. That also left out the four inches of gravity-defying hair, which had been sprayed into some complicated blond sculpture. All that height made her look superhuman, like some sort of suburban goddess.
“Jillian, sweetie, don’t you look pretty,” she cooed, pointing to Jillian’s block-print dress and wedge heels. Then Mrs. Patton raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow and assessed me coolly, before breaking into a high-wattage smile.
“You must be Jillian’s little friend,” she said, offering me a handshake full of bedazzled fingernails. I took an instinctive step back to avoid the nontouch, and her smile dropped.
“Sorry,” I offered lamely. “I, um, have a cold.”
I offered a weak cough as evidence, using my shaking hand to cover it. Then I waved that hand as if to say, See? Germ-ridden.
Mrs. Patton’s upper lip curled in disgust and she, too, took a step backward. Then she composed that lip curl into something that was only slightly less repulsed.
“You poor thing. Why don’t y’all just come on inside?”
She waved us into the entryway, gestured vaguely to a grand, curving staircase, and told us that the other girls were in the theater room on the third floor. Then she hurried away on her ridiculous heels, fleeing what she clearly assumed was the black death.
Now I realized why Jillian had demanded a fashion show before we left. And why we were wearing designer labels to a party that should have been filled with sweatpants and junk food.
I snorted as Jillian and I started up the stairs. “You have to admit, this explains so much about Kaylen.”
“Doesn’t it though?” Jillian murmured. “I told you, Kaylen is an okay person—she’s just a little . . . skewed.”
“I can see why. She’s living with a grade-A pageant mom.”
“Aw, who’s afraid of tiaras and mascara? We’ve fought demons.”
“I’ve fought demons,” I corrected. “You fought a crazed psycho killer with some serious girl issues.”
“To-may-to, to-mah-to.” Jillian waved her hand dismissively.
After what felt like a thousand miles of stairs and hallway, Jillian paused outside a set of red double doors. She’d just reached for one of the handles when both doors swung open and Kaylen came bounding out into the hall.
“Jill!” she squealed, enveloping her friend in a bear hug to which Jillian responded with an awkward back pat.
I’d always thought of Kaylen as something of a princess. But tonight, in stark contrast to her mother, she appeared in a set of comfortable-looking pajamas.
“So, Jill, I got those hot Cheetos you like even though they make everyone else want to puke.” She abruptly shifted her attention to me. “And you’re Amelia, right? Josh’s secret new girlfriend?”
Now that took me aback. All I could do was stutter, “Uh . . . y-yeah. I guess I am.”
I thought I’d have to dance around this issue for hours—maybe suffer a few sly, catty comments in the process. But Kaylen just came right out and addressed the elephant in the room.
“Not so secret anymore,” she noted, before I could say anything else. “Anyway, come on in—the other girls are already here.”
She started to wave us inside, grinning.
“You got all done up for Mom, right?” Kaylen asked. “Don’t worry: you can go ahead and change into your comfies in the powder bath.”
“Thanks,” Jillian breathed, immediately slipping her feet out of her tall wedges. Then she and I hefted up our bags and followed Kaylen inside.
The theater room matched the house perfectly: overdone, with heavy red drapes and gold tassels ever
ywhere. The only difference was that this room looked a little friendlier with the addition of a rom-com on the big screen and a few pajama-clad girls gathered beneath it.
I’d seen them before, following Kaylen and Jillian around Wilburton High. One of them—a strawberry blonde with a sharp nose and pale green eyes—hung back in the semicircle of theater chairs and arranged bowls of junk food on a low table. The other two girls approached us, both sporting messy sets of pigtails. Slumber-party couture, I guess.
“Nice dress, Jill,” one teased, flipping an ashy brown pigtail. “Are you going to a fancy horse race?”
“Are you running in one?” Jillian shot back, but she grinned warmly and gave her friend a playful shove. Then she moved toward the bathroom, apparently to change. Without looking back, Jillian wiggled her fingers over her shoulder. “I’m going to go un-Derby myself. See you in a sec.”
As soon as the door clicked shut, the third girl moved closer to me. Too close, actually, almost like a shark. Her smirk wasn’t necessarily hostile—in fact, it looked sort of pretty against her deeply tanned skin—but it made me uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.
