The Other Girl: A Midvale Academy Novel by Sarah Miller Page A

a phone: “Fred Segal.” I think I had heard of this place, or read about it, or something. It was like a department store but mini, and superfancy.
    Pilar was looking down at the shoe now, pivoting it back and forth, back and forth so she could take in every angle. It was a white patent leather T-strap with a high heel. I heard: Madison is so clearly just jealous of me. I mean, she has a nice body and everything, but when you do the equation, with my face, mine is better, and really, her body is only, like, better for clothes, and that isn’t in the equation anyway.
    What was the equation? And why wasn’t Gid like, equation, what? Are you insane?
    Pilar went on: This shoe makes me look reech, and that’s good.
    I had a terrible revelation: that endlessly pivoting shoe. I wasn’t looking across at that shoe. I was looking right down at it, as if it were on my foot. And Pilar wasn’t saying these things out loud. She was just thinking them.
    Pilar looked up from the shoes and stared at herself in themirror. I watched her admire the line of her eyebrows, the shine of her hair, the smallness of her waist, and the perfectly articulated swell of everything around it. Behind her, she could see Madison, dressed in super low cut jeans, a white tank top with no bra, and an Hermès belt—her signature look—poking idly though a jewelry display. Madison is so thin. Pilar now studied her stomach, frowning. My stomach is not perfect. It is not right. My stomach will be perfect, and then everything will be perfect, because with a perfect stomach maybe I am the prettiest girl in the entire—well, Kobe Bryant’s wife might be prettier than me. And maybe Catherine Zeta-Jones, but only in Zorro, and maybe Beyoncé, except my cousin saw her in person once, and…
    Pilar stared at herself for so long. I stared at Pilar staring at herself. But I was staring at the mirror. I was seeing Pilar as if I were looking out from her eyes.
    Two girls—one tall and brunette, the other black with a blond afro—walked past.
    Forty percent, Pilar thought, looking at the brunette, and then, looking at the black girl, she thought, 25 percent. I didn’t know what she meant, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I now knew that she wasn’t talking out loud. She was talking to herself, and I could hear her.
    I was now inside the mind of Pilar Benitez-Jones.

Chapter Nine
    I instant-messaged Dr. Stanley Whitmeyer.
    Out of boyfriends head now in horrible girl’s head. That boyfriend likes. And is nightmare pretty. She’s so pretty people look at her like they want her dead.
    Hello? Hello?
    Nothing.
    I didn’t know how I had gotten into her head. I didn’t know how I’d gotten into Gid’s. Not only was this not the plan, this was the opposite of the plan. What had I been thinking about that had landed me in here? I tried to remember the last moments of being in Gid’s head. The more I thought about it, the more confused I got. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how hard it was to think while being in Pilar Benitez-Jones’s head because she did a lot of thinking herself.
    I should say instead that she had a lot of thoughts. I don’t know if thoughts can always be called thinking. Look natural. Don’t look like you care what Madison’s doing. Is supima a natural or synthetic fiber? Oh, I just dropped that thing I was looking at on the floor. Oh well, that salesgirl will get it. That’s her job. She likes to pick things up or she wouldn’t work here.
    Indeed, momentarily a salesgirl slipped past her to return the garment to its gray silk padded hanger.
    Pilar’s eyes ticked over the girl’s face, body, and outfit and a number popped into her head: 40 percent.
    What was she doing?
    Pilar and Madison drifted into another section of the boutique. It wasn’t as busy, it was more spare and, with no music playing, it seemed to whisper, things like Fashion is important and No fatties . It was the dress boutique. The