The first day of school was always an ordeal.
Kate's routine was the same every year. She walked two blocks to Madison's house at least fifteen minutes early, and the two caught the bus from there (along with some other friends, some of the time), gossiping all the way. Well, Madison gossiping all the way, and Kate just listening, nodding, and murmuring "Mm-hm." Madison's mother was on the school board, and Mads always had insider knowledge on who'd left and who'd transferred in, and she liked to tell Kate all about it on the way to the first day. Because with Madison, being the only one who knew a secret was like being the only one with M&Ms in a crowd of her friends: she just wouldn't feel right if she didn't share.
This had been their back-to-school routine since freshman year, when they'd both started at Marlowe High School. Madison had been Maddie back then; she hadn't been anything like the fabulous, extravagant, slightly self-absorbed she was today. She was just another middle school dork with braces on her teeth and her blond hair in two side ponytails, wearing her sport-obsessed older sister's hand-me-down clothes. High school had transformed her, and by the end of the first semester, she was unrecognizable. Kate still wasn't sure whether or not she liked the new Mads better than the old one. Not that it made a difference. New Madison wasn't someone who would ever change who she was for someone else.
She loved the new Madison. Still, she sometimes missed their middle school days. They'd met in sixth grade and bonded instantly. Madison was the girl living in the shadow of Jeanine, her older sister, constantly outdone, always the disappointment. She was the A-minus student who teachers shook their heads at because she couldn't quite measure up to her sister's A-plusses. Kate was the bookish nerd, the one who always had her face buried in a crime novel, the one who was constantly spouting random, often useless facts that no one cared about. They were the outsiders, and she liked it that way. Maddie and Kate against the world.
But then they graduated to high school, and Maddie… conformed. She dropped the childish nickname and went by Madison only. She threw out all of Jeanine's old volleyball shorts and swim team t-shirts and bought herself a new wardrobe. Her personality became brighter, more confident, more outgoing. She was a whole new person, and Kate stayed the same.
But Kate was gorgeous, and she was the best friend of Madison the Charismatic, Madison the Popular, Madison the Fun. And in light of that, no one minded that she'd prefer to pull out a Dan Brown novel and immerse herself in the world of Robert Langdon, rather than engage in everyday conversation. Such was the way of the Kate, as Madison liked to say; use of this line would always prompt a laugh from whatever admirers she had around her.
And so it was that Katherine Beckett, by neither means nor intention of her own, entirely without meaning to, became popular.
It was the strangest thing, and she still didn't fully understand how it had happened.
"She's just another stuck-up rich bitch who thinks she's so smart because she got into a prestigious high school, but really it was her daddy's money that did the trick," Madison told her as she carefully brushed mascara onto her eyelashes, her face two inches away from the hanging mirror. "There are too many of those in the world, don't you think?"
"Hmm?" Kate looked up from where she sat on the edge of Madison's bed.
Madison sighed. "Emerald Davey. One of the new girls in our year? Come on, Kate, I've been talking about her for the past minute and a half."
"Give me that." Kate stood up, walked across the room to her friend, and slipped the mascara from between her fingers. "You don't need this," she told her, screwing the cap on and tossing it back into Madison's cute blue makeup bag. "Your eyelashes are plenty dark already."
Madison frowned, but when she reached into the makeup bag, what she pulled out was her tube of orange-pink eyeliner rather than the mascara. As she began to lightly apply it along the rim of her upper eyelid, she glanced over at Kate. "Are you even wearing any makeup?" she demanded.
"Some," Kate replied defensively. Before she'd left the house, she'd dusted on a thin coating of pale brown eyeshadow and smeared a little of her favorite bronze lipstick on her lips, but most of her extra time had been spent dragging her mother's straightening iron over clumps of her hair in the hopes of carefully evening out her untidy waves into neat, dead straight lines. She had to say, she was quite pleased with the result.
"Barely any," Madison muttered before turning back to the mirror. "So, yeah. Emerald Davey – lost cause."
"Got it."
"There's one girl who sounds kind of cool. Helena or something. She's transferring from Duncan High, which is a pretty good school."
"I know," Kate agreed. "I was going to go to Duncan if I didn't get into Marlowe."
"Yeah. Anyways, she only got in because a few other people cancelled at the last minute. She was at the top of the waiting list. There's a guy transferring from Duncan with her, something Rodgers, I think, but I may be wrong. Mom didn't know much about him."
"Okay." Once Madison had finished with the eyeliner, Kate grabbed her and dragged her away before she could fish something else out of the makeup bag. "Come on."
"Blush!" Madison cried dramatically.
"You're fine. You don't need it."
"Blush!"
"Calm down. We need to go, or Kevin and Jen will wonder what happened to us."
