"Aaah!" Carrie cried out in a short burst of frustration. It all got to be too much sometimes. Why couldn't she-just once-throw off the burden of being Tom and Mary Beth Alden's responsible oldest daughter? That's me, good old Carrie, she thought. Such a good student, so good with little kids, such a help around the house . . .

So boring! As she went down the upstairs hallway to her room, she pa.s.sed Graham and Claudia's bedroom. The door was open and Carrie stopped to look in. It was lucky for them Mrs. Ball came in every other day and cleaned. This was an in-between day, and their room looked like both their closets had exploded.

Carrie stepped into the room. Claudia's expensive gypsy wardrobe was tossed everywhere. A flowered chiffon skirt was flung over their bed's bra.s.s headboard.

High-heeled shoes and wedge-heel sandals looked as if they'd been kicked in the air and now lay where they'd Ianded on the plush white carpet. The two sandy pieces of Claudia's fringed bikini lay tangled in the middle of the floor.

Graham was no better. Sheet music, music industry magazines, and a man's silk robe were strewn on the unmade bed, across the elegant Oriental-design quilt.

This mess offended Carrie's orderly nature. Without thinking, she began picking up Claudia's shoes, putting them in a neat line under the bed. As she reached out for a gold sandal that had been kicked under the bed, hot tears suddenly began streaming down her cheeks.

Are you getting your period, dear? That's what her mother would have said if she'd walked in right then and seen her weeping over a line of shoes. But she wasn't getting her period. She was nowhere near her period. She was just fed up with being good and sweet and responsible.

She was tired of being the kind of person who went around tidying other people's shoes.

With a sweep of her arm she scattered the shoes across the room. Something was going to have to change. And that something was going to be Carrie Alden.

FOUR "I can't look." Carrie cringed, covering her eyes.

Riiiipppppppppppp. Sam tore the side seam of the new neon-orange T-shirt dress Carrie wore, opening it up to the thigh. They were in Carrie's small, neat room.

It was early evening on the night of Carrie's date.

Carrie had lain awake for a long time the night before, and had finally made a decision. She was going to the party and she was going to look hot. Sam was right: not only was it time for an image overhaul, it was also time to play with the big kids. No more girl next door! Sam opened a plastic box full of large gold safety pins and -began pinning them into the frayed seam, linking them together as she pinned. "I saw this in a magazine last week," she said. "I've been dying to try it." Soon the slit in the skirt was laced with pins. Sam stood back and pensively jiggled the pins remaining in the box. "It needs something else." Then her eyes brightened with an idea.

She picked up a small cuticle scissors from Carrie's dresser and cut right down the center of the scooped neckline. "That's low enough," Carrie cried. Sam blithely continued cutting down to a point not far above her navel.

"Don't stop me when I'm in the throes of creativity," she said. "I'm making fashion history here." "Great," Carrie replied, rolling her eyes.

Starting at the bottom, Sam pinned the neckline back up to an inch below Carrie's collarbone. She stepped back to admire her work. "I'm a genius. The pins draw attention to your legs and your chest. Exactly where you want it. I think it needs a belt, though." Sam dug into her large canvas tote, which sat on the bed. "I just happen to have brought a selection of my very best belts." Sam laid four belts on the bed. She picked out one that was made up of a series of hammered copper discs linked together with strips of black suede. In the center of each disc was set a pale amber stone. "The amber stones are perfect with the dress," she decided. "Which, by the way, is an awesome color with your hair and eyes." "Thanks, but it'll never fit me," Carrie objected. "I don't like belts, anyway. My waist is too thick." "You do not have a thick waist," Sam scoffed as she wrapped the belt around Carrie. "Oh, please. Look how perfect this is." Sam hooked the belt closed, then stepped back to study the effect. "Get rid of the bra." "Absolutely not." "This is supposed to be the new you!" "Sam!" "Car-rie,"

Sam mimicked her. "Will you please grow up? And lighten up. You'll ruin my creation if you don't take it off." Carrie looked down forlornly at the telltale white line showing between the pins. "I told you to stop cutting," she reminded Sam.

