“Here we are.” Cate stopped at the entrance to a majestic stone mansion on Seventy-seventh Street. A black Mercedes was parked in the half-circle driveway, the driver leaning out the window to clip his fingernails. He stopped when he spotted Cate and Stella in the rearview mirror.
“Is this a school?” Stella asked, as two boys in crisp blue button-downs and striped ties walked down the front steps. After last period, they had cut through Central Park to the Upper West Side, for her last trial before the vote on Saturday. Cate had told Stella it would be “challenging,” but she hadn’t said anything more. She was acting like some bad reality TV host, trying to create suspense by being unnecessarily mysterious.
“This is Haverford.” Cate crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. “It’s our brother school.” She walked across the driveway and up the stone steps to the arched entranceway, Stella following. There was a carved stone crest on the wall next to the giant oak doors—two winged lions holding a shield.
They pushed into a two-story entrance hall. Two marble staircases wrapped around the upper floor and emptied out on either side of the room, which was decorated with blue-and-red banners announcing every minor accomplishment from the last thirty years. Cate took a left down a wide tiled hallway that was mostly empty, except for a few stray boys lingering after school. A short boy with a bowl haircut walked past, struggling against the weight of a massive yellow backpack. He looked back and forth between the girls as if witnessing an alien invasion.
“Where are we going?” Stella asked, an edge in her voice. She had been so busy with all of the trials—picking up Cate’s dry cleaning, baking cupcakes and biscuits for Cate’s Junior Honor Society bake sale—she had only called Vera Wang yesterday to make an appointment for the girls to try on bridesmaid dresses. She’d hoped this next trial would be easy. But nothing was ever easy with Cate.
“Oh, you’ll see…” Cate singsonged, twisting her dark brown hair into a ponytail.
The girls walked in silence, until Cate finally stopped outside the gym. One of the doors was propped open and Stella could see the Haverford varsity basketball team practicing. It seemed like the boys were genetically engineered to play the sport—they were all at least five-foot eight, muscular, and adorable (maybe being adorable wasn’t a requirement for playing basketball, but it sure made it more fun to watch).
“So this is your final trial,” Cate told Stella, crossing her hands over her chest. Looking into Stella’s big green eyes, she almost felt a little guilty. “If you do this, you’re as good as in.” Cate assumed Stella would fail—and then Cate could show her generosity by forgiving her this one thing and letting her in anyway. That way Stella would be grateful and never forget her place in the order of the sisterhood.
Or if the girls voted her out…well that would provide its own karmic balance.
Stella looked back at the boys in the gym. A blonde in a T-shirt that read maine did a layup and the ball swooshed through the net. “Bring it,” she said, leveling her eyes at Cate. She had been able to do everything so far—what was one more trial?
“See those shorts?” Cate continued, nodding toward the gymnasium. All of the boys were wearing blue shorts with a red stripe down the sides. On the front of each thigh was a printed number. “Those are the Haverford signature shorts. I need you to steal all fourteen pairs and bring them back to me by five thirty.”
Cate bit her lip in excitement. The Haverford basketball team were state champions, and they acted like it. They hardly talked to anyone who wasn’t on the team, and all the Ashton Prep upper-school girls had worn black last year the week Braden Pennyworth, Haverford’s point guard, got a girlfriend. Cate wanted to incorporate the team’s signature shorts into Chi Beta Phi’s gym wardrobe. Everyone at Ashton would be so jealous.
“The ones they’re wearing right now?” Stella gulped, trying to keep her voice steady. She imagined running around to each of the giant players, trying to pants them without their noticing.
Cate nodded. “Oh,” she added, turning to leave, “I’ll be at Jackson Hole with Priya, Sophie, and Blythe. Bring the shorts there…but don’t bother coming if you don’t have them.” She looked Stella in the eye and smiled, then offered her a breezy little wave. “Good luck. I’m out like pointy-toe shoes.” Then she strutted back down the empty stone hall and disappeared around the corner.