At the name 'Kevin', Madison relaxed. "Kevin," she repeated dreamily as she and Kate headed for the front door. "That boy is fine."
"That boy is taken," Kate reminded her. "By one of your best friends."
"Oh. Right." Madison frowned. "Have I mentioned that I find it odd that I'm the only one in our gruesome threesome without a hot boyfriend?"
Kate cracked a smile as she slid her feet into black leather flats. Jennifer Scout Duffy O'Malley, known by her friends as simply Jenny or Jen, was the only other girl she and Madison had grown particularly close to at Marlowe. Sure, Mads was constantly surrounded by 'friends', but none of them were real, girls-night-out, cry-and-eat-ice-cream-together-after-a-rough-breakup friends. Not like Kate and Jenny. There were a couple of boys that the 'gruesome threesome' (as Madison loved to call them) would hang out with, too, and in sophomore year, Jenny had started dating one of them – Kevin Ryan. They'd been together since, and they were absolutely adorable. The sort of love that they had was the subtly beautiful sort; the sweet, romantic, cheesy sort that you read about in books.
"Come on." Kate turned to Madison – she was a few inches taller, she noticed, thanks to the brown high-heeled gladiator sandals she'd strapped onto her feet. She wore jean shorts that were just barely dress code, a solid color purple tank top, and a cropped white leather jacket with sleeves that stopped at her elbows, a folded-out collar, lots of little pockets, and a row of unused belt loops around the hem. "We wouldn't want to keep Mr. and Mrs. Ryan waiting."
"They're not married yet."
"I know that," Madison said in an 'uh duh' sort of voice. "Give it a year or two."
Kate laughed, partially at her friend and partially in agreement with her. Honestly, she wouldn't be surprised; Kevin and Jenny were the kind of high school sweethearts (did people even call them that anymore?) she could see getting married.
Madison called a quick goodbye to her parents, and the two girls headed out the door. It wasn't a long walk from Madison's apartment building to the corner where they'd always wait for the bus, just a block or two, and Mads seemed determined to fit every bit of useless gossip into the short walk as possible. So they walked, Madison yammering, Kate half-listening, until Kevin and Jenny came into view.
"Kate," Jenny greeted brightly, sweeping honey-blond hair out of her face as she took a step towards them. "Madison."
"Hey, Jen," Kate replied; when the three reached each other, Jenny opened her arms, and Kate slipped into them easily, accepting the smaller girl's embrace. Jenny was the kind of person who, for whatever reason, was positively huggable. Kate couldn't really figure out what it was, but something about her just made you want to hug her all the time. Kate would never sneak up behind Madison and wrap her arms around her from behind. But everyone did it to Jenny.
After a second, Jenny pulled away, moved to the side, and embraced the waiting Madison. "It's so good to see you guys," she told them as she stepped back. "It's been way too long." Jenny (much to Madison's chagrin) had been in France for the majority of the summer, and in the week and a half that she'd been back she hadn't had the chance to get together with Kate and Madison. So despite the fact that two of their gruesome threesome had spent most of their summer together, neither of them had seen Jenny in almost two months.
"I know," Madison agreed as they began to walk back towards where Kevin stood. "I'm still totally pissed that you got to go to Paris and didn't take me, you know," she added, almost as an afterthought.
"Mads." Kate hit her lightly on the shoulder, and turned back to Jenny. "Ignore her. How was France?"
Jenny's eyes lit up. "Oh, it was incredible. Such a beautiful place."
"Was the food amazing?" Madison demanded. "Was the fashion awesome? Did you meet a hot French guy?"
Jenny raised her eyebrows, giving Madison a flawless are-you-serious look (something she'd perfected after years of watching Kate give it). "Yes, yes, and no," she said. "I don't know if you've noticed, Mads, but I'm kind of in a relationship here."
"Oh, I've noticed," Madison replied vehemently. "Kind of difficult not to notice."
The three had reached where Kevin was standing; as Jenny laughed, a clear, high-pitched, musical sound, he inched towards her and put an arm around her. She smiled, leaning into him, placing a hand on his chest as she returned the side hug; she was short enough that when she rested her head on his shoulder, it was more like resting her head against his shoulder, but neither of them seemed to mind.
They stood that way, with Madison quickly filling them in on what she'd already told Kate about the new kids that year, for several minutes, until the bus pulled up. Kate was the first one to notice – she pointed up at it, simply stating, "Bus." In the few seconds it took Kevin and Jenny to disentangle themselves, Kate and Madison had already hurried up the stairs and in the door. Kevin and Jenny hurried in after them as the two slid into a seat near the back; they took the seat across the aisle, and Madison continued chatting with them as the bus began to move, carrying the four friends towards their first day as seniors.