“I’ve met some of the prospectives,” Tinsley lied, trying to shake the image of her dean as a raptor-like bird. Plus, a little small talk might help her cause. She shuffled her feet nervously. “They seem like good Owls.”
“Wonderful timing, isn’t it?” Marymount complained, throwing his Cross pen down on his oversize leather-framed desk calendar and running a hand through his thinning hair. “How do you think it looks to have arsonists on the loose?”
Tinsley knew the question was rhetorical, but it gave her the opening she was looking for. “That’s why I’ve come to see you, sir.” She took a small step forward onto the plush Turkish carpet, trying to erase the memory of when she’d last stood in this exact spot. Just a few days ago, she’d pressured the long-married dean to approve the off-campus Cinephiles barn party, using the fact that he was having an affair with the also-very-married dorm adviser Angelica Pardee as leverage against him. He’d agreed to the party but had told her that he’d hold her responsible for anything that went wrong. And things had definitely gone wrong. They couldn’t get any more wrong. But if Tinsley had her way, she’d set them straight again. And she always got her way.
Marymount pushed back from his desk and laced his fingers across his stomach. The antique clock perched on one of the bookshelves in the corner chimed piercingly. “I needn’t remind you of our last meeting, Ms. Carmichael.”
Tinsley shook her head quickly. She knew he didn’t expect an answer, and she wasn’t going to give him the nervous mumble he was looking for. Instead, she fixed her gaze on the silver picture frame that sat on his desk. The family photo was now angled outward, as if Marymount couldn’t bear to have his wife’s picture staring him in the face all day long. The photograph must have included his extended family, because she noticed now that a dozen or so people were crowded into the frame. She singled out what must have been his niece, since the dean’s children were already in college. The girl’s hair was parted down the middle and she was wearing pink overalls. Her black glasses encircled a pair of frightened-looking blue eyes. The girl was in serious need of a makeover.
Dean Marymount picked up his pen and held it, as if ready to sign Tinsley’s expulsion letter at a moment’s notice. “And I suppose you’ve come because you know who started the fire?”
Tinsley looked down at the toes of her Miu Miu maryjanes. A mistake, she realized, as soon as she did. If you looked at your shoes, people assumed you were lying. The only thing worse was scratching your nose—everyone knew that. The trick was to look them straight in the eyes—or between their eyes. She focused on the tusky gray-brown hairs between Marymount’s eyebrows. “Not exactly. But I know who didn’t do it.”
A thin smile broke out on Marymount’s lips, as if he was willing to allow himself this minor amusement. “Who didn’t do it?”
“Well, I heard you found Julian McCafferty’s Zippo, but I know for a fact he gave that lighter to Jenny Humphrey,” Tinsley pressed on, continuing to stare at his eyebrow hairs in case she lost her nerve. They looked like sandy gray buds forcing their way through his forehead. Maybe they’d blossom in spring.
“I haven’t interrogated Mr. McCafferty yet.” Marymount picked up the paper and examined it, his sharp blue eyes running over lines of print. Tinsley took a step closer to his desk. He flicked a finger against the paper. “This is the police report from the fire. It says the fire was without doubt started by an incendiary device.”
“Jenny was in the barn before it caught fire,” Tinsley insisted. One of the trees outside the window swayed in the breeze, and she was momentarily blinded by a sharp glint of sunlight. She squinted, hoping the dean didn’t mistake the movement for a flinch. She knew that one wrong move could mean the difference between Jenny’s expulsion and her own.
“What’s all this about blaming Jennifer Humphrey?” Marymount picked up a heavy brass paperweight in the shape of an owl and turned it over in his hand. He peered at her over the gold rims of his glasses with his piercing blue eyes. “Did you two have a fight?”
Tinsley felt her shoulders tense up. A fight? Not exactly. It was more like a long, drawn-out war, started when Jenny appeared with her enormous chest and decided she could just throw herself at any guy on campus regardless of who he happened to be with at the time. “If you’re worried that I have an ulterior motive, then just ask Callie Vernon. She was in the barn. She saw Jenny, too.” Tinsley crossed her arms over her chest. It was about time Callie got off of Easy and pulled her weight.
“What was Ms. Vernon doing in the barn?” The dean leaned forward. She hadn’t realized how suspicious her explanation might sound. Oops. Marymount’s e-mail alert dinged. His eyes flicked to his flat-screen monitor for a moment and then settled back on Tinsley.
“She was with Easy Walsh . . . um . . . talking. He saw Jenny, too,” she added hastily. If she wasn’t careful, she’d tell him she started the fire. Shit. What was wrong with her?
Marymount gave a little snort of laughter. “Our list of possible suspects is growing exponentially by the minute,” he declared, looking almost gleeful.
