Is Bridgeport big enough for Kae, Robyn, Alex and Jasmine? They're all beautiful, captivating, and a little bit crazy... but there can be only one It Girl.
[ Based on the It Girl series by Cecily Von Ziegesar ]
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"Wow. I'd say we got a pretty good turnout," Alex said as Kae and Yara followed her through the atrium's revolving glass door. The rain outside made a soothing pattering sound against the glass ceiling above them.
The Tiller Atrium was a two-story space with a glass barrel-vaulted ceiling, a multimillion-dollar addition to Maxwell Hall completed only a few years ago through the generous support of Bryson Tiller's contact-lens-billionaire father. The space was filled with leafy ficus trees and ferns, making it feel tropical even in the middle of winter, and when the atrium was lit up, you could see it glowing like a giant lightbulb from across campus. The lobby area was really used only for lame coffee-and-scone get-togethers during Parents' Weekend, and sparsely attended open-mike readings run by the Bridgeport literary magazine. Alex was shocked when she pushed the glass door open and saw dozens of girls crowded around the comfy red Pottery Barn couches, some of them sitting cross-legged on the green-and-gold paisley-pattered carpet.
She felt her stomach start to lurch a little, the way it did before every DC meeting or debate—it was the same sort of queasiness she felt in the seconds leading up to a swan dive into her parents' ginormous pool. Once she got in the water, so to speak, she was fine. But the jumping made her nervous. Alex wiped her clammy palms against the sides of her dark, skinny-legged jeans.
The chatter died down as the three girls made their way toward one of the empty red couches near the front of the room that had quite considerately been saved for them. Alex glanced at the girls—almost everyone from Waverly was there, minus Jasmine, who had been "accidentally" left off the e-mail list.
Alex and Yara sank down onto the couch and watched as Kae settled onto the floor next to Zendaya and...Robyn? Guess they were friends again. Sort of odd, considering everything they didn't have in common—and the one thing they did. But good for them, getting into the spirit of all this female bonding. Girl power.
"Thank you all for coming," Alex began, trying to make her voice not sound totally authoritative and boring. She was just wearing black leggings and a long navy tunic, but the girls were all looking at her so expectantly, she might as well have been dressed in her DC formal attire. "Because this is the first meeting of the Women of Bridgeport, I don't want this to be very formal—I think we should just use this opportunity to get together and talk, and to bring up any issues we have, or any thoughts about what we'd like the club to do in the future." She shrugged her shoulders and glanced around the group as the girls nodded.
Teyana opened her mouth to say something, but her words were cut off at the sound of the door opening. Suddenly Dave appeared, wearing a pressed Brigeprot blazer. He was waving a book over his head, and to anyone who didn't know him, he looked like a picture-perfect, well-groomed boarding-school boy, eager to learn.
"Don't start without me!" he called out, making his way through the crowd of girls toward the front of the room. Girls giggled but Alex glowered. What the fuck was he doing? When he got close enough to her, he showed her the book he had in his hand—a copy of the Bridgeport student handbook. "Shall I quote?" he asked, with a self-satisfied smirk on his handsome face. He opened to a page in the handbook and turned around to face the crowd, clearly pleased to be the center of attention. "No Bridgeport club can exclude members on the basis of sex, gender, or sexual orientation." He slammed the book shut. "Guess that means I'm in."
