The Pretty App (5 page)

“Wait here,” I whispered to Joanna and Jolene.

I rounded the Clinique counter to get a better look at Nic. She was arguing with someone standing behind a towering platform-sandal display. Her lips were pursed and her face was contorted like it did when she was about to cry. My first instinct was to go to her, so I edged closer, around a table of shagreen clutches. As I neared her, I made out Samantha Cavelli, a girl who had graduated from Harrison the year after Nic and now went to Notre Dame, too. Why would Nic be arguing with Samantha Cavelli? I didn’t even realize they were friends.

Then Nic started to cry. Samantha glanced around, suddenly looking helpless. I moved toward my sister, but then Samantha put her arm around Nic and it felt like I wasn’t needed. That hit me hard, and I backed away and hurried toward Joanna and Jolene.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, barely able to look at them. It was too embarrassing to admit how far my relationship with Nic had fallen, but I knew Joanna and Jolene sensed it. It was like I couldn’t hold on to anyone important. Not Nic. Not Xander. Not Audrey. I didn’t want Joanna and Jolene leaving me, too.

T
he next afternoon we were all sitting in an upperclassman seminar called College Prep, which was supposedly meant to motivate the juniors and prepare the seniors. But it was mostly about
study habits
and not about stuff we really needed to know, like
how to date two guys at once without looking like a ho
. The class was taught by Taylor Marley, also known as Hot Gym Coach, which was ironic because HGC struck me as the kind of playboy who drank beer and caught STDs in college.

We had to meet in the auditorium because so many kids were taking College Prep that a regular classroom couldn’t hold us. Dusty maroon-colored velvet curtains draped along the stage like a breeding ground for moths. The scalloped white pillars on the side of the stage were the only thing about Harrison that reminded me of a fancy private school. (I’d always wanted to go to private school so I could
act like Serena van der Woodsen, but my dad always said public school was a better option for Nic and me in case he ever decided to run for public office.) I checked my phone for a reply from Nic. Last night after I saw her at the mall, I’d texted:

We could still hang out this week if you want. Maybe a movie?

I figured if I could get her alone, maybe I could ask her about what was going on with Samantha Cavelli. But she hadn’t responded yet.

“Today we’re going to talk about selecting your course load,” HGC said. He blinked under the glare of the auditorium lights, and his brown eyes looked a little bloodshot, like he’d been out partying. “This can be a very stressful decision,” HGC went on, in the same
stay calm, but
this is really important
tone our seventh-grade health teacher used to break the news about erections.

HGC was the lacrosse coach, and he was dressed in his uniform like the rest of the team because they had a home game today. His whistle was visible beneath his maroon-and-gold jersey, and so were his nipples, which made me feel like maybe he should wear an undershirt.

College Prep was the first class Audrey and I’d had together in years, because she was in all the smart-people classes. She sat two rows in front of me on a blue velvet seat. Nigit, Aidan, Mindy, and Lindsay sat close to Audrey. Jolene, Xander, and Joanna were next to me. I tried not to notice Xander’s furtive looks in Mindy’s direction.

Hot Gym Coach looked a little wobbly as he wheeled
an ancient-looking television and VCR to the front of the class, making me even more sure that he was hungover. “Today we’re going to watch a video that addresses the importance of selecting a class schedule that is both manageable and leads you toward your chosen major.”

Nice. A video. We didn’t usually get to watch them in this class.

HGC looked like he was about to throw up as he fumbled with the remote. He put a hand to his head. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck.

“Uh, Xander,” he said. “You’re good with these things, right?”

Xander jumped from his seat. He strode to the front of the auditorium, his muscular shoulders flexing beneath his uniform.

Clank
went one of the back doors. I turned to see Leo waltz in with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. “What’s up Harrison High?” he said loudly, and because nothing interesting ever happens at this stupid school, a bunch of kids started clapping.

“I hope you have a hall pass, Mr. Bauer,” HGC said.

“I hope you have Advil, Mr. Coach,” Leo said as he moved down the aisle. He clapped HGC on the back and said, “You don’t look so good, Gym Boy.”

HGC’s face went red at his slightly receding hairline, and at first I thought he was going to kick Leo out of class, or worse. But then he turned a greenish color and stumbled past Leo and Xander and flew through the exit.

Everyone was quiet, and then Leo started laughing.

