Lili gripped her coffee cup tightly, took an agonized sip of the drink, and contemplated tossing it into the trash. They’d gotten into trouble for the stickers once the faculty got wind of the incident; the girls were chastised because their little prank promoted “clique culture,” which was supposedly against school policy. Uh-huh. Good luck with that.
Ashley supposedly had a surprise for them, and Lili had no choice but to wait or be left out of the fun. Her other best friend, Ashley Alioto, had found something better to do than wait around for Ashley. A. A. had arrived right on time, just as Lili had, but she’d disappeared once they’d gotten their lattes. Maybe she had decided to ditch Ashley, but most likely she was just on the phone to that “boyfriend”—air quotes definitely intended—of hers again.
Lili yawned and stretched on the wooden chair. She reached behind her to make sure her new Proenza shoulder bag was still hanging there. The bag was the same one that Ashley would be carrying and the same one that A. A. had carelessly plopped down on the seat across from hers. They had bought them together a few weeks ago. Lili had angled for the fire-engine red version, but Ashley had convinced her that beige was a more practical color for them. A. A., of course, had settled for the beige without complaint.
Lili noticed an old Chinese lady smiling at her from across the room. Old Chinese ladies were always smiling at her. She figured she probably reminded them of their granddaughters or something. They were always patting her on the head and saying, “Piao liang, piao liang” (pretty, pretty). Lili always smiled back. She knew how to take a compliment.
Her jet black hair fell just below her shoulders, and today she was wearing it in soft curls. She had fine, delicate features, slightly almond-shaped eyes, a tiny chin, and a flawless, caramel complexion. People always said she looked like Lucy Liu from Elementary, but maybe that was because there were no other Asian actresses to compare her to. She didn’t think she looked a bit like Lucy Liu, but she liked hearing it anyway. Speaking of things she liked to hear . . .
“Hi, pretty!” called a clear, singsong voice from the entrance of the shop.
She turned. Ashley had finally arrived. Lili got up from her chair so fast she almost knocked over her coffee cup.
“Hi, pretty!” she gushed back. “Omigod!” she exclaimed, slapping her hands on her hips in dismay.
“What?”
“Your bag!” Lili accused, pointing to the offending accessory.
“I know! Don’t you love?” Ashley grinned, holding it up to the light.
“It’s red !” said Lili indignantly. “You said we were all getting beige!”
“I changed my mind,” Ashley said, shrugging. “I’m always red,” she added, quoting from their favorite movie, Heathers.
“Ha-ha,” Lili deadpanned sourly. “But now we don’t match.” She frowned. “We were all supposed to get the same one.”
“You and A. A. still match,” Ashley pointed out. “What’s the big deal? It’s just a bag, Lil. Chill out.”
Lili pasted a smile on her face. It was just a bag. Ashley was right. She was Lili’s best friend, and so what if she’d changed her mind? Lili could have changed her mind just as easily, but of course, the thought would never have occurred to her. They had an agreement. Now instead of three Ashleys, she and A. A. would look like backup singers to the main Ashley. This was so Dreamgirls. But if Ashley didn’t watch out, Lili was going to Jennifer Hudson her one day.
“Is there time for me to get my chai?” Ashley said, angling up to the counter.
No, thought Lili.
“Uh-huh,” she said instead. It wouldn’t make a difference. Ashley collected late notices like Repetto ballerina flats.
“I’m totally parched. Where’s A. A.?” asked Ashley, moving to the pickup section and looking around the busy Starbucks.
“Here.” A tall, tanned girl strode toward them. She wore her hair in a pair of signature pigtails. Only a girl as gorgeous as Ashley Alioto could get away with such a juvenile hairstyle. A. A. towered over both of her friends. She was built like a tennis player—slim, toned, and tanned—and walked with an athlete’s bouncy step.
“Hi, pretty!” Ashley cooed.
“Hi, pretty!” A. A. greeted back.
They kissed each other on both cheeks the way they’d seen fashion models do it.
“You got the red,” A. A. noted, stroking the soft leather of Ashley’s new bag. “I like.”