Inside, a basketball swished through the hoop and a few boys threw their arms up and cheered. What was she supposed to do? Sneak into the boys’ locker room Mission Impossible style, with grappling hooks and ninja gear? Stella pulled out her iPhone and looked at the time. It was four o’clock—the team probably wouldn’t be done practicing until five. Maybe she could try to buy fourteen pairs from the school store, if they even had one. Not likely. The gym echoed with the sound of squeaky shoes and the thump-thump-thump of the bouncing ball.
“Heads up!” a voice called. The basketball bounced off the glossy wood floor and came careening toward Stella’s head.
“Bloody hell!” she screamed, catching the ball just before it pummeled her face. The entire team was frozen on the court, staring at her. “Hi,” she said softly.
The tall blonde bloke, the one who had scored the layup, gestured for Stella to throw him the ball. She tried to do a chest pass, but it fell a little short. She suddenly wished she had paid attention during gym at Sherwood Academy in London, instead of making fun of Ms. Reed’s hairy armpits with Pippa and Bridget.
A few boys laughed. “Can we help you?” the blond guy said. He hugged the ball to his chest.
“Um…” Stella muttered. A boy with shoulder-length black hair whispered something to his freckled teammate. “I’m here to try out for the team.” She tossed her golden curls over her shoulder and shot them all her cutest, most flirtatious smile. The guys looked at each other and laughed. Maybe this trial wasn’t impossible after all. She just needed some help from a few new mates. Fourteen, to be exact.
Jackson Hole was bustling with Ashton Prep upper-school girls. Cate, Priya, Sophie, and Blythe went there every Thursday after school and always sat at the same table in the corner, so they could survey the room. Amber Haan, one of the prettiest seniors, sat with her friends at a table by the window, staring dejectedly at their plain bowls of lettuce. Kimberly Berth, who’d started referring to herself as “Kimmy Kim” last year, maneuvered between tables, dropping fliers for the school mascot club she was starting.
Sophie picked through a pile of sweet potato fries, her retainer perched on the edge of her plate. “Who wants to dress up as a bobcat?” she asked, eyeing the flier. Priya was sitting next to her with one elbow on the table, her left hand shielding her eyes from the swirly mustard-ketchup mixture Sophie always made.
“Losers,” Cate answered. She looked at her silver Tiffany Crown of Hearts watch and then out the wall of windows on the far side of the restaurant. It was ten after five, and Stella was still nowhere in sight. She leaned back in her seat and smiled. She couldn’t feel badly about it—she had given Stella a fair chance, and Stella knew the rules. If she couldn’t complete all the trials, she couldn’t be in Chi Beta Phi.
“I’m having order remorse,” Blythe moaned, looking down at her chicken-finger parmigiana sandwich. They had put too much pasta sauce on it and the bread was soggy and red. She leaned across the table and stole a bite of Priya’s turkey club. “I have to run to the ladies’ room,” she said, grabbing her midnight blue Marc by Marc Jacobs bag. “Sophie, come with?”
Sophie popped her retainer back into her mouth and started to get up.
Cate scraped her nails along the sides of her wood chair. During English Blythe had texted Priya twice, then shut off her phone when Cate asked her what it was about. If Stella wasn’t going to make it in the Chi Beta Phis, Cate would have to watch her own back—and she didn’t have eyes on both sides of her head. She slid out of the table and followed Blythe. “No—I’ll come with you,” she snapped.
Blythe bit her lip. “Um…sure.” She heaved her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the small wooden door marked ladies. Cate trailed her to the back of the restaurant, edging between the tightly packed tables.
Cate squeezed into the tiny white bathroom and closed the door. The fluorescent light above them buzzed. “What were you going to say to Sophie?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” Blythe said, looking confused. “I just needed her tampons.” She combed her fingers through her dirty blond hair. “What’s your deal?”
