The Exile of Gigi Lane Read online

  Fiona steps so close to me I can smell her perfume, the brand of which I never find, no matter how many bottles I sniff at the mall. The scent is like a mix of gardenias and oligarchy.

  “You’ll wash the car,” Fiona orders quietly, looking directly into my eyes. “And clean out the trunk. And when you’re done, you will wait outside the DOS for further instructions.”

  Aloha pretends to stifle her groan when Fiona mentions the Den of Secrecy, and when Poppy, Cassandra, and Fiona all level their stares in her direction, Aloha just smirks at her shoes.

  Fiona looks at me. “Control your Hopefuls, Lane.”

  I nod, swallowing against the dryness in my throat. “Aloha,” I say, turning toward her. “School song. Five times.”

  Aloha snorts.

  Fiona glares at me, raising her eyebrows.

  “In Latin,” I add, “and backward.”

  Fiona nods her approval and walks away, followed by Poppy and Cassandra. We stand watching them, their perfect hair, their perfect posture, cutting a perfect silhouette of popularity for us to step into next year.

  Aloha stops reciting as soon as the three are in the building, and wrinkles her nose. “This car smells like ass.”

  “It’s got a bad case of the funk,” Deanna agrees, kicking a piece of something smooshy off the front tire. “Did she make you drive through the dump on the way back from New Hampshire?”

  I shake my head. “We used my car for New Hampshire. I dropped her back here to pick up her car.”

  “Why’d you go to New Hampshire?” Aloha asks.

  “That’s classified and you know it,” I snap. “Go get the hose.”

  Aloha stares at me for a long moment.

  “The hose, Aloha,” I say firmly.

  After she stomps off toward the shed, Deanna sighs.

  “What?” I ask, already defensive.

  “You could have told her,” she reasons. “You told me.”

  I shrug. “She doesn’t deserve to know. You saw the way she acted, she was a total embarrassment.”

  “She’s just being herself.”

  “Exactly,” I agree. “An embarrassment.”

  The car does stink, inside and out. We take turns holding our breath and leaning into the trunk, the portable hand vacuum bucking as it sucks up bits of glass, metal, and unidentifiable gunk. We spray the whole trunk down with carpet cleaner and scrub, and then stretch an extension cord from the basement so we can blow-dry it with the emergency hair dryer I keep in my trunk.

  By the time we’re done, it’s almost 7:00 a.m., and we still have to find the Den of Secrecy, the Hot Spot’s secret meeting room. There are tons of rumors about what’s inside—a tanning booth; a movie theater; a trampoline; hammocks slung between imported palm trees; a 360-degree mirror box so you can check out what other people really see when they look at your ass; a pool; a kitchen loaded with goodies; a bathroom fully stocked with every cream, lotion, and serum you could ever wish for; and a walk-in closet filled by the Network every spring and fall with fashions so forward no one outside of Europe has even seen them yet.

  The deal is Head Hottie gets the key to the DOS the first day of senior year. Unless the Hopefuls can find it before the end of the Founder’s Ball. If we find it first, we get to spend the rest of the year hanging out in the DOS with this year’s Hot Spot.

  “You scabs ready for another exercise in futility?” Aloha asks once we’re on the landing of the narrow back staircase.

  “Perk up, pups,” Deanna chirps. “I bet this time we find it.”

  Aloha rolls her eyes. “It’s so cute the way you’re delusional.”

  We decide to look on Founder’s Path, the long hallway that marks the old path from the main house to the shed where Swans built Ms. Cady’s stunt plane. Now it leads from the senior locker wing to the main entrance of school in the original mansion. Dusting the two dozen Ms. Cady portraits that line Founder’s Path is one of the first duties first-years get, and I remember staring in awe at the various images as I ran my dust cloth over the lines and curves of the gilded frames.

  “Let’s check behind the paintings again,” I decide once we’re there, peeking behind an eight-foot-tall portrait of Ms. Cady standing next to a giraffe. “Knock on the wall, see if it sounds hollow. There might be a hidden door we missed last time.”

  Aloha snorts. “You really think Fiona hoists herself through a hole in the wall to get to the DOS?”

