It took a very special sort of person to walk into a halfway-over homeroom class the first day of school. Exactly the sort of person Amy Cahill wasn't.
Amy hated being the new girl at a school where everyone knew each other. Even the late girl, walking into the class like she owned the place (which Grace had always said did not endear people to you), seemed to have friends. Well all the guys looked happy to see her. The girls just looked angry at the fact that she had even set foot in the classroom.
"Ah," the teacher adjusted her scarf, "you must be Marina Roscoe."
She nodded. "Sorry, we got into a little car crash."
The teacher—Mrs. Donohue," clasped a hand to her heart. "Are you all right?"
Marina smiled. "My brother isn't the most cautious driver," and she took her seat, right next to Amy.
Amy studied the girl through her peripheral vision. She was pretty. Long sunstreaked hair, big hazel eyes, tanned skin. Amy noticed she had a second piercing on her left ear, something expressly forbidden by the Holy Maria High School handbook. She wore a slash of eyeliner (again, forbidden), and her nails were polished turquoise.
That was all Amy needed to realize that she wanted to know this girl, Marina Roscoe, if it killed her.
And that would prove to be easy; Marina had just slid a scrap of paper over onto her desk.
Hi
It read, in tiny, crisp writing. I'm Marina. What's your name? Are you new here?
Amy pulled out a pen and wrote back, her scrawl a bit thicker, but still neat. I'm Amy Cahill. I'm new. Are you?
New to the school, yeah. New to these people, hell no. I've been in with the exact same people since preschool. Where are you from?
I live in Boston.
Oh. That's too bad. I live in California, but my parents make me come back East to get my education. It's bloody evil.
British?
I went to England this summer for a week. It sort of rubbed off.
I have kind of friends in England.
Either you love 'em or you hate 'em, honey. But whatever. We should get lunch together. Let's go to Newbury street.
Sure!
Marina crumpled up the paper, and left Amy wondering how a girl like her—the girl who was nonchalant about being in a car crash, the girl with the illegal earring, the California girl—would walk up to a girl like Amy, and adopt her as a friend.
Marina had insisted on going to Stephanie's on Newbury, which was all fine and well by Amy. Amy had ordered a turkey club sandwich; Marina had gone a bit more atypical and ordered ahi tuna tartare.
Marina had barely spoken a word on their10-minute trek to Newbury street, but after she ordered, she folded her hands demurely in her lap, tilted her head at an angle, and smiled.
"So, tell, me, Amy, do you have a boyfriend?"
Amy jolted up in her seat. She was surprised that Marina, who seemed so mature and peculiar, would ask such a meaningless teenage-girly question. "Um, no."
Marina stuck her lips out in a pout. "Bother," there was her accent again. "You're pretty, you should."
"Th-thanks?"
She shrugged. "Do you wear makeup?"
"No. I kinda think I should but I'm afraid what people would say."
"Honey," Marina shook her head in mock sympathy, then smiled, "don't even start. I'm afraid of what people would say if I didn't wear any. Favorite color?"
"Green. Yours?"
"Black. Like my soul," she deadpanned. "Kidding. Red. Do you have any siblings?"
"A younger brother, Dan."
"What do your parents do?"
"I have an au pair."
"Did your parents die?"
Amy nodded.
"I'm sorry. My parents are divorced," she offered.
Then their food came, and they sunk back into silence. Marina ate oddly, she noticed. She took tiny bites, chewed each bite exactly 10 times, swallowed, and sipped her iced tea. Not that she was watching her every move. There was something about Marina that looked familiar.
Then she realized that she was wearing the exact same scarf that Natalie Kabra had made such a fuss over at that party last month. It was a pale pink silk scarf—nothing special in Amy's eyes—and Prada. Or something.
"Do you like my scarf?"
Amy blushed. "S-sorry, I know a person who had the s-same one."
"Oh, yes, all my friends got matching ones. Perhaps you know Pippa or Josephine."
Amy shook her head.
Marina snapped her fingers at the waiter, "check, please?"
He brought over the bill, and Amy reached for it the same time as Marina did. "No, silly, let me get it," Marina smiled, and whipped out a platinum credit card. "My daddy felt guilty because he's too busy with Bunny or Barbie or whatever her name is. So he got me a credit card and told me to go crazy," she explained.
"Well, thanks," Amy smiled at her new friend.
Marina stood up, and shouldered her purse. "Don't think about it. It's what cousins do."
Hi. So, this is my first story, so please flame the hell out of it. I'd like to improve. Gracias.
-Audrey