“So,” she said archly. “You’re Amelia?”
It was as if those three words were some kind of signal. All at once, the entire room seemed to focus on me. Each girl moved in concert, angling herself toward me like a missile seeking its target.
After a long, uncertain pause, I nodded and cleared my throat. “And all of you are . . . ?”
“Chelsea Qualls,” the ashy brunette offered, and then pointed behind her to the redhead. “That’s Elyse Richards.”
“And I’m Mya Homma.”
The girl with the deeply tanned skin and black hair waved at me, a gesture that I wasn’t sure whether to read as snarky or friendly. For lack of anything better to do, I waved back.
“Hi. I’m Amelia Ashley. I’m dating Joshua Mayhew. I enjoy competitive figure skating and long walks on the beach.”
The other girls laughed, relaxing by separate degrees. One by one, they each shifted away from me. Sensing that the attack was over, I smiled at them as genuinely as I could and reminded myself that I’d faced far scarier things than a roomful of teenage girls in judgment mode.
Still, when Jillian exited the powder bath, I took the opportunity to excuse myself to change—and breathe easier for the first time since we’d entered the room. Maybe even the house.
Chapter
FOUR
An hour later, the awkward, interrogation-themed tension had almost dissipated. I guess a few peanut butter M&M’s and more than a few sips of stolen wine just had that effect on people. It also didn’t hurt when Jillian told them that my pajamas were previously worn by the actress now prancing around in the chick flick that we were only half watching.
“I can totally see the resemblance,” Mya said, using a bottle of Mrs. Patton’s finest merlot to draw an invisible line between the woman on the screen and me.
“Yeah,” I muttered awkwardly. “My famous aunt just loves to share her outdated clothes.”
“Outdated?” Chelsea breathed. “They’re freaking gorgeous. Is that silk?”
Chelsea sat in the chair next to mine, and she moved forward to touch my sleeve. Without thinking, I yanked my arm back before she had the chance. Jillian must have seen the small, insulted O that Chelsea’s mouth made, because she darted forward.
“Amelia has touch issues,” Jillian said defensively, leaning around me. “You know, like a phobia.”
“Oh.” Chelsea gave me a smile that was equal parts polite and weirded-out. Kaylen, however, looked intrigued.
“Really?” she asked. She sat up straighter in her chair. “How does that work, exactly? With Joshua, I mean.”
My mouth started flapping open and closed like a fish’s. How did I even begin to answer that? Luckily, before I had to craft some believable lie, Jillian faked a loud yawn.
“Bor-ring,” she grumbled. “New subject, guys. Please.”
I could have kissed her. Instead, I gave her a sly wink of gratitude.
“Okay,” Kaylen said. “No more phobia talk. How about a game of truth-or-dare?”
Jillian and I shouted no at the same time, almost as loudly as Chelsea, Mya, and Elyse cheered yes. With the rest of the party on her side, Kaylen grinned triumphantly.
“Four against two. It’s totally happening.”
I groaned loudly and glanced at Jillian. She shrugged, as if to say, No use fighting this. I sank into my plush seat, waiting until the very last minute to join the other girls in the cross-legged circle they’d formed around the coffee table. Once there, I folded my arms and prepared myself for the inevitable questions from Kaylen. But to my surprise, Mya jumped in with the first challenge.
“Truth or dare, Jilly?”
Obviously Jillian hadn’t expected that, either. She blinked a few times and then said, “Uh . . . truth, I guess.”
Mya exchanged meaningful looks with Chelsea and Elyse before turning back to Jillian. “Are you in love with Scott Conner?” Mya asked bluntly.
Jillian blinked even faster, as did I.
I knew that Joshua’s quiet friend Scott liked Jillian; his feelings were written all over his face, every time he looked at her. But I had no idea that Jillian might feel something for Scott in return, especially not after her misguided crush on Kade LaLaurie this winter.
Now, watching the red stain of a blush creep up her neck, I knew it must be true: Jillian liked Scott back.
“No,” Jillian muttered, after far too long a pause. “Of course I don’t like Scott. He’s like . . . a brother to me, or something. And he’s not even that cute. I’m mean—floppy hair is over, right?”
