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  “Sabrina, just be normal for once. Please.”

  “Fine,” she said. “That is exactly what I’d want to know. How to seem more normal to other people and still be me.”

  “So you wouldn’t necessarily want to change at all? Just seem different?”

  “Everyone wants to be accepted, Maddie.” And with that, she popped another malt ball into her mouth and turned onto our dirt driveway.

  I checked for messages from Caro or Fergie. None.

  Okay. What was going on?

  I called Caro again, my heart thudding. What was I so nervous about? It was possible I’d gotten the time or the place wrong. But I knew I hadn’t.

  Caro picked up. I hadn’t expected that, so I froze and went mute. Say something, idiot!

  “Madeline?”

  “Um, yeah, hi. So what happened with lunch? I waited at Yum’s and no one showed.”

  “Oh, sorry,” she said. “We changed our plans. Didn’t anyone call you?”

  My stomach twisted again. “No, no one called me. And no one called me back after I left messages.”

  “Well, whatever,” she said. “Ooh, gotta go. Morgan is showing me the earrings her new boyfriend gave her last night. Talk to you later.”

  Click.

  So. Just in case I hadn’t seen her with Morgan, she was making sure I knew. And making sure I knew that Morgan wasn’t talking up the guy Caro wanted, because Morgan already had an earring-giving boyfriend.

  So was that what this was about? The Sam thing? Or was she annoyed that I’d spent an hour of my life at Elinor Espinoza’s house and now had cooties or something?

  Either way, I didn’t feel sprinkled with fairy dust at the moment.

  Chapter 10

  On Monday, I went to “our spot” before homeroom, but no one was there. Actually, someone was there. Avery Kennar. Where were my friends?

  Okay, this was going too far. First Yum’s and now the bench? Caro and Fergie and I met at the stone bench in the atrium before homeroom every morning.

  “Hi, Madeline,” Avery said. She was sitting right in the middle of the bench, as though she belonged there. No one but us sat on that bench. Ever. Except the popular guys, and only if we weren’t using it. But Avery wouldn’t know that. She was still pretty new.

  “So I tried a new combination today,” she said, standing up. “Do you think these pants are okay?”

  Go away, I wanted to scream. I just wanted to sit here in peace and figure out if my friends were shutting me out or if this was just another coincidence.

  Right. The first time in two years Caro and Fergie weren’t at the bench. After shutting me out of lunch on Saturday. Not a coincidence.

  “Madeline?”

  “You look fine,” I muttered.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “Yes. And I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I walked away from the building toward a cluster of shrubs and burst into tears. And of course Avery had followed me.

  “Here’s a tissue,” she said, handing me one. “Your mascara’s not running.” She held up her little gold compact so I could see.

  “Thanks,” I said, dabbing under my eyes.

  “Having problems with your friends?” she asked. “I mean, I know you guys usually meet here in the mornings.”

  So she did know. Interesting. Then what had she been doing sitting there in the middle of the bench?

  Maybe that was why Caro and Fergie hadn’t shown up. They’d seen Avery there and figured I’d told her to meet me there or something.

  “Did you see Caro and Fergie this morning?”

  She shook her head. “I mean, I did see them by their lockers like a few minutes ago. With Selena McFarland and Annie Something and a few other girls. But then they went in the other direction, toward the cafeteria.”

  Ah. So it wasn’t about Avery.

  “Things are just a little weird right now,” I said. “Everything feels so up in the air, you know?”

  Now I was telling my life story to Avery? I had to stop.

  She handed me another tissue. “I’ve felt like that since I moved here. It’s the worst feeling.”

  I nodded. It was how I’d felt the year before I started going out with Thom. Before I became friends with Caro.

  I took a deep breath. “Can I borrow your compact again?” She handed it to me and I made sure I looked okay. Nose not red. Eyeliner not running down my cheeks.

  She put the compact back into her messenger bag. “Do you think if I took off this sweater and tied it around my hips, I’d look better?” she asked, unbuttoning the blue cardigan.

