The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [91]
WHITNEY, NEW YORK | THE POPULAR BITCH
In the car on the way to a restaurant, Bianca, Giselle, and Madison—all size zero—complained that they could never find the perfect pair of jeans. “All three of us are thin, so we all share the same problem!” Madison exclaimed. I’m right here, Whitney thought. Whitney was a size six.
Whitney believed she should be grateful that the preps still allowed her to hang out with them, despite her recent return to her hippie wardrobe and her continued relationship with Luke. “No one wants to be friends with a [former] prep,” Whitney explained. “That’s why when there isn’t room for me in the party car, I have no choice but to stay home. I have no other friends.”
Whitney had observed firsthand what happened to girls whom her clique turned against. The twins moved away because the populars had ensured that they couldn’t make any friends at school. Now the clique targeted Irene. Without a popular boyfriend, she had no real connection to the group. Desperate, she wore anklets like Bianca’s and concocted stories about her past to try to sound cool. She constantly told Bianca how pretty and funny she was and how the two of them were so alike that they could finish each other’s sentences. She dug up juicy gossip to whisper into Bianca’s ear, and continued to steal her mother’s alcohol for the preps.
Her efforts didn’t save her. First the preps stopped including her in plans. Then they filled up the seats at their cafeteria table so that she was stuck on the end, and they turned their backs to her until she moved. When Irene still followed Bianca around, Bianca finally banished her from the group for good. Bianca and Giselle were sitting on a bench in school one day when Irene joined them and complimented Bianca. “You know, Irene, you really are fucking annoying,” Bianca said. Irene walked away. Now Irene could count only one friend at school: a punk girl who was nice to everyone.
After dinner, the prep girls went to the mall. They planned to browse for a few minutes in Spencer’s Gifts just before closing. A Goth-looking girl behind the counter groused, “You guys seriously have four minutes.” The populars left the store within three.
Whitney was the last one to leave. As she walked out, she heard the Goth say to her coworker, “I hate girls like that. They think just because they’re tan and skinny, they can do what they want. They come in here when they know the mall is closing, and they don’t care about anyone but themselves.”
That hadn’t been Whitney’s intention. But the Goth girl’s impression was a stereotype that Whitney had to deal with often. In Spanish class that week, the students had to write about things that annoyed them. Most people chose to write about obvious peeves, such as liars or people who chewed with open mouths.
As Whitney wrote her essay about “selfish and fake people,” Caroline, an emo girl in the corner, raised her hand and asked, “How do you say preps in Spanish?”
GRADUALLY WHITNEY BECAME AWARE that the populars were leaving her out of activities. Bianca sent public Facebook Valentine’s Day gifts to Giselle, Madison, Kendra, and Chelsea, but did nothing for Whitney. Through Facebook, Whitney learned they went to the movies, the diner, or parties without her. Whitney was aghast to find herself making up rumors so that she could “talk trash about people, especially Chelsea, to make it seem like I’m providing gossip. That part sucks about being in this clique. You have to lie a lot, especially about your own happiness. Everything is fake when you’re in a clique.”
Kendra had a party to which she didn’t send Whitney the Facebook invitation she sent everyone else. Whitney was hurt less by the omission than by the fact that her so-called