Survival of the Fiercest

by Anna Carey

  Andie rubbed her eyes, which were still pink from crying. “No. I didn’t know what to say when you asked me about the sweatshirt, so I lied. And then I had to cover it up by pretending he was my boyfriend. When everyone was cheering for us to kiss, I didn’t want to, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Andie pulled the comforter tighter around her, so only her head poked out. She’d never been good at lying. She’d known that ever since third grade, when her dad caught her stealing his silk handkerchiefs to use as Barbie blankets. Still, for a moment it had looked like everything would work out—Clay would leave the party, Kyle would arrive, and Andie wouldn’t have to tell Lola about any of it until it was the right time. But maybe that was the problem. There never was a “right time.” Even now. “I was just afraid to tell you,” she started. “I like Kyle.”

  Lola wished Andie hadn’t offered that information. It hurt enough to think about how Kyle fancied Andie. She didn’t want to think about how they both fancied each other. Lola imagined them walking around the reservoir together, holding hands, or Kyle coming over every weekend to see Andie, to pick her up to go to the movies or play foosball in their den. Lola would never want to leave her room again. “I didn’t come here to talk about Kyle,” she said, changing the subject. “I wanted to tell you my good news. Gunther liked the shots. He’s going to use them after all.”

  Andie threw her arms around Lola, letting the blanket fall from her shoulders. “I told you!” she screamed. Andie bounced up and down on the bed, excited. This was going to change everything for Lola—in a good way. Since she’d arrived in New York she’d kept asking Andie how she could be different, prettier, cooler. She wanted to be someone Kyle would like and Betsy Carmichael wouldn’t make fun of. Maybe now she would finally relax, and just be herself. Andie liked the real Lola—with her spastic hand-clapping and fur-covered Gap hoodies—best of all. “When does the billboard go up?”

  “Next week,” Lola managed. Andie was hugging her so tight she could barely talk.

  “Your face is going to be in Times Square? I can’t wait for everyone at Ashton to see it.” Andie threw herself across the bed dramatically, as if Lola had just told her she’d be modeling for Gunther Gunta. “My stepsister is a supermodel,” she said, to no one in particular.

  “I can’t wait for them to see it either.” Lola smoothed down her blond hair and smiled. That was the reaction she’d wanted. She needed someone who knew what life at Ashton Prep was like before, and who could understand what it would be like after. Betsy Carmichael would regret ever saying anything about her knickers.

  Her gaze settled on the collage above Andie’s bed. The Chloé ad with Andie’s smiling face pasted on the body of a model was still there, in plain sight. Modeling had always been Andie’s dream. She DVR’d America’s Next Top Model every week, and watched it (at the very least) three times, pausing on different poses and trying to imitate them. Lola didn’t have a bloody clue who Gunther Gunta was—Andie had had to tell her.

  She thought about Kyle’s face at the party, when he saw Andie snogging Clay. Then she glanced at Andie’s eyes, which were red. Her stomach sank with guilt. Lola didn’t love the idea of them being together, but she also didn’t want to be the thing keeping them apart. “So you really fancy Kyle?” she asked.

  Andie examined Lola’s face, nervous that she was still mad or upset. But her green eyes were wide, and her nose wasn’t twitching—not even a little. “Yeah, I do. I really do,” Andie said. “It doesn’t matter, though. He won’t even talk to me. I called him and e-mailed, but nothing.” Andie twisted the bottom of her T-shirt so hard she thought it might rip. She tried to imagine things if they were the other way around—if Lola had been sneaking around with her crush. The worst part was, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t. Because the truth was, Lola would never do that to her. “I’m sorry that I lied to you. I was just scared that you’d hate me.”

  Lola sat down next to Andie and shook her shoulders a bit. “I don’t hate you.” It was the truth. She’d been upset about Kyle, but she hadn’t seen him in almost a week. Whenever they did talk, he kept on about what good mates they were. Sure, they’d been best friends as children, but she was starting to feel like she didn’t even know him anymore. His Facebook page had a hundred pictures of him onstage with his band, his sweaty hair held back by some girly-looking headband. There were shots of him playing soccer at Donalty, and he even had a fan page for his band. Lola liked to ride horses, was first-chair viola, and had never been to a concert (unless you counted the Philharmonic at Royal Albert Hall). They weren’t exactly two sides of the same coin. Maybe Kyle was supposed to be with someone different, someone who was actually interested in the same things he was. Someone like…Andie. “I’m just glad Clay’s not your boyfriend. He’s a real arse. He kept on for five whole minutes about how he threw a tuna fish sandwich at some bloke’s head.” She laughed, feeling her anger sliding away. Besides, as of today she was a model—Gunther Gunta’s model. It was hard to be mad about anything right now.

