21
A WAVERLY OWL SHOULD BE TRUE TO HER ROOTS.
A few minutes later, after the rain cleared and the late-summer sky began to turn a faded orange, students walked in cliquish groups from their dorms to the dining hall, and Brett strode down the stone path toward Waverly’s front office. A crisp wind suddenly lifted the edges of her dove-gray sheer silk Hermès scarf, which made Brett think of winter. Most kids hated winter at Waverly, because you were stuck indoors and there was nothing to do except watch old films at the library and go to class. But Brett loved it. The dorm mistresses lit fires in the common rooms, and the teachers canceled classes on the first day of snow. By four it was already dark, and she and Callie would drink peppermint schnapps–spiked hot cocoa while they gossiped about their latest crushes. Brett was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be drinking cocoa with Callie this winter—they were barely talking—but maybe she’d have someone else to drink cocoa with. Naked.
As she sidestepped a couple of fat brown squirrels fighting over a Cheeto, Brett’s cell phone beeped with a text message. Sorry we got cut off before, it said. Luv you, Sissy!
Brett quickly called Bree back and got her voice mail. “I’m about to go out to dinner with a Dalton,” she whispered delightedly into her phone. “Be jealous. Be very jealous.” Then she pressed end.
Brett entered the front office, a giddy, sour feeling festering in the pit of her stomach. The lobby was empty, and The New Yorker, The Economist, and National Geographic were arranged neatly on the huge teak coffee table. A Vivaldi symphony was playing over the stereo. The old cherry floors squeaked under her three-inch black Jimmy Choo boots as Brett approached the fiftyish front desk attendant, Mrs. Tullington.
“I need a pass for the night,” Brett said casually. And, because you always needed an appropriate reason: “I’m accom-panying my uncle to a silent auction of ancient Russian artifacts and Fabergé eggs in Hudson.”
Brett knew that a lie sounded more convincing when you threw in a whole bunch of ridiculous details.
Mrs. Tullington eyed Brett over her tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. The wrinkles around her mouth puckered in disap-proval. Brett wore a black chalk-striped, slit-down-the-side Armani skirt. Her Vincent Longo–painted lips were bright red, her pale arms were bare, and the V in her black silk shell top was so low you could almost see her black lace Eres bra.
Finally Mrs. T. wrote out the pass. “Enjoy the eggs,” she said primly. “And your uncle. Nice that you girls stay close with family.”
The thing was, if Mrs. T had bothered to look out the building’s bay window, she would have seen Brett get into a hunter green ’57 Jaguar—a car that most definitely did not belong to Brett’s uncle, a fortyish out-of-work-actor-cum-personal-trainer who worked out flabby new moms at the Body Electric gym in Paramus. Eric wore dark blue pressed True Religion jeans and a crisp tucked-in white button-down. Brett covered her knees with her skirt, feeling slightly overdressed.
“You look nice.” Eric grinned, gripping the gearshift sexily.
“Oh. Thanks.”
A Sigur Rós song played on the Bose CD player. The windows were down, and a cool late-summer breeze wafted in. As they swept down Waverly’s front hill past the practice fields, Brett felt a sudden, disorienting thrill. Maybe they were leaving the school for good—and never coming back. Suckers. She thought about everyone else sitting down to dinner right now at the dining hall. On Thursdays it was pasta with watery tomato sauce and nasty fried chicken.
She snuck a peek at Eric’s profile—his slightly upturned nose and perfect, just-stubbly-enough jaw—and then stared down at the platinum-engraved gate-link bracelet he wore on his right wrist. It seemed like something a girl might have given him.
“It’s my great-great grandfather’s,” he explained, noticing her stare. He jiggled the bracelet around his wrist. “Like it?”
“Yes,” she answered breathlessly. The bracelet was practically an American treasure. “It’s beautiful.”
They drove out of Waverly territory and into town, essentially one main street with quaint little wrought-iron street lamps, an art store, a florist, a barbershop with the swirly pole, and a few brick Federal-style houses. Brett figured they were going to Le Petit Coq. It was the place that your family always dragged you to during Parents’ Weekend because it was haughty and French and the only place for miles that served foie gras. But the Jag breezed right by without slowing down. It sped by the strip mall just outside of town, past McDonald’s and the cineplex, too.
“I guess I should’ve asked.” Eric turned to Brett. “How late did you sign out for?”
“Midnight,” Brett said. It was six o’clock now.
Eric smiled. “That gives us six hours.”
He pulled into a spacious parking lot, drove through an alley, and then swung around a large, concrete squat building. It was the Waverly airport, the place she’d flown into on her parents’ small plane a couple of days ago. On the runway sat a perky little Piper Cub. A man in a green bomber jacket and a Boston Red Sox ball cap stood chewing on an unlit cigar on the runway beside the plane. He waved and Eric waved back.
“Where are we going?” Brett demanded. Her heart beat quickly. She didn’t know what to expect, but she knew enough to be excited. If this outing involved an airplane—she couldn’t imagine where they might go. Holy fucking shit!
Eric shut off the car’s engine. “I was thinking maybe we could get something better than the early bird special at the Little Rooster.”
“Going to Lindisfarne?” the guy in the bomber called.
“That’s right,” Eric called back.
Of course. They were going to his family’s estate in Newport. Brett could hardly contain herself. This was like that cheesy movie, The Princess Diaries. Except she was way cooler than that mousy Anne Hathaway, and he was a Dalton!
Brett had only seen Lindisfarne on the E! True Hollywood special, so when the Piper Cub touched down on the property’s runway, a glittery, unreal feeling washed over her. The oceanfront mansion was an ivy-covered stone castle, with turrets and a moat and everything. She even remembered from the E! special that rare trumpeter swans swam in the moat surrounding the mansion instead of alligators, although Brett didn’t see swans now. Maybe they were sleeping. And as she stepped off the plane onto the spongy, perfectly manicured lawn, even the salty ocean air felt regal. It took Brett and Eric nearly ten minutes to walk from the landing strip to the manor. They were greeted by the groundskeeper’s friendly, rotund yellow lab, Mouse, before he was called off by his owner in the distance, who waved at Eric.
First Eric showed her around the property, taking her into the house through one of the heavy dark oak front doors and into the French room, which was round, with a high rotunda and white scalloped detailing. Brett could barely breathe. Everything in her life that might come after this moment—say, getting into any Ivy League school or moving into a Tribeca loft or meeting the president of France—would pale in comparison to standing in the stately blue French room, admiring the large, blurry Monets on the walls.
Brett was so overwhelmed, she could barely focus as he led her from room to room. Then he guided her back outside to the guest house, a weathered green cottage with a huge back deck and wooden stairs to the ocean. Most guest houses consisted of a bedroom and a small living space. The Lindsfarne guest house was nearly the size of Brett’s parents’ not-at-all-small house. Inside, Brett sat in an oversized chintz sofa, gazing the white, Warhol-covered walls as Eric fussed around in the kitchen. If the Daltons had staff—and she was sure they had many—they certainly knew when to leave the members of the family alone.
Eric expertly poured 1980 L’Evangile Bordeaux into both of their oversized Riedel glasses. He didn’t seem to care that Brett was blatantly underage. “This is where I live, mostly, when I’m here,” he explained, swirling the wine in his glass as they stepped outside onto the wraparound wooden deck.
Only a few feet away, waves crashed against the rocks. Brett took a big gulp of wine. What a life.
“So,” Eric began. “Brett Messerschmidt. What are you all about?”
He looked at her not in that way adults do when they think you’re a silly teenager who may grow up and be somebody serious. Instead, he looked at her intensely, as if she really mattered. Brett took a sip of wine, desperately trying to think of a brilliant but succinct answer. Who was Brett Messerschmidt?
“Well, I like Dorothy Parker,” she replied, and then wanted to smack herself for sounding like a stuck-up, lame, immature student.
“Really?” he asked, biting his lip as if to say, That really wasn’t what I wanted to know. “What else? Tell me something about your family.”
“My family?” she gulped, the words seizing up in her throat. It was probably the worst question Eric could ask. She felt her cheeks turning red. “I don’t really like to talk about them.”
“Why?” He took a sip of wine. “Can I venture a guess?”
She shrugged. “Go for it.” She hoped she seemed unruffled, even though she was freaking out inside.
“Your parents treat you like a princess. You’re spoiled rotten.”
Brett took another big sip of wine. “I suppose,” she said warily. “Aren’t you?”
Eric smiled. “I suppose.”
“But yes, to answer your question, yes, I was spoiled,” Brett began. Her fake family story about living on an organic farm in East Hampton and throwing benefits for endangered birds sat on tip of her tongue, ready, but she stopped. Something about the way Eric was looking at her made her feel like maybe she could tell him the truth, as embarrassing as it was. She was filled with a sense of calm. “My parents’ house . . . my mother modeled it after Versailles,” she began slowly. “Except it’s in . . . well, Rumson, New Jersey.”
“I know Rumson,” Eric cut in. “I sailed by there a couple of times. It looks like a nice place to grow up.”
Brett eyed him carefully. He didn’t seem to be making fun of her. She took another sip of wine and then a big breath.
“You’ve probably seen my parents’ house, then,” she went on. “It’s the biggest one on the shore. My parents are kind of like the Sopranos. You know how they’re all dripping with money but just use it in really stupid ways? That’s them. Except they’re legal. And have less taste, if that’s possible.”
