11
ONE GOOD WAY TO GET TO KNOW A WAVERLY OWL:
FIND OUT WHAT COLOR J.CREW BOXERS HE WEARS.
“You stink.”
Jenny woke with a start. Where was she? Oh, right. Waverly. In her room. “I mean seriously, you really stink. Are you drunk?” someone whispered.
Was that Callie, talking in her sleep? Jenny had heard her come in: thankfully, it had been after she’d stopped sobbing into her pillow. She’d taken her clothes off in the dark, said “nighty-night,” and snuggled under the covers.
“I’m not drunk,” another voice slurred. A guy’s voice.
“Well, you stink like vodka. Ew.”
“I love it when you say I smell,” the guy said.
“Shh. Pardee will hear.”
Jenny inched further beneath her covers. The voice sounded vaguely familiar. And whoever it was did stink—Jenny could smell something vaguely alcoholic, even though the windows were wide open and the cool night breeze was wafting though the room.
“Well, it would be nice, Easy, if you didn’t stink, ’cause then I wouldn’t have to taste it in your mouth.”
Easy?
Jenny’s stomach dropped. How many Easys went to this school?
“You sure nobody’s here?” he asked.
“Do you see anybody here?” Callie hissed.
Jenny stayed curled in a ball. Callie had seen her. She’d even said good night to her! Jenny wanted to leave them alone, but getting up and making noise right now would be very uncool. And what if Easy saw her? She was sure her crush on him would shine right through her, like her face was a mesh field hockey pinnie. To think that she had developed an immediate crush on her roommate’s boyfriend! Old Jenny strikes again.
Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she peeked out from under the covers. Callie’s bed was less than four feet away. There was a flash of naked skin in the moonlight. “Condom,” Jenny head Callie whisper.
A pause. Then Easy’s voice. “Serious? Where?”
“Top drawer.”
Jenny heard fumbling in the dark. Then a scuffling of covers, and thump! Easy was halfway on the floor. He tried to get his balance but held on to the night table and ended up dragging it down with him. It made a horrible amount of noise. A box of Lifestyles Extra Lubricated condoms spilled out, along with a big bottle of Lubriderm dry skin lotion and a package of blue fine-tip Bic pens.
Jenny shot up in bed, staring at Easy’s sprawled, naked body.
“Yo,” Easy drawled, grinning up at her. “I know you.”
“Eep!” Jenny slunk back under the covers.
“Callie, you said nobody was here,” Easy whispered loudly.
Callie kicked the mattress angrily. “This is ridiculous,” she sighed, and got out of bed. Jenny peeked out from under the covers and saw the outline of Callie’s lithe body. She wore a pink bra with a pointy-toothed Lacoste alligator emblazoned on the strap. Where was Brett, anyway? Callie glanced over at the lump that was Jenny under the blankets. “Sorry, Jenny.” She shrugged, then stomped over Easy, stepping on his hand as she headed for the door.
“Oww!” He cried out in pain. “Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.” Callie flung the door open, and the room grew bright with fluorescent hallway light. Jenny buried herself deeper under the covers, mortified. She’s leaving us alone? she wondered, horrified.
She heard Easy sit up, crack his neck, then sniff. “So, is Jenny short for Jennifer?”
“Well, yeah,” Jenny croaked, still huddled under the covers.
“Didn’t mean to make you so uncomfortable, Jenny,” he continued.
“Not a problem,” she murmured into her pillow. It smelled dusty and warm, like her Upper West Side home. She was glad she’d brought it, but it suddenly made her feel so homesick that she nearly burst into tears.
“You can stop hiding. I’m decent.”
Jenny peeped over the blanket with one eye. Easy had put his underwear back on, but that was all. His stomach was flat and muscular. And his boxers had a sailboat pattern she remem-bered from the J.Crew catalog. She wrenched her eyes away.
It was stiflingly hot under the covers. She sat up a bit, hoping that Callie would come back any second and take Easy someplace else so that he wouldn’t have time to take in Jenny’s swollen eyes and bed-head. She couldn’t even imagine what she must look like right now, especially compared to Callie.
But apparently Easy didn’t mind. He got off the floor and sat down on the edge of Jenny’s bed. If she hadn’t been completely stunned, she might have made room. But instead she stayed still. He was pressed right up against her.
“I was wondering when I’d get to meet you properly,” he mumbled, so quietly that Jenny could barely hear.
“What?” Jenny asked, even though she’d heard him fine.
“Nothing.” Easy looked up. “Oh. The Seven Sisters.”
“What?”
“The constellation.” Easy pointed to the crusty old glow-inthe-dark stars someone had stuck to the ceiling years ago. “Although to the naked eye there are only six stars easily visible.”
“Huh.” Jenny didn’t know how to respond—not only to what Easy had just said but to this situation, period. Her dream crush was sitting on her bed. Old Jenny was totally horrified. New Jenny was practically quivering. Blended together, both Jennys were immobile and tongue-tied.
She looked at the outline of Easy’s long, athletic-looking feet. His second toes were longer than his first. What was that a sign of again? Wait. Hello? Was that his hand on her back?
Okay. This was all wrong. Where was Callie, anyway? This was very wrong. Jenny knew she should swat him away. But she just . . . couldn’t.
“Uh, do you know a lot about constellations?” she asked instead.
Easy moved his hand slightly, his thumb rubbing the base of her spine. Wrong, wrong, wrong! “There’s not much else to do in Lexington at night.” He sighed. “Unless you want to climb up the water tower or throw shit onto the train tracks.”
“I’m from New York,” Jenny whispered, biting a tendril of her hair to keep her teeth from rattling with nervousness. “Although you probably know that already.”
“Huh?”
“You know,” she shifted, her cheeks growing hot. It was horrifying to think that he’s already heard things—slutty things— about her.
“Nope. I don’t. Are you famous?”
“I . . .” She cleared her throat. How could Yvonne know the gossip about her and not this beautiful boy? “No. I guess not.”
“Well, that’s too bad.” Easy smiled. “And here I thought I was in the presence of a celebrity.”
Jenny felt his hand on the small of her back again. It felt warm through the blanket.
“Jesus Christ!”
Jenny and Easy turned around quickly. Mr. Pardee. The dorm mistress’s husband, who also happened to be Waverly’s most assholish French teacher, had pushed the door open all the way. Jenny saw a note scrawled on their white board: Studying in Benny’s room. –Brett Mr. Pardee was dressed in a hooded Waverly football sweatshirt and a pair of red plaid pajama pants. His shaggy medium brown hair stood up in Brillo clumps on his head, and his tiny silver stud earring glinted in the harsh light of the hall.
Easy quickly jumped off Jenny’s bed, pulled on his jeans, and grabbed his shirt.
“Dude.” He strode right up to Mr. Pardee. “I was never here.”
“You weren’t . . . what?” Mr. Pardee said, blinking furiously.
“You don’t see me.”
“Easy, I do see you.” Pardee sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. “You’ve used this line on me before.”
“Nope,” Easy replied. “I was never here.” He dashed into the hall.
“Wait—where are you going?” Mr. Pardee shouted. But it was too late. He shook his head and turned back to Jenny. Not knowing exactly what to do, she hadn’t moved. Mr. Pardee might have been the dorm mistress’s husband, but Jenny had heard he was also a total druggie. Supposedly, he only graded the French exams after smoking a spliff or two.
Maybe he was too wasted right now to even know what was going on?
“That wasn’t cool.” Mr. Pardee burped slightly. “No guys in the room except during visiting hour.”
“I know, but—” Jenny sputtered.
“Man.” Mr. Pardee was glaring at the condoms on the floor. No one had bothered to pick them up yet. “This doesn’t look good.”
“What’s going on?” Callie stood in the doorway, right behind him.
“I’m gonna have to report this,” the teacher announced through a stoned yawn. “I mean, Angelica will have to—”
“No, wait!” Jenny pleaded. She couldn’t possibly be in trouble on the first day of school.
“Hello?” Callie repeated. “What’s going on?” Jenny noticed Mr. Pardee eyeing the sliver of skin between Callie’s low-hanging American Apparel shorts and her mesh Only Hearts camisole. The alligator on her bra peeked through its tiny holes.
“Easy was in here,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Easy?!” Callie replied in a shocked tone, as if Mr. Pardee had said, I saw monkeys drinking beer!
“Where were you?” Pardee asked.
Callie scowled and rolled her eyes. “I was in the library. I’m just getting back.”
Jenny stared at her incredulously. Pardee seemed to buy this story, even though it was the middle of the night and Callie was hardly wearing any clothes, no shoes, and didn’t have a back-pack or any books on her.
“So what was Easy doing here?” Callie glared at Jenny as if to say, Don’t fuck this up.
Mr. Pardee raised an eyebrow. “Well?”
A suspicious, hurt look clouded Callie’s face. It was an acting job worthy of an Oscar. “Was something . . . going on?”
Mr. Pardee shuffled his feet. “They were in bed together.”
“But we weren’t doing anything!” Jenny defended.
“Then why does it look like a Costco-size box of condoms exploded in here?” Mr. Pardee demanded.
Callie rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe it. You little bitch!” she shouted at Jenny, yanking up her shirt in frustration to expose her stomach. Mr. Pardee stared hungrily at her field hockey–toned midriff. Callie wiggled her eyebrows at Jenny. Keep going, she mouthed.
Jenny’s eyes widened. She wasn’t going to let Callie make her take blame for this!
“Mr. Pardee, this is a big misunderstanding,” Jenny pleaded, not even caring that the tone of her voice was getting squeaky. “I really wasn’t doing anything!”
But Mr. Pardee shrugged. “We’ll find out in DC.”
“What?” Jenny said.
“Disciplinary Committee, whore-bag,” Callie spat.
“Callie, enough!” Mr. Pardee commanded. “Jenny, do you know who your adviser is?”
“It’s, um, Mr. Dalton?” That was what the welcome-to-Waverly letter addressed to Mister Jennifer Humphrey had said, anyway.
“Right. He’s new. Okay. You’ll report to Stansfield Hall to Mr. Dalton’s office at nine-thirty tomorrow. I’m not sure which room he’s in, but check the map on the first floor. He’ll evaluate your situation before it gets kicked up to DC.” He fiddled with his earring. “Got that? Good. I have to go find Easy now. . . .”
