Romance of the Snob Squad (8 page)

“There we go,” she said to Prairie. “What do you think?” With a final flourish, she brushed blusher across Prairie’s cheekbones and stepped back. Prairie gazed into the mirror. She licked her pink lemonade lips and smiled. “G-gosh” was all she could say.

“Prairie, you’re beautiful,” Lydia said. “Hugh won’t know what hit him.”

That perked Max up. “Hit who?”

Lydia’s mom said, “Okay, who’s next?”

We scrabbled to get in line. Even Max, although what she wanted wasn’t exactly your classic glamour makeover. A few minutes later, smiling through black lipstick and electrified frizz, Max spun on the vanity seat and pronounced, “Shazam.”

“Scary,” I mumbled.

Lydia was made up to resemble a Japanese geisha girl, in a silk kimono with her hair wound in a bun. Two glittery silver chopsticks stuck out each side of the bun.

Dr. Beals suggested I play an Arabian harem girl. With all that chiffon, it was perfect. She gelled my hair in waxy waves all over my head and outlined my lips with ruby red lipstick. Thick eyeliner and thicker mascara made me look like the Queen of Sheba, whatever she looks like.

“Let me take the pictures,” Max said. “My brother taught me how to use a camera.”

Prairie didn’t have a problem with that. She retrieved the camera and film from her backpack and handed them to Max. While Max loaded the film, Lydia said, “We need a backdrop. A chair against the wall or something.”

“I know.” Lydia’s mom snapped her fingers. “Follow me.”

She led us to her bedroom and a comfy overstuffed armchair. At least it would’ve been comfy if there hadn’t been a ton of trashy romance novels on top of it. Stacking the books on the floor, she said, “Lydia, go get that set of black silk sheets from the back of the linen closet.” Smiling at us, she added, “I knew I’d use those sheets again someday.” Her gaze strayed over our heads and down the hall. She seemed kind of sad. The way Mom did sometimes when I caught her alone.

We draped the sheets over the chair, where Prairie posed like Cleopatra. Max snapped shots from all different angles. Then Lydia lounged across the cushion, pretending to be all sexy. I took over where she left off. Lydia’s mom cracked up. She said drama was my true calling. We were all giggling pretty good, but when Max posed like a demented demon, with that cape and mask, we literally screamed. Dr. Beals got such a stitch in her side, I thought we might have to call an ambulance.

Too soon the film was gone. Lydia’s mom said, “I don’t know about you all, but I’m famished. I bought snacks; they’re out in the kitchen.”

We nearly trampled each other getting there. Okay, I nearly trampled everyone. On the dining-room table was a tray of assorted pastries; cut-out cakes and cream puffs, chocolate eclairs, frosted cookies. Drool pooled at my feet. I felt sick. All the willpower in the world couldn’t keep me from those cream puffs.

Lydia said, “I hope you brought your food diary, Jenny.” She turned to her mom. “I forgot to tell you, Mom. Jenny’s on a diet.”

My face flared. “It’s not a diet. It’s a nutrition plan.”

Dr. Beals frowned. “Why? You look perfectly fine to me.”

Not only did I want her for my therapist, I wanted her for my mother.

“D
ad, could I go to another child psychologist?” I asked him on Sunday afternoon while I helped stuff dirty clothes into the washer downstairs.

He poured about a gallon of liquid Cheer into the tub and closed the lid. “Why? You don’t like Dr. Sid?”

“I don’t think Dr. Sid is really helping me with my… problem. I mean, I haven’t lost any weight. In fact, I gained three pounds over the weekend.” He didn’t need to know about the pastry orgy at Lydia’s.

“I believe the idea is for you to help yourself.” Over the empty laundry basket, Dad met my eyes.

“It is?” I threw up my hands. “See? Why didn’t he say that? Instead he has me seeing this anorexic dietician and keeping this stupid food diary. Which I would be embarrassed to show anyone.” Which I lied about losing and hadn’t written in for days. “It’s dumb.”

Dad sighed. He brushed by me and started up the stairs. “So, what do you want to do?”

“See another psychologist. Like I said. There’s this lady I know, Dr. Beals. I’d really like to go to her.” There was danger in this request, I knew. The possibility existed that everyone would find out I was seeing a shrink. Not the Snob Squad so much; they’d understand. I’m talking about everyone in school. Ashley, Melanie, Mrs. Jonas, Kevin. Kevin? “Uh, never mind,” I said.

