The Lifeboat Clique Read Online Free Page B

even a baby grand piano. It was the perfect house for a group of entitled teenagers to destroy. I felt sorry for the owner, but not sorry enough to turn around.
    When I was almost to Cross Creek I took a right and drove up a short road, and there it was, on a small bluff overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean itself. Cars were parked tight all along the road, so I had to walk a bit.
    I was wearing a pair of skinny jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, a light sweater, Converse sneakers, and an eternity scarf, and thought I looked reasonably attractive. I saw windows lit and heard the faint sounds of music. Something quirky and contemporary and subdued. Abigail was no dummy. Loud music made neighbors mad. And mad neighbors called police. And police were even less welcome at parties than me.
    I stopped and straightened my shirt. Stopped again and smoothed my hair. Stopped again and just stopped. My armpits were sweating. What if a special black light hadbeen installed in the doorway to pick up the telltale armpit sweat of the uninvited loser? And what if some loud buzzer went off, and everyone froze and stared at me just before a wild purse-dog hired just for the occasion buried its tiny fangs in my ankles as a subtle hint for me to go?
    My feet wouldn’t move. There was nothing wrong with a change of heart, right? I could just turn around right now and backtrack all the way up to my window and crawl into my bedroom, and no one would be the wiser.
    But I would be the same, and I’d had a brief, wild hope of being different. And that hope, like an insane Pomeranian, had buried its teeth in my soul and wouldn’t let go.
    I took a deep breath and walked up to the house.

CUATRO
    THE DOOR WAS UNLOCKED. I PUSHED IT OPEN AND FOUND that the poor bastard who owned the house must have had good insulation, because the music was turned up loud. Kids were drinking and talking and making out all around me.
    The house was huge. The bad artwork looked expensive, and the floors were marble.
    I wandered into the living room, then the kitchen, with its clean, steel lines and center island and perfectly stained cabinets. More kids were in there, some already drunk, all of them in clusters.
    Croix was nowhere in sight.
    Sienna Martin was lounging by the refrigerator, her hair swept back in a ponytail. She wore a long shirt, a pair of black leggings, and short boots. She had added clunky power bracelets and a bubble necklace. Her eyelids were in crazy peacock hues. She was smoking an e-cigarette.
    She took a long drag and then expelled the nicotine vapor. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œSame as you. Crashing a house whose owner suffers from the delusion that it should sell at twice its value.”
    The tip of her e-cigarette glowed blue. “You’re always saying things like that.”
    â€œThings like what?”
    â€œBig things you have to think about to understand. Why don’t you just talk normal?” She looked over at her sidekick, high-strung simpleton Hayley Amherst, who drove a Mercedes. “Hey,” she said to Hayley. “Look who’s here.” She had that tone of voice that meant “Look who’s here who’s not invited.”
    Hayley was dressed like a cover model from Teen Vogue Idiot . She slithered over and looked me up and down.
    â€œWhy would you want to be here?” she asked. “I mean, who do you think is going to talk to you? Why should anyone talk to you when no one here is your friend? I’m not being a bitch or anything. I’m just telling the truth and honestly I’d really like to know, because everywhere I goI’m invited, so I’ve never been someone like you, I’m just saying.”
    Hayley liked to talk in a spray of words that always reminded me of the aggressive mist of Finesse Extra Hold aerosol that Abigail once used in a desperate attempt to keep her springy hair in place.
    â€œWhat was the question again?” I