“I guess that concludes today’s episode of College Prep,” Leo said, and everyone started laughing right along with him like he was Louis C.K. and this was his stand-up routine. Leo’s grin was huge, and the dimples I’d seen at Joanna and Jolene’s party were back. He was wearing another one of those long-sleeved thermal shirts; this one was chocolate brown and looked perfect with his wavy blond hair. And the way he stood up there in front of the class with everyone eating out of the palm of his hand made him sexier than ever. We almost never got new faces at Harrison, unless you counted the foreign exchange students. We certainly never got new faces that looked like Leo’s. A bunch of the girls were giggling and whispering to one another. Leo picked up Coach’s microphone from the stage.

“I propose we watch a different video,” Leo said into the mic, running a hand over his blond scruff. “Anyone in favor?”

Everyone cheered, except for Goth Girl Greta Fleming, who’d fallen asleep with her head tipped up toward the ceiling and her black lace veil skimming the floor behind her. Leo ducked down toward his messenger bag and yanked out his laptop.

“Go, Leo!” Nigit yelled out. He and Aidan Bailey were grinning like fanboys. I could sort of see why they worshipped Leo. He was like the hot, confident version of a regular Trog—a Trog 2.0. For a fleeting second it struck me as odd that Leo was hanging out only with their group. Why hadn’t he branched out socially, or started hitting on
half the girls in school who clearly drooled over him?

“Thanks, man,” Leo said with a chuckle as he powered on his computer.

“This better be what I think it is,” Jolene said into my ear.

I was thinking the same thing. Danny Beaton was supposed to announce Stage Two of the Pretty App at two p.m. It was 1:59, and we’d all been complaining about having to miss it because of useless College Prep.

Carrie Sommers stood up. “I’d like to take this time to tell you all that the Cheer Squad will be performing an original dance to ‘Oops! . . . I Did It Again’ at today’s lacrosse game. You can see a preview on my Public Party page, but let me just say that if you like Britney mixed with Bollywood, you are going to l-o-v-e
love
this dance.” And then she pumped her arms with her elbows splayed and her fists near her perky C-cups.

Everyone looked bored except Leo, who said, “I’ll be sure to check that out, Carrie.” His voice was kind, like he meant it, and Carrie smiled hugely before she sat down.

Leo went back to typing away at his keyboard and then propped it above the television. Danny Beaton lyrics blared from his laptop. The screen showed the Times Square stage, where Danny was strumming a ukulele. Dalmatians sat next to firefighters on the side of the stage, and at first I thought it was some kind of tribute to servicemen, but then the firefighters started taking off their clothes and I realized they were strippers. Is it me, or is the pop music industry constantly trying to out-ridiculous itself?

Danny Beaton shouted into his microphone.
“What’s up, America?! Are y’all ready for Stage Two of the Pretty App?”

The Times Square crowd was even bigger than last time. The spectators—nearly all girls again—whooped and hollered and waved their phones in the air.

Danny did a sideways kick jump and landed in a split, then popped back up again like his body was made of string cheese. I rolled my eyes at Joanna.
“Eight hundred thousand of you have uploaded your prettiest photos,”
Danny said, sounding like he was trying to be Ryan Seacrest from
American Idol. “And now it’s time to unveil Stage Two of the app that’s sweeping America.”

Right then another one of those sexy glamazon models strutted her stuff across the stage. She wore a firefighter uniform tailored to fit her sleek frame like sausage casing. The neckline plunged between her boobs.

Danny said,
“Wowza,”
as the model handed him a suitcase that glittered like a chandelier. He opened the case and retrieved a tiny chrome bullet that looked like some kind of tech gadget. He inspected it like it was a rare gem and then inserted it into his phone. The screen glowed, and Danny gazed at it with fake wonderment. And then, of course, he started singing.

“Whoa whoa whoa. Uh-huh. Yeah.

It’s time to find her.

It’s time to find the one.

You know who she is.

She’s the girl every guy wants.

She’s the girl every girl wants to be.

She’s the prettiest girl.

She’s the prettiest girl in the world.

Find her.”

Danny gave the camera one of his soap-opera looks.
“Download the Pretty App Stage Two,”
he said, holding America’s stare. “
It’s time to find the prettiest one of all
.”

