Some Kind of Wonderful (4 page)

Chapter 5

INCOGNITO ON MADISON

B
efore I knew it, I was in the backseat of an uptown-bound minivan taxi next to SBB. I had to clutch her arm as the cabbie
zipped through more than a few red lights in a row while heading north on Sixth Avenue. When we hit a street fair on 23rd
Street and the smell of kettle corn and cheap Thai food struck my nose, the cab driver swung a hard right toward Fifth.

"I didn't know you went slumming in cabs," I joked. "Is it Richardo's day off or something?"

"Oh no no no, Flan," she said. "Taxis are the way to go. Much more incognito
and
I love the idea that there's a chance I might get on
Cash Cab
and end up on the Discovery Channel. It'd be so much fun to be on reality TV disguised as someone else. Wouldn't that be hilarious?"

"Hilarious," I agreed. I didn't want to burst SBB's bubble and tell her that one of Patch's friends worked on the show
Cash Cab
(a game show in which unsuspecting New Yorkers hail cabs only to find a disco-clothes-wearing, trivia-questioning driver inside),
so I knew that all of the contestants they picked up were staged. Anyway, she was busy turning incognito, as she almost always
does when we go out in public together.

"What should it be today?" she asked, rummaging through the biggest bright green Longchamp tote I'd ever seen. It was easily
twice her size.

"What are my options?" I asked.

"Ooh, I have the perfect wig in here for an Upper East Side private school brat," she said, and produced a wig of flowing
black waves that looked alarmingly similar to Kennedy Pearson's haircut last year.

"That looks right," I said.

"What else are the girls wearing these days, Flan? You're my link to the
real
people in this town."

I helped SBB sort through a torrent of printed silk shawls and giant belt buckles to accessorize her T-shirt dress. From the
bottom of the bag, we picked the biggest pair of sunglasses we could find—red, Alain Mikli—and slapped them on her pretty
little face.

"You look like everyone I grew up going to school with," I told her. "I'm a little scared of you, actually."

"Don't be scared, Flan. You just saved my life. Another costuming success!"

I looked down at my own white boatneck shirt and jeans and felt suddenly very un-glamorous. If there was one thing I was not,
it was a costuming success.

"Now will you tell me where we're going?" I asked. I wondered if I should have changed, too.

The cab screeched to a halt at 53rd Street and Madison.

"Here!" SBB exclaimed. She paid the driver and pulled me onto the street and then into the high ceilings and bright lights
of the Bric's luggage store. The inside of the store was spare and meticulously laid out by color, size, and type of travel.
"This is
the
place to buy Nevis-worthy luggage. I wouldn't let you leave home without it," SBB said.

Soon, Sara-Beth was whipping me around the store, pointing out every piece of luggage that she personally owned and every
piece of luggage that she'd convinced one of her friends to buy.

"Satisfaction guaranteed!" she grinned, unzipping pockets and showing me the various compartments with a
Deal or No Deal
Girl flourish. "This one's for jewelry, and here's one for your lingerie. There's a climate-controlled compartment in case
you have any face creams that need refrigeration. I use this one for fuzzy handcuffs . . . whoops, did I say that?" I tried
to stifle my laughter as one of the sales clerks turned to glare at us, but it ended up coming out my nose, which only made
SBB more hysterical.

When we'd calmed down, she grabbed my hand. "Ooh, are you bringing Noodles with you?"

I shook my head. "Not this time. He's not much of a jet-setter—the whole air sickness thing. He's staying with Liesel."

"That's too bad, because they have the cutest doggie totes. I bought a couple for myself, just in case I ever stop being terrified
of animals."

It was always a blast to shop with SBB, and soon I was totally absorbed in finding the perfect duffel bag for the trip. It
was funny—my Tumi rolling suitcase had seemed perfectly fine this morning, but it now felt totally lame in comparison to all
of these great new options.

"This one," I said finally, pausing in front of a sleek burgundy duffel with an option for 360-degree rolling. "Perfection."

"Definitely." SBB nodded enthusiastically.

As someone with a track record of terrible decision-making capabilities, I certainly had an easy enough time upgrading my
luggage, thanks to Sara-Beth.

