Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer -- Behind the Scenes!

Deleted Scene #1 - the former opening scene

What follows was, in the first draft of the book, the opening scene during which we meet main character/narrator Colette Iselin and her two best friends, Pilar Sanchez and Hannah Norstedt. They're shopping for clothes to take on their trip to Paris.

Keep reading after the scene to find out why it was nixed!

(Used to be) CHAPTER 1

You know, in the moment itself, I never would have guessed that driving my dad’s car into the shopping cart corral at the grocery store was the best possible thing that could have happened to my social life. 

But at East Toledo Academy, you can’t even make it to your locker on your 16th birthday without being asked what kind of car was waiting in your driveway that morning, wearing a giant satin bow on its hood. And having the right (or wrong) answer is a defining moment in your social life. When Meredith Chastain’s parents bought her a 10-year-old Nissan Sentra, it was like they flipped off a light switch on her status at school. She went from Somebody to Nobody by third period. 

So thanks to my dismal driving skills, instead of having to answer with the truth, which would be, Well, I’m not getting a car because my dad lost his job last year and then decided to leave my mom on Halloween and we’re blowing our money on luxury goods like shampoo and canned soup and to be honest we couldn’t even afford the giant bow, I could answer with an alternate truth, which is: No way, no how were my parents letting me behind the wheel for at least another year. Not even to take my driver’s test. So I’d be stuck with a restricted license and no car of my own for twelve months, minimum.

My friend Pilar liked to tell me how mean my parents were. I liked to remind her that she was the one I was texting at the time of the accident. 

So in an important way, my demonstratedly poor driving skills made my life infinitely easier. But don’t get me wrong—it also made some of them much harder. 

Such as.

“No, seriously,” Pilar said, twisting around to see herself from behind. “These, or the other ones? Or both?”

Hannah looked up from her seat on the velvet-upholstered bench in the corner of the fitting room, where she’d been texting non-stop all afternoon. “Neither,” she said, sounding bored. “They all make your thighs look huge.”

“Hannah!” I said, turning to her in horror. 

She gave me a smirk and shrugged as Pilar practically scrambled out of the jeans.

“They did not make your legs look big,” I said.

She held the jeans in front of herself. “But did they make my legs look skinny?” 

Well. “Skinny” is a word I’d reserve for girls like Hannah, who are always having to ask the salesgirls to double-check the stockroom for a size double-zero. Pilar would probably never be smaller than an eight, so I chose my words carefully. “They looked good,” I said. “They were flattering.”

Hannah had gone back to texting, but in a singsong voice, she said, “Tree trunks…”

Pilar gasped and dropped the jeans as if they were covered in acid. “Forget it! I’ll try a different pair!”

I sighed and checked the time on my phone. “Peely, we’ve been here for four hours.”

She blinked. “So?”

“So… that’s just a really long time.”

This time I was answered by Hannah’s bored voice. “So?” She hadn’t even looked up at me. She was engrossed in texting one (or more) of her three or four boyfriends.