SMELLS LIKE TEEN RIVAL
Tuesday, 8:30 P.M.
“I’m upstaiiirs!” Paige shouted down the narrow stairwell of the Greenes’ townhouse when Ella and I stepped through the front door later that night.
I wiped my feet on the blue color-blocked jute rug in the entryway, motioning for Ella to do the same. Paige’s townhouse had the same layout as ours, with a kitchen, half bath, and living area on the first floor, two bedrooms and bathrooms on the second, and an attic on the third. But their house had always seemed much bigger to me. It was probably the clean, low lines of the Greenes’ minimalist décor—and the lack of finger paintings and traced-hand turkey drawings on their stainless steel refrigerator.
When we got to the second floor, Paige popped out of the first door to the right. Her bob was pulled into tiny sprouts that barely passed for pigtails, and her dad’s gigantic NYU LAW sweatshirt almost obscured her green-and-yellow striped boxers.
“Hey, El! Didn’t know you were coming, too.”
“Mom had a late interview,” I explained, then mouthed, Sorry.
“Thank you for us coming over, Paige.” Ella beamed. I gave her a thumbs-up.
“Uh, my pleasure.” Paige tousled Ella’s curls, then gave me a curious, crooked smile. A dab of white zit cream dotted her upper lip. “Everything okay?”
“ ’Course,” I said, shaking my head violently when Ella wasn’t looking.
“Got it. Come on in.”
If the rest of the Greenes’ house was an image out of a West Elm catalog, Paige’s room was a “before” shot on one of those Help, I’m a hoarder shows. Teetering piles of history books, presidential biographies, and rubber-banded campaign posters lay at the foot of the low platform bed. Shoes and clothes, all black, littered the hardwood floor, and Paige’s pistachio duvet was draped over the bamboo papasan chair by the window. The large silver magnet board above the bed was papered with pictures, a crumpled program from the Guys and Dolls show I’d just starred in, and sticky notes Paige had written to herself. The computer desk in the corner was home to highlighters, an open box of granola, and an impressive haul of GO GREENE campaign buttons.
“Nessa would have a field day with this place, psychologically speaking.” I stepped over Paige’s hair-dryer, which was plugged into the wall by the door, and cleared a space on the bed.
Paige shrugged. “Mom says as long as she doesn’t have to look at it, I can keep it however I want. So what’s up?” “It’s… hard to explain.” I eyed Ella, wishing she were still at an age when I could say whatever I wanted in front of her. These days, everything I said went straight to Mom. Verbatim.
Paige nodded her understanding. “Hey, El,” she said enthusiastically. “Wanna listen to this cool new song I downloaded on my iPod?” She pulled headphones from her desk drawer.
“Kacey has those, too!” Ella reached for them.
“Nothing she shouldn’t be listening to,” I warned.
“Please. What kind of an influence do you think I am?” Gently, Paige slipped the earbuds into Ella’s ears and fiddled with the dial. Then she led her to the papasan chair and tucked her in beneath the wilted duvet. “Okay. Go.”
I took a deep breath. “So this afternoon I had rehearsal at the loft. And I got there early for the surprise, you know?”
“Riiiight.” Paige squinted, collapsing next to me on the bed.
“¿Dónde está la biblioteca?” Ella chirped from the papasan chair. “Where is the library?”
“So we’re about to get started and… this girl walks in.” I told her everything there was to tell about Stevie, from the perfect smile to the takeover attempt at the end of rehearsal.
“Goose?” Paige said skeptically when I’d finished. Her brows disappeared beneath her bangs.
“Lame, right?” I fell onto my back. “What am I gonna do? She can’t move here! She’ll steal Gravity, and Zander… I have to talk to Zander. Explain that Stevie is—”
“Is what?” Paige looked at me like I was nuts. “Cramping your style? You can’t bad-mouth Stevie. If she’s his best friend—”
“I’m his best friend, Paige!” I snapped, sitting up again. “Me. Not. Her.”
“Okay. I know,” Paige said softly, in the same tone Mom used when she was trying to appease Ella mid-tantrum.
“¿Quieres un café? Would you like some coffee?”
