Elegy. Tara Hudson

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СКАЧАТЬ heels. Then Mrs. Patton raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow and assessed me coolly, before breaking into a high-wattage smile.

      “You must be Jillian’s little friend,” she said, offering me a handshake full of bedazzled fingernails. I took an instinctive step back to avoid the nontouch, and her smile dropped.

      “Sorry,” I offered lamely. “I, um, have a cold.”

      I offered a weak cough as evidence, using my shaking hand to cover it. Then I waved that hand as if to say, See? Germ-ridden.

      Mrs. Patton’s upper lip curled in disgust and she, too, took a step backward. Then she composed that lip curl into something that was only slightly less repulsed.

      “You poor thing. Why don’t y’all just come on inside?”

      She waved us into the entryway, gestured vaguely to a grand, curving staircase, and told us that the other girls were in the theater room on the third floor. Then she hurried away on her ridiculous heels, fleeing what she clearly assumed was the black death.

      Now I realized why Jillian had demanded a fashion show before we left. And why we were wearing designer labels to a party that should have been filled with sweatpants and junk food.

      I snorted as Jillian and I started up the stairs. “You have to admit, this explains so much about Kaylen.”

      “Doesn’t it though?” Jillian murmured. “I told you, Kaylen is an okay person—she’s just a little . . . skewed.”

      “I can see why. She’s living with a grade-A pageant mom.”

      “Aw, who’s afraid of tiaras and mascara? We’ve fought demons.”

      “I’ve fought demons,” I corrected. “You fought a crazed psycho killer with some serious girl issues.”

      “To-may-to, to-mah-to.” Jillian waved her hand dismissively.

      After what felt like a thousand miles of stairs and hallway, Jillian paused outside a set of red double doors. She’d just reached for one of the handles when both doors swung open and Kaylen came bounding out into the hall.

      “Jill!” she squealed, enveloping her friend in a bear hug to which Jillian responded with an awkward back pat.

      I’d always thought of Kaylen as something of a princess. But tonight, in stark contrast to her mother, she appeared in a set of comfortable-looking pajamas.

      “So, Jill, I got those hot Cheetos you like even though they make everyone else want to puke.” She abruptly shifted her attention to me. “And you’re Amelia, right? Josh’s secret new girlfriend?”

      Now that took me aback. All I could do was stutter, “Uh . . . y-yeah. I guess I am.”

      I thought I’d have to dance around this issue for hours—maybe suffer a few sly, catty comments in the process. But Kaylen just came right out and addressed the elephant in the room.

      “Not so secret anymore,” she noted, before I could say anything else. “Anyway, come on in—the other girls are already here.”

      She started to wave us inside, grinning.

      “You got all done up for Mom, right?” Kaylen asked. “Don’t worry: you can go ahead and change into your comfies in the powder bath.”

      “Thanks,” Jillian breathed, immediately slipping her feet out of her tall wedges. Then she and I hefted up our bags and followed Kaylen inside.

      The theater room matched the house perfectly: overdone, with heavy red drapes and gold tassels everywhere. The only difference was that this room looked a little friendlier with the addition of a rom-com on the big screen and a few pajama-clad girls gathered beneath it.

      I’d seen them before, following Kaylen and Jillian around Wilburton High. One of them—a strawberry blonde with a sharp nose and pale green eyes—hung back in the semicircle of theater chairs and arranged bowls of junk food on a low table. The other two girls approached us, both sporting messy sets of pigtails. Slumber-party couture, I guess.

      “Nice dress, Jill,” one teased, flipping an ashy brown pigtail. “Are you going to a fancy horse race?”

      “Are you running in one?” Jillian shot back, but she grinned warmly and gave her friend a playful shove. Then she moved toward the bathroom, apparently to change. Without looking back, Jillian wiggled her fingers over her shoulder. “I’m going to go un-Derby myself. See you in a sec.”

      As soon as the door clicked shut, the third girl moved closer to me. Too close, actually, almost like a shark. Her smirk wasn’t necessarily hostile—in fact, it looked sort of pretty against her deeply tanned skin—but it made me uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.

      “So,” she said archly. “You’re Amelia?”

      It was as if those three words were some kind of signal. All at once, the entire room seemed to focus on me. Each girl moved in concert, angling herself toward me like a missile seeking its target.

      After a long, uncertain pause, I nodded and cleared my throat. “And all of you are . . . ?”

      “Chelsea Qualls,” the ashy brunette offered, and then pointed behind her to the redhead. “That’s Elyse Richards.”

      “And I’m Mya Homma.”

      The girl with the deeply tanned skin and black hair waved at me, a gesture that I wasn’t sure whether to read as snarky or friendly. For lack of anything better to do, I waved back.

      “Hi. I’m Amelia Ashley. I’m dating Joshua Mayhew. I enjoy competitive figure skating and long walks on the beach.”

      The other girls laughed, relaxing by separate degrees. One by one, they each shifted away from me. Sensing that the attack was over, I smiled at them as genuinely as I could and reminded myself that I’d faced far scarier things than a roomful of teenage girls in judgment mode.

      Still, when Jillian exited the powder bath, I took the opportunity to excuse myself to change—and breathe easier for the first time since we’d entered the room. Maybe even the house.

Chapter FOUR

      An hour later, the awkward, interrogation-themed tension had almost dissipated. I guess a few peanut butter M&M’s and more than a few sips of stolen wine just had that effect on people. It also didn’t hurt when Jillian told them that my pajamas were previously worn by the actress now prancing around in the chick flick that we were only half watching.

      “I can totally see the resemblance,” Mya said, using a bottle of Mrs. Patton’s finest merlot to draw an invisible line between the woman on the screen and me.

      “Yeah,” I muttered awkwardly. “My famous aunt just loves to share her outdated clothes.”

      “Outdated?” Chelsea breathed. “They’re freaking СКАЧАТЬ