Lili tried not to gag. It was so obvious what A. A. was doing: sucking up to Ashley as usual. It would be sickening if it wasn’t so sincere. A. A. had the well-deserved reputation as being the nicest of the Ashleys; everyone in class called her mega-dece. More likely she was just too spacey to be mean. Lili tried to feel annoyed but decided it was too much trouble. And besides, frowning caused wrinkles at some point. Only ugly girls had reason to frown, and Lili’s life was as perfect as any twelve-year-old could hope for.
“Is that a new lunchbox?” asked Lili, noticing Ashley’s new Japanese case. “Where’d you get?”
“Tokyo,” Ashley replied. “You don’t think it’s too sixth grade?” she asked.
Lili shook her head a little less than vigorously. “No way.”
Ashley smiled, only slightly reassured, but continued, “Omigod. I totally forgot. I brought treats.” She fished around in her Proenza bag and handed out what looked like three plastic toys. “Surprise! They’re Prada Robot Charms. They only sell them in Tokyo. Accessories for your accessories. Don’t you love?”
Lili and A. A. squealed in delight and immediately attached them to their bags like Ashley did.
“See?” Ashley said, picking up her cup. “Now we all match.”
Lili nodded, appeased. No one else at school would have the robot charms.
“Ready?” asked Ashley.
The two others nodded, and with arms linked, the three of them walked out of the Starbucks and up the hill toward school.
4
A. A. IS JUST ASHLEY ALIOTO’S NICKNAME, NOT HER BRA SIZE
KEEPING AN EYE ON HER two friends who were walking slightly in front of her, nearly identical handbags dangling from their arms, Ashley Alioto tapped a message on her cell phone. talk 2 u l8r txt me i have re<< i have a brk @ 11.
Silly. She’d almost texted him saying she had recess at eleven! She turned off her phone, rubbed the rhinestones embedded on its stainless silver cover, and exhaled. She’d caught herself just in the nick of time, thank God.
He was just sooo amazing. She was totally into him. And it was mutual, she could tell. Not that he’d said anything of the kind, but after all, they’d only just met a month ago online. Their whole relationship consisted of trading e-mails and instant messages and syrupy comments on each other’s home pages. She was too scared to commit to a real-world F2F encounter yet. They’d never even spoken on the phone—he’d suggested it once, but she deflected it out of nerves.
Not that she had anything to worry about. She was certain he was three-name cute, even though he didn’t have any pics on his profile—just a cute Speed Racer cartoon. She just had a feeling. A. A. liked to think she was a little bit psychic, and she could sense a hot boy behind those sweet e-mails. He’d already changed his profile to “In a Relationship” ever since they’d confessed their affection to each other a week ago. He kept telling her he couldn’t wait until they met for real.
And there lay the problem. They could never meet for real.
Because laxjock (his online handle) was a high school boy. Who thought she was four years older than she really was.
If only she really were sixteen years old like it said on her profile! She’d kind of fudged with her age on the site, everyone did. Who in their right mind wanted to admit they were in junior high? Duh. In her defense, the stunning, professional black-and-white portrait on her page certainly made her look sixteen.
Her mother, a former model who had walked the catwalks of Paris, Milan, and New York, had asked a famous fashion photographer to take shots of her daughter as a
favor, and the resulting photograph—of A. A. in a sleek black Eres bikini—was totally Teen Vogue–worthy.
Although the photo was sort of a fluke, really. A. A. had always been a bit of a tomboy, and she was most comfortable in Puma sneakers and yoga pants. It always bothered her that all her life she’d been taller than everyone she knew, had filled out the earliest, had gotten her first bra years before her friends had.
It was embarrassing how people were always commenting on how she looked older than her real age, how she looked “more mature.” Was there ever a word more depressing than “mature”? A. A. thought “mature” meant a wheelchair, a nursing home, and sensible shoes with the crepe wedges. She’d always hated looking older than she was. Until she had turned twelve years old but looked sixteen—then suddenly the world opened up in all sorts of delicious ways, like being able to sneak into R-rated movies and all-ages teen nightclubs.
She figured she would just delay their meeting until she was sure he was so in love with her that he wouldn’t care that she was only in seventh grade. Right?
“Loverboy?” Ashley asked, noticing A. A. putting her phone away.
“It’s her online Romeo,” added Lili with a knowing smile.
