Popular by Alissa Grosso

Author:Alissa Grosso
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-27T23:42:00+00:00

Everywhere I look there are icicles and snowflakes. Everywhere. Shelly hasn't missed a spot. She insisted on doing all the decorating herself. I can't imagine what it cost her.

"Where's the township snowplow when you need it?" Olivia asks, dusting snowflakes from a chair by the front door so she can sit down.

"It looks pretty, though, doesn't it?" I say.

"Pretty over the top, if you ask me," Olivia says.

I know what she means. It does have the look of someone trying too hard. It's reassuring to think that maybe I'm not the only one who worries about keeping it all together, about doing the right thing. Maybe even popularityobsessed Shelly Trust doesn't entirely get it, doesn't have the whole formula worked out. That seems evident from the mood of the party, which isn't nearly as festive and cel ebratory as one would hope. It's not that people look like they're having a bad time. They just don't look like they're having a good time.

Standing in the hallway, watching them through the living room door, I can't help but notice that girl. I think her name is Jasmine. She's bubbly and overly friendly in a phony kind of way, like she's Shelly Trust's long-lost nerdy twin. I see her scanning the crowd, looking for a familiar face, and I duck out of the doorway before we make eye contact.

"What's with you?" Olivia asks.

"Nothing," I say. "There's someone here who wasn't on the guest list."

"Don't tell me Shelly's gotten to you as well."

"No, but it's true. I just saw her in there."

Olivia looks at me as if I have three heads.

"You surprise me," she says. "I never would have pegged you for the sort of person who memorizes everyone on the guest list."

That's when I realize my mistake, but it's too late to undo it. I'm not sure what Olivia's look means. I decide I need to come up with some sort of explanation.

"It's just, well, you know how Shelly is," I say. "She wanted to go over it with me. See if I could tell her who all the alleged nobodies were, that sort of thing. That Jasmine chick, I know she wasn't on it."

Does she buy it? Does she even care? Am I being too paranoid?

Olivia peeks through the doorway.

"Do you see her?" I ask. I look over the top of Olivia's head, but I don't see jasmine. She must have gone into a different room. Instead I see Alex, aloof and alone in the corner, and something inside me starts to ache.

"Alex looks bored," I say.

"Drunk is more like it."

"What?"

"Don't tell me you don't know. Alex always self-medicates before Hamilton's parties. It's the only way he can make it through the night."

It only makes me like him that much more. He's human and flawed and he can't deal with his girlfriend's parties, probably can't deal with her so well either. And if her own boyfriend can't deal with her, then maybe Hamilton isn't exactly so perfect after all.

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