Popularity Takeover (8 page)

15

SHE'S NOT FAT, SHE'S MY MOTHER

ASHLEY SIGHED LOUDLY WHILE SHE
tied her dress around her waist. It was bad enough that she had a mother running to the bathroom every ten minutes to throw up her organic oatmeal and prenatal-vitamin-supplemented juice smoothie, but it was even worse to congratulate yourself on being part of a supposedly elite group only to realize that the inmates had taken over the asylum.

Ashley knew they were going to be there, but she hadn't realized the extent of the fashion-tragedy-in-the-making until she saw them in the flesh.

What was the model selection committee
on
when they let in Guinevere Parker and her matching mousy
mom? Or Daria Hart and her drowned rat of a mother? And Cass Franklin—really! Whose idea of a joke was that?

And now, just to make everything even more insufferable, Sadie Graham was leaning against the red velvet rope (designed to keep plebes
out
of the Ashleys' enclosure). Even the jaunty Alice + Olivia dress and that cute pair of Missoni sandals she was wearing couldn't disguise the fact that Sadie would never, ever be welcomed into the Ashleys' fold.

And look at her now—she was actually reaching out and
touching
something. On. Ashley's. Rack. OMG! Ashley was going to have her arrested, then expelled, and then banned from the entire Pacific time zone.

“What do you think you're doing?” she demanded, pouncing out from behind A. A.'s untouched rack of clothes. (Where
was
that girl, by the way?)

The unbearable Sadie didn't even have the grace to look startled, let alone guilty.

“The Mothers' Committee has informed me that
we
,” she said, gesturing at her simpering mother, “will be wearing the white tea dresses this year.”

“As if!” Ashley snorted. Matilda was in one of the dressing rooms at this very moment, trying on her white dress.

“I can only see one dress,” Sadie persisted. “And it should be on
our
rack, not yours.”

“You're totally misinformed.” Ashley grabbed the rack and wrenched it away from Sadie's sweaty-palmed grip. “
We're
the ones wearing the white dresses, as usual!”

“Really?” One of Sadie's perfectly arched eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure?”

Ashley heaved the most melodramatic sigh she could muster without hyperventilating. Of course she and her mother, as the most beautiful mother-daughter team, would once again be modeling the final look of the show.

“Just go back to your . . .” Ashley fluttered a dismissive hand in the direction of Sadie's section. “Your little side of the room, okay?”

“Sweetie, what do you think?” Matilda had emerged from her dressing room, draped in the bias-cut ivory J. Mendel gown. Her beautiful face looked wan and worried, and she had pulled her long hair back with one hand.

Yikes! The dress was way too clingy, and Matilda's baby bump was totally showing.

“Your mother is too fat for that dress,” Sadie hissed, so only Ashley could hear.

“She's not fat,” Ashley spat back. “She's pregnant, you moron!”

“Matilda, you look lovely,” Sadie's mother cooed sweetly. “Like a shotgun bride.” Her smile was acid as she looked her up and down.

“You know,” Matilda said, tugging at the dress, “I don't think the fit is very good.”

“That bias cut is very unforgiving,” Sadie's mother agreed. “It shows everything, doesn't it?”

“And I have a little too much to show right now.” Matilda sounded rueful, but not too upset. “Oh well! Someone else should wear the white dresses this year.”

“Mom!” Ashley was outraged. Her mother was giving in way too easily. She could carry a bouquet of flowers or a basket of something. Then nobody in the audience would notice a little bump. After all, her mother was pregnant in the way celebrities were pregnant—with stick-figure arms and toned legs and just a teeny basket­ball where her waist used to be. Thankfully Matilda hadn't puffed out like a pregnant piñata. Ashley was spared at least
that
shame.

“Ashley, I'm kind of tired.” Matilda was already pulling at the dress, getting ready to slip it over her head. “I think three changes of clothes is plenty for me right
now. Let someone else wear the dresses. I think Sadie and her mother would make a beautiful finale.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Spencer!” Sadie practically shrieked. Ashley felt her face burning. If she and Matilda couldn't wear the white dresses, then at least the honor should go to one of the other Ashleys. But Sadie had already grabbed Ashley's dress off the rack, and Matilda was passing her dress across the red velvet rope to Sadie's mother. All was lost!

