Chapter 24

Last Seen: Liz Patrick, Nicky Woods, Emma Graham, and Amanda Peters of the Loyalton School for girls, and their prom dates from the Kingston School for Boys, heading home in a black stretch limo quite early this morning.

Last Seen: Josie Paterson, junior at the Loyalton School for Girls, being dropped off in front of her brown stone by a black stretch limo by an unrecognized, beautiful guy. Last seen attending the Class of 2005's prom, and a serious after party at Brittany Freeman's Hamptons country house.

Two days after prom (aka the day after the day they were all hunger over from staying up until six in the morning), Elizabeth Patrick appeared at their table, her pale blonde hair and two Page Sixes flying. She scooted her tennis toned and overly tanned butt into the chair next to Nicky, and dropped the Page Sixes from the last two days on the table. She took a swig of her huge Diet Lemon Iced Tea Snapple.

"Do we want to see?" Nicky asked, running her fingers through her hair. Her trim from right before prom was making her hair fall all around, but it still looked beautifully perfect and amazing.

"Of course..." Amanda said, grabbing the top magazine, the older of the two. She looked nervously at Liz, "Don't we?"

Elizabeth nodded, "Sure ... hey, where's... ?"

Emma flew into the area in a whirl of Clinique Happy Heart and chocolate cake. She clunked the plate down, and pulled back her chair, perching her flawless little body on the edge as she sunk her fork into the rich goodness.

"Hello to you too!" Nicky said, grinning.

"Hey girls ... ooo PS!" she said, glad for something to distract her.

Amanda looked over at her best friend, who was furiously flipping, avoiding them and the world outside of Page Six as best she could. She watched her best friend's flawless-and-flawlessly-done-up-with-flawlessly-natural-looking-make-up cheek immediately blush.

"What?" she snagged some icing with her frozen yogurt spoon.

Emma shooed her hand away, and flipped page. She might as well have had smoke coming out of her ears.

Emma threw the magazine onto the middle of the table, and promptly stuffed a huge bite of the chocolatey goodness into her Stila-lip-glossed mouth.

Her best friends exchanged glances.

"I'm going to go get some fries," Liz said, standing up, she looked at Nicky, "Join me?"

Nicky immediately got it, and rose to join her best friend. They knew Amanda would get it out of her.

"What happened?" Amanda asked, scooting her tray toward the center of the table, and watching as her friend stuffed yet another heaping bite of chocolate cake into her mouth.

"That fucking asshole..." she muttered.

"Emma!" Mandy rested her hand on her best friend's, and Emma immediately jumped. "Babe, what's wrong with you?"

"Oh, sorry," she sounded like she had just noticed she was there.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just thinking about a lot..."

"Like..."

Finally, Emma burst. "My mother started going into contractions this morning, but they're like an hour apart! She keeps texting me every time she gets another one ... and then I have to leave class and coach her through it. They only take about five minutes," she added the last part quietly, deep in thought.