"I needed that," I said to SBB as we approached the register wheeling my new top-of-the-line duffel bag. "I should let you
make all my life decisions."

There was a crowd of people in front of us at the register—apparently I wasn't the only one getting outfitted for the Thanksgiving
break.

A group of girls turned around as we approached.

"Is that
Flan Flood}"
I heard a voice say.

It was Olivia Quayle, an old friend of mine from Miss Mallard's, whom I hadn't talked to since eighth grade. She'd grown a
few inches and maybe had a nose job. She looked a lot more dazzling than I'd remembered. She was wearing a cropped cream-colored
wool jacket, and her wavy auburn hair hung down her back. She gave me a bright, genuine smile.

"Hey, Olivia," I said, giving her a kiss. You never greeted anyone from Miss Mallard's with a hug. It was only ever the air-kiss.
"Great to see you. You look awesome."

"Oh my God, not even," Olivia said.
"You
look amazing. What model's body did you steal? You're so tall now."

I heard SBB sniff beside me at that comment. It would be polite to introduce her, but she'd kill me if I blew her cover.

"Um, this is my friend . . . Mandy," I said. "She goes to Stuy with me."

"Nice to meet you, Mandy," Olivia said. "And this is Veronica and Dara—new recruits at Thoney this year. They were at Little
Red until last year, and we've been BFFs since day one of freshman year. Right, girls?"

Veronica and Dara nodded and grinned, and both of them actually seemed really nice. For a second, I wondered if I would have
been in their crew if I'd stuck around and gone to Thoney.

Dara turned to SBB and said, "You look really familiar. Do we know each other from somewhere?"

SBB readjusted her wig and purred in a southern accent I'd never heard before. "I don't see how we could. I've only just moved
here from Texas."

Since no one really knew what to say to a girl from Texas, Olivia turned back to me.

"Well, we really miss you, Flan, but we hear through the grapevine that Stuy's going well. Dating the captain of the football
team or something?"

I blushed and laughed a little. "Adam," I said. "We just started dating a little while ago, but he's a pretty cool guy." I
wondered how they'd found out about my love life. Was it really something people talked about in the Thoney grapevine? It
felt sort of nice to think that people were saying I was doing well at Stuyvesant, but I realized that I was much more interested
in talking to Olivia about the latest dirt in her circle than I was in talking about Adam.

"Tell me about Thoney. Who's stealing whose boyfriend? Who's getting caught smoking in the bathroom? What are the upperclassmen
like? I want to know everything."

The girls giggled and stepped closer to start whispering about school. I was having so much fun that I barely noticed SBB
retreating—until I felt one very hard pull on my left hand.

"Oh, sorry, S—Mandy. I got caught up—"

I stopped talking at the sight of SBB's face, which had turned as pale as a ghost.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Too many people," she whispered, robot-like. "Anxiety attack countdown."

At that moment, Dara and Veronica both began to squeal. "Omigod, the boys are here!" I turned to look and noticed a group
of about five very cute Manhattan boys walking through the door, not breaking their swagger or their formation. I recognized
one of them as Alex Altfest—the prince of New York City, according to a lot of my old friends. He had the whole tall, dark,
and handsome thing going on, and he managed to be impeccably dressed in a forest green Fendi sweater without looking like
he cared too much about his clothes. The others were basically attractive clones of him. They must be the A-list at Dalton
this year.

Looking at them, even just from afar, made me feel really out of touch with this world.

Dara, Veronica, and Olivia were trying to play it cool, but they quickly started arguing about who should approach the boys
first.

"I did it
last
time when we saw him at Papaya King," Dara whispered insistently.

Behind me, I could feel SBB retreating ever further into panic mode. It was crazy what a group of guys could do to a room.
But my immediate concern was Sara-Beth. I turned to her and grabbed her hand. "You okay?" I asked. "We can head out if you
want."

"Too dangerous," she said in a voice I didn't recognize. It was as if she had turned into an android. "Follow me."