"Yeah, well, I didn't," Sam said breezily. "Come on, a goody-goody like you can't possibly go out with your underwear showing." Reluctantly, Carrie slid the T-shirt dress down her shoulders to take off her bra.

"Much better," Sam said, satisfied. "Now that wasn't too bad, was it?" "Easy for you to say," Carrie muttered, but all the same she couldn't help smiling. Sam's recklessness and insouciance were a little catching.

"Maybe by next week we can get you to leave out the underwear entirely," Sam teased. "Just kidding," she added quickly, seeing Carrie's shocked expression.

Picking up a thick brush, Sam swept Carrie's hair up into a ponytail on the top of her head. Then she deftly loosened a few strands of hair so that the wispy pieces fringed Carrie's face. "Tres fetching," Sam said, admiring her handiwork.

Just then Claudia called from downstairs. "We're leaving, Carrie." "Quick, my robe!" cried Carrie.

Sam held up Carrie's cornflower-blue terry robe and Carrie scurried into it. She ran down the hall in her bare feet, tying the robe tightly around her.

Claudia stood at the bottom of the stairs looking stunning in a sheer red flowered skirt over lacy black capri leggings, topped with an off-the-shoulder black blouse. Her hair was pulled back in a French braid, exposing long silver-beaded earrings. A fringed black brocade shawl was draped casually around her arms.

"We'll be hopping all over tonight," she told Carrie, who had perched on an upper step. "I left phone numbers tacked to the refrigerator. The kids are watching The Little Mermaid. It was Chloe's turn to pick a video." "Okay, I was just getting changed. I'll be right down," said Carrie. Her voice was calm, but her heart was racing. How could she do this to Claudia? The woman trusted her completely. She couldn't possibly sneak out tonight. Not in a million years.

Graham came into the hallway looking every inch a rock star with his slicked-back hair and his perfectly tailored yet effortlessly casual linen summer suit. "Cute hair," he said, noting Carrie's new hairdo.

"Yes, I was just about to say so, too," Claudia agreed. "It looks terrific that way!" "I decided to try something different," Carrie explained quickly, irrationally fearing they'd somehow suspect something was out of the ordinary.

"I don't know when we'll be home, so just lock up before you go to sleep,"

Graham said as he held open the front door for Claudia.

"Sure thing," Carrie said. "Have fun." The minute the door shut, Carrie leapt up and charged back to her room. "I can't do it," she told Sam. "It's not right. I would be letting Claudia and Graham down." "I've been thinking about it, too,"

said Sam. "Let me ask you a question. How did Claudia meet Graham?" "What?"

Carrie said.

"Trust me, it's relevant," Sam insisted. "How?" "Well, she was working as a secretary, for Mr. Rudolph, I think. Then, after Sirena died, Graham started relying on her more and more to help him with Ian and personal stuff like making travel arrangements and all. Pretty soon she started traveling with him as his personal secretary, and then they fell in love and got married." "Just like that, huh?" said Sam skeptically.

"That's the story. But what does that have to do with anything?" "You can be really naive, Carrie," sighed Sam. "A little twenty-one-year-old secretary doesn't land a rock legend without putting all her mind and all her energy to it.' You can bet Claudia didn't let anyone or anything stop her when it came to getting Graham. And look at her now.

She's got a roomful of shoes and she's Mr. Rudolph's boss!" "What's your point?"

asked Carrie.

"My point is that if Claudia were you, she would do exactly what you're doing tonight. She wouldn't hang back and say, 'Oh, I just couldn't.'" "Well, in the first place I don't think that's true. Graham and Claudia have a really good relationship and I know she adores him. I just don't believe she set out to get him, as you so romantically put it. You make it sound like she ambushed him."

Sam rolled her eyes.