“Yeah.” A. A. sighed, trying not to look too pleased.
“So when do we get to meet him already?” Lili asked impatiently. “We’ve been hearing about him for weeks. Time to give up the goods.”
“Soon,” A. A. said airily. She had yet to confess to her friends that she herself had never met him. Some things were best kept secret for a while.
“You’re so mysterious about him, maybe he doesn’t really exist,” Ashley teased.
A. A. shrugged, knowing they couldn’t help but be just a tiny bit jealous she had boy drama in her life. For all of Ashley’s sophistication, she had yet to kiss a boy. Lili swore up and down that she’d kissed a boy over the summer in Taiwan, but with no way to prove it, she got only dubious credit for the experience.
Whereas she, A. A., had already made out with not one but two boys—last year her older cousin had taken her to a high school party and she’d made out with two Saint Aloysius freshmen during a game of Truth/Dare/Double Dare/Promise to Repeat. One of them had even stalked her for weeks, even after finding out she was only eleven. He was cute, but a little demented. She finally had to get her cousin to tell him to buzz off.
“Yeah, sure, A. A. has a boyfriend—but only she can see him!” Ashley teased. “It’s like The Sixth Sense.”
“An imaginary boyfriend, how cute!” Lili laughed condescendingly. “They must have lots to say to each other.”
“Shut up!” A. A. said, flicking Lili on the shoulder.
“Owww.” Lili pouted. “That hurt.”
A. A. briefly wondered what her life would be like if her parents had named her Samantha, like they had originally planned. She knew Lili was still peeved about Ashley’s handbag switcheroo. A. A. wasn’t thrilled about it either, but she had known better than to complain about it.
Whatever. It was the first day of school. Seventh grade. Finally. Boy-girl dances. Coed parties. Free-dress Fridays. It was going to rock.
School was just a few steps away, and A. A. could sense her friends subconsciously starting to move at slow-motion speed, and she did the same, savoring the feeling of having all eyes on them. Lili began to toss her long dark hair back over her shoulder in an exaggerated shampoo-commercial way, while Ashley pursed her lips as if preparing for a camera close-up. A. A. walked a little taller, arching her back and keeping her arm swing to a minimum.
They sat on the bench by the playground, where they could check out everyone and make judgments on new back-to-school haircuts and sock choices. There was very little room to make a fashion statement with the uniform (or as A. A. called it, the prison outfit), so every variation was scrutinized to death, from skirt hemline—rolled up to super mini length was totally out and way too much like the slutty Helena Academy girls down the street—to necklace choice: the Tiffany bean was so cliché; these days everyone wore Isabel Marant charms.
“Skiddoo,” Ashley growled at a couple of first graders who’d had the unfortunate idea to play hopscotch in front of the bench.
A. A. took her customary place on Ashley’s right, Lili on Ashley’s left, the three of them sitting cross-legged, kicking their ankles high so everyone could take note of their matching red-soled Louboutin Mary Janes, whispering to one another as girls from their class walked by. Those in their favor stopped and said hello, while those beneath notice scurried by with their heads bowed low, hoping to escape criticism. No such luck.
“Nice jacket,” Ashley sneered, as Daria Hart, a fashion-challenged seventh grader, walked by in a metallic raincoat. “It’ll come in handy when the aliens land.”
Lili giggled, while A. A. gave Daria what she hoped was a she-didn’t-really-mean-it smile. Ashley could be pretty funny, and A. A. enjoyed a cutting comment as much as anyone, but A. A. was feeling less and less inclined to be mean just for meanness’ sake.
Melody Myers, an SOA, stopped to trade what-I-did-last-summer stories and oohed over their matching Prada charms. As Melody hurried away when the first bell rang, a shiny silver Tesla pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the school. The girls didn’t give it a second look—expensive eco-cars were a typical sight in the mornings at Miss Gamble’s—but the hot guy climbing out of the front seat definitely caught their attention.
He was tall and chiseled, with a cool buzz cut, and he wore a pair of silver wraparound sunglasses. When he opened the back door, his biceps flexed in a most heart-stopping manner. A. A. couldn’t take her eyes off him.