“No, wait.” Dad twisted around at the top of the stairs. He sighed. “I’m not totally convinced these so-called professionals are worth what they charge. But hey, if you think someone else could help you, let’s do it.”

“I don’t know.” My eyes strayed out the back door. Two mourning doves cuddled together in the crab apple tree, cooing. “Maybe it isn’t the therapist. Maybe it’s me, like you said.” I dodged under the laundry basket and waddled away. “Guess I’m just defective.”

“Don’t say that.”

I headed for my room.

“Jenny?” Dad called after me. “Let’s talk about this.”

I shut the door, and shut him out. In my room I stuck on my earphones and rusted out my brain to heavy metal music.

On Monday morning, Prairie brought the pictures to school. “Overnight p-processing,” she said. “They cost six dollars and forty-nine cents. Plus the film, it c-comes to about two dollars and fifty cents each.”

Lydia and I scrounged in our purses and paid up. Max said, “I owe you.”

“No p-problem. You gotta see these. C-come on.”

We jammed into the girls’ restroom and shut the door. “Open it. Hurry,” Lydia said. She was so excited, I thought she’d wet her pants. We were in the right place, anyway.

Slowly, carefully, Prairie lifted the flap of the photo envelope. She reached inside and pulled out the first picture.

“Oh, my God!” Lydia shrieked over Prairie’s shoulder. She wrenched the picture out of Prairie’s hand. “My God. If anyone sees this, I’ll be the laughingstock of school.”

You already are, I almost said. Maybe I did. “Let me see.”

“No way.” Lydia slapped the picture against her chest.

“It can’t be that bad.”

“There’s m-m-ore,” Prairie sang. She showed us another one of Lydia, and we howled.

Lydia grabbed the picture and cringed. “All right.” She took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes. “Let’s see the rest of you.”

Prairie passed around the stack of photos. My glamour photos were, in a word, hideous. Worse than hideous. I looked like a hussy, humpback hippopotamus. In ballet pink, if you can imagine.

When Max saw her first picture, she smirked. “Bad,” she said. “Really bad.”

She loved them. Hers were the only ones that did anyone justice.

After we got over the initial shock, we all agreed that a couple of Prairie’s glamour photos weren’t horrible. In fact, they were pretty good. The ones in focus anyway. She looked radiant. Sparkling, at least, with all the sequins. We took a few minutes to vote on our favorite, the one we’d sneak to Hugh.

A rush of air blew through the bathroom door as someone opened it. Max charged over to wedge it shut with a shoulder. “Hey, I need to go,” some girl yelled.

“Go away,” Max growled. “It’s a private party.”

“We can put the picture in Hugh’s lunch box,” Lydia said. “He always brings his lunch.”

In an insulated, zip-up lunch box with matching Thermos. You get the picture.

“N-no.” Prairie’s eyes filled with terror. “We c-can’t do it at school. I d-don’t want anyone to see my picture. I mean, anyone besides Hugh.”

Lydia tapped an index finger on her lips. “Maybe we could find out where he lives and send the picture to him.”

Prairie said, “I know where he lives.”

We all stared at her. Her face flared. In a tiny voice she said, “Hugh’s my next-door neighbor.”

Okay, granted, the Solanos were not bosom buddies with their next-door neighbors. The Crotchety Crockerds on the south scolded me once in public when I accidentally left my Barbie bride doll in their driveway. Old man Crotchety crushed it flat with his classic Chrysler. Then he had the gall to holler at me when I started screaming, “Murderer! Murderer!” We hadn’t spoken to them for six years.

To the north side loomed a hash house. At least that’s what Dad called it. More people came and went at midnight than the drive-up window at Wendy’s. So I can understand how Prairie and Hugh had never once talked, even though he’d moved in next door to her the summer before fifth grade.

Still, it was weird. She said Hugh and her brother Sun were friends, and that Hugh came over after dinner sometimes to surf the Internet with Sun. Imagine having your one true love in the same house. Close enough to smell his sweat. Which Hugh had plenty of.

We decided to stick Prairie’s picture in an envelope and address it to Hugh. Anonymous like. Then, after school, Prairie’d slip the envelope in the Torkersons’ mailbox.

We offered to help Prairie deliver the photo, but she said no thanks. I think she wanted us as far away from Hugh’s house as possible. Which was fine with me. If we got caught, she’d hate us forever. Prairie wasn’t worried, though. She said as soon as Hugh came over to surf the Net, she could sneak out and do it. I wondered if she really would.