When she was sure he was gone, Callie shut the door and let out a huge sigh. “Oh my God. So close.”
“Whore-bag?” Jenny’s voice trembled.
“Sorry about that,” Callie sighed, sitting on her bed and staring at Jenny with her enormous hazel eyes. “I had to make sure Mr. Pardee believed I was pissed. . . .”
“Well, he believed it all right.”
Callie shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”
Jenny scrunched up her face. “Not a big deal? I have to go in front of . . . a committee! What happens there, anyway?”
Callie leaned over and picked up one of the wrapped condoms. “You’re new, you’re a girl, and I heard you’re smart. They’ll go easy on you.” She rubbed the square packet between her fingers. “Maybe you could use your Raves connections.”
“What are you talking about?” Was Callie being sarcastic? Jenny had never even told Callie about the Raves. And what would the Disciplinary Committee make her do? Snorkel for trash in the Hudson? What if it went on her permanent record?
“Look,” Callie began. “Brett’s on the committee. She’ll make sure you get off. If I’d gotten caught with Easy, they would’ve kicked me out. I’ve already been caught doing stuff here.”
“Oh?” Jenny said curiously.
“Yeah, I already have, like, two strikes against me. Three and you’re out.”
“Oh.” Jenny felt somewhat relieved. So this was her first strike. That wasn’t so bad.
“It would really suck if I got expelled.” Callie tore open the condom with her fingernail. “My parents would make me to go public school in Atlanta. Kids sneak guns and cans of Miller Lite past the metal detectors there. And everyone’s into NASCAR. Even the girls!” She stared down at Jenny. “Could you imagine me at NASCAR?”
Callie was way too beautiful to go to public school. Then Jenny stopped herself, remembering she wasn’t supposed to be all suck-uppy with an older girl the way Old Jenny had been with Serena van der Woodsen back at Constance. She closed her eyes and willed herself to stop. New Jenny, New Jenny, New Jenny.
Callie pulled out the yellowish condom and inserted her pointer finger into its open end. “I have to make it through this year without getting busted.”
Jenny sighed resignedly. She loved everything about Waverly—the woodsiness, the New England–style brick buildings, that the teachers wore blazers to class and often had the title of doctor, even the succulent wasabi salmon that everybody shunned. She wanted to row on the river and go to the Spring Fling and meet boys from other prep schools and return to Manhattan triumphant, because she was now a boarding school girl. She didn’t want it fucked up like this right off the bat, and yet here she was again, the most talked about girl on campus and already in trouble before classes had even started.
Callie twirled the condom around on her finger. “Everything will be fine,” she assured Jenny. “Seriously. They’ll give you restricted study. Or no visitation. But Brett’s on DC.” She smiled sweetly as if to say, I’ll be your best friend forever and ever if you help me out.
“I just don’t know.” Jenny wrung her hands in her lap. As much as she wanted to be friends with Callie, she didn’t want to be in trouble. Not at all. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“I totally understand! Take your time! Think about it! But you aren’t going to get in trouble. It’s really, really, really not a big deal.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Jenny bit her lip. “I don’t know. . . .”
Callie sprang off her bed, darted to her closet, and opened up the door. “And here—for your meeting with your adviser tomorrow, you’ll want to look as professional as possible. You want to borrow something of mine? Seriously. Anything.” She ran her hand down the rack of gorgeous, perfectly pressed designer clothes.
“Really?” Jenny stood up and peeked into Callie’s closet with her. The weight of the situation slowly began to sink in. Would Callie have offered up anything in her closet before Mr. Pardee had caught Easy in the room? No way. Jenny felt a strange, heady rush of power, a rush so intense it kind of freaked her out.
“Seriously. Anything I can do. I’ll totally make this the best year of your life,” Callie offered enthusiastically.
Jenny pulled a sleek black DKNY dress from off its white satin hanger and held it up to herself. The best year of her life? She could really use a year like that. . . .
HeathFerro: So were they really having sex?? Could u hear them thru the walls?
EmilyJenkins: It was so LOUD I had to put my sound machine on city traffic to block out the noise!
HeathFerro: Were they knocking against the wall?
EmilyJenkins: Totally. I got negative sleep.
HeathFerro: Nice.
SageFrancis: Did u know some freshman girls are drawing ponies on their marker boards? They don’t even know H. They just think it’s the cool thing 2 do!
AlisonQuentin: H is running out of options. . . . He’ll probably move on 2 freshmen next. . . .
12
A GOOD WAVERLY OWL LOOKS
HER SUPERIORS IN THE EYE.
The next morning, Jenny stood near the closets, surveying the quiet, sun-dappled dorm room. Today was only Thursday, the first day of classes, but already the room looked lived-in: books and papers everywhere, clothes heaped on the floor, makeup, shampoo and nail polish bottles strewn on top of desks next to flat-screen computer monitors, piles of notebooks and textbooks, unopened packages of highlighters, and a large aloe plant teetering on the narrow windowsill. Jenny had arrived almost two days ago, but it still didn’t feel like her dorm room, since she’d hardly had a moment in it alone. Brett’s bed was empty—she’d snuck in after all the commotion last night and must have gotten up early. There was an imprint in the mattress where her body had been. Callie was still sound asleep, curled up in the fetal position.
Jenny ran her hand over a pile of Callie’s downy cashmere cardigans. All of Callie’s clothes were beautiful, but this morning Jenny felt awkward about borrowing any of them. Instead, she slipped on her own Banana-Republic-but-looks-like-Theory shiny khaki circle skirt, her only Thomas Pink button-down shirt, and a pair of baby-pink Cynthia Rowley ballet flats. She put on her Waverly blazer and assessed the look. Definitely Not Guilty.
Jenny tiptoed into the hall and closed her dorm room door behind her. Next to Brett’s note about studying in Benny’s room, someone had written SAVE TINSLEY! in big magenta letters on the marker board hanging from the door. There was also a drawing of what looked like a little pony in the bottom corner. Walking down the hallway she noticed that some of the other girls’ marker boards had little ponies drawn on them, too. Boarding school was turning out to be like a painting by Chagall—full of pranks, mind games, and mysteries.
Jenny wound her way along the ancient cobblestone paths that snaked through the Waverly campus toward Stansfield Hall, a massive brick structure that housed the administrative offices and a few classrooms. Few students were awake yet, but the maintenance crew was tending to the soccer field and the landscaping. The air smelled like freshly cut grass.
Inside Stansfield Hall there were intricate plaster moldings of creeping vines and flowers on the walls, stained glass windows in the stairwells, and engravings in the wooden railings. Jenny climbed the stairs to the third floor and walked to the very end of a stately, mahogany-floored hall. A brass plate on the closed office door read ERIC DALTON. Inside, Jenny heard giggling and took a step back.
“I’ve heard that one before,” she heard a girl’s voice say. “Every English teacher since the sixth grade has told me that I share my name with the woman in The Sun Also Rises.”
“Lady Brett Ashley,” a man’s voice said. “She was a trouble-maker.”
“Well, it must go with the name, then,” Jenny heard Brett answer in an extremely flirtatious voice.
“So, um, listen, we have to talk to this student, so we won’t be able to get to some of the admin stuff I wanted to discuss. Are you free for lunch today? We could deal with it then.”
“I think so,” Brett replied. “I’ll meet you here?”
Jenny knocked on the door. She heard papers shuffling and the clink of glasses.
“Come in,” Mr. Dalton called out. Jenny strode into the office, which was cramped and messy. Brett sat on the edge of a brown leather couch, her hands folded in her lap, looking way too prim and innocent.
Mr. Dalton sat down at his desk chair and shuffled some papers. “Jenny, right? Please, sit down.” He motioned to the couch. Jenny sat as far from Brett as she could. “This is Brett,” he continued. “She’s on Disciplinary Committee and helping me with some administrative things.”
“Yeah, she’s my—”
Brett turned to Mr. Dalton. “Jenny and I already know each other. We live in Dumbarton together.”
Yeah, in the same room. Jenny wondered why Brett didn’t say they were roommates.
Dalton smiled. “Oh, well, okay. Well, Brett is helping me out here with some DC issues, and as a member of DC, she’s helping preside over this case.” He cleared his throat. “So, Jenny, I’m your adviser, and I’m also gathering general facts about the DC case, so we’re killing two birds with one stone here.” He flipped through some more papers as if he could somehow absorb what was written on them just by touching them.
Jenny noticed Brett wasn’t wearing her Waverly jacket but a gorgeous, eggplant charmeuse silk top and a sleek, black knee-length wool skirt. On her feet were strappy Marc Jacobs sandals. Her long, thin legs were crossed sexily and angled toward Mr. Dalton.
Mr. Dalton perched on the corner of his desk with a legal pad in his hand. “Okay, so what happened last night? We have you in your dorm room with a boy named Easy Walsh. Mr. Pardee says you were lying in your bed together?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Jenny responded meekly. She’d stayed up all night weighing which was the better option: confirming the Waverly student body’s suspicion that she was a giant slut or making enemies with her roommate. “I don’t . . . I don’t think I’m ready to tell you what happened.”
Mr. Dalton raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I mean, do I have to make a statement right now? Or can it wait until, you know, the real hearing? Because I’m not really ready to talk about it.”
“Well, technically, you don’t have to tell me anything,” Mr. Dalton admitted, pen poised above the legal pad. “Although, as your adviser, I’d like you to feel that you can tell me.”
“I’m not ready. I—”
“What do you mean you’re not ready?” Brett interrupted, uncrossing her legs and glaring at Jenny. Her hair looked even redder when she was angry.
Jenny shut her mouth tight and shrugged her shoulders. She was afraid to speak.
Brett examined Jenny critically. Her pink and white striped button-down was too tight across her chest, and she was all pink-cheeked, as if she’d been running across a field.
Brett had come in late last night after the run-in with Mr. Pardee, but Eric had filled her in when she arrived at his office this morning—not that Brett actually believed Pardee’s version. It was totally stupid of Jenny not to say something to get her and Easy out of trouble. Poor Jenny. She was the perfect foil for Callie. God, Callie was a bitch.
Jenny noticed Brett inspecting her as if she were a biological specimen on a glass slide. She felt her cheeks grow hot. I’m New Jenny, I’m New Jenny, I’m New Jenny, she repeated silently, steeling herself.
