The Lipstick Laws Read online

  "Pssst ... Jess..." I whisper.

  She ignores me.

  "Jess..." I say a little louder.

  Still ignores me.

  "Jessica!" I say a bit too loudly.

  Señor Gonzales points at me. "Señorita Abril, silencio, por favor!"

  "Sorry," I say. "I mean, lo siento."

  I wait until he leaves the room to make copies before trying to talk to her again.

  "Jessica, please talk to me."

  "I can't, April. What you did is pretty messed up!" she snaps.

  "I didn't mean to ruin Britney's stuff! It was an accident! I told her I'd pay her for it. So, what did I do that was so bad?"

  "Ummm ... well, duh, you're the reason twenty-five of our classmates got underage drinking citations ... and Travis Hoffman is sitting in the county jail for purchasing alcohol for minors." She rolls her eyes at me.

  "What?" I shout. Everyone turns to look at me. "I didn't call the cops!"

  "That's not what Britney says. She has a voice mail to prove it. You're apologizing about the cops on it. She said you were probably getting back at her for making you go with Brandon. Not too smart."

  That little blond witch twisted my words! I scowl just thinking about it. "Seriously, Jessica, would I be stupid enough to call the cops on a party that I was at? I don't even have a cell phone, remember? How would I have called? Go ask Brandon; he was with me!"

  The teacher comes back in. I face forward, still fuming. Jess quickly whispers, "I don't know, April. You just need to talk it over with Brit."

  ***

  A few periods later, I'm shocked to see Britney and Erin waiting for me outside of Mr. Stuart's history class. This is it. This is where I am going to die.

  I try to talk to them. "You know I didn't call the—"

  "Shut it, April!" Britney grabs my bag and pulls me into the girls' bathroom across the hall. I cover my face with my hand, thinking she's going to hit me.

  "You're coming with us," she orders. "We need to talk."

  Talk? I'm all about talking. As long as it doesn't involve hitting or spitting ... or telling people that I have herpes and foot fungus.

  "Yeah," I agree. "We do need to talk. I'll go anywhere you want after school."

  "No, we need to talk now!" she demands.

  I realize she wants me to skip class.

  "But," I say nervously, "Mr. Stuart—"

  "What, are you scared?" Brit taunts. "Suck it up; we're skipping class, too."

  Yeah, but they both have study hall with Mr. Bilsby this period. And everyone knows he can barely see over his own nose to worry about attendance. That's a lot different than having class with Satan's bodyguard. Their eyes narrow at me as I contemplate what it will feel like when Mr. Stuart puts me through a meat grinder for skipping his class.

  "Do you care more about Mr. Stuart being mad at you or us hating you forever?" Erin asks.

  "Well, you guys hating me," I admit.

  "Then let's go," they say.

  I follow them hopelessly to the red car. Erin turns the music up so loud, I can't hear myself think. She speeds out of the parking lot. Images of Mr. Stuart peeling my skin like a tangerine creep into my mind.

  "Where are we going?" I ask timidly. Either they can't hear me over the music or they're ignoring me on purpose. I begin to recognize the area. My stomach turns to mush as Erin parks in a field across from Troy Hoffman's property.

  "Look familiar?" Britney says.

  "I—"

  "I came here to talk to you ... not to hear you talk to me!" she snaps.

  Erin smiles, soaking up the drama like a mop.

  "Thanks to you," Britney says sarcastically, "there will now be a Lipstick Law Eight. Do you know what it's going to be, April?"

  I shake my head no, trying not to cry.

  "Lipstick Law Eight—never ditch your friends at a party!" she screams.

  "But ... I didn't—"

  "Shut it, April!" Brit turns around to point at my face. "I had to hide from the cops in a dirty laundry bin because of you! I'm probably gonna get scabies or salmonella!"

  "You ditched me to go inside with Kyle!" I rebut.

  "Don't you dare try to blame this on me! Regardless, you broke the Lipstick Laws! Do you know what that means?" She sneers, not giving me time to answer. "It means you're out of our group! You're done. Cooked. The end. Sayonara. The fat lady's sung."

  "But ... how did I break the laws? Which laws did I break?" I cry out.

