The Mosts by Melissa Senate Page B

act, what to say.”
    Wait a minute. Two girls, fine. Now there was a guy in the mix?
    “So you can really teach me how to talk to people?” Joe asked me. “I never know what to say, so I never say anything, and then when I get home, I suddenly think of what I should have said.”
    And yet that was quite a mouthful.
    “With Joe in, your fee can be an even four hundred,” Elinor said. “If that helps.”
    It helped.
    “So do you think you could help me?” he asked. “Be less a total dork? I’m totally aware I am a dork, mostly because I get called a dork loser ten times a day.”
    That had to suck. Worse than being completely ignored and invisible was being tortured.
    “I could try,” I said.
    Joe shrugged. “Okay, I’m in.”
    Elinor did her little clapping jump again. Avery just eyed me.
    Great. Just great. Now there were three.
    When Mandy’s car pulled up, the interns backed away, as they always did, as if they were afraid Caro would wave her magic wand at them and turn them into trolls or something. Mandy’s car was small, a Honda Civic, so it wasn’t like I could invite the interns to ride with us. As if Caro would let them in the car, anyway.
    “God, Madeline,” Caro said as we pulled onto the main road. “Remember when you used to be friends with that weirdo Frizz Puff girl?” She slicked on some lip gloss. “It’s almost amazing, really, that you went from hanging out with that to hanging out with us.”
    Fergie laughed next to me. “Your life could have been so different, Madeline.”
    As Fergie searched through her purse for something, I could feel Caro’s eyes on me. I wouldn’t look at her, wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d reminded me of where I’d come from. And if there had been a threat in there somewhere, that she could kick me to the curb anytime, I really didn’t want to acknowledge it. Or think about it.
    I hadn’t been friends with Elinor. She’d just talked my ear off in classes and trailed after me, talking away. We hadn’t been friends.
    But now I’d be hanging out with Nots a few times a week for the “class.”
    I’d need to make it clear to my friends that I wasn’t hanging out with them.
    “So you will never believe what the interns—excluding Sam, of course—at my parents’ farm are paying me to do for them,” I began, then launched into the whole story. About my dad’s wedding, the cost of airfare, how I was dying to go so I could also spend time with Thom.
    I didn’t mention my plan to ask my dad if I could live with him. I didn’t think voluntarily moving three thousand miles away from your best friends would go over well. Then again, Caro probably wouldn’t mind. If she’d had the money herself, she would probably have given it to me just to separate me from Sam. Caro’s family was rich, but they were tightwad rich. A lot of Caro’s amazing clothes and shoes and handbags were hand-me-downs from her mother, a fashionista size four. Caro rarely bought anything new, but then again, she didn’t have to.
    Caro wouldn’t give me the money to go chasing after Thom. She wanted me to hook up with someone at Freeport Academy, someone who’d take me off the available list.
    “So what do you think I should teach them?” I asked. How was I supposed to even teach them anything? Did I just tell them each how to look better? What to say when a guy said, “See you in school”?
    They were both staring at me as though I’d sprouted another head, the crazy head that had made me agree to such a thing.
    “Please tell me you’re kidding about doing this,” Caro said as Mandy pulled into the Freeport Academy parking lot. “You’re going to help a bunch of freaky loser farm interns so that maybe they’ll be normal enough not to make the Not list.”
    I glanced at Mandy to see if she’d give Caro a look for being so mean, but she didn’t. She never did.
    “Right,” Fergie answered for me. “That’s how I heard it.”
    “And does