Instead of answering her, the other girls whooped and laughed in triumph.
“Liar!” Elyse crowed. “You do! You totally like him.”
Chelsea pointed an accusatory finger at Jillian. “You’ve got a crush on your big brother’s bestie. Admit it.”
“No,” Jillian spat. She chucked an M&M at Chelsea, who caught it deftly and popped it into her mouth. Somehow, this offended Jillian even more. She folded her arms over her chest and scowled at her friends.
“Fine. So I sort of like Scott, okay? I didn’t used to. But after we got back from Christmas break, he just . . . he started to look better to me. Cuter. Funnier.”
I heard what Jillian didn’t say: that Scott Conner, compared to a creep like Kade LaLaurie, looked like Prince Charming. Not that Scott needed the comparison—he’d always been a nice guy. But now, Jillian actually valued that quality. I couldn’t wait to tell Joshua.
Jillian’s girlfriends, however, continued to tease her mercilessly. And for once, she couldn’t seem to muster up any sharp comebacks. So she scowled harder and flopped angrily against the footrest of a theater chair.
“Traitors,” she hissed halfheartedly, after the last bit of laughter quieted. Then she turned to Kaylen. “Don’t think you’re going to get out of this, just because I’m embarrassed now. Truth or dare, Kaylen?”
Kaylen flashed everyone a smug half grin. “I always take the dare. You know that.”
“Oh, I know.” Jillian grinned back, but her smile wasn’t a happy one. “That’s why I already have your dare picked out.”
“Bring it, Jilly.” Kaylen curled her fists and flexed her arms into a strongman position. “I’m not afraid.”
When I saw Jillian’s smirk, I wondered whether Kaylen should have been.
“Okay, if you’re so brave, then why don’t you go get us another bottle of your mom’s wine?”
Kaylen had already started to beam confidently, when Jillian added, “And one of her old pageant tiaras. A big one. Which you will wear for the rest of the night.”
The other girls started cackling, but Kaylen paled faintly. I would bet anything that those tiaras, with all their sharp edges and cold sparkle, represented the worst of Kaylen’s fears. Just the thought of stealing one had her broken out in a visible sweat.
/> Despite the jealousy I’d felt toward Kaylen, despite the fact that she’d thrown herself at my boyfriend last fall, I suddenly wanted to protect her. To keep her from risking her mother’s wrath, and from having to see another tiara again, if she didn’t want to.
“Jillian, I think that’s one too many dares.”
I spoke as quietly as possible, but the other girls heard me. As Kaylen watched me, something in her eyes shifted from desperate to hopeful.
“Actually,” I went on, keeping my eyes trained on Kaylen’s, “I know that’s one too many dares. Kaylen will probably get caught stealing the tiara. And if she has to steal something, I’d rather have the wine.”
Faced with a choice between the humiliation of their queen bee and more booze, the crowd quickly chose the latter. As if to demonstrate, Elyse grabbed the bottle from Chelsea’s hand and tilted it back, draining the last few ounces.
“More wine, more wine,” she began to chant softly, once she’d finished off the bottle.
As Kaylen pushed herself up from the floor, her feigned look of boredom barely hid her obvious relief.
“Okay, okay,” she said, moving toward the doors. “I’ll get us another bottle.”
“Two,” Jillian called out, just before the doors clicked shut. Then she whipped around toward me.
“Thanks a lot, Amelia,” she said, dragging out my name sarcastically.
I shrugged, unbothered by the fact that I’d spoiled Jillian’s plans. It was just too bad if she momentarily hated me for it. I’d lost too many friendships to let Jillian ruin one of her own. Besides, Kaylen might be needy and a little self-absorbed, but that didn’t mean she deserved cruelty.
There was enough of it in the afterlife, I’d learned.
Oblivious to my motives, Jillian turned back to her friends, effectively cutting me out of the conversation. I shook my head and smiled.
Oh, Jillian. You are nothing if not yourself.
I settled against the foot of my chair, satisfied to listen in silence for a while. Whether or not I would make friends with these girls tonight, perhaps I’d found an ally in Kaylen.