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  “Caro—”

  “I’m disappointed,” she said in her mother’s tone, then got into her car.

  Oh God. I watched the Mercedes drive away and felt my stomach turn over and twist. How had all this happened? How had I gone from wanting to see my boyfriend and go to my dad’s wedding to not getting along with my best friend? To being shut out? Now I was a traitor for helping Elinor?

  “Is she mad at you?” Elinor asked when I joined her in line. “She looked upset.”

  I looked at Elinor. This pageant meant so much to her. For Caro, it was just another trophy. I did want Elinor to do well in the pageant, because …

  I liked her.

  Yeah, I liked her. I liked her and I liked Joe and I even liked Avery, even though she had some Caro-like traits.

  “Well, I’m helping her competition, so … ”

  Elinor laughed. “That’s hilarious. Like I even register on her radar!”

  That was interesting, actually. That Elinor did register. Was Caro Alexander really that insecure?

  “I guess it’s the principle,” I said. But I knew that Caro seriously couldn’t be worried about Elinor. This was more about me. Controlling me, wielding her power.

  “She’s Caro Alexander. She’s still going to win,” Elinor said. “I just want to place. No, I don’t even care about placing. I just want to enter and feel like I could place. I just want my stepmother off my back.”

  “I know. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay,” she said. “If you’re sure. I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”

  I smiled. “Honestly, don’t worry about it.”

  “You know what I am worrying about? My dress for the pageant. I don’t have anything, and if I ask my stepmother to buy me a new dress, she’ll drag me to her favorite store and I’ll end up with something she chose, because she’s the one with the wallet. That’s pretty much why I never have any new clothes. My mom can’t afford it, and my stepmother has total mother-of-the-bride taste.”

  “I didn’t know you really cared so much about clothes.”

  “I don’t, really, but … there’s this dress I wish I could wear in the pageant, but it costs a fortune and I’d never buy something I could only wear once. I mean, it’s not like I need the fancy dress of my dreams for school dances. Though a guy I sort of like has kind of been paying attention to me.” She couldn’t contain the glow under her shyness and started twirling around. “He’s really cute. Omigod, wouldn’t it be amazing if he asked me to the Spring Fling? Madeline, for the first time in my life, I really think something I want might actually come true.”

  I leaned over and hugged her and she squeezed me back.

  “So where’d you see this amazing dress? At the mall?”

  She shook her head. “No, I saw it in Retro Girl, the vintage-clothing store down by the bead shop. It’s this incredible hot pink and has these layers of chiffon. And it has this gorgeous matching flower at the bottom of the strap. It’s so me and I even tried it on. But it would be silly to buy it for a one-hour event that I’m not even going to win. Though the pictures would be cool to have. Anyway, I’ll just wear something I have and imagine I’m in that dress. That’s something Anne of Anne of Green Gables would do. The importance of imagination and all.”

  I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but I nodded anyway. “Yeah, I’ll just imagine I’m wearing that amazing dress,” she continued. “Oh, and, Madeline, I totally don’t expect you to cheer for me or anything. I know you’ll be cheering for Caro. She’s your best friend.”

  Right. My best friend.

  I called Caro that night. “So has Sam asked you out?”

  “God, Madeline,” she said. “Don’t you think I’d tell you if he had? You don’t need to rub it in my face that he hasn’t. It’s embarrassing enough.”

  Whoa. “Caro, I was just ask—”

  “Whatever. Let’s just change the subject. I assume you told the frizz freak you’re not helping her with the Lobster Claw Teen Queen Pageant.”

  I closed my eyes and flopped down on my bed. “Caro, she’s paying my airfare to see Thom and to attend my dad’s wedding. I have to help her.”

  “Right. You have to help her against a friend.”

  “Caro, it’s ridiculous—”

  “Oh, so now I’m ridiculous?” she asked.

