“That's my girl,” Noelle said.
Then she made a point of slamming the door.
24
INSIDE THE INSIDE
“I like my pillows fluffed,” Cheyenne Martin told me as she pinned her diamond studs through her ears. Studs she had chosen from an impressive collection of gorgeous, sparkling jewels she had tucked away in a velvet box inside her dresser. She turned toward the mirror and smoothed down her perfectly straight blond hair, giving herself an imperious once-?over. Ever since I entered the suffocatingly flower-?scented room she shared with Rose Sakowitz, she had been directing me, yet she hadn't looked at me once. “And do the sheets nice and tight. I do not want to get into a wrinkly bed.”
I drew my hand over her raw silk comforter, evening out the lumps. All I wanted to do was fall into it. This was my fourteenth bed. Rose's would be number fifteen. My own, sixteen. After the vacuuming. Unfortunately, I had a feeling I would never get to my bed as the vacuuming would strike me dead of an aneurysm. Death by Dyson.
“Did you hear me, Glass-?licker?” she asked, gracing me with a corner-?of-?the-?eye glance.
“Yes,” I told her in my new croaky voice. “Fluff the pillows. No wrinkles.”
25
She turned toward me and took a deep breath. How anyone breathed deeply in the perfumed air of this place was beyond me. “Exactly. I told the girls you'd be good at this,” she said, plucking at the cuffs on her pressed Ralph Lauren shirt. “You have that blue-?collar air about you.”
I stopped short, my hands gripping one of her pillows. I was so stunned, I couldn't even formulate a coherent thought. All I could think was . . . Kill. Kill. Kill.
“Cheyenne,” Rose scolded, lifting her large leather bag from her desk chair. Rose was a tiny, superskinny girl with chin-?length red hair and an orangey tan that was just now starting to fade. I had no idea how that big bag of hers didn't just pull her right down. “Don't listen to her,” she told me.
I forced myself to smile at Rose, then melted Cheyenne's fourth layer of Estee Lauder base with my eyes.
“What? I was just paying her a compliment!” Cheyenne said. “You knew that, right, Glass-?licker?”
“Sure,” I said with a tight smile. “I'd rather have a blue collar than a silver spoon up my ass,” I whispered under my breath.
Cheyenne's face clouded over, but she quickly recovered. “Someone has an attitude,” she said smoothly. “Whatever shall we do to teach her her place?”
She picked up a big pot of pink blush beads and turned them over on the white-?and-?green flowered area rug in the center of the hardwood floor. “Oh! Oops!”
“Cheyenne!” Rose cried.
She responded by lifting her heel and grinding the little pellets
26
into the thick weave. Part of me wanted to grab her by her perfect hair and grind her face in there as well. But of course I did not.
“You can clean that up when you're done, Glass-?licker,” Cheyenne said. “Unless you want me to tell Noelle how clever you are.”
She turned and walked out. Rose sighed and hesitated by the door.
“You don't have to worry about that now. There's always tonight,” she said. “And don't take too much time on my bed. Just throw the covers over it in case Noelle checks.”
“She checks?” I asked.
Rose looked at me pityingly. Clearly I was too naive for words. “Good luck.”
She closed the door quietly behind her, and I listened as her footsteps disappeared down the hall. The dorm was silent as night now. I glanced at the clock. Half an hour to vacuum, shower, get dressed, and get to breakfast. Not that breakfast appealed, but I had to make an appearance or Noelle might put me on toilet duty later. I would have to forgo something to finish in time. Probably the shower.
With a sigh, I moved to Rose's bed. She'd been nice, so I'd do better than just flipping the covers up. I straightened the sheets and comforter and then lifted the pillows. There was something jammed between the corner of the bed and the wall. I placed my knee in the center of the mattress and took a closer look. Whatever it was was kind of crumply and green and--“Oh, my God.”
27
My hand flew over my mouth. It was a piece of a muffin. An old, moldy corn muffin and its wrapper that Rose had obviously stuffed there after snacking on it one night. One night in early September from the looks of it. Apparently even the creme de la creme could be slobs. I turned around, stumbled into their bathroom, and slammed my kneecaps against the linoleum as I doubled over.