  “At least you didn’t have to hear about how Brandon peed in a Pepsi bottle on their camping trip,” Andie mumbled.

  Lola let out a laugh, but Andie’s face was still sad. Kyle’s sweatshirt was slung over Andie’s desk chair and Lola stared at it, an idea forming. Even if Kyle wouldn’t talk to Andie, he would talk to her….

  LOLABEAN: SAW YOU RUN OUT ON SATURDAY

  STRIKER15: I KINDA HAD TO

  LOLABEAN: ANDIE TOLD ME THAT YOU GUYS WERE

  HANGING OUT

  STRIKER15: WE’RE NOT ANYMORE

  LOLABEAN: IF IT’S BECAUSE OF CLAY…IT’S NOT WHAT IT

  LOOKED LIKE

  STRIKER15:??

  LOLABEAN: SHE DOESN’T FANCY HIM—SHE FANCIES YOU

  STRIKER15: THEN WHY DID SHE MAKE OUT WITH HIM?

  LOLABEAN: HE JUST SNOGGED HER. SHE DIDN’T EVEN

  WANT HIM TO

  STRIKER15: WHAT? REALLY?

  LOLABEAN: EVERYONE WAS YELLING AT CLAY TO DO IT

  LOLABEAN: ANDIE WAS GOING TO STOP HIM BUT HE DID

  IT ANYWAY

  STRIKER15: YEAH?

  LOLABEAN: COME OVER TONIGHT

  LOLABEAN: U SHOULD TALK TO HER

  STRIKER15: I DON’T KNOW

  LOLABEAN: PLEASE?

  STRIKER15: OK…I’LL SEE YOU AT 7

  LOLABEAN: GOOD

  STRIKER15: ANOTHER THING—R WE COOL?

  STRIKER15: I WAS WORRIED THAT MAYBE U’D BE UPSET

  ABOUT ME HANGING OUT WITH ANDIE

  STRIKER 15: THAT’S WHY I DIDN’T TELL YOU I WAS COMING

  TO THE PARTY

  LOLABEAN: NO—WE’RE ACE

  STRIKER15: PROMISE?

  LOLABEAN: ABSO-BLOODY-LUTELY

  STRIKER15: THANKS

  STRIKER15: UR THE BEST, STICKS

  IT’S CALLED A “SECRET” PASSAGE FOR A REASON

  Later that night, Cate shuffled through the “Green Club” folder, searching for clues. All day, Eli’s words had kept running through her head, like a bad song that was stuck on repeat. Does she have a boyfriend? She just seems cool. He hadn’t said Stella was pretty, put together, or had cool hair (which Cate hated to admit, but she did)—things anyone could tell by passing her in the street. They had hung out before—but when? She studied a photo of Eli and Braden Pennyworth playing Ultimate Frisbee in the North Meadow, and one of Eli standing alone on the corner of Eighty-fourth and Amsterdam. There was only one person in the background. Unless Stella had disguised herself as a homeless man in a pilot’s helmet, it wasn’t her.

  Just then Cate’s iPhone buzzed.

  DANNY: I LOOKED INTO YR QUERY RE: STELLA. NO NEW INTELLIGENCE 2 REPORT

  Cate threw the phone down on her bed, annoyed. If she had to hire Danny to follow Stella around for a week, she would. She needed to know the truth. She hoped it was all an innocent mistake, that Stella had bumped into Eli on his stoop and simply forgotten to mention it to her. But after the incident in th
e garden, Eli had wandered around the party like a lost child, hoping Stella might come downstairs. Then he’d asked Cate (twice!) to let Stella know he’d been there. The more she thought about it, the less innocent it seemed.

  Cate had been in the town house the entire day, and she was starting to feel a little stir crazy—or maybe just crazy. She needed to take a walk to clear her head. She took off downstairs, stopping in the den to grab the last of the trash bags.

