Dylan covered her mouth in shame. What if Massie and the TV mirror were right? What if she was fat? She had eaten a lot of doughnuts that night. And the night after that… and the night after that… and—“Oh, no!”
“Don’t worry,” the man assured her. “It’s exactly what this emotional piece needed. A little comic relief. The audience is gonna love it.”
Dylan smiled uneasily, hoping he was right.
Merri-Lee took the stage and introduced her “girlies” to the world. Ryan and Jaime didn’t even show teeth when their names were called. They simply glared at their mother, silently cursing her for not putting them onstage. Dylan, wanting to come off as the fun one, beamed when Merri-Lee introduced her. Then she blew kisses to fans and smooched the lens of the camera, leaving behind a perfect strawberry-scented smear. The audience cheered until she waved them off in an I don’t deserve your love sort of way and lowered her eyes in mock shyness.
And then, out of nowhere, she had one of those moments. The kind your memory holds on to like a snapshot.
A gold object winked at Dylan from the concrete floor, its glare so strong it usurped the camera’s bright lights, making her forget she was on TV. Without hesitation, she leaned down to pick it up. And then…
… rrrrriiiippppppp.
A group of girls behind her burst out laughing. The back of her pants split. Did Cam and Derrick see? Fortunately the house lights dimmed so they could roll the Christmas video. But there was just enough light for Dylan to see the object in her palm. It was a gold pig charm.
And it seemed to be oinking at her.
ORLANDO, FL
DISNEY’S GRAND FLORIDIAN RESORT AND SPA
THE PARKING LOT
Friday, December 31st
11:03 P.M.
Zadrienne stopped his red Prius under the carport of the Victorian-style hotel. Parking attendants dressed in peach-colored capri pants and puffy-shouldered blouses directed sunburned guests to the New Year’s Eve party in their ballroom. Groups of teens, swinging purses and ponytails, jammed into the revolving doors with giddy excitement. And music thumped from the various beach parties, guaranteeing a good time to anyone who could get in. If Sari and Mandy hadn’t been sitting on her dress, Claire wouldn’t have been able to contain her excitement.
A chipper blue-eyed attendant poked his head in the window. “Which party are you here for?”
“Batman’s!” Todd called from the hatch in the back. He was lying in fetal position, jammed between Zadrienne’s stinky baseball uniform and dozens of empty Gatorade bottles.
“Ignore him,” Zadrienne huffed. “We’re here to see—”
“ThRob!” the girls shouted from the backseat.
Zadrienne half turned. “Chill, okay!” he snapped. “I’ll do the talking.” He turned back to the attendant. “One of these freaks won a contest.”
“Me!” Claire called. “I won Dr. Party’s radio contest!”
“Whooooooooo!” the girls shouted.
“Congratulations,” smiled the guy, revealing a row of overbleached teeth. “Name?”
“Claire Lyons,” she announced proudly, wondering if maybe he had heard her on the radio.
The attendant pressed a foamy headphone into his ear and spoke. “Glenn for Stacey. Come in, Stacey. I have a girl here who claims…” He turned his back to the Prius and continued.
“Can you believe ThRob are inside???” Sari tapped her ruby red slippers.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” The girls shook their heads and stomped their feet.
“Quitit!” Zadrienne hollered.
“Zay, stop screaming!” Kelsey barked. Her face flamed red.
The attendant poked his head back in the window. “You’ve been cleared.” He smiled. “Now, what you’re gonna wanna do is head to the very back of lot G and look for the big gray tour bus. You can’t miss it. It has a beautiful airbrushed scene of wild horses painted on the side. The boys are in there.”
“Aren’t they in the hotel?” Mandy asked. “At the party?”
“Or the beach?” Sarah practically whined.
The attendant poked his entire face in the car. “Gosh no,” he whispered. “They’re terrified of crowds. Their broadcast will be coming from the tour bus.”
The girls exchanged a puzzled glance, allowing their brains time to process the new information.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!” they squealed again.