“What's going on?” Lili bounded up, wearing the cutest gingham Marc Jacobs frock.

“Where've you been? And where is A. A.?” Ashley fumed. “I'm under attack here, and I have
no help whatsoever
.”

“You're not wearing the white dresses?” An aghast Lili was looking over at Sadie and her stick-insect mother.

“No.” Ashley folded her arms and stamped one foot on the ground. “There's no point in doing this stupid fashion show at all.”

Matilda, swaddled in a soft cotton robe, leaned over and tapped Ashley on the arm.

“We'll have none of that, thank you, Ashley,” she said, her blue eyes steely. “This show is for charity,
remember? It's not about who wears the most dresses. Now go and finish putting on your shoes for the first outfit. No, not another word!”

Ashley reached for Lili's hand and dragged her to the corner. She wanted to sit someplace the awful Sadie Graham couldn't see her—and where she couldn't see Sadie Graham.

Her mom was deluding herself if she thought this fashion show wasn't about who got to wear the most dresses.
Life
was about who got to wear the most dresses! Matilda was living in a bubble. Having this baby had made her mind go foggy.

“Don't worry.” Lili squeezed Ashley's hand. “We'll pay Sadie back somehow.”

Ashley sniffed. The only thing that would make her feel better now was Sadie falling off the runway, or possibly the whole show being canceled. At least she had Lili here to comfort her. But where had Lauren wandered off to? And where on earth was A. A.?

16

LITTLE MISS HELPFUL IS ANYTHING BUT

“OUCH! YOU'RE PINCHING ME!”

Lauren was pinning the back of Guinevere Parker's boxy Phillip Lim dress, so it didn't hang from her body like a shapeless sack, but all Guinevere could do was complain.

“I thought you were supposed to be helping
me
,” whined Daria Hart. She was stuck halfway in a ruched Tibi sundress, because—as Lauren could see quite clearly—Daria had failed to notice the side zipper.

“I don't like any of these things,” moaned Cass Franklin, her oxygen tank bashing the back of Lauren's head. “I don't think I want to do this show after all. Where's my mom?”

Lauren gritted her teeth and kept pinning the back seam of Guinevere's dress. What a bunch of divas! These girls weren't grateful at all that Lauren—or rather, Lauren's father's money—had secured them a place in the fashion show. Of course, they had no idea Lauren was behind it, but it still annoyed her that all they could do was complain and pout. They were even worse than the Ashleys. At least the Ashleys knew how to dress themselves. Lauren herself was wearing an adorable Young, Fabulous & Broke maxi dress that showed off her delicate collarbone nicely. She was excited to be part of the fashion show at last and a bit irritated that she was spending it with the moaning Myrtles.

Last night had been so much more relaxing. She and Christian had gone to an early movie and then hung out for a while in a cute little café on Union Square, with armchairs in the windows, Latin lounge on the stereo, and Moroccan tea lights on every table. They'd sat huddled in the corner, sharing a giant piece of blueberry cheesecake and fork-fighting over the final blueberry. Christian let her win with a smile. Lauren wished every day was that stress free.

She felt a little bad for boring Christian by talking incessantly about everything that was happening at
school. Christian had tried to be interested and concerned, but he was a boy, after all—he wasn't used to so much drama. Boys were really different. If they didn't like someone, they just steered clear of them, or kept it to themselves. They didn't have major cliques fighting for control of their schools or dictating what everybody wore. Talk about a different way of life!

She took a quick glance toward the Ashleys' corner. Lauren had snuck away when Ashley and Sadie were having the tug-of-war with the white dresses, and Lili had been busy placating her mom because the chocolate Eiffel Tower miniatures were melting under the heat of the lights. Lauren wanted to check on the three girls out of kindness, to see if they needed any help, since they were new to the event. But they'd taken her offer as an opportunity to treat her like a servant, and Lauren felt a little bit like Cinderella surrounded by her stepsisters.

