High Heels and Lipstick Read Online Free Page A

have anything to do with me directly. It was because of what they said to Moe.”
    â€œCan we please change the subject?” My coffee was too hot to drink, but I drank some anyway. The pain in my tongue and the roof of my mouth yanked me out of the whine-spiral I was heading toward. “Homework. Who did it, and is there a chance in hell I can finish any of it before I have to hand it in?”
    Both of them looked like they had more to say on the subject I was finished with, but Evan just started talking about the history assignment. I relaxed as much as I could. I might as well take advantage of the calm before the storm I knew I’d have to deal with as soon as I walked through the high school’s front door.
    Guillermo showed up, along with some of Holly and Evan’s other friends. I didn’t pay much attention to them other than to say hi when they said it to me. I managed to get through the history assignment, which was due first period, and half of the math assignment before we had to leave for school.
    The second I walked through the door, I knew something was wrong. People were standing around the lobby and in front of the office, talking in hushed tones. A few of them glanced at me, but no one said anything. Not a single word.
    â€œEveryone please report to the auditorium.” Our vice principal Mr. Lawrence’s voice boomed through the speaker beside me. “Do not go to your first period classrooms. Go directly to the auditorium and sit with your homeroom groups. Your homeroom teachers will take attendance.”
    That was completely against procedure. Our school didn’t do the homeroom thing. We were assigned to homerooms, but the only times we actually went to those rooms were on the first day of school to get our schedules, at the end of the day on report card days, and during the yearly state achievement tests. Otherwise, we sat by homeroom at assemblies and stuff, but on normal school days we went straight to first period.
    And we almost never had unannounced assemblies.
    We followed the stream of people into the auditorium. I wished I could sit with Holly and the guys, but they weren’t in my homeroom. I found myself between El-Al and Gina, two girls who’d been my friends right up until they found out what had happened between Jim and me. Gina had dated Jim too, but he hadn’t done anything to her, so she didn’t believe Maryellen and me. El-Al, who most people called by her full name, Eleanor Alice, just kind of followed whoever around her was loudest.
    I hadn’t talked to either of them lately. They said hi to me at school, and I hadn’t heard them say anything negative about me, but we weren’t friends anymore as far as I was concerned. I needed people around who supported me, and they didn’t qualify.
    â€œDo you know what happened?” El-Al leaned over me to talk to Gina. “I heard someone died.”
    â€œWho?” I asked before I remembered that I was trying not to speak to them.
    â€œI don’t know.” She sat up and looked at me. “I was afraid it was you. I’m glad it wasn’t.”
    â€œThanks.” I was confused to the point where I didn’t know which confused me more: her thinking I’d died or her being glad I hadn’t. “Why would you think it was me?”
    â€œBecause.” She looked uncomfortable. “I mean, people say stuff. Sometimes it has to be hard to deal with, and you’ve been kind of… I don’t know, depressed about it. You don’t even talk to us anymore. It’s like you’ve already checked out.”
    â€œSo?” I narrowed my eyes. Before, I’d been the queen of this little clique. Just because half the school had turned against me didn’t mean I couldn’t still intimidate the hell out of people. “People always say stuff. They’ve been saying stuff about me since seventh grade. You think anything’s