Bratfest at Tiffany's Read Online Free Page B

imperfection and came up with only one: impossibly pretty.
    Massie searched Claire.
    “Wipe those sweaty palms. Re-gloss. Pull the hair out from behind your ears. Roll back your shoulders. And for the love of Gawd, Kuh-laire, smile. We’re about to make an entrance, nawt a condolence call.”
    Exhaling, Claire did what she was told, which wasn’t easy, since her heart felt all twisted and tangled.
    “Okay, the song we’re walking to is ‘Here I Come,’ by Fergie,” announced Massie.
    “What part?” Asked Dylan.
    “‘Get ready ’cause here I come. Get ready ’cause here I come. …’”
    Everyone nodded once.
    “Good. I’ll count you in.” Massie gripped the handle. “Start silent-singing on six. I’ll open the door on seven. We walk to the beat on eight. ’Kay?”
    They nodded again.
    Claire fought a rush of dizziness with a long deep breath. Fainting in the middle of the New Green Café while the New Pretty Committee was making its entrance would be worse than awful.
    “Here we go,” Massie mouthed. “A-five, a-six, a-five, six, se-vuhn, eight.”
    They were
in
. Claire silently sang the lyrics while her feet stepped in time with the other girls’.
    A thick mass of hot air enveloped her like a wool turtleneck in a heat wave. The New Green Café was at least ten degrees warmer than it had been when she’d snuck in to post the RESERVED sign.
    Invisible clouds of floral perfumes, fruity hairsprays, powdery deodorants, and spicy colognes now eclipsed the earthy smell of fresh vegetables. And pressing down on that was a thick layer of hostility.
    Every eyeball in the room suddenly glared at the Pretty Committee with
who-do-they-think-they-are?
resentment. Not one girl turned to her friends to envy-gush over their outfits! Not one boy slapped his buddy’s arm because five super-hot girls were slinking by! The only sound in the room came from five NPC charm bracelets that clinked and clanged in time with their swinging arms.
    Suddenly, Claire didn’t feel like one of the cool kids who came late to the party because she had better things to do. She felt like an LBR who had been given the wrong address on purpose. Their magic had faded, which was exactly what Massie had said about her seventh-grade boots and handbags before donating them to the Briarwood fund-raiser auction.
    Embarrassed and full of regret, Claire lost her place in the song. Suddenly, her left foot was going forward while everyone else’s was going back.
    If the other girls were panicking, they showed no signs. Their gazes were fixed on table eighteen like runway models staring off into some distant paradise that only beautiful people had the ability to see.
    But not Claire. She
had
to look. Had to scan the overcrowded bamboo tables to see if Cam was there. Watching her. With his one blue eye and his one green one. Oozing Drakkar Noir. And wondering why on earth she’d agreed to this embarrassing late-entrance thing.
    Layne Abeley, however, captured her attention first. She was seated at the head of number three, the only all-girl table in the entire New Green Café. Locationwise it was a dud: right next to the swinging steel kitchen doors, in the heart of the LBR section. Not that Layne seemed to care. She was waving her arms, crossing her narrow green eyes, and wiggling her brows, happily trying to get Claire’s attention. Her mousy brown hair was knotted into two poofy buns, one above each ear, like Mickey Mouse. An assortment of pink and purple Hello Kitty pens jutted out from the left bun and three Chococat pencils from the right.
    “Hey,” giggle-mouthed Claire as she passed her only friend outside the NPC.
    “Hey,” Layne mouthed back with that warm, familiar smile that never failed to cheer Claire up. Even in times like these.
    Just then, Principal Burns sighed impatiently into the microphone. It sounded like Darth Vader with bad cell reception and was enough to make the NPC pick up their pace.
    They quickly took their seats