“Now it's too tight,” Guinevere bleated, pointing at her skinny, bobbleheaded reflection in one of the tall mirrors propped around the walls.

“Stand still, Daria!” said Lauren as she wrenched the zipper down.

“This is way too itchy!” Daria lamented. She picked at the dress gingerly, as though it were made out of steel
wool. “It's digging into me everywhere. Mom! Mom! Where is she?”

“Probably hiding in the bathroom,” muttered Lauren. Really! You'd think this fashion show was a punishment rather than a special treat. Did these guys have any idea how hard she'd had to work to get them in here at all?

If Lauren hadn't argued and lobbied on their behalf—not to mention persuaded her father to write Miss Gamble's a Very Big Check—then they'd all be sitting in the audience right now, chewing their cuticles and getting bits of fruit stuck in their braces.

“And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this.” Cass was still moaning away, leaning on the clothes rack as though it were a Zimmer frame. Lauren glanced up, already exhausted.

Cass clutched at her oxygen tank. What was she doing? Trying to tuck it into the belt of her Daryl K dress? Stuffing it into a pocket? Whatever she did, it was going to ruin the line of the dress.

“Can't you leave that thing backstage while you walk down the runway?” Lauren asked, her voice revealing the strain. She didn't want to be here, helping these three ungrateful wretches.

She wished she were hanging out with the Ashleys,
trying on clothes, making sure her mom didn't say anything too embarrassing to the other moms, having fun behind the red velvet rope—or standing next to it. She didn't quite believe Ashley's excuse that there was “too little space” in her makeshift enclosure. Instead she was crawling around on her hands and knees, hoping the Ashleys wouldn't spot her, while the very people she was trying to help treated her like dirt.

Lauren had thought she was doing a good deed by breaking the Ashleys' iron grip on the Mother-Daughter Fashion Show, but obviously she was as wrong as that coat her mother was wearing.

Doing good meant nothing if the recipients of her magnificent charity didn't want it. These girls would be so much happier, she decided, if they were just left to sit in the back as usual. They didn't know how to be the center of attention. They just felt uncomfortable and self-conscious.

“I think I feel an attack coming on,” Cass wheezed, and Guinevere started frantically fanning her with a Chloé clutch purse.

“I can't breathe either,” said Daria. “And I can't walk in these shoes.”

“Neither can I!” Guinevere commiserated, dropping
the clutch purse onto Lauren's foot. “And you know my mother? She needs orthopedic insoles, otherwise she strains her knees. She'll just have to wear Birkenstocks with her dresses.”

Lauren gulped, trying not to lose her temper. Were these girls crazy? Or maybe
she
was the crazy one. What was it her father always said? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

But then, just as Lauren was going to write them off entirely, Guinevere started to laugh—a clear, joyful laugh, full of delight because she'd just seen herself in the mirror. Then Daria started to laugh too, and so did Cass.

“We look good!” Cass marveled. “Wow.”

“I know!” Daria agreed, looking breathless. “I didn't think it was going to be possible!” And suddenly Lauren understood why they had been so difficult earlier. They had been nervous about being exposed as freaks who had no business walking down the Mother-Daughter runway. They were trying to appear like they didn't care about the event because in reality, they cared way too much.

“Thanks, Lauren,” Guinevere said. “We know it was you who got us in.”

“I didn't do anything. . . .” Lauren shrugged, smiling at the three of them. They did look awesome, like a certain trio of pretty girls who were laughing and enjoying themselves for being in the right place at the right time.

Lauren was just glad to be proven right. Anyone could be as pretty and fabulous as the Ashleys. All a girl needed was a chance to shine.

17

SUPERMOTHER RULES THE CATWALK

A. A. WAS NOT ASHLEY—AND
that meant she hated being late.

By the time she and Jeanine arrived at the Mother-Daughter Fashion Show, everyone was already dressed, and a member of the Mothers' Committee was lining them all up for the first walk down the runway.

