The Debs Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  The Glass Slipper Club Debutante Program

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Preview of The Debs: Love, Lies, and Texas Dips

  White dress, white gloves…white lies!

  Also by Susan Mcbride

  Copyright

  To all the girls who’ve ever felt less than perfect,

  had their hearts broken, been left out, made mistakes,

  or suffered at the hands of a Queen of Mean:

  this one’s for you.

  * * *

  Houston is, without a doubt, the weirdest, most entertaining city in Texas, consisting as it does of subtropical forest, life in the fast lane, a layer of oil, cowboys and spacemen.

  —from a Texas tourism guide

  Texas debs are a law unto themselves.

  —Karal Ann Marling,

  Debutante: Rites and Regalia of American Debdom

  * * *

  THE GLASS SLIPPER CLUB DEBUTANTE PROGRAM

  Overview of Rules

  • Ten qualified girls (Rosebuds) will be selected each year, the first week of Pine Forest Preparatory’s fall semester, to comprise that season’s Glass Slipper Club Debutante class.

  • Debutantes must be in good standing academically and must demonstrate high morals.

  • Regular meetings will be held the first Monday of each month from September through May. The year will culminate with the Rosebud Ball the last weekend of May.

  • The debutante class will receive training in deportment and dance and will attend specially arranged functions, such as teas, luncheons, and philanthropic events.

  • All debutantes will be daughters or granddaughters of members of the Glass Slipper Club or will be sponsored by an active GSC member.

  • Parents, grandparents, or guardians of debutantes are required to make a $12,000 donation to the Glass Slipper Club Foundation.

  • Each family of a selected debutante must purchase a table at the Rosebud Ball.

  • Each debutante will select a young man of quality to be her peer escort to the ball. However, her father (or another male family member) will present her.

  • Debutantes are responsible for purchasing their own ball gowns* and gloves and for the cost of professional photographs. (*In order to ensure that no two Rosebuds’ gowns are alike, prior to the ball each gown will be cataloged for reference.)

  • During their debutante year, all Rosebuds must dress appropriately, per GSC Selection Committee standards, with no visible tattoos or piercings (other than a single piercing in each ear) and no excessive use of makeup.

  • Debutantes should follow proper etiquette and exhibit ladylike demeanor during all GSC events (for example, no chewing gum, eating with hands, etc.).

  • Rosebuds must maintain a “clean” lifestyle and refrain from using drugs and alcohol.

  • If a Rosebud demonstrates blatant disregard for GSC standards, an appointed member of the Selection Committee will speak with her. Should said member so recommend, the board will be notified, as will the girl’s mother.

  • Should the board deem it necessary, a debutante may be removed from the program, and eligible girls on the waiting list will be considered to fill the vacancy.

  * * *

  The rich are a lot of crumbs held together by their own dough.

  —Lorenz Hart

  When life gets tough, eat cookie dough.

  —Laura Bell

  * * *

  One

  Laura Delacroix Bell grabbed the armrests of her seat in a death grip as the Southwest Airlines jet touched down at Houston’s Hobby Airport, the wheels bumping hard against the tarmac before rolling to a stop. The kid behind her let out a wail loud enough to split her eardrums, and she gritted her teeth, willing the Flight from Hell to be over with ASAP.

  Ten more minutes and I’ll be off this cattle car, she told herself, thinking that nothing would feel better than stretching to her full five feet nine inches after her cramped ride from Austin. Besides getting a major crick in her neck, she’d been stuck smack in front of the crying child, who’d kicked the back of her seat for nearly an hour. As if that wasn’t torture enough, all they’d fed her were two tiny bags of peanuts.

  “Welcome to Houston, home of NASA, Minute Maid Park, and the late, great Ima Hogg and her baby sister, Ura,” a flight attendant in a bright orange shirt and khaki shorts drawled. Laura rolled her eyes, thinking how everyone who’d lived in H-town for more than two minutes knew that Ima Hogg had really existed, while her “baby sister” Ura Hogg was pure hogwash.

