Read Diva for Free Online Page B

beside her, improvising a song about…
    "I looooove your armpits! They are so füüüüne!"
    Yup. Armpits. Check.
    "Hey, Diva!"
    I turn.
    "Yeah, you. You're the one that sang Phantom at auditions, right? You made it."
    Now, I recognize her by her voice. Its Eyebrow-Ring Girl. But now her hair's bright white and very short.
    She notices me staring.
    "Are you, like, so shocked?"
    "Oh." I laugh. "It's… pretty."
    "Pretty weird. My mom stopped looking freaked by the red, so I tried this."
    "When I'm away from your arrrrmpits, nothing is the same!"
    She runs a hand across her hair. "Was that your mom who dropped you off?"
    I sort of sigh without meaning to. Mom had to drop me off today (other days, I'll take the train, thank God)
    and wore on of her "business" outfits—a red mini-skirted suit with a matching lace cami. In case I wasn't weird enough.
    "Probably wouldn't take much to shock her," the girl says.
    "What's that mean?" I snap.
    "Sorry." The girl puts her hands in front of her, protectively. She gazes at me a minute, then asks, "Do you do pageants?"
    "Huh? Of course not." But I feel my homecoming princess banner like a piece of skin across my chest.
    How did she peg me so easily? Does she remember my dress from auditions (I did better today—
    standard issue capri jeans and a blue T-shirt—but I still manage to look overdressed compared to most
    people). I'm too weird for the cheerleader crowd and too cheerleader for the weird crowd.
    "I want your armpits today, and I'll still want them tomorrow. "
    "Oh, I just thought I recognized you from somewhere. I'm Gigi. I used to do pageants as a kid. Then my
    parents got divorced, and my mom moved here because it's a better pageant state. Last year, she made me
    enter Miss Teen Miami."
    "Wow. Did you win?" I size her up like Mom would. She's skinny and pretty, but doesn't have the hair to be a pageant type.
    "What do you think?" She raises an eyebrow. "I didn't exactly try my hardest. I might have slightly—and I mean just slightly —let some of my butt hang out of my bathing suit."
    "On purpose?
    "You bet. You're supposed to spray your butt with glue so the suit won't ride up. But Mom was all, 'We'll
    show 'em next time.' So I killed her dreams with this. She gestures to the eyebrow-ring, which I now see
    is shaped like a little crown. "I told her it made me feel better about losing. She wasn't real sympathetic.
    But you looked like the type who'd go in for stuff like that."
    "If I can't have your armpits, then let me have your loooooooove!"
    "Well, I'm not." The music wails in my ears, and Gigi's talking, and it's just too much. I get up. "Excuse me."
    Terrific. Making enemies already. The song finishes, and everyone looks when I stand. It's 7:28 and
    already I know this was a huge, huge mistake. Is it too late to register at my old school? I walk down the
    steps to the group clustered around the piano. The armpit guy is finished, and the girl who was playing
    piano starts in on an equally gross song about nose hair. I'm blown away that people can improvise like
    this when all I can do is sing other people's music.
    No, it's easy. Just think of something gross. Boogers .
    Boogers, boogers are so sweet. They are things I like to eat.
    I can not sing that!
    "Caitlin, you made it!"
    I'm not surprised to see Sean Griffin. Actually, I realize I've been looking for him the whole time. He's
    with a girl I've never seen before.
    "Yeah," I say. "My mom changed her mind."
    Actually, Mom accused me of blackmail, but I didn't care. I had to go. I felt like I used to feel when I was
    a fatgirl, outgrowing all my clothes, like I might blow up. So I told her if I couldn't come here, I'd move in
    with Dad. I lied. I knew she'd never let that happen, never let her nice, easy ride disappear.
    "That's great." He gestures toward the girl. Actually, now that I look, she's clinging to him like a barnacle.
    "Caitlin, this is Misty."
    Misty doesn't smile. She's this fattish blond in a low-cut,