"Hi, Roxie," I said.

"Hi," she answered, and went to her seat.

"Wow," Jade whispered in my ear. "What's wrong with her? Is she mad that you're talking with me?"

"No," I told her.

"Good," Jade said, and with Serena trailing after us, we headed into cla.s.s. I s.p.a.ced out through the entire thing, watching the clock.

In the hall afterward, Roxie grabbed me by my sleeve. "Listen," she said. "I'm jealous as h.e.l.l."

"Okay," I said.

"And you should have just told me. What's with all the secrets? Is that like a thing in this town?"

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Maybe it's a culture I just don't get here," Roxie continued, her face angrier than I'd ever seen it before. "Like having gazebos. What the h.e.l.l are those things for anyway? And mudrooms. A whole room for mud? And the squeaky voices you have to use when you say the word cutest cutest. Is that it? Are there just gaps in my knowledge? Am I like a foreigner here, thinking I'm waving h.e.l.lo but actually, like, giving people the finger without realizing it? Are we all just supposed to hide behind our manicured hedges and lie to our friends in this polite pit of purgatory?"

"Yes," I yelled back. "Didn't you get the mailing from the chamber of commerce?"

"I must've forgotten to read it!" she shouted.

We stared at each other there in the hall without moving for a few seconds. Everybody else was watching us, too. When I saw her left dimple deepen, I started to smile. She did too, but then stopped.

"Congratulations, you little s.h.i.t."

"Thank you," I said.

"Congratulations on what?" Serena asked.

"It's none of our business," Jade whispered to her, loud enough for everybody to hear.

"Allison is a finalist to be on the cover of zip zip," Roxie announced.

Everybody, including me, stared at her.

"Is that true, Allison?" Jade asked.

"No," I said. "Semifinalist."

Then the bell rang. We were all late.

Everybody pretty much stared at me the rest of the morning, and so I was totally dreading lunch. I wanted to avoid lurking like a loser near either Jade's or Roxie's locker, since neither was talking to me, but I didn't know what to do with myself. I decided maybe I would go in search of my own locker, and headed toward the gym wing, where I ran into Tyler Moss and his friend Emmett.

"Allison?" Ty said.

"Hi," I said, keeping my head ducked because I could feel myself blushing at the thought that he'd think I was a total stalker. Also I had zero makeup on, and he had only liked me the two times I'd been careful to do myself up. Not to mention I had recently made out with him.

"You okay?" Ty asked.

"Fine! Oh, sorry about my mom picking up."

"That's okay," he said. "What happened?"

I shrugged. "I cut school with Roxie one day last week and they found out."

"Whoa," Emmett said. "My parents would beat my b.u.t.t if I cut."

"What did they do to you?" Ty asked, dumping books into his locker.

"Talked my ear off," I said. "Took my cell phone away. And grounded me for a month."

The two of them looked at each other.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. I texted you last night," Tyler said.

"I didn't..."

"Yeah. Also, I was thinking of having people over this weekend."

I didn't know what to say. He didn't tell me what he had texted, and he didn't exactly invite me to his party or get-together or whatever, but it did seem like he was implying he would have, if I hadn't been grounded. Trying to think of something cool to say, I decided to peek in his locker and see if I could comment on any of his subjects. There was a screwdriver on the top shelf of his locker.

"You take carpentry, too?" I asked, weirdly loudly. As soon as it was out of my mouth-well, and then when I saw the baffled look on his and Emmett's faces-I wished I could retract it. Or at least turn down the volume on it. Since I couldn't, I got myself in further, saying, "In addition to plumbing?"

"What are you talking about?" Emmett asked.

Unable to speak with my foot so far in my mouth, I pointed at the screwdriver. They both looked up, but didn't spot anything. "Screwdriver," I finally managed.

They both looked again, and then Emmett smiled. "You know Ty's brother, Gideon?"

"No," I said, at the same time Ty said, "Shut up, Emmett."

"What?" Emmett said to Tyler. "It's sweet." Tyler's face was dead serious, but Emmett continued, "Ty is a master unscrewer, because-"

"Shut the h.e.l.l up," Ty said.

"Okey dokey," I said, turning to go.

"It's just..." Ty said. "Nothing against you. Just...family stuff is private, to me."

"I understand," I said.

"Thanks," he said back.

"Ask her," Emmett mumbled.

"Shut up," Ty grunted back.