“So your mother’s favorite pattern is leopard print?” Eric goaded.
“Oh, much worse. Zebra. On everything. Stretch pants. Socks. Bar stools. It’s gross. My sister—she’s a fashion editor— has threatened many times to secede from our family.”
Eric chuckled. “My mother likes paisleys. They look like little sperms.”
“Ew!” Brett squealed.
She felt dizzy, although she’d had less than a glass of wine. Talking about her parents with Eric didn’t feel weird at all. She wondered why she’d thought, all these years, that things would be better if she had a normal-size grey-shingled Cape Cod and a couple of Toyotas instead of twin gold Hummers with matching zebra-print leather interiors and big gold M’s (for Messerschmidt) embroidered on the headrests. Opening up this much was infectious. She wanted to keep going.
“My mother wears pink diamonds and eats only Lindt truffles and Zoloft, and has seven teensy, tiny Teacup Chihuahuas with matching zebra collars. She carries them everywhere. And my dad, he’s a plastic surgeon.” It all came rushing out of Brett. She couldn’t believe the things she was telling Eric.
“Really.” Eric rested his chin on the heel of his hand. “Tell me more.”
“Okay,” she continued eagerly. “Sometimes at dinner Dad has these famous clients over, and they talk about really disgusting things. Like what their boobs looked like before the surgery. And what happens to all of the fat that they suck out of people.” She felt liberated. It was like skinny-dipping.
Eric leaned forward. “So what do they do with it?”
“They use cells from it,” she whispered. “You know, for research.”
“From fat?” he whispered back, sounding sort of appalled.
She nodded. “Well, um, yeah, but sometimes they just throw it away.”
He leaned back and looked at her carefully with a bemused grin on his face. “God, that’s refreshing.”
“Refreshing?”
He shifted in his seat and stared out at the water. A small, graceful white sailboat bobbed out in front of the guest house, maybe 500 feet from the shore. “Everyone’s always trying to talk themselves up—even the kids at Waverly, who are a lot more privileged than most. I mean, nobody is just honest about who they are and who their family is. Who cares if your dad won the Nobel Prize or if he sucked fat out of some Jersey woman’s ass? What does that have to do with you?”
She stared at him. “Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s so true.”
He stared back at her. “You’re different,” he concluded.
Brett met his gaze, and everything inside her felt like it was about to explode. “Will you excuse me?” She cleared her throat. “I have to make a phone call.”
“Sure.” Eric tipped his chair back and, as she stood, he ever so lightly touched her left hip. She paused for a second as her hair dipped into her eyes. His hand lingered there. Then a grandfather clock from some far-off room sounded and he pulled away.
She stepped out onto the dewy grass, lit a cigarette, and teetered up the steps of a wooden gazebo surrounded by lilacs. She breathed in the sweet scent, willing herself not to lose her nerve. She dialed, and after a single ring, Jeremiah’s voice mail picked up. “Yo, I’m not hee-ah. Leave a message, losah!” Beep.
“It’s Brett,” she blurted hoarsely, seething at the sound of his thuggish recording. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore. So, um, don’t stay around for the Black Saturday party after the game. I can’t explain right now, but it’s what I want. I’m, um, really sorry. ’Bye.”
Brett stepped back onto the grass. Eric had wandered out of the house and was absentmindedly swirling cognac in a snifter, his dark jeans rolled up to his knees. The vast sky was dark and purple, and tiny lights twinkled out on the water. She could hear waves lapping on the shore and the gentle groan of a far-off foghorn.
“Everything all right?” he asked, grabbing her cigarette to take a drag.
She nodded. Then, wordlessly, he pointed out to the green twinkly light in the middle of the sound.
“That’s my boat. I don’t have class on Fridays, so I was thinking of sailing it up to Waverly.”
“I like the little green light,” Brett mused. “It reminds me of The Great Gatsby—you know, when Gatsby would look out to Daisy’s dock for the light to be on?”
“Sure,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have to leave the light on sometimes when I dock at school.”
Brett tried not to smile. “Who do you think will be looking for it?” she asked. But from the look on his face, Brett suspected he meant it for one very special girl from Rumson, New Jersey.
22
ART CLASS IS THE BEST PLACE FOR
WAVERLY OWLS TO TELL SECRETS.
Portraiture class met only twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and Jenny had been eagerly anticipating the first class of the year. Waverly had a stellar art program and a glass-walled riverfront gallery with student-curated public shows. Often student pieces even sold for surprising sums. Normally you had to submit work to be accepted to portraiture class, but since Jenny had been admitted to Waverly on the strength of her art portfolio, she’d been allowed into the class her first semester. Art was her favorite subject and she couldn’t wait to smell the paint and lose herself in the process of making something new.
And yes, seeing Easy Walsh would be pretty exciting too. Especially now that she had permission to flirt with him!
The class was in a building called Jameson House, a rambling country cottage with blue clapboard siding, a stone chimney, and a clothesline outside of tie-dyed American flags from one of last year’s fabric-making projects. Inside, the unfinished floors creaked, and all sorts of random drawings and half-finished color studies were pinned up to the whitewashed wall. The four giant rooms smelled like turpentine, aerosol fixative, wet clay, and the old-fashioned wood-fired kiln. Jenny stood inside, breathing it in.
“Welcome, welcome,” called Mrs. Silver, her art teacher. She was doughy and huggable, with pale, ample arms and gray hair piled on the top of her head in an enormous messy bun. She wore a whole bunch of bangle bracelets on her left wrist, giant oversized green and yellow striped overalls, and an extra-large tie-dyed rainbow T-shirt she’d definitely made herself.
The room had sloping ceilings, slanted art desks, and a wall of cathedral-size windows pouring in light. Mrs. Silver’s desk was a mess of paintbrushes, old leaded glass bottles, little aromatherapy vials, thick coffee-table art books, yoga flash cards, and a two-liter jug of Mountain Dew. Mrs. Silver was messier than Jenny’s father. She bet the two of them would really hit it off.
“Oh, Easy!” Mrs. Silver called. “I’m so happy to see you! Did you have a lovely summer?”
Jenny turned. Easy Walsh strode up to Mrs. Silver and kissed her tenderly on her cheek. Today his Waverly jacket was slung over his arm, and he wore a mustard-yellow T-shirt with frayed edges and medium-gray Levi’s that fit his muscular butt perfectly. His wavy hair was all over the place, and Jenny noticed that a little yellow maple leaf was tucked behind his right ear.
Easy scanned the classroom. His pale blue eyes lingered on her for a second. Jenny realized that the only empty desk in the classroom was right next to hers.
“Okay, everyone,” Mrs. Silver announced. “Let’s get right to it, because I know you kids are eager. I’m passing out sketch paper and mirrors now. We’ll start on rough sketches of our self-portraits.”
A collective groan rose up. Self-portraits were the worst.
Easy slowly walked to the desk next to Jenny’s, his eyes focused on her the whole time. He threw his cracked tan leather knapsack under the desk and sat down on the adjacent short metal stool. Then he slowly unraveled his Bose headphones from his neck and wrapped the cord around his slim white iPod. He leaned over and wrote on Jenny’s desk with a stub of charcoal, Hey. His handwriting was boyish and spiky.
Hello, Jenny wrote right underneath it in elegant calligraphy.
Mrs. Silver handed out charcoal, Prismacolor markers, mirrors, and rolls of shelf paper to each student. Jenny stared at her reflection. Her eyes belied the sea of nerves inside of her. It’s okay, she told herself. Callie told you to flirt. But had Callie told her to have heart palpitations?
“So, did Dalton give you a hard time?” Easy whispered.
“Not really,” Jenny whispered back. She wondered if Callie had told him that she hadn’t made a decision about whether to take the blame or not yet.
“Is Callie giving you a hard time?”
“Callie? Uh, no . . .” Jenny put the blunt end of her marker in her mouth. “She’s been okay.”
“Well, I hope she’s not putting you through too much shit. She does that sometimes.”
Jenny wondered what that meant. She turned back to her blank sketch paper, well aware that Easy seemed to be sneaking glances at her out of the corner of his eye. Before Old Jenny could stop her and tell her that even though Callie had said she could flirt, she shouldn’t, New Jenny giggled and poked Easy with her Prismacolor marker, leaving a big red mark on his forearm.
“What was that for?” he whispered, examining the mark.
“I wanted to give you a tattoo.” She decided that the mark was a nose and added two tiny eyes and a mouth.
“It’s beautiful,” he declared. Then, he grabbed his own blue Prismacolor and wrote on her arm, HI JENNY, and drew a frowning, snaggletoothed cartoon character, complete with a curly sprig of hair on the top of its head.
“Is it a portrait of me?” Jenny laughed.
“No . . . is yours a portrait of me?”
“Nooo. But, I once painted my boyfriend in six different styles, from Pollock to Chagall.”
“My dad has a Chagall in his study,” Easy told her. “It looks kind of like I and the Village. I used to stare at that painting for hours when I was little.”
Jenny blinked, caught off guard. I and the Village was her favorite. “You . . . you had great taste for a kid.”
“So, are you still with this boyfriend?” Easy murmured, shyly turning away as he said it and looking carefully into his own little handheld mirror. He made bold charcoal strokes on the blank page in front of him. It was exciting to watch him draw.