  "I'm hurt, April," she says. "You don't even know what you did? Hmm..." Britney pauses, tapping her long fingernail on her chin sarcastically. "Well, let me inform you. First, you broke Lipstick Law Two by not respecting fashion. You ruined my precious stuff! So, you pretty much flushed our fashion law right down the toilet with your reputation!"

  "I told you I'd pay you back," I say quickly.

  "They were one-of-a-kind pieces from a Paris fashion show! Unless you travel over there yourself and pay the designer to replicate them, there's nothing you can do to make this up to me!"

  I feel my face get red. I do feel bad that I ruined her things. I definitely didn't mean to. I open my mouth, but nothing escapes before she continues.

  "Even if you did miraculously track down authentic replicas, I can assure you that you'd still be breaking Lipstick Law Two by what you're wearing right now ... and pretty much every day. You're a walking clearance rack!"

  Erin laughs hysterically. My guilt immediately turns to anger again.

  She goes on. "And you broke Lipstick Law Five by not coming clean about lying to me. You were supposed to tell us all of your secrets when you signed the Lipstick Oath!"

  "Lying?" I say nervously. Oh no! Did she find out that I'm a bosom sculptor?

  "Yeah, you weren't new this year! Why would you lie about that? It's totally creepy! Did you stalk me like a lurking lezza-saurus all last year so you could pounce on me this year? Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

  I sink down into the back seat guiltily. "Who told you?"

  "Uh ... did you ever hear of a little thing called a yearbook?"

  I'm feeling more uncomfortable and stupid by the second.

  "Not to mention," she persists, "you broke Lipstick Law Seven by making decisions that screw our popularity stock ... like..." She clears her throat dramatically. "Hmm ... I don't know ... calling the cops on Troy Hoffman!"

  "I did not!" I yell.

  "Don't lie!" Britney snaps.

  Erin looks at me in the rearview mirror and says, "Girls like you are the reason there's an end in friend. You should probably get out of the car now."

  "Get out!" Britney screams.

  "Are you serious?" I say bleakly, tears welling in my eyes.

  "Serious as suicide." Britney scowls.

  Grabbing my stuff, I jump out rapidly, praying that they don't try to run me over. Erin starts her car up. The exhaust surrounds me like I'm going to vanish in a magic act. I wish I could vanish.

  "Cheers to tears!" Britney cackles out the window as they speed away.

  ***

  With my face and fingers red from frostbite, I finally bolt through the front door of my house. The heat shocks my system, and I begin to hyperventilate. Luckily, no one's home; the last thing I need at this point is an interrogating Mom intervention. I run up the stairs and slam my bedroom door. I fall onto my bed and cover my head with a frilly pillow. My face is a waterfall. This afternoon, I'm using tissues for my tears rather than my bra. I wait by the phone until school is out in Kansas to call Haley. Now, more than ever, I need to talk to her. I pray she answers her phone. Ever since she met her boyfriend and thinks that I've turned into one of Brit's evil circus clowns, she's been MIA.

  A sigh of relief hits me when she picks up her cell. "Hello?"

  "Lee!" My voice cracks as I try to hold back tears.

  "April, what's wrong?"

  I can't hold back the waterworks anymore. I start to cry like a baby.

  "Let me guess," she blurts an
grily. "Britney Taylor?"

  "Yes!" I manage to gurgle out between sniffles and hysteria.

  "I won't say I told you so..."

  "You just did!" I grow more and more upset. "I should've known the minute they started playing the Rank-a-Skank game!"

  "That's a pretty big red flag," Haley agrees.

  I sob.

  I can't take it anymore. I burst into a rambling rant, pacing around my room animatedly. My tongue wrestles with every syllable before spitting out words fiercely into the phone. I tell her everything—every dreadful detail of the last seventy-two hours of my pathetic life.

  "Sounds familiar," Haley says sympathetically.

  "Familiar?" I say. "If something like this happened to you, why didn't you give me the details?"

  "It's not like I didn't try to warn you. You've always known what I think of her."

  "Yeah, but some specifics would've helped a little!" I say, annoyed beyond belief.

