1
Sarabeth Lewis was bored.
Not just bored with her bedroom, a pink-infused Martha Stewart project of her mom’s that made her feel like she was about to be suffocated by cotton candy. Not just bored with the prospect of another Saturday night spent practicing her cello, which loomed in the corner like a massive ball and chain. Not just bored with looking up at the same old ceiling, wondering how a girl could be nearly done with high school without having made one real friend.
She was existentially bored. Bored to the core. Possibly bored in a way no one had ever been bored before. At least I’m original, she thought, rolling onto her stomach and heaving a sigh.
“Tonight’s topic: three things I’ll never be a part of,” she said as she wrote the header across the top of her journal. Every topic she dreamed up lately contained the word never. Three places she’d never go. The three Interiors—as she called the popular kids who occupied the center of the cafeteria—who would never learn the difference between “their,” “they’re,” and “there.” Three supposedly hot guys she’d never go out with, even if they asked.
Pressing her pen to her lips she underlined Three Things I’ll Never Be a Part Of and wrote: a Girls Gone Wild video; my mother’s annual Makeover Madness event. The words poured onto the page in her loopy, A-plus penmanship. Sarabeth was the last teenager on Earth to give a crap about the Palmer Method. The guest list for Teena McAuley’s Casimir Pulaski Weekend party.
Except she actually was on the guest list.
She flipped a few pages back in her journal and pulled out the red envelope that Teena’s friend Dahlia Dovetail had handed her in the cafeteria yesterday. Across it was written the simple message: “You’re in. Bring this invite to gain one admittance to Teena McAuley’s Annual Casimir Pulaski Weekend Party.” Once upon a time, Sarabeth and Teena had been friends, before Teena became a queen bee in eighth grade and left Sarabeth in her glitter-eye-shadow dust. But there was no way Teena had invited her out of fond distant memories. Sarabeth knew her twin brother, Cameron, was responsible. “It wouldn’t kill you to get out once in a while,” he’d told her on Monday, as she hovered over the stove, trying to master a crepe recipe by Julia Child. “Teena’s big party is this weekend. Maybe I can get her to invite you.” Cameron was nice, but he wasn’t stupid. He had sway with Teena. Her crush on Cameron was as persistent and as obvious as Sarabeth’s lack of a social life.
At the time, Sarabeth had thought it was just Cameron being nice and three-minutes-older big-brothery, expecting him to forget what he’d said. Cameron Oliver Orman Lewis—yes, his initials spelled COOL—was the rarest of Interiors. He played quarterback and skateboarded, was a drama-club leading man and edited the school paper, got good grades and went to all the best parties. Oh, and he was nice: Every freak, geek, and chic loved him. Sometimes it bugged Sarabeth that he was such a good guy; she couldn’t even hate him for getting the popularity gene that she’d missed. Their mother, Olivia Lewis, had, postdivorce, risen to become the Chicagoland metropolitan area’s most successful Gussy Me Up beauty franchisee. Now she often wondered aloud how Cameron had wound up so much more like her, while Sarabeth was like her absentee father. The ultimate insult.
Sarabeth ran her fingertips over the invitation, wishing she still felt as determined to go to the party as she had earlier today. She’d been so excited, she’d snuck a bottle of Chardonnay from her mom’s wine rack, since even an outcast like Sarabeth knew you didn’t go to Teena’s without alcohol. Tinley didn’t sell alcohol within its borders, and Sarabeth didn’t have Cameron’s college-friend connections to help her score liquor. Plus, she’d even ventured out to buy a new outfit. Sitting next to her on the bed was a shiny pink shopping bag from Charlie, one of the trendy stores in the mall she’d always been too scared to enter. Sarabeth dumped its contents onto her bedspread: the still-folded, wisp-thin green crepe sweater, the dark-rinse jeans, and Charlie’s signature hot-pink tissue paper. The outfit was far from wild, except for the fact that Sarabeth usually stuck to shapeless black and gray sweaters and pants that didn’t call attention to her five-foot-eleven frame.
Feeling the soft fabric of her sweater, Sarabeth instantly fell under its spell. She wanted to wear it. And not just for a date with her cello. She stared at the words on the invite and back at her reflection in the mirror. Maybe this was an I-want-to-get-into-your-brother’s-pants invite—but so what? Why should the Interiors have all the fun? Those kids could probably die tomorrow and feel like they’ve lived a great life, Sarabeth thought, knowing she was being a little melodramatic. And here I am, wondering if my life has even started.
She pulled off her black T-shirt and slid the sweater on over her head. Even Gussy Me Up’s number-one-selling lotion, Smooth Moves, couldn’t duplicate the soft sensation.
And then she said the sentence no one should ever utter: “What’s the worst that could happen?”