“Where have you been?” asked Lili, tugging A. A.'s first outfit off its hanger and handing it to her.

“You almost missed me.” Ashley dabbed at invisible tears with a scarf she'd purloined from Sadie Graham's clothes rack. “I very nearly walked out. I only stayed for my mother's sake. She looks forward to this lame event way more than I do.”

“Don't talk to me about mothers,” A. A. shot back quietly, trying not to pull away when Lili climbed on a chair and started fixing her hair. “
My
mother can barely remember to come home, let alone get herself anywhere I want to go on time!”

Jeanine was notorious for disappearing when she had a new boyfriend, and this week was no exception. All week she'd been holed up in Ibiza—which apparently was some glamorous Spanish island in the Mediterranean, where there were nightclubs lining the streets and everyone was tanned and fabulous—with her new boyfriend. (Not some gorgeous Spanish guy either, A. A. told her friends. It was just Marty, the film director guy with the big Santa Claus beard. She was surprised old guys like him were even
allowed
on Ibiza.)

A. A. had texted Jeanine about the fashion show every day to remind her. Her mother had promised faithfully that she'd be there on Sunday, but somehow she'd managed to forget. She'd only just arrived from the airport!

A. A. had been sitting in the apartment all morning, not knowing whether her mother would make it back on time. They'd had to hustle to get to Miss Gamble's, and Jeanine was a wreck—yawning every
two minutes, her Jackie O shades hiding the shadows under her eyes.

“Jeez, does your mom know this show is about Paris in the spring—not rehab in Colorado?” Ashley muttered, dabbing blush onto A. A.'s pale face.

“I know she looks bad,” A. A. shot back quietly. “Even worse, she just keeps going on about how much in love she is.”

“Ew!” chorused Lili and Ashley. Nobody wanted to hear about old people falling in love. It was gross and probably illegal.

“She's even talking about getting married again,” whispered A. A., cramming on a chunky Lucite bracelet.

“I love Paris in the springtime!”
Jeanine sang in a throaty voice, ruffling her luxuriant mop of dark hair. She was at the other end of the rack, already wearing the slinky jersey dress that hugged her every curve. She'd stripped down and dressed up in two seconds flat.

That was the good thing about being a former model, A. A. guessed—you mastered that whole quick-change artist thing. The bad thing, however, was that her mother applied the quick-change philosophy to nearly every aspect of her life. Home decor, vacation destination, and—most of all—men.

“She totally forgot about the brunch,” A. A. told the others, her voice low and angry. She hated it when her mother didn't remember stuff in her own daughter's life. Every time Jeanine met a new guy, she forgot all about her kids.

“The main thing is, she's here now,” Lili reassured her. A. A. couldn't even muster a smile. Lili's mother never forgot
anything
. She might be bossy and stern, but she really cared about Lili.

Ashley's mother was devoted to her, too, however much Ashley thought she was neglected and overlooked. Even Lauren's brassy mother—who looked kind of tasteful, for once, in her first outfit, a beige Chanel suit picked out by the Mothers' Committee—was always coming up with ways to make their home more fun and comfortable for her family. What did Jeanine do? Run off with weird old guys and party like it's 1989.

“Ladies!” shrieked the committeewoman with the clipboard. A. A. could hear the music in the auditorium swelling—it was some old recording of a creaky-voiced French dude singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” “We're ready for our first mother-daughter pair! Everyone in line, chop-chop!”

“Chops!” groaned Jeanine, pulling her skirt up so it
was about three inches higher than it should be. “That just reminded me—I'm starving! Do they have anything to eat around here? Champagne? Caviar?” She looked around hopefully.

“Mom, this isn't Fashion Week. You should have come home earlier if you wanted to eat!” A. A. dragged Jeanine next to her at the end of the line.

“I can't make the plane fly any faster,” Jeanine protested. She ripped off her dark glasses and tossed them aside.

