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  For Brooke Katherine, the newest member of our family.

  I look forward to the day we can read this book together.

  1

  CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC

  Harper McAllister @HarperMc

  SCHOOL. IS. OVER! Can’t wait to hang w/ my friends @KatetheGreat & @MargoDivine at our home away from home… the Americana!

  THIS IS HOW I WAS MEANT to spend my afternoons. Standing in the middle of a big, bright store filled with all my favorite people—Emilio Pucci, Stella McCartney, and Chloé.

  Not behind a Bunsen burner wearing supertight plastic goggles that leave red marks on my tender skin.

  As I flip through the racks at Intermix, I can feel my stress level drop, much like that piece of plastic that accidentally fell into my Bunsen burner during my second-to-last science lab. (The lab still smelled this morning, even after I secretly spritzed Vera Wang Princess perfume in the air.)

  “Eeee!” I look up and see Margo racing toward me waving a long electric-blue halter top like a flag. The glittery straps are so blinding I shield my eyes. “This is that top I saw in Lucky!” Margo pins it to her tiny torso and spins, which sends her long black hair flying. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere! Isn’t it cute? I could wear it as a shirt! Or a minidress! Or as a beach cover-up if we go to Cancun!”

  When Margo is excited she talks so fast that I wish I could rewind her. The girl loves to shop even more than I do. “It looks like something you’d wear for a dance competition,” I say with a laugh. Margo starts to pout, so I add, “But if we do go to Cancun, we’ll just have to go dancing so you can wear it.”

  Margo squeezes me like a lemon.

  “What do you mean if we go to Cancun?” Kate teeters over on four-inch cork wedges, towering over us like a giant. She practically trips into me, and her dirty blond hair smacks me in the face. “I thought the trip was a done deal.”

  I backpedal. “Did I say if? I meant when.”

  Kate looks at me harder. “Are you sure?”

  Sometimes Kate cross-examines me like they do on those legal shows my grandma watches in the middle of the afternoon. “Yes!” I say brightly. She continues to stare me down, and I crack. “The thing is I haven’t exactly asked McDaddy about a date yet.” Kate gives me a look. “I tried to bring it up the other night, but he was meeting Rihanna for dinner and was stressed ’cause he couldn’t find his keys. I’ll sort it all out tonight.”

  Kate smiles with satisfaction. “Okay. I don’t mean to hound you. I just want to tell my parents when I’m going to Atlantis so they can go to Barbados the same week.” She wrinkles her nose as if she just got a whiff of rancid sushi. “I hate Barbados.”

  “Atlantis?” Margo and I repeat at the same time.

  “Harper’s dad said he is taking us to Cancun,” Margo reminds Kate, speaking slowly in case the fumes from my Bunsen burner incident the other day are having some lasting effect on Kate’s memory.

  “That’s right!” Kate hits her forehead. “I was the one who suggested Atlantis.” She thumbs the fabric of a pair of dark wash jeans on a table next to her. “I just thought it would be more fun to swim with sharks and celebrity watch than worry about being kidnapped in Mexico.” She sighs. “But it’s your choice, Harper. Margo picked last time.”

  “Yeah, because my dad paid.” Margo’s mood goes from a shopping high to a discount-bin low, and I feel my heart race with alarm. Kate and Margo step toward each other, and my thumbnail goes to my mouth. I start to bite it. “I don’t recall you being that bent out of shape about skiing in Park City, Utah. Harper!” Margo swats my hand away from my mouth. “Stop biting your nails!”

  “Sorry,” I say sheepishly. I asked Margo to keep me in check about my nail biting. My disgusting habit seems to get worse in high-stress moments like this.

  “Actually, now that I think about it, we picked Park City because Harper wanted to go there. I suggested Aspen, remember?” Kate clicks the heels on her cork wedges loudly and looks at me.

