The Popular Girl Code

Hot Girl S(B)ummer

Let me start off by saying, I'm in no kind of shape or form a popular girl.

The thought of becoming popular had never even crossed my mind until my sister Stephanie started high school and she was obsessed with  beauty, designer outfits, parties and boys! I am most definitely the ugly duckling, the outcast, the... dorky sister!
The past decade we had spent living in Versailles, France which is my dad's hometown half an hour away from Paris and in French middle schools we never had that sort of popularity problem.

The city is so beautiful and peaceful, a true slice of heaven! Our dad owns a big wine company so we've spent countless hours in wine yards and beautiful cottages, but as soon as my dad's company expanded and started selling internationally, our mom decided it was time for us to finally move back to California.
So we to packed up, kissed nana goodbye and left to come back to the States.

I miss the beautiful skies of Versailles, thinking about the city always gives me melancholy, all of my most cherished childhood memories and places that changed me forever.
Not that I hated Sausalito, the city we currently live in, I actually had grown very fond of its little city nature where everyone knew each other, its just that the two cities are so different from each other that I end up missing one or the other.

My sister, Stephanie, however didn't seem to have the slightest sense of  bittersweetness, it's like she had completely forgotten about Versailles, maybe she was just masking it well by her newfound obsession to be the queen of her highschool!
Ever since she enrolled in West High all she would do was majorly spend hours in front of the mirror trying on new designer clothes she had carefully spent months picking with the help of her professional designer, Raffael, she'd also get very busy applaying countless coats of make up on her face, not that she needed any of that, she was absolutely breathtaking, a real blonde goddess, but of course for Stephanie nothing is ever enough.

Only now that she was about to start her senior year of high school, she realized that it was the same year her little dorky sister, me, was going to come to the same high school as a junior, and let me tell you, she completely lost it!
She knew with a last name like Le château she couldn't just lie about me not being her sister and in case she decided she was going  to publicly address me as her sister at school she wasn't gonna present a dork that would later take away from her "posh" look that she had worked so hard on establishing.

So what did she do, you may ask? Oh Stephanie Le Château had a whole summer plan to punch the darkness out of me and (try) make me look like a bedazzled Barbie on steroids like herself, as you can imagine I wasn't fond of the idea because for a fact I knew that the dorkness was now part of my DNA and as sad as it sounds mom probably adopted me from some random orphanage in France.

Yes I did look like my parents and a little bit like my older sister, but I didn't have any sense of fashion, class nor elegance and I didn't have much of an expensive taste.

Stephanie however insisted saying that I'd be thanking her one day for this, so in light to prove her wrong I agreed, stepping outside of my comfort zone for once and trying to be more like my family wouldn't be so bad  after all, right? It's just going to be for the summer and then I could always go back to being a dork in case I felt like I wasn't okay with this right?!

Well let me tell you that I ended up having the worst summer of my life thanks to my sister! From morning workouts, to logging calories on a diary to six hour long shopping sprees, to tanning baths I was just exhausted! And just when you'd think it was over she'd rush to my room with a mini fridge full of skincare products and apply it to my face and body. I cannot even start to tell you how many times have I woken up with thirty different moisturizing masks all over my body!

For better or for worse whenever I looked at myself in the mirror I started noticing all my little imperfections and day after day I came to the realization that yes, I was ugly, I see my sister's point now, why would anyone be friends with a dork like myself? I could not turn down Steph, it would leave me the ugly duckling of the family! She sure knew what to do!

The beginning of the school year was just around the corner now and Stephanie had already selected two month worth of outfits for me to wear for school stating that I have the worst fashion sense and could not put together a posh outfit even if my life depended on it, and I admit, I really could not! I liked wearing very bright colors that make me feel bright and happy and comfortable clothes I could fall asleep in, Never had I stopped and thought what they made me look like, if it's comfortable I would wear it and that was it!

It was around six in the afternoon when Rafael and Stephanie were having a joint discussion of first day outfits for both herself and I when Stephanie's iPhone started ringing, she glanced at the screen then rolled her eyes.

"Oh my God hey Stellaa! What's upp babeee?" She squealed "A PARTY?!? No way! I love that idea!"

"Great" I thought, with her gone for the rest of the day I could maybe squeeze a couple of hours to read  a good novel book or paint something!

All summer I tried so hard to get myself to paint but I hardly had any time! With all the exercising and pintresting fashion inspo and making diet-friendly meals, at the end of the day I would be exhausted and falling asleep with twenty face masks on me.

Just as I started to fantasize about what I could do while Steph was partying with her posh friends- "Okay little shit listen up, tonight there's going to be a back to school party at Stella's and OF COURSE all the coolest people in school are invited, me included, OBVIIII" she said while Rafael and her exchanged agreeing looks.

"Sooo you can wear something hot and come with moi so that you'd get a head start on the whole popularity express and shit" she said as both her and Rafael started laughing as it if it was an actual joke.

"Uhm I actually don't-"

"RAFAEL DARLING, go fetch that cute Fendi dress I kept aside and the Valentino high tops for my sister and can you PUHLEASE come to my closet and choose something for me? Griffin is coming to the party and he HAS TO see me looking like the hottest girl in the world!" She demanded

"Au revoir loser" she said as she left winked proceeding to catwalk to her room before I could even get a word through.

I just sat on the sofa for a few minutes trying to convince myself to go to the party so I wouldn't have to go talk to my sister and tell her that I actually would rather spend the evening painting on my countless empty canvases or reading "Pride and Prejudice" again for the millionth time, I knew she'd laugh at my face and ridicule me!

So as I've learned to do my whole summer,I just accepted whatever Stephanie put in front of me and did as she said. Rafael brought the tiniest and shortest little dress and a pair of shoes that looked like they had spikes on them.

"Awesome! So basically I'm neither gonna be having fun or comfortable!" I exclaimed as I accepted the reality of what my life had come to be.

"At least you'll be looking hot" said Rafael as he winked and cat walked out of the room.
Why do they do that? Have my sister and Rafael gotten some kind of eye infection and a weird cat walking virus?