My heart pounded. I suddenly had the awful feeling that I had something to lose. What if I wasn’t allowed to compete because of my dad’s involvement with Public? Though, he wasn’t an employee, just one of their many investors. (A big one, but still.)

I whipped out my phone like everyone else. Leo looked pensively hot as he stared at all of the Harrison kids tapping their screens. It was like he was memorizing the frenzy. I opened the Pretty App, and new instructions danced across the screen in pink lettering.

Welcome to Stage Two of the Pretty App.

You’ve uploaded your prettiest photos, and now it’s time to vote on Pretty Potential to find the Prettiest Girl in your high school. Simply rank every female student in your high school for looks alone on a scale of 1–10. The girl with the highest average will become the Public Pretty and be entered into a nationwide contest to win a spot on a new reality show featuring the one and only Danny Beaton.

*The Pretty App is only for female students 16+ officially enrolled in high school in the United States of America. All others will be disqualified from participation.

My mind raced. A reality show? A beauty contest at Harrison? I had to at least win that part—I had to.

Murmurs rippled across the auditorium. I looked up to see Audrey whispering something to Aidan. Chantal Richardson stood up and said, “We don’t need to do this. We don’t need to rank each other. This is
not
a good idea.” A few kids clapped, but most were staring at their phones and talking among themselves, seeming not to care about what she’d said.

Leo looked over the rows of students, and then took out his phone and started texting. Nigit said, to no one in particular, “Can dudes vote, too? Because my vote goes to Lindsay Fanning, the love of my mortal life.” Leo looked at Nigit and said, “No, bro, the app’s for chicks.”

Joanna leaned so close I could smell her watermelon gum. “You have to win this thing,” she said.

I nodded, feeling my skin go hot and prickly. She was right. And something about hearing her say the words out loud made me think I could.

I
couldn’t stop obsessing over my Pretty ranking. Who even knew how much longer I had to look like this? God gave me a gift with a shelf life. There were only a dozen or so more years until my looks would start to fade. A slow, drawn-out torture.

But I couldn’t focus on that now. I could only focus on winning this thing.

That afternoon, Joanna, Jolene, and I were in my bedroom eating organic kettle chips. The air smelled like grease and salt.

“What do we need to do to get rid of these things?” Joanna asked, holding her chip in the air and pretending to feed one of the crazy-strange
Phantom of the Opera
masks my mom had hung on my wall. “Yum, yum, yum,” she said.

I hated those masks. Their deranged grins stared back at
me every time I sat at my desk and attempted homework. But my mom loved them. And when she told me the story about how
Phantom of the Opera
was the first musical she ever took me to, I couldn’t bring myself to complain about them. I actually thought keeping the masks might make her come into my room more often, but she never really did. I don’t think she felt comfortable in small spaces with Nic and me anymore.

Jolene laughed at Joanna feeding the masks, but I felt too fidgety to join in. “Let’s check our rankings,” I said, climbing from the bed and moving to my desk. I turned on my laptop and opened Public Party.

Public was featuring the contest front and center on our pages next to the Pretty App icon.
Click here to rank the Pretty Potential of your high school!
I entered Jolene’s name and her cover photo sprang to the screen. Her light eyes were shining, and the beauty mark on her chin looked so perfect it could’ve been drawn on by a makeup artist.

JOLENE MARTIN. PRETTY RATING: 8.8

“Eight point eight!” I said, both excited for her and relieved she wasn’t beating me.

Jolene managed a small smile. “What’s yours?” she asked.

I entered my name. The photo of me pursing my lips for Sean DeFosse’s camera popped onto the screen.

BLAKE ANDREA DAWKINS. PRETTY RATING: 9.4

I couldn’t help but smile. My score had gone up two-tenths since I’d checked it an hour ago.

“I have an idea,” Joanna said. She set the bag of chips on my bed and moved across the floor. “Let’s make a campaign page for you on Public Party. We can load a bunch of your best photos.”

What a good idea.

“I don’t know,” I said, wanting her to work for it a little more so she’d tell the kids at school she had to convince me to do it. I didn’t want any of them knowing how much I wanted this. Because what if that made them want to take it away?

“Come on, Blake,” Jolene said, standing beside me at the computer. “Let
us
do it.”

“Okay,” I said, smiling as she clicked on my photo gallery. “If you guys think it’s a good idea.”