  “Caro, come on,”

  “No, you come on, Madeline. You’re being really weird and everyone is talking about it. Let’s face it. Thom is gone. And, look, I’m not saying we’re not real friends, because we are, but Thom is the reason we took you into our group in the first place. That’s not mean, it’s just a fact. You and Thom were a package deal. If I were you, I’d hook up with James or Reid, and fast. And I’d lose the farm freaks.”

  I almost dropped the phone. That creepy feeling, the one that twisted my stomach into knots and gave me headaches and made me feel crazy, the one that had started when Caro had begun acting weird before Thom even left, was back. With a vengeance. Real friends. What did that mean?

  Okay, just take a breath, Madeline. I closed my eyes and breathed in and out.

  “I’ll assume your silence means what I said is slowly sinking in,” Caro said.

  “So we’re not real friends or we are, Caro? Which is it?”

  “I’m just saying, Madeline.”

  “Well, I can’t lose the farm freaks. They’re paying my way to California. You know that.”

  “Madeline, have you even heard from Thom lately? He used to call and text every hour. Now you’re lucky if he texts you once a day to say he’s so busy. And what do you think he’s busy with? His new friends? A new girlfriend. Wake up and smell the cow crap, Madeline.”

  Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “Thanks, Caro. Thanks a lot.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Sweetie, I’m telling you the truth because I’m your best friend. Do you really want me to lie to your face and tell you what you want to hear?”

  “Do you really think Thom has dumped me without telling me?”

  “Ninety-nine percent chance of yes,” she said. “I’d wear something sexy tomorrow and flirt with James. You can borrow my sparkly pink T-shirt that you like.”

  “I don’t know about anything,” I said. “I’m gonna go, okay?”

  “Okay. And, Mads, don’t worry so much. We have your back.” Click.

  I stared at the ceiling. Was I delusional about Thom? Was he making out with some girl right then? Was California just going to be a huge waste of money?

  I picked up Caro’s present—the hearted-up yearbook—and flipped to Reid’s and James’s pages. They were very cute. If I just picked one of them and started hanging out with him, maybe I’d like him. And my life could go back to normal. I’d be part of an It Couple. I’d have my place in my world again. Everything would be okay. And I could still see Thom in California, because I’d be there anyway for my dad’s wedding.

  I glanced at James’s cute face. He did absolutely nothing for me. I didn’t want to know what music he liked or if he thought Yum’s or Pizza Palace was more fun to hang out in. I didn’t want to kiss him.

  And Thom? Thom was beginning to feel like a memory.

  How had that happened so fast?

  I flipped to his photo and I smiled. Those green eyes stared into mine and I had to admit I still missed him, but not with the intensity I had at first. Maybe because so much had happened.

  On the left side of the page were the “F”s, including Sam Fray. My gaze shifted to his photo, and his was the one I couldn’t take my eyes off.

  Chapter 14

  I called Thom. Got his voice mail. Texted him: Really need to talk. Then I waited almost an hour. Nothing. Maybe if we did talk, we could settle something. Were we still a couple?

  I thought about calling Fergie, but she tended to get very nervous about talking about Caro behind her back. Which was smart.

  You know, Madeline, if you ever need to talk …

  I changed m
y shoes and headed out to the small barn, but Sam wasn’t there. He didn’t usually stay that late, but he’d volunteered to help Mac and the farmhand move the cows to the far pasture. I headed that way, up the hilly path that wound its way through almost fifty acres of land. For a moment I stopped and stared at the clear blue sky, at a fluffy white cloud in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head, and then took a deep breath. I kept heading up until I saw the herd of cows, and then there was Sam, sitting on a rock and writing something in a notebook, his back against a tree.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Mac or your mom need me?” he asked, taking off his sunglasses and squinting up at me, those brown eyes so warm and intense at the same time.

  “Nope,” I said. “I do, actually.” For Joe, I made a mental note of what Sam was wearing—faded army green cargo pants and a black T-shirt, a dark brown leather band around his wrist. I couldn’t see Joe wearing a leather bracelet.

