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"Hey," said Kathryn. She tossed her Prada bag on the table and dropped into a chair.

"Hey," said the other girl, tossing her own Prada bag down and collapsing into a chair next to

Kathryn.

"Hey," I said. Madison and Jessica said, "Hi."

"So, what's up?" Kathryn asked, like her sitting with and talking to us was something that

happened every day.

"Not a whole lot," said Madison, playing the same game of pretend. "What's up with you?"

"Not much," said Kathryn. She looked over at me. "I like your shirt," she said.

"Oh, thanks." I was wearing an ancient Ramones T-shirt my dad got at a concert back before I

was born. My mom had tie-dyed it all these wild, psychedelic colors. It's pretty faded now, but I

still like it.

"So, you're going out with Connor," she said.

Was she asking me or telling me?

"Yeah, she's going out with Connor," Jessica piped up. She spoke defensively, like Kathryn had

better watch herself.

Kathryn laughed. "Chill," she said to Jessica. Then she turned to me. "Connor's adorbs. He's practically like my brother." She laughed. "And anyway, I don't go out with high-school guys."

She laughed again, and so did the rest of us, as if the idea that Kathryn Ford would date a high-

school guy was nothing short of hilarious. When we all stopped laughing,

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Kathryn bumped her beautiful friend's shoulder. "No offense," she said. "None taken," purred the beautiful girl, and the two of them started laughing again.

"Anyway," Kathryn continued, "I just wanted to know if you need a ride to the game Friday."

"Oh, no," said Madison. "We're good."

Kathryn kept looking at me, as if Madison hadn't even spoken. "Thanks," I said evenly. "We're all set."

"Suit yourself," said Kathryn. She stretched her arms over her head, and her tiny tee slid up to reveal her perfectly flat stomach. "I guess we'll see you there."

"Yeah, sure," I said.

As soon as they were gone, Madison turned to me. "She is such a phony." She made her voice high and squeaky. "'Do you need a ride? Connor's practically my brother. I like your shirt.' God."

"I know," Jessica said. "Adorbs? Puh-leeze."

I didn't say much as the conversation wound past all the ways Kathryn Ford was a phony, two-

faced hypocrite who wasn't nearly as pretty as she thought she was. Because there was only one

aspect of Kathryn Ford's phony, two-faced, hypocrisy that had the slightest effect on me.

I don't go out with high-school guys.

Somehow I got the feeling that if Kathryn ever decided to change her policy, I was going to be in

serious trouble.

***

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Friday afternoon a few people had stayed in the studio after class ended, including Sam Wolff.

Except for me and Sam, everyone was talking more than they were working. Sam was focusing

really hard on his painting, and I was focusing really hard on the clock, wishing the hour I'd

sworn to spend drawing would pass faster. And it wasn't just because I had zero ideas for my

self-portrait. All I could think about were my plans for the night. I'd take the late bus, which left

at five and would get me home at five-thirty, plenty of time to shower, get dressed, and let my

hair dry before Madison and Jessica picked me up at seven. Not only was tonight a crucial game

for making the states, there was a huge party afterward at some senior's house. And the coach had promised the guys that if they won, they could have a night with no curfew. Needless to say, I

wasn't going to be mentioning that to Mara. Just thinking of all the hours I'd get to make out with Connor gave me goose bumps. I wanted it to be five o'clock now.

At four fifty-five, I grabbed my bag and Connor's jacket, shoved my sketch pad in my drawer,

and started for the door. As I passed his easel, I couldn't help noticing the painting Sam was

working on.

"Wow," I said. It was a still life of a dining room table after a massive meal has just been

consumed-- there were half-eaten plates of pasta, empty serving dishes, crumpled napkins, and

abandoned knives and forks. The painting was spectacular: a still life in tiny, colorful squares. I

leaned in to see the squares up close

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and realized the designs in them weren't just designs; each was actually a tiny image. The wine

bottle was made of bunches of grapes, the melting ice cubes were actually a minute, snow-

capped mountain range. Stepping back from the finished section of the painting you saw the

contour of each thing made from the shapes and shades within the squares. Only when you were

standing right at the canvas could you see the specifics of the little images.

"That's amazing." I wanted to touch the rich, thick paint. "You know who it reminds me of?

Chuck Close." Chuck Close is an artist I'd first seen years ago, when my dad and I made a pre-

Mara trip to New York and went to the Museum of Modern Art. Ever since then he's been one of

my favorite artists. Close does the same thing Sam had done, squares of shapes and colors that

create a figurative image.

Sam didn't say anything. In fact, he didn't even look at me.

Once again I felt what I'd felt that day in the museum: the urge to put him in his place. "You

know," I said, "it's customary to acknowledge when someone directly addresses you. It's called

being polite."

He didn't move his eyes from his easel. "I wasn't exactly ready to have a public viewing."

The truth was Ms. Daniels always made kind of a big deal about not looking at other people's

artwork before they were ready to show it.

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"Oh," I said. "Well, sorry."

Sam nodded and looked back at his painting. Whatever. He probably hadn't even heard of Chuck

Close. And why did he have to act like I'd gone snooping through his drawer? Would it have

killed him to just say thank you? I mean, is that so much to ask for? Thank you.

I walked out of the room without saying good-bye, making it to the late bus just as the driver was

shutting the doors.

I could hear Avril Lavigne blasting from the Princesses' room as soon as I opened the front door.

Sometimes I think my stepsisters aren't actually people so much as the epicenter of some cultural

Venn diagram.

As if in response to my thinking about them, both Princesses stuck their heads out of their room

and, spying me in the entrance foyer, came racing down the stairs. They were wearing vaguely

nautical velvet dresses.

"You guys going sailing?" I asked, hanging Connor's jacket in the closet.

Their dresses--one blue, the other red--were a kind of horrible variation on a theme. The tight

velvet clung to their bodies, which lacked a crucial curve or two. Both girls wore heavy blue eye

shadow and sparkles on their cheekbones, and coming down the stairs, each teetered slightly in

her platform shoes. When they were just a few feet away, I saw their dresses still had the tags on

them.

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Princess Two was brushing Princess One's hair, which was growing increasingly frizzy with

each stroke.

"Mom's really pissed," Princess One informed me. Then she raised her eyebrows and sighed, cultivating a bored supermodel mid-photo-shoot look.