“Well.” Mr. Dalton rubbed his hands together. “I guess if you don’t want to say anything now, you certainly don’t have to. But maybe there’s someone else on the faculty you might feel more comfortable talking to?”
Jenny shrugged her shoulders again helplessly. Today was the first day of classes. She hadn’t even met her teachers yet.
“Well then,” Mr. Dalton continued, “thanks for coming in, Jenny. I guess we’ll have a full trial next week. How’s Monday?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” she replied hollowly. “Um, thanks.” She glanced at Brett as she left Mr. Dalton’s office, hoping for an encouraging smile, but Brett was examining her fire-engine-red split ends, looking totally bored.
Jenny closed the heavy oak door behind her, wondering if it had been really stupid to tell them that she wasn’t ready to make a statement. What was this, Law & Order: Boarding School?
All of a sudden, she was face-to-face with Easy Walsh, standing outside the door to Mr. Dalton’s office, waiting to come in. As soon as they locked eyes, her heart began to race.
She’d been so consumed with possibly getting in trouble and possibly being considered Waverly biggest slut ever that she’d let their intimate little back-rub session slide to the back of her mind. Now she remembered the nice warm feeling of Easy’s body next to hers.
“Hey.” She swallowed quickly.
“Huh?” Easy stared at her blankly, his blue eyes droopy and tired-looking. He wore a tattered marigold-yellow T-shirt that read LEXINGTON ALL-STARS. “Oh!” He widened his eyes.
“Um, how do you feel?” Jenny persisted shyly.
“I . . .” He lurched off to the left, his eyes still wide. A strong smell of stale vodka was oozing out his pores. “I . . . you were just in there?”
“Yes.” Jenny felt tipsy just breathing the same air as Easy.
He started to say something else, but then the door opened, and Mr. Dalton stuck his blond head out. “Mr. Walsh, it’s your turn.”
Without saying goodbye, Easy staggered into the office. Jenny turned and padded down the stairs into the bright sunshine. On a low tree branch directly above the pathway sat one of those fat great horned owls. She froze. Was this the same one that had tried to kill her just two days ago? She narrowed her eyes.
The owl finally blinked slowly at her, as if it were stoned, then looked away.
Jenny hurried past it on her way to her first class. It was the first and possibly only triumphant moment of the day. She’d won a staring contest with an owl.
13
IN TIMES OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, A WAVERLY OWL
SHOULD LISTEN TO HIS INNER OWL.
“Glad to see you could make it,” Dalton greeted Easy. Last night’s Ketel One binge had left Easy feeling like the gunk he picked out of Credo’s feet before a ride. He slumped into a black leather Eames office chair and stared blankly at Callie’s roommate, Brett, who was seated across from him in a totally see-through purple blouse. His new adviser looked about eighteen, a welcome change from his old adviser, Mr. Kelley, who was so ancient he could barely remember his own name and had finally retired last year at the age of about a hundred.
“Hello, Easy,” Brett greeted him in an exaggerated authori-tative tone, making a few notes in a yellow steno pad. “Have a good summer?”
“Uh-huh,” Easy grunted, staring up at the ceiling. Brett might have thought she was Miss I-have-power-over-you-because-I’m-a-prefect, but Easy wasn’t buying it. He and Brett used to be close. They’d had French class together freshman year, and for the final discussion presentation, instead of getting up in front of the class and having an inane conversation, Brett had had the idea to make a morbid, Godardian French-phrase short film with an antique Super-8 camera. Easy was her partner for the class and therefore the existential star of the film. He got to say weird stuff in French like, “Mon omelette du jambon est mort,” and, “Les yeux—the eyes—are in pain.” Monsieur Grimm had loved it and had given them both A’s.
“E. Francis Walsh,” Dalton addressed him, eyeing his file carefully. “What do you want to tell me about last night?”
“With her here?” He pointed a thumb at Brett. “I thought these things were confidential.”
“I’m his assistant,” Brett jumped in quickly, sitting up straighter.
“She’s helping me with Disciplinary Committee procedures,” Dalton explained. “I think this qualifies.”
Easy looked back and forth between them. Whoa. Dalton was whipped—by Brett Messerschmidt!
“It says here that you’ve had quite a few problems with the rules over the last few years, Easy.” Dalton cleared his throat. “Disciplinary probation three times. Suspension twice. You were nearly kicked out once last year for not showing up to class after spring break. Countless arguments with teachers. Bad attitude.” He paused and flipped to a new page of the file. “Disruptive in class. Subpar grades. Almost no extracurricular activities. Caught with alcohol four times. Skipping sports practice. No team spirit . . .” He turned to another page.
Brett smirked.
“But . . .” Mr. Dalton held his index finger to the file and raised his eyebrows. He showed the paper to Brett and she cocked her head skeptically. Easy rolled his eyes. No doubt it was those fucking PSAT scores again. So he’d scored nearly perfect in all three sections—big deal. It was the kind of thing his parents salivated over, even though Easy couldn’t have cared less. Sneaking out of the dorm to watch shooting stars in the middle of the practice fields at two in the morning or walking barefoot in the creek behind the arts building at dawn—those were the kinds of things he cared about, things that he could remember when he was old and shaky. Not some stupid test score. Unfortunately, all the bullshit rules got in the way, when all Easy wanted was more perfect Waverly moments like those.
“You’re a legacy,” Dalton went on, glancing at his knotted cuff links. “But that shouldn’t mean anything. I mean, I’m a Waverly legacy too.”
“Really?” Brett squealed. “So am I!”
“My dad went here and my grandfather went here. And his brother too.” Dalton turned to Brett. “Basically, the Dalton men were Waverly Academy’s first graduating class.”
“As if I needed to know,” Easy muttered sarcastically. What was up with this teacher trying to impress Brett?
Dalton narrowed his eyes. “Look, I never expected to be treated any differently than anybody else. In fact, I think the teachers were harder on me because I was a legacy—they expected me to be an example for the other students.”
“Right.” Wasn’t that a load of bullshit. Easy gritted his teeth. He was a legacy, which was supposed to be this special thing, but he knew how it really worked: if your family had enough money to send successive kids (or generations) to Waverly, the administration would kiss your ass for the rest of your days. There weren’t any moral standards involved, just money. Heath Ferro was a goddamn legacy, after all, and look at all the shit he’d pulled!
Dalton leaned forward. “Scoff all you want, but you shouldn’t have been in Dumbarton last night, and you certainly shouldn’t have been . . . er . . . with that new girl Jennifer Humphrey.”
“Were you with Jenny?” Brett leaned forward, looking extremely interested.
“What did Jenny say about that?” Easy asked.
“She didn’t say anything.” Brett frowned. “She said she wasn’t ready to make a statement.”
“Oh.” Easy scratched his nose. He wasn’t sure what to make of Jenny and what had happened last night. After talking to her in the cafeteria, he’d convinced himself she was just a mirage. She didn’t look like she wore much makeup, if any, and she was tiny, where Callie was tall. She had miniature hands and feet, long eyelashes, and she carried around a bag that didn’t have big Gucci G’s plastered all over it. And she’d asked him about art. Callie wouldn’t dream of asking him about art. And last night—well that had been a mirage too—a drunken one. He’d been about to score with Callie and had wound up scurrying half-naked out of Jenny’s bed, with Pardee on his tail.
Now Jenny—pretty little Jenny—was in trouble because of him. But he’d needed to be near her. She looked so pink and new, sort of like that Botticelli painting he’d seen in Rome last year: The Birth of Venus, with the sexy chick coming out of the clamshell. He didn’t want her to be in trouble. But he didn’t want Callie to find out he’d touched Jenny, either. Easy gripped his head in his hands to keep his hungover brains from spilling out of his ears.
“So listen, I don’t know what’s going on here, but as your adviser, I have to warn you: this sort of offense, on top of your myriad other offenses, could lead to expulsion.”
Brett sucked in her breath and shook her head, pretending to actually care.
Easy barely blinked. “Okay.”
“Did you hear what I just said?” Dalton asked. “You might be expelled.”
“Yeah. I heard you.”
“If I were you, I’d spend more time thinking about why I was here,” Dalton suggested sternly, “and less time getting in trouble.”
That was the kind of dick thing one of his brothers might say. Easy was the youngest of four, and his three brothers had all gone to Waverly as well. Whenever Easy complained to them about it, they’d say that he wouldn’t understand the importance of Waverly until he got out. Which was one of those bullshit things people said when they got older and brainwashed. His brothers had already graduated from college and law school; two were married and the other one was engaged. They were pussy-whipped, boring adults and didn’t know a thing about really living.
“Fine,” Easy replied through his teeth. “You done advising me, then?” Without waiting for an answer, he stood up force-fully, yanked the door open, and strode out.
Outside Stansfield Hall, he felt suddenly light-headed. You might be expelled. Was he serious? If Easy got kicked out of Waverly, he could forget about his year in Paris. He’d be forced to live at home, alone with his crusty parents, where he’d be schooled by a private tutor and his only contact with the outside world would be the scary frosted-blond mail lady who liked Easy a little too much. Easy needed to sit down. Maybe it was the vodka from last night, but he felt a whoosh of nausea.
Hoot, hoot.
Easy looked up into the trees. One of the great horned owls was watching him, its eyes round and yellow. Easy made a cooing sound at it, like the one he made when he needed Credo to calm down, and pulled a dented Sprite bottle out of his school bag. He took a swig of the remaining Ketel One from last night. Everyone was making their way to the first classes of the year, but Easy needed to think.
He wandered along the worn stone path toward the stables, wishing Callie would be there to lie down with him in a humid corral and make him forget all about Dalton’s threat. They’d stretch out on an old horse blanket and stay there all day, not caring about missing the first day of classes. But picturing Callie naked in the abandoned stable wasn’t getting him excited—he couldn’t stop Fantasy Callie from complaining about hay in her hair and imaginary bugs on the blanket.
Easy closed himself into the warm, slightly moist corral, and squeezed his eyes shut. But when he revisited his fantasy, it wasn’t Callie sprawled across the horse blanket, staring up at him.
It was Jenny.
To: Waverly Students
From: DeanMarymount@waverly.edu
Date: Thursday, September 5, 9:01 A.M.
Subject: Property defacement
Dear Students,
It has come to my attention that pony drawings have shown up around campus—on the sidewalks, on marker boards, and on the shower walls of the girls’ locker room.
