Don't You Wish by Roxanne St. Claire

go. Bliss is waiting for us. She went to the Falls yesterday and totally scored at Bloomie’s.”
    “Scored what?”
    “Jewelry, I think. She’s in our bathroom.”
    “We have our own bathroom?”
    Jade lets out a hoot of laughter. “Oh, my God. I love you today.” Around the corner, Jade smacks open a heavy mahogany door marked ELEVENTH-GRADE LADIES and stares down a group of five or six girls inside. “Out, stat.” She flicks her fingers like they are no more than annoying mosquitoes.
    I feel my jaw drop at the order, but they look from her to me and start to gather their things.
    Am I a mean bitch or what?
    “Cute top, Ayla,” one says, the words barely audible.
    “Thanks,” I reply brightly, earning a look of shock and awe from her and a few others.
    “I like Juicy Couture,” another says.
    Jade chokes softly. “Pedestrian. Told you.”
    The second girl’s face explodes crimson as she reaches down for a flute case. My heart squeezes in sympathy.
    “Are you in band?” I ask her.
    She looks up, clearly not trusting this exchange. She expects me to zing her, I realize.
    “Uh-huh,” she says, swallowing and switching the case to the other hand.
    “Flute?”
    “Yeah.”
    I give her a friendly pat on the arm. “The heart of the orchestra, I always say.”
    Her mouth drops open a little, but the others have left, and Jade snaps her fingers in the girl’s face. “Cease and desist, Flute Fly. My friend here ate way too much sugar for breakfast.”
    The girl says nothing but moves to the door, studying me, still trying to decide, I think, if that exchange was for real or not.
    As she opens the door, I can’t help asking, “Hey, what’s your name?”
    “Candi.” She’s hesitant, like that beaten dog Jade mentioned. “Candi Woodward.”
    “I’m Ayla Monroe.”
    She laughs uneasily. “I know.”
    “Out, Candi Cane,” Jade orders. “And do your new best friend, Ayla, here a favor and stand guard. Send any more like you away until we come out. Got it?”
    She nods.
Jeez, grow a spine, Candi
.
    The last stall door pops open, and a blond head pokes out. “What is all the locomotion out there?”
    “Ayla dropped some ‘nice’ pills this morning,” Jade says, giving me a withering look. “Are you running for class president or something?”
    “Something,” I say, cursing myself for being such a loser. Popular girls don’t act like that. I have to at least pretend I belong in the bathroom with them, or I’ll be out with Candi and the rest of the music geeks playing palace guard before this dream is over.
    “Get in here,” the girl in the stall orders. “And look what I got you girls.”
    “Bliss Tremaine for the win!” Jade says, scampering toward the stall.
    I follow, peeking in to see a cloth draped over the closed toilet seat, and gold on top of it. A couple pairs of earrings, a bracelet, and a long, heavy chain.
    “Nice!” Jade says. “I call the hoops.” Then she inches aside to make room for me. “Unless you want them, Ayla.”
    I glance at the jewelry and at the petite girl with long blond hair and big eyes a blue I’ve never seen on anything but a doll or a colored contact lens ad. Bliss crosses her arms and adds a smug smile.
    “I know. My expertee knows no boundage.”
    Expertee
?
Boundage
? What language does this girl speak? She ignores my look of dismay and gives me a nudge. “Take what you want, Ayla.”
    “It’s free?”
    They both laugh so sharply and loudly, it startles me.
    “You are hi-
lar-
ious, girl,” Jade says with an elbow to my arm.
    “How’d you …” I manage to gulp the cocktail of fear and excitement that rises in my throat. “Get it?”
    Bliss shrugs. “Fire alarm went off in Bloomie’s last night. I walked out with two grand in gold.” She brushes her knuckles and blows on them, reminding me of Trent at breakfast. “Beats the eighteen hundred you did in Bal Harbour last week. So, dude, consider this a challenge to top.”
    I stole