It's All About Us Read online

  Copyright © 2008 by Shelley Adina

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Scriptures noted NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  FaithWords

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  FaithWords is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The FaithWords name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: May 2008

  ISBN: 978-0-446-53728-5

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  For Jennifer Jackson

  Acknowledgments

  This book wouldn’t exist without the help of a number of people:

  Jennifer Jackson, my agent, who told me, “If you write this, I can sell it.” And she did.

  Anne Horch, who became the head cheerleader of my team as soon as she saw the manuscript.

  My first readers, Sarah, Julia, and Allie, who helped me keep it real, and my niece, Kailey, who provided a beautiful model for my heroine.

  Patrick and Joanne, for the use of the mulch pile.

  The original Grrls, who were in on this from the beginning and helped brainstorm titles and plots: Kristin Billerbeck, Marilyn Hilton, Dineen Miller, Camy Tang, and M. L. Tyndall.

  The members of the Looney Bin, who can unravel anything from a plot knot to a revision letter: Diana Duncan, Tina Ferraro, Susan Gable, Cindy Procter-King, Catherine Mulvany, Anita Staley, and Debrah Williamson.

  And, as always, Jeff, who has learned that research (a.k.a., watching high school movies or reading Teen Vogue) is tax deductible and therefore should not be interrupted.

  “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.”

  —Philippians 1:9–10 (NIV)

  Chapter 1

  SOME THINGS YOU just know without being told. Like, you passed the math final (or you didn’t). Your boyfriend isn’t into you anymore and wants to break up. Vanessa Talbot has decided that since you’re the New Girl, you have a big bull’s-eye on your forehead and your junior year is going to be just as miserable as she can make it.

  Carly once told me she used to wish she were me. Ha! That first week at Spencer Academy, I wouldn’t have wished my life on anyone.

  My name is Lissa Evelyn Mansfield, and since everything seemed to happen to me this quarter, we decided I’d be the one to write it all down. Maybe you’ll think I’m some kind of drama queen, but I swear this is the truth. Don’t listen to Gillian and Carly—they weren’t there for some of it, so probably when they read this, it’ll be news to them, too.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. When it all started, I didn’t even know them. All I knew was that I was starting my junior year at the Spencer Academy of San Francisco, this private boarding school for trust fund kids and the offspring of the hopelessly rich, and I totally did not want to be there.

  I mean, picture it: You go from having fun and being popular in tenth grade at Pacific High in Santa Barbara, where you can hang out on State Street or join a drumming circle or surf whenever you feel like it with all your friends, to being absolutely nobody in this massive old mansion where rich kids go because their parents don’t have time to take care of them.

  Not that my parents are like that. My dad’s a movie director, and he’s home whenever his shooting schedule allows it. When he’s not, sometimes he flies us out to cool places like Barbados or Hungary for a week so we can be on location together. You’ve probably heard of my dad. He directed that big pirate movie that Warner Brothers did a couple of years ago. That’s how he got on the radar of some of the big A-list directors, so when George (hey, he asked me to call him that, so it’s not like I’m dropping names) rang him up from Marin and suggested they do a movie together, of course he said yes. I can’t imagine anybody saying no to George, but anyway, that’s why we’re in San Francisco for the next two years. Since Dad’s going to be out at the Ranch or on location so much, and my sister, Jolie, is at UCLA (film school, what else—she’s a daddy’s girl and she admits it), and my mom’s dividing her time among all of us, I had the choice of going to boarding school or having a live-in. Boarding school sounded fun in a Harry Potter kind of way, so I picked that.

  Sigh. That was before I realized how lonely it is being the New Girl. Before the full effect of my breakup really hit. Before I knew about Vanessa Talbot, who I swear would make the perfect girlfriend for a warlock.

  And speaking of witch . . .

  “Melissa!”

  Note: my name is not Melissa. But on the first day of classes, I’d made the mistake of correcting Vanessa, which meant that every time she saw me after that, she made a point of saying it wrong. The annoying part is that now people really think that’s my name.

  Vanessa, Emily Overton, and Dani Lavigne (“Yes, that Lavigne. Did I tell you she’s my cousin?”) are like this triad of terror at Spencer. Their parents are all fabulously wealthy—richer than my mom’s family, even—and they never let you forget it. Vanessa and Dani have the genes to go with all that money, which means they look good in everything from designer dresses to street chic.

  Vanessa’s dark brown hair is cut so perfectly, it always falls into place when she moves. She has the kind of skin and dark eyes that might be from some Italian beauty somewhere in her family tree. Which, of course, means the camera loves her. It didn’t take me long to figure out that there was likely to be a photographer or two somewhere on the grounds pretty much all the time, and nine times out of ten, Vanessa was the one they bagged. Her mom is minor royalty and the ex-wife of some U.N. Secretary or other, which means every time he gives a speech, a photographer shows up here. Believe me, seeing Vanessa in the halls at school and never knowing when she’s going to pop out at me from the pages of Teen People or some society news Web site is just annoying. Can you say overexposed?