  Okay, I did say I’ve always wanted to ski the white powder in Utah, but I didn’t know Margo was going to book our winter break trip around something I said. We usually do what Kate wants. She picks what table we sit at for lunch, what movie we see on a Friday night, whose party is worthy of us attending. The three of us have been tighter than super-skinny jeans since I arrived at Friends Prep almost two years ago, but sometimes I still feel like I’m on friend probation with Kate. Margo says that’s because Kate thinks I’ve moved above her in the hierarchy of our friendship. All because a few people—including the lunch lady—have started asking for my advice instead of hers.

  “Should I get the Greek yogurt or Yoplait for lunch today, Harper?”

  “Would you button this top or leave it unbuttoned, Harper?”

  “Harper, what is the square root of 364?”

  Honestly, I have no clue what the answer is to that last one.

  I don’t want Kate to feel threatened by me. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t even be popular. When my family moved to Brookville almost two years ago, I didn’t know a soul. Thankfully, Kate rescued me from lunch-table no-man’s-land. She spied me in line wearing my pink Hunter rain boots and said she knew I was “one of them,” which in Kate’s book meant “destined to be popular.” I was an overnight success, just like my dad when his wedding video company produced an unknown rap star’s low-budget music video and the song became record of the year. McDaddy Productions was born soon afterward, and we went from a tiny house in middle-class Mineola to a mansion in JLo country (she and Marc Anthony used to own the house across the street from ours). Some days I am still getting used to how different my life is here.

  “My dad has his heart set on Cancun,” I tell Kate apologetically. “But the good news is he said the resort is secluded and five-star. I think Beyoncé told him about it.”

  That makes Kate smile. “Well, if Beyoncé goes there… You’re sure we’re going?”

  “Absolutely!” I insist, but the truth is, I’m not sure McDaddy remembers promising to take my friends and me away for my fifteenth birthday. He was shooting a video with the hottest pop star on the charts, London Blue, on my actual birthday and promised to make it up to me. He also arranged for me to get a shout-out from London Blue online that got over a hundred thousand hits on YouTube. I don’t want to disappoint my friends, though. Margo has taken us away twice, and Kate keeps promising to bring us on a trip next winter. Mom finds the group-trip tradition kind of strange, but she chalks it up to being a North Shore thing. Going from the middle of Long Island to the North Shore really was like moving from Antarctica to Los Angeles. There are a lot of cultural differences. Don’t even get me started on the Truvia versus real sugar debate.

  “And the best part about Cancun is that we don’t have to worry about getting eaten alive on an excursion,” I tell Kate. “Swimming with sharks at Atlantis has Good Morning America lifestyle piece written all over it. ‘Almost high school sophomore eaten by sharks on summer break,’ ” I say using my best reporter voice. “I’ll be darned if Josh Elliott reports on me, and I’m not alive to see it.”

  “Amen,” seconds Margo, folding her hands in prayer for a moment before slipping the blu
e halter over her head to try it on, much to the chagrin of the nearby saleswoman.

  “I guess you’re right. Again.” Kate pulls off the cork wedges dejectedly.

  I quickly look around the store of brightly colored designer pieces to find something that will cheer her up. “Ooh, Kate! Isn’t that the Chloé shirt you were looking for the other day? They must have gotten more in.”

  Kate rushes over to the rack and squeals. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “It’s the shirt!” she announces, a smile replacing the scowl on her face. She holds up the tee. It has nylon flowers around the collar, the Chloé logo written across the front, and a stick figure drawing of a girl on it. I don’t think it’s anything special, but Kate is acting like she won a private fitting with the designer herself. “Isn’t it sweet?”

  “Yeah,” I say, because that’s what she wants to hear.

  “If we each get one, we’ll look like triplets!” Kate pulls me in front of the nearest mirror and holds the tee up under my chin. She and I do look somewhat related. We have the same dirty blond hair and brown eyes, but she towers over me in the height department while I have her beat in the bra-size category. “We have to buy them. This will look great on you even if it is a bit snug in the chest.” She opens her slouchy leather bag and retrieves her wallet. I open my mouth to protest and watch her eyes widen in horror. “Seriously! My credit card is in my other wallet.” She sits down on one of the velvet ottomans in the store, and Margo walks up next to her. “I was going to buy them for us as last-day-of-school gifts. They’ll be gone tomorrow.” She drops her bag on the floor in disgust. Her eyes narrow as she stares at the front door. “Cassie Anderson is probably hiding behind one of the racks trying to steal them from us as we speak. Some last day of school this is turning out to be. First no Atlantis, now no Chloé tee that I have wanted forever.”

