Scarlet Wakefield 01 - Kiss Me Kill Me (2 page)

I can walk the distance between Point A and Point B in one minute flat. Cross the road, go up the path, and I’d be there. But the distance, socially, is immeasurable. Plum and her court are everything that’s cool. They’re St. Tabby’s smart set, the ones who originate the fashions that all the other girls copy. They may not be the prettiest, but they convince everyone else that they are, and that’s what matters.

“I like Nadia’s skirt,” Luce comments.

“Nadia’s thin at the moment,” Alison says.

“A bit too thin,” I contribute.

We both know we’re saying this because we feel fat. And we both know that we’re not fat, unless you interpret the word fat to mean “has a sensible layer of flesh protecting her skin from getting sliced into ribbons by her bones.” But I’m still looking at Nadia, who isn’t drop-dead gorgeous, and I do see how she makes the best of herself: the makeup; the hair; the sexy, trendy little outfit that emphasizes her good points and conceals the weaker ones. That’s true of all the girls clustered round the fountain: they present themselves so well, like packages wrapped in bright shiny paper, tied up with inviting satin bows, sprigs of flowers carefully slipped under the ribbon.

I can’t help glancing at Alison, with her messy carroty ponytail, bare shiny face, and unplucked bushy red eyebrows. She’s wearing a baggy sweatshirt, faded from hundreds of washings, and equally baggy track pants, the kind with white stripes down the side that rustle when she moves. She’s a total tomboy. And then there’s Luce—tiny, waiflike Luce, with her bunches that make her look barely thirteen. And me? As for me, my track pants don’t rustle, but I know they’re hanging off my bum; they’re so old by now that the material’s all stretched. My hair is pinned back behind my ears in two tight rolls so it won’t get in the way when I’m jumping and somersaulting. Not exactly sophisticated.

If we were packages, we’d be wrapped in brown paper, very battered at the corners, tied up with fraying string. I don’t think this contrast has ever hit me quite in the same way before.

“Look, there’s that new girl,” Alison says, gesturing subtly with her hand. “The German one.”

“Sophia Von und Zu Unpronounceable,” I say.

We all giggle.

“She’s in Latin with me,” Luce says. “Ms. Hall tried to say it three times before she got it right.”

“She’s a countess,” Alison says. “And she’s rich. No wonder they snapped her up.”

Being rich and titled pretty much gives you a passport to Princess Plum’s inner circle.

“I heard that in Europe, if you’re a count, all your children are counts and countesses,” I observe. “So there are tons of them.”

“Is that the same for princes and princesses?” Luce asks.

“I think so.”

“Nadia’s something.” Alison bites on one of her cuticles and I nudge her with my knee. “I mean, her family are posh.”

“But they got chucked out, so maybe that doesn’t count,” Luce says.

“Yes, it does,” Alison insists. “You still keep the title.”

Nadia’s family had to leave Persia ages ago, when there was a revolution. It’s been called Iran for years and years, but they still call it Persia, because that’s more aristocratic. They kept all their money, though. Enough to easily make Nadia part of the inner circle.

We’re all staring over at the fountain now, at the group sitting on its steps. They’re all as glossy as show ponies. Polished. Their legs and hair and nails shine, reflecting the early-evening light. No pretense now among the three of us that we wouldn’t give anything to be sitting with them, laughing at their jokes. Being part of the group that gathers by the fountain most evenings, hanging out with the handsomest, richest boys from St. Peter’s, just down the road, is the absolute ideal of every girl at St. Tabby’s.

“Plum couldn’t,” even do one front handspring,” mutters Luce.

“It’d mess up her hair,” I chime in.

But we keep on staring wistfully, projecting ourselves in our imagination over there, sitting on the steps, looking as shiny and sleek as they do. Well, as some of them do. Even in our imagination, none of us can compete with Plum.

“Is Nadia waving at us?” Luce says, bewildered.

We turn round to see if Nadia’s actually signaling to a girl behind us. But there’s no one there.

“It does sort of look as if she’s waving at us,” says Alison, doing her best to sound bland and cool. But I know Alison so well that I can tell how excited she truly is. Her voice is actually wobbling with eagerness.

“Nah,” Luce says dismissively. “She can’t be.”