  “Shut your piehole and knock, Aloha,” I snap, moving on to peek behind a cubist rendition of Ms. Cady jumping out of a biplane. “Unless you have a better idea.”

  Aloha leans on the wall in front of me, blocking my way. “Oh, I have lots of ideas, Gigi. You have no idea what great ideas I have.”

  I hear someone walking up behind me and turn to see Daphne “Dog Face” Hall stop dead in her tracks, as if my gaze has frozen her to the spot.

  “Gross!” I gasp, looking at her.

  She blinks.

  Deanna looks up from the portrait she’s checking to shoot me a warning look, and starts hurrying toward us. “Hey, Daphne,” she says with a smile, “what’s up?”

  “Um … ,” Daphne mumbles. “I’m just going to the art room.”

  I can feel a familiar, prickling heat rush up over my scalp. I make a shooing motion with my hands. “So, go then.”

  Daphne doesn’t move, she just stares at me, blinking.

  The heat lets loose and washes over me, sinking into my skin, incinerating my insides until my ears whoosh with the sounds of liquid fury.

  “Get your fat ass off Founder’s Path, you stupid, ugly troll,” I hiss. I step closer to her, going in for the kill. “You’re using the wrong moisturizer, and you have stubby eyelashes.”

  “Dude!” Deanna says, smacking me on the arm. “Don’t be a dick!”

  Daphne backs away and then turns, breaking into a herky-jerky train wreck of a run toward the arts wing.

  “She started it,” I huff, my body cooling as Daphne runs out of sight.

  “She’s got a face like a popped zit.” Aloha yawns.

  “You’re both evil tarts,” Deanna says, “and you’re going straight to hell.”

  Aloha nudges Deanna with her hip. “Then why are you friends with us?”

  Without thinking, Deanna says, “Because if I wasn’t around, they’d burn you at the stake for bitchcraft.”

  “Oh, crap,” Aloha groans. Too late, I see Ms. Carlisle, our headmistress and resident fashion don’t, walking toward us. There’s a reason that in the “Letter from the Headmistress” section of our brochure there’s just a picture of the nameplate on her office door.

  She’s wearing a lavender skirt suit that I am sure is made of polyester. She adjusts her giant vinyl purse, causing the suit jacket to fall open.

  “Ew!” Aloha laughs into her hands, covering it with a fake sneeze, as we all try to look away from Ms. Carlisle’s too snug skirt. Its waist is directly beneath her chest, and the skirt squeezes its way down her pouchy stomach, over her bulging thighs, to end in a hideous, flouncing petal-cut hem at her knees.

  “Good morning, ladies,” she crows, smiling so wide her smudged plastic glasses slip down to the tip of her nose. I try not to flinch at the brown stains on her snaggled teeth. I can’t believe that’s the public face of Swan’s Lake.

  “Good morning, Headmistress,” we answer in unison.

  “And what are you ladies up to so early this morning?” Ms. Carlisle starts rifling through her ugly purse, digging in up to her elbow.

  “Student Council meeting,” Deanna says brightly.

  “That’s nice, dears. You know, Ms. Cady was a big fan of the saying ‘The early bird gets the worm.’”

  Aloha grumbles, “She probably ate them.”

  If Ms. Carlisle hears, she doesn’t show it. We rush out a quick good-bye as she pulls out her office key, and make our way to the main entrance.

  We pass by the main double doors to school, and through the mottled colors of the stained glass we can see the two rows of first-years with morning duties lining up on the front steps.

  “Poopers. Foiled again.” Deanna sighs. “We’re never going to find the DOS.”

  “Nonsense,” I snap. “We’re not going to be the first Hottie Hopefuls in the history of Swan’s Lake to not find the DOS before the Founder’s Ball. Now, where are they?”

  “Here.” We look to where Fiona is walking down the wide, curving main staircase into the entrance hall, her hand running lightly along the dark, polished banister. Cassandra and Poppy follow. “We’re here.” Cassandra glowers at us as they reach the bottom. “Where were you?”

  “We finished the car,” Deanna offers.

  Poppy clucks her tongue. “You were supposed to find us in the DOS.”

  “Yeah, well, we tried.” Aloha smirks. “But we were interrupted.”

  “You’ll have to try harder,” Fiona says. “If you don’t find it, how in the world do you expect to use it next year?”