“It’s a
great
idea,” Joanna said as Jolene grinned.

We scrolled through my archived Public Party photos. I’d used the Pretty App filters on some of them, and they already looked the best. There was the one of me in my bikini in Turks and Caicos, where I’m feeding a bottlenose dolphin and my hair is doing a Victoria’s Secret catalog scrunched-up saltwater thing. Then there was the one from last fall’s Danny Beaton concert. It was a close-up of my face, and I’m wearing this Bobbi Brown glitter eye shadow that makes my eyes look extra dramatic. I’d used a Pretty App filter called
Mermaid
to make it look like I was underwater. Sounds cheesy, but it actually made the photo look kind of cool. And then there was the picture of me volunteering at the South Bend Soup Kitchen, which my dad made me do for a family photo op. That one could win
points: My dad taught me by example that anything bad you do can be forgotten with a little good press.

“This one’s cute, too,” Jolene said, pointing to the one of Nic and me on horseback from a few years ago, when we used to ride together.

“I don’t think we should put up one of Nic,” I said, shaking my head. Nic was weird about social media. She was the only college kid I knew who didn’t post anything and everything about her life on her Public Party page.

“It’s kind of outdated, anyway,” Joanna said, clicking on another one with me and Xander after one of his lacrosse games.

“We
have
to use this,” Jolene said.

She was right. It was perfect. Xander’s head was tilted toward me, and we stared at each other in profile. We looked so happy, even though we’d just had a huge fight and were on the verge of breaking up. That was the funny thing about Public Party pages: You could make your life look so beautiful and perfect, even if it wasn’t.

“I bet Xander would win if they were doing this contest for guys,” Joanna said.

“Or Woody,” Jolene said. And then, maybe to cover up her Woody-tracks, she said, “But that was all before Leo showed up.”

I stared hard at Jolene and Joanna as they exchanged a glance. They had so many secrets between them: secret thoughts and secret looks.

“What?” Joanna said. “He’s so hot.”

“He’s a Trog,” I said.

Jolene shrugged. “Hot is hot.”

Joanna assembled all the pictures and used a pretty purple font to title the page:
Beautiful Blake.

“That’s it?” I asked. “You’re not going to say anything about the Pretty App contest?”

Joanna shook her head. “It’s classier this way,” she said. Then she blushed a little, almost like she could feel me thinking something mean about how she wasn’t the arbiter of classy. But I wasn’t thinking that. I was thinking she was right.

“You know what we should do?” Joanna asked, once my page was up and running. “We should make an Ugly Page for someone at Harrison.”

Jolene laughed as Joanna clicked around on Harrison students’ ratings. There were girls who’d submitted their photos (or maybe someone else had submitted them as a joke?) with scores of 1’s and 2’s. I felt a wave of relief that I’d never know what that felt like.

“Oh my gosh,” Jolene said. “We should do Sara Oaks.”

Joanna clapped her hands over her mouth. “Yes,” she said through her fingers.

“But Sara’s not ugly,” I said.

“Does it really matter?” Joanna said. “She’s a loser.”

Maybe she was. But she also seemed a little fragile. At least the other losers at school had a few friends: Sara was floating out there with no one. “Yeah, but we don’t want her to come totally unhinged.”

Joanna laughed like I was making a joke. Then she scrolled and found all kinds of unflattering pictures of Sara
on Public Party. It was like no one taught her how to untag herself, or maybe she liked being tagged by people because it made her feel like she had friends. There was one of her sitting all alone at lunch with her face squished like she was trying to fart or something. Someone had captioned the photo:
Tater tots not agreeing with you, Sara Oaks?
And then there was one of her in the swimming pool during gym class. She wore oversize goggles, and the top of her suit flopped open and you could see the nipple of one of her barely there boobs.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” I said. The nipple picture was giving me a sick feeling. Joanna and Jolene looked at me like I’d suggested we wear matching denim vests to prom.

“OK, fine,” I said. “Do what you want on your own time. But don’t use the nipple picture. It’s basically porn.”

Jolene rolled her eyes. She and Joanna started packing up their things, and we didn’t say much as they got ready to leave. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think they were going home to make that page. And the thing is, if you don’t stop someone from doing something you know is wrong, then you’re almost as responsible as they are.

Maybe that was my first mistake. It definitely wasn’t my last.