"And anyway," Carrie went on, "even if that is true, I don't want to be that way, Sam! I'm not trying to snag Billy. I'm not trying to trick him into liking me or something!" Sam folded her arms. "Then why were you so h.e.l.l-bent on sneaking out just ten minutes ago?" "Weeell . . . I'm just afraid that if I turn him down twice in a row-even if it is true that I have to babysit-he'll think I'm just making lame excuses to avoid going out with him. He'll think I don't like him. And I do!" she finished pa.s.sionately.

"Exactly," Sam said. "You are simply letting him know that the attraction is mutual. What could be more honest than that?" Sam was so persuasive. And she certainly seemed to know what she was talking about when it came to guys. Carrie wavered. It was true: ten minutes before, she'd thought it was a great idea. Why was she suddenly having second thoughts? The old Carrie, the responsible do-right girl next door, was hard to banish in favor of the new, carefree version who dressed like a vamp and broke rules.

"Do you think so? Oh, maybe you're right," Carrie said finally. "What do I know?

It's true. All my life I've always been such a goody-goody." "Of course I'm right," Sam said. "Now, quick, let me do your niakeup. I have to be home by seven to supervise this living nightmare of twenty teenyboppers who are about to destroy the Jacobses' home. I can't believe Mr. Jacobs expects me, alone, to save his house from complete and total annihilation by a nymphette party."

Carrie laughed as she pulled a straight-backed chair in front of her full-length mirror. "If anyone can keep the beasts in line, it's you," she said.

Sam knelt at her side and began to apply eyeshadow in layers of purple, lavender, and rose. She lined Carrie's eyes with a purple pencil and smudged it carefully. "Time to make those lips stand up and scream 'kiss me!'" she said, sharpening a lip pencil over the trash basket. "You'd look great with collagen injections to give you that pouty, bee-stung look guys love." "n.o.body's sticking needles in my lips," said Carrie. "No way! All this cosmetic surgery stuff is too weird, if you ask me." "I'd get it if I could afford it," said Sam, carefully lining Carrie's lips so that they appeared wider and fuller. "All the models are getting it done. I saw a talk show where a model said you just can't compete unless you have fat lips." "Are you still thinking about modeling?"

asked Carrie when Sam stopped lining.

"Since I got here, everyone's been telling me I should be a model, so maybe I should be," she said, carefully covering Carrie's lips with a bright, deep red color. "I was talking to Flash on the beach the other day and-" "Who?" Carrie interrupted.

"Don't move your lips," Sam scolded. "Flash Hathaway. You remember that guy we met at Howie's party. The one who's a photographer for Universal Models." "That slimeball?" cried Carrie.

"Don't talk while I'm making lips," Sam said. "He is a little slimy, I'll admit.

But I can handle him. And he's here scouting for new talent. He says I've got what it takes. He wants me to meet him for a drink to talk about it some more."

Sam had stopped working. "Can I talk now?" Carrie asked.

"Just until I find my lip gloss," Sam replied, kneeling down to dig through her makeup case.

"What about your dance scholarship to Kansas State?" "I'm a pretty good dancer,"

replied Sam, sitting back on her heels. "But dancing is something I do for fun.

It's not my pa.s.sion or anything. I took the scholarship because it was the one I got. I also applied for an academic scholarship, an art scholarship, and a scholarship sponsored by the Elks Club. It didn't mean I wanted to be an Elk."

Sam wrinkled her nose. "Gosh, do you think I'd have had to become an Elk if I'd gotten it? Are there girl Elks? Elkettes? Maybe it's a good thing I didn't get that scholarship. I'd hate to have to wear one of those weird hats with horns, like Fred Flintstone used to wear. On the other hand, maybe it would look kind of-" "You were saying about the scholarship?" Carrie interrupted.

"Oh, yeah," said Sam, kneeling forward and putting on Carrie's lip gloss. "What I'm saying is that I needed a scholarship or I wasn't going to college. And in my town, if you don't go to college then you take some nowhere job in the front office of a pig slaughterhouse or something. You work there till you get so bored that the local jokers start looking good to you. Eventually your mind goes completely numb and you wind up marrying one of them." "It sounds horrible,"

said Carrie.

