What If... All Your Friends Turned On You (8 page)

Finally, Haley must be wiped after all this volunteer work. To have her take a breather, send her home for a rest,
ON THE SCALE
.

“Y
ou're eating that?” Coco sniffed at the chicken breast and steamed broccoli Haley was eating for lunch. “You know what they say: a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”

“It's a lean, skinless, broiled chicken breast with no sauce,” Haley said. “It's almost pure protein. No carbs. Plus broccoli is, like, packed with vitamins and has almost zero calories. You can't get much less fattening than this.”

“Whatever you say.” Coco sipped her hot water with lemon.

It was the first day back at school after winter vacation. Haley had gotten up early that morning to go for a long run. It was freezing cold outside, but she had to admit she felt pretty great afterward, and her cheeks retained a rosy glow.

Coco's New Year's Eve speech had inspired her, in a way. She was furious with Reese for what he'd done in the Caribbean, and she wanted to be at her best when she confronted him. She also wanted to do something to boost her energy levels and to help herself feel better, so that Reese's betrayal wouldn't leave her feeling depressed. So, she was exercising more than usual, drinking a lot of water, eating more fruits and vegetables and cutting out foods that clouded up her system, like heavy sweets and simple starches in the packaged breads and crackers category. Overall, she thought she was doing pretty well. She'd shed three pounds of baby fat and was looking tall and lean, but still had respectable curves.

What she wasn't willing to do was take the Coco Cleanse, which, as far as Haley could tell, amounted to ingesting lots of hot water, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and little else. Even diet soda was off-limits, as Coco insisted it led to bloating and that the added chemicals weren't a friend to skin.

Now she and Coco were having lunch together in
the cafeteria, if you could call Coco's cup of water lunch. “You want a bite?” Haley offered her a piece of chicken.

Coco shook her head. “That's not on the Coco Cleanse. You're not following the regimen, and I hate to say it, Haley, but it totally shows.” She pinched the skin on Haley's upper arm as an example.

Haley tried to keep her temper. “That's muscle,” she said, seething.

Haley had a feeling that for Coco, this “healthy regimen” was really about deprivation, starvation and self-control, certainly not health. She accurately guessed it was a way for Coco to feel in charge after Spencer had pulled the sarong out from under her on his modelizing trip to Nevis. “I'm worried about you, Coco. I'm afraid you're taking this cleanse thing way, way too seriously.”

Coco pulled a fashion magazine out of her bag and pointed to the model on the cover. “Look at her. Look how skinny she is! She makes me look like a total fatty. Apparently, this is the kind of girl Spencer likes, so that's what I'm going for. And I won't stop until I get there.”

“You're pretty close already,” Haley warned. Coco smiled with satisfaction, but that wasn't Haley's intended effect. She couldn't help but notice that her friend's skin and eyes were starting to look dull and tired. Coco seemed to have lost some of her fierce spirit and compelling edge. Sure, she could be a little
too spirited at times, especially if you got on her bad side, but without that spark of personality, Coco was missing most of her overall appeal. How could Haley tell her that to her face without having her own head chopped off and served to her on a platter?

Now that most certainly was
not
a menu item on Coco's New Year's diet.

Coco has always had a tendency to go overboard, and this cleanse is no exception. It's as if she's lost all sense of proportion. If you think the waif look is in, turn to
IV
.

All the dieting and cleansing is for a purpose, don't forget: to make those flirty beach boys eat their hearts out. Looking lean and mean is just one part of the plan. If you want to see what goes down when the ladies unleash their arsenal of weapons on the unsuspecting boys, go to,
MAN DOWN
.

Of course, changing your looks and getting revenge on unfaithful boys is risky business, best done carefully. If you think Haley should go home and regroup before she makes any major decisions about love and life, turn to,
ON THE SCALE
.

Do boys really want girls who are literally starving for attention? Haley's about to find out
.

“E
verything with calories is bad for you,” Coco declared.

“Even spinach?” Whitney said. “Even fish?”

“Everything,” Coco said.

“That doesn't really make sense, Coco,” Sasha protested. “Food is the fuel your body needs to get up in the morning and get through the day. Calories are just a measure of how much energy you'll get from your food.”

“That's the sort of thing fat people say,” Coco said. “So I'd expect it coming from you.”

While Coco and the other girls were following a strict ten-day fasting plan—they were currently on day two—Sasha was still consuming some light proteins and steamed vegetables. And Coco wasn't letting her forget it, needling her constantly about her “chubby” cheeks and “thick” thighs, even though there was nothing chubby or thick about Sasha at all.

Haley had decided there was no arguing with the Gospel According to Coco, though. She'd been given a guest pass to Coco's health club, where all the other girls belonged, so that she could join her friends for a group “detox” sauna in the mornings before school. She loved how refreshed it made her feel. Her skin looked clearer and her mind felt sharper. But it also made her thirsty, like, really thirsty, and she drank gallons of water to make up for all the fluid she sweated out every morning.

“Food is the enemy,” Coco went on. “All food.”

