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Charlotte flushed with pleasure. “It’s just like putting on eyeliner,” she said.
“Okay, girls,” Madeline interrupted. “We have party details to figure out. It’s a week away, and we’re running out of time.”
Party? Emma almost said out loud, then remembered that Charlotte’s parents were out of town next weekend.
Charlotte propped her chin on her perfectly manicured hand. “I know a guy who can get us a few kegs. That and my parents’ liquor cabinet should be enough.”
Emma tilted her head. “Won’t your parents notice if anything goes missing?”
Charlotte snorted. “Please. They go through Tanqueray like water.”
“What about food?” Madeline asked.
Charlotte shrugged. “We’ll get some platters at AJ’s. I’ve been jonesing for their Brie en croûte, anyway.”
Emma reached for the container of blue glaze, thinking about the parties she’d attended in her old life, where party snacks pretty much consisted of Doritos, Oreos, or a big bowl of Starbursts. She tried to picture Sutton’s friends at one of those parties and nearly burst out laughing.
Suddenly, the telltale jingle of silver on silver made her look up. Celeste stood at the door to the studio in a long loose tunic embroidered with shiny metallic thread, Garrett at her side. She leaned up and planted a wet, lingering kiss on his lips, then shot a pointed glance at Emma, as if to rub in the fact that she was with Sutton’s ex.
“Thanks for walking me to class,” she cooed, her voice low and dreamy.
Garrett touched one of her braids. “See you soon,” he said huskily. She hung on the doorjamb after he left, watching him until he disappeared around the corner.
Madeline’s jaw dropped open. Charlotte threw her brush on the table in disgust, then peered at Emma. “Um, why aren’t you more pissed?”
Emma shrugged, unscrewing the lid to the glaze. “I saw them last night at Saks. Apparently, they’re a thing now.”
Charlotte balled up her fist. “Well, he’s clearly going out with her just to get back at you, Sutton. There’s no way he actually likes her.”
Laurel cleared her throat. “Apparently, a lot of the guys think she’s really cute.” All heads whipped around to face her. She shrugged. “Thayer says they’re all talking about her, anyway.”
“Does Thayer think she’s cute?” Emma asked, wrinkling her nose. Celeste didn’t seem like his type.
Laurel rolled her eyes. “He says, and I quote, ‘She’s got a celestial body.’”
“Ew!” I said aloud, though no one heard me. That didn’t sound like Thayer at all.
Celeste entered the room, drifted to the rack of fired pottery, and removed a bowl, the bells at her ankles jingling with every move. On her way back to her seat, she paused at Emma’s table. She looked at Emma searchingly, as if she were trying to make her out through a dense fog.
“Can I help you?” Emma said acidly, suddenly on the defensive. She wasn’t ready for another baffling Celeste confrontation.
“I just wish I could help you,” Celeste breathed. Madeline and Charlotte exchanged glances, arching their eyebrows. “Laugh all you will,” Celeste said to them, “but Sutton’s aura is in dire need of healing energy. Somewhere along the way, maybe in a past life, her spirit has been fractured. That’s why it’s so hard for you to be emotionally generous,” she said to Emma in a sickly sweet tone.
“I hear you’re getting pretty emotionally generous with Sutton’s ex,” Charlotte spat. “Hope your birthday’s coming up. He gives pretty good presents.”
Madeline and Laurel both snorted with laughter.
Celeste just smiled knowingly, her gaze still on Emma. “Secrets will out, Sutton Mercer. You’ve been warned.” With that, she drifted past them in a wave of patchouli.
The words hit Emma like a brick. Secrets were the only thing keeping her alive.
“What’s her problem?” Charlotte whispered.
“Yeah, did you hurt her in a past life or something, Sutton?” Madeline joked.
“I don’t know,” Emma said, feeling uneasy. “But she definitely has it in for me.”
They stared at Celeste, who’d found a spot at a table full of boys, all of whom were now surreptitiously ogling her. One of them, a junior who wore his hair in an emo shag over his left eye, leaned over to inspect the bowl she was painting, using the opportunity to look down her shirt.
“You know what I’ve been thinking?” Madeline said, her voice dropping low. “I think we’re overdue for a Lying Game prank. And I think our next victim may have just fallen right in our lap.”
The other three girls all leaned imperceptibly toward Madeline, eyes flashing in breathless excitement. But Emma still felt torn. The Lying Game’s pranks sometimes made her uncomfortable—she’d been on the receiving end of popular kids’ cruelty too many times back in Nevada. She couldn’t shake a feeling of guilt whenever she participated.
“This school’s cafeteria is totally disappointing,” Celeste was saying to an athletic boy across the room. “In Taos, my school only sold organic produce, and all of the entrées were farm-to-table.”
“Cool,” the boy said. As if he really cared.
“And there are so many snack machines in this place,” Celeste went on. “It’s disgusting. You know those things are full of toxins—plus, they make you overweight.” Her gaze slid to Beth Franklin, a sweet but slightly heavy girl who was munching on a bag of vending machine pretzels at the next table. Beth turned purple and shoved the pretzels back into her bag.