Lydia said, “Do you mind if I take the other pictures home tonight? My mom wanted to see how they turned out.”

The bell rang, and we scrambled. Hastily Prairie stuck the stack of photos back into the envelope and handed it to Lydia. I should’ve protested. As leader of the Snob Squad, it’s my duty to protect our reputations. Maybe not our current reputations, but any future ones we might acquire. I should’ve offered to stash the pictures until school was out. Or have Max stash them. Nobody’d mess with her. But I didn’t. I just let Lydia drop them in her book bag. Bad move.

T
he catastrophe occurred during language arts. First hour. As we got up to fetch our books from the book rack, Lydia, renowned klutz of the cosmos, tripped over her chair, bounced off my body, and butt-crashed into Melanie Mason’s desk. Which tipped over backward, taking out the desk behind it and knocking Lydia’s book bag to the floor. Where the photo envelope flew out and skidded across the rug. Guess where? Straight onto Ashley Krupps’s fat feet. As if in slow-motion replay, I watched Ashley pick up the package, open it, and drop her jaw to shriek.

Naturally everyone had to see what the ruckus was about. Lydia threw a hyper hissy fit, but not before the photos had made it around the room—over our outstretched hands and behind our backs. Everyone whooped.

I’ve never been so embarrassed. I take that back. The time my lunch sack ripped and a hundred malted milk balls bounced out was pretty humiliating. Especially since most of them rolled to a stop under Kevin Rooney’s Reeboks.

Eventually Mrs. Jonas intervened. Even though she stifled a guffaw when she caught a glimpse of the pictures, she got them back to us. So much for the glory of glamour photos. By recess we were all the laughingstock of Montrose Middle School. So what else is new?

“Harley looks sick,” I said during science. We’d just finished putting him through his paces. At least Max was trying to finish. Every couple of seconds Harley would stop and lean, like the Tower of Pizza. Where is the Tower of Pizza? I’d like to live there. Anyway, Harley looked like he was ready to faint. Can a rat faint? As if in answer to my question, Harley shivered all over and flopped flat.

“He’s just beat,” Max said. “Give him a break.”

“Maybe we should splash cold water on his face,” Lydia suggested.

We all stared at her. The stares turned to glares.

“Look, I said I was sorry about the pictures, okay?” Her eyes welled with tears.

My eyes dropped. Next to me, Prairie took a deep breath. Her hand reached up to grasp Lydia’s limp shoulder, and she said, “It’s n-not your fault. Any one of us c-could’ve done it.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t,” muttered Max.

I shot her a warning look. She folded her arms.

“At least you weren’t posing like some airhead on
Baywatch,
” Lydia snapped.

“True,” Max said, which only made Lydia feel worse.

“W-well,” Prairie piped up. “At least I don’t have to leave my picture in Hugh’s mailbox now.” She sighed. The memory of what had happened in class resurfaced, and we all shuddered. After Melanie handed the pictures to Kevin, he smiled and passed them on. To Hugh. Hugh’s eyes grew big as black holes before he fixed them on Prairie. If I’d had a shovel, I would’ve dug her a hole to crawl in. Right behind me.

“Hey, it’s over, okay?” I said. “We’re ruined. Big deal. We have a lot of experience at this. As long as no one sells our glamour photos to the
National Enquirer,
I think we still have a future in high school.”

Max snorted.

“Thank you, Jenny,” Lydia said. “So, does anyone have a notebook I can borrow the rest of the week until the science fair on Saturday? I better document the fact that Harley’s sick.”

“He’s not sick,” Max said. “There, look, he reached the end.”

It was true. On his own, Harley had followed my trail of stale spice cake crumbs to the end of the course. Suddenly he leaned, rocked unsteadily, and rolled right into the siren’s green button.

The blare registered about a bejillion decibels in the confined science lab. Anyone within earshot was instantly hearing impaired. A bunch of girls screamed. Everyone else covered their ears. I hollered, “Tornado! Take cover!”

Just as we’d practiced since kindergarten, everyone hit the deck and rolled under the tables, covering their heads. Except us. We just stood there and hyena-howled at the goons. Revenge is so sweet.

Later that afternoon, I confronted Ashley about Lydia’s notebook. For some reason I felt it was my responsibility to get it back. Maybe I was afraid Lydia would try and there’d be a brawl in the bathroom. “Hey, Ashley,” I said casually as we passed going to and from the pencil sharpener. “I believe you have something that belongs to us.”

She blew off her shavings. “Such as?”

“I think you know.”