“What would be the point?” I get up, and the white comforter smooths itself out, leaving a flawless, wrinkle-free finish, erasing any evidence that I was there. “You think the world wants to see me sitting here staring at the wall?”
He smiles as he sets the tray on my dresser. “The world wants to see everything you do. They didn’t dub you and Hennessy digicast royalty for nothing.”
I shrug. I have fun playing princess on camera. I don’t even mind being recognized in public—that’s really the only reason I go out. But my father knows me like my millions of followers never will.
“I hear we have attendants to do that.” I nod at the tray.
“I am aware,” my dad says with one brow raised. “But when your daughter already has everything—including the number-one ranked digicast worldwide—sometimes the only thing left to give her is the personal touch.”
“That is so cheesy.” I roll my eyes, but I can’t hide my smile.
“Actually, it’s chocolatey.” He lifts the lid from the tray, revealing two steaming mugs of something divinely sweet-smelling. “Organic cocoa.”
“Mom’s cocoa?”
He nods. “First shipment of the season.”
Okay, yes. It’s just hot chocolate. Except that the cocoa beans this chocolate comes from are organic, grown overseas in actual dirt and watered by hand. Harvested by hand. Dried and processed by hand. Packaged by hand.
All that specialized labor makes the cocoa insanely expensive.
“And…” My father lifts a smaller dome lid from an opaque glass bowl at the back of the tray. “Hand-cut chocolate-hazelnut marshmallows.”
“Does Mom know you dug into her stash?” I grab a mug and use a tiny set of tongs to drop two large, fluffy marshmallows into it. I glance at the reading on the side of the mug. It’s set to keep the contents at the perfect drinking temperature.
“Let me worry about your mother.” My dad picks up his own mug, then settles into my desk chair as I sink onto the edge of my bed. “So…” He takes sip of cocoa. “Why are you grounded this time?”
I tuck my legs beneath me and cradle my mug. “I honestly have no idea.” My father scoffs, but I talk over his skepticism. “No, really. She said Seren’s party would be nothing but trouble, and when I accused her of not trusting me, she grounded me from the party she already didn’t want me to go to. It’s like she set me up.”
My father frowns. “That doesn’t sound much like your mother.”
“I know.” Normally, my mother is logical to a fault, but…“It’s like she has something against Seren. She grounded me last year on his birthday too.” I pluck one of the soggy marshmallows from my cocoa and bite into it, frowning as I chew. “And she dragged us all on vacation during Sophia’s birthday party this year, remember? Maybe it’s not just Seren she doesn’t like, but his whole family.”
“I think you’re reading a little too much into it,” my dad says.
“Or maybe it’s Seren and Sophia’s mother. The Administrator could creep anyone out.” I take the first sip from my mug. It’s decadently sweet, yet creamy. The kind of thing I should be drinking on camera.
“The Administrator is just doing her job.”
“No, she’s living her job. You run all of Digicore, but you don’t go around making people call you the CEO, do you?”
My father laughs, and chocolate sloshes near the edge of his mug. “So why is missing this party such a tragedy, anyway?” he asks. “How is it better than the one you went to last week or the one you’ll go to next week?”
“I don’t party every weekend,” I insist. But I’m just avoiding the question. My father may know me better than my friends and followers do, but the me he knows is still his little girl—even if only for a few more weeks.
“I mean, it’s not like you’re really missing out on anything,” he says. “There’s still a video block at Lakeview, right?”
My silent sip tells him more than actually answering would.
“Ah. That’s it,” he says. “What happens in Lakeview stays in Lakeview, right? Because of the video blackout.”
There are only two parties a year in Lakeview: Seren’s birthday party and Sophia’s birthday party. And because it’s a digital dark zone—meaning no video—you can do whatever you want at a Lane party without worrying about it showing up on the E-scape. Or the public streams. For one night only, it’s like you don’t exist, except to the other people in the room.
“We can cancel the digicast, Waverly,” my father says, his brow furrowed in concern. “I said from the beginning, as soon as it stops being fun—”
“No! I love the show.” Even though it means the entire world sees everything that happens in my life—my mom actually got hate pings tonight for grounding me from Seren’s party, which feels a little bit like a victory, considering that I’m stuck at home. “Besides, the bonding ceremony is next week. The ratings might actually outshine the proposal.”
I smile just thinking about that episode. Hennessy put so much work into keeping his proposal a secret from me, into truly surprising me for the first time since the first episode aired, and for a few minutes, in spite of the cameras, it felt like just the two of us, alone in the National Garden, surrounded by a thousand different kinds of roses. He had one in his hand as he dropped to one knee, and—
I blink, shaking off the memory, and find my father watchingme, the ghost of a smile haunting the corners of his mouth.
“Speaking of which…,” I say, before he can get all emotional and remind me that we can still delay the whole thing by a couple of years. “I’ve finally decided for sure about my dress. I haven’t even shown Mom yet!” With my mug in one hand, I swipe in the direction of my screen and the data-glass lights up, showing every app I left running when I turned it off. I gesture toward the one in the top right corner, and it zooms into the center of the wall, showing a two-foot-tall interactive image of my wedding dress.
“One hundred percent,” I command as I stand and set my mug on my night table. Fabric rustles behind me as my comforter smooths itself out again, and I shrug out of my robe on my way toward the screen as the dress grows to its full size.
“Dressing room,” I command, now wearing only a black virtu-fit body glove. I step in front of the glass, and the image on-screen turns the reflection of my bedroom into the inside of an old-fashioned dressing room, with the last few ensembles I bought hanging on hooks on the walls, waiting to be tried on. In the center of the screen, my dress rotates until I’m looking at the back of it. I hold my hands up and the dress rises, then falls over my reflection.
