The Karma Club Read Free Page B

actually
has
lost her virginity. Jade came close last year, with her then boyfriend, Seth, but ever since the awful thing he did to her afterward, we try not to talk about it too often.
    My friends don’t approve of my obsession with Heather. They think it’s juvenile and immature. Angie says Heather’s a bimbo and a waste of good skin cells. Jade says I should just be my own, unique beautiful self and not worry what other people are wearingor doing or who they’re having sex with. And Mason says my energy would be better spent elsewhere since he doubts Heather has ever had one intelligent thing to say in her entire life. Which is completely untrue. I mean, she may not be a straight-A student, but I’m more than confident she has plenty of fascinating things to say.
    For example, one time in ninth grade, Heather and Jenna were standing in front of me in the cafeteria line and I overheard Heather tell Jenna that she thought Mr. Langley, the biology teacher, looked like Mr. Potato Head with all the pieces in the wrong place. I thought it was hilarious. And incredibly brilliant. Because he
did
kinda look like that.
    None of my friends laughed when I repeated the story. But it was probably just because I didn’t tell it with that same unmistakable Heather flare.
     
    There’s a definite buzz going around Colonial High the next morning. I can feel it from the moment I walk through the front doors with Mason. There are a hundred pairs of eyes on us as we walk down the hallway. People are looking at us! At
us
! I don’t think anyone has ever taken notice of my entrance into school for as long as . . . well, I’ve been
going
to school. It has to be the magazine. What else would it be about?
    I whisper to Mason, “People know.”
    But he simply shakes his head at me. “No one even cares.”
    Mason tends to downplay things like this. Yesterday I spent an hour on the phone trying to convince him that the article would make a difference in our social status, but he strongly disagreed.I think it’s just that he’s not very realistic when it comes to the students at our school. Or teenagers in general, for that matter. I mean, he thinks the reason people voted him class president was that he promised to instate a summer work-study program with a local college. I don’t have the heart to tell him that the real reason he was voted class president was that, at the last minute, I made him announce a proposal for a lunch delivery program with the local fast-food restaurants.
    “Trust me,” I tell him assuredly. “They
care
.”
    During first period alone, three people come up to me and ask if the Mason Brooks in
Contempo Girl
this month is really the same Mason Brooks that goes to this school, and I feel like one of those spokespeople for celebrities. I can almost see some hotshot E! News correspondent reporting, “Representatives from the Mason Brooks camp have recently
confirmed
the rumor that he is gracing the pages of the teen version of the ever-popular
Contemporary
magazine. Apparently, his girlfriend of two years, Madison Kasparkova, submitted the picture and the story to the publication’s monthly ‘Meet My Boyfriend’ competition, where editors sift through thousands of entries in search of the top five boyfriends from around the country. The man of the hour, Mason Brooks himself, is denying that this article has any connection to his recent rise up the Colonial High social ladder.”
    At lunch, Leslie Gellar, the head cheerleader, comes up to the table where Jade, Angie, and I are eating and tells me that she loved my quote in the magazine. I thank her as modestly as I can, trying to take on that ever-so-gracious thanks-for-your-support, celebrity-like attitude.
    “This is so cool,” Jade gushes to me as soon as Leslie is out of earshot. “It’s totally spreading.”
    “I know!” I whisper, biting down on a potato chip. “Mason’s like a movie star or something.”
    “Whatever,” Angie interjects,