Please know that defacement of Waverly property is a serious offense and will not be tolerated. A few students have anonymously reported emotional distress over them, as well. Please be advised that the mental health center is open twenty-four hours a day and that anyone seen defacing school property will face disciplinary consequences.
Enjoy your first day of classes,
Dean Marymount
14
NO WAVERLY OWL ESCAPES QUESTIONING—
EVEN IF SHE IS A GOVERNOR’S DAUGHTER.
Callie was spacing out through first-period Latin when Mrs. Tullington, the school’s administrator, interrupted class. “Ms. Vernon,” Mr. Gaston, the teacher, addressed her. “Your adviser wants to see you.”
Her adviser’s office was only one floor down from the Latin room. Callie nervously rubbed her palms together. She and Ms. Emory weren’t exactly buddy-buddy. Ms. Emory was a short-haired, middle-aged, dykey bitch from Connecticut who had gone to Vassar with Callie’s mother. The two women had been rivals, always vying for the highest GPA and admission into Phi Beta Kappa. They’d also fought for the same spot at Harvard Law—and Callie’s mom had won. Bitter, Ms. Emory had decided to forgo law school and instead had gotten her master’s in education at NYU. She’d made it very clear to Callie that missing out on Harvard had affected the entire course of her life, and Callie suspected she blamed this all on her mother. It was another a brilliant student-adviser match by the Waverly administration.
Ms. Emory’s office was freaky. She had absolutely no books or personal affects on her shelves, and the only thing tacked to her bulletin board was the Waverly call sheet, which listed all of the other faculty members’ office numbers and extensions. A lonely flat-screen Sony Vaio rested on her dark wooden desk, and a shopping bag with the words RHINECLIFF YARN BARN across the front sat on a bare table behind her. Wooden knitting needles and some tan yarn peeked out from the top. Ms. Emory, a knitter? How random.
Callie sat down quickly on the black Aeron chair opposite Ms. Emory’s desk. Next to her adviser’s Spartan-looking all-black turtleneck and practical black pants, Callie’s sheer pink flouncy Diane von Furstenberg skirt and pink-diamondencrusted Chopard watch seemed ridiculous.
“You wanted to see me?”
Ms. Emory looked up from her computer keyboard. She squinted one eye and contorted her gigantic mouth into a sneer. She looked like a deranged female Popeye. Why couldn’t Callie have gotten a nice adviser, like Mrs. Swan, who took her advisees to the Metropolitan Opera three times a year, or Mr. Bungey, who threw his kids Scotch-tasting Christmas parties and listened to all their relationship problems? Oh no, she had to get the crazy Popeye lady, who probably used those knitting needles to poke her advisees in the ass when they misbehaved.
“Mr. Pardee told me I should talk to you,” Ms. Emory announced flatly. “He said that your boyfriend was caught in your room last night. After curfew.”
Callie took a deep breath to prepare herself. She’d had years of practice bending the truth for her mother, but it always made her nervous. “Well, that’s the thing,” she began. “My boyfriend was there, yes. But he wasn’t visiting me. He was visiting my roommate, Jenny.”
“And how do you know that?”
Callie furrowed her brow. “Because . . . because I wasn’t there.”
Ms. Emory gave her a look of disbelief. “Umhmm.” She began to type something on her keyboard. Callie noticed she had very stubby nails, chewed way down to the quick.
Shit. Did Ms. Emory’s umhmm mean Jenny had told on her? Callie didn’t think so: she’d seen the gleam in her eye—Jenny was hungry. Why else would she have shown up at the Richards dorm party, basically uninvited? If she didn’t care about the Waverly social order, she’d go and be friends with that dorky Yvonne girl. No, Jenny wanted more than that, Callie was certain.
“Look.” Callie shrugged. “I don’t know what went on. I was studying. It was right before curfew, and I came back and only Jenny was there. Easy had left. Mr. Pardee was talking to her.”
“Mmmm. So, then. You and Easy, you’re not a couple anymore?”
Callie winced. With that horrible I love you still hanging out there, unanswered, every second that went by without him saying it back made her feel ridiculously vulnerable. If they didn’t have sex soon and start talking about how much they loved each other, Callie might have to check herself into the mental health center along with all the girls traumatized by the ponies on their boards.
“No,” Callie lied. “We’re not together.”
“Really.” Ms. Emory stared at her over her square black glasses. “Because someone spotted you and Mr. Walsh at the stables only yesterday.”
“We . . . we were breaking up,” Callie managed to stutter, her voice dry. “I . . . I don’t really want to talk about it, if that’s okay.” Damn that Ben! Damn the faculty and staff for living with the students on campus and knowing every freaking intimate detail of their lives!
“Mm,” Ms. Emory replied, looking as if she didn’t believe Callie at all. “Well, behave. We haven’t forgotten about last year.”
“Okay,” Callie squeaked.
Then Ms. Emory began to type furiously. Generally this was Callie’s cue to leave. She badly wanted to crane her neck around to see what she was typing—probably a three-point plan for how to ruin Callie’s life.
She raced back to class, eager to be back in the soothing world of Latin verb declensions. Seated at her desk, she rubbed her hands together. If Ms. Emory found out she’d lied and that Easy had been there to see her, she’d definitely be expelled, especially after last year’s E episode. Then her mother would disown her and she’d have to go live with her fishy-smelling Aunt Brenda in the most boring suburb of Atlanta. She’d be forced to go to Catholic school with pale, zitty kids who thought a big night out was drinking Smirnoff Ice in the Dairy Queen parking lot and trading NASCAR cards. Callie’s stomach turned.
She had two challenges before her: one, making sure Jenny didn’t talk, and two, convincing Ms. Emory that she and Easy weren’t an item. Her life at Waverly depended on it.
To: JennyHumphrey@waverly.edu
From: KissKiss! Online
Date: Thursday, September 5, 12:50 P.M.
Subject: Surprise!
Dear Jenny Humphrey,
It’s your lucky day! Your friend Callie Vernon has selected a beauty gift basket for you, full of $50 worth of makeup. The basket comes with a free Le Sportsac tote! Please go to our Web site to pick the color you’d like.
Kiss kiss,
The KissKiss! staff
CallieVernon: Come with me to Pimpernels. Noon.
EasyWalsh: Shopping? No.
CallieVernon: It’s important. We need to talk.
EasyWalsh: Can’t we talk on campus?
CallieVernon: U can come into the dressing room with me. . . .
EasyWalsh: Aren’t we in enough shit already?
15
A WAVERLY OWL SHOULD ALWAYS
TAKE THE MORAL HIGH ROAD.
Easy saw Callie leaning up against the storefront, nervously fiddling with her bamboo-handled Gucci bag and holding an unlit cigarette. It was a warm afternoon, and she was wearing a colorful flimsy shirt and matching skirt. Rhinecliff locals—mostly scraggly-haired hippie artists—were milling about the cobblestone street, eating strawberry ice cream cones from the creamery and stopping to talk to Hank, the guy who sold tie-dyed T-shirts and incense on the sidewalk. Easy doubted the hippies were talking to Hank for the incense, though. Hank sold pot to plenty of Waverly students, including Easy. He’d already waved his hello.
“Well, look who’s here,” Callie said sarcastically.
Easy didn’t answer. They were in front of Pimpernel’s, a frou-frou boutique Callie deigned to shop at. It was the only store in Rhinecliff that didn’t usually sell tie-dyed shirts—and when it did, they were silk, sequined, and cost $300. The last time he’d been here, Easy had spent the whole time examining a tiny pink knitted socklike thing that cost $360, trying to figure out what it could possibly be. A nose warmer? A bag for pot? A snuggly condom? Callie had finally informed him that it was a cashmere dog bootie.
It was important that he talk to Callie, though, so here he was. “We’re in trouble,” he announced flatly.
Callie examined her freshly manicured nails. “We, huh?”
Easy scowled. “Of course we. And why did I see Jenny Humphrey come out of Dalton’s office? Was it for last night? She had nothing to do with this.”
“Well, Ms. Emory called me in too. And if you must know, yes, Jenny was in there because of last night. It’s not like I can take the rap. The E thing, remember? My parents would dis-own me and send me to NASCAR school!”
“What are you talking about?” Easy demanded, rubbing the unshaven sides of his face.
Callie shook her mane of blond hair off the back of her neck. “Look, I don’t want to get kicked out. So I said you were there with Jenny and that we were broken up.”
“What?” Easy asked, stunned. Callie shrugged and pushed open the door to the store. Chimes jingled to announce their arrival.
“Sweetheart! Welcome back!” shrieked a very tall, very thin woman with slicked-back blond hair as soon as they stepped through the door.
“Hi, Tracey!” Callie cooed. They kissed each other’s cheeks in a well-rehearsed routine. Easy hung back, wanting out. Immediately. Shopping, screaming girls, cashmere dog booties— so not his thing. Why had he come? He should be enjoying his last days at Waverly.
“I held some things for you over the summer.” Tracey beck-oned, whisking Callie and Easy into a little back alcove. She brought out a garment rack of shiny dresses, skirts, and blouses. She held up an ivory Donna Karan gown. “Isn’t this pretty?”
Easy turned his head to the side to read the price tag: $2,250.
“Oh, yes,” Callie breathed. She didn’t seem at all concerned that she’d gotten her new roommate in trouble or that she’d lied to the administration. Nope. All she was worried about was whether this dress came in a small enough size.
“You could practically wear this to your wedding!” Tracey shoved the dress up against Callie’s body.
“If you were a hooker,” Easy added rudely. He plopped down onto the lavender couch, pulling a frilly, pink-lace pillow out from under his ass.
Callie rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she sighed at Tracey. “They know nothing!” Then she walked over and stroked Easy’s arm. “So, was Dalton mean to you?”
“He said I might get kicked out.”
“Oh, but you won’t. You’re a legacy. They never kick out legacies.” Easy saw a flicker of worry cross her face as she gathered up the dresses Tracey had given her to try on.
“I don’t know,” he responded as she closed the pink dressing room door. “What if they decide to set a new precedent?”
“They won’t,” Callie insisted determinedly, throwing her nude La Perla bra over the top of the dressing room door. It looked flimsy and a little sad. “You’re definitely safe.”
“So you’re just going to let Jenny take the rap for you then?”
“Why not? Mr. Pardee caught her, after all. And she’s pre-pared. We discussed it.”