I’m wearing my wedding dress.
“Oh…” My father stands and steps forward until his image is in the dressing room with me. It’s strange to see him there. I shop for clothes with my mom all the time, but rarely with my dad. But the look on his face is exactly what I was hoping for. “You look beautiful, sweetheart.”
He hasn’t seen anything yet.
“Hair,” I command. “Final selection.” The image on-screen blurs for an instant, then comes back into focus. My hair is now swept into a cluster of dark, glossy curls dusted with glitter. I turn, and my reflection turns on the screen, to show him the back of my updo.
“Makeup,” I say as I face the mirror again. “Semifinal selection, ‘Morning Dew.’ ”
My face blurs, then focuses with one of my favorite looks in place—a natural-but-better look, with rosy cheeks, nude lipstick, subtle contouring, and slightly dramatic eye makeup, to draw people’s focus where I want it. To my best feature.
“Very elegant,” my father says. I know that’s one of only three or four phrases he has to describe any look I show him, but I also know he means it. I can see it in his eyes.
“Thanks.” I swipe my hand across the screen and the app minimizes; then the screen flashes white and returns to its translucent sleep-state. “We’ve gotten a lot of pings asking for a glimpse of the dress, but I decided to keep it secret.” I shrug into my
robe again and reclaim my cocoa. “It’ll play better on the digicast if everyone’s anticipating the reveal.”
“Well, I think anything you chose would have looked wonderful on you, but that is truly stunning, Waverly.” He frowns. “I won’t tell your mother I’ve seen it, but you should show her soon, before her feelings are hurt.”
“I would have shown her tonight if she hadn’t grounded me.”
A beep echoes from my father’s pocket, and I swallow a bitter lump of disappointment. “Work calls,” he says, pulling his tablet out to glance at it.
“I know. It always does. Thanks for the cocoa.” I lift my mug in a gesture of appreciation as he heads for the door.
“I can’t believe my baby’s about to get married,” he says as the door opens. “You know, we could put this off for a couple more years. Seventeen is so young.”
“I’ll be eighteen in a month,” I remind him. I don’t want to wait. I can’t afford to wait. “You know what the doctor said.”
“I know. And I understand. I just want you to be happy. Good night, sweetheart.” But his happy, supportive expression slips for just a second before the door slides closed.
Alone again, I swipe at the screen to wake up the glass. “Send someone to remove this tray,” I command.
“Command received,” a sexy male voice responds. “An attendant will come for it immediately.”
Normally, my E-scape would be filled with video clips and messages, showing my friends dancing, eating, and generally looking gorgeous and glamorous without me, but thanks to the video ban from Lakeview, all I get are the messages they’ve spoken into their tablets.
Before I open the messages, I disable the activity notification so no one will know I’m reading streams from a party I’m not at. As far as they’re all concerned, I’m much too busy with wedding preparations to bother.
I open the first message.
SURPRISE OF THE NIGHT! WAVERLY WHITMORE SHOWS UP! RUMOR HAS IT SHE’S WEARING A BORROWED DRESS, BUT SHE OWNED THE LOOK TONIGHT!
Wait, what?
Frowning, I opening message after message, as fast as I can read them. They detail the party menu and the guest list. They talk about some scandalous invasion of the event by Lakeview soldiers searching for a fugitive—what???—and there’s an entire thread dedicated to couples who turned the dance floor into a private make-out session.
But then there it is again. Another reference to me at the party.
It’s a joke. It has to be. My friends are pranking me because I missed the best party of the year. But it’s not funny.
Irritated, I close the messages and check my private pings instead. While I’m reading, the attendant comes in and removes the tray and used dishes. I don’t recognize the name embroidered on her uniform, but I know her face. It’s the same as all our other attendants, from a batch that matured two years ago.
When she leaves, I glance at the top left corner of the glass for the time. Twelve-twenty. The party ended nearly half an hour ago.
A new ping appears from the network that airs my digi-stream. I open it, and an image takes over half of the glass. It’s the new ad for the season finale—the wedding episode. It shows Hennessy and me, looking hot as hell, his arms wrapped around me, this smoldering look in his eyes that millions of girls all over the world wish he would turn on them.
But he’s all mine.
The ad flashes, Don’t miss the wedding of the century—a Network Four exclusive! Lady Waverly Whitmore + Sir Hennessy Chapman Forever!
I squeal in delight and swipe the screen off. Then I strip out of my robe and leotard and throw on some clothes. I grab my mini-glass tablet on the way out of my room, tapping through the menus as I head down the hall toward my mother’s room to show her.
She’s not in her room. She’s not in her office either. But then I hear her voice and feel a draft from downstairs. The front door is standing wide open.
“Waverly Whitmore!” my mother snaps. “Get out of the car!”
Huh?
I jog down the stairs, clutching my tablet in my left hand, but I forget all about my mother when I look beyond her to see Hennessy getting out of a long black car. “Look! They’ve got it loaded already!” I hold up the tablet to show him the image. “Have you seen it yet? It’ll be on every billboard in the city by tomorrow night.”
But then my focus settles on the girl standing next to him, and my hand falls limp at my side. My jaw literally drops. “What the hell is going on?”
The girl standing next to my fiancé? She’s wearing my face.
Excerpt copyright © 2017 by Rachel Vincent. Published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
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Rachel Vincent, Brave New Girl
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