“Oh, no,” Jenny answered quickly. She and Nate had only been together for about three weeks, and then he’d totally blown her off on New Year’s Eve. He was older and had probably just been using her to get back at his real girlfriend.
“You must’ve liked him, though. You painted him six times.”
Jenny shadowed an area around her self-portrait’s nose, reviewing the slight lie in her head before she said it out loud. “Well, he liked me more than I liked him.”
“I’m sure,” Easy said softly.
Jenny sucked in her breath and took another peek at his adorable profile. As she switched charcoals, she saw him peek at her, too. So it wasn’t exactly right, but she couldn’t stop herself. Besides, it was what Callie has asked her to do, wasn’t it?
“So Jenny, you know any good secrets?”
Her hand slipped and made a big black wiggly line across her portrait’s cheek. How about Brett coming in at 3 A.M. after Jenny had seen her leave campus with Mr. Dalton earlier that night? That was a pretty big secret. There was also the giganti-cally real crush Jenny had on Easy—another juicy one. “Um, not really,” she responded quietly.
“I do.” Easy offered.
Jenny felt her heart thud in her throat. “What is it?”
He lowered his eyes, then looked at her again. “I’ll write it down, but you have to read it later.”
“Why can’t you say it?”
“Because it’s a secret.” He scribbled something in charcoal on a piece of scrap paper, folded it three times, and handed it to her.
Jenny took the note and shoved it into her pocket. Then something suddenly occurred to her. Callie had briefed her on how she should flirt with Easy, but maybe Callie had told Easy the exact same thing. Just be nice to Jenny: hang out with her a little, make it look like you guys like each other. Jenny could totally see that happening.
Her heart sank. Was that it, and nothing more?
As soon as the bell rang, she rushed into the first stall of the Jameson House girls’ room and opened the note. In chicken-scratched, blurry charcoal letters it said:
The owls at Waverly talk. Maybe they’ll talk to us together sometime.
Jenny creased the note into smaller and smaller folds and shoved it in her bag. There was no denying that she had a full-on crush on Easy Walsh. Everything about him, from his dark messy hair to his sumptuous, uneven mouth, to his love of Chagall, to his navy–blue–ink–stained hands.
She finally emerged from the stall and stared into the smeared sink mirror. She didn’t know what she was looking for—maybe evidence, like a physical sign, that something monumental was happening.
Because she was pretty sure Easy was honestly flirting with her. Not because Callie had told him to but because he wanted to. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew.
To: BrettMesserschmidt@waverly.edu
From: EricDalton@waverly.edu
Date: Friday, September 6, 3:33 P.M.
Subject: Fw: Upcoming Disciplinary Committee hearing
Brett,
I’m forwarding you this e-mail from Marymount, below, since it’s about the upcoming DC hearing. Thought you should know.
And thank you for joining me for dinner last night. It was very . . . refreshing.
See you soon,
EFD
Begin forwarded message:
To: EricDalton@waverly.edu
From: DeanMarymount@waverly.edu
Date: Friday, September 6, 2:20 A.M.
Subject: Upcoming Disciplinary Committee hearing
Dear Eric,
As you know, the first DC case of the year, involving Easy Walsh and Jennifer Humphrey, is scheduled for Monday. I’d like to make sure we set a no-tolerance precedent with this case.
However, Mr. Walsh is a legacy and his parents are donors, which obviously causes some complications. It’s a shame, because I personally reviewed Miss Humphrey’s application and think she’s a terrific addition to the Waverly art program, but someone has to take that fall for this. If she’s found guilty, I’m afraid we’ll have to expel her.
Let’s make sure we start the year off on the right foot.
Thanks in advance,
Dean Marymount
23
IN MATTERS OF SPORT, A WAVERLY OWL
SHOULD ALWAYS BE A TEAM PLAYER.
Friday afternoon, Brett sat in the locker room before the first day of field hockey practice tugging at the silver Tiffany étoile ring Jeremiah had given her over the summer. The thing was stuck on her finger, but she wanted it off. As soon as she’d sunk into the plush black leather seats of Eric’s family limousine—he’d had a car take her back to Waverly since he was sailing back in his boat—she’d been in Eric withdrawal. They hadn’t even kissed, but she felt like she could still smell him on her. That delicious Acqua di Parma. And this morning’s café au lait had tasted like L’Evangile Bordeaux.
“Hey,” a voice beckoned shyly.
Brett turned to see Jenny sitting next to her on the long, forest-green bench, pulling socks over her shin guards. Her wild brown hair was pulled back off her face in a high ponytail, and she wore gray Champion sweat shorts and a cutoff lavender-colored T-shirt with an orange Les Best logo, which was an edgy, preppy-girl-goes-crazy label based in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Brett had felt bad for Jenny when she received Eric’s e-mail, but that was what you got for getting in bed with Callie . . . and Easy. “Hey,” Brett said back.
Jenny squirmed, pretzeling her legs, as if she had to pee. “So, I think there’s something you should know.”
Brett stared at Jenny. Was she going to fess up about what had happened that night with Easy? Or maybe Callie had confessed something about Tinsley’s expulsion? Whatever it was, Brett definitely wanted to hear it. “What?”
“I . . . I saw you get in. In the middle of the night. And I know where you were.”
Brett stared at her, feeling her lips curl up the way they did when she got scared. “What?” Her voice was barely audible.
“It’s okay,” Jenny said quickly. Brett’s face grew paler and paler, making her eyes look huge and dark. Jenny had contemplated whether or not it made sense to say anything to Brett. The thing was, Jenny wasn’t so great at keeping secrets. She wasn’t someone who would tell the whole world, but she always had to tell at least one other person. It made carrying the secret’s burden a little easier. So why not tell Brett’s secret back to Brett?
“You don’t know anything,” Brett muttered, turning away to look at the freshly raked playing field.
“Look, please, please don’t worry,” Jenny pleaded, her voice growing squeaky. “Your secret is safe with me. Honestly. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
From the middle of the field, Coach Smail blew the whistle. “Girls! Gather around!”
Brett stared at Jenny. Was she serious, or was this some sort of ploy? Could Jenny be trusted? Last year Brett and Callie and Tinsley used to sit around in their room at night and talk about every detail of their days, no matter how mundane or spectacular. They’d been the kind of best friends who are almost like sisters, because they loved one another so much that even when they pissed each other off, they knew they were still going to be each other’s bridesmaids someday. But the Tinsley/E fiasco had made Brett a lot more suspicious. If Callie could betray Tinsley like that—not that Brett knew exactly what had gone down, but still—who knew what she would do to Brett?
“You better not tell anybody,” Brett warned, ignoring Jenny’s annoyingly innocent expression. She couldn’t possibly be that innocent, especially if she was from the city.
“Look, as far as I’m concerned, we never had this conversation,” Jenny insisted loyally. “But . . . I just want to make sure. . . . Are you okay? ’Cause you seem, like, a little distracted.”
Brett gripped her hockey stick and stood up. No one ever asked her if she was okay, not even her parents, and she wasn’t sure how to answer. “Um, I don’t know. Can I get back to you on that?”
Jenny smiled eagerly. “Sure. See ya!” She picked up her stick and jogged toward the middle of the field, where the team was waiting.
“Hey!” Brett called. Jenny turned, and Brett noticed that weird, familiar glimmer about Jenny again—like she was channeling Tinsley, like they had the same special something seeping out of their tiny pores.
Jenny turned to find Brett jogging toward her. “Look, what-ever happened with you and, um, Easy?” Brett said quietly. “Well, I shouldn’t tell you this, but Marymount wants to make an example of you, to, like, set a precedent for the year. So . . . I’ll try my hardest to keep you from getting expelled, but, well, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Oh.” Jenny’s shoulders slumped. Expelled? “Um, thanks.”
Celine Colista, who had olive skin, straight black hair, and full lips coated with MAC Rabid lipstick, ran up to them, kicking up grass behind her with her cleats. “Jenny, did Callie give you the cheer yet?”
Jenny shook her head.
“Cheer?” Brett asked.
“Yeah. Jenny is going to be part of our cheer,” Celine explained very slowly.
Brett nodded uneasily. Then Celine turned back to Jenny. “C’mon. Let’s go talk to Callie.”
Callie was sitting on the long metal bench alongside the field, rewrapping her field hockey stick with tape. She looked up just in time to see Celine and Jenny running over. Shit. Benny and Celine just weren’t going to let this cheer thing die.
“Callie,” Celine cooed. “Did you write the words yet?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, you have to hurry!” Celine whined. “Okay, fine, we can finish them at the party tonight.” Celine winked at Callie and then trotted to center field.
Jenny turned to Callie. “Party?”
“Yeah,” Callie replied, looking down at her field hockey stick. “It’s a pre–Black Saturday thing. Girls only. You have to come. We all dress up!”
“As what?”
“Well, it’s a secret until the last minute. But it’s tonight, probably in Dumbarton’s upstairs common room.”
“Tonight?” Jenny looked crestfallen. “I have to go to a new students’ ice cream social thing tonight.”
“Whatever. You can get out of that.”
“No, the e-mail said it was mandatory.” Jenny shrugged. “I should probably go. But I’m really excited about Black Saturday. There’s a secret party then too, right? And this cheer sounds cool.”