  She pushed out the front door and hurled the plastic bags on the sidewalk, slightly satisfied by the thwack! sound they made. The last evidence of the party was gone. But cleaning up the town house was the easy part. Doing damage control tomorrow at school would be harder. She’d have to field more questions about Myra’s failed makeover, and more girls asking her about “the hot Haverford guy” she was talking to. Just yesterday she’d imagined saying “that’s my boyfriend,” but now that was clearly out of the question.

  Just then the front door of Eli Punch’s town house swung open. A woman in her forties jogged down the steps and a muscular man with a thick brown beard followed close behind her. “Easy, Holden,” Eli called, as a yellow Labrador retriever dragged him outside. Eli pulled the dog back, his legs whipped by its tail.

  Cate smoothed back her hair, suddenly nervous. Eli’s entire family looked like they’d stepped out of Runner’s World magazine. Eli’s dad wore a Nike tank top and sleek black running sneakers, his mom’s jet-black hair was in a tight ponytail, and Eli was wearing his blue Haverford warm-up pants. “Hi,” Cate said, pulling her bathrobe tighter around her body.

  “This must be your new neighbor friend.” The man combed his beard with his hand.

  Cate cringed. There was that word again—friend. Even if Cate wasn’t in a place to turn down friends (her grand total was currently one, if she counted Stella), she would never be friends with Eli. She would never sit next to him without wanting to hold his hand. She would never listen to him talk about Stella without feeling like he was squeezing her heart with a wrench.

  “Yeah, this is Cate.” Eli smiled. “You guys go. I’ll catch up.” His parents ran off toward Central Park, the yellow Lab in tow.

  “Hey, Eli,” Cate started, scraping her slippers against the sidewalk. “I’m glad we ran into each other. There’s something I meant to ask you.” Cate searched Eli’s dark eyes. “How do you know Stella?”

  Eli raised an eyebrow. “She didn’t tell you? She found a door in her closet. It goes between our two houses. She busted a hole right through my bedroom wall.” He let out a little laugh.

  Cate dug her fingernails into her palm. “A door?” she squeaked.

  “Yeah. That’s how we met.” He glanced toward the park. “Sorry, I have to go,” he said. Then he took off down Eighty-second Street. “See you later.”

  “Right….” Cate mumbled, but Eli was already turning the corner. She’d lived in her town house her entire life. When she was little her mother had used Stella’s new room as a library, reading her Green Eggs and Ham and Goodnight Moon in the daybed up there. Just this summer, Cate had kept her entire winter wardrobe in that closet, finally moving it to some musty storage space once Stella arrived. But she’d never noticed a door—ever. It was too ridiculous to believe, like a magical beanstalk or a poison apple. It was something out of a fairy tale.

  Cate ran into the house and up one flight of stairs, then the next, and the next, not stopping until she reached Stella’s room. She entered the closet, her heart beating fast, as though she were on a treasure hunt and she’d finally found the treasure. The walk-in was packed with clothes, and she had to kick stray blouses out of her way just to get through. There were baskets of Prada belts and Fendi scarves, and a whole wall of designer shoes. She spun around, pushing aside a rack of casual dresses to try and find the door. She moved a rack of J Brand jeans, and a stack of folded sweaters on a shelf. Then she noticed a long sliver of light on her leg. Sure enough, on the back wall, right between two green Diane von Furstenberg blouses, she could see the edge of something that looked like a passageway. She pushed back some tops and found the door, the mint green paint chipped around its frame.

  Cate sat down, her back pressing into Stella’s shoe collection. Eli was right. This whole time, while Cate was going to his basketball games and planning their first kiss, Stella was sneaking in and out of his room via secret passage. No wonder he liked her so much. She probably talked to him about Catcher in the Rye, or how she’d heard the beaches in Westport were calmer than the ones in the Hamptons, just because they were on the Long Island Sound. She probably used every single piece of intel Cate had collected to convince Eli she loved yellow Labs, that she played girls’ basketball in London, that she would be a perfect girlfriend.

  Cate felt the tears welling in her eyes. Forget Chi Sigma—nothing had changed. Stella was still lying to her face, still scheming behind her back. Maybe she hadn’t been able to win Blythe, Priya, and Sophie away from her, but now she’d gone after Eli. Cate turned her diamond earring between her fingers. It was times like these she missed her mom the most. Everything was different now. Winston had Emma, Andie had Lola, Stella had Eli, and Cate had no one.

