Glitter Girl

by Toni Runkle

  “We’re listening,” Remoulet said in a way that Chelsea couldn’t read.

  “Everybody in the place would be in head-to-toe Glitter Girl,” she went on, as the idea picked up momentum. “We could have bands and a DJ and music, and then at the end of the show…on live TV…we announce the winner of the Face of Glitter Girl contest!”

  “Where would this show be?” Remoulet said, still not showing whether he liked the idea or not.

  “How about Madison Square Garden in New York City?” said one of the suits in the room.

  “Or Staples Center right here in LA?” said another.

  “No!” said Chelsea, who surprised herself at how forcefully that word had come out of her mouth. “It has to be in the hometown of one of the girls. We’re selling Glitter Girl as a line that all girls can enjoy and use. If we have it in New York or LA, it undercuts the products’ accessibility to these girls, most of whom do not live in places with glamorous ZIP codes. We could have it at the gym at their school. Transform it into Glitter Girl Central for a day. It would be every girl’s dream to be there. And it would be right in line with our overall viral strategy.”

  “Girl’s got a point,” was the general murmur around the room. Chelsea could have done without the “girl” part of the sentiment, but she was willing to leave that alone for the moment.

  “But whose hometown? We’ve got fifty different girls to move,” said one of the LA suits, who must have been an accountant. Leave it to those guys to throw cold water on a hot idea.

  “This is Chelsea’s baby,” said Remoulet, calling her “Chelsea” for the first time that she could recall. “She should oversee the whole thing. You say your Alpha Girl was pretty good there in Indiana, did you?”

  “Uh, yes, Mr. Remoulet. She’s been great.” For a brief moment Chelsea thought about the little flare-up with Jules at the party, but she quickly dismissed that thought.

  “That settles it then. Miss Ambrose will run this show from her location. We need to get all the Alpha Girls there by the weekend. Dave, make sure she has all the resources of the company at her disposal.”

  “Sir, do you mean next weekend?” Chelsea said, already feeling the weight of the idea starting to settle on her shoulders.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, not at all, it’s just…so soon.”

  “Make it happen, Miss Ambrose, and once you get back to Los Angeles, we’ll have to have a long talk about your future here at Remoulet.”

  Chelsea knew what that meant: a raise and a promotion and an expense account with lots of zeros in it.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Remoulet,” she said. “You can count on me.”

  “I know I can,” Remoulet said. “And you can call me Greg.”

  ZZZT!!

  Chelsea’s screen went blank. The conference was over. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. She had either been brilliant beyond words or just volunteered to oversee one of the biggest disasters in corporate marketing history, complete with her career suicide broadcast on live TV. It was too early to tell which. She took a deep breath and counted, “One…two…three.” She picked up her cell phone from the table and dialed.

  “Yeah, Amy,” she said, kicking off her shoes, “I need you to book forty-nine flights to Indiana ASAP. And get out your pen. It’s going to be a long night.”

  • • •

  By the next morning, the event was starting to take shape. Chelsea had managed to book singer Jessica Aguirre, who had a concert in Chicago that weekend, to fly in and perform at the show. A few phone calls to Principal Neimeyer’s office and a well-placed ten-thousand-dollar donation to the school library from Remoulet, Inc. was all it took to secure the school’s gym for Saturday afternoon.

  Glitter Girl’s chief designer was flying in on Thursday to start decorating the gym. A press release had been sent to all the local media, as well as to Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and FashionTV. Chelsea had even managed to call in a few favors from an old college friend in the TV business, and just like that, the whole event was going to be carried live on the new TeenZone cable network. The only thing left to do was to tell Kat Connors about it and let her blog do the rest.

  Chelsea finally caught up to Kat after school at the Sip N’ Suds, where she was hanging out with Zoe and Darcy.

  “You’re kidding!” Kat said when she heard the news. She could barely believe it. Did the fact the show was coming to Indiana mean she would be the Face of Glitter Girl? Chelsea didn’t let on one way or the other. But it couldn’t be a bad sign, could it?