  Just then, Tate and Ceej and Sam walked by and Tate whistled at Avery as she removed the sweater. She wore a little white tank top. I could see the outline of her bra.

  She smiled at the guys as Tate wolf-whistled again before they disappeared around the corner. “Guess I do look better,” she said.

  Thank God Caro and Fergie weren’t here for that.

  • • •

  Caro, Fergie, Annie, and Selena were waiting for me by my locker as usual when the lunch bell rang. Now I felt like I’d imagined the weirdness on Saturday and that morning. I’d tried to ask Caro about it a few times, but she’d either brushed me off or we’d been interrupted by Selena or Annie or one of the other countless girls who worshipped Caro.

  Caro complimented my shoes, which I’d bought on Sunday because I’d been so depressed. I’d called Thom twice that day and he hadn’t called me back till late that night. He’d never forgotten the time zone difference before. My mom heard my phone ring and came in and told me I could talk for one minute only, because it was so late.

  He was in his new world, living his life.

  “So where were you this morning?” I asked Caro and Fergie. Selena and Annie were their usual foot behind. I wasn’t just going to pretend that that morning hadn’t happened.

  Caro and Fergie shared a glance; then Caro slowly turned her attention to me. “Fergie and I were discussing something important. So we didn’t get a chance to meet up at the bench.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Guess who was asking about you today, Madeline,” Fergie said as we headed into the caf. In other words, neither of them was going to answer my question.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “James McNeil. God, he is hot. I’m so into Tate that I barely notice other guys, but when I was talking to James, I couldn’t believe how good-looking he is.”

  “He asked me about you too,” Caro said, placing a salad on her tray. “If you’ve hooked up with anyone yet. I told him no, and you should have seen his smile. Has he asked you out yet?”

  “No and I’m not interested,” I told her, my appetite gone. “I’m going to see Thom in two and a half weeks when I fly out to California. We’re still together, you know.”

  “Sweetie, I’m just being realistic,” Caro said.

  Fergie stared at the rows of cheeseburgers, which of course she wouldn’t select. She went for the salad too. “And come on, Madeline. I mean, you and Thom were a couple for two years, so there’s obviously something there. But he’s gone. And if you’re suddenly hanging out with the farm freaks and thinking you can help them, you are so not facing reality.”

  “Then again, it’s not like she can make the farm freaks worse,” Annie said, and cracked up. “There’s nowhere to go but up.”

  Bitch. I glared at her, and her smile faded. She grabbed a container of french fries.

  What did my friends and I used to talk about? Suddenly, I couldn’t remember. I never had to say much. I just fit in because of how I looked and because of Thom.

  Now he was gone.

  And there didn’t seem to be much me in this crowd without him—or another him. As long as that other him wasn’t Sam Fray.

  “So how are things with the farm freaks, anyway?” Selena asked, also placing a salad on her tray.

  “They just want to fit in,” I said.

  We han
ded over our lunch cards; then Caro led the way to our table. “You’re either normal or you’re not. You don’t just become normal by wearing good jeans. Though Frizz Puff would look a lot better if she straightened her hair.”

  This was typical Caro. Everything was okay again. I didn’t know why, but it was. “Well, that’s the kind of thing I’m doing. Helping them make improvements so they’ll fit in. Like with clothes and—”

  “Wait,” Selena said. “You’re actually hanging out with them? Like in public? Like you’re going to the mall with them to shop?”

  Well, not yet. But so what? I wanted to scream. I was so sick of this. Elinor and Avery and Joe were just people. They weren’t aliens. To be honest, I wouldn’t exactly be comfortable hanging at the mall with them, but I owed them a mall trip, so I’d have to get over it. “We’re mostly just meeting at their houses,” I explained.

  “I’d wear sunglasses and put my hair up in a really cool hat,” Fergie said. “You don’t want anyone to see you.”

  I didn’t, actually. But part of me didn’t really care. Now that I’d sort of gotten to know them, they weren’t as freaky. “But won’t the interns know I’m trying to be incognito because of them?”