“Well, the cheer’s so not a big deal. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”
“No, I do!” Jenny couldn’t keep the shakiness out of her voice. The girls were all talking to her, and she felt more included than she ever had before, but she was also about to be expelled.
Callie was tempted to confess that the cheer was a not-veryfunny joke, but a few years ago, when Tasha Templeton, then the captain of the team, had told the new girl, Kelly Bryers, she was about to be punk’d, the whole team had unleashed on her. They’d cut holes in her bras, right where the nipples were. And no one had spoken to her for months. Her boyfriend had broken up with her, and she’d lost all her power. Callie didn’t dare.
Suddenly, Callie looked down at Jenny’s skinny arms and noticed the letters peeking out from underneath her right sleeve. It looked like Jenny had scrubbed at her arm for a while to get the marker off, but Callie could still make out the familiar boyish, messy script, and that stupid spiky-toothed face that Easy always drew. Immediately, a knot formed in her stomach, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. What was Easy doing writing on this bitch’s arm? But then she stopped herself. Chill. You asked him to do this.
“So how’s Easy?” she inquired instead, swallowing her worry.
“Oh,” Jenny squeaked.
“You getting along all right?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Good.” With any luck, the teachers would think so too. But why was Easy writing stuff on Jenny’s arm? That wasn’t really necessary. Especially that snaggletoothed character of his. That was her character: they’d made it up that time they snuck down to Brooklyn and spent the whole day in Williamsburg, shopping for vintage clothes and avant-garde art. They’d gone to Schiller’s Liquor Bar on the Lower East Side after that, and he’d drawn the silly face right onto the back of the menu. Then they’d snuck into the tiny bathroom and kissed, annoying all the impatient French tourists.
All Callie had wanted was a little flirting, and, as usual, Easy had gone overboard. But whatever. If it meant Jenny would take the fall for her at DC, then Jenny could have the snaggle-toothed dude.
“Come on.” She squeezed Jenny’s arm, trying her hardest not to appear jealous. “Smail’s giving us the evil eye.”
To: EasyWalsh@waverly.edu
From: CallieVernon@waverly.edu
Date: Friday, September 6, 4:15 P.M.
Subject: Miss you!
Hi Sweetheart,
I miss you! Please meet me at the library steps at 5 P.M. today. Sharp!
xoxoxoxxox,
C
P.S. How’s Jenny?
To: JenniferHumphrey@waverly.edu
From: CustomerCare@rhinecliffwoods.com
Date: Friday, September 6, 4:23 P.M.
Subject: Spa treatment
Dear Jenny Humphrey,
Callie Vernon has sent you a gift certificate for a relaxing spa treatment at our facilities. You’re all signed up for a shiatsu massage and an oxygen-blast facial. Please call or e-mail to schedule your appointment.
Regards,
Bethany Bristol
Rhinecliff Woods Spa Manager
24
WAVERLY OWLS MUST USE THE
RARE-BOOK ROOM FOR STUDYING ONLY.
“Ican’t see,” Easy mumbled, as Callie led him blindfolded up the smooth marble stairs of the library.
“That’s the point. I want to surprise you.”
She pushed through the unmarked, heavy oak door. Beyond it were walls and walls of books, glass cases of scrolls, leather smoking chairs, and a tiny, Mondrian-patterned stained glass window. So romantic. She pulled her hands away from his eyes.
“The library?” He looked around, confused.
“Not just the library.” She folded up the red satin eye mask she’d gotten from flying first class on Iberia. “Don’t you remember? It’s the rare-book room! It’s where we first . . .” She trailed off, pushing a lock of blond hair behind her shoulder. What to say? Where they first consummated their love? They hadn’t consummated anything. They’d made out. She’d put her hand on the outside of his pants. She’d cheated on her then-boyfriend, Brandon.
“Yeah, I realize that,” Easy replied, walking around the room, running his hands over a row of rare, dusty books. There were first-edition Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Hemingway novels in a large glass case, thanks to a certain J. L. Walsh and an R. Dalton. There were four large Rothkos on the wall, all of them studies in different-size black and red squares.
Callie sat down on one of the leather chairs. It was cold against the backs of her legs, and she immediately got goose-bumps. “Maybe we could reenact that night?” she said softly, pulling at Easy’s pale gray T-shirt. “Here, why don’t you get comfortable?”
She stood and gently pushed Easy into a brown leather club chair. She sat in his lap and started kissing his neck. Easy slid his hand under her paper-thin TSE white T-shirt and fingered her white de la Renta bra.
This was perfect. The musty smell of the old books, the sen-sual glow of the Tiffany stained glass lamp in the corner, the stillness of everything. Callie felt like she was being naughty in her father’s reading room, or like she was a frustrated baroness from the 1700s who was getting a little action before they all had high tea. It seemed like something out of a D. H. Lawrence novel. Women in Love, maybe.
Then she noticed that Easy’s eyes were open. Wide open.
“What?” she asked, pulling back.
“I think that’s a first-edition of V,” he murmured, leaning forward to get a better look. “I didn’t notice it here before. . . .”
Callie let out a frustrated little squeal and pulled her knees up to her chin, cuffing Easy in the jaw as she did.
“What?” Easy shot back.
“Never mind,” she said quietly, realizing that the hurt in her voice was coming through way more than she wanted it to. She tried not to let the feeling that this perfect moment with Easy had just been ruined settle into her consciousness. Too late. She tried to steady her voice so it wasn’t so shaky. “So I noticed you’ve been flirting with Jenny. . . .”
Easy backed away from her slightly. “Noticed? What do you mean?”
“Well, you wrote all over her arm.”
He licked his lips. “Oh.”
“So? Is it going okay?”
“I guess.”
“Have any teachers seen you, you know, flirting?”
“Um, just Mrs. Silver, I guess . . .” Easy stood up and scratched his jaw.
Not good enough. It didn’t matter if Mrs. Silver had seen them—she wasn’t friends with Ms. Emory. “Maybe you guys could flirt near the orchestra practice rooms?” Ms. Emory conducted Waverly’s orchestra, the Fermatas, on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.
A long silence followed. Callie could hear the tree branches scrape against the windows.
Finally, Easy spoke. “All you care about is whether or not you get in trouble, don’t you?”
“No!” she squeaked. “Of course not! I just—”
He held up his hand. “This isn’t right. It wasn’t Jenny’s fault. I don’t think we should drag her into this, and I don’t think she should have to take the fall for you.”
“What are you saying?” Callie demanded. “You don’t care if I get kicked out?” She felt tears spring to her eyes and quickly jammed her finger into her mouth. She bit hard, nearly drawing blood.
“No, of course I care, but—”
Callie shook her head. She could feel her pulse in her neck. “No. You obviously don’t. If you cared, you’d do whatever it took to keep me here.”
“Well, why would I want to keep you here if all you do is manipulate me?” Easy retorted loudly, his voice echoing through the silent library.
Callie’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said,” he whispered fiercely.
“Take that back.”
Easy sighed. “Callie . . . ” He trailed off, looking at her like he had no idea what to do with her.
She wasn’t sure what possessed her to say what she said next, but she said it anyway: “You know, Brandon would do this for me.”
“Brandon?” Easy asked. “Brandon . . . Buchanan?” he scoffed.
Callie snapped back. “Yeah, Brandon! At least Brandon—”
“At least he what?”
Paid attention to me, Callie thought. At least I knew where I stood. She swallowed hard and turned toward the window. Right outside, two owls huddled together on a tree branch. They looked like they were kissing.
Easy paced around the room. “So, what, you want to break up with me to go out with Brandon again?”
Callie gasped. “I didn’t say that! Do you want to break up?” Her heart began to really pound. Was this it? All of a sudden she felt woozy and nauseated, as if she were about to fall off an endless cliff and was scrambling to hold on to its rocky side.
“Just stop manipulating me,” Easy blurted out sternly. “If you think Brandon—who, by the way, is so gay—would do this for you, maybe you should be going out with him after all.”
“At least he loved me!” she pleaded. “At least Brandon wanted to have sex!”
Her words hung in the air for a moment. Easy’s lips parted, as if he were about to say something. But then a knock sounded at the heavy oak door. They both froze.
“Hello?” called a low voice. It was Mr. Haim, the nasal-voiced, grumpy general librarian. “Problem in there?”
Callie glared at Easy, baring her teeth before answering sweetly, “We’re just studying!”
“You have to keep it down,” Mr. Haim whispered. He opened the door and stuck his Brillo-haired head through the crack. “We don’t tolerate noise in this room.”
“Whatever,” Easy yelled, flipping his middle finger up in the air and straightening his shirt. “I’m out of here.” He brushed by Mr. Haim without even looking back at Callie to say goodbye.
“This is a place of peaceful research,” Mr. Haim recited, tightening his Waverly tie almost to the point of asphyxiation. “We don’t tolerate yelling.”
“I said I was sorry!” Callie screamed.
“You’re still yelling.”
She rolled her eyes. What the hell had just happened? She clomped down the marble stairs that led into the main lobby of the library. Out a tall, narrow window, she saw the same cuddling owls, this time on a lower tree branch. She stopped and knocked on the pane, causing the owls to ruffle their feathers and flutter to separate trees.
“Get a room!” she yelled.
To: Undisclosed list
From: CelineColista@waverly.edu
Time: Friday, September 6, 9:02 P.M.
Subject: TOP SECRET
Dumbarton pre–Black Saturday Party:
Welcome to Agrabah, City of Mystery and Enchantment.