Even Luce, the most unflappable one of our threesome, the most poised and quiet and self-composed of all of us, is getting, well, flapped by this. She’s shifting from side to side restlessly, as if she’s about to take off and start running across the street to the Promised Land where the Golden People sit and laugh as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

Nadia is definitely waving. And there’s no one else around but us: all the after-school activities have finished by now. The caretaker is coming over to lock up the gates. And somehow I don’t think she’s signaling at him.

“What should we do?” Alison says, her voice pitching higher with the strain. “Should we go over there?”

“No!” I say at once. “Think how awful it would be if it was a mistake!”

The picture of us doing the Walk of Shame back from the Promised Land, rejected, mocked, with Plum’s laughter ringing bell-like in our ears, is so horribly vivid in all of our minds that we gulp in unison.

“Oh look!” Alison’s practically squealing now. “She’s standing up!”

Nadia is indeed on her feet. She smoothes down her short skirt, shakes back her lush mane of blue-black hair (what I wouldn’t give to be Persian), and adjusts her designer sunglasses, pushing them slightly back on her head. Her heels have got to be three inches high, and she wavers slightly on them for a moment before she catches her balance. Then she starts to pick her way down the stairs. She was sitting almost at the top—a sign of high favor. Plum gets to sit on the edge of the fountain, but then, Plum is the princess, and that’s her throne.

Plum leans forward and says something to Nadia, something emphatic, by the way she’s waving her hands around. Nadia nods, equally emphatically. She’s at the bottom of the steps now.  .  .  . She’s on the path.  .  .  . She’s walking straight toward us.  .  .  .

“Oh my God, what do you think she wants?” Alison is definitely squealing. There’s no other way to describe it.

“Shut up, Alison!” Luce hisses. “Be cool!”

“Yeah,” I say cynically. “They’re probably just going to take the piss out of us. Nadia will say something nasty, we’ll react, and then they’ll all burst out laughing.”

That’s such a strong possibility that even Alison gets a grip on herself and calms down. We take deep breaths, trying to brace ourselves against the inevitable piece of bitchiness that’s about to be directed our way.

Being noticed by Plum and her entourage is rarely, if ever, a good thing. In fact, it usually means tears before bedtime for the poor girl who gets singled out. One nasty comment from Plum, amplified a thousand times by her hangers-on, can burn through you like acid thrown on your face. Earlier this year, Plum pretended to mistake Luce for a third-former trespassing in the sixth-form area, much to the amusement of Plum’s posse. Of course, Plum’s elaborate apologies were even more offensive than the original comment—salt in the wounds. I know Luce cried herself to sleep that night and many nights afterward.

Nadia’s crossed the road now, her tanned legs so thin that even her upper thighs don’t brush against each other as she walks. Three steps and she’ll be bang in front of us.

I swallow. Even the air has gone strangely quiet. It’s like the showdown in old cowboy films, where the men squint into each other’s eyes for an intimidating moment before going for their guns.

“Hey,” Nadia says, looking straight at me.

Nadia isn’t really pretty, but she wears a ton of makeup, like an Indian girl in Bollywood films. Foundation, lots of eye shadow, black eyeliner, and pale, golden-glossy lips (it’s Miss Dior gloss. I know because Nadia is always reapplying it in class). It’s very intimidating, this degree of grooming and (obviously) gloss. My hair is damp from gym, and I’ve probably sweated off all my mascara. I must look like a bag lady by comparison.

I can’t breathe. I just know some awful comment about my boobs is imminent. She’s going to say that Plum asked her to ask me where I got a hammock big enough to swing them in, or something.

“Scarlett? We were just wondering  .  .  .”—Nadia says we to save face, but all four of us know it’s Plum who was wondering—“if you wanted to come over and hang out? We might all go for a coffee later, or something.”

I can’t speak. But unfortunately, Alison can.

“Well, my dad’s supposed to pick us up,” she blurts out. “But I could ring him and tell him not to come.”

Nadia looks at Alison like she’s dandruff on her shoulder. “No, not you. God.” She rolls her eyes in incredulity that Alison could even think for a moment that she might get an invitation to the Promised Land. “Scarlett,” she says. “I was asking Scarlett.”

Luce and Alison look at me. Their expressions are identical: a near-even blend of disbelief, jealousy, and insistence that I turn Nadia down and defend the honor of our threesome. All for one and one for all is what they want. What they should have.

And instead I hear myself saying, “Well, I suppose I could, just for a bit.”

