PRIDE & PRINCESSES: A Pride and Prejudice (type) of teen story (Sunrise High #1)

THE LOVE DRUG (chapter five)

Chapter 5

The Love Drug

     The first boy I saw on Monday, the second week of junior year, was Joel Goodman.  Joel is dangerous and wild and I have it on good authority that he dated both Teegan and Tory at the same time. He managed to hook up with them at Sunrise Mall one afternoon last summer. Joel is known as the virgin-converter and has a network of older and more devious buddies and a slightly unkempt air about him. There is no denying he is good-looking but He’s known to be a very bad person, not that I’m trying to moralize, it’s just that people talk. 

    “Whoa, he gave you such a nice smile,” Mouche said as Joel walked past. We were on our way to the auditorium.

    “Please,” I said, “He’s monosyllabic and barely grunts in class. Besides, I could never date a man who didn’t challenge me intellectually.”

    Peter Williamson, who was a math genius as well as a dancer, was a rare combination. He walked past us on the way to class.

   “Looking fine, girls,” he said as he rushed d to Algebra.

   “Why is it all the best boys bat for the other team?” Mouche asked confidentially, although it was hardly a secret around here. 

    And it was good to know a boy with awesome fashion sense had noted we were looking our best.

    We’d planned new outfits for every day of the month. Our make-overs, along with our dating strategy, were sure to elevate us to a whole new level of social acceptance. We walked down the hallway with a unique resolve, like we owned the place. We were dressed very sharply in our new skirts and sweaters. Even our shoes had extra shine.

    After all, we’d had the previous weekend to prepare.

    “We should definitely start by wearing more appealing, feminine clothing,” Mouche had suggested after we’d finished d our Sunday night swim. We’d dragged some old dating and beauty guides back with us from the library that weekend and had raided our mothers” vast quantities of them. They had titles like Sophia’s Pathway to Beauty and Ava Gardner’s Guide to Gorgeousness. There was also Marilyn Monroe’s Blonde Beauty Secrets and basically the stories of all the great movie stars with beauty guides from the 1960s and beyond. (For example, did you know you can make your own lip balm with beeswax, rosewater and natural food coloring?)

    I don’t want to sound shallow but we decided to start from the outside and work to within. Until midnight, we practiced hairstyles and make-up. We even dressed up Wednesday. We made her look like a smurf and then she fell asleep.  I don’t mean to sound like a Princess but we really felt we deserved some fun after our daddies had dipped into our so-called college funds. We knew we’d be working every spare minute during future holidays just to have enough money to last even a week in New York. This didn’t stop us imagining a future time, when, drenched in French perfume and looking like movie stars, we resided in our own luxury apartments overlooking Central Park. Man servants doted on us. Boyfriends wept at our non-exclusive schedules.

    Reality checked in along with dawn.

    We were wearing pink gloss and oatmeal face masks. The pasty oats were moistened with warm water and mixed with Vaseline so they didn’t drop off in clumps into the pool. Wrapped up in bathrobes, heavy duty moisturiser smoothed over our elbows and heels (our “rough edges” according to Sophia’s Beauty @ p.29), our feet dangled in the water making us seem like ladies of luxury. 

    “I have a need for speed and a strange feeling I’m going to win this bet...” Mouche said as she pulled her raisin feet out of the water.