“We’ll get to see where they sleep!” Claire shouted.
“And eat!” Mandy added.
“And watch TV!” Sarah chirped.
“And snack!” Sari tried.
“And poop!” Todd called from the back.
“Kill me,” Zadrienne mumbled as he pulled away.
“Maybe I will.” Kelsey leaned her head against the window and sighed.
After a brief moment of silence, Sari shouted “Again!”
On cue, the girls began giggle-singing ThRob’s hit, “Twice the Fun,” for the seventh time.
Baby, don’t say we’re done,
We know you are the one,
The rays to our sun,
We’re begging you not to run,
Loving both of us is twice the fun.
Our parents taught us how to share,
They showed us how to care,
They gave us soft thick hair,
And a ton of fashion flair,
You know you like to stare.
We’re begging you not to run,
Loving both of us is twice the fun.
When you’re dating twins,
Everybody wins,
It’s not a cardinal sin,
To get back twice what you put in.
Do you hear the violins?
Do you hear the violins?
Do you hear the violins?
Do you hear the violins?
We’re begging you not to run,
Loving both of us is twice the fun.
“Get out of my car!” Zadrienne yelled, pulling up beside the tour bus.
The girls bolted like the seats were on fire.
“Let me out!” called Todd from the hatch.
Claire ignored him. She loved her brother but certainly didn’t need him around for her first kiss.
The girls rapped on the bus doors with one hand and smoothed their hair with the other until the doors accordioned open.
“Name?” asked a husky man with a triangular black beard that practically touched his cleavage.
“Claire Lyons.” She smiled, catching a whiff of burnt microwave popcorn. “I won Dr. Party’s contest on the radio. The guy at the hotel told me to come here.”
Even though he was wearing mirrored Oakleys, Claire sensed he was eyeing her Civil War–era dress.
“I’m T-Rex,” he grumbled. “The boys’ manager.”
“Hi, T-Rex,” the girls trilled as if greeting a birthday party clown.
“Come in.” He stepped back, making room.
The girls piled on, but T-Rex stopped them with his meaty palm. “Just Karen.”
“Claire,” she corrected shyly.
“What about us?” Sari whined to her ruby red slippers.
“No go, Dorothy,” T-Rex insisted. “The bus is too small. The boys are claustrophobic. You’re shedding glitter. And you look like something right off Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras. Wait outside.”
“For an hour?” Mandy smacked her princess skirt.
Claire wanted to protest but didn’t have a chance. T-Rex shut the doors and ordered Claire to wait on the black leather couch. Then he slipped behind a blue curtain, leaving her alone surrounded by nothing but mirrors. No junk food, no bras from groupies, no video games or crumpled-up napkins with song lyrics. Just the reflection of a girl in a flashy red dress, navy blue Keds, and green hair glitter, waiting for her first kiss.
M’gosh! My first kiss!!!!
Claire’s mouth went dry. Her heart clomped like a Clydesdale. Her cuticles begged to be picked. She was about to get kissed. By a pop star. On tele
vision. In front of the world!
Eyes open or closed? Head-tilt left or right? Tongue or no tongue? Oh gosh, please, no tongue! She had no idea what to do. All she knew was that this kiss had to be perfect. Not so much for her public image, but for her private one. The public would forget all about it as soon as they turned off their TVs, but Claire would remember it forever.
“I refuse to touch another contest winner,” shouted a boy inside ThRob’s tour bus. “The last one’s lips were so chapped I practically bled. And the one before that smelled like salmon.”
Claire quickly applied a waxy coat of cherry ChapStick.
“He’s right,” added a different boy. “It’s not sanitary.”
“I don’t care if she has a mustache and a rotten tooth that spits fire,” shouted T-Rex. “One of you is giving her a kiss at midnight. It’s in the contract.”
“She has a mustache?” asked the first boy.
The boys cracked up.