Easy sighed. “You know, Dalton told me she didn’t say one way or another what happened. So what if she tells?”
“She won’t,” Callie called back, her voice cracking with forced determination.
Easy sat back. The shopkeeper, Tracey, stared at his Converse high-tops, which he’d propped up on the store’s lavender velvet ottoman. What, was he not supposed to put his feet there? Tough.
Suddenly, Callie stuck her head out of the dressing room door. “Sweetie? I need you to do me a teeny, tiny little favor.”
“What?” If it was to help her untangle her thong or zip something up, he really wasn’t in the mood.
Callie’s eyes met his. “Well . . .” She curled a strand of blond hair around her forefinger. “If Jenny’s going to take the rap for me—and I’m sure she will—we need things to look . . . believable.”
“Believable?”
“You know. Like something actually happened between you two.”
Easy rolled his jaw around incredulously, staring at her.
“So,” Callie breezed ahead, “this might sound weird, but I’m wondering if you might flirt with her a little. You know, maybe if you two acted like you liked each other. Just a little.”
“You’re asking me to flirt with another girl?” Easy laughed, taking his feet off the velvet ottoman. “Have you forgotten you’re the most jealous person on the planet?”
Callie closed the door again and slung the dress she’d just been wearing over the top. “I am not jealous,” she retorted.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. Flirt. Be nice to her. Friendly.”
With the dressing room door closed, Callie’s view of Easy was obscured. But if she could have seen him, she might have been confused by the seemingly huge, googly grin on his face and the rising color spreading up his neck to his cheeks.
When she stuck her head out of the door again, he’d managed to compose himself.
“Does that really sound so bad? You’re not going to get kicked out of school. That’s just silly. But you were already seen by Mr. Pardee in the dorm, so you’re already in trouble. It wouldn’t hurt to make it a teensy bit believable, would it?”
“Well, they’re right!” Easy put his hands in the air helplessly.
She jiggled up and down out of frustration, and Easy looked at her chest for a second. “Sweetie, please? Wouldn’t that be awful if I got kicked out?”
“But what if I get kicked out?”
Callie screwed up her face. “You won’t,” she said firmly. “I already told you that.”
Easy hesitated. Was it possible that Callie had somehow seen him sitting on Jenny’s bed last night, touching her back, and that this was all a test? Better to play it like he wasn’t sure about the idea—although inside, of course, his whole body felt like it had been struck by lightning. Was it really possible that his girlfriend was actually asking him to get to know the girl he was digging? “This doesn’t sound very moral,” he answered stoically, keeping the shit-eating smile off his face.
“Moral?” She slammed the door shut again. “Are we forgetting about how you stole me away from Brandon Buchanan last year? Right out from under his nose?”
“So?”
“That wasn’t exactly moral, was it?”
Easy shrugged.
“Anyway,” Callie continued, “I’m going to tell Jenny about it, too. It’s not like I’m asking you to make out with her or anything. Will you please just do this for me?”
“I . . .” Easy croaked. She wasn’t testing him. She was serious. He really was the fucking luckiest guy in the world.
Callie opened the door, wearing the white Donna Karan dress. She looked like Boarding-School-Bitch Barbie on her wedding day. “So you’ll do it?” she asked. He slowly nodded, and she broke into a smile. “Thank you, sweetie. It’ll be a humungous help.”
No, no, Easy thought. Thank you.
To: RufusHumphrey@poetsonline.com
From: JennyHumphrey@waverly.edu
Date: Thursday, September 5, 12:15 P.M.
Subject: Miss you
Hi Dad,
I just had my first English class. My teacher read part of "Howl" aloud and it made me think of when we snuck your gross-looking but yummy oatmeal cookies into that weird movie place and watched that documentary on Allen Ginsberg. I loved that day.
Field hockey tryouts were yesterday and you're not going to believe this but I'm a total natural. Did you secretly coach a hockey for beat poets team or something? Because I don’t know where I get it from . . . .
I’m still adjusting to everything here—it’s different from the city and Constance in so many ways. Smells much better and there are no roaches, but there are lots of RULES—I’m still learning what they are . . . . Let’s hope I pick up on them as quickly as field hockey.
Have you heard from Dan?? I admit I even miss him sometimes.
Hugs and kisses!
Love you,
Jenny
P.S. Can you send my cell phone? I thought they weren’t allowed, but as it turns out, everyone has them here. It’s on top of my bureau in my room. And if it happened to magically turn into a Treo 650, well, I wouldn’t send it back. . . . Thanks, Dad. Love you again.
16
A CLEVER WAVERLY OWL
CAN HANDLE ANYTHING.
“So tell me about this hot teacher,” Brett’s sister cooed. Brett had ducked behind Stansfield Hall to make a quick cell phone call to the Elle offices before rejoining Eric for lunch. “You’re going to have lunch with him?”
“It’s a working lunch,” Brett said. “We ran out of time this morning. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Sure it does! What’s his name, anyway?”
“Eric Dalton?”
“What? You cut out for a sec.”
“Eric Dalton,” Brett continued loudly again, and then took the phone away from her ear to look at the screen. The screen flashed CALL LOST. She shoved her Nokia back into her bag.
Brett couldn’t help but feel nervous. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Eric since they’d met yesterday. He was a little awkward and aloof, which was a challenge. Brett also had a sense that he liked her but that he knew that he shouldn’t— another challenge. Brett liked challenges.
This morning, in calc, as Mr. Farnsworth was explaining the concept of infinity, Brett had imagined them sneaking away to New York City, snagging the presidential suite at the Sherry-Netherland, ordering Veuve Clicquot champagne and eggs Benedict from room service, and having hours and hours of sweaty sex with the curtains wide open so they could watch the horse-drawn carriages in the park.
The one time she and Jeremiah had gone out in the city, Brett had wanted to get a martini at Harry Cipriani, which was right in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. But Jeremiah had demanded they go to Smith & Wollensky because he knew the Yankees-Sox game would be blaring from their plasma-screen TV. Her stomach flopped when she thought about Jeremiah coming over this afternoon. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to see him.
Brett gritted her teeth as she climbed up the stairs toward Eric’s office. All she wanted to do was sit on Callie’s bed, drink her signature banana daiquiri protein shake straight from the blender, and tell her about every freckle on Eric’s perfect face. But since they’d moved in, she and Callie had hardly spoken. She’d tried to ask Callie about the Jenny/Easy thing when she’d stopped by the dorm after the morning meetings, but Callie had quickly rushed to the showers without answering. So what, they weren’t friends now? Or maybe Callie was afraid that if she let her guard down, she’d confess what she’d done to Tinsley? Probably.
Brett knocked on Eric’s office door and smelled chamomile tea brewing inside. He flung the door open and broke into an adorable grin.
“Hey,” he said, stepping back to let her pass.
Brett smiled back at him, willing herself not to throw her arms around his tan, sexy neck. He looked gorgeous, from his neatly knotted tie to his . . . argyle socks. No shoes, just green, soft-looking argyle socks. Her insides quivered. Because after all, right underneath that layer of what she bet was Brooks Brothers cashmere, were his feet. He was basically one step away from being naked.
“Thanks,” she replied, regaining her composure. Then she noticed an enormous tray of cheese, caviar, olives, smoked salmon, crackers and tea cakes teetering on the edge of the credenza. It was exactly the kind of opulent array of gourmet goodies her father’s clients sent to her parents’ house in a basket as thanks for their lipo tune-ups.
“You like cheese? Manchego? Coach Triple Cream?”
As if she could actually eat. “Sure. All of it.”
“Olives, too?” He pointed. “I like having little picnics.”
Brett demurely took a tiny sliver of cheese and popped it between her plump lips. The salt coated her mouth and she swallowed noisily.
“I got into eating this way from my family.” Eric scratched the side of his slender, clean-shaven neck. “My family, man. They’re crazy about cheese.”
“Yeah,” Brett agreed, mesmerized by his classic New England accent. She didn’t have any idea where he was from, but it had to be somewhere on the East Coast. Boston, maybe, but he most definitely did not speak with a townie accent. “What do your parents do?” She finally managed to say.
He paused. “Uh, well, my dad works in magazine publishing. My mom . . . she has her little projects, I guess. Yours?”
Talk about vague. “My dad’s a doctor.” Brett shrugged. She wasn’t about to tell Dalton a doctor of what. “And my mom . . . yeah. She has her little projects too.” One of those projects being buying designer sweaters for the seven family Chihuahuas.
“So, my sources say you’ve been to Italy,” Eric said, spreading Brie onto a Breton wafer and sitting back down in his chair.
Brett looked up at him. “Yeah. How’d you know that?”
He ducked his head a little shyly. “Well, I mean, I saw it in your file.”
She felt color rising to her cheeks. Duh. Of course he’d looked at her file. That was how he’d recognized her in first place. Did that mean he knew about her parents?
“I’m sorry,” he added quickly. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No!” she said. “God. I don’t care. I went to Europe through school. I spent some time in South America, too, with family.” She didn’t add that her family had bought the biggest, tackiest house in Buzios, Brazil, and flown all the Chihuahuas first class to spend the summer with them.
He looked at her seriously. “You’re modest. You went to France with the advanced French students—mostly seniors— when you were a sophomore—and you went to Crete with the honors program when you were a freshman.”
She shrugged. It was weird having someone repeat your achievements back to you. But kind of cool, too. Jeremiah probably had no idea where Crete even was.
“You’re smart.” He smiled. “I need a smart woman around helping me get through this first year.”
“Well, that’s me,” she said sheepishly, feeling a little funny that he’d called her a woman instead of a girl. She watched as he gracefully deposited an olive pit on the edge of the Italian-looking blue ceramic tray. Jeremiah would’ve spit it out in his hand.
“So, let’s get started.” He flipped his manila folder open and revealed a big stack of papers. “I want to show you this—these are some of the case files. They’re like nine thousand pages long. And seriously, keep this quiet. Remember, you’re not technically supposed to be doing this kind of work, since you weren’t on DC last year. Everything in these files is confidential. Think you can handle that?”
“Absolutely,” Brett assured him. She laughed lightly. “I’m good with secrets.”
“Yeah?” He looked up at her and broke into a slow smile. Brett felt her insides melt. He handed her a pile of papers, his fingers brushing the back of her hand. Brett nearly choked on her Manchego. He didn’t pull away very fast, either. Time slowed down. Brett counted: One Mississippi, two Mississippi . . .