GIRLS ONLY!
TEN MINUTES!
MOVE YOUR ASS!
25
A WAVERLY OWL MUST NEVER ANSWER HER
ROOMMATE’S CELL PHONE WHILE DRUNK.
Callie was wearing the new fringed Kelly green Prada dress she’d bought at Pimpernel’s, a multicolored Pucci headscarf, and four-inch-high silver Manolos. Her long strawberry-blond hair was swept up into a sexy, Asian-inspired bun, and she’d put thick kohl eyeliner around her eyes. She knew the other girls would be jealous, but that was the point. Sometimes it was more fun to dress up when there weren’t boys around.
The pre–Black Saturday party was a tradition for Dumbarton girls. It was incredibly cool because there was a select guest list and there was always a wild theme. Benny Cunningham and Celine Colista had skipped out of field hockey practice early to convert the top-level common room into an Arabian Nights wonderland. They’d closed the giant bay window curtains so the whole room was shadowy and mysterious. Then they added twinkling lights, candles, pillows, incense, Grey Goose vodka, mini joints, pictures of elephants and multiarmed gods on the wall, and carefully placed Kama Sutras, which everybody knew were ancient sex manuals from India, and some bizarre, sexy Bhangra music Benny had gotten FedExed from Amazon.com the night before. The room was all set up for a wild orgy, except for the fact that there were no boys.
Callie had arrived early and was drinking quickly and steadily, trying to put the whole Easy-in-the-rare-book-room nightmare out of her mind. She refilled her drink and headed toward the little window seat in the corner and suddenly collided with Brett, who had just arrived.
“Oh!” They eyed one another intensely. Brett still had on what she’d worn to class, boring maroon Katayone Adeli trousers and a white Calvin Klein button-down. Hello? It was totally against the rules to wear that kind of thing to the pre–Black Saturday party! “So, how’s Jeremiah?” Callie asked.
“Jeremiah?” Brett gave her a blank look.
“Your boyfriend?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What, is he not your boyfriend anymore?”
“No, he . . .” Brett was really squirming. Callie wondered if Sage was wrong—maybe instead of Brett liking a senior boy, she and Jeremiah had had really bad sex. Or, maybe really good sex. Earth to Brett, not dishing on any kind of sex to your so-called best friend was so not okay.
Then Brett narrowed her eyes keenly at Callie. “And how’s Easy?”
“Fine.”
They sat awkwardly on the window seat, looking past each other, sipping from their liquor-filled Waverly mugs. Last year, Callie, Brett, and Tinsley had sat around the pre–Black Saturday party in this very same common room, talking about their boyfriends and taking turns refilling one another’s cups. What a difference a year made.
Callie tossed her hair behind her shoulder, eyeing her friend. Was it possible Brett was just waiting for her broach the Tinsley subject so that Brett could apologize for getting Tinsley kicked out? One thing that Brett had never been good at was making herself vulnerable. “I bet Tinsley would’ve been really into this party.”
Brett flinched, then murmured, “Yeah, she would’ve.”
“It’s too bad she’s not here,” Callie continued quietly. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.
Brett straightened up. “Yes, it is too bad she isn’t here, isn’t it?”
Wait, huh? That wasn’t what Callie had been expecting Brett to say. Where was the I’m so sorry, let me tell you what really happened or at least a Let’s forget all of this ever happened and go get drunk in our room and catch up? Instead, the two girls stared at each other like two dogs sniffing one another out, trying to figure out whether they wanted to bark or not. Suddenly, a crazy Hindi techno song blared through the speakers. The rest of the guests had arrived, and the room was jammed with bizarrely dressed girls who stank of Dior Poison.
“Conga line!” Benny squealed. She wore a lavender towel turban on her head and a kaleidoscopic Pucci scarf around her midriff. Sage grabbed her waist and giggled, a large Waverly crest flag wound around her body, sari style. They passed Callie and Brett and giggled.
“Come on, ladies!” Celine squealed. “Stop with those pissy faces!”
Brett, who normally would have danced Swan Lake wearing a rabbit-fur muff if it meant being the life of the party, stood up, brushed off her lap, and shrugged. “I’m out.” Then she turned and strode out of the room.
Callie wound a thick piece of Kelly green fringe around her middle finger and watched her go. Something buzzed next to her. It was Brett’s tiny Nokia. The caller ID said Brianna Messerschmidt. Callie looked up and started to call for Brett but then stopped. Last year, she always used to answer Brett’s phone when she left it somewhere. Were things so different this year she couldn’t take the call? She snapped the phone open.
“Hey, it’s Callie!”
“Where are you?” cried Bree in a sexy, husky smoker’s voice. “Spice Market? It sounds fabulous!”
Callie sank back down into the lounge chair. “Nope. Just a dorm party.”
“I’ve got to do a shoot at your school sometime.”
“That would be awesome.” Callie wished Bree would give some of her enthusiasm to her nasty younger sister. “Should I find Brett?”
“Nah, tell her to call me. I’m home visiting our parents in Jersey this weekend.”
Jersey? As in New Jersey? She’d always thought Brett was from East Hampton . . .
“But listen, Callie? That teacher my sister’s been hanging around? Like going to dinner with and stuff?”
“Uh—” Callie practically choked on a huge sip of punch. What?
“Eric Dalton? She told you about this, right?”
“Um, of course.” Callie’s whole body began to sweat. She’d only eaten a couple of spoonfuls of Stonyfield vanilla yogurt this morning. A mug of vodka punch, and she was drunk. Her head spun: Brett was keeping more than a few secrets from her, all right.
Bree took a deep breath on the other end. “So listen. When I was a senior at Columbia, a friend of mine was sort of Eric Dalton’s girlfriend. And she told me he really gets around. You know what I’m saying?”
“’Course,” Callie replied automatically. Maybe Brett wasn’t acting spacey because she’d slept with Jeremiah. Maybe she was out of it because she’d slept with Eric Dalton. Callie fumbled in her bag for her cigarettes. How dare Brett not tell her this major news! Hello, were they just complete strangers now?
“But how funny,” Bree continued, snorting with laughter. “Maybe they’ll get married at St. Patrick’s! My sister will be a Dalton!”
Forgetting her buzz, Callie took another huge gulp of her drink. “Don’t you think she’s a little young for him?”
“Oh, of course. I would rather he stay fifty feet away from her at all times, but Brett’s got a good head on her shoulders. Anyway, just be sure to pass on the message? And tell her to call me. Ciao.”
“Um, okay. Ciao.”
Callie stared at the phone’s tiny LED window for a long time, mashing her lips together. Finally, she looked up. The conga line was still snaking around the room.
Fuck it. Vodka punch burning in her stomach, she let out a whoop, grabbed Alison Quentin, who was wearing a vintage couture Alexander McQueen dress and tiny little olive leaves in her hair, and followed the line of gorgeous, drunk, dancing girls out into the hall.
26
A WAVERLY OWL SHOULD ALWAYS RESIST
ADVANCES FROM HIS DRUNK EX-GIRLFRIEND.
Brandon was cutting across Dumbarton’s sprawling lawn toward Richards when he saw a girl in a flapper-style green dress smoking a cigarette and kicking her legs in the air like a Rockette.
“Hey, sweetie!” she called. “Come dance with me.”
Brandon walked over and squinted in the light. It was Callie. Was she trashed? “Hey,” he called out.
As soon as he got closer, she lunged at him and buried her face in his neck.
She smelled of fruit punch and cigarettes and that fresh chamomile shampoo she always used. Brandon felt a shudder run through him. Smelling Callie’s hair conjured up memories of last year. They’d undressed each other under a quilt in the common room late one night and spelled out sexy messages on each other’s bare stomachs. She looked up at him with giant, watery eyes.
“Brandon. Hiiiii.”
That’s when he got a whiff of her breath. “Whoa.” She was definitely trashed. “You drink the whole bottle yourself?”
Callie righted herself and smiled. “I’m cool,” she cooed. “Want some of my cigarette?”
“No, thanks.”
Callie shrugged and stuck it back in her mouth. “So listen,” she slurred, running her long, manicured fingernails up and down his bare arm. “Why were you so mean to me after bio class yesterday?”
In the porch light, Brandon could see little goosebumps on her bare, creamy legs. “About Easy and Jenny? I was telling the truth.”
“No, you weren’t,” she teased, tipsily touching his nose. “Nobody’s stealing anybody away from me. I’m behind the whole thing.”
Brandon scowled. “No, Callie. Jenny likes him. They like each other.”
Callie giggled. “That’s because I told them to like each other.”
“Huh?”
“I told them to like each other.” She covered her mouth and giggled. “Oops. That was supposed to be a secret.”
Brandon shook his head. “But Jenny does like him. And he likes her.”
“That’s what they’d like you to believe!” Callie yelled, and then covered her mouth. “Get it?” she slurred more quietly and broke into a goofy grin. “They’re faking it so that I won’t get in trouble for having Easy in my room!”
Brandon stood back and thought for a moment. Yesterday in the quad, Jenny had sounded way too genuine to be faking it. “And they both went along with this?”
“Yeah.”
“Jenny too?”
“Sure. Jenny’s cool.” Callie flicked the ash off her cigarette, but she was so drunk that it landed right on her big toe, blackening it.