  He closed the notebook and patted the rock next to him. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, just everything is completely falling apart,” I said. “My friends are mad at me. My boyfriend—who I’m not sure is still my boyfriend—is three thousand miles away. My dad is getting married to a woman I’ve never met, and doesn’t seem to care if I go to the wedding or not.”

  “Ah, that is everything,” he said, and for a second, I found it hard to look away. His face was so … nice to look at, and his eyes were so warm, and his lips looked so kissable—

  I did want to kiss him. Right then.

  I forced myself to stare out at the pasture, at the six or seven cows standing around, some grazing, some doing absolutely nothing. “I—I’m just trying to do what feels right to me,” I said. “But it’s not necessarily right to other people.”

  “That’s usually the case,” he said. “People feel differently about things. You can’t please everyone, right?”

  “Yeah, but what about alliances?” I asked. “Someone is asking me to be loyal. But in this specific case, it just doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t be about loyalty. Or maybe it should—I don’t know.”

  “I know all about loyalty,” he said. “Especially to a friend. But there are circumstances when being loyal is being stupid.”

  “Like when?”

  “Like when you really like a girl and want to ask her out, but you’re not sure if she’s really into her boyfriend, who used to be your best friend, but he’s three thousand miles away. And you don’t want to be a jerk by asking her out, but you don’t want to be stupid and not ask her out when at least five of your friends are seriously lusting after her.”

  Butterflies started flying around in my stomach and I tried to suppress the warm, happy feeling—and my smile. But I couldn’t.

  Until I had to say something. “Sam, I—” What? What was I supposed to say? I like you too, but I can’t, because Caro wants you and she has dibs and she’s my sort-of best friend, but she’s really not anymore, and if I go for you, I’m dead. Dead at school. None of my friends will talk to me. It’ll be worse than it was in eighth grade, because I won’t be invisible—I’ll be an outcast.

  But I want to go for you. So, so much.

  I’d just realized something. This wasn’t about loyalty at all. It was about fear.

  I suddenly knew why he had fooled around with Caro. To get me out of his system. He knew she liked him, and he knew I couldn’t say yes to him because of that. So he’d decided to go for it. Caro was beautiful and hard to resist and he’d gone for it because she’d made it so easy by putting his hands on her chest. But he’d avoided her since.

  He took my hand and held for it a moment. “I probably just made things even worse for you, didn’t I?”

  I smiled. “Yeah, you did.”

  “So what now?” he asked, those brown eyes looking right into mine. He didn’t let my hand go. And I didn’t pull it away.

  “Now I need to figure some stuff out,” I told him.

  “You know where to find me.”

  I decided to feign being sick when Caro called to tell me what time we were meeting at Coffee Connection. The five of us, and sometimes some other girls and some of the guys, met at Coffee Connection every Sunday morning around eleven.

  But it was ten-thirty and she hadn’t called yet. I reached for my phone to make sure I hadn’t turned it off the night before. I’d fallen asleep giving Joe instructions on purchasing green cargo pants and a black T-shirt.

  Nope. Phone was on. No calls. No texts.

  Now that she was back to shutting me out after being all nicey-nicey—sort of—on the phone the other day, that funny feeling slid its way into my stomach. They were all at Coffee Connection without me.

  I was an outcast and I hadn’t even crossed a line yet.

  And I didn’t like the feeling at all.

  I got up and took a fast shower, put on an outfit that made me feel all girl-powery, and asked my mom for a ride to Coffee Connection.

  There they were. The four of them—Caro, Fergie, Selena, and Annie—sat at a large square table in the back, one second deep in conversation, the next laughing.

  To seem unfazed, I got a latte and a chocolate chip muffin, then took a deep breath and headed to the table with my tray. No one paid the slightest bit of attention to me.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to hide how unsure I felt. “No one called me.”

  “Oh,” Caro said, picking up her latte and taking a long sip.

  Oh? That was it?

  “We thought you’d be giving worthless beauty tips to rejects,” Fergie said, and Annie burst into laughter.

