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Lauren-Anne
After I got my schedule I made my way to homeroom. When I walked in, I saw notecards taped to each desk. They were last names.
“Assigned seating in homeroom?” Someone whined.
“We didn’t have that last year,” Someone else said.
Since I was a freshman, I wasn’t sure if this was something I should be angry about. So, I kept my mouth shut.
I took my seat next to one of the girls I recognized from the Charm Club.
She turned to face me. “Hi, I’m Margaret. What’s your name?”
“Lauren-Anne,” I answered.
“Oh, that’s a pretty name. Are you thinking about joining the Charm Club? Because you should.”
“No.”
“Why not? You’re really pretty.”
I shrugged. “I’m not really into that kind of thing, you know?”
“You’re not into being the best that you can be?” Margaret asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll introduce you to Beverly and Marylin.”
Before I could tell her not to bother, the teacher walked into the room, abruptly ending our discussion.
Meg and I found each other at lunch, and I told her about my encounter with Margaret.
“That’s strange,” Meg told me. “Especially because I met another one of the Charm Club members in the hallway on the way here. She asked me for my name and said she’d send Beverly and Marylin to find me later.”
I thought that it was a little strange, but that was all I really thought of it.
Brittany
I hadn’t made any friends by lunch. Of course not. I was the new girl. The outsider. So, at lunch, I searched for Tiffany. When I couldn’t find her I started asking other kids if they knew where she was. No one did. After asking a few kids, I saw the Charm Club sitting at a table in the center of the cafeteria. They seemed nice enough, so I thought I’d ask them if they knew who Tiffany was and if they did, where she was.
“Excuse me?” I approached the table.
Beverly looked up at me. “Hi, did you come to sign up for the Charm Club?”
“N-no. I was just wondering if you know Tiffany?”
“What’s her last name?”
“I’m not sure. Um, I think she’s a freshman.”
“Oh, I don’t know any freshmen.” Beverly turned to the rest of the Charm Club. “Do you guys?”
They all shook their heads.
“Sorry,” Marylin said.
“That’s alright. Thanks anyway.”
Beverly called, “Hey, wait! Do you have anyone to sit with?”
I shook my head.
“Come sit with us!”
I smiled. “Alright.”
I sat down and spent the lunch talking with everyone in the Charm Club. I actually liked them. They weren’t the stuck-up snobs that I thought they were going to be. In fact, they were really nice.
At the end of lunch, Marylin asked, “Brittany, are you sure you don’t want to be part of the Charm Club? Because if you do, you have the spot.”
I thought about it for a moment. I’d have a spot for lunch, I’d have built-in friends, and one of the girls had said that the Charm Club meets three times a week, including on the weekends. I’d have something to do after school!
I nodded. “I’ll join.”
Tiffany
“It’s settled.” I said. “The three of us will join the Charm Club. And Brittany, if she wants to be friends with us.”
“I don’t get why you’re being so nice to the new girl,” Betty said.
“I saw her.” Judy told me. “You only want her to be our friend because she’s pretty, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “She would help us get in with the popular girls. And she’s from California. I’ve never met anyone from California! She seems pretty cool.”
“Hey, isn’t that her?” Judy asked.
I turned around and looked in the direction Judy was pointing. Sure enough, Brittany was sitting at the Charm Club’s table.
“Looks like she thinks she’s better than you,” Betty laughed.
“If she thinks that then she obviously thinks that she’s better than you too,” I snapped.
“Gee, I was just kidding,” Betty held her hands up in defense.
I sighed through my nose. I was nice to Brittany and this was how she thanked me? “Judy!”
“What?”
“Go get Charm Club applications.” I demanded. “Three of them.”
“Ok. Gosh.” As Judy walked away she muttered, “No need to be so mean.”
I might have been being mean, but I didn’t care. This was not how the first day of high school was supposed to go.
When Judy came back with the applications I said, “Alright, fill them out. Lie if you need to. We are getting into that club.”
Meg
After school Lauren-Anne and I met at Penny’s Diner.
“Alright, tell me everything about this mystery boyfriend,” Lauren-Anne said.
“His name is Adam and we met on Independence Day.” I told her. “We danced under the fireworks and stars. It was dreamy. And we spent all of July and August together. Every night. He had a job, so he had money to take me out. Ready for the best part?”
“What? Tell me!”
“He had a car!”
“He’s an older guy?” Lauren-Anne asked loudly.
I nodded. “But be quiet. I don’t want anyone to hear us.”
“Alright, sorry. But wow, how scandalous!”
I shrugged. “He’s only sixteen.”
“Are you going to keep in touch?”
“Yeah. We’re going to write to each other. I write to him one Sunday and he writes to me the next. That way we should have received each other’s letters by the time it’s our turn to write.”
“Aw, that’s so cute! Meg, I’m so happy for you!”
Suddenly a girl said, “Lauren-Anne! There you are!” She grabbed Lauren-Anne’s arm and shouted, “Marylin! Beverly!”
“Oh, Margaret. Hi,” Lauren-Anne said.
Margaret turned to Beverly and Marylin, who came up behind her. “Ladies, this is Lauren-Anne. The girl from my homeroom. I told you she’d be here.”
“How’d you know that?” Lauren-Anne asked.
Margaret smiled. “You told me, silly.”
Lauren-Anne looked perplexed as she said, “No, I didn’t.”
“You must have, otherwise I wouldn’t have known where to find you.”
Lauren-Anne still looked confused, but she didn’t say anything.
“Here, let me look at you.” Marylin said, taking Lauren-Anne’s face in her hands. “Oh my, you are absolutely beautiful. Please say you’ll join our club!”
“I-I don’t-”
“Oh! And you!” Beverly grabbed my face. “You’re beautiful, too!”
“You are!” Marylin agreed.
“No one has ever told me that before,” I said.
“Oh, that’s because you aren’t showcasing your beauty. If you join the Charm Club, we can show you how to do your hair and makeup. We’ll also show you what to wear. Please say you’ll both join!”
As they stared at me I could feel something inside of me urging me to say yes. Even though I never thought I would have joined a beauty club in a thousand years, I still said yes. I think I shocked everyone there. I certainly shocked myself. And I was shocked again when Lauren-Anne said, “I’ll join too.”