Before I Fall

friends with Ally Endless-Limit-Credit-Card Harris and Lindsay My-Stepdad-Tries-to-Buy-My-Affection Edgecombe.

Today, that problem is solved.

First stop is Bebe, where I pick up a gorgeous spaghetti-strap dress that’s so tight I have to suck all the way in just to squeeze into it. Even then Tara has to duck into the dressing room and help me zip up the last half inch. I kind of like how Anna’s boots look with the dress, actually, sexy and tough, like I’m a video-game assassin or an action hero. I make Charlie’s Angels poses at the mirror for a bit, shaping my fingers into a gun, pointing at my reflection, and mouthing, Sorry. Pulling the trigger, and imagining an explosion.

Courtney nearly loses it when I hand over my credit card without even looking at the total. Not that I don’t catch a glimpse. It’s pretty hard to miss the big green $302.10 flashing on the register, blinking up at me like it’s accusing me of something. My stomach gives a little hula performance as the saleswoman slides over the receipt for me to sign, but I guess all those years of forging my own doctor’s notes and tardy excuses pays off because I give a perfect, looping imitation of my mom’s script, and the saleswoman smiles and says, “Thank you, Ms. Kingston,” like I’ve just done her a favor. And just like that I walk out with the world’s most perfect black dress nestled in tissue paper at the bottom of a crisp white shopping bag. Now I understand why Ally and Lindsay love shopping. It’s much better when you can have whatever you want.

“You are so lucky your parents give you a credit card,” Courtney says, trotting after me as we leave the store. “I’ve been begging mine for years. They say I have to wait until I’m in college.”

“They didn’t exactly give it to me,” I say, raising one eyebrow at her. Her mouth falls open.

“No way.” Courtney shakes her head so fast her brown hair whips back and forth in a blur. “No way. You did not—are you saying you stole—?”

“Shhhh.” La Villa Mall is supposed to be Italian-themed, all big, marble fountains and flagstone walkways. The sound gets bounced and zipped and mixed around so it’s impossible to make out what people are saying unless they’re standing right next to you, but still. No point in pushing it now that I’m on a roll. “I prefer to think of it as borrowing, anyway.”

“My parents would strangle me.” Courtney’s eyes are so wide I’m worried her eyeballs will pop out. “They would kill me until I was dead.”

“Totally,” Bethany says.

We hit the MAC store next, and I get a full-on makeover from a guy named Stanley who’s skinnier than I am, while the Pugs try on different shades of eyeliner and get yelled at for breaking into the unopened lip glosses. I buy everything Stanley uses on me: foundation, concealer, bronzing powder, eye shadow prep, three shades of eye shadow, two shades of eyeliner (one white for under the eye), mascara, lip liner, lip gloss, four different brushes, one eyelash curler. It’s so worth it. I leave looking like I’m a famous model, and I can feel people staring at me as we walk through La Villa. We pass a group of guys who must be in college at least, and one of them mutters, “Hot.” Tara and Courtney are flanking me and Bethany trails behind. I think: This is how Lindsay must feel all the time.

Next is Neiman Marcus: a store I never go into unless Ally drags me, since everything costs a billion dollars. Courtney tries on weird old-lady hats, and Bethany takes pictures of her and threatens to post them online. I pick up this amazing forest green faux-fur shrug that makes me look like I should be partying on a private jet somewhere, and a pair of silver-and-garnet chandelier earrings.

The only snag comes when the woman at the cashier—Irma, according to her name tag—asks to see my ID.

“ID?” I blink at her innocently. “I so never keep it on me. Last year my identity was stolen.”

She stares at me for a long time like she’s thinking about letting it slide, then pops her gum and gives me a tight smile. She pushes the shrug and the earrings back across the counter. “Sorry, Ellen. ID required for all purchases over two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“I prefer Ms. Kingston, actually.” I give her a tight smile right back. Bitch. That gum-popping trick? Lindsay invented it.

Then again, I’d be a bitch too if my parents had named me Irma.

Suddenly inspired, I root around in my purse until I fish out my membership card to Hilldebridge Swim and Tennis, my mom’s gym. I swear, security there is tighter than an airport—like obesity in America is somehow a terrorist plot, and the next big thing to go will be the nation’s elliptical machines—and the card features a tiny picture of me, a membership ID number, and my last name and initials: KINGSTON, S. E.

Irma screws up her face. “What does the S stand for?”

My mind does that thing where it hiccups and then goes totally blank. “Um—Severus.”

She stares at me. “Like in Harry Potter?”

“It’s German, actually.” I should never have offered to read those stupid books to Izzy. “You can see why I go by my middle name.”

Irma’s still hesitating, biting the corner of her lip. Tara’s standing right next to me, running her fingers over my Amex like some of the credit line will rub off on her. She leans forward and giggles.

“I’m sure you understand.” Tara squints a little, like she’s trying hard to make out the name tag from a distance of six inches. “It’s Irma, isn’t it?”

Courtney comes up behind us, wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a gigantic feathered robin sprouting out of its side. “Did people ever call you Worma when you were little? Or Squirma?”

Irma folds her mouth into a thin white line, reaches for my card, and swipes.

“Guten Tag,” I say as we leave: the only German I know.

Tara and Co. are still laughing about Irma as we pull out of the parking lot of La Villa. “I can’t believe it,” Courtney keeps repeating, leaning forward to look at me, like I’m suddenly going to disappear. This time they’ve given me shotgun automatically. I didn’t even have to call it. “I can’t freaking believe it.”

I allow myself a small smile as I turn to the window, and am momentarily startled by the reflection I see there: huge dark eyes, smoke and shadow, full red lips. Then I remember the makeup. For a second I didn’t recognize myself.

“You’re so awesome,” Tara says, then palms the steering wheel and curses as we just miss the light.

“Please.” I wave the air vaguely. I’m feeling pretty good. I’m almost glad Lindsay and I got into a fight this morning.

“Oh, shit, no way.” Courtney beats on my shoulder as a huge Chevy Tahoe, vibrating with bass, pulls up next to us. Even though it’s freezing, all the windows are down: it’s the college guys from La Villa, the ones who checked us out earlier. Who checked me out. They’re laughing and fighting over something in the car—one of them yells, “Mike, you’re a pussy”—pretending not to see us, the way guys do when they’re just dying to look.

“They are so hot,” Tara says, leaning over me to get a clearer view, then ducking quickly back to the wheel.

“You should get their number.”

“Hello? There are four of them.”

“Their numbers, then.”

“Totally.”

“I’m gonna flash them,” I say, and am suddenly thrilled with the perfect, pure simplicity of it: I’m going to do it. So much easier and cleaner than Maybe I should or Won’t we get in trouble? or Oh my God, I could never. Yes. Three letters. I twist around to Courtney. “Do you dare me?”

Her eyes are doing that bug thing again. Tara and Bethany stare at me like I’ve sprouted tentacles.

“You wouldn’t,” Courtney says.

“You can’t,” Tara says.

“I can, I would, and I’m going to.” I roll down the window, and the cold slams me, blots out everything,