  She’s laying the guilt on thick. “I’ll buy them for us.” I gently pry the shirt from Kate’s hands, and the saleswoman swoops in to take the tees up to the register.

  Margo follows us. “H, no! You bought us the Swarovski crystal flip-flops last week and MAC makeup the week before that. It’s too much.”

  “So? You bought us facials at Red Door Spa a few weeks back.” I pull my credit card out and hand it to the salesgirl. “Friends do things for each other, right?”

  “Right!” Kate seconds. I notice she’s still holding the cork wedges she tried on earlier. She stops a salesgirl walking by, and I hear her whisper: “Can I put these on hold for tomorrow?”

  On hold. I suddenly wonder why Kate didn’t do that with these shirts, too.

  “That will be three hundred sixty-eight dollars and forty-two cents,” my salesgirl says and swipes my credit card before I even have time to hesitate.

  Three hundred and sixty-eight dollars isn’t that bad, is it? I sign the receipt with a whimsical signature I have been perfecting, making a giant loop around the H and A for Harper Avery McAllister. Usually signing my name and getting handed a cute bag full of new clothes is my favorite part of shopping. But when the salesgirl hands me my receipt this time, I can’t help but think about everything I’ve bought lately. There was that Nikon 1 camera I needed because for a split second I wanted to become a photographer, the pair of skis I’ve never used but had to have because they were on sale, and the Prada dress for the spring fling that looked like the one Amanda Seyfried wore to an awards ceremony. Those three items add up to about eight hundred dollars and that doesn’t include any of my Starbucks runs or dinners out with the girls. Gulp.

  I’m sure I have nothing to worry about, though. McDaddy is the one who gave me the AMEX and told me to consider it my “fun money.”

  “Here you go.” The saleswoman walks around the counter and hands me three bags. One for each of us. I start to cheer up as I pass them out like candy.

  Kate throws her arms around me. “Thanks, H!” She’s always more pleasant after she gets a present. “Let’s celebrate the last day of school over dinner.”

  “Intermezzo?” we say at the same time. “Lobster mac and cheese!” We both burst out laughing, and Kate links arms with me. Things are so much easier when Kate and I are on the same page.

  “I thought you didn’t have your credit card,” Margo grumbles, but Kate ignores her. When we step outside, the humidity hits us in the face. The sidewalk is crowded with people carrying designer shopping bags as they hurry from one store to the next. Margo walks alongside us to the restaurant area, and I give her hand a squeeze.

  “Thanks for getting us those shirts,” Kate says as we walk the short distance to Intermezzo, which is nestled between Prada and Gucci in the outdoor mall. “We have to think of a really great place to wear them together.”

  “July Fourth on Hallie’s boat?” Margo suggests. “My beach club for the opening weekend party? Ooh! Ooh!” She grips my arm tightly as she rattles off several other suggestions and then, “Or the week we go to my house on the Jersey Shore? We could wait until Cancun, but that is over a month away.”

  “I don’t want to wait till August to wear this shirt,” Kate moans.

  My head is spinning. Summer hasn’t even started yet, and I can already tell I’m not going to have a minute to just be lazy. “Wow! Do we have that many plans already? What about time to chill?”

  “Downtime?” Kate looks at me as if I’ve sniffed glue. “To do what? Read a book?” She cracks herself up.

  I laugh along with her, but really I am thinking, Yeah, to read a book or go for a run or do nothing at all. I bite my nails again. “I just hate schedules in the summer.”

  “Me too, but look at the alternative,” Kate says. “If you didn’t have plans, you’d be stuck hanging out in a parking lot like these losers.” Kate motions to a group of teens milling outside Intermezzo.