Three seconds. Their hands were still touching. Tingles ran the whole way up her back and her hand hummed as if she were touching an electric fence.
“I was hoping you might be,” he murmured, finally breaking the silence.
Brett looked down, willing her lips not to break into an enormous grin.
17
WAVERLY OWLS SHOULD BE CAREFUL
WHOM THEY TELL THEIR SECRETS TO.
Brandon spied Jenny in the distance, coming over the dewy green hill from Hunter Hall, the English building. She’d carefully arranged her long curly hair into two perky braids and was wearing a pink and white button-down shirt, her Waverly jacket, and a cute little khaki skirt. Brandon could almost imagine her as a farm girl, on her way to milk a cow or sing on a hilltop.
Two blond ponytailed girls hugged their books to their chests and smiled at him as they passed. “Hey, Brandon,” Sage Francis, an ice blonde in an ultrashort dove-gray pleated skirt and silver sandals, cooed. Brandon smiled distractedly. “Saw you eating dinner last night with that Jenny girl. Did she really sleep with the guy from the White Stripes?”
“What?” Brandon asked, scratching an artfully tweezed eyebrow.
“I heard she slept with the lead singer from the Raves, Jack White, and Easy Walsh—all in one week!”
“And don’t forget, she was ponied!” shrieked Sage’s friend, a girl named Helena who was well known for starring in school plays and making out with the student director at the cast parties. Brandon was a little tired of the term pony. All the girls were throwing it around and acting completely ridiculous about it. Worse, Heath loved that they’d made up a sex term just for him. Last night, before heading to dinner, Heath had poked Brandon in his power yoga–toned abs and boasted, “You wanna bet I can pony someone between first and second courses?”
“She didn’t say anything happened between her and Easy,” Brandon replied evenly, trying to sound calm.
“She’s worse than Tinsley!” Sage and Helena giggled, then linked hands and walked off.
“No she—” Brandon started. But they were already gone. Personally, Brandon felt nauseated over all the rumors about Jenny. He’d heard she’d been caught having loud sex with Easy Walsh last night wearing nothing but a lacy push-up bra on the roof of her dorm—the rumors were all over Waverly. Not that he believed Jenny had done it—she was way too sweet to do something like that. Especially with a dog like Easy Walsh.
Jenny was still walking toward him, looking even more innocent and wide-eyed than when Brandon had first met her. He reached out and caught her arm as she passed. “Hey.”
Jenny stopped, deep in a daze. “Oh!” she exclaimed. Now that she was looking at him, he could see the dark purple circles under her eyes. He wished he could gently pat his L’Occitane Open Eyes Magic Eye Balm onto her delicate skin. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
“Um, sure.”
“I got you this.” He searched through his John Varvatos tan suede satchel and found a turkey-and-Brie sandwich wrapped in a dining hall napkin. “I didn’t see you at lunch, and I thought you might be hungry.”
“Yeah, I was e-mailing my dad.” Jenny pressed her lips together, not looking him in the eye. “It’s just . . . I’m kind of ready to crack under the pressure,” she admitted, her lips trem-bling. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What happened?”
“Never mind.” Jenny shook her head, her chin quivering. “I’m all right. I just have to think about things for a while, you know?”
Brandon wondered what she meant. Did this mean she had been with Easy after all? Or that someone was just spreading vicious unfounded rumors about her? Easy, probably. God, he hated Easy.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Brandon said, trying to look into Jenny’s big brown eyes.
“Who?”
“You know. Easy.”
“Easy? This really isn’t Easy’s fault.” Jenny kicked at the perfectly manicured green.
“No? Then is it the pony stuff? Because you know, practically every girl at Waverly has made the mistake of hooking up with Heath.” Brandon smiled a little. “Seriously. They’ll find someone else to talk about soon.”
Jenny shook her head and looked up at him through her think black eyelashes. “I didn’t even know he was called Pony,” she confessed dejectedly. “But at least I know what those drawings mean now. Anyway, no, it’s not only Heath. That was just the start of it.”
“Then what is it?”
“I feel like . . .” Jenny swallowed hard. She was sort of embar-rassed to admit this to someone she hardly knew, but she felt like she could trust Brandon. “I feel like Easy and I could have a real connection. It’s weird. I can’t explain it.”
Brandon felt his throat close up. What. The. Fuck. “So,” he finally got out. “You . . . like him?”
“Well, I . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Brandon shook his head vigorously. “You can’t like Easy.”
Jenny shrugged. “Well, yeah. I know. He’s my roommate’s boyfriend.”
Yes, he was well aware of that, thank you very much. But no, you shouldn’t like him because he’s fucking bad news. After all, Easy had stolen Callie from him last year and nothing had been the same since. One minute, she was standing next to him at the party at the library, asking for a Grey Goose and tonic. The next, she was ascending the library stairs, with Easy’s tongue practically down her throat in public.
Now Jenny had some sort of connection with him? Puh-lease.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway.” She stared down at her shoes and squeezed her eyes shut. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No . . .” Brandon offered lamely. “I’m glad you did.”
“I have to go,” she said, still pouting at the ground. “I hope your day goes okay.” Her voice quivered again, as if she were about to cry.
For maybe the second time in his life, Brandon wanted to punch a hole in something. Why did Easy steal every cool girl? And did this mean something had happened between them?
Brandon’s next class was molecular and cell biology, and he was two minutes late. He slid into his seat and glared viciously at the girl with long blond hair sitting in front of him. She wore a sparkly amethyst ring on her right hand and smelled vaguely of cigarettes and Jean Patou Joy perfume. She turned and twisted the corners of her pretty, pouty, Chanel-glossed mouth up into a half-smile.
“Hey, Brandon,” Callie chirped. “Meet any nice girls this summer?”
Brandon shrugged, averting his eyes to watch a flock of geese flap by the classroom’s picture window on their way south, honking their heads off. He hadn’t met any nice girls over the summer, but he’d met one on his first day back at school. How could he prevent Waverly from ruining Jenny the way it had ruined Callie?
BennyCunningham: So they’re not even speaking to each other any-more.
CelineColista: Did you see the SAVE TINSLEY! on their board?
BennyCunningham: I think they both wanted her gone—you know Easy was into Tinsley.
CelineColista: Now C’s being nice to that slutty Jenny girl, even though she practically had sex with her BF. It’s just to piss B off.
BennyCunningham: God, those bitches are crazy!
SageFrancis: So Angelica Pardee’s marker board got ponied! Do you think?
BennyCunningham: She’s married. And old.
SageFrancis: Maybe she’s secretly wild for Heath. . . .
BennyCunningham: Do you dare me to ask her about it at tonight’s check-in?
SageFrancis: OMG, do it!
18
A WAVERLY OWL SHOULD NOT CLING TO THE PAST—
ESPECIALLY IF IT’S FULL OF EX-GIRLFRIENDS.
Callie sat in biology class and felt eyes on her that were definitely not welcome. Not the vacant stares of the emaciated dead cats that lay on the metal dissection trays at their lab stations. Brandon Buchanan wouldn’t stop staring at her.
It had been almost a year since they’d broken up. She’d gone to a party for Waverly’s literary magazine, Absinthe, at the library, not intending to break up at all. But the party had been classically romantic—they’d turned the lights down at the library and covered the walls in thick gauzy netting. Old twenties flapper music lilted lightly through the speakers, and everyone had been instructed to wear creative black tie. Easy had been there. She’d known Easy, of course—the eclectic circle of Waverly’s elite was small—but not well. She’d always found him sexy and mysterious in a sensitive-artist way, and she’d caught him checking her out a couple of times at chapel. When Brandon went off to get them some drinks, she made eye contact, thinking she’d innocently flirt with Easy from across the room. But then he’d walked up to her. And it had been like those nature shows on PBS, with a lion striking a gazelle. It had happened so fast, she hadn’t even known what hit her.
She would’ve pleaded that Easy had slipped something into her glass, but she hadn’t even had a drink yet. Only a few seconds later, they sneaked off into the Waverly ancient-books room, as if they desperately needed to find those dusty tomes of lost John Donne sonnets. Sinking into one of the worn leather smoking chairs, they’d kissed for hours, communicating by telepathy as their tongues twisted together. The next day, Brandon knew—everybody knew—and Callie and Brandon were broken up by lunch.
“By the end of the semester, you will have examined the cat’s various bodily systems and identified every organ.” Their handsomely weathered teacher, Mr. Shea, paced the room. “In December you will be given a final oral exam during which you must correctly identify all of the organs.”
From the back of the room, Heath Ferro snickered at the words oral exam. Mr. Shea switched on the overhead projector and started to point at a line-drawn diagram of a cat. Callie peeked at Brandon again. His eyes remained fixed on her, and she quickly jerked her head away. She doodled, Stop staring at me, perv, in elaborate cursive on a fresh piece of notebook paper. As soon as she finished the letters, she scribbled over them in broad black strokes.
Suddenly her cell phone vibrated in her back pocket. She slowly took it out, and discreetly slid it onto her lap so that it was obscured by the tabletop. It was a text message from Benny, who was sitting only three rows over.
U think about the cheer yet?
No, Callie texted back.
Every year on Black Saturday, the upperclassmen of the varsity girls’ field hockey team performed a cheer. First the whole team would do a really standard and boring cheer. Then it was tradition for the older girls to pick one new younger varsity girl to do another, crazier, sort of embarrassing cheer, having led her to believe that all the girls were doing it together, not just her. Understandably, the girl became completely mortified when she found herself doing the cheer all on her own. Sometimes she wouldn’t talk to the other players for weeks. But as the season went on, she invariably laughed about it later, glad to have bonded with the cool older girls. It was a hazing ritual that had started in the fifties, and as co-captain this year, Callie was responsible for it.
Her phone buzzed again. I think we should make yr new roomie do it, Benny texted.
Callie froze, her heart leaping in to her throat. No way. Hazing Jenny might make her mad, and Callie had to keep Jenny happy. I don’t think so, she wrote back. Is she even varsity?
Benny buzzed back quickly. Yup, the list was posted today. Have u seen her play yet? She’s kind of all over the place but good.
Not her, Callie quickly replied.
Callie watched as Benny furiously typed into her tiny Nokia. But aren’t u mad at her b/c of EZ? We can totally embarrass her.