  Anyway. Where was I? Dani has butterscotch-colored hair that she has highlighted at Biondi once a month, and big blue eyes that make her look way more innocent than she is. Emily is shorter and chunkier and could maybe be nice if you got her on her own, but she’s not the kind that functions well outside of a clique.

  Some people are born independent and some aren’t. You should see Emily these days. All that money doesn’t help her one bit out at the farm, where—

  Okay, Gillian just told me I ha
ve to stop doing that. She says it’s messing her up, like I’m telling her the ending when I’m supposed to be telling the beginning.

  Not that it’s all about her, okay? It’s about us: me, Gillian, Carly, Shani, Mac . . . and God. But just to make Gillian happy, I’ll skip to the part where I met her, and she (and you) can see what I really thought of her. Ha. Maybe that’ll make her stop reading over my shoulder.

  So as I was saying, there they were—Vanessa, Emily, and Dani—standing between me and the dining room doors. “What’s up?” I said, walking up to them when I should have turned and settled for something out of the snack machine at the other end of the hall.

  “She doesn’t know.” Emily poked Dani. “Maybe we shouldn’t tell her.”

  I did a fast mental check. Plaid skirt—okay. Oxfords—no embarrassing toilet paper. White blouse—buttoned, no stains. Slate blue cardigan—clean. Hair—freshly brushed.

  They couldn’t be talking about me personally, in which case I didn’t need to hear it. “Whatever.” I pushed past them and took two steps down the hall.

  “Don’t you want to hear about your new roommate?” Vanessa asked.

  Roommate? At that point I’d survived for five days, and the only good things about them were the crème brulée in the dining room and the blessed privacy of my own room. What fresh disaster was this?

  Oops. I’d stopped in my tracks and tipped them off that (a) I didn’t know, and (b) I wanted to know. And when Vanessa knows you want something, she’ll do everything she can not to let you have it.

  “I think we should tell her,” Emily said. “It would be kinder to get it over with.”

  “I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.” There, that sounded bored enough. “Byeee.”

  “I hope you like Chinese!” Dani whooped at her own cleverness, and the three of them floated off down the hall.

  So I thought, Great, maybe they’re having dim sum today for lunch, though what that had to do with my new roommate I had no idea. At that point it hadn’t really sunk in that conversation with those three is a dangerous thing.

  That had been my first mistake the previous Wednesday, when classes had officially begun. Conversation, I mean. You know, normal civilized discourse with someone you think might be a friend. Like a total dummy, I’d actually thought this about Vanessa, who’d pulled newbie duty, walking me down the hall to show me where my first class was. It turned out to not be my first class, but the teacher was nice about steering me to the right room, where I was, of course, late.

  That should’ve been my first clue.

  My second clue was when Vanessa invited me to eat with them and Dani managed to spill her Coke all over my uniform skirt, which is, as I said, plaid and made of this easy-clean fake wool that people with sensitive skin can wear. She’d jumped up, all full of apologies, and handed me napkins and stuff, but the fact remained that I had to go upstairs and change and then figure out how the laundry service worked, which meant I was late for Biology, too.

  On Thursday Dani apologized again, and Vanessa loaned me some of her Bumble and bumble shampoo (“You can’t use Paul Mitchell on gorgeous hair like yours—people get that stuff at the drugstore now”), and I was dumb enough to think that maybe things were looking up. Because really, the shampoo was superb. My hair is blond and I wear it long, but before you go hating me for it, it’s fine and thick, and the fog we have here in San Francisco makes it go all frizzy. And it’s foggy a lot. So this shampoo made it just coo with pleasure.

  You’re probably asking yourself why I bothered trying to be friends with these girls. The harrowing truth was, I was used to being in the A-list group. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t fit in with the popular girls at Spencer, once I figured out who they were.

  Lucky me—Vanessa made that so easy. And I was so lonely and out of my depth that even she was looking good. Her dad had once backed one of my dad’s films, so there was that minimal connection.

  Too bad it wasn’t enough.

  jolie.mansfieldL, don’t let them bug you. Some people are threatened by anything new. It’s a compliment really.

  LMansfieldYou always find the bright side. Gahh. Love you, but not helping.

  jolie.mansfieldWhat can I do?

  LMansfieldI’d give absolutely anything to be back in S.B.

  jolie.mansfield:(

  LMansfieldI want to hang with the kids from my youth group. Not worry about anything but the SPF of my sun block.

  jolie.mansfieldIt’ll get better. Promise. Heard from Mom?

  LMansfieldNo. She’s doing some fundraiser with Angelina. She’s pretty busy.

  jolie.mansfieldIf you say so. Love you.

  Chapter 2

  MISS MANSFIELD, may I have a moment?”