Claire’s stomach lurched. She turned to the mirror and examined her top lip. It looked hairless, at least in this light. But still. How could she allow her first kiss to come from someone who didn’t want anything to do with her? Sure, she was a fan, but she also had pride. Besides, the whole idea was to spend New Year’s Eve with her best friends. And they were stuck in a parking lot wearing random costumes with her babysitter and little brother.
“Hey, maybe we should use that breath spray that smells like puke,” the second boy suggested. “That would scare her off.”
“Good idea,” said one of the twins.
Claire jumped to her feet and hurried toward the door, totally freaked out. But then, the walls of the tour bus fell to the ground. A barrage of lights flooded the parking lot and throngs of screaming girls raced out from behind the cars. Behind her, Merri-Lee Marvil’s face appeared on a gigantic drive-in movie–size screen.
“T-Rex, introduce her to the boys!” she gushed from her party in Westchester.
The manager tore down the blue curtain, lifted Claire into his King Kong arms, and placed her down between Theo and Rob. Shirtless and buff, one had a giant tattoo of the letter T across his chest and the other had an R. Claire felt like she was watching herself from someone else’s body.
They greeted her with smiling chocolate brown eyes that appeared orange under the lights. Their thick black eyelashes and deeply tanned skin were even more pronounced in real life than they were in magazines and videos. Claire felt like the white center between two dark wafers of an Oreo cookie.
“You’ve been ThRobbed!” Theo pulled her in for a squeeze. He didn’t smell like puke at all. More like Red Bull and pine-scented deodorant.
“We had hidden cameras behind the mirrors,” Rob explained with a devilish smile.
“It was a prank!” Theo called.
The audience cheered while Claire replayed the last ten minutes in her head… loading on the ChapStick… checking her mustache in the mirror… trying to escape….
“Don’t worry,” he added. “You don’t have facial hair.”
Claire covered her mouth shyly.
“Yes, she does!” shouted a boy in the front row. It was Todd, sitting on Zadrienne’s shoulders, drumming his strawberry blond head. Mandy, Sari, and Sarah were waving wildly. Kelsey was picking at her green nail polish.
Claire’s teeth began chattering. She had never been more excited in her entire life.
“This is for you.” Rob handed Claire a red ring box. “For being such a good sport.”
“Thanks.” She dropped the box in her dress pocket. Her hands were way too shaky to open it in public.
“Wasn’t she great, Merri-Lee?” Rob turned and asked the screen.
“Oh, she was,” gushed the hostess via satellite. “But the real gift will come at midnight when Theo and Rob sing ‘Twice the Fun’ to our lucky winner and finish it off with a kiss,” she reported. “Don’t go away. Merri-Lee’s New Year’s Yves will continue with a lot more surprises, after the break.”
The screen went blank and the camera lights shut off. Dancing white spots marred Claire’s vision. Or was it her proximity to the two cutest boys in the four-oh-seven?
Theo took a step back and admired Claire. “Rad dress.”
“Really?” Claire grinned, aware of the envious eyes staring up at her from the audience.
“Totally.” Rob winked. “You’re a real cutie.”
“Thanks.” Claire giggled, tipsy with love. They were totally first kiss–worthy. And apparently, so was she.
“There she is!” a familiar woman’s voice shouted. Claire’s body, sensing danger, shot a rush of adrenaline to her heart, filling her with a sickening sense of dread.
The cameras turned back on.
“What’s happening?” asked Theo as two security guards and a woman dressed in a pea-green empire-cut dress hurried toward Claire.
“Mom?”
“Wait.” Rob smiled. “Is this a payback prank?”
“I wish,” Claire mumbled as her father elbowed his way to the front of the crowd, pulled Todd off Zadrienne’s shoulders, and fired Kelsey on the spot.
“Looks like you’re gonna have to kiss something else at midnight,” Judi Lyons snapped at Rob. “Perverts,” she muttered, yanking her daughter away.
“Mom!” Claire gasped, too mortified to look back at ThRob. “Don’t do this to me!”