Callie sat back. The whole school was talking about Jenny and Easy and whispering about Callie as they passed her on the stone pathways around campus. She hadn’t told anyone the truth about Easy and Jenny—it was too risky. Embarrassing Jenny was the last thing Callie needed. I don’t know, she texted back.
Sage and Celine and I all think she’s the one to do it. What does Brett think?
As if she and Brett had discussed it. Or anything for that matter. She sighed and dropped her phone into her pale yellow Coach saddle bag, indicating that the conversation was over.
The bell finally rang. Callie jumped up to her feet and grabbed her notebook, hoping that her hair didn’t smell like formaldehyde. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. It was Brandon, dressed in neatly pressed olive green Zegna trousers and Prada loafers without socks. His hair was flecked with gold and she wondered if he’d used an at-home highlight-ing kit last night or something. “Hey,” she greeted him.
“So, easy come, easy go, huh?” Brandon’s brown eyes looked cold.
“Pardon?” she asked cautiously.
“How does it feel to have someone steal the one you love out from under you?”
Callie stared at him for a moment and smirked inside. Good boy, Easy! He must have already started flirting in public with Jenny. Even before she’d had a chance to tell Jenny about it.
“Well?” Brandon coaxed.
“Yeah, it sucks,” Callie swallowed hard, trying to look heartbroken.
“You don’t believe me.” Brandon shrugged. “But I know something you don’t know,” he singsonged.
“What are we, second graders?” she scoffed, suddenly hating how perfectly plucked Brandon’s eyebrows were. “I have to go.”
Shoving past a gaggle of extremely young-looking freshman girls, Callie stopped on the second-floor landing.
Students streamed past her as she pressed herself up against the brick stairwell wall. Was Brandon still hoping to get back together with her? Fat chance. That was about as likely as Easy actually falling for little Jenny Humphrey. As if that would ever happen.
RyanReynolds: So, you hear anything on where the Black Saturday party’s gonna be? I heard Tinsley’s throwing it. . . .
CelineColista: Really? I heard she was having a secret love getaway in Lake Como with that guy from Entourage.
RyanReynolds: God, I hope not. I’d die for that girl, she’s so hot.
CelineColista: You and every other boy at this school.
RyanReynolds: Try planet.
19
UPON BEING WOOED WITH ROSE PETALS,
A WAVERLY OWL SHOULD AT LEAST SAY THANK YOU.
“Hey!” Jeremiah yelled, loping up the long hill from Waverly’s practice fields to the main green. Brett squinted. He wore a faded black T-shirt, scruffy beige corduroys and booger-green Pumas. He was smiling so big that Brett could see his crooked row of bottom teeth. Jeremiah probably looked delicious to every other girl on campus, but to Brett, he looked immature and sloppy.
“Hey,” she called, noting the undeniable shakiness in her voice. Jeremiah broke into a run, his floppy red hair flying behind him. He smacked into her and wrapped his strong arms around her waist.
“Babe,” he murmured aggressively. “It seems like a million yee-ahs since I saw you. I feel like we’re so faahhh from each other.”
Ugh. “Well, that’s silly,” Brett blushed, taking his hand. “I just talked to you yesterday.”
“You okay?” Jeremiah squeezed her. “You seem really . . . I don’t know. Nervous.”
“Oh, no.” Brett tried to smile. “I’m just giddy.”
Yeah, she was giddy. But not about Jeremiah. About her mind-blowing, absolutely magical lunch with Mr. Dalton. Before she left his office, he’d touched her shoulder and invited her to go to dinner sometime. His nervous, twitching lips when he’d asked, his shining eyes when she’d said yes. Dinner, dinner, dinner with Eric! And they were going tonight!
“We’re going to the gazebo, right?”
Brett snapped back to attention. “Yeah,” she squeaked. The old white gazebo was nestled into some weeping willow trees and sat right on the bank of the Hudson. It was a famed Waverly make-out spot—in fact, it was so popular that last spring the students had passed around a gazebo sign-out sheet so nobody would interrupt another couple’s business. It had a worn-in, comfy swinging bench for two. There was a cutout hole at the top of the gazebo, so at night, you could look up at the stars. “But we can’t stay too long, ’cause I have to get ready for dinner in a little.”
“That’s cool.”
They walked along the stone path, hand in hand, acres of green lawn and ancient redbrick buildings with bright white trim on either side of them. The sky was getting cloudy, and Brett wasn’t sure if it was the humidity or her nerves, but she was definitely sweating a little. Jeremiah suddenly stopped and grabbed her by both hands. Students were walking around campus, heading to the dorms for visiting hours before dinner, all checking out Brett and her hot, floppy-haired boyfriend.
“I really missed you.” He kissed her forehead. “I wish our schools were closer, you know?”
“They’re only about ten miles away from each other,” Brett sputtered, looking around frantically. They were standing right in the middle of the green, in plain view of Stansfield Hall. If Eric looked out his office window right then, he would see them. “It’s really not that far.”
“Well, that seems to far to me.”
“Let’s go to the gazebo.” She grabbed his arm quickly. “We can talk there.”
“Okay.” Jeremiah put his big, snuggly arm around her. “So, how is it here? You got any freaky new teachers?”
“Um . . .”
“I heard you guys got somebody new. That really rich dude?”
“I don’t know. . . .” Brett sort of figured all teachers were either really rich and didn’t need high-paying jobs or else really poor and desperate.
“Eric Dalton. Have you met him?”
Her heart froze. She glanced at Jeremiah’s face. Was he on to her?
“Uh . . .”
“You’d know him if you met him. He’s a Dalton.”
“What do you mean, he’s a Dalton?”
Jeremiah looked at her like worms were growing out of her nose. “Is this just a Massachusetts thing? You know. A Dalton. His grandfather was Reginald Dalton. There’s . . . there’s like, a giant complex named after him in Boston? The one that always has the big Christmas tree?”
At the Messerschmidts’ house in Rumson, there was a picture of four-year-old Brett, wearing a red velvet dress, holding a stuffed Chihuahua, and standing under the Dalton Christmas tree. Duh! My grandfather was into railroads. My family has a place in Newport. Eric’s words came back to her. She’d never even considered that he was a Dalton Dalton.
Brett had watched specials about them on TV, from historical biopics on PBS to scandalous they’re-worse-than-the-Kennedys tell-alls on E! She’d learned that the grandfather, Reginald Dalton, was an heir to a railroad fortune. His family owned Lindisfarne, the largest mansion in Newport, and had for a hundred years. The father, Morris Dalton, owned an interna-tional publishing company that made gazillions of dollars and published only the classiest books and magazines. And yes, she knew there was a son, but he was press-shy and didn’t like to be in the spotlight. Brett had assumed he was either ugly or a social misfit or both and that the family’s PR secretary wanted to keep him private. How wrong she’d been!
“I think they might’ve introduced him at chapel,” she finally mumbled to Jeremiah.
“Oh. Well, at least Black Saturday’s coming up,” Jeremiah changed the subject, breezing ahead. “That’ll be fun, huh? We’ve never really partied together, like, during school.”
“Yeah.” Brett took her hand from his, feigning a need to scratch her arm.
“Hey, so close your eyes.” They approached the gazebo. Jerimiah’s lacrosse-calloused hand covered the top half of her face. “I have a surprise.”
He led her a few paces through the grass, breathing excitedly. With every step, Brett felt a heavier and heavier sense of dread. What she really needed was for Jeremiah to go away so she could sit down and think. Eric was Eric Dalton? For real?
“Okay, you can open ’em now.” Jeremiah whisked his hand away from her face. Brett gasped. In the middle of the white wooden gazebo was a huge bouquet of black tulips surrounded by heaps of burgundy rose petals. She’d never seen so many flowers in one place before. There must have been a hundred of them.
“I like the black ones,” she squeaked. Like? More like she was obsessed with them.
“You said that once when we passed that flower shop in Manhattan.” He beamed, bouncing up and down excitedly, like a little kid who’d just made his parents breakfast in bed.
“I . . .” Brett started. This was the type of thing Callie always secretly prayed for Easy to do for her, and he never did.
“And here.” Jeremiah held out a white United Airlines envelope. Brett opened it, and saw that it was a first-class round-trip ticket to San Francisco. She looked up at him questioningly.
“My dad is opening up a restaurant on Newbury Street in Boston, and he’s going to Sonoma on a tasting tour. He said I could bring you. He’ll totally leave us alone, though. It’s over Thanksgiving.”
Brett opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Driving through California wine country sounded amazing, but Jeremiah drank beer. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine them together at a winery. You were supposed to spit out the wine after you tasted it, but Jeremiah was the kind if guy who would rather swallow it and get trashed. He was trying too hard. Way too hard. Plus Thanksgiving seemed so far away. What if . . . what if she was spending Thanksgiving with Eric?
Hello? They hadn’t even kissed yet. But she could still dream. . . .
“This is great.” She forced a smile, gazing wondrously at the flowers again.
Jeremiah wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her neck softly. “It was my way of telling you I missed you, baby.”
“Well, it’s definitely . . . something. I don’t know what to say.”
“How about thank you?” Jeremiah’s voice sounded a little edgy all of a sudden, sort of like a scolding mother’s.
Brett laughed nervously. “Okay. Thank you,” she replied, puckering her lips to give him a terse kiss on the cheek.
He turned his head and caught her kiss with his mouth. “You’re most definitely welcome.”
SageFrancis: So I just saw Brett and her hot BF from St. Lucius walking toward the gazebo, but she looked. miserable. Benny told me she thinks Brett likes someone else. Do u know who?
CallieVernon: Um . . .
SageFrancis: I heard she’s been doing some snuggling with a guy between classes.
CallieVernon: A guy from this school? Who?
SageFrancis: Dunno, but he might be older. Like a senior.
That’s what Benny thinks.
CallieVernon: Huh.
SageFrancis: You didn’t know? Are you guys totally fighting or what?
CallieVernon: Kind of. I guess.
To: All New Students
From: DeanMarymount@waverly.edu
Date: Thursday, September 5, 5:01 P.M.
Subject: Welcome!
Dear New Students,
Welcome to Waverly! I hope your first day of classes went well today.
You’re invited to an ice cream social for all freshman and transfer students on Friday evening after dinner. The sundae-making will commence at 8:00 P.M. This is a great opportunity to make new friends!
Remember, this is a mandatory event.