  "I told you we had a big falling-out. I figured that was enough to make you want to stay away from her. I've been dead to Britney for years now; why would I want to spend my time rehashing all the horrible details? I wanted to forget it all!"

  "But you barely told me anything worth mentioning! What about the Lipstick Laws? If I had known about them, maybe I wouldn't be in this situation right now! How could you leave me in the dark?" I sputter.

  "I'm sorry, April. I thought what I told you was enough. I'd never purposefully leave you in the dark."

  I roll my eyes. "You told me to stay away from red lipstick ... How is that helpful to me? By the time the red lipstick was in my face, I didn't have much of a choice!"

  There's a short silence before Haley responds. "Honestly, I never talked about the Lipstick Laws because I was embarrassed. I thought you might shun me like they did. And by the time you started becoming friends with them this year, I thought it was too late. You made up your mind. I couldn't change it."

  "That's not true, Haley. Anyhow, why would I shun you? You're my best friend."

  "Right," Haley says. "You're my best friend now ... but if you knew that becoming friends with me back then would get you a permanent residency in the penthouse of Loserhood, you probably would've thought twice."

  I'm upset and curious at the same time. Haley's been so elusive with details, maybe she'll finally open up about everything now that my life's ruined. But how could she keep the horrors of the Lipstick Laws from me? Yes, I know she vaguely warned me. And yes, I know she told me a little about Britney's wicked ways ... but I always brushed it off as jealousy. I mean, I never thought anyone could be as bad as Haley was making Brit out to be. But I was wrong. So, maybe this is my fault. Maybe I did know better than to get myself wrapped up with Britney and her clique. I guess my desire for friends and popularity outweighed Haley's warning. Even if she had filled me in on all the scandalous details of the Lipstick Laws, I'm not sure I would have listened. I'm ready to listen now, though ... now that it's way too late.

  "Well, you might as well spill the Lipstick Law beans now," I say depressingly.

  "I guess," she says. "If it'll make you feel better."

  "It's a tad late, but it sure couldn't hurt," I say.

  "Well, to start, I was best friends with Britney for five years."

  "How could you be best friends with the devil's spawn?" I say.

  "She wasn't always evil like this. She used to be sweet and funny. She was a really, really good friend. She totally changed when she came back from fat camp."

  "Fat camp?" I blurt, totally shocked.

  "Yeah, Brit used to be fat," Lee says.

  "How fat?" I say, a satisfied smile creeping on my face.

  "Not like 'Oh crap, call the fire department, Britney's stuck in the door again' kind of fat ... but she was chubby enough to be called Donut throughout elementary school," she reveals.

  I laugh, picturing Britney as a big jelly-filled donut ... with strawberry jelly oozing from her mouth onto her designer wardrobe. It's the best daydream I've ever had ... apart from the one about me and Hottie-Body on a beach in Cabo.

  Haley continues, "Her mom fabricated a lie about her dad and blamed Britney for their separation. She told her that her dad was leaving because he was embarrassed about Brit's weight."

  "That's awful," I say, temporarily forgetting my disdain for her. "Why would Britney's mom do something like that?"

  "I don't know. Maybe it was jealousy over Brit's strong relationship with her father ... or maybe embarrassment over her failed marriage? Who knows. I think he left her for a friend or something like that. She probably wanted to project the blame onto her daughter so she wouldn't have to deal with reality." Haley sighs heavily. "If you haven't noticed, Brit's mom is just as conniving and image-obsessed as her daughter's become."

  Don't get me wrong; I still can't stand Britney, but this revelation gives me an understanding of where she's learned her interpersonal skills. It doesn't change the fact that she's a living nightmare, but it's definitely sad, to say the least. Putting all that's happened aside, I feel sorry for the young Donut-nicknamed Britney in a detached sort of way.

  "So, Britney believed her mother? How could she believe that? Her dad loves her, right?" I ask.

  "Of course he loves her. He spoils her rotten!"

  "I know," I agree, thinking of her brand-new car, stacked designer wardrobe, and expensive handbag collection.

