Beautiful: Truth's Found When Beauty's Lost Part 1

Beautiful.

Truth's Found when Beauty's Lost.

CINDY MARTINUSEN-COLOMA.

To my sister Jenny.

We'll always have McCormick "Sister Power"!.

Chapter 1.

THE OUTSIDER.

The Anonymous Blog about Life at West Redding High October 17.

Why would you ever want to be like Ellie Summerfield? Because she's popular, pretty, and-what are other P words?- how about punctual, prudish, pre-law (perhaps), perky, practical . . . All I have to say is: predictable! How does Ryan Blasin stand someone so-this is the exact word for Ellie Summerfield-perfect. Wanna bet she'll be back to school after her grandfather's funeral today? Just watch and see.

People were staring at Ellie as she turned the combination on her locker. She looked down and cringed. She'd meant to change from the black skirt and blouse into jeans, but the compulsion to get away had made her forget. Was that why they were staring?

"Who comes back to school after a funeral?" Vanessa opened her locker beside Ellie's.

"A person who has a calculus test sixth period and a student council meeting after school."

And a person who needs to escape her family for the rest of the day.

Ellie stared into the abyss of her locker. She really needed to reorganize. Papers stuck out from the tops of books. Her planner was missing from where it usually resided for quick reference.

"You are mistaken, Miss Summerfield. No one comes back to school after a funeral. A funeral is a free pa.s.s out of everything."

"Not everything," Ellie said and recognized how lame her defense sounded. She moved her chem book in front of her history book. She liked to keep them in the order of her cla.s.ses.

"Did your sister come back to school? Of course not, and you know I never side with the sister from the dark side. Either you're more obsessive-compulsive than usual or . . . Oh, please do not tell me that you are organizing your locker-again. Take a peek into the world of the normal teenage life."

Vanessa flung one arm toward her open locker, which overflowed with everything from papers and books to nail polish and some sort of leftover food item that Ellie didn't care to see more of. Her stomach had felt queasy off and on since her parents gave her the news about Grandfather Edward and how the cat was eating his Salisbury steak when they found him.

Vanessa shook her head. "You do know you have a problem."

"Just one?" Ellie said, closing her locker. Her phone vibrated in her purse.

Ryan: I wanted to go with you today.

"Didn't they have some post-funeral party-or dinner, whatever it's called?" Vanessa applied lip gloss as she leaned close to the mirror on the inside door of her locker, then checked her wavy blonde hair.

"Yes, and I've eaten more ca.s.seroles and store-bought desserts this week than I've had in my life."

Ellie typed on her phone: I wished you were there. Sorry.

Ryan: Are you okay? It isn't easy burying a relative that you didn't like.

Ellie: I never said I didn't like him.

Ryan: You didn't have to.

Ellie slipped her phone back into her bag. She didn't want to think about her grandfather right now.

A guy across the quad pointed at her and nudged his friend. Should she wave at them?

"Am I being paranoid, or are people staring at me today?"

"You aren't being paranoid."

"What?"

"People are staring at you." Vanessa leaned back against the lockers and typed something into her phone.

"Why?" Ellie looked at the students hurrying to cla.s.s.

"You were the topic of 'The Outsider' this morning."

Ellie stared at Vanessa. "What did it say?"

"Oh, just about you being perfect and stuff like that."

Ellie didn't know how to respond. "The Outsider" was the newest popular blog, which was ironic since it was supposedly written by someone from the so-called out crowd. The unknown writer liked to comment about the in crowd, though Ellie wondered who decided the lines of in and out at their school. She'd be in no crowd if she could choose.

Vanessa brushed some lint off Ellie's skirt. "Uh, nice outfit. It also said you'd come back to school after the funeral."

Ellie's mouth dropped. "How could they know that?"

"Wouldn't it be crazy if the Outsider was Tara?" Vanessa said, motioning slightly with her head toward Tara Radcliffe, who walked toward them.

"No way. She's usually the prime target. And if anyone on earth is in the in crowd-whatever that means-she'd be the queen."

"That could all be a ruse to hide her ident.i.ty."

"The Outsider writes too many mean things about her."

"True. What is she wearing?" Vanessa muttered in a voice in which Ellie heard envy as well as disdain.

Ellie's phone rumbled from inside her purse.

Ryan: We're going somewhere after school.

Ellie tapped the keys: Can't. Student council meeting.

Tara stopped in front of them. "Sorry to hear about your grandpa," she said.

Ellie looked up from her cell phone, and Vanessa frowned and squinted her eyes. Tara walked away before Ellie could respond.

"What was that about?" Ellie asked. Tara rarely talked to Ellie, and Ellie didn't care enough to wonder why. Tara rarely talked to anyone. She'd moved from New York, or so it was said. This was her first year at Redding; she'd left the big city for the small city-something about her father's company going down with many others-and she hadn't transitioned well.

"She didn't even mean that. There was not one hint of sorry in her voice."