Don’t worry, I’ll bring the sprinkles!
Dean Marymount
20
A WAVERLY OWL SHOULD RESIST TEMPTATION—
ESPECIALLY IF THE TEMPTATION IS HER
ROOMMATE’S BOYFRIEND.
Later that evening, before dinner, it began to pour. Jenny snuggled under the light blue mohair throw her grand-mother had knitted for her father when he was at college at Berkeley and read passages of Madame Bovary for English class. The new boy had kept in the background, in the corner behind the door, almost out of sight, chapter one began. Gloomy tears filled Jenny’s eyes. She’s read the book last year at Constance Billard and knew it wasn’t even about this boy—it was about Emma Bovary, who only wanted to go to parties and sleep with guys who weren’t her husband—but still, she empathized with this new bumpkin boy who was being taunted by prep school kids. She wondered if the bumpkin had ever been wrongfully accused and made to choose between popularity and having a big black disciplinary X next to his name.
A key jingled in the door, and Callie burst in, carrying a bunch of shopping bags. Jenny quickly wiped her eyes on the scratchy wool of the throw, making them even redder than they already were.
“Surprise!” Callie sang, pulling a vertical Louis Vuitton sig-nature leather makeup tote out of one of the bags. “I got new nail polish and a whole bunch of makeup, too. Are you going to be around for a while?”
“Uh, yeah.” Jenny paused, confused. Was Callie talking to her because Brett wasn’t here, or was this part of Callie’s little suck-up fest? Jenny had gotten another e-gift certificate from Callie that afternoon—$50 to iTunes. It was beginning to feel like the twelve days of Blackmail Christmas.
“Cool.” Callie stopped the CD player—Jenny had been listening to a dreary Yo La Tengo song—and put on Modest Mouse instead. “So, how was your first day of classes?”
“Um, good,” she responded mechanically, leaning back against the wall behind her bed.
“Look, I just want to thank you for saving my ass from NASCAR High.” Callie giggled, handing Jenny a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food, her favorite. How did she know?
“Well, I mean . . .” Jenny trailed off. “I didn’t say anything, one way or another.”
“I know,” Callie replied gaily. “And that’s okay. You didn’t have to say anything to Mr. Dalton. When did they say the DC hearing was, anyway?”
“Monday.”
Callie opened her own pint of Phish Food and dug into it with a plastic spoon. She cocked her head and studied Jenny carefully. “You know, your hair looks really cute like that,” she finally said.
“Are you crazy?” Jenny touched her head. It was raining, and her hair had exploded into a frizz ball. She’d tamed it into a ponytail, but curly wisps were sprouting out everywhere, dancing messily around her face.
“Yeah, I really like it. It’s like . . . deconstructed,” she said. “So, the meeting with Dalton was okay?”
Jenny grunted. “I guess.”
Callie tried to get a spoonful of ice cream out of the pint container, but the ice cream was too cold and the plastic spoon kept bending. “So do you think maybe you’ll cover for me in DC?”
“Maybe,” Jenny said. “I’m not—”
“Of course you will,” Callie interrupted. “And I need you to do me another favor. Well, it’s not a favor, really. It’ll be fun.”
Jenny stared at her. Another favor? Wasn’t Callie supposed to be kissing her ass? Sure, she hadn’t exactly given back the beauty basket or the iTunes gift certificate, but come on!
Callie stabbed her spoon into the ice cream, finally making a dent. “This might sound a little strange, but I’m wondering if you’ll flirt with my boyfriend a little.”
Jenny paused and sucked in her breath. “You mean . . . Easy?”
“Yeah. It’s just, for this to work, it needs to look believable that you guys like each other, you know?”
“You want me to . . . flirt?” Jenny repeated.
“Yeah. Like, I don’t know. Hang out during dinner. Maybe between classes. Nothing big. Just so teachers can see you.”
Jenny stared at her. She should feel pissed off—flirting with Easy would incriminate her more, wouldn’t it? But instead, her heart pounded feverishly.
“You don’t want to do it, do you?” Callie’s shoulders slumped. “So he drank a little too much, but he’s really sweet once you get to know him.”
“I—”
A knock suddenly sounded on the door. “Helloooo?” Benny Cunningham cried, bounding into the room. “Am I interrupting?”
“We’re just having some, um, ice cream,” Callie explained quietly. “I’d offer you some, but it’s still too cold.”
“Here’s the girl I want to see,” Benny exclaimed, pointing at Jenny.
“Me?” Jenny asked, pointing at herself.
“Yep.” Benny pushed up the sleeves of her Kermit-green thin-gauge cashmere sweater. “You’re playing varsity field hockey, right?”
“Yeah, I made the team today.” Jenny still couldn’t believe she was going to play field hockey for Waverly. It was so surreal.
“Great!” Benny squealed. “We were wondering if you wanted to be part of our Black Saturday cheer. It’s usually for upperclassmen, but we pick some younger girls, too. You’re a sophomore, right?”
“Yeah.” Jenny looked at Callie. “Cheer?”
Callie flinched. When Jenny turned her back, Callie mouthed to Benny, I said I didn’t want her.
Benny ignored her. “Yeah. It’s really fun. We make a new one up every year and torment St. Lucius with it. But it’s only a
certain group of girls, you know?”
“Jeepers.” Jenny’s face brightened. “That sounds really fun.”
“Jeepers?” Benny asked. “You didn’t honestly just say jeepers, did you?” She laughed, but Jenny sensed it wasn’t actually friendly.
“Um, I mean, cool,” Jenny corrected herself, embarrassed. Jeepers! How Old Jenny could she get?
“Yeah?” Benny raised her eyebrows at Callie. Callie scowled back. “Awesome!”
“Are you doing the cheer too?” Jenny asked Callie.
“Actually, since she’s captain, Callie writes the cheer,” Benny explained.
“Really?” Jenny asked curiously. It occurred to her now that being on the field hokey team would be like being in a sorority. She had a whole new family of sisters. It was kind of cool.
Callie swallowed hard. “I’m working on it.”
“Just get it done before Saturday,” Benny added. “Okay, so I have to get to the lit mag meeting. Just wanted to make sure Jenny was in. Bye-yee!” She slammed the door shut.
Jenny turned back to Callie. “You guys do really fun stuff here.”
“Yeah,” Callie answered quietly. “I wouldn’t take it too seriously, though, you know? It’s just a stupid cheer.”
Jenny shrugged and licked a tiny bit of too-cold ice cream off her plastic spoon. Slut rumors aside, the cool varsity girls wanted her to do the cheer with them. How cool was that?
The door flew open again and Brett strode in, her blue tweed Eugenia Kim cloche cap soaking wet and her bob-length red hair matted around her face. As soon as she saw them, a peeved look settled over her perfectly chiseled face. “I thought you guys were both studying tonight.”
“Nope,” Callie replied. “We’re having a makeover–ice cream party.”
“Oh.” Brett threw her cap on the ground.
“Why are you all wet?” Callie asked, sounding much bitchier than necessary.
Brett took off her khaki thigh-length Burberry raincoat and tossed it on the floor. “Jeremiah was here. We got stuck in the rain.”
“Jeremiah?” Callie straightened up, thinking about the IM she’d received from Sage earlier. “Did you guys have the big talk?”
Brett looked at her blankly. “Big talk? We . . . whatever. We hung out.”
Callie stared back, a half-smirk on her face. Come on. They were best friends. If Brett liked some other guy, surely she’d tell Callie about it. There were plenty of hot seniors at this school— Parker DuBois, for instance. Parker was half French, had large, piercing blue eyes, and was a photography ingénue, having spent the summer snapping shots of edgy, upcoming artists for the New York Times Sunday Fashion supplement. Callie could totally see Brett liking Parker. She waited, locking her hazel eyes with Brett’s green ones, until Brett silently looked down.
“Who’s Jeremiah?” Jenny broke the silence.
“I guess Jeremiah is Brett’s boyfriend.” Callie tried to catch Brett’s eye again but couldn’t. She sighed. “He’s gorgeous and athletic and sweet and throws the best parties at St. Lucius.”
“Jeepers,” Jenny couldn’t help exclaiming again, trying to hide her surprise. From the fawning way Brett had been acting in the meeting this morning with Mr. Dalton in his office, Jenny had just assumed she was single.
“Why didn’t you bring him over to the room?” Callie asked. “Or did you guys just do it in the rain in the middle of the practice fields?”
Jenny watched Callie talk at Brett. She was doing that thing some people do when they act nice and chipper and interested, while just below the surface they’re thinking really mean thoughts, and you can never call them on it because they’d just accuse you of being paranoid.
Brett rolled her eyes. “No, we didn’t do it anywhere. Why would anyone want to do it in a field? Gross. Do you and Easy do it in a field? Did you and Brandon do it in a field?” Brett stormed over to her closet and hung up her coat.
“Whoa. Someone’s PMSing,” Callie scoffed, examining her nails.
Jenny was still thinking about how Brett had flirted with Mr. Dalton when she heard Brandon’s name. “Did she say Brandon?” Jenny asked Callie. “Like, Brandon Buchanan?”
“Yeah. I went out with him for almost a year. He didn’t tell you that?”
“No.”
“Huh. I thought he told everybody. One time last winter, a whole bunch of us went to Park City to snowboard, and Brandon met a group of Swiss tourists and told them every detail of our tortured relationship, even though we’d already broken up by that point. And then he pleaded with me all night to go into the sauna with him.”
Jenny wrinkled her nose. That didn’t sound like Brandon at all.
Callie shook her head. “I know. Hello? Saunas are so germy. Nobody goes into them except old gay men.”
“Saunas are fine, Callie,” Brett contradicted from her closet. “Easy went in the sauna on that trip.”
Callie blushed and drew in her bottom lip. “Anyway,” she whispered to Jenny. “Where were we? Oh. Easy. So, what do you think?”
“Well, I guess . . .” Jenny began. She sort of wanted to ask, Will me flirting with him freak Easy out? But maybe that was an Old Jenny question. And he had touched New Jenny’s back. . . .
“What are you talking about?” Brett demanded, stepping out of her closet.
“Nothing!” Jenny and Callie responded in unison.
“Awesome,” Callie continued, turning back to Jenny. “It’ll be fun. Easy’s sweet. And it’ll all be over soon.”
Jenny bit her lip. Not too soon, she hoped.
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