The Last Beautiful Girl

by Nina Laurin

I think I’m always going to dress like this from now on.

  “Hey, Isa.” On my way to my next class, the voice catches me by surprise. I turn around.

  Nick is looking contrite. So contrite that I have to wonder how much of it is an act. “I wanted to talk to you. What I said, I take it back. It was dumb and dismissive.” He gives me a once-over. “And you look amazing, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I say coldly.

  “I don’t want to fight with you. Especially since”—he throws a quick glance around to make sure no one is listening in and lowers his voice— “it looks like we’ll be starring in the school play side by side.”

  He reacts to my stunned look and goes on: “Kendra pretty much told me so. She already chose you. Congratulations, Sibyl.”

  I regain my composure. “Not that it was ever in doubt.”

  “I never doubted it.” He reaches out and touches a wavy lock of hair that fell over my shoulder. “I love the new hair, by the way. Are those extensions?”

  I snort. “As if I needed extensions!”

  “Looks longer than before.”

  I toss my hair over my shoulder. Is it longer than it was yesterday? Nonsense. It just looks longer because it’s not frizzy and fried with chemicals.

  “Hair grows, Nicholas. That’s what it does.”

  “So are we good again?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Are we?”

  “Look, I’m not going to lie, I like you. It sucks that we fought.”

  I’m at a loss, thrown by his directness. “Well, I—”

  “Maybe we can go out sometime. On, like, a real date.”

  “She’s busy.” Alexa appears out of nowhere, startling me. “She’s too busy to go to some cheesy action movie and a McDonald’s drive-through with you. She’s got important things she should be doing, and she’s not interested. Come on, Isa.”

  Without waiting, she grabs my arm and pulls me along. Well, she tries to, because I dig in my heels and stay exactly where I am. She turns to me with a quizzical look.

  “Actually, I’m not busy,” I hear myself say. I feel funny, unmoored—like this is way more important than it seems, especially since she’s probably right. I do have more important things to do: choosing photos, brainstorming future shoot ideas, answering comments from my Insta fans. But something within me, deep down, just rebels against the tyranny of it all. For just one evening, I want to be Isa, not Project Isabella. “I’m not busy,” I repeat with a little more confidence. “Let’s go out.”

  His grin looks surprisingly sincere. “Cool. Wait for me by the gates after last class.”

  He walks off, leaving me with Alexa who’s giving me a disapproving look.

  “Oh, Isa, you know I could give you the whole speech right now about pearls and swine. But I think you already know this.”

  “Well, maybe I happen to really like him,” I say defiantly, although my certainty is a little shaky, to be honest.

  Alexa shrugs. “What’s there to like? He doesn’t accept you for who you are.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, that hissy fit he had the other day? If he hates superficiality so much, why doesn’t he go date some troll? But no. He’s after the prettiest girl at school, as always. Because the non-superficial thing only applies to you.”

  I fall silent, following her to our next class. She’s wrong—I can feel it—but I also have no arguments beyond this strange gut feeling that I get when I’m around him. There’s something else there. It’s not just dumb jealousy or envy.

  If only I knew what it was.

  Twenty-One

  The rest of the day kind of drags. I collect compliments on my hair and my outfit like glass marbles in my pocket, clink clink clink. I scroll through my phone; the likes and comments and follows keep pouring in:

  Beautiful

  Gorgeous

  Amazing

  You. Are. A. Goddess!!!

  And so on and so forth. To think that, just this morning, it made me so ecstatically happy to see all those notifications, but now I feel weirdly disconnected from it all.

  I get a DM from Eve.

  Hey! I really miss you, Isa. So much has been happening and when I get home all I want to do is just tell my best friend about it, and then I remember you’re so far away and I just want to cry. We haven’t talked in forever and it sucks.

  She’s typing, but I beat her to it.

  Hey,

  So sorry—there’s been all these problems with the internet. I haven’t forgotten! I miss you like crazy too. And I have so much to tell you too!! For one thing I’m going on a date tonight

  She replies almost instantly.

  Oh la la! With?

  Here’s the thing about Eve, and about real friends in general. You can always pick up where you left off, no matter how long it’s been since you last spoke.

  This guy from school. At first I thought he was stuck-up but then he asked me out!

  Is he cute?

  OMG you know you HAVE to tell me all about it right??

  I can’t help but crack a smile. Maybe things can be normal between us again, after all.

  Call you this evening?

  Her reply appears less than a second later.

  YES!!!

  Finally, the last class of the day is over. I get up from my seat a little too quickly, before anyone else has the chance, which makes the teacher raise her eyebrow.

  “In a hurry, Miss Brixton?”

  Alexa scoffs next to me. A giggle runs through the class. In spite of myself, my face flushes.

  “Eager to get to your hot date?” Alexa murmurs once I sit down and shamefacedly gather my things into my backpack.

  “It’s not a hot date,” I whisper. “We’re just—”

  “Just so you know, he’s taken half the school for a nice scenic drive in that Range Rover. I mean, I’m not here to police you, but, if you’re going to anyway, at least put something over those back seats.”

  “Will you stop that?” I snarl quietly.

  “I just think he’s bad for you, that’s all.”

