Sara Shepard - Never Have I Ever

Madeline gestured to the caterers in white uniforms scurrying around backstage and setting chrome tureens, platters, pitchers, and glasses on a long folding table. “We’ve got sparkling cider, hors d’oeuvres, cheeses. Non-dairy stuff for Norah, gluten-free stuff for Madison.”

“And don’t forget about Alicia Young,” Laurel said, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle on her cocktail dress. “She’s on that grapefruit-and-cayenne-pepper cleanse.”

Charlotte looked like she was going to explode. “That diet is nasty. She’s just going to have to suffer.”

A pang overcame me as I watched the preparations. I vaguely remembered planning last year’s Homecoming Court party. The theme and decorations were no more than wisps, but I remembered the moment I’d stepped out to announce the winners, knowing I looked more glamorous than all of them combined. And I remembered a faceless guy—my date—catching my arm afterward and telling me that I was the most gorgeous girl on the stage. “I know,” I’d replied, shooting him one of my signature Sutton Mercer smiles.

Sharp, staccato, high-heeled clack s filled the room as court girls filed in, each with a black garment bag slung over her arm and perfectly styled hair piled atop her head or cascading down her back in soft ringlets. They oohed and ahhed over the set design, letting out little gasps and appreciative squeals. Gabby and Lili entered last, noses in the air, hairdos bigger and bouncier than anyone else’s. Emma turned away fast and pretended to fix a frayed ribbon on one of the tables, but she could still feel their eyes burning on her.

“Gabby! Lili!” Laurel shot across the room and linked her elbows through the Twins’. “Let me show you your dressing rooms! We ran out of room down here, so you guys get to change upstairs in the lighting booth.”

Gabby extracted herself from Laurel’s grip. “Lemme just finish my tweet, ’kay?”

Laurel rolled her eyes and waited while Gabby’s thumbs flew across her phone at warp speed. When Gabby finished, she let out a satisfied sigh. “We’re ready to be taken to our chambers now,” she said in a queenlike voice. As Laurel steered them up a staircase, both twins leveled stares at Emma. Laurel twisted around, too, signaling a covert thumbs-up to Madeline and Charlotte.

“Okay, girls!” Charlotte clapped her hands and drew the rest of the court members into a circle. “You all need to get changed for your big entrance! People are filing in here in ten minutes. Don’t forget heels and a fresh coat of gloss! And remember, the makeup artist is going to come and put blood in your hair and paint blue circles under your eyes.”

The girls pouted. “Do we really have to do that?” Tinsley Zimmerman whined.

“Yes,” Charlotte answered sharply, her slight smirk revealing just how much she loved being the boss.

Tinsley eyed Charlotte’s party dress. “ You’re not wearing corpse makeup. We’ll look uglier than you!”

That’s the point , I thought.

“It’ll make you look avant-garde and chic,” Madeline said, sounding like a fashion editor. “You’re dead beauties of the Titanic . You drowned in the ocean. How do you think you should look? Like a Bobbi Brown spring campaign?” She gestured to a bunch of dressing rooms at the back. “Now go change!”

The court girls turned, giving one another cryptic, I-know-something-you-don’t smiles, reminding Emma that none of them knew exactly who was getting pranked today. Tinsley slammed a dressing room door shut before anyone could join her. Alicia Young—she of the nasty cleanse diet—ducked into a tiny, curtained-off alcove to change. Madison Cates looked around furtively, then slipped into the shadows and pulled a black sequined gown over her stiff hair. The other girls disappeared as well. When they emerged from their respective dressing rooms in their black gowns, their faces registered notes of surprise.

“I was hoping the joke was on you,” Tinsley, who wore a strapless gown, said to Norah Alvarez.

“Well, I hoped it was on you ,” Norah snapped back, smoothing the feather collar on her flapper dress.

Makeup artists whirled around, swiping each girl’s mouth with corpse-blue lipstick. Emma leaned toward Charlotte. “So we’re sure Gabby and Lili don’t suspect anything?”

Charlotte glanced at the dressing room on the second floor. The door was shut tight. “Last I checked, they had no clue.” Pulling a walkie-talkie from her hip, she pressed TALK. “How’s everything going, Laurel?”

“Great!” Laurel’s voice blared fuzzily through the speaker. “I’m just helping Gabby and Lili get dressed. They look fabulous!”

A crafty smile appeared on Charlotte’s lips. “Perfect. We need them down here in five minutes, okay? Stay up there until then. We’ll send the makeup artists up.”

“Aye aye!”

When Laurel radioed off, Charlotte rubbed her hands together. “We need to keep them up there until the very second they have to go on stage. They’ll have no time to change.”

Madeline joined them, giggling. “This is going to be so good.”

“I hope so.” Charlotte stared at the velvet curtain that separated the back stage from the front, a serious look suddenly crossing her face. “Just as long as we don’t land Gabby in the hospital again.”

Madeline stiffened. “ We didn’t land Gabby in the hospital. Sutton did.”

Both of them turned and glanced at Emma. Emma felt a sharp punch to her stomach. They had to be talking about the train prank. She waited for either of them to elaborate, but Madeline started fiddling with her clipboard and Charlotte strode away.

The final bell rang, and the doors to the lobby flung open. Emma peeked out from behind the curtains. Students poured down the center aisle and filled the plush red seats. Freshman girls gaped at the Titanic set, squealing about how they couldn’t wait until they were old enough to be on the court. A group of girls Madeline and the others called the Vegan Virgins—for reasons Emma wasn’t entirely sure of, though she had a pretty good guess—plopped down next to a couple of the corpses and screamed. The entire football team sat together, shoving one another and jockeying for attention. Nearly everyone in the audience pulled their phones from their bags and sneakily checked the screens.

Charlotte’s words swirled in Emma’s mind. Just as long as we don’t land Gabby in the hospital again. What exactly happened that night? Had Sutton hurt Gabby? The message in the box with the train charm flooded back: I will always be seized with the memory.

“Showtime!” Charlotte scurried to the court nominees, who were all inspecting their drowning-victim makeup in the full-length mirrors. Emma let the curtain close and stared at the ceiling, as though she could see straight up to the Twitter Twins’ dressing room. “Everyone line up! I’m going to announce you to the school in a couple of minutes!” The six non-prank court girls found their dates, six cute guys who looked absolutely mortified to be in tuxedos.

Charlotte glanced over her shoulder, waving her hands around like an air traffic controller. “Mads, you’re going to welcome the crowd. Sutton, you’ll enter from stage left—your mark is a big X on the floor—with all the Homecoming Court sashes for the girls and guys. I’ll come in from stage right. Sutton, can you open the box of sashes? They’re by the mirrors. Sutton? ”

Emma blinked, breaking out of her trance. “Uh-huh.” She walked toward the box of sashes to the left of the stage.

Laurel’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. “Uh, Mads? Can we come down now?”