  "Her mom was persistent and convincing. She had been trying to get Brit to lose weight for years. She was the one embarrassed by her, not her father. I guess the prospect of the divorce was the perfect opportunity to make Brit's weight disappear. She knew how much Britney adored her father and that she'd do anything in her means to persuade him to stay. And she did. Britney went to fat camp for the whole summer before sixth grade. She came back a new person—inside and out."

  "Wow," I say. "The evolution of a monster ... I never woulda thought it all started at fat camp."

  Haley laughs. "Me either."

  "So, what happened next?"

  "Well, Britney was absolutely destroyed when she got back from camp to find that her parents' divorce had been finalized. She created the Lipstick Laws soon after."

  "Were you there? Did you help her create them?" I question curiously.

  "No, I didn't help her create the Lipstick Laws! Are you kidding? I thought they were ridiculous. But I agreed to follow them, 'cause she was my best friend ... and they seemed important to her. Honestly, I thought it was just a weird phase she was going through. Little did I know, it wasn't a phase ... and the Lipstick Laws would eventually come between us."

  "After five years she let those absurd laws ruin your friendship?"

  "Yeah, but remember, I was friends with the old Britney for all those years ... not the new one," Haley says. "You wanna know the most ironic part of the story?"

  "What?" I ask, sitting on the edge of my bed in anticipation.

  "She kicked me out in eighth grade for breaking Lipstick Law Three."

  I gasp. "The weight law?"

  "Yes! I was a month shy of my first period ... so, understandably, I was a bloated mess. But Brit didn't care how or why I gained weight. She said, 'Weight gain is a choice, and I can't be friends with someone who makes bad choices.'"

  "What a bitchawitch!" I say. "You were friends with her while she was a donut!"

  "I know. You'd think she'd stick by me 'cause I stuck by her ... but instead, she said the only friend I needed was Jenny Craig. I was devastated!"

  "This makes me loathe her even more," I seethe.

  Haley is the sweetest person I've ever met. How could anyone do something like that to her? I was only friends with Brit for a few months. But Haley was friends with her for five years. Getting dumped by a long-term best friend had to hurt like a mother-trucker. I feel like crying—not for me, but for poor Haley!

  "Don't loathe her, April," Haley says. "Get even."

  "Uh ... how?"

  "You need to do what I didn't.
You can't let her win. I totally gave her the upper hand by letting her get to me. My mom had my counselor switch my lunch period and classes around so I could avoid her ... and I became the biggest hermit in the whole northern hemisphere. I even contemplated switching schools until my dad found out about his job transfer. At that point, I knew I only had to get through freshman year, and then I'd be out like a scout."

  "That's why you were so happy to meet me last year," I say, putting the pieces of the puzzle together in my head.

  "Yeah," she says. "I needed a friend as much as you did. Now you'll understand why I didn't want to jinx our friendship by giving you all the humiliating Lipstick Law details. I couldn't risk you seeing me the way they did."

  "I'd never think badly of you, Lee," I say with a hurt heart. Everything starts making sense to me. I always wondered why such a sweet, pretty girl didn't have any other close friends. It's because she was a victim of the girls and their stupid Lipstick Laws when I met her. I can't help but wonder if that's my future, too. My stomach churns with distress.

  "Well, what do you suggest I do now? I can't live out the rest of my high school career as a Lipstick Law reject!"

  "You need to fight back!" Haley insists. "She's done this to too many girls to get away with it again."

  "There are others like us?"

  "Of course, there are plenty of Lipstick Law casualties! Sure, the girls I know of were run out of the school ... like Andrea Birman, Stacy Rosco, and Emma Jenkins."

  "Tube socks Emma?" I blurt, looking down at my padded chest.

  "Yes, tube socks Emma. I heard they made her life miserable before she left. I'm sure there are probably a handful of girls that are still there, though ... hating life and their misfit curse." She pauses before exclaiming, "You should all get together and create an underground society! You can call yourselves the Lipstick Lawbreakers!"

  The wheels in my head begin to turn at this genius idea.

  Chapter Nine

  The next day, I find myself sitting across from Darci Madison's boobage again. It's sort of hard to swallow my pride and ride the bus when I'd gotten used to Erin driving me to school. I notice that Darci's looking more conservative lately. I feel bad for ranking her a five on the skank scale.