She tugged my hand and pulled us both around a corner. There, down an aisle and to the right, in a whole different room of
the store, was a giant steamer trunk. I stared at it. It was easily the biggest piece of luggage I'd ever seen in my life—quite
possibly bigger than a MINI Cooper. Before I knew it, SBB tugged me inside, and the trunk closed around us with a soft click.
There I was, huddled in a piece of luggage next to SBB, trying to help her control her breathing.

"Meditate at the third eye point," I told her. "That always helps."

"Shhh,"
she said. "Don't leave."

"Sara-Beth, I don't really have anywhere to go." The walls of the trunk pressed up against us, and only a glimmer of light
came through the hinges.

"Let's just
be
for a few minutes. I think it will help, okay?"

"Okay." But it was clearly not okay, since SBB was gripping my forearms so hard that I could feel her nails digging into my
skin.

Once SBB's breathing had quieted, I was able to hear sounds from the outside. "Oh Alex, guess who you just missed?" Olivia
said. "Flan Flood! She was just here. I don't know where she went. She looked amazing, didn't she? Maybe / should have gone
to Stuyvesant."

This made the other girls laugh—and I almost didn't hear Alex say, "Well, Flan was always a hottie."

My eyes grew wide and even SBB put her panic attack aside for a minute to nudge me and giggle. Now we
definitely
couldn't come out of the steamer trunk until everyone was gone.

"I have a credit card here for
Flan Flood"
a French-accented voice rang out.
Crap.
It was the snotty saleswoman, blowing our cover. The way she called my name out made it sound like a dead fish falling to
the floor with a
thump.

"What do we do?" I asked SBB.

Sara-Beth put back on the Texas drawl and said loudly through the trunk, "Um, ma'am, we were fixin' to look at this steamer
trunk, and we happened to get ourselves stuck."

There were muffled giggles from the other side, and I heard one of the girls whisper, "Who knows? She's from
Texas,"
before the saleswoman came over with the key. I was ready to breathe in the sweet air of freedom and deal with the embarrassment
of falling out of a steamer trunk in front of a high-profile audience, but SBB can never do anything the normal way. She had
other plans.

The steamer trunk opened a crack and we saw the dour face of the saleswoman and a glimpse of my friends standing just behind
her. But before the door opened all the way, SBB grabbed the saleswoman by the name tag on her lapel and pulled her partway
into the trunk.

"Angie," she said in an urgent voice. "Look, I'm sorry about this, but I'm a movie star." She flicked up her sunglasses briefly
to show her face. "See? Sara-Beth Benny. I don't usually do this, but I need to ask you a favor."

Angie let out that weird, excited exhale of someone really into meeting famous people.

Sara-Beth continued talking. "My ESP tells me there's a load of paparazzi waiting outside this door, and I
know
you don't want them in your store. They break things, trample on nice luggage, and blind customers with their awful camera
flashes. It's bad for business."

Angie's forehead wrinkled, and we watched her glance out the door. "What can I do to help?" Angie asked.

"What you have to do is this," SBB hissed. "Lock up this little steamer trunk—I love it, by the way, I'll take two—and crate
my friend and me out to a loading van in the back. Don't forget Flan's little duffel out there, too. Your driver will take
us home and we'll avoid any ugly situations with the press. Okay?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible," Angie said, biting her lip and looking back toward the cash register. I could see my old
friends staring at us, whispering curiously.

"Look,
Ange,
I'm on strict doctor's orders to indulge my panic attacks, and this is the way I choose to indulge this one. If it's going
to cost me, it's going to cost me. I'm happy to write you a check."

Angie raised her precisely tweezed eyebrows at us.

"Would you like an autographed copy of the /
Do
Till Timbuktu
DVD?" SBB was flailing. "You look like a Patrick Dempsey fan; I can get him to stop into the store. I'll take
three
steamer trunks if you want. Just lock us back up in this trunk and get us home.
Capisce?"

"Fine," she sighed. "I'll . . . see what I can do. But I want that DVD."

When the doors closed around us again, even I felt safer.

"How did you do that?" I asked her.

"You just have to know what you want, Flan. Secret of life," she said in her last bit of Texas drawl. Then she sighed and
turned serious. "I'm so glad you were here, Flanny. I don't know what I'd have done without you. Promise me we'll always be
close to each other's hearts."