The Ashleys

Chapter Two


"Ahem. Miss Ashley, your mother wants to remind you to take your EpiPen."
"I will. God, she's such a nag!" Ashley Spencer thanked the elderly butler who had been in her mother's family for years and dismissed him from the kitchen with a nod. She rolled her eyes and stuffed the slim silver needle for injecting the shot of epinephrine, the only thing that would keep her alive in case she even breathed nut aroma, into her puffy Fendi Moncler Spy bag's secret compartment in the handle, next to her strawberry-scented lip gloss.
Her mom was so Nazi about her allergy, ever since she'd almost killed Ashley on her fourth birthday, when the exquisite French chocolate cake she served at the party turned out to have a trace amount of hazelnuts in the batter.
Since then Ashley refrained from eating anything that wasn't cooked for her by the Spencers' gourmet chef. Her nut-free lunch was already prepared in a cute Japanese lunchbox that she'd found in Tokyo that summer. It was made of cool white plastic and decorated with bug-eyed anime characters. Tokyo was so eye-opening, the style there was très unconventional, and Ashley had bought the lunchbox in an attempt to emulate the famous Harajuku Girls. But now, looking at it, she briefly wondered if the lunchbox was a little too goofy and "sixth grade" somehow and made a mental note to find out if there was such things as Chanel Thermos containers.
She turned off the mirrored flat screen TV that hung in the breakfast nook and left her cereal bowl and juice glass on the island counter for the maid to clean. The clock on the smooth, stainless-steal face on the Thermador oven told her it was twenty-five minutes to the first bell, but instead of dashing out the door she took her time, removing a breath strip from a tiny plastic case in her pocket and letting the gooey green film melt on her tongue while she gathered her things. She was supposed to be at Fillmore Starbucks by now, and the other Ashleys were probably waiting, but she didn't care. They could wait. As if they would walk to school without her, hello.
"How about a kiss?" asked her mother, coming out of her study and finding Ashley brushing her hair in front of the grand Louis Quinze mirror hanging in the main hall. "Did Darby remind you to pack your allergy kit?"
"For the hundredth time, yes, mom. And careful with the hair," Ashley ordered, putting her hairbrush away and allowing herself to be kissed on both cheeks. She wrinkled her nose at her mother's heavy patchouli perfume. Couldn't Mom switch to something like Chanel No. 5? She gave her mother's outfit a cool once-over. "I hope you're not wearing that for this afternoon's tea," she commented, letting the inflection in her voice tell her mother that it wasn't a good idea.
Matilda Spencer crossed her arms and gave her daughter a bemused look. "I'm not, but why, is there something wrong with it?"
"Mom, 1998 called, they want their jeans back. Could you please put on the new skinny jeans we bought at Saks on Saturday?"
Ashley Spencer shook her head. Her mother was the most beautiful women she knew, and not just because they looked so eerily alike they could be sisters. The two of them had long, lustrous golden hair; clear, cornflower blue eyes; and pale ivory skin without a hint of freckle. If Mom was Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley was just a younger, smoother version, both of them delicate blondes with enviably thin arms and speedy metabolisms.
Their similarities ended with fashion, though. Ashley was always red-carpet-ready, even when she was just going to school, finding numerous ways to accessorize her uniform, wearing thick black tights instead of the chunky socks she'd made so popular with the plaid skirt last year, finding high-heeled patent-leather Mary Janes that fit the saddle-shoe requirement, and wearing James Perse T-shirts underneath the V-neck sweaters instead of the tidy blouses with their Peter Pan collars. Her mother, unfortunately, stuck to a casual wardrobe of Peruvian handmade knits, plastic Crocs, and jeans she'd owned since college at UC Berkeley. Matilda never really cared too much about clothes. It was such a waste.
Her mother was hosting the annual Miss Gamble's mother-daughter "welcome back" tea in the sunroom that afternoon with Lili's mom, and Ashley wouldn't normally care what anyone thought, since her mother was always the prettiest woman in the room, but sometimes she wished Matilda would make more of an effort to look more fashionable. Lili's mom was always totally done up in the latest designer duds, perfect hair, nails, and makeup, and she looked like the quintessential private-school parent.
While Ashley chastised her mom for her fashion sense, she heard her father come jogging down the stairs in a holey T-shirt and yoga pants, his guru following behind.
"Off to school, precious?" he asked, doing sun salutations in the foyer while Bodhi helped balance him. "Ready for the new year? You know you'll kick ass! Won't she, my love?" He asked, turning to his wife and giving her a kiss on the nose.
Her mother giggled and looped her arm around her husband's, and for a frightening moment it looked like the two of them would actually start to make out in front of their daughter, but thankfully her father got distracted by his trainer, and the cringe-worthy display of affection was averted. Ashley breathed a sigh of relief.
When she was little, she loved having her parents at home all the time, but now it was getting annoying. Neither of them worked in any real sense, Dad "managed" the family trusts and Mom worked on her "art," both of them having inherited a huge chunk of change from their families. Which meant they had ample time to suffocate their only child, although they tried to be "cool" parents: bedtime was flexible on the weekends, they didn't nag her about her grades too much, and her mom didn't nose around on her online profiles like other mothers did.
"You're not going to be here for the tea, are you?" she asked her father. "Please don't." She didn't want him wandering around the house barefoot in his sweats, or strumming his guitar while the whole seventh-grade class tittered. Seriously, parents could be so embarrassing. The Nob Hill Gazette had once crowned her parents "It Couple," but that was a long time ago, before she was even born. They were such goofballs now, it was hard to imagine them as ever being so superglamorous.
Ashley allowed herself to be hugged by the two of them and walked out the door, checking once again to make sure she had that anti allergy shot in her purse. It made her feel better knowing it was there, especially since almost no one knew about her condition, and she liked to keep it that way.
No way in hell she was going to be dumped in with Cass Franklin, that freak who had to eat in her own screened-off quarantined section of the refectory, alienated from all the other kids. Ashley had pretended for so long that she lived on nothing but yogurt and spelt bread and raw vegetables that she almost believed it.
She was Ashley Spencer, the undisputed, unshakable leader of the Ashleys. No one told her what she could and couldn't eat.
Owning up to her allergy was admitting weakness. Seventh grade was a saddle-shoe jungle. And Ashley Spencer made sure everyone marched to the beat of her own iPod.