Belle of the Brawl Read online

  Her eyes scanned the scene, watching as holographic sets on the stage dissolved and re-appeared every few seconds. Quotes from great actors and directors and famous lines from movies and plays illuminated the walls like glowing neon caterpillars. The teacher of the class was a woman rounder than Humpty Dumpty with hair dyed a shade of red so bright it was nearly neon. She was dressed in head-to-toe black, and her lips were an even brighter shade of tomato red than her hair. But Big Red had it. It being that hard-to-define quality known as charisma, animal magnetism, star power. Her chubby chin jiggled as she walked and talked. Still, Allie was totally entranced by her.

  Allie’s trance was so deep that she nearly screamed when a finger silently tapped her on the shoulder. Allie’s navy blue eyes made contact with Triple Threat’s catlike golden ones, which were narrowed quizzically.

  “You’re in this class?” Allie whispered through clenched teeth, not wanting to unfreeze and incur the wrath of Big Red.

  “Uh-huh,” smirked Triple, arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “I own this class.”

  Two sharp hand-claps bounced their attention back to the acting teacher. “New York subway!” the teacher yelled. “Hear the rumbling along the track! Feel the stress of being sandwiched underground! Smell the unappetizing smells!”

  Some of the girls refroze in new positions as subway riders, hanging on invisible poles or sitting on invisible subway seats, their faces contorting into masks of tension and their bodies jiggling as if being rocked by a moving train, while others took the opportunity to create characters. Sunita Sanchez, who Allie knew from French class, morphed into a homeless person and walked around asking for spare change, jingling an invisible cup of coins. Another girl rolled her eyes and pretended to block her out with a giant newspaper.

  As Sunita approached her, Allie quickly stuck her nose into her shirt to block out her imaginary homeless-person germs and concentrated on not gagging on the imaginary smell of pee permeating their subway car. Before she knew it, she’d fished out her bottle of Purell and slathered both hands in it, instantly feeling more protected.

  Big Red stopped her monologue and walked over to Allie. “Good improv for your first time. Nice germophobia! You must be the IT. I’m Careen.”

  Allie smiled nervously, confused by Careen’s acronym. Is IT an acting term? Her mind groped at the possibilities: Improv Trainee? Interpreter of Theater? I Thespian? Careen stood a bit too close to Allie, her chunky arms folded. She seemed to want a response.

  “IT?” Allie finally squeaked.

  “Identity Thief.”

  “Oh.” Tears instantly sprang to Allie’s deep blue eyes and her nervous smile vanished. Allie wished she could vanish along with it.

  But then Careen’s high-pitched laugh filled Allie’s ears, sounding like the yapping of two tiny dogs stuffed into a purse. She smacked Allie on the back with a meaty, ring-covered hand, hard enough that Allie bumped into Triple. “In this class, IT is a compliment! I heard all about the scandal,” Careen paused, taking a wheezing breath, “and I’m elated to work with someone with such enormous ambition. What a brilliant way to get into the Academy!”

  Careen gushed. Allie blushed.

  The redhead circled Allie like a bargain hunter eyeing the clearance rack. “That kind of hunger cannot be taught.”

  Careen bulldozed her way through the imaginary subway car. “Check out the bios of these fame-seekers on your aPod later. You’ll see they’ve all gone to great lengths to be here. You’re no different than they are; you just took a different path. You are home now, my future ingénue. Welcome!”

  Careen came charging back toward Allie, her arms outstretched. Allie took a breath as Careen grabbed her shoulders and pressed her face to her ample bosom in a suffocating-yet-nurturing hug.

  Lost in the black fabric of Careen’s chest, Allie’s emotions took her by surprise. Finally, someone was being nice to Allie! Someone thought she belonged. Hot tears prickled at her eyes.

  When Careen finally let her go, Allie noticed she’d left a big wet spot on her teacher’s left boob.

  “Remember this feeling, Allie. Use it in your craft.” Careen’s lipsticky teeth flashed Allie another smile. “Now, let’s get you up to speed.”

  Careen explained that this was an acting warm-up exercise. The idea was to mime whatever she called out. “Don’t think!” Careen screeched. “React! Leave yourself and your thoughts behind and become.”