“Could you look any more sleep deprived?” grumbled A. A. She might not be obsessed with this fashion show the way Ashley was, but she didn't want to make a fool of herself. Or have her mother stumble down the runway looking dazed and confused.

“What are you worried about?” Jeanine seemed to read her thoughts. “I'm a professional, remember? I can walk down this runway with my eyes closed. We'll kick the rest of those mother-daughter butts. But first, missy, you better put on your shoes.”

A. A. bent down to wind the straps around her ankles, but something was wrong: The long strap on the left shoe was fine, but the strap on the right shoe was much shorter, as though someone had bitten it off.
The sandal wouldn't stay on A. A.'s long foot without its strap.

“Huh?” she mumbled, fidgeting with the strap. She looked up at her mother. “This is broken.”

“Quick, grab another pair,” ordered Jeanine. A. A. raced over to their dressing area, leaping over the red velvet rope. What else would go with this dress—the striped wedge espadrilles, maybe? Here was one of them, but where was the other? A. A. tore through the pile of shoes under her rack, but the second shoe was nowhere to be found.

“A. A.!” Her mother sounded agitated. “We're on in two, babe.”

A. A. decided to grab any pair at all and wear them—as long as the shoes had heels, they'd look okay. But half of her shoes seemed to be AWOL. And the ones that
were
there were all damaged in some way—straps severed, heels snapped off. One pair of jeweled mules had been cut so when A. A. slid her feet into them, they simply fell off, dropping to the ground with a metallic thud. WTF? Who had sabotaged all her shoes?

There was no point in grabbing a pair assigned to one of the other Ashleys—Lili's feet were tiny, and Ashley and Lauren wore size sevens, not A. A.'s giant
elevens. The only person she could borrow from was her mother. A. A. reached into Jeanine's pile of shoes, pulling out a pair of Manolos. Thank God! But wait a second—one of them had no heel. Or rather, the heel had been pulled off. Jeanine was wearing her own shoes for the first walk, so she hadn't had time to notice that the rest of
her
shoes had been sabotaged as well.

“All our shoes are busted,” A. A. told her mother, rejoining her in the line. Her heart was pounding. Why didn't the stupid S. Society take their revenge on Ashley Spencer? This was what A. A. got for having enormous feet, she guessed—she was the easiest target. They must have known she and Jeanine wouldn't be able to borrow shoes from anyone else there. “All of them are slashed or messed up or broken or one of a pair is missing. Someone must have done this to stop me from walking in the show.”

“Some jealous loser,” said Jeanine, who didn't seem at all surprised. “It used to happen all the time in Milan. Where are the shoes you wore here?”

“Running shoes.” A. A. made a face, and so did Jeanine.

“There's only one thing we can do,” her mother said, pulling off her heels. “And that's to go barefoot.”

“With every outfit?”

“Why not? We're tall and gorgeous—we can carry it off. And what's the alternative? Drop out of the show? That's what the bitches want. One year they stole Heidi Klum's and my swimsuits during the
Sports Illustrated
shoot! But that didn't stop us—we started the trend of painting them on. Talk about sexy.” Jeanine winked.

“A. A. and Jeanine—you're on,” said the mother with the clipboard. “Where are your shoes?”

“We don't need shoes,” said Jeanine, taking A. A.'s hand and squeezing it tight. “We're the Amazon Aliotos. We're fierce!”

In spite of everything—her nerves, her anger, her disbelief that someone would pull this stunt on her—A. A. couldn't help smiling. Her mother was unconventional, and that was one big pain in the neck most of the time. But for once A. A. was ready to forgive Jeanine for being
so
late and
so
selfish and
so
in love with some old guy from L.A. who wasn't even cute or famous, because she had to admit one thing: Her mother was right.

They were the Amazon Aliotos. When Jeanine stomped out, knees high, arms swinging, she looked every bit as good as she did in 1999, when designers
paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars to show off their clothes.

A. A. figured that was why they called them supermodels. They had the superhuman ability to make anything look good. It would take a lot more than a few stolen shoes to keep them from
owning
that catwalk.