  I want to say not everyone chooses to get a table at a place where a soda is four bucks, but I don’t. The truth is some of these people go to Friends Prep with us. As we pass by the crowd, two girls wave and say, “Hi, Harper!” I wave back as Kate ushers me inside so we can get a table… outside. The patio has the best seating and, as Kate always points out, a great view for people watching. Mary, the regular hostess, is standing at the check-in desk when we walk in. She waves me over.

  “Hey, Harper!” She ignores Kate, probably because Kate refused to give her a tip last week when Mary subbed in as our waitress (“Hostesses don’t get tips!”). “Last day of school, huh?” Mary says, looking directly at me and only me. “Any big plans?”

  “Dinner,” Kate says bluntly. “Is there a table open on the patio?”

  Mary looks around the crowded restaurant and then at me again. “Anything for Harper. Just give me a few minutes to turn over a table.” She gives me a little wink.

  Yep, she hasn’t gotten over the no-tip thing yet.

  Fifteen minutes later we’re settled at a table in the ivy-covered garden. The fountain nearby is gurgling, the bright yellow umbrellas are shading us from the eighty-five-degree heat, and we’re all studying the menu as if we’ve never eaten here before.

  Kate sighs impatiently. “Where are our drinks? The waitress should have gotten them by now.” She snaps her fingers at a guy who just finished cleaning the table next to ours. “Hey! You!” He stops so suddenly I’m afraid he’s going to drop the plastic bucket full of dirty dishes. “Can you get us our drinks? We’ve been waiting forever.”

  Margo and I look at each other. Doesn’t Kate realize he isn’t a waiter? Besides the fact that he is carting dirty dishes, he looks to be around our age. He must be a busboy. He looks at Kate strangely. “Sorry, I’m not a waiter. Notice the messy apron?” He smiles. “I’ll call one over for you.”

  I feel my stomach do a little flip. I know this busboy! He is in our grade at Friends Prep. What is his name? Ethan! That’s it. Ethan Thompson! How could I forget this cute face? Dark brown hair, big brown eyes, and lashes I only get when I buy those glue-on ones at CVS. Even his stained light blue T-shirt looks ado
rable on him.

  I notice Kate isn’t giving him the same adoring look. “We can’t wait for a waiter to come over. It’s hot out, and we’re parched!” She snaps her fingers. “Can’t you just bring us our usual drinks?”

  I rearrange the silverware in front of me to avoid looking like I share Kate’s attitude and opinion. When I finally sneak a peek at Ethan, I notice he’s staring at Kate in annoyance.

  “I couldn’t even get your drinks if I wanted to.” He motions to the bucket in his hands as proof. “Besides, knowing Kate Harrison’s usual drink order is not one of my job requirements.”

  “Excuse me?” Kate’s voice is so low I can barely hear it over the fountain.

  Margo and I shoot each other warning looks. Ethan is not afraid of Kate, which makes me even more in awe of him. It’s rare for anybody to stand up to her unless they don’t care about their social standing at Friends Prep.

  “I said it’s not my job to know Kate Harrison’s drink order,” Ethan says matter-of-factly. “So if you want me to pass along your order, you’re going to have to tell me whether you drink Diet Coke, Coke, or spring water.”

  I laugh, and Margo hits me. There’s that famous glare again from Kate. She hates being the butt of jokes, even if they are harmless and funny. This is definitely funny.

  “If you want to even think about keeping your job, you’ll ask someone our drink order.” Kate loves to act as if she owns the place. I think her dad is an investor. “And if you want a tip, you’ll bring it over with a smile on your pasty face and your lips sealed.”

  I wouldn’t call Ethan’s face pasty at all. It actually has a slight glow to it.

  Ethan shrugs. “I’ve already heard you don’t tip, so I’ll take my chances.”

  Snap!

  “A Diet Coke, a Perrier, and a Coke,” I blurt out before Kate can lunge across the table and stab him with her fork. “You don’t have to get them, either. If you could just tell our waiter—that would be great.” I smile, but he doesn’t smile back. Instead he walks away without asking if we want the complimentary bread basket. (Sadly, the answer is no. On the North Shore, eating bread is as taboo as revealing your true weight.)