  I’d put my phone away and was reaching for the very last crème brulée, but when I turned to see what Ms. Curzon wanted, the guy in line behind me snaked it. I fought back the urge to crack his hand against the stainless steel tray track and snatch the dessert from his broken fingers, and took a raspberry moussey-looking thing instead.

  Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling very Christian when I finally faced Ms. Curzon.

  The principal (or headmistress, if you said it the way Ms. Curzon said it, with a cool British accent) was one of those women you expect to see in a collared T-shirt and pleated skirt, running across the lawn with a field-hockey stick following a healthy breakfast of bangers and mash. She was tall and thin and her hair looked like it had been whacked off by, well, herself, in front of the bathroom mirror. Like she couldn’t care less what people thought of her looks. Maybe she just cared more what they thought of her school.

  But when we’d come here to get me enrolled last week, my mom went as breathless and fluttery as that time she sat next to Harrison Ford at a movie premiere.

  “Natalie Curzon spent ten years in the Amazon jungle fighting for a nature conservancy,” she whispered to me while the headmistress went into the outer office to get something. “Miramax wanted to film her story and had Hilary Swank attached to star, but she turned them down. Wouldn’t give them the rights to her book, even though she could have retired on the money.”

  I figure ten years in an Amazon jungle is about as qualified as you can get to run a private school for rich people’s kids.

  I followed Ms. Curzon to a table at the back, where there seemed to be a one-woman show going on, starring a girl with hair so black it had blue highlights. In a New York accent that gave her a worldly-wise authority, she was telling the rest of the kids at the table some story that involved the Staten Island ferry and an accident. She had a song playing on her portable CD player like it was the score to the drama.

  “Gillian, I’d like you to meet your new roommate,” Ms. Curzon said.

  Nobody paid any attention. Ms. Curzon said it again, louder.

  Nada. Then, moving as swiftly as a jungle cat, Ms. Curzon whipped the player off the table, shut it up, and waited. In the sudden cone of silence, Gillian blinked at her, totally surprised.

  “What?” she said.

  “Gillian, this is your new roommate,” Ms. Curzon told her, as if she hadn’t repeated herself once already. “Lissa Mansfield, this is Gillian Chang.”

  Suddenly I realized what Dani had meant, the prejudiced little . . . darling.

  The only dim someone in this room was me.

  I nodded at Gillian Chang and gave her my best smile, but she only stared at me. “And this couldn’t have waited ’til I was done?” Then she seemed to figure out who she was talking to. She glanced at the principal. “Sorry. Ma’am.”

  “Why don’t I leave you two to get acquainted?” Ms. Curzon smiled at us, handed Gillian her player, and pushed off through the tables to go do whatever headmistresses did when they were minding their own business.

  “Feel free to join us,” Gillian said in a breezy tone that made it clear it was all the same to her whether I did or not.

  You’d never guess we were destined to become best
friends, would you? Gillian says she was only trying to be cool and not scream at me because I’m tall and blond and—her words, not mine—looked like I had the world in my pocket to play with.

  Right, like I’d scream at her because she’s brilliant and plays about a dozen different musical instruments and can say the periodic table of the elements backwards.

  Carly says we should be grateful God gave us all different gifts. Which is her nice way of saying, Just shut up and get on with the story.

  So I sat across from my new roomie, and then I saw what was on her tray.

  Crème brulée.

  I swear, at that moment if I wasn’t sure that God loved me, I’d think He was trying to build my character or something.

  Gillian launched back into her story and I got the gist of it. She’d actually been on the ferry when it missed its berth, crashed, and sank right there in the harbor. Stuff like that never happens to me.

  “Did you have to go to the hospital?” a kid who looked to be a sophomore asked.

  “No, I got squashed between these two old ladies, and we all kind of fell against the fender of a car. The lady on the bottom got the worst of it. Hey, want to hear what happened when we got stuck in the elevator inside the Eiffel Tower? I have some cool Django Reinhardt here to get us in the mood.”

  There went the CD player again. I lost interest. Jangle who? Tribulations might be sent to test the soul, but did that mean you had to sit with them for your whole lunch hour?

  What I needed here was to just concentrate on ingesting food. I needed to keep my strength up for Math, not because we were starting trig, but because Callum McCloud sat one row over from me and two seats up, and I wanted all five senses in working order.

  Not that I’d use my sense of taste on him. Okay, yes, I would. Like, if he ever kissed me. But for now, hearing and seeing would have to do, and maybe even touching and smelling if I got lucky during the rush for the door at the end of class.

  Callum McCloud was the hottest thing I’d seen since I’d arrived. By Thursday I’d developed this weird heat-seeking radar where he was concerned. I could pick his blond head out of a crowd anywhere, which wasn’t that hard because he was tall and the entire privileged student body numbered maybe two hundred, including day students like him. Sometimes I just had to turn to see him going into a classroom or crossing the quad, the lawn in the center of the square formed by the building’s wings.