  Once Chelsea and her rented pink convertible had left the parking lot, Kat, Zoe, and Darcy squealed with delight.

  “OMG! We are practically celebrities!” said Zoe, conveniently forgetting that Kat was the one in line to be the Glitter Girl. “This is going to be amazing!”

  “I know!” chimed in Darcy. “It’s positively magnanimous!”

  The girls were causing such a ruckus that the laundry people on the other side of the Sip N’ Suds turned away from their fluffing and folding for a moment to gawk at the trio.

  The girls quieted down for a moment and flopped back down on the sofas. Kat dug in her purse and grabbed her phone. She had just added a cool calendar app that she loved and she wanted to put the Glitter Girl party on it right away, even though the chances of her forgetting the time and date of the party were approximately equal to the chances of her forgetting to breathe. She opened the app and quickly navigated her way to the date and time of the party: Saturday, October 15, at 2 p.m.

  And there it was…in the special pink font she used for things she absolutely, positively couldn’t forget:

  JULES’S B-DAY

  Renaissance Faire

  Saturday @ 2

  Don’t Be Late!

  She checked the date and time twice, even though she knew it was right. In all the fuss and excitement of Chelsea’s news, she had totally forgotten about Jules’s party. Yet there it was, plain as day. At exactly the same time as the Glitter Girl party. She had been to every one of Jules’s birthday parties since they were both in diapers. Kat sank deep into the cushions of the sofa, speechless. Now what?

  Chapter 14

  Cruel to Be Kind?

  Kat didn’t sleep all night. She tossed and turned. At one point she ran to the bathroom because she was sure she was going to be sick. Ultimately, it was a false alarm. Relieved, she laid her head against the cool porcelain tub next to the toilet. It took the edge off how crummy she was feeling and she actually started to doze off. But then suddenly the panic came back over her in a huge wave and her stomach tied up in knots again. She couldn’t believe she was letting this stress her out so much.

  Earlier that day, she had managed to get up the guts to call Chelsea and ask, even though she knew there was no way, if it was possible to switch the date of the big Glitter Girl launch party.

  “You’re kidding, right?” came Chelsea’s irritated voice from the other end of the line.

  “Well, I was just thinking that if you guys could change the date or the time just a little, it would work better for everyone.”

  “And who is this ‘everyone’ you’re talking about?” Chelsea responded, pacing around her hotel room, getting more than a little annoyed. “It certainly doesn’t work well for me or for the set designer or for Jessica Aguirre or for TeenZone or for any of the other girls who are flying here just for this event. Other than that, it works out just fine.”

  Kat sighed. She knew Chelsea would react this way, but she had to try.

  “I guess you’re right,” she was forced to admit.

  “Well then, what’s so important that it’s made you take your eye off the prize?” asked Chelsea.

  Kat had hesitated in giving her answer because she knew how Chelsea would react. Chelsea didn’t seem like the kind of person who had ever taken her
eye off any prize, not in her whole entire life, not even for a best friend. Also, Kat was fairly certain Chelsea did not like Jules. Not after the scene she’d made at the party.

  “Well?” Chelsea was waiting.

  “I—uh—well it’s the same day as Jules’s birthday and I sort of promised I’d go.” There. She’d said it. Then she closed her eyes waiting for the explosion. There was a moment of silence, then…

  “Well, that does put you in a difficult position then, doesn’t it?” Chelsea’s voice was very calm. Not at all what Kat expected. Maybe this was going to go a lot better than she thought.

  “Yeah. And I don’t know what to do exactly,” explained Kat.

  “I think it’s obvious.”

  It was? Kat mulled it over a moment. Nothing. She waited for Chelsea to tell her, hoping the answer was an easy one.

  “There’s a choice that needs to be made,” said Chelsea. And there it was. Obvious, but by no means easy.

  “A choice,” repeated Kat, disheartened.