Brandon shook his head. He looked at Callie, who, though hammered, looked as if she’d been secretly crying in the girls’ bathroom for hours. He wanted to cradle her and rock her to sleep.
“I mean, you’d flirt with another girl if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?” she asked, slurring her words.
“Uh . . .no?” Brandon stuck his hands in his pockets.
She looked down, frustrated. “You wouldn’t?”
Brandon lowered his eyes. “If I were going out with you, I wouldn’t even look at another girl.”
“Oh, Brandon,” she sighed. “You’re so cheesy.”
Funny. He thought girls liked romance.
She snapped her fingers, brightening. “Hey! So what do you think about Brett sleeping with that Mr. Dalton guy?”
“What? I hadn’t heard that.”
Callie threw both her hands over her mouth and then slowly removed them. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. . . .” She bit her lip. “Oops.”
“It’s, like, public news?” Brandon hadn’t really met Mr. Dalton except at chapel the first day, but it seemed highly sleazy for a teacher to hit on a student, let alone sleep with one.
“I don’t know.” She looked down at the grass. “I didn’t know, but Brett doesn’t tell me anything anymore, so . . .” She trailed off.
Brandon wasn’t sure, but it seemed like she was about to burst into tears.
“Hey . . .” He reached his hand out to her. “You okay?”
Suddenly, Callie threw her cigarette into the grass, grabbed Brandon, and gave him a huge, wet kiss on the mouth. At first he resisted, but after tasting her DuWop mint lip gloss, he couldn’t help but melt into her. The kiss felt so good. Warm, soft, and sweet, just like a year ago. He thought of football games wrapped under blankets, the wobbly Metro-North train to the city where she’d fallen asleep in his lap, and playing foot-sie at formal dinner.
But then he pushed her away. He wanted this—he’d dreamed so many times of kissing Callie again—but this, right now, was wrong. All wrong.
“What’s the matter?” Callie shrieked drunkenly, staggering backwards.
“You’re really wasted.” Brandon shook his head. “We shouldn’t do this . . . now.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered, leaning into him. “Easy and I had a big fight. I think we might be oooooover.”
He paused for a long time. Again, he’d waited forever to hear those words. But no, not now. Not like this. Brandon knew he was cheesy, but that was because he was a romantic. And fooling around with the girl he loved while she was shitfaced and on the rebound was totally fucking dumb. “That’s . . . whatever.” He pulled away from her.
“Come on,” Callie called. “Don’t you want to have sex with me?”
“You’re drunk. You should sleep this off.”
And just like that, he wiped his mouth off and walked away.
BennyCunningham: Hey. Did u send her the cheer words yet?
CallieVernon: Not yet.
BennyCunningham: Well, do it!
CallieVernon: I will. Hey, what cheer are the rest of us doing?
BennyCunningham: I dunno. What about “Be Aggressive”?
CallieVernon: K.
BennyCunningham: Don’t forget to send her the cheer, unless you want nippleless bras!
To: JenniferHumphrey@waverly.edu
From: CallieVernon@waverly.edu
Date: Saturday, September 7, 10:05 A.M.
Subject: Cheer
Hey Jenny,
You missed a great party last night. How was your new students’ thing?
Anyway, Benny asked me to send you the words of the cheer. It involves some dancing—sexy! And you sing it to the tune of “Sound Off.” I’m attaching a Word doc of the cheer lyrics here, and I’ll show you the movements in the room, K?
—C
P.S. Did the KissKiss! beauty basket arrive today? Enjoy!
P.P.S. Any more thoughts about what you’re going to say at DC? Let me know!
27
WAVERLY OWLS KNOW HOW—AND WHEN—
TO BE AGGRESSIVE.
Everyone was hanging out on the vast green hockey field, which was surrounded by thick woods. The sun was directly above them, and the sky was a flawless blue, with a tiny bit of bite in the air. Parents, students, and alumni crowded the bleachers. The St. Lucius girls paraded out to their side of the field. They were dressed in their purple and white sweaters and skirts, with matching purple shin guards. The St. Lucius mascot, a giant black and white Canadian goose, followed behind them, flapping its wings menacingly at the bespectacled Waverly owl.
Brett picked some stray grass off the bottom of one of her Nike cleats and snorted at how stupid the owl looked. She couldn’t help thinking of the Dorothy Parker quote, “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” An owl in glasses seemed like the nerdiest mascot ever.
Jenny sat next to her, tensely wrapping and unwrapping the duct tape around her hockey stick.
“So how was that party last night?” Jenny asked. “I heard you guys come in last night really late. . . .”
“That was Callie, not me,” Brett corrected her. “I tried to slide in without you noticing. You didn’t miss much, though. Except I lost my cell phone. Have you seen it?”
“No.” Jenny shrugged.
Brett gritted her teeth. Not having her cell phone—she was always losing it—meant she had no idea if Jeremiah or Eric had called. She wondered if Jeremiah was here in the crowd. She scanned the group of people across the field but didn’t see a tall, cute boy with floppy red hair anywhere. She wondered how he’d taken her message the other night.
“So, I’m excited for the cheer.” Jenny grinned. “It sounds like it’s going to be really fun.”
Brett abruptly turned to her. “You know it’s a setup, right?” Screw Callie.
“A setup?” Jenny’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, it’s this—” Brett started, but just then Callie came up behind them and laid her hand on Jenny’s shoulder. Brett turned away.
“Hey, girl,” Callie said sweetly to Jenny. “You look so cute today. Is that my Stila lip gloss you’re wearing?”
“Uh, no. It’s mine. It’s MAC.”
“It’s so pretty.” Brett noticed Callie looked slightly green, probably from too much of that vile punch last night. Nice how she didn’t even say hi to her. She was too busy kissing Jenny’s ass.
Benny came up to the group. “We ready for the cheer?”
“Yeah,” Callie agreed. She looked nervously at Jenny. Jenny looked nervously at Brett. Brett shrugged. This was their shit to figure out.
“Let’s go, then!” Benny squealed.
All the girls on the bench jumped up and began to bounce on the balls of their feet. They’d asked Devin Rausch, a senior whose dad was a famous record producer, to play drums and DJ. Callie gave him a nod. The needle crackled on an old Funkadelic record: he scratched it a few times, and then the backbeat wafted out of the speakers. The girls started to stomp their feet.
“Be. Aggressive. B-E aggressive. . . .”
Brett, who stood at the back of the gang, mouthed the words. This was so dumb. She glanced over at Jenny, who launched into her part of the cheer.
“St. Lucius girls think they’re all that, but no one wants a girl that flat!”
Jenny heard her solo screechy voice and immediately covered her mouth. Unfortunately, she was also at the portion of the dance where she had to stick out her chest. She looked over and noticed that no one else had thrust their boobs out.
Her teammates snorted with laughter. Jenny froze, boobs still thrust out. So this was the setup. Ha, ha. So not funny.
Things began to move in slow motion: the laughing girls, stupid mean Heath Ferro slapping his thigh in the front row, the entire school starting at her gigantic boobs. Then she realized something. She knew she could either feel like total shit and act like Old Jenny, who, mortified, would sit back down on the bench and never speak to anybody ever again. Or she could try and turn this situation into something interesting. After all, this might be her last weekend at Waverly. So before she could stop herself, Jenny strode up to the front of the team and started belting out the lyrics of the bogus cheer Callie had e-mailed her in her loudest voice.
“St. Lucius girls think they’re all that, but no one wants a girl that flat!” Jenny started, shoving out her double-Ds again. “Waverly girls get all the boys! C’mon, people, make some noise!” She made a swishing motion with her hips.
“Our eyebrows are waxed and yours are bushy; our butts are cute and yours are cushy!” Then she hit herself hard on her adorable little round butt. The other girls’ mouths dropped open. “Our mascot’s an owl and yours is a goose! We’ve got hooters and y’all are loose!” Again with the boob-thrusting.
“So c’mon St. Lucius, throw in the towel. Your ass is gonna get kicked by an owl!” Then Jenny, as she’d been instructed, ran crazily lengthwise down the field and did three cartwheels, as best she could, showing the crowd whatever they hadn’t already seen of her baby-blue boy shorts.
A dazed silence followed. Even though the words were totally ridiculous, every single Waverly and St. Lucius boy—not to mention the fathers and male teachers—was gazing at her.
Then, across the field, Lance Van Brachel, one of Waverly’s star football players, started to clap. “Yeah!” he screamed. “Hell yeah!”
Another boy clapped slowly. Someone whistled. Then the whole other side of the field erupted in applause. Everyone began to go nuts.
Brett stared at Jenny, who was standing with her arms stretched out, staring dazedly at the crowd, a huge smile on her face. Jenny had just twisted Callie’s manipulation, something even Tinsley had never managed to pull off. Jenny seemed so unafraid of people paying attention to her, and her curvy, tiny body looked great dancing. She had a good shouting voice, too– hoarse and kind of sexy.
Jenny looked at her adoring fans across the field. Wow, this was fun! Then she had a flash of inspiration.
“There is a boy who they call Pony! He’s always acting gross and horny!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “He thinks he’s got a lot down there, but he sure wears tiny underwear!”
The Waverly bleachers went wild. A bunch of boys covered their mouths and yelled a collective “Oh!” in Heath’s direction. Everyone was laughing. Jenny looked at Heath in the front row—his face was an angry red. Gotcha.
