Blythe looked approvingly at her chicken in a bun with a side of fries. “I’m thinking this place is a seven. If our old school was, like, a three.”
“Did you hear what I said?” I frowned.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes. We’ve been at this school for four hours and you already have a crush.”
“I met him yesterday,” I said, knowing this was as much encouragement as Blythe was capable of. “Fine. Your talking time.” She hesitated for a single second before it all fell out: she hated her honors lab partner, which alone accounted for Rolly being a seven and not an eight. She loved her bio teacher, the Guru, who wore aloha shirts. Then she paraphrased his lecture until I made her stop.
“Four hours, and you already have a teacher crush?” I teased.
“More like four minutes,” she said. “It was my first class.” We laughed, but it was short-lived. The quad was crowded, and there was no sign of Kai. I searched the picnic tables (made of fancy hewn wood Maryann Interiors would appreciate), but they were packed with guys in navy team jackets and girls in pale sweaters. It was very Bay Area, with a mix of people of lots of different races and hair colors—but none of them blue. Or lavender stripes, like the underside of Blythe’s. And their clothes. It was like the unofficial dress code was pastel color wheel. And everyone held textbooks; it didn’t matter if they had a big ’fro or a sleek ponytail, or were wearing navy or a petal pink, they had a book. We’d been warned about the rigorous motto in the office: “Achieve the honorable.” Or maybe it was: “Achieve the impossible.” Whatever.
But we couldn’t achieve even the slightest noticeability. And we were twins. At our old school, we got a lot of attention. Like people asking if we had superpowers. Or if one of us was evil. Or if we could we read each other’s minds. But here? Nothing. Nothing but the occasional fish-eye.
Was it my dress? My boots? I knew it wasn’t my gigantic hair. Other people had bigger hair than I did. I glanced at Blythe, wondering if she noticed our invisibility. She did not look concerned. I took in her hoodie and the half a quadratic equation on her sleeve. Oh. It wasn’t her fading purple streaks. No, the problem was Blythe’s bold admission that she was a walking GPA threat. My heart sank. There was no way we were finding a friendly table.
I was about to slink back to the cafeteria when I saw him: Kai. He was with a lanky Asian guy with spiked black hair and a blond white girl with rhinestone cat-eye glasses and a black beret. Finally! Someone who knew khaki was only acceptable for the Boy Scouts.
I started toward their table, but Blythe caught my elbow. “No way. That guy’s in my Honors Bio. He’s an idiot.”
I shook her off. “Blythe. That’s Kai. He helped us move in, remember?”
“Not him. The guy next to him.” But I didn’t wait for her to come around. I made my way through the picnic tables, my eyes on Kai. I was hoping he would look up and wave us over. I was hoping that we’d plan the most amazing tour, not just of Rolly, but of all of Thornewood, and it would include a romantic viewing of a vista with—
“Watch it!”
Icy liquid hit my chest with a punch, and icy pellets smacked my face then trickled down over my silver vintage found-in-a-thrift-store Alexander McQueen. One-of-a-kind Alexander freaking McQueen. I froze, blinking. Three girls stood before us, two holding trays of lunch detritus, one no longer holding anything, because her tray, alongside mine, and all of their contents, had landed on me. And then the ground. Everyone in this school just saw me get double tray-splattered. Words started bubbling up inside me, and Blythe pinched my arm, hard, to get my attention.
“Bean? Are you okay?” I couldn’t look. I couldn’t move. My silver dress. They’d all seen. Kai. Beret girl. Everyone.
“Bean? Like jelly bean?”
“Like lima bean?”
“Garbanzo bean?”
“Pinto bean?”
“Coffee bean!”
“Navy bean!”
I blinked through the sting of carbon filtration; I couldn’t hold the words back anymore. I dropped my empty lunch tray and swept my thumbnail across my lower lip.
“It’s well enough. It’s well enough. For high schools, for my life, for schools, for my high schools—” Blythe hooked my arm and pulled me back.
“Don’t open your eyes. Just keep walking.” Her voice was strong. Calm. “We’ll get paper towels.”
I kept my eyes closed tightly as she led me through the jeering and laughter of the quad. When it was quiet around us, I opened my eyes and saw Blythe and I weren’t alone. The blonde who’d been sitting with Kai was walking with us.
“I have something for you, new girl.” She smiled. “A dress. An Emma McMichaels original.”
She had me at dress. I glanced at Blythe, who shrugged, and we followed Emma into the school’s costume room. She went straight for a clothes rack holding everything from T-shirts with detailed seam stitching and pinwheel necklines to full-length dresses with ruffled layers. She glanced at me and pulled down a black dress with a knee-length golden vertical ruffle skirt and a black T-shirt top with a single line of gold stitching down each arm—one long sleeve, one short—like all her designs.
“Gold will bring out your eyes,” she said. I felt like I could breathe again.
“Did you . . . make this?” I reached for the dress, forgetting my damp, sticky fingers. I quickly pulled back. “I don’t know how, but even your ruffles are sexy.”
She laughed. “Unfinished seams. I’m hoping to get a scholarship to FIDM”
I smiled at her. “I bet you will.”
Emma’s blond hair was straw-straight from too much peroxide, and a long nose made her face serious. But even without the beret, she’d have une certain je ne sais quoi. She brushed a hand over the nearest dress. “This is my admission collection.” Then she held out the dress. For me to wear. On my body.
“What if . . .”
“You run into jerks again?”
I blushed. Emma twisted her lips. “Don’t worry. They’ll leave you alone now. So let’s get you into this.” She tilted her head, and the rhinestones in her glasses sparkled. “Now take off that McQueen and let me stain-treat it.”
“Why are you being so nice? Are you my fairy godmother?”
“Ha!” She winked, taking my wet dress. “Maybe I am.” Her smile dropped a little when Blythe came in bearing a stack of grayish wet paper towels, but Emma recovered quickly, and Blythe slapped the mass against my bare shoulder. Even my bra was damp, so she just de-stickified me and patted me down. Emma laughed as she awkwardly safety-pinned me into the dress. But it fit.