“Great!” Nadia says, sounding genuinely pleased.

I don’t believe any of this is happening. It can’t be me who’s bending to the bench to pick up my bag; who’s managing to avoid making eye contact with Luce and Alison, because I know the fury and betrayal I’ll see if I catch their eyes. It can’t be me who’s turning to Nadia, throwing a casual “See you tomorrow” over my shoulder at the girls, ignoring their deafening silence. It can’t be me crossing the road, walking side by side with Nadia Farouk, Plum’s number-one sidekick, heading for the fountain.

But it is me betraying my friends, selling them out, leaving them behind the second something more glossy and shiny beckons. Ninety-nine percent of me is fizzing with excitement when I allow myself to think that the golden doors are really opening to me, that I can at last be part of the world I’ve always wanted to join.

But the last one percent is saying: Someone who would do this deserves everything she gets.

No prizes for guessing which part of me was right.

THE PRINCESS FANTASY

Every little girl has a princess fantasy, even if it’s only a fleeting moment here and there, watching a Disney film or picking up a Princess Barbie. Even if it makes her feel awkward and wrong, because she’d really rather be climbing trees and throwing balls while wearing the kind of tomboy clothing that would make Princess Barbie faint in horror.

A girl can’t grow up without having princesses rammed down her throat to some extent. They come with all the best adjectives. Beautiful. Perfect. Worshipped. A princess is the kind of girl who doesn’t need to do anything to get noticed, apart from walk into a room looking drop-dead gorgeous.

Alison, Luce, and I all love those films where the ugly gawky girl in glasses gets told that she’s really a princess, a fairy godmother spinning in to transform her magically (i.e., without plastic surgery) into a knockout beauty in contact lenses (maybe colored ones). I think we all used to go to sleep at night cherishing that fantasy. But then harsh reality kicked in. For me it was at fourteen, when I realized that I wasn’t the princess in my life story.

Someone else was.

I expect every school has a reigning superstar, the ideal to which every other girl aspires. When I first arrived at St. Tabby’s, I thought that girl was Cecily, a burgeoning supermodel who was about ten feet tall, weighing in at about 110 pounds, with blond hair to her waist and eyes as blue as Wedgwood china. Cecily was so beautiful she could come into school with a stinking cold, eyes red-rimmed, nose swollen, wearing jeans and a big sweater, and still look more beautiful than everyone else at St. Tabby’s put together. But Cecily was too shy to say a word to anyone, which put her out of the princess stakes.

Because princesses need to rule. They need a court to command. And for that, they need to be able to give orders and keep discipline in the ranks. And there’s no one better at ruling a court than Plum Saybourne.

I’ve reached the foot of the fountain steps. The sun is shining straight into my eyes, dazzling me. Typical of Plum to seat herself with her back to it, providing herself with a golden halo.

Nadia is behind me, and as I pause, not knowing where to sit, she says impatiently, “Go on, then!”

But I don’t know which step I should be sitting on, or how high to climb. It sounds ridiculous, but I know if I get it wrong I could be in trouble.

“Scarlett!” drawls Plum, flicking back her hair. “Nice of you to join us. You know everybody, right?”

It’s like she owns the park. I have to admire her blatant sense of entitlement. Must be nice to be that self-confident.

Plum gestures to a step below her. “Well, sit down.”

Nadia follows behind me. She tugs on her skirt hem and sits down carefully, making sure she’s got enough material in front of her to at least cover her knickers. Her skirt is so short she can’t even cross her legs.

I sit down next to her. It seems a safe choice, considering it was Nadia who invited me. I feel like such a frump in the track pants I pulled on over my gym shorts. I never worry about what I look like after gymnastics, because I’m just going home to shower, or back to Alison or Luce’s. Now my thighs look all bulky because of the two layers of clothes I’m wearing, particularly sitting next to Nadia, with her skinny, naturally pale-brown legs.

“So, Scarlett,” Plum continues. “You’ve certainly developed overnight, haven’t you?”

All the girls laugh sycophantically. That’s how it works. Plum rules with an iron fist in an iron glove.

There doesn’t seem to be much of an answer to that, so I don’t say anything. Apparently, Plum isn’t expecting a response, because she plows right ahead with her next comment.