  “Wait, what?” I jump forward. Fiona narrows her eyes at me. I take a step back. “You said we’d get the location on the first day of school next year. That’s what you read to us from the Hottie Handbook.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Fiona admits after a moment. “But no Incumbent has ever had to wait to be given the location. Usually the Head Hottie Hopeful would have found it by now.”

  Aloha snorts and I shoot her a quick glare.

  “You’re too late now anyway,” Poppy informs us. “The first-years are here. You’ll be supervising them in cleaning the Oriental rugs from the underclassmen locker hall. We’ve given the second-years the morning off from supervising. Find us in the DOS before first period.”

  Aloha snorts again, and Deanna makes a squeaking sound.
r />   Fiona focuses her gaze on me. “I suggest you advise your fellow Incumbents that snorting like a pig or making sweet little baby sounds will not get them out of their responsibilities. If they would rather not be in their current position, they are welcome to clear the cliques and find another home for senior year.”

  This shuts even Aloha up. Clearing the cliques is this completely humiliating process that transfers go through where they spend a week or so with each clique until they settle somewhere near the bottom. Transfers never get top tier. Well, most of them don’t, I think, trying not to snarl at Aloha’s platform wedge sandals. Fiona and the others walk up the staircase, not looking back at us.

  “Do you think the DOS is upstairs, then?” Deanna wonders.

  “Could be,” I say. “But we’ve searched up there a dozen times.”

  Outside the front doors the first-years have started singing our school song, which, following tradition, they will sing louder and louder and more and more obnoxiously until we let them in.

  “‘We are the sisters of the swan!’” they sing. One of them kicks the door.

  Aloha laughs. “Cheeky little brats, aren’t they? Should we let them in or make them chew through the doors?”

  “‘We weave a tapestry of sisterhooooooood!’” the first-years scream from outside, slapping their palms on the mottled glass inlay.

  I nod at Deanna, and she pulls open the doors. Immediately the singing stops, replaced by gasps and squeals of “Dear Heart!” and the mob of girls pushes through the doors, breaking formation in a thundering scuff of ballet flats to surround Deanna.

  “Are you leading duties today?” they ask, their legs still too long for their bodies, their chipmunk cheeks just beginning to thin, their bangs finally growing out from the blunt short cuts that mothers of unfortunate junior-high girls insist on. “Can you teach me to do a back kickover?”

  They are giggly, and earnest, and young. Until they see first me and then Aloha watching them. They swallow their giggles, try to settle their breath. They change the way they stand, the way they tilt their heads. A hush falls over them. They stare at us, flushed and gulping.

  It’s like I’m watching the incarnation of my affirmation. I’m Gigi Lane, and every single one of these Swans wishes they were me.

  “The rugs in the underclassman locker corridor need to be beaten,” I inform them, thrilled at the low, no-nonsense sound of my voice. “There are three rugs. Four of you to a rug. You can bring them out to the garden by the kitchen; there are ropes already strung up for you to hang them. Grab brooms from the kitchen supply cupboard to beat the dust out. Stay away from the Deeks’ courtyard; we don’t want to have to pay a ransom to get you back. You will return the rugs to position by first bell. Understood?”

  They all nod. I stand there, not moving, not speaking for a long moment. Beside me I see Aloha smile at me. I wink at her. “Dismissed.”

  They scatter like marbles.

  A couple of weeks later I’m running down the hall, hoping to get back to Human Biology so I can finish the final before the end of class. Fiona texted me halfway through to tell me to report to the DOS immediately, ignoring the fact we still haven’t found it yet. We’re not allowed to leave class during finals, and Ms. Blackwell refused until I showed her my test and whispered in her ear all the answers to the questions I’d yet to finish. When she finally nodded her approval, I dashed out of class and frantically started running up and down the halls, hoping that by some merciful stroke of luck I’d stumble upon the DOS, but instead I stumble over Beatrice.

  “Shit!” I yell, almost knocking her over, my shoes pulling up the long Oriental rug as I skid to a stop. She grabs my arm, keeping me from falling.

  “Hello, Gigi,” she says when I’ve righted myself.