Then a pair of tanned legs wearing last year’s chunky socks and brand-new high-heeled black-and-white spectators emerged, as a girl none of them had ever seen before got out of the car. She was so pretty it almost hurt to look at her. Perfect hair. Perfect skin. Perfect nose. A Proenza bag, in the much more expensive silver snakeskin that was sold out at Neiman’s, was hanging on her shoulder.
Too bad about the socks. Ashley had decreed chunky socks passé, and all of them were wearing black tights that morning.
A. A. raised an eyebrow. She looked at Ashley’s and Lili’s blank faces and knew what they were thinking. Here was a girl pretty enough to steal the Ashleys’ thunder. Did she know what she was in for?
The girl walked by with her nose in the air, completely ignoring them, as if they didn’t matter. Nobody said a word. Then Ashley stuck out her foot. A. A. gasped inwardly. It was the oldest trick in the book. But here was the thing about old tricks: They worked.
For a split second it looked like the new girl would be able to catch herself before connecting with Ashley’s outstretched ankle, but there would be no such salvation that day. She went flailing on her Chanel pumps, tumbling to the ground as the contents of her designer handbag spilled, showering books and notebooks and pencil case everywhere, and her skirt flew up to her waist, revealing baggy Carter’s underwear. Not so perfect after all.
“Oops.” Ashley giggled. “I’m so sorry,” she said, not sounding the least bit apologetic.
The girl brushed her bangs away from her face, and A. A. suddenly recognized her, as did her friends.
“Omigod. It’s Lauren Page,” said Lili in a shocked tone.
“Who?” Ashley sniffed. “Never mind.”
“You should really watch where you’re going,” A. A. cautioned.
“Yeah, try not to bump into my foot next time. You almost gave me a bruise,” Ashley added.
Then, without another word, the Ashleys stood up from the bench, climbed daintily over Lauren’s sprawled body, and walked into school.
5
BUT ISN’T IMITATION THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY?
“WHAT’S THAT?” LAUREN’S MOM ASKED right before ringing the doorbell to the Spencers’ grand home, pointing to a thin red scratch on Lauren’s right cheek.
“It’s nothing. Accident at gym.” Lauren shook her head. The fall
had been completely humiliating, and she was still a little stunned at how deftly the Ashleys had been able to derail her plan before it had even begun. But it could have been worse. There could have been an audience. Luckily, it had happened after the second bell rang, and the only person who had witnessed her social disaster was the elderly school custodian, who’d been kind enough to help her up.
Lauren kept a low profile for the rest of the day. She avoided her old friends—if you could call them that, since they had nothing in common other than the fact that they were shunned by the rest of the class: Cass Franklin, who was allergic to everything and kept an inhaler and an oxygen tank in her bag in case of emergency; and Guinevere Parker, whom everyone called Bobblehead because her head was much too large for her way-too-skinny body.
She had been so sure that her new look would get her immediately seated at the Ashleys’ table at lunch, but since it was glaringly apparent that that was not going to happen anytime soon, she’d decided to skip it entirely and hid in the library eating her cheese panini until it was over. She’d heard a few whispers about her transformation but had ignored the friendly overtures from some of the other girls in class. Sheridan Riley was particularly effusive—fawning over Lauren’s shiny hair and new bag when she had hardly paid any attention to her before. But Lauren had been at Miss Gamble’s long enough to know that the only opinion that mattered was the Ashleys’. She didn’t want to settle for anything less.
Trudy Page looked at her daughter keenly, licking her finger and rubbing the wound. “Are you sure that’s all it was?”
“Mom, stop. Okay?” Lauren pleaded, flinching away. “I promise you, it was nothing.”
Trudy sighed. She adjusted the thick braided Gucci belt around her silk tunic and wild paisley-print palazzo pants. Lauren couldn’t help but notice that ever since the company had gone public, her mother had begun to dress very loudly. Money talks, and apparently, so does Cavalli.
Lauren had changed out of her uniform and was wearing a bib-front Chloé minidress and ankle-strap wedges. Her new personal shopper assured her it was the hottest new look of the season, and even though the shoes pinched her feet, Lauren didn’t complain. When she was one of the Ashleys, it would all be worth it. Especially when she stomped all over them.
The Ashley Project Page 2