  “Bad for me, or bad for the project?”

  Her mouth opens slightly but nothing comes out as she looks mildly stunned. Nothing to say to that, I bet.

  “Don’t worry, Alexa. Nick Swain isn’t going to talk me into deleting the whole thing. So you have nothing to fear.”

  I finally get up and make my way to the exit without looking back. But, when I get to the gate, even though I’m only a couple of minutes late, no one is there. Dread creeps up on me, and I slow down my steps, feeling like a complete idiot. Is he really going to stand me up?

  “Hey! Isa!” I turn around and there he is, striding toward me at a nice quick pace but without running. “You’re here. Good.”

  “Where are we going?”

  The car fob appears in his hand as if by magic, the logo glinting brightly. “Not much to do in this town, I’m afraid. So I was thinking, start with a nice drive.”

  There’s that dread again. My face warms. Was Alexa right about him? But I guess it’s too late, and I follow him to the car. It doesn’t take long after he leaves the parking lot to notice that he’s going in the opposite direction from where he should be going.

  “Um,” I say, hiding my nervousness. “Isn’t the downtown in the other direction?”

  “Yeah. But we don’t need it.”

  “We don’t?”

  He doesn’t answer. I fidget in my seat. It’s not just the downtown core and the university that’s in the other direction—but so is my house. As I look out the window, it occurs to me I haven’t ventured this far away from it since we moved.

  Yet, no matter how I search my soul, I don’t feel nervous, not in any real way. The opposite is true—I feel relieved. A
s if, along with the house that fades in the distance, the whole Project Isabella fades, too, as well as all its expectations of me. For the first time it occurs to me that wearing this crazy outfit to school might have been overkill. I play with the hem of the skirt, determined to change out of it as soon as I get home.

  Nick pulls to a stop, and I realize we’re hardly even in town anymore. The surroundings look almost rural: we’re on a lookout with a view of rolling orchards, still beautiful this time of year. I can’t lie, it’s a nice view.

  “Here we are,” he says. “What do you think?”

  I giggle, not without nervousness. “Hey, I don’t know what you think is going to happen, but…”

  “Nothing has to happen. I was just hoping I could spend some time with you—away from Amory.”

  “You make it sound like Alcatraz.”

  He winces. “It’s just that, in a place that size, everyone knows everyone. If we went to one of the three nice places on Main Street, our entire conversation and every gesture will be doing the rounds of the school by tomorrow. And maybe I don’t want that.”

  “Yeah,” I chuckle. “And, if we just drive off to Makeout Point all by ourselves—nobody will talk about that, no sir.”

  He gives a carefree shrug. “Let them talk. No one knows what actually happened, so it’s all just speculation and gossip. Which is worthless.”

  “And now you sound like you’re about to murder me and bury me in the woods.”

  “You sound just like Alexa. And, if I wanted to go on a date with Alexa, I’d have asked her.”

  “And she would have told you exactly where to go.” I’m teasing, but, at the same time, wondering if I’m going too far.

  He smirks. “I come here to be away from everyone. I just wanted to share this place with you. Thought you might like it too.”

  “You know what?” I say. “Maybe you’re right. It’s nice. To be away from everyone. I feel like—oh, it sounds stupid.”

  “Try me.”

  “I feel like I’m constantly being watched. Not, like, in a Big Brother way—but like I’m being scrutinized every moment of every day. Especially since we started that project, I’ve felt a little…overwhelmed. Like it’s taking over everything. And, especially now that it’s popular, I feel like everyone’s watching my every move unblinkingly. Just waiting for me to screw up so they can say, Oh, she’s not all that.”

  “Those photos are beautiful,” he says with a certain careful neutrality that makes me think he’s not being entirely honest.

  “Yeah. Of course they are. But it’s—why did I only become popular now that I’m cosplaying as somebody else? People either like me because of Project Isabella or because they can use me to get into that house. Was Isa from Brooklyn not good enough?”

  “I think,” he says, “that Isa from Brooklyn is extremely underrated.”

  I realize I’ve been staring straight ahead at the view beyond the windshield, and, when I turn, I notice that he’s been looking straight at me all along. His eyes are warm. A blush creeps up my neck and across my cheeks. I catch myself wondering if he’s going to kiss me, and also whether I want him to.

  “I know it must be rough,” he says. “To just be dragged away from your whole life and to end up here, of all places.”

  I find myself nodding along. “You have no idea,” I say hoarsely. “I miss my school. I miss my best friend. I miss my theater club—no offence, Kendra’s great and so is your amazing auditorium but…”

  “It’s okay, Isa, you can say it. Kendra’s not that great. She just thinks she is, but she has no vision, and her idea of theater is stuck in decades past. And it doesn’t help that three-quarters of the theater club can’t act to save their lives.”

  I hold back an incredulous giggle. “Wow. Now I think I know why you wanted no one to overhear.”

  “Come on, you’re one of the good ones. You must have noticed and just been too polite to say so.”

  I blush, remembering some of the things I’ve accidentally blurted lately. I still have no idea what came over me.

