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"What do you think of this?" Maria asked, striking a pose in her ugly dress.
"That? Just no," Ariana said bluntly.
Lexa, Soomie, and Brigit glanced at one another nervously, as if they were afraid of what Maria's reaction to this comment might be. Maria, however, nodded.
"Exactly what I was thinking." She smiled at Ariana. "I'm glad you came along. All these bitches do is 'yes' me to death when we go shopping." Then she walked back into her dressing room and slammed the door.
Ariana smiled to herself. It was just like old times. Back at Easton she was always helping her friends when it came to etiquette and taste quandaries.
Soomie ended her call and tossed her old BlackBerry into her bag. "Well, we have a reason," she whispered. "If she wasn't so freaking paranoid about her body, we--"
"I can hear you!" Maria shouted. "If you're going to talk about me, kindly do it when I'm not around."
Lexa swallowed hard, looking green. "Anyway!" she said brightly. "Brigit, maybe you should get the black dress instead. Thank you, Ana." Brigit slipped back into her dressing room to change, and Lexa sat down next to a pile of shopping bags that clearly belonged to her. "So, Ana, how did your meeting go this morning?"
Ariana instantly thought of Kaitlynn, even though that wasn't the meeting to which Lexa referred, and felt her stomach turn. She forced a smile. "It went well. I think that by Monday I'll have the schedule I want. And I also joined the tennis team."
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"What? No! I was so looking forward to riding with you again!" Lexa lamented, looking positively devastated. This was definitely a girl who not only wore all her emotions on her sleeve, she wore them in big, bright colors. "We were going to kick ass all over the eastern seaboard with you on the team!"
"Lexa told us you were some big jumper champion," Soomie added. "Why would you just give it up?"
"I didn't just give it up," Ariana replied. "I haven't ridden since the seventh grade. I just lost interest in it."
Briana Leigh had, of course, still ridden all the way up until the summer before she died, but they had no way of knowing that.
"I can't believe you could just lose interest in something when you were that good," Lexa replied.
"Well, I did," Ariana said with a shrug. "I'll leave the riding to you, Lexa. From what I understand, you don't need me anyway."
"Yeah, but Tahira doesn't exactly need you either," Soomie said matter-of-factly.
"Soomie!" Lexa scolded, swiping at the girl's knee.
"What? I'm just warning her." Soomie laid her new BlackBerry aside.
Ariana felt her stomach twist. "Tahira's on the tennis team?"
Soomie nodded. "Ana, there are three things you need to know about the tennis team. A) It's Tahira's baby. APH didn't even have a team until she showed up at school and basically whined them into creating one. B) She takes it very seriously. Like, if you lose a match, she berates you for days on end. And C) even if you do win your
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matches, you'd better not be better than her, because then she will be truly insufferable."
Brigit bounded out of her dressing room, back in street clothes, a black crepe frock slung over her arm. "Are you better than her?" she asked, salivating. "Please, please, please say you're better than her!"
Ariana laughed. "I don't know. I haven't played her yet. How good is she?"
"Who knows? We've never bothered to go see her play," Maria said, emerging from her dressing room as well. She had left the clothes she'd tried on behind in a heap on the floor.
"But we'll go now that you're on the team," Lexa assured Ariana. "Right, ladies?"
"Can't wait," Maria said sarcastically.
"Tahira claims she's good enough to be on the tour," Soomie said, rolling her eyes. "Which is highly unlikely." She looked Ariana up and down and tilted her head. "But I bet you can take her," she said with a smile.