Okay, if I had been blushing before, I must have been bright red by then. There was so much blood in my face, my feet were at risk of falling off. "What?" I asked, silently praying this was about to be the first time I was asked out-and that if it was, I wouldn't do something horrid like faint.

"Nothing," Ty said. "Where you headed?"

I tightened my backpack straps. "Looking for my locker."

"What do you mean?"

"Long story," I said.

Ty smiled, his crooked wise-guy smile. "Okay. We heard this rumor...Are you, like, a model?"

"No!"

"I told you," Ty told Emmett.

"That's what everybody was saying," Emmett argued. "All morning. 'You know Allison Avery? She's, like, this big model, on the cover of a magazine; can you believe it?'"

"Rumors," I managed, but couldn't continue. The obviousness of how ridiculous the idea of me as a model seemed to them was too awful.

"Never mind," Ty said to me, and grabbed Emmett, punched him lightly a few times, and headed out the side door.

The corridor was so empty as I walked around the gym wing, my footsteps echoed. All of the locks looked identical, and equally familiar.

I tried a few at random, using combinations of my birthday, but nothing opened for me. I wandered down to the cafeteria feeling like a complete and total loser, and sat there eating my lunch and pretending to study my science textbook.

All afternoon, people stared as I approached and whispered as I pa.s.sed. Jade, Serena, and Roxie continued to ignore me, but in a nauseatingly polite way. It seemed to be a nice bonding experience for the three of them. I even saw Jade whisper something to Roxie after sixth. I just wanted to die. It was the slowest school day ever.

And then when I got home, Phoebe was waiting there for me, to spill out her troubles-something about the boy she liked liking her. It made no sense; it was just like bragging, but with a complaining voice. I almost had to smack her in the head, but I would've had to touch her shiny-straight blond hair, and that would just have been too much. She followed me to my room and made a snarky comment about how it was a mess and what was wrong, because it finally dawned on her that maybe she wasn't the only person in the world with stress, that maybe people were coping with things even worse than the boy you liked liking you.

I slammed her out and flopped down on my messy bed to throw myself a private pity party. Down the hall, I could hear my phone playing a sad little tune.

19.

MOM CAME INTO MY ROOM a little later and sat down on my bed. I tried to wait her out, let her tell me why she was there, but eventually I couldn't stand it anymore, so I asked, "What did I do now?" a little later and sat down on my bed. I tried to wait her out, let her tell me why she was there, but eventually I couldn't stand it anymore, so I asked, "What did I do now?"

Mom took a deep breath and held my phone out in her palm.

"I can have it back?"

"The thing is possessed," she said.

"You have no idea." I scooped it out of her palm and gripped it in my own. It was heavier than I remembered it being.

"It won't stop chirping and burping and blaring out dance beats, all night long. How many gazillion friends do you have, calling at all hours?"

"Zero gazillion," I mumbled. "Zero."

"Well, they sure call you a lot, Allison, for a bunch of zeros."

We lay there against my pillows for a while, not talking.

"Doppio macchiato, huh?"

"Never again," I said.

Mom laughed, then sighed. "So you got your picture taken at a modeling thing?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "It was really weird."

"I bet!" she said. "You didn't...They didn't ask you to take your clothes off or anything, did they?"

"No!" I was picturing myself dropping my sweatshirt on the floor, but I knew that wasn't what she was worrying about. "No, it was just, like, three seconds. Smile! Faster than when Daddy takes our picture on vacation."

"Oh," Mom said. "And it was an audition?"

"Kind of."

"What were you auditioning for?"

"Really it was Roxie Green who was auditioning. I was just along for company, I guess. But, like, a cover feature on 'the New Teen' or some such c.r.a.p."

Mom laughed. "You know what I love about you?"

"No," I admitted.

"You see through all the b.s. other girls would totally fall for. The New Teen. What a crock! And they yank in what, five hundred girls?"

"Over a thousand."

"Jeez. And how many even have the slightest chance of being 'the New Teen'?"

"Twenty," I whispered.

"Exactly. It's just cruel. Just a publicity stunt, probably, marketing subscriptions to these poor teenagers who never had the slightest chance."

It had never even occurred to her that I could be one of the twenty. She was off on a corporate tangent. I lay forgotten beside her on the bed.

"And so stupid!" she continued. "What kind of aspiration is that, anyway, to be a model? What, to be a clothes hanger? Ridiculous. I never understood the appeal."

"You can make a boatload of money," I argued pointlessly.