Cate crossed her arms over her chest, annoyed. “I should ask you the same thing.” She needed to set B.B. straight: Either you’re second-in-command, or you’re out. She didn’t want to boot Blythe, boobs or not, from the Chi Beta Phis. But if that was what it came down to, Cate would do it. She’d have to…
“I know what you’re trying to do.” Cate leaned against the bathroom door and reached for the knob, pressing the lock down with a menacing click.
“What are you talking about?” Blythe squeaked, her orange face looking a little paler than usual.
“That comment at the sleepover. The eye roll at lunch the other day. You’re staging a coup.”
“Um…are you serious?” Blythe shook her head. “I’m not staging…a coup.”
“Right. Then where did you go after Barneys on Tuesday?” Cate demanded, tapping her Tory Burch flat impatiently on the floor. Cate had trusted Blythe ever since third grade. She’d been the only one brave enough to come to the house after her mom died and sit with her as she cried. She had even brought Cate a present: her stuffed bear Randolph. She wanted desperately to trust Blythe again, she did. But listening to her flounder was like watching the Home Shopping Network—Cate just wasn’t buying it.
Blythe looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “I can’t tell you,” she said softly.
“Stop lying to me!” Cate cried. She shook her head and a strand of dark brown hair fell in her face. “You’re phonier than a Canal Street handbag!”
“Fine!” Blythe snapped. She pulled her bag off the hook on the wall and started digging through it. “I wanted to wait until Sunday, but I guess I’ll have to do this now, in the freaking Jackson Hole bathroom.” She pushed a robin’s egg blue box into Cate’s hand, along with a balled-up piece of white satin ribbon.
Cate stared at the small black type that read TIFFANY & CO., suddenly quiet. This whole time Blythe was sneaking around…buying her presents?
“I wanted to surprise you…” Blythe mumbled, “At the wedding.” Cate opened the box. Nestled in a velvet pouch was a tiny sterling silver locket. “I know it’s hard for you with your dad getting remarried. And I know how you like to have something of your mom’s with you all the time.” Cate held the silver necklace up in front of her face. The oval locket had a tiny silver orchid etched on its front. It was beautiful. “I thought you could put a picture of your mom in it, and you could wear it all the time. See?” Blythe popped open the front of it. “Priya and Sophie helped me pick it out.”
Cate looked at the locket, then back at Blythe. The same Blythe who’d stayed up all night with Cate, helping her rehearse her lines when she played Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She’d sat in the front row with the script for all three performances, just in case Cate forgot her lines.
Cate felt a knot rising in the back of her throat. “Thank you, Blythe,” she said softly, putting the locket around her neck. “It’s perfect.” She leaned over and hugged her friend tightly, tears welling in her eyes.
She had been so stupid. Blythe was the same loyal friend she always had been—just with a bigger chest.
“I’m sorry,” Cate whispered into Blythe’s ear. She stood back and wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s silly—I got nervous you were tired of being so…behind the scenes. Like, in my shadow.”
“No…” Blythe muttered. She smoothed down the front of her purple striped button-down.
Cate opened the bathroom door, relieved. Everything was back as it should be. But as she moved through the restaurant, she suddenly remembered that Stella was the one who had planted the seeds of suspicion. You should watch your back, she’d said.
Stella was the schemer. She’d tricked Cate, to try to get into the Chi Beta Phis.
Cate glanced at her watch. It was five twenty-five. When Stella walked through the door late and empty-handed, this would all be over. No generous pardon for failing her final trial. No nothing. They had to be sisters—but they didn’t have to be friends.
Cate sat back down and Blythe sat next to her. All the plates were gone, but Sophie had ordered a milk shake and was using her straw like an eyedropper, feeding herself tiny strawberry sips. She stopped suddenly, her gaze resting on something behind Cate. Priya was looking out the window too, her brown eyes wide.