“Let’s do it again!” Jenny launched back into the cheer, hardly noticing the other girls. They were all party poopers. If they didn’t want to cheer with her, she didn’t care. She felt free and crazy.
Brett was dumbfounded. Suddenly, she grinned, and ran up to join Jenny.
“St. Lucius girls think they’re all that, but no one wants a girl that flat!” they screamed together. Jenny smiled and bumped her butt against Brett’s hip. At the end of the cheer, Brett even did the skirt-lift. The boys across the field went crazy.
Then Celine joined in, too. Then Alison, then Benny. Then the rest of the girls. And finally, because it would look weird if she were the only field hockey player not cheering, Callie started shouting too.
28
A WAVERLY OWL SHOULD KNOW
THAT FUNNER ISN’T A WORD.
Buoyed by their cheer, the Waverly Owls beat the St. Lucius Geese 6 to 3. As soon as the final period’s buzzer sounded, Brett hustled to her dorm room. There, on her bed, was her cell phone. Had she left it on her bed all this time? On it were three unanswered calls—all from her sister—and one text message: I’m in port. Come by if you want. –ED.
She quickly pulled on her most flattering it’s-getting-crisp-at-night-weight Joseph pants and slinkiest Diane von Furstenberg sleeveless silk top and zipped on her pointiest black patent leather boots. She sprinted down to the waterfront.
Eric stood on the white sailboat’s small deck wearing khakis and a green long-sleeved polo. He was holding binoculars up to his eyes and was gazing at something in the trees. A fishing pole was propped against the boat’s railing. When he heard her behind him, he turned around, the binoculars still pressed to his eyes. Brett instinctively covered her chest, as if they were x-ray glasses.
“No football game for you?” he asked, putting the binoculars down.
“Nah.”
“Isn’t the football game the biggest part of the day?”
Yeah, except her ex-boyfriend happened to be the other team’s star quarterback. Brett wasn’t exactly sure if Jeremiah had even gotten the I-need-a-break message she’d left on his voice mail, but she kind of didn’t care. “I’m not really into football,” she replied coyly. “May I have permission to board?”
He laughed. “Yeah, sure.”
“So.” She ran her hands over the boat’s chrome rails. “Does this thing have a name?”
“Not yet. She’s brand-new,” Eric answered, his piercing gray eyes on her. “I was thinking about something from Hemingway.”
Brett’s insides scrambled up. Like maybe something from The Sun Also Rises? she wanted to ask.
“What field hockey position do you play again?”
“Oh, center,” she responded, as if it didn’t matter, even though she’d played field hockey since she was seven and had scored two of the six goals today.
He chuckled, then picked up the fishing pole.
“Why is that funny?”
“It’s not. It’s just, I can’t imagine you in a field hockey outfit.”
“Have you tried? Imagining it, I mean.” Brett smiled coquettishly. She was being bold, even for her.
“Maybe.” Eric’s eyes were on her. “It’s a pretty short kilt. You girls shorten them, don’t you?”
“Of course not!” Brett lied. “They’re that short to begin with!”
She sat down on one of the captain’s chairs and stared out at the glistening water. Waverly’s chapel spire peeked up through the elegant, blue-green thicket, and the owls criss-crossed over-head, as if magnetically drawn to the yacht. Even the water smelled sexy.
“So, I wanted to thank you for the other night,” she finally ventured. “The plane. Dinner. Seeing your family’s house. It was really fun.”
Dalton removed the binoculars from around his neck. “I’m glad.”
A cheer rose up from the football stadium in the distance, and the band started to play. Brett glanced over in its direction, wondering who had scored. Jeremiah was probably on the field right this second.
Brett looked over at Eric. Biting her lip, she stood up and took a tiny step in his direction. “So, yeah, it was fun, but . . .”
“But what?” Eric paused.
Brett thought she detected something funny in his voice. She felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff that over-looked the turquoise Caribbean Sea. It was either turn around and head back to the bungalow to drink a Red Stripe in the hammock or dive off the cliff. She took a huge gulp of air.
“Do you think that there was something maybe that could’ve been funner?” Brett asked, twisting her head to the side.
“Funner isn’t a word.” Eric smirked. Water lapped at the side of the boat.
“Yeah, I know,” she whispered, lowering her eyes, feeling young and dumb. Go back to the bungalow! Now! Fighting her better judgment, she batted her eyelashes and stuck out her chest. She had no idea where she was getting these moves from. Jenny, maybe? She heard Eric breathe in sharply.
Fuck it. She was diving. She walked right up to where he stood, still fishing. He was a few inches taller than she was. His blondish hair fell messily over his eyes, and he had a tiny scratch on the side of his nose. He propped his fishing pole against the railing again.
“Maybe this could be . . . funner?” Then she leaned her entire body against his and kissed him. Ahh, yes.
His mouth felt amazing. Brett tried to restrain herself, but part of her wanted to devour him, like he was Beluga caviar. She kept kissing him, softly at first, willing his lips to part until finally his strong hands circled her waist and his lips melted around hers. He pulled her closer. Her mouth opened. Brett worried that she tasted like sweat from the game, but she didn’t care. Nor did she care that they were in broad daylight, on Waverly’s campus, on Black Saturday, and the whole school was only half a mile away.
She stopped kissing him and took a step back, smiling shyly.
Eric licked his lips. It looked like he was trying to hide a grin. “Um, well. That’s, uh, definitely . . .” He took her hand in his, and his eyes met hers. He chewed on his lower lip a little. “So I think . . . I think I should go back to my office for a while.”
“Great. Let’s go,” Brett replied, smiling. “Now.”
Dalton steeled himself against the railing. “I mean, I think I should go back to my office and I think you should go back to your football game,” he whispered, his hand brushing her ear.
Brett stepped away from him and looked frantically back in the direction of the stadium. Eric stepped off the yacht. He reached out for her and helped her onto the dock too.
“If I come to your office, you won’t regret it.” She’d never said anything like that to anybody in her life.
“I realize that.” Eric sighed. “Believe me. I most definitely realize that. But, um . . . .” He looked down at his navy blue Docksider boat shoes. “I think . . . I think I should go. But thank you.”
And with that, he stuck his thumb out, touched her on the chin, and turned, leaving Brett and her beautiful black pointy boots, standing on a stupid boat dock, alone.
29
WAVERLY OWLS NEVER TURN DOWN A GAME OF
I NEVER—EVEN IF IT MEANS KISSING HEATH FERRO.
Brandon stood, gin and tonic in hand, talking to Benny Cunningham at the Black Saturday party, which was, surprise surprise, at Heath Ferro’s country house in Woodstock, about an hour away from Waverly. He saw Jenny spill out of a Hummer with a group of field hockey girls. They were all dressed up in matching pumpkin-colored slouchy V-neck cashmere sweaters. Jenny’s sweater showed off her beautiful porcelain skin and exposed some of her bare shoulders, and he could see a wide, cream-colored bra strap.
After the football game, Heath had handed Waverly’s elite overnight off-campus passes and ushered everyone toward a fleet of black Hummer limos that he’d borrowed from his dad’s Wall Street I-banking firm. Brandon had watched from a distance as Heath approached Jenny, who was flanked by gaggle of admirers, kissed her primly on the cheek, and handed her a pass. Even he had to give her props for the cheer.
The party took place on the house’s massive back lawn. It was warm and still out, and Heath had had the gardener install a giant white tent and rows of twinkly Christmas lights. He’d also nabbed six giant sculptures from his parents’ ever-growing collection of random gallery purchases to decorate the expansive tent. The sculptures were gigantic blooming lilies. Their lustrous folds reminded everyone not so subconsciously of sex. As if anyone needed another reminder of sex. After watching Jenny’s chest, it was all anyone could think about.
Jenny spied Brandon and hurried over. “Hey! Where’d you go after the game?” she exclaimed brightly.
“Just took off for here a little early, I guess,” he answered, then looked away fast. He still felt all messed up over this Callie-Easy-Jenny business.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Jenny, that cheer was totally fun.” Benny squeezed Jenny’s hand. Benny’s Mikimoto freshwater pearl earrings were so big they made her earlobes droop.
“Thanks!” Jenny cried.
“Brandon, did you see it?”
“I saw it.” It would have been hard not to see it. It had been kind of slutty but kind of hot at the same time. And his brain had felt like it was going to explode, watching both Jenny and Callie stick out their chests and smack their butts at the same time. And of course he’d relished watching Heath shrivel in embarrassment when Jenny called him out on his small weenie.
Jenny eyed him carefully. “Seriously, you all right?”
“Eh,” Brandon murmured.
“What’s the matter?” she asked again. Benny shimmied away to hang around someone else. “You can tell me.”
He mashed his lips together. He didn’t know what he was feeling. Was he confused about Callie? Pissed at Jenny for being so into Easy? Annoyed to be back at school, period? Suddenly an alarmingly high-pitched voice pealed over the crowd.
“Jenny!” Brandon and Jenny’s heads swiveled. Celine sat across the room, on a pristine white leather couch. Brett, dressed all in black, sat on the couch’s arm. Callie stood on the other side, smoking through a thin silver cigarette holder. Brandon’s heart started thudding. “Jenny, c’mere!” Celine crowed.
Jenny looked back at Brandon. “You sure you’re all right?” she asked.
“Jen-ny!” Celine squealed again.