"It is horrible. Though the idea doesn't bother a lot of the girls I went to high school with. Some of them are married already." "Really?" asked Carrie. The thought of being married at eighteen was unbelievable to her.

"Married with Children. The whole scene. I guess they wanted to skip the working-the-jerky-job part and get right to it. So you can see why I was out-of-my-mind desperate to get to college. But now I have a possible third choice. And it sounds pretty good to me." "Are you sure?" Carrie asked. "It wouldn't appeal to me at all. Doesn't it sound boring to stand around all day posing for pictures?" "Oh, yeah, it sounds real boring," Sam said sarcastically.

"I would hate to wear designer clothes, be paid gobs of money, travel all over the world, and hobn.o.b with the rich and famous. You're right, it sounds like a total drag." "I see your point," Carrie conceded.

Sam checked her watch. "Shoot! I've got to fly!" She grabbed her bag and headed for the door. "You look super. Now don't chicken out and change or anything." "I won't," Carrie a.s.sured her. "Thanks. Oh, and remember what we talked about. I'm leaving your number on the fridge. If Ian should call you, you call me at the studio." "Sid's Soundorama, right?" "Right." "Tacky name," Sam commented. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine." When Sam was gone, Carrie looked over her shoes. None of them looked right. I'd better check on the kids, she decided, postponing the shoe decision.

"Wow! You look awesome!" Ian greeted her.

"Really? Thanks," said Carrie, glad for the feedback, even if it was from a twelve-year-old.

"Ohhh, pretty," Chloe agreed. "You look like Ariel." "That's a big compliment.

Thank you." If Chloe thought she looked like the Little Mermaid, then 'ie had to be on the right track.

Carrie fed the kids the gourmet take-out Claudia had picked up in town. Normally she would have given Chloe a bath, but she didn't want to wreck her outfit. She read her three stories and tucked her in at seven.

Ian was the one who presented the problem. Sometimes he didn't go to sleep until ten. But that night Carrie was in luck. He'd spent the entire day on the beach and it had knocked him out. At eight-thirty he began to yawn and stretch. "I'm going to go play some Nintendo in my room," he told Carrie.

At a quarter to nine Carrie found him asleep in his bed, the Nintendo control still in his hand. Gently she took the control and shut off the game and the lights. From there, she moved rapidly around the house. She locked every door that led outside plus the inside door going down to the pool. To make extra certain, she put the key to that door in her pocket. She wasn't taking any chances.

Next she wrote a note and left it on the refrigerator. Dear Ian, she wrote. I've just gone to Sam's for a sec. Here's the number: -. Call if you need me. If you need help fast, call the security guards' number on the phone. Love, C. The plan was that she'd get home well before Claudia and Graham and take the note down.

But if there was a real emergency, Sam could contact her. Hopefully Ian would stay asleep until sir returned and never see the note at all.

"What else?" Carrie asked herself. The oven was turned off. There was no water running. Nothing could go wrong.

Hurrying back to her room, she put on the large hoop earrings Sam had left for her. She barely recognized her image in the mirror. For a moment she had an impulse to go wash her face and put on jeans and a T-shirt, but she resisted it.

"Shoes!" she said, snapping her fingers. She checked her closet once again.

Sneakers, sneakers, thongs, huaraches, a pair of simple white dressy pumps. Then an idea came to her, Might as well do it right, she decided boldly as she headed to Claudia's room. Mrs. Ball had cleaned that day and the room was transformed.

Carrie opened the door to Claudia's walk-in closet. Her many shoes were neatly arranged on shoe trees on the floor. Claudia and Carrie were both a size seven-and-a-half.

Daringly, Carrie picked up a pair of metallic slingback, open-toed three-inch heels. She hesitated a moment and tried to recall Billy's height. He was about six feet, she estimated. Yes, she could wear the heels and still not dwarf him.

