The Magnolia League - By Katie Crouch Page 0,27

trying to help. She wasn’t giving me a makeover; she was offering me protective camouflage. Too bad I didn’t let her go all the way, because right now I feel like a fat frump.

She and Madison stop to chat with a big, good-looking boy, and I step back, trying to avoid the moment when he looks at me and the disappointment registers in his eyes.

“Hey, Piggy!” someone says. It takes me a minute to realize a girl is talking to me.

My face turns scarlet. God, can’t I just go home? I hate them. I hate them all.

“Unbunch your underpants,” she says, suddenly smiling. “I’m Carson; this is Natalie. We’re just playin’.”

“Oh,” I say, trying to smile. “Sorry. That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” the little rat-faced one called Natalie says. “It is cool. We’re very cool people.”

I notice that they’re flanking me. I look around desperately for Hayes or Madison, but all I see are polo-covered backs. I’m on my own.

“You’re not from Georgia, are you?” Carson asks.

“I’m from Mendocino.”

“Oh, wow. So you must smoke a lot of pot. Are you a stoner?”

“I like a little weed every now and then,” I say, trying to sound worldly.

“I bet you do,” Carson says. “We both love your hair.”

“Yeah,” Natalie says. “What a statement. You’re such a unique individual. So different.”

The sarcasm drips off her tongue like poison. My face burns. I mumble something.

“And those flip-flops,” Carson says. “Piggy baby, you shouldn’t wear your nice shoes to the Field. Save them for all the special places you have to go, like the welfare office.”

I will not let these girls get to me, but my eyes burn, and I feel something wet slide down one of my cheeks. Carson notices, and I see a mean little smile sneak across her lips.

“What’s it like to be a burner?” Natalie asks. “Are you high right now? Are you flying?”

And then a pair of hands are on Carson’s shoulders, and Madison is kissing her on both cheeks, leaving lipstick smudges. Carson’s mouth becomes an O, and then Madison has me by the arm and is pulling me away into the crowd. Her lips are moving, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. Behind me, Carson shrieks.

“Something bit me!”

Beside me, I hear Madison muttering fast, “Jon-ta-conku-er. Jon-ta-conku-er.” I stop and look back to where a crowd of people are gathering around Carson.

“Is that girl okay?” I ask. Because she definitely does not seem okay. If she were okay, she wouldn’t be lying on the ground. If she were okay, she wouldn’t be starting to convulse.

“Snake!” someone yells helpfully.

“Call nine-one-one!” someone else shouts.

“Fuck you!” a third voice shouts back.

From the ground, Carson is making wet, gagging noises.

And then Hayes is there.

“Madison!” she whispers, and pinches her arm. Madison snaps out of it. Hayes turns to me and flashes her million-dollar smile.

“Alex, come on over here. I want to introduce you to some people,” she says, beaming.

“But that girl…”

“She’ll be fine,” Hayes says. Sure enough, Carson is suddenly standing. Someone hands her a beer, and just as quickly as the illness seemed to arrive, it’s gone, and she begins to dance.

“Wow,” I say, trying to act as if this scene were normal. “Who are they?”

“Regular cotillion debs. They’ll be at the Christmas Ball too. But they’re not in the Magnolia subset.”

“They seem really… special. Awesome first impression of the scene here. So, who do you want me to meet?”

Hayes points to a group of girls. I can’t believe it. They’re standing at attention, as if they’re soldiers. She curls her finger inward once, and four of them scuttle over.

“What’s up, y’all?” one of them says. She’s a platinum blond, with spray-on-tan-gone-wrong orange skin.

“This is Alex,” Hayes says. “She’s from California.”

The girls are looking at me the same way Carson and Natalie did. Clearly, they have as much interest in talking to me as they do in, say, eating dirt. I can feel my heart starting to wallop inside my chest again.

“Her grandmother is the president of the Magnolia League,” Hayes adds.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of things: a seventy-year-old woman on an acid trip, a pod of whales playing off the beach. But I’ve never, and I mean never, seen people’s expressions change as quickly and as thoroughly as when Hayes said those words.

Magnolia League. Can that really be all it takes to earn respect in this town?

“Do you play tennis?” one of the girls asks.

“No.”

“I’ll teach you,” says a redheaded girl quickly. Freckled, and seriously stacked. “I’m Mary. I’ve been dying