“What?” Cate finally asked, turning around in her seat.
“No way!” Sophie squealed.
Cate couldn’t believe it either. Stella was strolling around the corner…with the entire Haverford basketball team. Tall, blond Braden Pennyworth was in front, then a boy with peach fuzz brown hair, followed by a kid who looked like Josh Hartnett’s stunt double. Cate counted fourteen of them, and all of them were cute. She looked at her watch, hoping against hope that it was past five thirty.
But it was five twenty-nine.
Braden opened the glass door of the restaurant so Stella could step through. Every head in Jackson Hole turned toward the doorway as Stella strutted confidently down the central aisle, the collar of her cherry red Lacoste polo shirt popped up. She approached the table, picking up the hem of her pleated uniform skirt and curtsying. “You said to bring back the shorts,” she said smugly, her olive green eyes shining. “I hope it’s okay that the team is still in them.”
Cate gritted her teeth.
Priya eyed the Josh Hartnett look-alike. “It’s definitely okay!” she cried, shooting him a little smile.
“Definitely…” Blythe pulled her shoulders back, sticking out her chest.
“Good.” Stella kept her eyes on Cate. “This is Braden,” she said, pointing to the blond boy, “and this is Ryan, Nate, Kevin, Drew…”
Cate stopped listening after the fifth name. She hated that Stella was introducing her to Braden Pennyworth. She might as well have been telling her what subway to take to Union Square, or recommending the pumpkin waffles at Sarabeth’s.
The boys crowded around the table. Blythe was talking to five of them at the same time, telling them about her summer in Greece. Sophie and Priya stood up to talk to Braden, whose biceps were perfectly toned, as though all he did was eat, sleep, and play basketball. Cate stayed in her seat, feeling like she might puke up her tuna melt.
She squinted her eyes, trying to pretend the boys were the Haverford chess club, and Braden Pennyworth was just Fillmore Weitz, the four-foot-nine pizza-faced eighth-grader who’d actually had the nerve to ask her to the Haverford formal last year. But it was useless. Braden Pennyworth was still Braden Pennyworth, and Stella was still blond, gorgeous, and determined to weasel her way into the Chi Beta Phis.
When all the boys had filed out the glass door, Stella pulled up a chair and sat down at the end of the table—the head of the table. She had done it: completed the final trial, on time, and given the girls a much-needed dose of hotness. She was as good as in.
“Omigodomigodomigod!” Sophie cried, pressing her hands to her face. “I cannot believe that just happened.”
Priya kept gawking at Stella like she was a celebrity. “How’d you do that?” she asked, twisting her shiny black hair into a ponytail.
“Did you see the boy with the moppy hair?” Blythe breathed. “Drew? I touched his six-pack.”
Cate cleared her throat. “You know, technically the trial was to steal the shorts,” she pointed out. “If I order filet mignon, I can’t accept Spam.”
Priya grabbed Sophie’s milk shake and took a sip. “What are you talking about? I would much rather meet fourteen Haverford guys than sift through a pile of smelly gym shorts,” she laughed.
“We never hang out with guys,” Blythe agreed.
Cate looked down at the beat-up wood table, a little hurt. Fine, Cate had never set up any Haverford meet-and-greets, but had they forgotten about last spring, when she’d held a sleepover at the W hotel penthouse? Or the time she’d hired a driver to take them to East Hampton for the day, where they ate oysters at Della Femina, next to Natalie Portman?
“Forget waiting until Saturday to vote,” Priya added, “I think Stella should be in.” Stella straightened up in her chair, looking pleased.
“But I specifically said steal,” Cate said desperately. She looked around for support, but Blythe and Sophie were staring at the table, staying Switzerland-neutral. “Fine, let’s vote then,” she growled. She stared at Sophie, who was carving an S into the table with her fork. “Who wants Stella to be in?”
Priya and Blythe looked at Stella and slowly raised their hands.