Carrie slipped on the shoes and instantly knew why Claudia loved high heels.

They not only looked s.e.xy, they felt s.e.xy. Carrie could hardly believe she was looking down at her own feet.

The heel made her entire leg look longer and shapelier. Where have I been? she wondered. How did I miss all this how-to-be-attractive information that everyone else seems to know?

Carrie knew the answer to that. She'd never learned these things because her life had practically gone into hibernation in eighth grade, when she'd started dating Josh. She'd settled into a state of largely uninspired contentment. Josh had liked the way she looked, and that had been fine with her. But that was then and this is now, she thought fiercely.

The sort of changes she was going through now was exactly the reason she'd broken up with Josh, even before she really knew what she was doing. In the beginning, when she and Josh first began exploring the physical side of their attraction to each other, it had been exciting, thrilling-a time of wonderful discovery for both of them. But they'd been a couple for nearly five years. And in that time they'd grown to be more like good friends than pa.s.sionate lovers.

That special, intimate best-friendship was one of the things she loved about Josh, but it was also probably at the heart of their breakup. Somehow Carrie had sensed that she'd be missing something if she stayed with Josh. She'd be missing the breathtaking, heartstopping romance of being involved with someone like Billy.

Carrie pulled herself out of her reverie with a little shake and hurried to the kitchen. The clock read :. She was cutting it close. With flying fingers, she phoned the car service. Please have a car available, she prayed.

Luckily, they did. Carrie waited in front of the house so the driver wouldn't honk for her. The night was warm and starlit-the perfect night for a romantic ride on a ferry.

When the car pulled up, Carrie was relieved to see that Kurt wasn't driving. She would have felt self-conscious about her looks-and guilty about sneaking out.

The car pulled into the ferry parking lot at nine-twenty. The huge, brightly lit ferry was already in the slip. "Take me up to the ticket house, please," she asked the driver, handing him the fare.

As the driver neared the small wooden ticket office, Carrie spotted Billy leaning against the wall. He was waiting for her. That alone made her heart jump a beat.

He wore a Western-style faded denim shirt and black jeans. He seemed perfectly at ease as he stood there daydreaming, one leg braced against the wall, his arms folded across his broad chest.

"Hi," Carrie said, getting out of the cab.

"Hi," he said, giving her a quick glance that was just long enough for her to see his gorgeous smile and miss another heartbeat. Then he began looking off into the distance again.

Carrie was confused. Then it hit her. He didn't recognize her. He'd just said hi to be polite. Girls he didn't know were probably waving to him all the time.

After all, he was kind of famous as the lead singer of Flirting with Danger.

Carrie wanted to die. Suddenly she felt terribly self-conscious in her revealing dress, her gaudy spike heels, her new hairstyle. How could I ever have let Sam do this to me? her brain cried. You did it to yourself, you idiot, she realized.

She was still struggling over what to do-slink away so he wouldn't notice? Go right up and greet him again boldly?-when he looked up again and found her still staring at him.

Slowly recognition dawned as three expressions ran across his features in rapid succession: flirtation, confusion, and finally surprise.

"Oh, wow!" he said. "I didn't know it was you at first. You look, uh, so different." He must have read some of the panic in Carrie's face by now because he hastened to rea.s.sure her. "I mean, you "look sensational. Very ... uh ...

very different. I mean, I think you always look good, but now you look . . .

taller. Taller, that's what threw me off at first. I guess that's the heels, huh?" "Mmmm," she said lightly. She was trying desperately to sound cool and provocative, the kind of thing she must've heard Sam do a hundred times a day.

But inside she felt shy and nervous.

The ferry horn sounded at that moment. "Last call," he said. "Let's go." They boarded the ferry and climbed up the metal stairs to the top deck. Several times Carrie winced as her ankles wobbled in the unfamiliar heels. Fortunately Billy didn't seem to notice.