Sloane Sisters Read Free Page B

which shade of tan looked best in photographs and help her decide on a go-to outfit for agent meet-and-greets. For once in her life, she wouldn’t be spending Friday nights watching TV by herself, listening to the giggles and shouts of Chi Beta Phi’s karaoke sleepover upstairs. She would have new sisters, two chances to start over with girls who wouldn’t just see her as an annoying hanger-on copykitten.
    It hadn’t always been that way between her and Cate. They used to be close, when they were little. They’d dress up in their mom’s clothes and play Runway, and Cate would rate Andie’s silly outfits. Andie was always trying to make Cate laugh, and get a ten. But when their mom passed away, Cate started hanging out with the Chi Beta Phis more and more. Andie tried to be part of Cate’s group, to be someone Cate would want not just as a sister but as a friend. She secretly used her sister’s MAC makeup and stole Cate’s Luckys, buying everything flagged with a colorful yes sticker. She never once made plans on Chi Beta Phi sleepover nights, hoping that if they saw her in the living room watching The Hills , they might plop down on the couch beside her. But they never did. Cate would rather have shopped at Kmart for a year than let Andie hang out with her and her friends. Instead, she made fun of her, calling her C.C.—Copy Cate. In the Chi Beta Phis, Cate had three sisters. Apparently she didn’t need one more.
    Andie was resigned to life in Cate’s shadow—she’d even perfected the art of pretending it didn’t bother her. But then one day, she and Cate had been eating ice cream on the steps of the Met when a woman in a pantsuit approached and asked Andie if she’d ever thought of modeling. Not Cate— Andie . After the woman left, giving Andie her card, Cate had laughed it off. It was just a ploy to hook naïve girls, she said. They’d get you to pay for head shots and totally rip you off. Andie? A model ?
    But if there was anything Andie hated, it was being told what she could and couldn’t do. She knew then and there that modeling was her destiny. Forget being like Cate. She’d be better than Cate.
    Andie opened the front door. The crystal chandelier in the foyer made a tinkling noise. In the kitchen someone laughed. Emma . Andie looked at her stopwatch—it was four forty-five, which meant they were early and she was a sweaty, mud-stained mess. Andie couldn’t meet Emma’s daughters looking like the motocross champion of Nevada.
    She gently set her soccer bag by the door and kicked off her dirt-caked cleats. She crept over to the marble staircase, trying to get upstairs to shower before anyone realized she was home.
    â€œLook who’s here!” Cate leaned out of the arched kitchen doorway. “Now, don’t you look nice?” She smiled tauntingly at Andie’s stained soccer uniform.
    â€œCate…no,” Andie whispered, pointing to her dirty knees and the pit stains that were soaking her gray T-shirt. She had the perfect outfit laid out on her desk chair upstairs—she just had to get to it.
    Emma stepped out from behind Cate and smiled her famous Vogue -cover grin. “Andie!” She smoothed Andie’s side-swept bangs from her sweaty forehead, then kissed her on each cheek. Even though she’d met Emma more than a few times now, Andie still hadn’t gotten over the shock that Emma Childs was her dad’s girlfriend—that Emma Childs looked happy to see her. If she needed a sign that modeling was her destiny, it was that her dad had met Emma in the first place. “Come, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
    Andie reluctantly followed Emma, her fingers tugging at the blond highlight in her bangs. Her dad said she was too young to dye her hair, so she’d dipped a strand in hydrogen peroxidebefore their trip to Hawaii this summer, then blamed it on the