“What I did to you?” Judi’s silver teardrop earrings bashed against her clenched jaw. “Imagine how I felt? Standing at a party and seeing my daughter on TV, dressed like Scarlett O’Hara, announcing to the world that she will be ravaged by twin hooligans at midnight?”
“No one was going to ravage me,” Claire pleaded as her mother, with the help of two security guards, pulled her away from the scene. But pleading was useless.
Everything was useless. She had never seen her mother so angry.
The ride home was silent, except for the occasional sniffle from Sari, who was certain she’d be sent to military school. And a quick exchange between her parents about someplace called Westchester.
Wherever that was…
MERRI-LEE MARVIL’S NEW YEAR’S YVES PARTY
HERMIA’S TENT
Friday, December 31st
11:07 P.M.
The line outside Hermia’s tent was still Harry Potter–long. And judging by the lack of wedding rings, most of those women wanted the psychic to promise them princes. But not Massie. She wanted to be queen.
Like last time, she raced to the front of the line with urgency, as if carrying a life-or-death message for Hermia—which she kind of was. Only the “life” part of the message had to do with Massie’s social life. And the “death” part referred to its current state. She was officially friendless on the biggest night of the year, and would stay that way unless Hermia told her exactly what she needed to do to become a true leader. And this time, she refused to take “figure it out yourself” for an answer.
“Where do you think you’re going?” slurred a woman wrapped in a baby blue pashmina.
“It’s not decent to cut!” called some mom who obviously mistook Massie for someone who cared.
A few other comments whizzed by like music from a passing car. But Massie tuned them out. MylifeisruinedMylifeisruinedMylifeisruined was all she heard.
“I have no friends, thanks to you!” she shouted, storming into the Moroccan pillow–filled tent. “You’re a real psychic like Dr. Dre is a real MD.”
Hermia opened her gold-dusted lids as if woken from a nap. “You again?” She released her client’s hand.
The chai smell had been overpowered by a nauseating mix of holiday perfumes.
“Do you need a minute with your daughter?” asked a familiar-looking woman, blowing into a tissue.
“My daughter?” scoffed Hermia.
“Oh, I remember you,” Massie blurted, taking in the woman’s red nose and lap full of crumpled pink Puffs tissues. “You’re the one who likes Rick.”
“Liked!” she quickly c
orrected. “After you told me he was here, I went out to find him and he was gone. He couldn’t wait five minutes for me.”
Massie paced across the dusty Oriental rugs, shaking her head as if horrified by the nerve of it all.
“I told you.” Hermia sat back on her stack of pillows and ran a hand through her vibrant red hair. “Rick is still with his wife. And he is staying with her. You need to move on.”
“I know.” Jenna blew into a pink Puffs. “I know.”
“Are you really gonna listen to her?” Massie snapped, remembering her own crisis. “Thanks to her ‘advice,’ I have no friends, no bracelet, and no hope.” She slammed the purple stone on the scarf-wrapped table. “Take it. It doesn’t work.”
“I meant what I said,” Hermia insisted. “The five pieces will be joined at midnight.” She checked her cell phone. “And it’s almost midnight. So you better go.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” Massie’s throat locked.
“Didn’t you hear?” Hermia asked with a Cheshire cat grin. “A young dancer slipped on a charm during her performance. She’s backstage right now getting iced.”
“What?”
The psychic stood, shuffled over to Massie, and pulled her into a hug. “Hermia is never wrong,” she whispered, her breath smelling like Halls Mentho-Lyptus. “Now go,” she urged. “Go!”
Massie hurried out of the tent, not quite sure if Hermia actually knew something or was just trying to get rid of her. Still, with the help of a fifty-dollar bribe, she bulldozed her way backstage just in case. A small object was knocking against the outside of her thigh while she walked. Without stopping, she dug her hand inside her dress pocket and gasped. The purple stone was back.
But how? Who? When?
Massie began to run, fueled by questions she couldn’t answer. A mystery she couldn’t solve. A destiny she couldn’t reach. And the hope that with every frenzied step, she was getting closer.
The Clique: Charmed and Dangerous Page 9