  A surge of hopeful relief coursed through Allie’s veins. She wanted nothing more than to leave herself behind forever. She joined the girls on their invisible subway, some of whom peered at her over their invisible newspapers in a disinterested way, just like real commuters.

  Allie grabbed on to an invisible pole and started the ride. Then Careen clapped her hands again. “Electric shock!”

  The actors-in-training began shaking spastically, their limbs flying as if they’d been hurled against an electric fence. But the word shock meant one thing and one thing only to Allie. Shock was finding her ex-boyfriend Fletcher kissing her ex-best friend Trina on the Finding Nemo ride at Disneyland. So she channeled that shock. Her eyes bulged. Her mouth hung open, forming a horrified black hole. Tears began to fall from her eyes again, this time because she had just been betrayed by the two people she loved most. No electricity required.

  Careen clapped again, but this time the applause was for Allie. “Nice, Allie. Subtle, elegant work. Class, please follow Allie’s lead. Shock isn’t just something we get from hair dryers.”

  Allie’s memory of Fletcher and Trina was replaced by elation. She pushed her shoulders back and stuck out her B-cups, reveling in an emotion she’d nearly forgotten existed: pride. She gloat-grinned at Triple, who had stopped writhing on the floor to stare at Allie, naked jealousy radiating from her golden irises.

  Careen clapped again, pulling Allie back to the stage and her acting ambitions. “Revenge!”

  Allie imagined sitting at the Oscars in a Zac Posen off-the-shoulder gown, her earlobes dripping with diamonds and emeralds. She looked over and smiled at Darwin sitting next to her, handsome in a tux, squeezing her hand as Natalie Portman announced the winner for Best Actress. “Allie A. Abbott!”

  Allie pictured her tearful acceptance speech and zoomed out in her imagination to include Fletcher sitting in his parents’ basement rec room, in the dark, alone, watching her on TV. A single tear rolled down Fletcher’s cheek.

  Maybe, just maybe, acting would give Allie back everything Fletcher had taken away—starting with her self-respect.

  12

  CENTER FOR THE ARTS THEATER

  OF DIONYSUS

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 4TH

  4:49 P.M.

  The clear walls of the dance studio—an all-glass cube dangling fifty feet above the tree line like dice on the island’s rearview mirror—dripped with condensation. After two hours of rehearsal, the dance cube was hotter than a Bikram yoga class.

  Inside, Skye stood with her back arched, a sheen of sweat covering her strong limbs and making them blend in with her shiny silver boyshorts and dance cami. Breathing hard, she tensed in preparation for her solo, every molecule in her body vibrating along with Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” Skye locked her elbows and watched through ten splayed fingers as Triple and Prue launched into perfectly synchronized back handsprings when Lady Gaga hit the second chorus. Next to her, Ophelia readied her flexed legs to race into the mix. Skye shot a quick glance at Mimi, who stood in front of them in a black Capezio halter dress, tango shoes, and thirty bangles jingling on each arm, yelling “ONE TWO THREE FOUR!” Pushing her B-cups out and waiting for her cue, Skye felt a giddy warmth, a delicious knowledge coursing through her veins, almost as good as a first kiss, or the first bite of food when you were really hungry: she was back, and she was good.

  For the past two weekends and every night between, Skye had been working this routine. Like the Energizer Bunny, she kept going and going, even when everyone else was asleep or enjoying much-need
ed downtime. And now, Skye had done the routine so many times that she was on autopilot. Her senses weren’t dulled, though—far from it. The dance was etched so deeply into her muscle memory that she didn’t have to think—she simply flipped the switch and her body took over. The routine was as automatic as brushing her teeth, as tying her shoe, as flirting with a cute boy—or at least as automatic as flirting used to be, before Syd forced her to rewire that portion of her brain from flirt to hurt.

  “Skye!” Mimi yelled, and Skye’s attention snapped like a rubber band, flying back into the routine with the force of a ballistic missile. Her body followed her thoughts, leap-step-ball-changing onto center stage as four other dancers parted to make room for her. Her face locked into a fierce-yet-knowing grin, she began to pop and lock to the lyrics, her hips twitching like a robot doing the hula. As she slid onto the floor in a double split, she realized nobody could relate to the song more than she could. It was like Gaga had written it just for her.

  I want your loving and I want your revenge

  You and me could write a bad romance

  As the other girls gathered around Skye to come in for the final moments of the routine, Skye’s smile grew even bigger. She had nailed this. To the wall. With a nail gun.