  The Fasten Seat Belts light blinked off, and Laura instantly freed herself from the nylon straps. She hunched over to retrieve her black patent Dolce & Gabbana tote from where she’d wedged it between her bare feet, then hunted down her pewter Sam Edelman flats before she slipped them on and was ready to roll.

  Never again will I fly coach, no matter how desperate I am, she thought, and wished her first-class flight on American hadn’t been canceled without warning. She’d had to scramble to catch anything departing at the same time, but it was better than standing around waiting. She had been aching to get home, and finally, she was here, after two months away from her own bed; her best friends, Mac Mackenzie and Ginger Fore; and anything remotely edible.

  If she’d had to spend another week at fat camp, she would’ve gone totally postal.

  They’d made her surrender her precious BlackBerry Pearl upon arrival and had only given her ten minutes of e-mail time on a communal computer before breakfast and after dinner. How the heck could she keep up with TMZ and Perez Hilton and stay in touch with her friends in only twenty minutes a day? The counselors didn’t even let the inmates watch TV, so she’d missed every rerun of The Hills.

  Camp Hi-De-Ho was the corny name of Laura’s expensive summer prison, though she thought of the place more as Camp Hellhole. There was a reason carrots and lettuce were called “rabbit food.” Human beings couldn’t survive on the stuff, unless you were a size zero and your name was Mary-Kate or Ashley (either of whom probably considered eating rabbit food splurging).

  She turned on her BlackBerry immediately after deplaning, checking it first for voice mail and finding a message from her mother. “Hey, darlin’,” Tincy drawled above background noise that sounded like the engine of Harrington Bell’s company Gulfstream. “Hope your trip home is quick and painless. Unfortunately, Daddy and I won’t be there to greet you. We’ll be at the cabin in Telluride if you need us. Can’t wait to see my baby girl again, all fit and spectacular and ready for debdom! Kisses.”

  Laura felt a little pang but shrugged it off. Her daddy never liked to stick around H-town in the summer, when it was as hot and humid as a steam shower. So it didn’t surprise her that Harry Bell’s needs came first, even ahead of welcoming home his younger daughter.

  Did that mean Daddy’s driver would pick her up?

  Laura hated to think of riding in the backseat of a smelly cab, especially after being squashed amid the hoi polloi on Southwest long enough to make her crave a leisurely soak in a vanilla-scented bubble bath.

  She sighed as she looked up her text messages next, finding one from Mac that brig
htened her mood considerably:

  Talked to UR mom. Ging & I will pick U up. C U soon!

  Well, well, well. Maybe her karma didn’t need an overhaul after all.

  Laura smiled, sticking the Pearl back into her D&G bag and rummaging for her compact. She checked her teeth for any trace of peanuts and did a quick repair of the liner that had smeared around her wide-set blue eyes. She ran her fingers through her straight blond hair before she tucked the strands behind her ears. A touch of Stila daiquiri glaze on her lips, a tug on her gray tee to make sure it covered the white of her belly that her low-riding True Religion jeans didn’t; then she took off, striding away from the gate, suddenly dying for fresh air, no matter how muggy it was—and August in Houston was always muggy.

  Can’t wait to see my baby girl again, all fit and spectacular and ready for debdom!

  Her mother’s words stuck in her head as she walked. More than disappointment, she felt relief that Tincy wouldn’t be around for a few days, likely until after school had already started. As for her father…well, Laura didn’t see him much as it was. He ran his plumbing parts business with a tight fist on the reins and was forever jetting somewhere on business. When he wasn’t, he spent long hours at his downtown office, often not getting home until Laura was fast asleep. But Tincy Bell was another story entirely. She was the classic Helicopter Mother, hovering about and keeping tabs on everything from Laura’s friends to her GPA to her weight. And lately, Laura’s weight had been the touchiest subject of all.