  “And the town sucks, not just compared to Brooklyn, but in general. And I think you noticed that too. Come on, Isa, just say so. You’ll see, it’s therapeutic.” With that, he rolls down the window. Cold air rips through the car. He sticks his head out. “Amory suuuucks!” he yells out at nothing and no one in particular.

  “Amory sucks,” I say, grinning. “Amory sucks, and I hate it here.”

  “There. Feel better?”

  “Eons better.”

  He’s leaning close again. My pulse picks up speed. Are my lips chapped? Because his look delish. I gulp, trying to be subtle but convinced he can see my throat move.

  “Nick Swain,” I say.

  “That’s me.”

  “I don’t mean to be one of those people who overanalyzes everything, but there’s something I want to know. I’m getting mixed messages. First, you agree to be a part of the photo shoot even though we barely know each other—and you made it clear that you don’t think much of Project Isabella—”

  He winces. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about the project.”

  “Why did you agree, then? I mean, really. Not just because you like me. There were other ways to get my attention. And, if Amory sucks—then why are you here? Your family doesn’t live here, so I’ve been told. You’re here all alone just so you can go to this high school with its crappy theater club?”

  For a few moments, silence fills the car. I wonder if I’ve accidentally said something tactless—lately it seems to be my specialty. His face seems to cloud over. He runs his hand over his hair.

  “Might as well just tell you,” he says.

  I tense, filled with an ominous feeling.

  “Yes,” he goes on, “it’s correct. I live here alone. My family doesn’t live here…anymore.”

  I don’t dare to even blink, mentally willing him to go on and not leave me hanging.

  “I grew up here in Amory. That’s why they let me stay behind when they moved away,” he says. “Growing up, my cousin lived with us. For a long time I thought she was my big sister, but she has a different last name, so that’s why some people haven’t made the connection.”

  “What connection? You’re being cryptic.”

  He ignores my comment. “Her name was Desiree. She babysat me a lot when I was a kid. She was super into theater. We’d put on these little plays she starred in. She went to high school here. She was in the theater club. Not just that—she basically was the reason we have a theater club. She was no-nonsense and tended to get what she wants. She petitioned the school, collected student signatures—and, voilà. Just like that, we had theater classes. But nobody remembers that now.”

  He has a distant, glassy-eyed look that puts me on my guard. Clearly, this is not a happy story.

  “No, the reason people remember Desiree is because she went missing the night she was supposed to star in the school play.”

  Slowly, but inevitably, things come together in my head. I draw a breath to exclaim, but he speaks up again.

  “She just didn’t show up. This part you might have heard of: the play was Dorian Gray, the same iteration that we’re doing.”

  I clasp my hand over my mouth. “That must be horrible for you—I can’t even imagine—”

  He holds up his hand. “Please. No melodrama. Desiree disappeared, and that’s it. That’s the story. I didn’t stay behind because I love our school so much. I stayed behind so I could find out what happened.”

  “And did you?”

  He gives me a somber look. “I’m getting there. Everyone said she ran away, because she’d gotten in all kinds of trouble before. But she would never have run away the night of the play. She loved theater. She gave everything she had to that play. And now—”

  He reaches into the car’s glov
e box and comes out with something shiny clutched in his hand. My gaze follows it, uncomprehending. He opens his palm: it’s a silver necklace with an opaque dark blue stone with what looks like gold lightning through its center.

  “Lapis lazuli,” he says. “It belonged to her.”

  “Are—are you sure?” I stammer. “Where did you find it?”

  “At your house, the day of the photo shoot.”

  I sit there, perfectly still, but my thoughts are racing, a horrible dark swarm of them. They cloud first my mood and then my vision. They devour every shred of romance and excitement and whatever else had been there just moment ago. A familiar dark fury rises within me.

  “You snooped around my house? Through my things?”

  He recoils out of pure instinct. He’s not quick enough to hide it. Even my voice sounds different all of a sudden.

  “Do you hear what I’m telling you? My missing cousin’s necklace—”

  “How do you even know it’s hers? It’s not exactly one of a kind—they probably sold a million of these cheap baubles.”

  “It’s hers,” he says. “I remember it. She always wore it.”

  But more words are already tumbling out, and I don’t have time to even process what he said. “I was right, wasn’t I? It’s still about the house. You weren’t interested in Isa from Brooklyn. You just needed an excuse to sneak around my house, behind my back, looking for your bullshit little clues.”

  “Isa—”

  “FYI, Isa is only for friends. For you, it’s Isabella. Drive me home. Right now.”

  “I don’t think you’re really hearing what I’m telling you,” he says slowly. “I’m trying to explain—”

  “Home. Now.”

  * * *

  Once he drops me off, I circle the house to go through the back door. It’s completely dark. For some reason, none of the outdoor lights are on, and even the windows look dark. But I know every turn of the path, every rock, and find my way without difficulty. My anger simmers as I enter the house, walk up the stairs, and finally close the door of my room behind me.

  I didn’t manage to run into either of my parents—oh, the perks of living in a big house—and, to be honest, I don’t feel like letting them know I’m home. My mom will barge in and ask all those questions, and I don’t feel like talking about it. So I make sure the door shuts as quietly as possible and then block it with a chair.