Laine hiked up Stacey's miniskirt up a good two extra inches. "You're wearing that all wrong," she complained.
"Wrong? It's already short enough. Soon everyone will be able to see my thong," she retorted.
"Fine, trade with me then. You can wear my jeans."
Stacey didn't really want to wear Laine's jeans, but she also didn't want to wear her hoochified Laine-style skirt. They quickly exchanged outfits back to back and then turned to look at themselves in Laine's floor length lighted mirror.
"Much better," Laine commented, smoothing the skirt down to release the tiniest of wrinkles. They each grabbed their purses and walked to the sidewalk in front of the building, waiting for Laine's driver to shuttle them downtown.
The band they were seeing, Lucky Strike, was just about to become big in New York. So far, no one had seen them live before; the only reason Laine was able to get the tickets was because her dad had an in with the band's manager. Still, it was rumored that the band had a great new sound, a blend of soul and ska and dance. Although Stacey had her usual complaint of being exhausted, she was incredibly excited to go out and see this band.
As they stepped out the door, Laine winked at Stacey. "Girl, we are going to have fun tonight!"
And Stacey believed her. She pushed aside thoughts of the lab she had to catch up on and the possible pop quiz in French. Maybe she'd just get her dad to call her in sick instead.
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Kristy felt a manic burst of energy as she left the Pike house. Though her brother Sam was waiting in the driveway to pick her up, what she wanted to do most was to run all the way across town to her house.
The rest of the night had passed awkwardly, to say the least. After helping Claire get cleaned up, Mal started a game of Cranium with the girls, and Kristy played video games with the boys. This was so different than she had ever wanted her babysitting jobs to run. Wasn't the point of the BSC to engage their charges in activities instead of sitting around and playing video games?
But again, she thought as she flung herself into the Junk Bucket (recently passed on from Charlie, who was away at Pepperdine for college), the BSC was over with. She may never baby-sit for anyone other than her family ever again.
At least Adam was doing okay. He came home with a brand new cast, which the Pike kids clamored to sign first. As soon her family came in the door, Mal shot Kristy a look that said, Don't tell my family anything. The Pikes paid Kristy nicely, with a $10 tip for coming at such short notice.
"Hope you win that short story contest, Mal!" Kristy called as she sprinted outside to Sam's waiting car. She hadn't been able to catch the look on Mal's face, but she could imagine it was just priceless.
As Sam and Kristy drove through town, the conversation between them was quite stilted. Ever since Sam had started dating Shannon, she wasn't really sure what to say to her brother. He would often pump Kristy for information about her past boyfriends and what she was like as a member of the BSC. Kristy barely knew how to answer these questions; Shannon was always great at keeping her personal life quiet and sharing only the minute details of her overachieving lifestyle.
There were a lot of perks to Sam's relationship with Shannon, though. Shannon brought out a much more serious side in Sam. It made Kristy respect her brother a lot more, especially since he needed to earn so much more of her trust back from the past few years.
What Kristy really didn't like to talk about was how her brother was in trouble a few years back. While he was in high school, Sam was involved with an experimental crowd. She didn't know specifically what sorts of drugs that Sam had been on at the time, but she knew that they had taken her brother away for a while. He would come home at all hours of the night, eyes dilated, with a bright smile on his face. "Hey Kris, good morning!" he would call, barging into her room at three in the morning. That was at his best. His worst was when Kristy found him slumped over his desk with a suspicious bag of powder. "Want some?" he had asked plainly. "I don't mind sharing."
Kristy had never hit anyone before, but that night, she slapped her brother so hard that her parents heard the crack in the other room. And that was how Watson and Elizabeth had found out about Sam's late night habit, the one that Kristy had tried to conceal in hopes of Sam kicking it on his own.
Sam had spent a month in a rehab facility known as Stoneybrook Glen, or as her family called it, "on vacation." This phrase was used in sentences such as "How's Sam's vacation?" or "When will Sam's vacation be over?" The Brewer-Thomases had done a great job of keeping Sam's addictions quiet, with no one outside of the immediate family knowing. Kristy had visited him there exactly one time, when Sam couldn't look her in the eye. She knew that he didn't blame her, but it was too much to handle at the time.