  “So?” Caro said. “They’re farm freaks. They’ll understand.”

  Annie burst out laughing.

  I let out a silent sigh and checked my cell. No texts from Thom.

  Things seemed to be okay with my friends for now. But not with Thom.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Hey, sorry crazy busy. Talk 2morrow or next day. Just 2½ more weeks! XX T

  I texted back right away, but he didn’t respond. So confusing.

  Chapter 11

  Wednesday’s class started out in my bedroom, with Elinor going through my closet to see what clothes caught her eye. I was trying to develop her “personal style,” something I’d read about in Seventeen. The gist of the article was that to have personal style, you had to create a look that was uniquely you.

  “Ooh, I like this, and that, oh, and this!” she said, grabbing shirts and pants and skirts and laying them over her arm. “Oooh, and this!”

  Okay, so Elinor liked bright colors. I supposed that could be uniquely her.

  “Okay, Avery, your turn. Just pick three outfits you like, stuff you can mix and match with your own clothes.”

  Avery picked all the hand-me-downs I’d gotten from Caro. Good taste. She came out of the bathroom in tight Citizen jeans, a ruffled white sleeveless top, and high-heeled mules.

  “Double wow,” Elinor said.

  “Definitely wow,” Joe said, “if I can say that without sounding like a pig.”

  “Seriously wow,” I added, looking at her reflection in the mirror. “You look amazing. You look like you belong in those clothes.”

  “I guess I just needed access to them,” she said, turning left and right and checking out the rear view in the mirror. “My family isn’t exactly rich.”

  “Well, you’re definitely on your way to getting what you want,” I said. “Some makeup and maybe some hair gel and you’re done, Avery.”

  “No way, she needs some attitude,” Elinor said.

  I glanced at Avery, who was still checking herself out in the mirror, her expression … satisfied. Very satisfied.

  I had the feeling that Avery Kennar had enough attitude. She just needed the clothes to give her the right to it.

  “To the mall for makeovers!” Elinor said. “It’s so strange—I could have gotten a makeover anytime. I mean, I could have gone to the mall for a haircut with someone who specializes in curly hair. I could have gotten my face done at a makeup counter. I could have asked the salesgirls in Forever 21 to help me pick out a few outfits. But I never felt like I could. And now I do.” She was about to jump and clap, but then looked at me and grinned. “Caught myself!”

  I smiled at her. She was goofy, but sort of endearing in her own way. I wondered, though, about what she’d said. She could have gotten a makeover anytime. A total head-to-toe makeover. Just like I’d told her when she’d first tried to bribe me with a hundred dollars.

  So why was now different?

  Elinor’s father drove us. I sat up front with Mr. Espinoza, who hummed the entire way to South Portland. He dropped us off at Macy’s. It was weird getting out of the car for a mall run with Elinor, Avery, and Joe. Very surreal. I kept my oversized sunglasses on when we headed inside.

  But I could barely see anything, so I shoved them into my purse. We made our way to my favorite cosmetics counter—MAC—and we girls all got makeovers, me included, not that I looked much different. Elinor’s skin glowed and her dark eyes seemed brighter. She wiped off three-quarters of what was applied to her face, but kept the mascara and the lip gloss. Avery looked like she was twenty-five with makeup, so she toned it down a little. Wow.

  “What about me?” Joe complained.

  “You just need a cool haircut,” I said.

  As we left Macy’s and headed into the mall itself, my stomach twisted. I kept expecting to run into my friends at any minute. But we didn’t. I rushed the interns down the wing that housed Hair Flair. An hour later, Avery’s shoulder-length brown hair had been transformed into a style like Fergie’s, an A-line bob with model-like bangs. Elinor’s frizz was slightly controlled and fell into frizzy ringlets, but at least the horizontal frizz puffs were gone.

  “I look awesome!” Elinor said, checking herself out in the mirror. “Omigod. I didn’t think my hair could look like this!”