  “That’s right. Life is all about choices.”

  “But it’s so hard,” said Kat.

  “I know, sweetie. But it’s the choices we make, particularly the tough ones, that define us.”

  Kat was silent. Chelsea was making sense, but it was the kind of sense your mom makes when she tells you to eat your broccoli.

  “And if Jules was really as good of a friend as you say she is,” continued Chelsea, “she would understand how important this is to you, how completely and utterly life-altering this could be, and she’d choose to change the date of her party.”

  What? Kat was suddenly thrown. She was so sure that Chelsea was going to tell her that she had to choose not to go to Jules’s party; it never occurred to her that it was Jules who had to make the choice.

  “I never thought of it that way,” said Kat.

  “That’s because you’re a good friend, and you consider others first,” replied Chelsea. “But don’t you think you deserve the same consideration? After all, birthdays come every year. A chance like this is once in a lifetime. A real friend would see that.”

  Kat hung up the phone feeling a lot better and thinking that Chelsea was right. After all, if Jules were her BFF like she was always going around saying, she would understand and she’d do this one little thing for Kat.

  • • •

  “Are you crazy?! No, I can’t change the date of my birthday! It’s my birthday!” exclaimed Jules when Kat showed up at her house later that day. Jules paced up and down at the foot of her bed. “Why would you even ask me such a thing?”

  “Well, you know this Glitter Girl thing I got picked for? They’re doing this huge launch event for the whole line. And of every place in the whole country, they’ve decided they’re going to have it here, Jules. At our school! They’re flying in all the other Glitter Girl candidates—forty-nine other girls, one from each state. And they’re going to announce the winner right here at Willkie! There’s going to be media from all over. And they’re going to air it live on TeenZone! Isn’t that amazing?” said Kat, trying to make it sound as amazing and special as possible in the hopes that Jules would understand.

  “And it’s on my birthday,” concluded Jules.

  “Yeah.”

  “Unbelievable!”

  “I know it’s your birthday, Jules. But there’s nothing that says you have to have the party on the actual day of your birthday.”

  “Nothing, except the fact I’ve already sent out invitations to everyone in Shakespeare Club and the Math Club. And my dad’s already bought the tickets to the Renaissance Faire, which by the way are nonrefundable and it’s the last day of the Faire. They’re packing up and heading to Denver the next day!”

  “Oh,” said Kat. “Well, it sounds like you’ll have a lot of people there to celebrate. You don’t really need me too, do you?”

  “Are you kidding me? Not have my best friend at my birthday party? We’ve never missed each other’s birthdays!”

  “I know, Jules. But this is really important to me. And if you’re really my good friend, you’ll understand how important,” said Kat, throwing Chelsea’s words at Jules. Only somehow they didn’t sound as persuasive to Kat as when Chelsea had said them. Jules obviously didn’t think so, either.

  “Well, turning fourteen is a really big deal to me. And if you’re really my good friend, you’ll understand how important you being there is to me.” Jules threw it right back in Kat’s face.

  And there it was. Two immovable forces at odds with one another.

  Kat was perfectly ready to stand her ground, dig in her heels, and tell Jules that she was sorry, but she couldn’t come and she would make it up to her somehow. Except, Jules burst into tears and Kat was totally unprepared for that. Kat had only seen Jules cry once, when her grandmother had died two Christmases ago. Now that had been a really big deal. Who wouldn’t cry? Which made Kat realize how big of a deal this was to Jules, her being at the birthday party. Before she knew it, she had her arm around her friend, telling her there was no way she’d miss her party for anything in the world.

  Now, hours later, lying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, Kat was miserable, not knowing what to do. On one hand, her conscience told her she had made a promise to Jules. On the other, the voices of Chelsea and her mom told her over and over that she had to do what was right for her.

  She really needed somebody impartial to talk her through this. Her mom was too invested in this whole thing, and her friends would probably just tell her what they thought she wanted to hear. Then she got an inspiration. Her dad, the rational, no-nonsense businessman, would tell it to her straight.

