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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Kae pounded up the stairs of Waverly on Wednesday night after spending the after-dinner hours in the library, working on her first long paper for European history. After three grueling hours, she was happy to come back to her room again. Finally, she didn't have to tiptoe around Robyn anymore. They were both beyond that, and it felt exhilarating. She tried not to think too much about missing Chris—she just kind of hoped that she could push that sadness aside until one day it wasn't really sadness anymore, just nostalgia. It wasn't the end of the world, she kept telling herself. And it wasn't like she wasn't ever going to see him again. Maybe she could still go horseback riding with him? And she'd still get to be in art class with him and joke around with him. She just wouldn't get to...kiss him.
Anyway. She paused in front of the door of 303, reading a note scrawled in red marker across her dry-erase board: Tomorrow night = 1. Coffee 2. Study 3. Gossip 4. All of the above? xo, Alex. Alex hadn't shown up for practice today, but because she was junior class prefect, all she had to do was hint at some sort of important meeting and Coach Johnson let her skip, no questions asked.
Kae opened the door quietly, half expecting Robyn to be in bed already. But she brightened when she saw her roommate was still awake. In fact, she was standing in front of a completely empty closet in a pink tank top and white girly boxers folded over at the waist, staring into it, all of her expensive clothes stacked in teetering piles on top of the spare bed, threatening to spill over at any moment.
"You're cleaning?" Kae blurted out, surprised. The room looked like an exclusive SoHo boutique had just exploded.
"Huh?" Robyn glanced over her thin shoulder at Kae and blinked a few times. "Oh. Yeah, I guess...I just got this urge." Robyn's eyes ran over the towering stacks of clothing like she couldn't remember how they'd gotten there. "I guess I didn't think it was such a big project."
"Why don't you just leave it?" Kae suggested awkwardly. "Finish it tomorrow?" She dropped her heavy bag onto the floor and sank down on her own bed, grateful that she'd soon be curled up under her father's old quilt that still sort of smelled like their apartment on 99th Street and West End Avenue.
Robyn bit her lip and fingered the sleeve of a transparent blouse on the top of one stack. "But the room is a total disaster," she finally answered, a little poutily.
"I don't mind if you don't." Kae propped herself up on her elbows and kicked off her pink Chuck Taylors. They thudded gently against the hardwood floor. "It's not like it's usually clean," she added with a giggle. The room, even with only the two of them in all that space, always seemed to be littered with empty Diet Pepsi bottles (Robyn's) and half-eaten bags of Doritos (Kae's), and the spare desk was always buried under massive stacks of clean laundry, notebooks, old term papers, and various objects that were not needed at any precise moment. There was even a neatly folded tapestry that neither Kae nor Robyn laid claim to that had somehow appeared one day.
Robyn tugged at her short hair. Her arms looked as flimsy as plastic straws, and Kae thought about how much she'd like to force-feed her roommate a cheeseburger. Maybe Robyn was so out of it because she was starving? She didn't really know what she should do about that. Should she talk to Angelica? Suddenly she remembered the two Tootsie Pops she'd picked up at the snack bar.
Kae patted the pocket of her Bridgeport blazer and held out the two of them, like a peace offering. Robyn laughed, and Kae mentally willed her to take one. She did, coming over to Kae and taking the raspberry one shyly. "Thanks."
Kae smiled. Maybe Robyn just needed to take her mind off things. "Hey, you know that really cute freshman?" she asked as she unwrapped her orange lollipop and stuck it on her tongue.
"Rakim?" Robyn answered with her mouth full of lollipop. She pulled the sucker from her mouth, her lips already tinged purple. "What about him?"
"I don't really know." Kae tucked her feet up next to her on the bed and stuffed her folded pillow beneath her head. "He just kind of...keeps showing up around the dorm. Like, he was in the bushes outside when we got back from practice today." She giggled, thinking about their funny conversation when she'd found him. "And he was in the broom closet yesterday. Downstairs."
"Wait, he snuck into the dorm?" Robyn's eyes focused on Kae's face and lit up with excitement. She pulled the lollipop out of her mouth and waved it at Kae. "Do you think he, like, likes you?"
"Oh, definitely not," Kae said quickly, her cheeks turning red. She hated it when people suggested someone liked her and she didn't really think it was true. "I really have no idea what he was doing. He made up some lame excuse about looking for something."
"Right." Robyn rushed over to Kae's bed, feeling very sisterly all of a sudden, and sat down near Kae's yellow-socked feet. "I bet he was looking for you!" She felt energized just thinking about it. How perfect would that be? What Kae needed was some cute guy to come out of nowhere and sweep her off her feet and make her forget that she had ever even known a boy named Chris Brown. And Rakim was definitely fine. Robyn patted her roommate's feet excitedly.
"No, that's totally silly. It wasn't like that." Kae's whole mouth was orange from her lollipop and Robyn had to giggle. She looked like she was just a little kid, albeit a really adorable one. And Rakim was, what? A freshman? He couldn't be more perfect for her. "But I mean, we had this really nice kind of flirty chemistry thing going on." She sat up in bed, her eyes slightly dreamy, and toyed with a long strand of hair.
"Maybe you'll run into him tomorrow?" Robyn tried not to sound too eager—she didn't want Kae to suspect that she had ulterior motives or anything. A tiny wave of guilt passed over her as she realized that she was already lying to Kae by not telling her about Chris. But it was for her own good, right? It would devastate Kae if she knew that Chris and Robyn were, kind of...Chris and Robyn again.
Kae stood up and opened a dresser drawer, pulling out a pair of cozy-looking PJ bottoms, the white stick of the Tootsie Pop extending out of her mouth like some kind of cigarette. She glanced at Robyn and smiled devilishly. "Well, I did ask if he wanted to model for my art class project. So...I probably will see him tomorrow."
"That's awesome!" Robyn exclaimed. She couldn't help it—she exploded off the bed and gave Kae a huge hug. Please, please, please, please, please let Kae and Rakim fall madly in love! "Something's totally going to happen between you two. I can feel it!" She just hoped it would happen fast.
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From: KarruecheTran@bridgeport.edu
To: RakimMayers@bridgeport.edu
Date: Wednesday, October 9, 9:45 P.M.
Subject: Be a model citizen...
...or at least a model Owl. If you're still up for being part of my art project, will you meet me tomorrow in the art studio? Six-thirtyish maybe, or 6:45?
Let me know. Looking forward to seeing what T-shirt you'll wear next.
