Michelle Madow - Diamonds in the Rough

Oh, right—because she’d thought everyone at Goodman would dress up. And because she’d stupidly thought it would catch Damien and Nick’s attention. Seeing as no one else was as dressed up, she might catch their attention…but not in a positive way.

Her throat constricted, and she wanted to run back to the limo and beg Teddy to drive her back to the Diamond so that she could change. But that wasn’t an option. She would have to suck it up.

Betty at the front desk was an older woman with short gray hair—she looked like a grandma who baked cookies for her grandkids after school. She welcomed Savannah and her sisters and handed them their locker combinations.

“Here’s the sheet you sign whenever you need to leave school, or if you arrive late,” she said, pointing to a clipboard on the desk. “Seniors have senior privileges and can leave whenever they want. Everyone else has to say why they’re leaving early.”

“With a note from a parent?” Courtney asked.

“You don’t need a note,” Betty said. “At Goodman, we trust students to leave only when necessary. You’re responsible for any missed material, so it’s understood that attendance is crucial to earn high marks.”

Peyton laughed. “And no one takes advantage of how easy it is to skip?”

Betty smiled. “The students here want to attend their classes so they can excel in their studies.”

“It sounds nice.” Courtney looked around in wonder at the well-lit, airy, carpeted building.

“What are senior privileges?” Savannah asked.

“As a sophomore, you won’t have to worry about that for a while,” Betty said, turning to Peyton. “Since you’re a senior, you’re allowed to leave campus for free periods and lunch, as long as you’re back in time for class. There are a lot of restaurants nearby that students enjoy.”

Savannah’s mouth dropped open, and she closed it so she wouldn’t look like a gaping fish. The seniors here went to restaurants for lunch? At Fairfield High, a good fraction of students were on subsidized lunches—including her and her sisters. They wouldn’t have dreamed of going out to eat, or had the time, as Fairfield’s lunch blocks were short and rushed. But with seventy-five minutes set aside for lunch, and credit cards connected to their parents’ bank accounts, students at Goodman had no reason not to go to restaurants.

“What happens if we don’t get back in time?” Peyton asked.

“If it happens more than three times, your senior privileges will be revoked,” Betty said. “But that’s rare, since students want to keep their privileges.”

“You really trust the students here.”

“It’s the Goodman philosophy that everyone is capable of rational self-discipline,” Betty explained. Then she told them to come to her if they had more questions, and they cleared out so that she could talk to the students in the line behind them.

“I guess this is where we part ways,” Courtney said.

Savannah’s stomach flipped. Goodman might as well have been in a different universe than Fairfield, she was dressed all wrong, and she had a terrible feeling that despite her summer tutoring, she would still be behind in her classes. Girls in a nearby clump were looking her over, smirking and whispering what Savannah imagined were mean comments. She pulled her miniskirt down to cover as much of her legs as possible (which wasn’t very much), not wanting to leave her sisters’ sides.

But they had no classes together, so she didn’t have a choice.

* * *

Savannah arrived at first period early and situated herself in a seat in the middle of the U-shaped table configuration, then browsed YouTube on her phone to look busy. After putting her first video online—the one Nick had bought for her of her singing karaoke at Imperial Palace—she’d dreamed it would go viral and she would become an internet sensation. Instead, it had reached around three hundred views and plateaued off. She’d posted a few more videos since then, but despite her best efforts, she still hadn’t cracked a thousand views on any of them.

Maybe she just wasn’t that great and should stop trying.

“This is European History, right?” a short girl with long, dark hair asked from the door. She wore designer jeans and a fitted green T-shirt that looked like a Michael Stars, and the raised triangle label on her black tote was distinctly Prada.

The bag made Savannah regret her Longchamp. The girls at Goodman seemed to favor higher-end bags by Prada, Chanel and Givenchy, to name a few. After school, she had to go shopping for a new bag. She could use the Longchamp when she went to the pool.

“Yeah.” Savannah placed her phone on the table and smiled, hoping to look friendly and approachable. “At least, I hope so. It’s my first day. I’m Savannah.” She moved her bag off the seat next to her so that the girl could sit there.

“I’m Alyssa.” Instead of taking the seat next to Savannah, she left one between them.

Savannah’s cheeks burned. Why did this girl not want to sit next to her? Was she really that overdressed? Or maybe Alyssa had heard rumors about her and already didn’t want to be friends? Savannah knew people talked about her online, but she’d hoped her new status as Adrian Diamond’s daughter would make people want to be friends with her—not avoid sitting next to her.

“Sorry.” Alyssa shrugged. “My two best friends are in this class, and I promised to save them seats.”

“No problem.” Savannah forced a smile. If she’d had a class with Evie and Evie had asked her to save her a seat, she would have done the same thing. She shouldn’t take it personally. But that didn’t stop her throat from feeling tight, as if Alyssa had purposefully insulted her.

“Did you go out last night and not have time to take off your makeup this morning?”

Savannah jerked at the question. “Um, no,” she said. “Why?”

“You just seem really…done up for eight-thirty in the morning.” Alyssa motioned to her own natural makeup, which was opposite from Savannah’s purple metallic shadow and gold glitter liner. “I don’t mean it in a mean way,” she said. “I just guess Goodman is different from whatever school you transferred from.”

“It’s definitely different.” Savannah sighed, not wanting to describe Fairfield High. It would probably make this girl judge her even more.

Then Alyssa pulled out her iPad, and Savannah saw something on the back of it that made her brighten—a sticker of a volleyball.

“You play volleyball?” she asked.

“Yep,” Alyssa said. “I’m on the team here. Do you play, too?”

“I was on JV at my old school.”

“Ohhh, okay.” She nodded condescendingly. “Since Goodman’s so small, we only have varsity.”

“I was one of the best players on JV, and they subbed me in for varsity sometimes,” Savannah said. “Maybe I’ll have a chance.”

All right, they’d subbed her in only once, when a stomach bug had made its way around school and a lot of the varsity players had gotten sick. And they’d lost that game. But Savannah was one of the better players on JV, and she would have been a serious contender for varsity this year at Fairfield.

“Maybe,” Alyssa said, although she didn’t sound like she believed it. Then other students filed in—including the girls Alyssa was saving seats for, Brooke and Jackie. The three of them gossiped like they hadn’t seen each other in years, and Savannah brought out her laptop, pretending she was busy on it.

Being new and knowing no one in her grade really, really sucked.

She didn’t fair better in her next class, so when it was time for lunch, she was on her own. Everyone else joined up with their friends, but Savannah hurried into the nearest restroom, waited for the door to shut, and burst into tears. Why did no one want to be friends with her? She ripped the stupid crystal headband that she’d thought was so cute this morning off her head and tossed it into her bag, along with the sparkly, dangly earrings. If only she could be like Superman and change her outfit, too.