“What about mangoes? Or grapefruit?” Whitney said. “I heard they speed your metabolism.”

“You don't need to speed your metabolism if you haven't taken in any calories to burn,” Coco said, leaning back against the cedar sauna wall and adjusting her towel.

“Can't argue with that,” Cecily said.

“So what can we eat?” Whitney moaned. Giving up sweets had been the hardest for her.

“Nothing,” Coco declared. “Except for lemon juice.”

She really is serious
, Haley thought. After all, even paramecia needed to eat something … bacteria, if Haley recalled last year's biology class correctly. No woman could live on lemon juice alone. And in fact, Haley had secretly been picking at healthy dinners with her family at night, and having two bites from a small bowl of oatmeal before school in the mornings. She'd expected the diet to last a couple of days and then for everyone to come to their senses, but Coco was showing no signs of letting up.

“Heat's the best thing for you,” Coco said. “I basically live in heat now. Sauna in the morning, steam showers at night, Bikram yoga in the afternoons … it makes me feel great. All the gunk in my system is being flushed out. I think it's working, don't you?”

Cecily checked her watch. “That's twenty minutes. We ought to get to school.”

The girls trooped into the locker room for cooling showers. Haley opened her locker, unscrewed the cap on a big bottle of water and drank it down as Coco took off her towel and started getting dressed. Haley noticed that her friend's normally svelte body was even tighter and firmer than usual. Coco was actually beginning to look like a swimsuit model—if the adage was true that the camera packed on ten
pounds and those pounds were distributed in all the right places.

Haley glanced down at her own stomach, which felt puffier than ever, probably because she'd been drinking so much water.
The cleanse is working for Coco
, she thought.
Why isn't it working for me?

If you think Haley should focus on Operation Dump 'Em and get the hard part over with, turn to,
MAN DOWN
. If you want her to weigh in after all this cleansing effort to see if she's lost any pounds, flip to,
ON THE SCALE
. Finally, if you think Haley is starting to think she might need to lose a few more pounds after seeing Coco's skinny frame, follow Coco's extreme diet lead on,
IV
.

“I
can't believe Darcy said that to you,” Irene said. “Not only is she a cheap flirt, she plays dirty!”

“She's even starting to annoy me,” Shaun said. “And I'm usually a fan of pop tarts.”

Haley was at Shaun's house recounting her disastrous triple date with Devon and Darcy. The story of Darcy assailing Haley in the bathroom really got them going. Haley was glad to have Shaun and Irene on her side when it came to Devon. Maybe they could help her get Darcy out of the way for good.

“She throws herself at him every chance she gets,” Haley complained. “And he doesn't have a clue.”

“She's got the blinders on him, for reals,” Shaun said. “I don't mind having the ladies come a'calling, but we haven't given her the Willkommen seal of approval yet, and I can't recall the last time me and the Devster kicked it mano a mano.”

“And have you noticed how any time there's even the remotest chance of rain she wears a white T-shirt? And ‘forgets' her jacket?” Irene said. “Totally on purpose. I don't know why Devon can't see through her.”

“Maybe because he can see through her shirt,” Shaun joked.

Irene glared at him. “Shaun. Not funny.”

“Saw ti thguoht I,” Shaun replied.

“It's like she's got him under a spell,” Haley said. “Do you think she's using black magic?”

“It must be the dark arts because Devon's not that dumb,” Irene said. “At least, I never thought he was.”

The doorbell rang. “Oh, who could that be?” Irene said sarcastically.

“Probably D-Squared,” Shaun said.

“Well, aren't you going to answer it?” Irene asked.

“Let me get my monocle.” Shaun had taken to wearing a monocle when greeting guests. Haley didn't know where this latest quirk came from—apparently
from some old British TV series he'd recently started watching—but Shaun was always up to some new weirdness; it hardly surprised Haley anymore.

Shaun found his monocle on the kitchen counter and answered the door with a British accent. “Willkommen to the Willkommen household. I'm the butler, Shaunessy. Do come in.”

“Thanks, Shaun,” Devon said, hardly batting an eyelash at this new persona his friend had taken on.

“Please join the other guests in the kitchen,” Shaun said. “May I offer you a beverage?”

Darcy stared in awe at Shaun's large, modern house, with its plate glass windows, meticulous Asian landscaping and backyard infinity pool. “Wow, this is where you live? Some crash pad!”

Shaun kept up his British accent, for the moment. “Yes, we rather like it for the time being, until the renovations on the big house are completed.”

“There's a bigger house?” Darcy asked.

“He's kidding,” Irene said. “Shaun, drop the butler bit.”

“Whatever you say, my lady.”

“Now.”

“Okay, Rini, okay.” He whispered to Haley, “Milady's a bit peeved about my fraternizing with the guests.”

Haley had noticed that a power shift had
gradually taken place between Irene and Shaun. They'd started out with Irene more or less retreating to the background because Shaun's flamboyant personality grabbed most of the attention. But as time went on, Shaun had become so attached to Irene that she began to take it for granted. Now she could say just about anything to him and he'd obey still completely crazy about her.