  “Hey, Beatrice. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing of note.” She helps me straighten the rug. “We’re on a bit of a stakeout.” She looks behind her, and I see the rest of the Vox Foxes leaning in a line against the lockers, one high-heeled foot apiece propped behind them, looking like a chorus line.

  “Ladies.” I nod.

  Fiona says there’s a long history of camaraderie between the Voice of the People and the Hot Spot, so I’ve made it a point to talk to Beatrice and the other Vox Foxes whenever I get the chance. There’s a bit of doublespeak involved, since rushing the Hot Spot is supposed to be a secret endeavor.

  “How’s the end of the year going?” Beatrice asks.

  “Well.” I laugh as I catch my breath. “Actually, I’m running around like an idiot. How about you?”

  “Oh, much better than you.” She chuckles. “We get to stand around like idiots. Are you looking for Fiona?”

  “Maybe … ,” I falter, not wanting to break the first rule of the Hot Spot, which is, of course, don’t talk about the Hot Spot.

  “I think she’s talking to my sister.” Beatrice’s older sister, Beverly, is a senior, the current editor of the Trumpet, and the head of the Vox Foxes.

  “Where?”

  “You think she’d tell us?” Beatrice sighs.

  I sigh. “All right. Well, if you see them—”

  “Heads up,” Beatrice interrupts, turning on her heel to join the other Vox Foxes against the lockers.

  Fiona’s voice comes cracking down the hall. “Where have you been?”

  I groan, and Beatrice gives me a pitying look as her sister and Fiona come walking quickly toward us. “I had to stop waiting for you and go to the meeting without you.”

  “Foxes, let’s go.” Beverly doesn’t stop walking, and the Vox Foxes fall in line behind her.

  Fiona looks at me with such derision there’s nothing I can do but affirm and confirm. I’m Gigi Lane and you wish you were me.

  Fiona looks at her watch. “Don’t you have a biology final to finish? You know our GPA requirements.”

  “You were going to take me to a meeting?” I can’t help but be excited by this turn of events. Meetings mean power. “Are the Foxes in trouble?” I mime a one-two punch. “Did you have to put them in their place?”

  “Gigi,” Fiona snaps, “there is more to the Hot Spot than ‘putting people in their place,’ as you put it. We have a school to run.”

  I nod eagerly. “I understand.”

  She tips her head and studies me. “Do you really?”

  “Of course!” I try for a confident tone, but to be honest, I’m a little taken aback by the intensity of her gaze.

  She dismisses me with a wave of her hand, and I take off at a run back to biology.

  I’m tearing around the corner into the arts wing when I actually do knock someone over.

  “Son of a bitch, that hurt!” Aloha yells, hopping around on one foot, her hands gripping her shin.

  “What are you doing here?” I gasp for breath. “You know the GPA requirements for Hottie Hopefuls! You should be in class.”

  “Relax, Gigi,” she sneers, “I’m just going to take a tinkle, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Aloha,” I groan, “relax, okay? Do we really have to show our teeth whenever Deanna’s not around?”

  “Aw,” Aloha says, laughing, “but what would we have in common if we didn’t hate each other?”

  “I … I don’t hate you,” I stammer, shocked at her words. I’ve always thought Aloha and I had a sort of sibling rivalry that resulted when one sibling was better looking and more successful than the other. There’s not real hatred involved, just well-warranted jealousy.

  “You don’t hate me?” She feigns shock. “Let’s hug and get matching Best Friends Forever necklaces! Oh, wait”—her face warps into a glower—“you already have matching BFF necklaces with Little Miss Sunshine.”

  “Deanna and I both really like you—”

  “Cram it, Georgina,” Aloha snaps. “The only reason I even talk to you is because I want into the Hot Spot.”

  I clear my throat. “First of all, my full name is only for emergencies. Second of all, I’m glad to know your true feelings. I’ll make a note of them.”

  Aloha laughs in my face. “You do that, Gigi. You make all the notes you want.”

  We part ways without another word, and I’m almost back to my class when I hear a lackluster “She’s got spirit, yes she do! She’s got spirit, how ’bout you? It’s Gigi! It’s Gigi!”

  Heidi moves limply through the cheer, her ever-ready pom-poms barely swishing as she raises them over her head before resting her hands on her hips and smirking at me.