  What would Ma Bell do when she realized Laura hadn’t lost a single pound in two months? Would she cut off Laura’s platinum AmEx? Deny her their traditional every-other-Sunday post-brunch mother-daughter mani-pedis at Sensia, with its cool seagrass floors and shoji screens? Get rid of all the Pillsbury Slice ’n Bake cookie dough in the fridge, to which Laura had been addicted to since childhood?

  Like the immortal Scarlett O’Hara, Laura figured she’d worry about that tomorrow. Instead, she shrugged off her apprehension, silently repeating her personal mantra, which Mac had claimed she’d partially stolen from the old Popeye cartoons: I am who I am.

  Someday, she decided, after she died, she was coming back as a lizard, the kind that lived in Mexico and spent all day lying on rocks in the sun. Lizards surely didn’t live to please their overzealous mothers.

  Of course, Laura knew what was making Tincy so nervous these days—why her hypersensitive mom had insisted on sending her to fat camp—because it was making Laura anxious, too: “D-Day,” also known as “Deb Day” among their social set.

  This year at all-girls Pine Forest Prep—her senior year—would entail more than the usual aggravations of the ugly plaid skirts that made her butt look twice its size, the whispers and dirty looks from übersnob Jo Lynn Bidwell and her Bimbo Cartel, and all the charitable work Tincy made her do to pad her prep school transcript. (Not that Laura minded candy-striping at Texas Children’s Hospital or doling out food for the Bread of Life, so long as it didn’t take up every single minute of every weekend.)

  What had Laura most preoccupied was knowing that shortly after school resumed on Monday, invitations would go out to girls selected by the Glass Slipper Club to be this season’s crop of debutantes. The GSC was an ultra-exclusive women’s organization made up of socialites, mostly the nouveaux riches from Houston’s Memorial Villages, or “the Bubble,” as some liked to call the upscale area nestled between I-10 and Memorial Drive where Laura and her friends lived. And every image-conscious Glass Slipper Clubber, including Tincy Bell, held first and foremost the commandment that “thou shalt be neither debu-trash nor a debu-tank.”

  It was the debu-tank part that had Laura gnawing on her French manicure, as she knew it meant anyone over a size eight.

  Laura wore a fourteen.

  She owed her height and big bones—and the sizeable trust fund waiting for her when she turned eighteen—to her father. But even her mortal enemies couldn’t deny that she was pretty, which put her at two for three, since good looks counted for nearly as much as money, which mattered a smidge more than being skinny.

  Still, Tincy Bell was determined that nothing would stand in the way of Laura’s following in her footsteps and becoming a Rosebud. If she was honest, Laura had to admit that she was as eager to debut as her mother was to make it happen. Being a debutante meant more than just the whole tradition angle, with its touch of Old Moneyed gentility so coveted by New Money (and everyone Laura knew in the Bubble was New Money). Being a GSC deb was the shining star Tincy had been guiding Laura toward since she was a little girl, the fairy princess moment of her high school life, the chance to be somebody, to wear a gorgeous white couture gown, elbow-length gloves, and a diamond tiara in her hair without having to say “I do” to anyone or take over the throne of a fledgling monarchy. Basically, it was the pinnacle of teen-girl worthiness.

  What was there not to like about that?

  So a little suffering was nothing. And she’d survived, hadn’t she? Camp Hellhole had toned her up with all those morning hikes, for sure, and the Cadbury bars she’d smuggled in, hidden inside boxes of think Thin bars, had kept her from fleeing the campgrounds to find the nearest Circle K. As Laura saw it, life would be unbearable without chocolate. It’d be almost worse than a world without boys.

  “You need a hand with your bag?” asked a tattooed guy in a blue uniform, cutting into her thoughts just as she exited the main terminal at the baggage claim. She waved him off.