  Selena put her scone down. “All of a sudden you’re, like, hanging out with these loser misfits all the time. Letting them wear Caro’s clothes. And you’re actually walking around town with Smelinor and helping her enter Caro’s pageant?”

  My blood started boiling. “You all know what I’m doing. They paid me four hundred dollars to transform them from Nots into normal people. Am I not supposed to do my job?”

  “Just don’t do it at my expense,” Caro said.

  Fergie nodded. “Yeah, Madeline. And who is this Avery chick strutting around in the little black minidress I gave you for your birthday last year? She suddenly thinks she’s all that. And she’s not.”

  Actually, she sort of was. Enough to threaten this tough table.

  “So not,” Caro agreed. “And by the way, I want you to do something for me.”

  I waited. Nervously.

  She took another slow sip of her latte, then looked at me. “Sam’s been scarce these past few days. But three times a week, he’s at your farm. I want you to find out—surreptitiously, of course—what he likes in a girl. His last three girlfriends have all been wildly different, so I can’t figure out what it is I’m doing wrong, where I’m going wrong in hooking him. I want him to be my boyfriend by next weekend at the latest. You can get the info out of him, right, Madeline?”

  I know what he likes in a girl—me! I wanted to scream. And I wanted to just plain scream. This was insane. What was I supposed to do? Pretend I talked to him and tell Caro lies? How was I supposed to get out of this?

  “Wait, are you planning to change into what he likes?” Fergie asked Caro. “I mean, if he likes girls who are arty or skater rats or do-gooding candy stripers, are you going to do that kind of stuff just to hook him?”

  “I’d do whatever it takes. I just need to hook him,” Caro said. “Once he gets to know me better, he’ll be totally into me.”

  “Why?” Fergie asked two beats later. “I mean, if he’s into artsy girls with purple tips at the ends of their hair, like that freak Alanna whatever-her-last-name-is, are you going to get purple tips and turn Goth or something? How will he fall in love with you if you’re not really like that?”

  “I don’t have to get all Goth,” Caro said. “I just have to study up on whatever he’s into, so I can talk about it, act like I’m into it. If that’s how I need to get his attention, so be it.”

  “Sort o
f like what Madeline is doing with the Nots,” Fergie said.

  Caro turned a killer stare on Fergie. “Don’t ever compare me to those losers, Fergie. I’m just trying to strategize on getting a guy who’s playing hard to get.”

  I closed my eyes and wanted to slink away. Far, far away.

  Caro fixed her stare on me. “So you’ll find out what he’s into?”

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  This sucked. Everything sucked. Everything but the way Sam had made me feel in the pasture. Everything but the way just the thought of him started that warm, goopy feeling.

  If you say yes to Sam, you’re over, I reminded myself. You’re an outcast among the popular girls at Freeport Academy. And no trip to Rome will solve that.

  Ah, but a trip to California could solve a lot. No, not because of Thom. We were over. I didn’t need him to confirm what was glaringly obvious. And I liked someone else, anyway. Someone I couldn’t have unless I wanted to ruin my life. And not having Sam because of Caro would eat away at me and I’d hate her.

  So, yeah, California was looking even sunnier than before. It would be running away, but it would be a fresh start. I could just start over.

  Wherever you go, there you are, I heard Sabrina say in my head.

  Chapter 15

  I did what I always did when I was confused and upset and scared: I headed for the calves’ barn. Hermione was sleeping on the hay, so I sat down on the tiny stool in Weasley’s corral and petted his black and white spotted back. He nudged his pink nose on my arm, hoping for an apple slice. But all I had was me.

  “Hey, hon,” my mom called as she passed by carrying two buckets of feed. “How’s everything?”

  Everything was the worst it could possibly be.

  If she’d just kept on going, if she’d only thrown me that question the way people always did, and kept walking without expecting an answer, I might not have said anything. But she put down the buckets and leaned against the wooden gate in front of Weasley’s pen.