Jenny looked at him questioningly a few moments more, and Brandon realized he was kind of being a jackass. So Callie was screwing with his emotions. So Jenny didn’t like him. So what? She was still sweet and caring. And right now, she seemed so happy. “Seriously,” he ordered. “Go.”
As Jenny skipped over to the girls’ couch, a tall, cocksure senior girl named Chandler grabbed her arm. “Cool cheer.”
“Thank you!”
Another blond girl standing next to Chandler who wore a slinky silver top and pegged pink and gray pinstriped pants, squinted at Jenny. “Did you ever model? You look so familiar.”
“I think she looks like Tinsley,” Chandler added.
“Actually, I modeled for a Les Best ad? But it was only once.” Jenny beamed.
“No, that’s it!” the girl cried. “I love that ad. You look so cute in it, all crazy on the beach. Who was your stylist?”
“Jenny!” Celine called from the couch again.
“I gotta go,” Jenny explained to Chandler and the other girl. “Nice meeting you!” As she was walking toward the couch again, it suddenly hit her. She didn’t feel compelled to make up some crazy story about a seminaked fashion show or a debauched night out with the Raves. Nope. Jenny—not Old Jenny or New Jenny, but this Jenny—was good enough for these girls just as she was. I love Waverly! she thought, with a momentary shiver of pleasure. God, she just couldn’t get kicked out. Not now!
She joined the others on the couch. Celine immediately handed her a Grey-Goose-and-Red-Bull martini.
“So you’re not pissed at us?” Celine asked. “About the cheer?”
“Yeah.” Callie shook her head. “I wanted to tell you. . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jenny assured them. Even though it had been kind of mean, she felt like she was a part of something now—a real, exclusive Waverly tradition. How awesome was that?
“That cheer was amazing, though,” Celine commented. She was sucking on a Dunhill Ultra Light and a pastel candy necklace at the same time.
Jenny moved over to Brett, who was sitting on the far end of the couch and looked like she’d been up for 96 hours. “You disappeared after the game. You all right?”
“I don’t know,” Brett replied mechanically.
“Is it—?” Jenny started.
Brett put her finger to her lips but nodded miserably.
“What happened?”
Brett shook her head. “Can’t talk about it,” she whispered between gulps.
“Okay.”
Callie grabbed Brett’s arm. “I saw Jeremiah when I was coming in. He’s looking for you.”
Brett’s eyes widened in fear. “Did you tell him I was here?”
“Uh, yeah. Why, is there a reason I wouldn’t?” she asked, obviously feigning obliviousness.
“Shit,” Brett muttered.
“What’s the big deal? It’s not like you’re seeing anyone else, is it?”
Brett shook her head feverishly. “You shouldn’t have told him I was here.”
“Well, sorry! How was I supposed to know that?” Callie demanded. “It’s not like you tell me anything anymore.”
“You just . . . shouldn’t have.”
The other girls’ heads swiveled from Callie to Brett, as if watching the final match at Wimbledon. Jenny wondered if Callie knew about Brett and Mr. Dalton. Callie put her cigarette out with the heel of her blue croc mule. “So why don’t you want to see Jeremiah, anyway?”
“I just . . . don’t. Just because.”
“Is he not cool enough for you? Are we not cool enough for you?” Callie demanded, rolling her tongue against her cheek.
“Come on,” Brett retorted. “I didn’t say—”
“You looking for some older people to hang out with?”
Jenny froze.
Brett scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Callie tilted her head. “Did you find your cell phone?”
“Yeah.” Brett lit a cigarette. “So?”
“So . . . nothing. I found it. Just making sure you got it.”
“Did you go through my messages?” Brett’s voice rose sharply.
“No!” Callie sounded hurt. “I wouldn’t do that!”
“Like hell you wouldn’t. Whatever. I have to get the fuck out of here.”
“What’s she talking about?” Celine asked as Brett stormed away.
Callie stared fumingly at Brett’s receding figure and didn’t answer.
“Sounds like she’s having boy problems—she didn’t even want to see Jeremiah!” Celine added. “And he’s so hot!”
“Oh, it’s not Jeremiah she’s having the problems with,” Callie whispered. “It’s, you know—Mr. Dalton.”
Jenny’s mouth dropped open. Oh. My. God. Some friend Callie was.
“Dalton?” Celine echoed. The girls stared at her in stunned silence.
“Totally. They’re really—” Callie began smugly, but she was interrupted by Heath Ferro. He wore a fake wooden Viking helmet, à la Flava Flav, on his head and had taken his shirt off to reveal a temporary Celtic symbol tattoo on his chest.
“Hey, girls.” He slung his arms around Jenny and Callie. I guess he likes me again, Jenny thought wryly. Not that she cared. “I’m horny.” He pointed to the horns.
Celine giggled. “Ew!”
“’Course you are, Pony,” cried Benny, who’d come up behind them.
“That’s right. So you want to play I Never?” Heath grabbed a bottle of Cuervo from a nearby table.
“Definitely,” Callie agreed quickly, wrenching her eyes away from Brett, who’d paused at the tent’s door, her whole body quivering.
“Okay, but new rules: if you’ve never done it you have to take a shot and kiss someone,” Heath announced, fondling one of the horns on his helmet.
“You’re unbelievable.” Benny laughed.
“Fine,” Callie sighed. “Just no tongue.”
Jenny, Heath, Sage, Teague Williams, and Benny arranged themselves on the dewy grass just outside the tent. The air was cool and wet, but Jenny felt warm from her belly out. Her Red Bull martini was making her feel a little weird.
“Who wants to go first?” Heath asked, taking a long chug of Heineken.
“I will.” Jenny shot her hand up. She poured out shots into small plastic cups. “Okay. So. Um . . . I’ve never made out in a field.”
Callie, Celine, and Benny all shrugged. Jenny, Heath, and Teague each did a shot.
“C’mere, Jenny,” Heath beckoned, crawling across the circle toward her. “Let’s see if we can remember how to do this.”
Ew, ew, ew. Jenny tipsily pecked Heath’s mouth and then smacked him playfully in the stomach.
“Jeepers!” she squealed. And instead of laughing at her, everyone cheered and did another shot, just for fun.
30
NOT ALL WAVERLY OWLS NEED GLASSES.
Easy inhaled deeply on the joint and handed it to Alan St. Girard. They were sitting in a little alcove that separated them from the rest of the tent with those door beads that a grandmother might have in her pool house. “This party’s lame,” Easy managed to grumble, while trying to hold the pot smoke in his lungs. “Aren’t they always, though?” Alan replied.
They talked for a few minutes about which party had been the best, and decided that it was the one Tinsley Carmichael had thrown at her parents’ huge log cabin in Alaska a year and a half ago. It had been over spring break, and most kids had been with their parents in Park City or Monte Carlo, so not that many of them had gone to Alaska. The house was on the edge of an ice lake, next to a giant, purple mountain. They’d all drunk so much red wine, they’d been completely uninhibited. It was before Easy and Callie got together, and he’d coaxed Tinsley into getting naked with him and sitting in her outdoor birch hot tub, where they’d talked all night. It had been the kind of party where everything is serene and perfect—nobody had gotten mad at anybody, and everybody had stayed on that fun, wild side of drunk without crossing over and vomiting all over the teak floors.
The beads parted, and Brett burst through. She was wearing all black and looked craggy and grumpy, like that wicked old witch with the apple in Snow White. “What’s up?” Easy asked, as she plopped down next to him.
“Can I hide out in here with you?” She took the joint, which had burned down to a little knobby roach. She took a long drag on it and blew the smoke out her nose.
“Sure.”
“You guys make no sense,” she finally said after a long pause, running her hands through her insanely red hair.
“What, me and Alan?”
“No.” Brett turned to Easy, and Easy remembered why he liked her so much. She had a wide-jawed, wide-eyed, beautiful face, a little like Mandy Moore’s. “I meant . . . why is it that when you guys want something, and when you get it, when we give it to you, you freak out?”
Alan took a hit and leaned back, running his hand along his very short brown crew cut. “That’s way too deep for me, man.”
Brett pulled out her cigarettes and lit one. “Never mind,” she scoffed, standing up again. She squinted at Easy. “Are you still with Callie?”
“I don’t know.”
She smirked. “That’s what I thought. I’m outta here. Have a good party, boys.”
“She’s so strange,” Alan muttered. “You know what I just heard? I heard she’s fucking one of the teachers. That new guy.”
“Brett?” Easy asked, looking after her. “Nah.”
“I don’t know, man. Look at her. She’s a mess.”
Easy grunted and rolled one of the beige marble door beads between his fingers. His pot-addled brain tried to process what had gone down with Callie. Were they still together or not?
He stood up and parted the beads with his hand, feeling totally messed up. He expected love to feel like something stu-pendous, maybe a little painful. Like the sore, used-up way his back and legs felt after riding Credo all day. Or the feeling he got when he was in Paris, standing on the Seine, watching people walk by, and suddenly realized he was right there in the moment and not stuck somewhere in the past or the future. But he wasn’t sure if he felt that way about Callie. Where was she, anyway?
And that’s when he saw them.
Heath Ferro kissing Callie all over her face. She’d pulled down Heath’s jeans so low that they’d slid below his hips. He could see a strip of his ass. As usual, Heath was going commando.
Easy turned into the alcove again. Well, there was his answer.
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