“Let’s all be careful not to bump into Scarlett from behind,” she says. “She’ll fall right on her face. What are those, Scarlett, thirty-four Ds?”

God, this is humiliating. The truth is that I’m a bit confused about how to measure them. I was going to ask Luce and Alison to come with me to one of those big department stores where the saleswoman does it for you, but I can’t think about Luce and Alison right now, it makes me feel too guilty.

“Venetia would kill to have thirty-four Ds, wouldn’t you, Venetia?” Plum says.

“Oh God, yes,” says Venetia, quite unembarrassed.

Venetia is a super-posh girl, flat-chested, mousy-haired, freckled in all the wrong places, with a bum as wide as the Channel. But she’s got the absolute confidence that comes from her family’s having owned most of the North of England since Queen Elizabeth came to the throne—that’s Elizabeth I, of course.

“I’d bloody love it,” Venetia says wistfully. “Did you see that picture of me in Tatler at Ross’s seventeenth birthday party? I looked like a boy in a frock! I showed it to Mummy and told her I was dying to have a boob job, but Mummy says I have to wait till I’m eighteen and get my trust fund. She won’t pay for it herself, the cow.”

“God, considering how much surgery your mum’s had, that’s a bit rich,” Plum comments.

“I know,” Venetia sighs. “So unfair.”

Plum talks about plastic surgery with the airy carelessness of someone who doesn’t remotely need it—or certainly not for decades to come. As befits a princess, she’s naturally gorgeous, though she certainly maintains herself well. She has long, shiny hair the color of autumn leaves (i.e., brunette with lots of expensive coppery highlights), slightly slanty green eyes (contacts, I swear), and blusher-tinged cheekbones high enough to give her a haughty expression.

“I must say, Scarlett, you look a bit pink and sweaty,” Plum comments.

“I just came from gymnastics,” I say defensively.

“Much too energetic for me,” Plum sighs. “I get tired just walking on the treadmill, don’t I?”

There’s a general murmur of assent.

“Can someone lend Scarlett some lip gloss or something?” Plum asks with a hint of disdain. “I mean, she’s looking a bit too fresh-faced, don’t we think?”

This is classic Plum, ending almost every sentence with a question that you’re not really meant to respond to—out loud, anyway. A girl sitting below me holds up a tube of Lancôme lip gloss. Someone else hands me a slim, handbag-sized spray of Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers. Mumbling thank-yous, I duly smear my lips with gloss and spritz myself with the perfume, which is, much to my relief, light and not at all cloying.

I hand the gloss and perfume back to their owners. Just as I’m sitting back up again, a rustle runs through the group.

Lips are bitten, cheeks are pinched, and shoulders are straightened. Suddenly, everyone’s on full alert.

Plum is flicking her hair and swinging her legs as if she’s signaling with them. And in a way, she is. She dips her head a fraction to look over the top of her designer sunglasses. The other girls are trying so hard not to turn their heads that they look frozen in place, like a whole series of statues; Plum’s the only one moving.

I can’t help it. I’m curious. I turn my head to look.

Oh God. I’m such an idiot. I was so swept away by the flattery of being invited to join Plum’s coterie that I forgot briefly about one of the main reasons that entry to this group is so prestigious: it comes with access to the sixth form of the neighboring boys’ school.

But only the most eligible boys. The richest, the poshest, the best-looking. Five or six of them are coming up to the fountain right now, slouching, their hair artfully messed up and hanging over their faces. They’re doing their best to look as casual as possible, as if they couldn’t care less about hanging out with this group of girls. But I can tell how keen they are to see us by the very fact that they’re looking so exaggeratedly laid-back, almost as if they barely notice us sitting round the fountain till they’re standing right in front of it.

I look at them all, and my heart sinks—he’s not here.

“Hey, Plum,” the leader says.

“Oh, hi, Ross,” Plum says equally lightly, playing along with the game of fancy-seeing-you-here.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” Plum answers. “We thought we might get a coffee later or something.”

“Cool.”

This must be the Ross of the seventeenth-birthday celebration that was considered socially important enough to be photographed for Tatler, the snobbiest glossy mag for posh people in the country. I’m convinced now that Plum has invited me here to play some really cruel joke on me. I fit in with this smart set about as well as a troll would at a princesses-only slumber party.