Sam had been sober for a little over a year now, but Kristy still watched him for signs of relapse. Just the other day, he had come home with red-rimmed eyes. "It's just my allergies," he snapped when Kristy gave him a questioning look. Still, she believed him when he said he was done, so she would just have to trust him.
And then, Shannon became a factor in the equation. Sam had always been friendly to her, but he hadn't really noticed her until a few years back. Sure, Sam had casually dated some of Kristy's friends before (Stacey being the most serious relationship of the bunch), but Kristy had never seen her brother act the way that he did with Shannon. It didn't hurt that Shannon had morphed into quite the bombshell over the past few years, which was probably what had enticed Sam in the first place. She had once confessed to Kristy that she had gotten a nose job simply because everyone kept saying it was "ski-jump cute!" But Shannon wasn't as uptight or vain as she seemed. She was much more relaxed and fun now, yet still kept her grades stellar and her life in perfect order. Kristy envied her more than anyone else she knew.
Plus, Shannon helped keep Sam in line. She had once confessed to Kristy that half the time they were locked up in Sam's room, she was helping him study and catch up in his classes. Of course, the other half of the time was occupied as well, Shannon had winked at her. Kristy had almost felt like vomiting but reminded herself what a good influence that Shannon was on Sam.
"So, did Shannon say anything to you about the party this weekend?" Sam asked.
"Yep, she mentioned it. Did you figure out a day yet?"
"I'm thinking Saturday. There's a game tomorrow night, so most people will be busy with that. So Saturday sounded good."
Kristy weighed her words carefully. "And you're going to be … okay … at this party, right? You aren't inviting any of your old friends from…before?"
Sam scowled for an instant, then smiled. "No Kris, none of that. It's going to be your normal high school party. A few kegs, some mixed drinks, and lots of body shots. Well, hopefully lots of body shots!"
"Gross!" Kristy groaned.
"Hey, thanks for being so cool about this. I mean, Shannon and I totally thought that you wouldn't be down for having people over."
Kristy was slightly offended until she realized that Sam was completely right. The old Kristy would have hated throwing a party when her parents weren't home and would have tried to do anything to stop it. "Well, what can I say? Let's take advantage of Mom and Watson being out of town, for once!"
Sam high-fived her and did some sort of complicated handshake that she couldn't follow. They spend the rest of the ride home in comfortable silence. Kristy couldn't believe she was admitting this, but she was actually looking forward to the weekend now.
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Claudia was working on a series of still charcoals for her favorite class, Studio Art. She had her radio on, which was blaring the latest songs from the local college station. She was completely in her zone, shading, smudging, and blending the charcoal as she worked. Though she wasn't doing well in any of her other classes, she knew that she would get an A on this assignment. She always got As in art classes.
The mood was broken as Mary Anne burst through Claudia's closed door, not even bother to knock. She looked around Claud's room frantically as if searching for some sort of answer.
"You have to help me!" Mary Anne begged. She took a step closer to Claudia's desk, and Claud took a good look at her. "Geez, Mary Anne, are you okay?" Her face was red and puffy, and she looked like she had sprinted all the way to Claudia's house. Plus, her clothes were torn up. "Have you been in an accident or something?"
Mary Anne glanced down at her ripped jeans and laughed harshly. "No, I didn't. Claud, you have to help me."
Claud hated to see her friend beg, even if she hadn't spent any quality time with Mary Anne in the past few years. There had been a slight break in the group when Claudia began dating Alan, which was intensified even more after Claudia and Alan broke up. When the two first began dating, Mary Anne had planned numerous double dates for the couples to go on. Of course, all of this was fun for a little while, but Claudia and Alan craved some alone time to let their relationship grow further. When Claudia tried to explain this to Mary Anne in a note, the words came out wrong and made it seem like Claudia didn't have fun on any of the dates or appreciate Mary Anne's effort. Since then, Mary Anne had been slightly cool and aloof towards Claudia, though never unfriendly. Even when Claudia had tried to invite Mary Anne and Logan out after writing her note, things were never the same.