Paige tightened her pigtails and looked me straight in the eye. “I just think this is one of those times when honesty isn’t the best policy, Kace.”
I made a gagging sound.
“And just because Stevie’s here doesn’t mean you and Zander aren’t still good—best—friends, you know?” She pursed her lips. “Did they used to date or something?”
“I—I don’t know. Maybe not.” I sounded weak, even to myself. “It’s just that I’m trying to get things back to normal with the guys. They don’t trust me as it is. And having Stevie here isn’t gonna help.” I dug a stuffed duck out from under my thigh and pitched it across the room. Suddenly, the bedroom felt stifling.
“Just promise me you won’t talk to Zander, Kace. It’s not the right thing to do.” Paige lifted her pinky finger, swear-style, but I shook my head.
“Give me another option, then, Madame President. Something that’ll prove that I’m back with Gravity for good, and there’s no room for chicks from Seattle.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Paige said coyly. “Sometimes I think you forget about the strings I can pull as seventh-grade president.”
“Paige. You getting me backstage passes to the Debate Club finals is so not gonna fix this.”
Paige sniffed, poking at the zit cream on her face. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Okay. So Molly thinks she’s running the dance, but she’s totally just a puppet. Guess who the faculty advisor for middle school social events is this semester?” Her shoulders inched toward her ears, which they always did when she was excited or stressed. “Dr. Phil!”
“Ohmygod. Dr. Phil.” My stomach flip-flopped at the mention of Dr. Philippa Meyers, Marquette’s hippie-chick school shrink. She’d been called in to mediate when I’d been ousted as the lead in the school musical due to my braces-induced lisp. “Why would you say that name to me?”
“But think about it! She’ll be in charge of all major decisions,” Paige said.
“Point, please.”
“Decisions like, oh, I dunno… the evening’s entertain—”
“THE BAND!” I leapt up and grabbed Paige by the shoulders. “I could get Gravity a gig playing the dance, and they’d know I was in it for good! There’s no way Stevie could compete with that!”
“EXACTLY!” Paige shrieked.
“You’re the best.” I threw my arms around her and squeezed.
“Hey, Paige?”
We jumped at the sound of Ella’s voice. The white earbuds were draped around her neck, halter-style.
“I want to watch TV,” she whimpered. Her lower lip trembled, which I recognized as the international six-year-old sign for TANTRUM AHEAD: 3 MINUTES.
“Okay, okay.” I jumped off the bed and hurried over to the jumbo TV set Paige had gotten at our neighborhood garage sale last year. It hailed from the early nineties and was missing the VOLUME-DOWN button, which meant that everybody on Paige’s TV was screaming, all the time.
I punched the POWER button and held it for the required five seconds. A scene in a hospital room slowly flickered onto the screen. A young female doctor in a lab coat was yelling at the camera.
“This is an extremely rare, flesh-eating fungus. There are currently fewer than fifty documented cases in the world.”
“Gross.” I jabbed at the CHANNEL button, but the logo in the bottom right corner of the screen stayed put.
“It’s broken.” Paige shrugged. “I only get the Surgery Channel now.”
The screen cut to an image of a woman with a disintegrated face.
“Monster!” Ella screamed and threw her arms around me.
“Great.” I groaned, petting Ella’s curls with one hand and turning the TV off with the other. “Now she’s gonna have nightmares for weeks!”
“Oops. Sorry, El.” Paige winced.
My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket. “Hold on.”
MOM: HOME FROM THE STUDIO. WHERE ARE YOU GIRLS??? TEXT IN 30 SECONDS OR I CALL NANCY GRACE.
“We have to go,” I said. “Ella?”
But Ella’s eyes were wide, unblinking. “Monster,” she whispered again.
“Uh-oh.” Paige bit her lower lip.
“She’ll be fine. So you’ll set up the meeting?”
“First thing tomorrow.”
I gave Paige a quick hug, then led Ella down the stairs and outside. We cut across the crunchy grass and ducked through the hole in the picket fence that led to our property. I grinned, the brackets in my braces turning cold. This was the perfect solution. I’d get Gravity a rockin’ gig and lock down my place in the band in the process. Once Stevie realized there wasn’t room for her here, she’d slink back to Seattle, where she belonged.