The boys arrange themselves around the fountain, most of them leaning against it. Ross pulls out a pack of cigarettes, which is a cue for all the smokers present to light up themselves. Lighters click, matches snap, little flames shoot up. Everyone takes their first drag and then breathes out in unison. I look at Ross while everyone is distracted. He’s in the middle of a nasty acne outbreak, but he looks so unfazed by his bright red itchy-looking spots that he almost carries them off. Posh people really do care less about what the rest of the world thinks. Maybe I can learn the secret of that from them. That’s what I want most in the world: to lose my self-consciousness and ooze this kind of confidence.

“Cigarette?” asks a boy standing next to me.

“Uh, no, thanks,” I say.

“Don’t smoke?”

I shake my head.

“Very sensible. Isn’t any good for you, is it?”

“Well, I do gymnastics,” I say. “I mean, I don’t want to run out of breath halfway through a routine.”

“Gotcha,” he says. “You mind?”

He gestures to the step I’m sitting on. I nod a bit shyly, and he sits down next to me.

“I’m Simon,” he says with a warm smile.

I smile back. “Scarlett.”

Simon isn’t bad-looking, but there’s nothing distinctive about him either, apart maybe from his bright pink cheeks. He has fair hair, brushed forward, and he’s maybe a little overweight, though it quite suits him. His mouth is very red, with puffy lips, in that way that happens sometimes with people with really fair skin and blond hair.

“I think I’ve seen you around St. Tabby’s,” he says. “Don’t you hang out over there some afternoons?”

He gestures to the bench where I was waiting today with Alison and Luce. Automatically, my eyes follow his hand, and I see with a great deal of relief that Alison’s dad must have come to pick her and Luce up; there’s no one there.

“Yeah, sometimes I’m there with, um, friends from gymnastics.”

I have a bit of trouble saying the word friends, out of guilt, but Simon doesn’t notice.

“Right.” Simon blows out a puff of smoke. “You all look so  .  .  . healthy.”

I laugh. “That’s a polite way to put it. Plum just made me put on some lip gloss because I looked all sweaty.”

For some reason, I get a little flush of pleasure after I mention this; I can’t help but think it was nice of Plum to try to help me look pretty, even if she was probably only doing it so I would fit in better with her group. But if she didn’t think I would fit in, why did she invite me over?

I ponder this, confused.

Simon clears his throat. “Hmm, well, I wouldn’t think you needed that,” he says. “I mean, you’re very pretty already, you don’t need anything else.” I feel myself blushing, and am thankful that there’s a buzz of conversation now, so that probably no one heard him. I really don’t hang out with boys that much; I’m not used to this kind of thing, and I don’t know what to say in return. “Thank you” sounds much too prissy.

Still, Plum must have sensed that Simon just paid me a compliment. “Is Simon flirting with you, Scarlett?” she says, leaning down. “You’ve got to watch him, you know, he’s terribly naughty.”

Now it’s Simon who’s blushing; he’s so pink already that he goes bright red.

“Still, he’s a great catch!” Plum adds, winking at me, which just completes my and Simon’s embarrassment.

Neither of us can look at each other. I stare at my feet. Simon looks straight ahead, dragging so hard on his cigarette that it looks as if he’s going to drain it down in a couple of seconds.

“Hey, everyone, what’s up?”

It’s a new voice, calling from further down the path. I register that its owner must be pretty confident to announce his arrival that clearly, and curiosity makes me turn to look.

I gulp so hard my throat hurts. I actually think I’m going to choke. My eyes water, and I start to cough. Simon thinks it’s because of the smoke from his cigarette, and instantly stubs it out on the stone, apologizing profusely.

But I barely hear what he’s saying. When I’ve got my breath back, I realize that my heart is pounding so hard I can’t hear anything over the racket it’s making.

This, more than anything else, is the reason I was so eager to jump at Plum’s invitation. This is what I’ve been staring at longingly from that enormous distance that separates the bench outside school from the Promised Land here at the fountain. This, the opportunity to be so close to the hottest boy I’ve ever seen, close enough now to reach out and touch him, now that he’s coming up the steps. I sit on my hands so I won’t be tempted to do that very thing.

“Hi, Dan,” says Simon.

And Dan McAndrew—gorgeous Dan McAndrew—jumps the last two steps, swings himself up onto the lip of the fountain so easily you’d never know what prime, protected real estate it is, and actually dares to put out a hand and ruffle Plum’s hair.