  She gathered herself off the bathroom floor, went to her room, and sat down at her computer. It was 4 a.m. in Indiana, but it was around lunchtime in Geneva, where Paul’s latest venture had taken him. And even though he was in Switzerland, he did say that Kat could call him anytime.

  Kat took a deep breath and used her computer to dial her dad’s cell number.

  “Kat!” Paul answered, sounding surprised by the interruption. “What time is it there?”

  “Oh,” said Kat, “it’s kind of early.”

  “I can imagine. What’s up?”

  “Is this a bad time?” Kat said, not sure if she should have made the call in the first place.

  “No, no. It’s okay. I have a few minutes before I’m due at my meeting. What’s going on?”

  Kat launched into the whole story, leaving out no details. She spoke a mile a minute, picking up speed as she went. On the other end of the line, her dad said things like “Hmmm” or “I see” or “And then?” in a distracted kind of way that Kat couldn’t quite read. So she just kept talking.

  After she had told the story, which by the time she finished had more twists and turns than a Victorian novel, there was a long silence at the other end of the line. So long that Kat thought that she might have been cut off.

  “Daddy?” she said. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here, Kat.”

  “Were you listening?” Kat said, starting to get a little frustrated.

  “Of course I was.”

  “Well, what should I do?”

  “It’s not a matter of what you should do. You want to succeed in life, so you do what you have to do. Look at me. I make these kinds of choices every day. And look where it’s gotten me. Look where it’s gotten us. Our family,” he said proudly.

  Four thousand miles apart, thought Kat. She did not like that advice. Not one bit. Look where it’s gotten their family indeed.

  “Listen, Kat, Phil Mackenzie and Megan Burns just showed up. I have to run. Talk to you later. Love to Mom.”

  Click.

  Kat slumped over the keyboard in frustration. That was no help at all.

  Kat’s stomach lurched again, and this
time she really did throw up. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite make it back to the toilet.

  • • •

  When Kat did not return Chelsea’s phone calls or texts the next day, Chelsea knew something was up. She had been so sure that she had convinced Kat to ditch that schlumpy girl’s birthday party. What fourteen-year-old girl in her right mind would even consider giving up an opportunity like this? She didn’t like the fact that Kat seemed to have such a conscience.

  It crossed her mind that Kat perhaps was not Glitter Girl material. But then the numbers kept coming in from the Indiana market and they were off the charts. So the girl had a conscience, so what? She also had charisma. She could deliver. She was an Alpha Girl. And Alpha Girls can’t be made. They are born. Chelsea knew she had to do whatever had to be done to keep Kat in the pack.

  • • •

  Zoe slurped down the last of the White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino that Chelsea had bought her and leaned back in her chair. They were tucked away in a tiny corner of a chain coffee shop that Zoe and her friends would normally never be caught dead in. It was strictly for soccer moms and middle-aged guys sporting Bluetooths and name badges on their way to work. Even so, when Chelsea had surprised her with a call asking Zoe to meet her after school to discuss a private matter, Zoe was so excited that the lameness of the location didn’t bug her.

  No, her thoughts were elsewhere. She thought for sure Chelsea had seen her own potential as a Glitter Girl and wanted to talk to her about it. It explained why Chelsea picked a place where none of the other girls would see them. Even though it crossed her mind that maybe she was going behind Kat’s back in some way, Zoe didn’t really care.

  Sure, Kat was the obvious choice for Glitter Girl. She was really pretty and popular and always seemed to do, say, and wear the right things. But she’d be nowhere if it weren’t for Zoe. Wasn’t it Zoe who had told Kat about that new boutique off Sycamore that sold the awesome one-of-a-kind vintage dresses? And wasn’t it Zoe who had given her the 4-1-1 on the messenger bag from Project Cool? It really irritated Zoe that after she told Kat and Kat had embraced those things, it was Kat who got all the credit around school for “discovering” them.