  “Pause,” Mimi said to the voice-activated stereo, and Gaga instantly evaporated to nada. “Good work today, dancers. Andrea, as usual, you are owning the beat.” Mimi’s caramel features softened around a proud smile—on Mimi, a smile was almost as rare as the flowers on desert cacti that only bloomed once a year. Skye fought to keep her eyeballs from rolling in exasperation and swallowed a sigh. Her envious insides clenched as she waited for Mimi to torture her. And as if the cranky choreographer could read Skye’s mind, Mimi locked her golden cat eyes, dramatically dusted with MAC Shimmer Smoothie shadow, with Skye’s naked Tiffany box–blue ones. A half-smile flashed across her face. “Nice work, Sleeves. You’ve been practicing.”

  Skye blinked, too shocked to speak. Mimi sounded almost… proud. “Thanks,” she finally managed, afraid to say anything else for fear that Mimi would take back the compliment like it was a precious necklace—on loan for one night only.

  Maybe all the drama with Syd had actually been a blessing, Skye thought, flexing and arching her feet. After all, the only reason she was so focused on practicing was so she wouldn’t drown in the sticky pool of his saccharine-sweet adoration. Without Syd, Skye might still be at the top of Mimi’s most-likely-to-suck list.

  “Music, on!” Mimi clapped twice and put one hand on her muscled hip, her eyes scanning the room as the dancers sashayed into their positions and Gaga ushered the song in.

  “And right, and left, and robot boogie!” yelled Mimi, bringing the group through their synchronized moves once again. Sandwiched between Ophelia and Tweety, Skye grinned with the joy of the dance, buoyed by the sensation of Triple dancing behind her, probably drilling a jealous hate-hole straight into her blond, bunned head.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the elevator doors opening.

  Blinking her concentration back to center stage, Skye tried to focus on an arm-windmill sequence, not wanting to let herself get distracted by whoever it might be.

  “Breathtaking,” someone whispered from across the room.

  Uh-oh.

  Of course it was Syd. Who else would be clueless enough to interrupt Mimi’s class?

  With his dark jeans ripped at the knee and his navy blazer covered on one side with rock ’n’ roll pins, Syd looked half rocker-chic, half stalker-freak as he smiled at Skye.

  Skye’s glare stuck to him like a fresh blow-out to a MAC Lipglassed mouth. His gapped front teeth peeked out from under his deep-red lips, and as he waved, Skye noticed a small red envelope between his index and middle finger.

  Skye’s patience was already more frayed than the ankles of her oldest pair of J-Brands. She needed hand-delivered love notes from Syd the way Triple needed lessons in how to be annoying: not at all.

  Skye attempted to subtly motion to him to GET AWAY, but she missed a crucial step, which put her in Tweety’s line of movement. Suddenly, like a house of cards, all the dancers toppled, and Skye found herself on the bottom of a pileup of sweaty, Lycra’d limbs. She cringed as her fellow bun-heads fell one by one.

  “Ooof! Ow! Ugh!”

  Uh-oh. Skye struggled to breathe and to not burst into tears underneath Tweety, Prue, Ophelia, and the rest of the bun-heads.

  “Ow,” Tweety whimpered, rolling off of Skye and rubbing her slender hip.

  “Not cool,” moaned Prue, wrapping her light brown hair back into a high bun.

  Skye staggered back onto her feet, her face burning with shame. “Sorry,” she murmured. “My fault.”

  “Music, off! We’re done for today,” said Mimi, raising one eyebrow at Skye before turning away to make some adjustments to the holographic playback machine.

  The girls dispersed, heading to the barre for a few cool-down stretches. As they sucked down spring water from their Alphas-emblazoned eco-friendly aluminum bottles, Skye refused to look in Syd’s direction, joining Ophelia at the barre.

  “Aren’t you going to see what he wants?” Ophelia whispered, running a gold towel along her sweaty forehead.

  Skye ignored her and threw her leg over the barre, leaning in for a deep quad stretch. Ophelia’s hazel-green eyes moved from her to Syd and back again. Skye grunted as she pulled her leg off the bar, and when she threw her left foot up to stretch the other side, Ophelia turned to the wall, stuck her tongue out, and approximated a loud fart noise with her lips.