Ellie frowned. "So everyone knows I was at my grandfather's funeral?"

"She probably knows from Ryan."

"Ryan?"

Ryan beeped in again: Meeting canceled. You're mine after school. No arguing and no questions asked.

"Tara is always talking to Ryan when you aren't there. Guess she thought today was her free day. She sat at his table at lunch."

Ellie turned to watch Tara walking toward cla.s.s with the confidence and movements of someone well beyond high school. Tara didn't fit here. She belonged in whatever prep school she'd come from. Did Ryan find her attractive? Of course he did. Everyone found Tara attractive even if she was a sn.o.b.

"So you think she's interested in Ryan?" Ellie knew she should feel furious, but a sudden tiredness swept over her. Her relations.h.i.+p with Ryan was complicated. Or maybe it was simple, and she made it complicated.

"To be retro about it . . . Duh!"

Megan carried the two gla.s.ses from the kitchen to the living room. With Ellie at school, Mom was making her remain downstairs to "be with the family" after the funeral. Their house looked like an old folks' home. She nearly tripped over a walker.

"Is that my root beer?" Uncle Henry asked.

"Yes, this is yours, and this one is for Margaret."

Margaret's hand shook as she took the gla.s.s, and Megan wondered why Uncle Henry had left Aunt Gloria for this poodle-haired, overweight lady. It had been the scandal of the a.s.sisted-living facility, apparently. At least that's what Aunt Gloria said when she and Mrs. Koleski were whispering in the kitchen. Aunt Gloria didn't need a walker yet, and she'd been so involved with the family for something like forty years that she seemed more like the blood relative than he did. Whatever was he thinking?

"I wanted a few ice cubes," Uncle Henry said without reaching for the drink.

Megan continued to hold it out to him. "You asked for no ice."

"Well, I meant maybe one or two."

Megan wanted to give him one or two, all right.

Family, isn't it great? she thought as she marched back to the kitchen. Maybe Ellie was as brilliant as everyone claimed. After all, it wasn't Ellie who was checking on elderly people because they'd been in the bathroom a long time, or taking drinks around, or returning to the kitchen for one or two ice cubes.

She caught a disapproving glance from the Leonards as she pa.s.sed, and nearly said, "It's a great dress, isn't it?"

Everyone was appalled at her dress. She had sewn it herself in the week since Grandfather's death.

Mom had stared when she came downstairs. "It's very nice, but why so bright, honey? The relatives may find it disrespectful."

"They find everything about me disrespectful, so why not one more thing?"

"It was Dad's favorite color," Megan's father said, defending her. "He would have liked it, though I'm sure he wouldn't have admitted it."

And that was exactly why she'd sewn it. In homage to her grandfather-a dress of bright yellow that would shake the family up. The old man would have loved it, and she hoped he was laughing from the grave, proud of her as only Grandfather Edward ever was.

"Megan, are you going to the kitchen? Would you be a dear and bring some more of those Beanee Weenees?"

"Certainly," she said, though she couldn't remember the name of the old lady who had called out the request.

Megan just wanted a cigarette and some silence.

"That's Ellie's sister," she heard someone whisper loud enough for anyone to hear. "I don't know where Ellie is. Maybe she's too upset and needed some time."

Even with her sister gone, the family asked more questions about Ellie. Everyone loved her, thought she was beautiful and sweet and "just darling." Well, that little darling hated their grandfather; should Megan tell them that? At least Megan loved the old man-mean ole geezer that he was. Maybe she liked him because he was the only one who liked her better than her younger sister. The only one who didn't despise her dyed black hair, her thick makeup, and her annoyance with mankind. Maybe because she was a lot like him.

Megan was the emo, the goth, the bad sister. Yet she felt she was none of those. She was simply herself. That was what none of them-not the old, decrepit family members or her high school "peers"-could understand. Drones that they were. Her sister could be their queen bee.

Megan put two ice cubes in Uncle Henry's gla.s.s-if he wished for only one, he could fish the other out himself.

"Megan, has dessert been set out yet?" Aunt Betty asked as Megan made her trek back through the crowded kitchen and living room.

"Almost. Would you like some coffee while you wait?" Maybe I should set out a tip jar.

"I'd like a gin and tonic."

Get in line, Aunt Betty.

"I don't think we have either-not the gin, not the tonic."

"That was a joke, dear." Aunt Betty made a tsking sound with her lips. "Coffee would be lovely. As long as it's decaf. Caffeine does funny things to me."

Megan smiled as if she understood completely and hurried to get the coffee before the stories of elderly ailments began. She'd heard all about Uncle Henry's colon, Mrs. Parks's eye surgery, and someone else's hip replacement surgery ("Did you know they hang you upside down for that? And they practically remove your whole leg!").

In the kitchen, Megan found Mom putting plastic wrap over a partially eaten ca.s.serole.

"Aunt Betty requests coffee, and someone wanted Beanee Weenees."

"Thank you so much for helping," Mom said.