And then there was the whole Stacey incident. But Claudia didn't want to think about that, so she pushed it from her mind. Putting down her charcoal and turning to Mary Anne, she asked, "What do you need help with?"
"I'm sorry to burst in on your like this," Mary Anne said, looking slightly embarrassed. "It's just…well, I needed someone to talk to. Someone who wasn't Dawn. And Kristy is impossible to have a normal conversation with these days."
"Yeah, no kidding," Claudia replied, thinking of how difficult Kristy had become. Any conversation with her over the past few years was businesslike and formal. "So what's up?"
"I'm just…in a rut."
"That's it? Mary Anne, I could have told you that you were in a rut for years. I thought something was seriously wrong!"
Mary Anne said sarcastically, "Thanks Claud. I mean, it is sort of important to me, you know."
"I'm just kind of weirded out, that's all. I mean, we've barely spoken in months, and you come running through my door."
"I love this song!" Mary Anne said, turning up the radio and dodging Claud's question. "So, can you help me or not?"
"I'm not agreeing with anything until you tell me what it is that you need me to do," Claud replied. Mary Anne started thumbing through Claud's closet, pulling out things that she liked.
"I need you to give me a makeover."
Claudia burst out laughing. "That's all this is about? I've wanted to give you a makeover for years." Immediately, she stopped dwelling on why Mary Anne showed up and became lost in the process. After all, she was lonely and could use a friend. Not that Mary Anne could ever fill Stacey's place, but she was happy to see her being friendly again, if a bit manic.
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Well, hair and makeup definitely. And maybe my clothes…I'm not sure what to do about them. I ripped them up a lot."
"Hmm… we can work with the ripped up, I think. Preppy can be cool if you do it in the right way. But let's do your hair first."
It was the ultimate girl's night in. Claud worked on makeup for a while, giving Mary Anne cast offs of makeup she had barely used. The hair was a bit trickier. "I cut Janine's hair all the time, though," Claud assured her. Mary Anne had a momentary vision of Janine's bowl cut and thick bangs and shuddered. "Not that I'll give you that same cut or anything."
She began working, quickly measuring and cutting off long chunks of dull brown hair. "This looks pretty good."
And it did. After twenty minutes, Mary Anne's hair was cut in a choppy, Ashlee Simpson looking bob. "I love it," Mary Anne breathed. Claudia released a sigh of relief that she didn't know she was holding in.
"So, what do you think? Should we dye it too?"
"Yes! Yes, we have to!"
"Okay," Claud said, pulling on her shoes. "Let's run to the store and pick out some color.
When they were done, Mary Anne's once-dull hair was a shiny blue-black. "It looks really, really good," Claudia commented.
"Thanks, Claud," Mary Anne whispered, twirling a newly shortened lock around her finger. "I absolutely love it. I feel so different."
Though Claudia had had her doubts that the night would end well, she had ended up having a good time. As Mary Anne let herself out of the room, she called, "Thanks again! Let's have lunch together tomorrow."
And although Claudia hated to admit it, what with Mary Anne's cold shoulder for as long as she could remember, she was really looking forward to lunch tomorrow.
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"The band is hot!" Stacey called to Laine, already halfway through her second martini. Lucky Strike had just taken the stage, and the girls pushed their way to get to the front of the crowd.
"Can you believe how crowded it is?" Laine screamed over the din.
"And hot!" Stacey added, trying to fan her drenched shirt over her sweaty skin.
The band launched into their second song, and Stacey was dancing before she even realized. Her cranberry drink sloshed the front of Laine's jeans, but she figured that Laine wouldn't care. She edged up even closer to the front and took a good look at the guys, drinking them in.
"I know that guy!" she shouted to Laine.
"What!"
"That guy, the lead singer. I met him once in California. His name is…I can't remember. He had some sort of goofy nickname."
Ducky took center stage and started yet another song. Laine licked her lips. "Now he is on my agenda for tonight," she purred.
Stacey knew she had to call Dawn as soon as possible. But as she whipped out her cell phone, she realized that she had no service. Oh well. She'd have to remember to call her in the morning. But either way, she was going to have fun tonight.