  The glass doors slapped closed behind her, and the humidity wrapped around her like a wet blanket. It had been hot in the Hill Country of Austin, even with occasional breezes coming off Lake Travis, but that was kid stuff compared to Houston’s damp heat. Houston wasn’t called “The Bayou City” for nothing, and it truly felt like living in a swamp sometimes, with the sky-high humidity, drenching rains, and ever-present cockroaches and mosquitoes. Still, all that damp made for a whole lot of green, and Laura loved the lush landscape, so Southern and gracious, with Spanish moss that dangled from giant cypress trees, deep-pink azaleas everywhere, the smell of gardenia filling the air, and pines that seemed to soar high enough to pierce the clouds. She didn’t mind the mild winters either, and could only remember one Christmas when it had snowed. Barely a trace of white stuff had stuck to the ground, but it had been enough to bring the city to a standstill.

  Though winter seems a long way off, Laura mused, standing outside the airport terminal and looking around for her ride, sweat dripping down her face and sliding down her spine. Ah, there they are! Her gaze fell upon a familiar metallic gray Prius idling in the pickup zone, its horn tooting and its occupants waving madly. Laura’s mouth broke into the biggest grin she’d felt all summer long as she watched the passenger door pop open and Mac Mackenzie flew out at warp speed.

  “Welcome back!” her friend shouted as she nearly knocked Laura over with a bear hug, and they squealed in unison, holding on and rocking from side to side like they were doing a demented tango. “Feels like you were gone forever,” Mac blurted out. “I still can’t believe you and Ginger both bailed on me for the summer! If y’all ever go take off like that again, I’ll have to kill you. Even Alex abandoned me.” She pouted.

  “You mean the Geek Next Door didn’t stick around to play Dungeons and Dragons?” Laura teased, laughing as they drew apart.

  Mac swatted her. “Hey, lay off Alex! He doesn’t even play D and D anymore.”

  “Oh, geez, my bad.”

  “Besides, he just got back from Europe.” Mac set her hands on her boyish hips and exhaled loudly. “It was, like, the loneliest summer ever, and you have to promise it won’t happen again.”

  “Okay, how about this?” Laura cleared her throat and held up three fingers. “I swear I’ll never go back to fat camp, not even for Tincy. Scout’s honor.”

  “Damned right you won’t.” Mac straightened her smart-girl glasses, which sat crookedly on the tip of her sunburned nose. Her dark hair was as wild a mess as ever, and she ha
d on ink-smeared shorts and battered Old Navy flip-flops.

  “Besides, you’re fine just the way you are, so stop letting your mom try to make you over into Mini-Tincy. Didn’t she already do that to your sister?”

  “She tried, until Sami escaped to San Francisco.” The bee-otch had packed her bags and moved barely a week after graduating from Rice University, Laura recalled, which was when Tincy had begun fixating on Everything Laura. “I hate to think what my mother’s gonna say when she realizes I’m pretty much the same old me.”

  Mac gave her a stern look. “Cut yourself a break, why don’t you. Stop obsessing over what Tincy wants! Anyway, Ginger’s having a BFF-only sleepover at the Castle, and I don’t want you pouting all night. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Laura felt like saluting but giggled instead.

  Some things never changed, she thought. Mac was just as blunt as she’d been in kindergarten, when they’d all had to share margarine tubs filled with finger paints. Mac had given directions then and she was still doing it now.

  “So we’re taking the clown car, huh?” she asked as Mac nudged her toward the Toyota hybrid, Ginger waving from behind the wheel. “Couldn’t the Green Girl get something earth-friendly with a big enough backseat that my knees didn’t smack into my chin?”

  “Stop, it’s not that bad,” Mac chastised, then glanced around. “Hey, where’s your luggage? I’ve never seen you travel lighter than at least two full-sized Louis Vuittons.”

  “I shipped my trunk back with FedEx, and I hope they lose it,” Laura confessed as they headed toward the car. “It’s all gray T-shirts and sweatpants and sensible panties. Nothing silk with lace or high-end labels.” She made a face.

  “It’s a wonder I didn’t break out in hives.”

  “Well, you got a tan, at least,” Mac said, trying to console her.