Gorgeous by Rachel Vail Page B

mildly,” she said. “My parents are all, like, ‘It was just bad luck. Or a tough year.’ A lot of the schools are like eenie-meenie-miney-moe, my mom says, and apparently I just was never moe.”
    “Eh,” I said. “Who’d want to be moe, anyway? Moe blows.”
    She smiled a little. “Or maybe I’m just stupid.”
    “You are so not stupid!” I swabbed my face with my sweatshirt.
    “Yeah, well, my former right-handed man was telling me about her cousin who got rejected from everywhere, and that everybody was all, ‘It was a tough year,’ but in truth it’s just that the cousin was kind of dim.”
    “Your former right-handed man has no cheese on her cracker.” I put my half-full cup down on the pavement with my shaking hands while Roxie chuckled. “Or whatever you said before. Your parents are completely right. You are so obviously smart it’s ridiculous.”
    “I guess it’s just easier to believe the bad stuff,” Roxie said.
    “Yeah, well,” I started, knowing exactly how she felt. “Maybe you just have to get over that.”
    Roxie looked up at the sky. “Easy to say.”
    I accidentally kicked over my cup with my jiggling foot and said, “I think there’s a lot of caffeine in this.”
    Roxie cracked up and said, “You think?” She grabbed the empty cup and tossed it into the wire trash can beside us. “Doppio macchiato!”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I actually have no idea what it is.”
    She laughed loud and hard. “It’s a double shot of espresso!”
    “Yeah, well, it tastes like crude oil.”
    “Forget Alison with one L,” Roxie said, wiping tears from her eyes but still laughing. “From now on, I call you Double Shot.”
    “If I die of a heart attack here, don’t tell my mother I got my picture taken, okay?”
    She looked at me, full of concern. “You look like hell.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    She helped me up and we walked awhile. I started feeling better after maybe five blocks, but I kept my arm around her shoulder for a few more anyway. When we got to Grand Central Terminal, we were still ten minutes early, so we sat on the sidewalk leaning against each other.
    “Thanks,” Roxie said.
    “For practically passing out?”
    “No,” she said. “For not being all, ‘You are so dumb no high school wanted you, you loser.’”
    “It was easy. I don’t think that.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I’m glad you moved, even if you’re not. What would I be doing if you’d gotten into one of those stupid private schools?”
    “Not having heart palpitations on the sidewalk?” she offered. “Hanging out with Jade and Hyena?”
    “Serena.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “So, lucky for me you weren’t moe.”
    She smiled at me, that radiant smile that got her into all those toy catalogues and pajama ads. “You could totally do commercials,” she said.
    “Could not,” I said, and then put on a fake smile and said, all cheery, “I just love fast food!” Then I laughed. “No way.”
    “Don’t mock,” she said. “You have a cool look.”
    “Ugh.”
    “Seriously,” she said. “You, my friend, are cooler than the other side of the pillow.”
    That cracked me up until she started looking at me the way the woman at the photo shoot had, like I wasn’t inside my own skin. “You have a really cool look, plus, you’re gorgeous.”
    “Well, if I am, it cost me my cell phone.”
    “What did?”
    “Nothing,” I said.
    “Come on,” she said, leaning close and searching my eyes. “What cost you what?”
    I sighed. “I sold my cell phone to the devil and in exchange, seven—well, maybe six—people will think I’m gorgeous. So if you think I’m gorgeous, that only leaves me five more people.”
    “Holy crap,” she said. “You know the devil! Really?”
    “Obviously not really. That’s the dream I had the other night. Weird, right? The devil was in my bedroom. Wonder what my ex-shrink would say about that!”
    “So was it real or a dream, then?”
    “Come on,