  “Avery, you look like a model!” Joe said, jaw to the floor.

  She did, actually. If Tate thought she was hot before, in just a tank top, wait till he saw this.

  “You are definitely earning your money, Madeline,” Avery said. “We look like different people.”

  And they were acting like different people too. Not so much in personality, but in confidence. Elinor walked through the mall with her head up, not down as usual. She couldn’t keep her hands off her ringlets. And Joe, with his tousled and spiky cut and untucked T-shirt and cargo pants, looked great—and like most of the guys at Freeport Academy. And Avery—wow. The most incredible transformation of all. Much like my own had been. She’d gone from perfectly okay plain girl to model-hot chic.

  Success.

  Elinor’s father wasn’t picking us up for another half hour, so Elinor suggested we head to the food court to celebrate our new looks with smoothies.

  I really didn’t want to turn this into hanging out at the food court. Which made me feel kind of bad again.

  Avery came to my rescue. “I’m getting such a migraine,” she said. “Could we just wait outside in the air?”

  We all headed outside, where the May humidity had its way with Elinor’s ringlets and most of our makeup. But the interns still looked amazing. It made no sense that none of them had tried something like this before. It seemed so easy.

  I glanced at Elinor, who was marveling at her reflection in the shaded-glass doors. “Elinor, I’m wondering something. Before, when you said you could have gotten this done anytime, but never felt you could, why not? What’s different now?”

  She glanced at me and shrugged. “Permission, I guess. From who, I don’t know. Myself?” She smiled. “Yeah, I guess myself.”

  Avery shook her head. “You’re paying for the right to look like Madeline and her friends. The money gives you permission. You bought the right.”

  Elinor’s smile faded. “I guess.”

  I glanced at Avery, who was touching up her nose with her new MAC pressed powder. That had been a little harsh. But she was right, I supposed. Still, any of them could have gone to the mall and gotten haircuts and makeovers and bought new clothes.

  “I think the reason why I never changed my look before is because I didn’t know it was bad,” Joe said. “Yeah, I wasn’t as casual as other guys, but it didn’t bother me.”

  “You had a reason to want to change,” Avery said. “Just
like Elinor and me. Elinor wants to make sure her name doesn’t appear on that idiotic, nasty Not list. And I want to be noticed. You want to try to attract the girl you like. It makes sense that we did something now. We all finally had reason to want to change.”

  That made sense. When I’d gone to Rome, I had just been glad to get away from my life. I hadn’t known that I’d love sitting in cafés and people-watching. I hadn’t known I’d love trying on ten white T-shirts until I found just the one and just the cute little scarf to wrap around my neck. I hadn’t been exposed to that kind of stuff.

  “Well, to be honest,” Elinor said, “I love my hair, but I don’t know how I’d maintain this myself. Did you see all that stuff the guy used on me? Like three different kinds of gels, a diffuser, and a curling iron. It’s not like I’ll be able to do that before school, especially on the days I have to be at the farm at the crack of dawn.”

  “Maybe you could just put your hair in a ponytail on your intern days. And the other days get up an hour early,” Avery said.

  Joe stared at us. “An hour early for hair?”

  “She looks really good,” Avery said. “It’s worth it.”

  Elinor smiled and went back to marveling at the reflection of her ringlets. Joe seemed lost in thought, likely about how to ask out his dream girl. And Avery seemed very satisfied.

  She leaned close. “Don’t I totally look like one of your friends?” She glanced up and down her body.

  “Yeah. You do,” I told her.

  But she didn’t seem to need assuring.

  Chapter 12

  In school the next day, Caro stopped right in the middle of the hall. So did everyone else. “Was that the tank top I got at Kitson last summer?” she asked, staring at Avery’s back. Avery, luckily for her, was halfway down the hall already.

  “Actually, yes,” I said. “She’s borrowing it from me.”

  Caro stared down the hall at Avery’s swinging and shiny hair. “So now you’re lending the clothes I lent you,” she said, her voice cold.