The Cinderella Society Read Online Free PDF Page B

had I ever been an us?
    “Look, I don’t blame you for being suspicious,” she said. “You’re here for a reason, but I guarantee you it’s not what you think. Do you have your pin?”
    I patted my shorts pocket.
    “That’s your ticket for the evening, and Lexy definitely doesn’t have one. Trust me, okay?”
    I looked up at her in her all-American glory, and for some inexplicable reason, I trusted her. That had to meansomething. The pin felt warm in my pocket, like it was trying to send me a message. Believe , it seemed to say.
    To which I responded: I am the person here; you are a piece of metal. Hush it .
    But I couldn’t shake Cass’s soothing mojo. She was drawing me in. Despite Ryan’s warning and my suspicion that I might still be the evening’s entertainment, I swallowed hard and let optimism reign supreme.
    “Onward,” I said. The time had come to meet my fate.

Chapter 3
    CASSANDRA LED ME BACK into the open, airy kitchen—a modern wonder roughly the size of my whole house—where girls were sipping delicious-looking shakes. That sounded awesome, since I’d been too nervous to eat before I went to The Grind. Except now I was a bundle of new nerves, and harfing up a smoothie in front of the hostess was probably frowned upon.
    As we walked around the large island with its gleaming countertop, I noticed the two girls on blender duty adding dashes from all kinds of pretty bottles. I couldn’t see the labels, but hard liquor was an easy bet. Which stunk, since I wasn’t a big drinker. Or any kind of drinker, for that matter. Yet here I was, finally on the fringe of social acceptance, and whammo . The liquor dilemma.
    I didn’t get a chance to think of a graceful way to decline, because Sarah Jane, Kyra, and a girl named Paige immediately joined us with frosty glasses that smelled like a divine mix of bananas and chocolate.
    Cassandra lifted her glass in a toast to the four of us. “To a successful summer.”
    “To a successful summer,” we repeated, clinking glasses.
    Everyone else took a long drink of the frozen wonder.
    I hesitated.
    Cassandra watched me over her glass. “You don’t want it?”
    “No, it smells great, Cassandra. I just …” Wanted to crawl under a rock. “I haven’t eaten in a while.”
    “It’s Cassie, or Cass, and don’t sweat the shake, Jess,” she said, grabbing several veggie-wrap slices from a nearby tray and handing them to me on a beach-print napkin. “There’s no alcohol at Overnight.”
    A party with Populars and no alcohol? That was a jolt to my system. They’d have been laughed out of my old school. Most of my old schools, actually. Still, I couldn’t help thinking someone hadn’t gotten the message at the blender station.
    Cassie followed my gaze. “Gwen,” she called to one of the girls on duty, “what’s on tap tonight?”
    Gwen Fielding, an all-state volleyball champ who could’ve easily traded her sneakers for a modeling contract, held up the bottles in rapid succession. “Banana, mint chocolate chip, gingerbread, and peppermint.”
    “The Grind Exclusives,” Cassie explained. “Best gourmet coffee syrups on the planet.”
    Clearly, these were not your everyday Populars.
    By the time everyone had arrived, there were more than a dozen girls milling around the Steeles’ state-of-the-art kitchen. For the next few hours, I sipped different shakes, nibbled on creamy, spicy wraps, and hung out with Sarah Jane, Kyra, and the other girls.
    To my credit, I managed to contain my excitement about the fact that Ryan grabbed food out of that industrial-sized refrigerator every day (what was his favorite snack?) and ate breakfast at that table every morning (which lucky chairgot to feel his cute butt on it?) and did a hundred other things in the space we were occupying. The giddy potential was staggering.
    Just before midnight, Cassie announced it was time to “retire to the dungeon.” I followed everyone downstairs to a massive rec room that was