Sophie was still working at her S. “I don’t want to vote,” she said nervously, shaking her head. Ever since sixth grade, when Sophie joined the sorority, she had always voted with Cate—always.
“You have to,” all four girls said at the same time.
“Fine.” Sophie put down her fork, then slowly raised her hand. “I think Stella should be in,” she said, cringing.
Cate let out a deep breath.
“Fine,” Cate sighed, defeated. “You’re in.” She leaned back and crossed her arms.
“Cheers!” Stella cried. She clasped Priya’s hand, overjoyed. Now that she was an official member, it was only a matter of time before she was telling Sophie which pair of sandals she should wear with her teal Cynthia Rowley dress, or telling Blythe to stop using so much bronzer. Stella never had been good at following orders—but giving them? That was something she excelled at. “We should go to the Pierre to have tea Saturday to celebrate—it’s supposed to be just like the Ritz,” she said confidently.
“Let’s do it,” Priya agreed.
Cate shook her head, seething. Stella had made it into the Chi Beta Phis and now she was stuck with her—forever. Every sleepover, every sample sale, every Sunday afternoon in Sheep Meadow—Stella would be there, hanging out with her friends. And once someone was voted in, they were in. It was practically impossible to get them out.
Or was it?
Suddenly Cate remembered the day after Finding Nemo on Ice, when she took the Nemo hat Beth Ann Pinchowski had bought her and gave it to Sophie’s dog Peanut to use as a chew toy. Beth Ann had stormed out of Sophie’s room and stopped talking to them completely. She’d become friends with Tabitha Ferguson, a mousy girl with a gap between her front teeth.
Cate pulled her iPhone out of her purse and held it up to Sophie. “Sophie,” she said loudly, waving her phone in the air. “Can you help me pick out a new ring tone?”
Stella was describing Braden Pennyworth’s cologne—something between Old Spice and Drakkar Noir. Sophie turned away from the conversation and pushed a flat piece of light brown hair out of her eyes.
“What?” she asked, a little annoyed.
“I need a new ring tone—I was thinking of using that new song, ‘Kick It’? By Cloud McClean? You know who she is, right, Stella?” Cate raised her eyebrows suggestively.
Stella stopped talking, her face ashen. Her face looked confused, then betrayed, as though Cate had taken a picture of her picking her nose and sent it to every newspaper in London. Cate felt the slightest pang of guilt. That was sort of hitting below the belt. But lying and friend-stealing were equally bad crimes.
“You are not using that song,” Priya said, whipping her head around. The jeweled stud in her nose caught the light. “She wears unitards.”
Stella sat up straight in her seat and cleared her throat. She wanted to crawl under the table and cry, but she would never give Cate that satisfaction. “Don’t you guys vote for the leader every year?”
Blythe, Priya, and Sophie all looked at each other, then at Cate. “Um…yeah, technically.” Priya let out a nervous laugh. Sophie rested her chin on her hand and started humming softly.
“We should have a revote,” Stella pressed on, glancing around at the girls. She looked directly at Cate and smirked. She didn’t know how Cate had found out about the affair, but that comment was just cruel. And cruelty deserved retaliation.
“That’s a good idea,” Blythe agreed, tucking her hair behind her ears. “It is a new year…and we are in the upper school now.”
Cate dug her nails into her palm. Blythe was agreeing to this? She must’ve been angry about the interrogation in the bathroom. None of them were thinking straight—did they really want some random British girl bossing them around? They’d be drinking tea every Saturday for the next four years, their teeth slowly turning a dull yellow.
Priya tilted her head from one side to the other. “Yeah, let’s do it,” she said. Sophie nodded slowly in agreement.
“Brilliant,” Stella cried, clasping her hands together and grinning. “Then it’s settled. We can vote at the Pierre on Saturday.” She shot Cate a sweet smile.
Cate clenched her fists. Stella was out for her throne. Now it was really on.