  Blythe’s words repeated on loop in Cate’s ears. It’s for the best, she’d said. Come back to us. Cate stared at the door. She’d spent so much time worrying about Blythe, making up those lies about her kicking puppies in the head and planning that silly party so Chi Sigma could be more popular than Beta Sigma Phi. It seemed a little…wrong now. She and Blythe had always been better as a team. They’d stayed close through Blythe’s parents’ divorce, through Cate losing her mom, through Blythe spending every summer traveling with her dad. Their friendship had never been a problem—until Stella moved to New York.

  Cate reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her iPhone, her hands trembling as she dialed the number. Pick up, she thought, listening to it ring. Please pick up.

  “Hello?” Blythe asked. She sounded formal, like the receptionist at Winston’s bank.

  “Blythe?” Cate choked out, the tears streaming down her face. She twisted the string of her pajama pants around her hand, so tight her fingers turned pink. There was silence on the end of the line. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Are you crying?” Blythe asked, her voice softening. Cate tried to say yes, but she just mumbled, the tears wetting the phone.

  “I’m sorry about Eli—about everything.” Cate wiped her cheek with back of her hands. “I want to be friends again.”

  “Cate, I told you you could come back,” Blythe continued. Her voice was steady, calm, reassuring. Like maybe she’d had her cell phone in her lap all day, just waiting for the call. “This whole thing has gotten completely out of control.”

  Cate let out a deep breath. “I know. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too,” Blythe said. Cate could practically hear her nodding over the phone.

  “Then why did you do it?” Cate squeezed the phone tightly. Maybe Blythe really hadn’t meant to tell Myra about the challenge. Maybe they’d both gotten carried away with the competition for Eli. But there was one thing Cate couldn’t understand. Blythe knew how much Chi Beta Phi meant to her, and yet she’d stolen the presidency out from under her. “Why did you turn Sophie and Priya against me?”

  “I wasn’t trying to turn them against you!” Blythe cried. “You said it yourself—I was ‘in your shadow.’ I just wanted to show you I could do something on my own. Without you. How was I supposed to know you’d start a new sorority with Stella and Myra Granberry?”

  Cate smiled despite herself. Her supposed friendship with Myra wasn’t something anyone could have predicted. Still, she’d always thought Blythe was fine being her second in command—when they danced at the annual talent show she always insisted Cate be in the front, because she was uncomfortable on stage. She nominated Cate every year for class president, and she was the one who’d suggested Cate lead Chi Beta Phi in the first place. “You should’ve said something i
f you were unhappy.”

  “Maybe I should have.” There was a long pause. Cate could only hear Blythe’s breath on the other end of the line. “Look,” she said finally, “I’m tired of fighting with you. It just seems…wrong.”

  Cate dug her toes into the Juicy blouse on Stella’s floor. “I know. I hate it too.” Even if she burned every memento she and Blythe had ever made, she couldn’t erase the last nine years of their friendship. Blythe came over every Mother’s Day and brought her a present, just so she wouldn’t feel so alone. And it was Blythe who called her from her vacation in South Africa last year, when Sophie and Priya had forgotten her birthday. She’d never find a friend as good as her…and definitely not in Stella. She glanced at the door, feeling a little queasy. “And you’re not going to believe this….” Cate lowered her voice to a whisper. “Eli Punch likes Stella.”

  “Stella?” Blythe said. “How does he even know her?”

  Cate moved the dresses back in front of the passageway and sighed. Out of sight—out of mind. At least for now. “It’s a long story. Are you home?”

  “Yeah—come over.”

  Cate hung up the phone, feeling more like herself than she had all week. There were only a few things she could rely on: the sun rising every morning, Barneys’ annual warehouse sale, and the Chi Beta Phis. Without them, she felt like someone had surgically removed her heart. She ran down the stairs and out the front door, not bothering to look back.

  EPILOGUE

  Everybody needs a friend. Some, like Andie and Lola, find kinship in sisters.

  Others, like Stella, find the most satisfying friendship in the most unexpected of places. Even if it involves wearing rainbow-colored socks.

  And still others, like Cate, find comfort in those who’ve been there all along (a selective memory helps, of course).

  All’s well that ends well, or so they say. But having a friend doesn’t mean you automatically forget your enemies…especially when they live under the same roof. For now, the cozy brick town house on Eighty-second Street is quiet.