  Tweety giggled, and Skye felt her face go crimson. Triple and Prue looked over and rolled their eyes. Then Skye let her eyes travel to Syd, who suddenly looked uncomfortable.

  Ohmuhgud, maybe this will work!

  “Again, Ophelia!” Skye whispered. “Keep ’em coming!”

  As Skye went from first position to second, Ophelia let out a series of raspberries. “Ohmuhgud!” Skye shouted, covering her face as if she was mortified and hiding her smile in the process. “I shouldn’t have had that burrito for lunch!” The bun-heads started laughing hysterically, and it was hard for Skye not to join them.

  But this was life-or-death—she had to get Syd off her back before he caused her to break a limb.

  Skye lunged into a grand plié and Ophelia let it rip again. Skye covered her mouth and opened her eyes wide, turning around to face Syd as the whole room erupted in laughter. But Syd wasn’t laughing. His face had gone white with embarrassment, or nausea, or both. He began pushing the button on the elevator. Hard.

  “How embarrassing!” Skye yelled merrily.

  But Syd had stepped into the elevator, and for once his green eyes weren’t glued to Skye. In fact, Skye was overjoyed to see that he looked desperate to get as far away from her as possible.

  When the elevator doors closed, Skye high-fived Ophelia. “You are a genius!” she yelled.

  “I have two older brothers.” Ophelia shrugged. “Guess they taught me something.”

  Skye’s spirits did a pirouette, rebounding after her mortifying maneuver during their last run-through. The prospect of being rid of Syd was a bigger relief than releasing a pent-up fart could ever be.

  13

  SOMEWHERE OVER ALPHA ISLAND

  DARWIN’S PAP

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 4TH

  5:18 P.M.

  Charlie sighed with contentment in the passenger seat of Darwin’s PAP (Personal Alpha Plane) as they floated higher in the sun-streaked sky. She pressed one hand against the cool glass of the curved window and gazed beneath them at the @-shaped island. To the west, the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon. It glowed a fiery orange as it hovered above the ocean, lighting up each building on the island in its wake. To the east, a brief spattering of rain had cleared only a few minutes ago, and a thin rainbow arched above the island like a silk ribbon decorating a wrapped gift.

  This plane ride was a gift, Charlie mused as Darwin grinned at her
and pulled the throttle on the PAP so the plane faced the rainbow. Darwin had been flying since he was twelve, and the ride was as smooth as foundation primer. Charlie looked around at the postcards Darwin had taped up on the PAP’s white leather interior—each place was somewhere they’d been together, and each one sparked a different, gooey-sweet memory. Belize, where they had swum with sea turtles. Rio, where they’d been in a parade during Carnival. Nova Scotia, where Darwin and Charlie had learned to pilot a sailboat. Iceland, where they’d eaten fermented shark and swum in steaming hot springs. Madagascar, where a monkey had stolen Darwin’s guitar.

  “Did you plan that?” Charlie whispered, pointing to the rainbow and half-believing that Darwin had, in fact, found a way to orchestrate the perfect combination of rain and sun. After all, he was a Brazille, which meant he had access to technology most people didn’t even know existed yet.

  “I’m good,” Darwin said, flashing a half-smile and crinkling his gorgeous hazel eyes, “but I’m not that good. The universe just wants to entertain us, I guess.”

  “Guess so.” They were doing a pretty good job of entertaining the universe, too, thought Charlie. She shivered as she recalled the dark cloud of hurt moving across Darwin’s face as, one by one, she’d shot down four of his proposed meeting places (the beach? No way—too public! The Zen Garden? Uh-uh. Mount Olympus? Nixed. The yacht? Was he crazy?). She’d been the one to propose a ride in the PAP—it was the only place safe from prying eyes and picture-snapping aPods. Because no matter how badly Darwin wanted to be with her, Charlie just wasn’t ready to go public. Not until the Allie mess was cleaned up, anyway.

  “Girls must be throwing themselves at you left and right,” said Charlie, trying to steer the conversation in a less romantic direction. “Now that Shira lifted the ban, you five are all anyone can think about.”

  “A little, I guess,” said Darwin, running his finger along the touch-screen steering panel and sending the plane swooping beneath the rainbow. “I’ve gotten some texts. I just delete ’em. My brothers are having the time of their lives, though.”