Tinsley suddenly noticed that the Trident spearmint gum in her mouth had lost all its flavor. “They didn’t have anything to do with the fire,” she insisted. She perched her hands firmly on her slim hips, desperate to not seem desperate. “But they saw Jenny. She started it. I’m positive it was her.”
Marymount pushed his chair back and stood up, indicating that their meeting was nearing its conclusion. “You don’t mind if I don’t take your word for that, do you?” Another rhetorical question. Tinsley blinked her violet-colored eyes at him. “I appreciate your taking time from your Saturday morning to drop in.” He shuffled the papers on his desk and then placed the police report in his top drawer, closing it with an ominous thud and locking it, pocketing the key. “I’ll overlook your carelessness in organizing the disastrous event, for now. But I’m sure we’ll talk soon.”
Tinsley turned and walked out into the empty outer office, closing Dean Marymount’s door behind her. She stood in front of Mr. Tomkins’s empty desk. She lunged forward and grabbed another piece of gum from the top drawer, sticking the old piece underneath the desk. Childish, yes, but she was pissed, and not about to restrain herself. She wasn’t used to not getting her way. And she would stop at nothing to see that in this case—the case of Jenny Humphrey getting booted out of Waverly on her big-boobed ass—that she got exactly what she wanted and deserved. After all, she’d always been lucky, and this fire incident would be no exception. She and her friends would stay, and Jenny Humphrey would go.
4
A SMART OWL KNOWS THAT THE WAVERLY STABLES ARE INTENDED FOR RECREATIONAL PURPOSES.
Callie Vernon reluctantly pushed Easy Walsh’s bare arm away from her and sat up, grabbing her new Stella McCartney jeans from the rumpled pile on the stable floor where all of their clothes had ended up an hour ago. They were in a section of the Waverly riding stables that no longer held horses, where no one ever came. Of course, though the horses were no longer around, their smell lingered. But it was better than the oppressive smell of smoke that hung like a cloak over the campus.
“No, not yet . . .” Easy pulled at the legs of the jeans to keep Callie from tugging them on. She giggled and danced out of his reach. The brown canvas horse blanket they’d been lying on—it was clean, Easy had promised—was scratchy beneath her bare feet, although she hadn’t even noticed when it was touching the rest of her naked skin. Her mind, apparently, had been elsewhere.
She stared down at Easy’s bare chest, at the birthmark below his rib cage, at the waistband of his charcoal gray Calvin Klein boxers. His body was always toned, despite the fact that he never went to the gym, and he always had defined ab muscles from riding his horse, Credo. He was so effortlessly gorgeous. And once more, he was all hers, every delicious inch of him.
“We should really get a nicer blanket out here.” She stuck her bare, skinny arms through the spaghetti straps of her pale pink Cosabella
camisole and shook her wavy strawberry blond hair out of her eyes.
“What, stiff canvas doesn’t turn you on?” Easy drawled in his slight Kentucky accent. He grabbed Callie’s folded cream-colored Ralph Lauren peacoat off the stable floor, wedging it under his head like a pillow with an easy grin. She knelt down and tried to pull it out from under his head. She didn’t mind getting a little hay in her hair, but she wouldn’t stand for total wardrobe abuse. It was already a concession that she wasn’t wearing heels. But before she could get the coat out from under his head, he wrapped a powerful hand around her waist and tugged her back on top of him.
“You are such a pain,” she said lovingly. She stared down into his gorgeous midnight blue eyes and plucked a piece of hay from one of his unruly brown curls. His lips were red and chapped from kissing. So were hers, and it felt glorious. “And no, I’m not in love with scratchy horse blankets.”
He placed his hand on her lower back, on top of her strawberry-shaped birthmark. He rested his fingers easily under the waist-band of her jeans. “You’re like the princess and the pea.”
She didn’t know about the pea part, but she definitely felt like a princess. The Waverly riding stables could have been a luxury suite at the Ritz-Carlton Atlanta, her governor mother’s hotel of choice, for all she cared. The stables were cozy and private—and that was all they needed. Easy had wanted to head up to the bluffs so that they could look out over the Hudson, but they’d abandoned that idea when they spotted the cross-country team running in that direction. Nothing like a team of skinny runner geeks with stopwatches to ruin a romantic, clothing-free afternoon.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, lifting his head to nibble on her left earlobe. His voice was gentle and sweet. Everything about Easy was familiar. Sometimes he even reminded her of things that had nothing to do with him, like the sweet tea she’d loved as a kid. They didn’t have it in the Northeast, and it was one of the only things she missed about the South.
She hadn’t been thinking about anything besides him, but now that he’d brought it up, her mind was flooded with the things she probably should be thinking about. Like the fact that she’d just bailed on Tinsley and her plan to get Jenny kicked out of Waverly. She’d meant what she’d said on the phone—Tinsley would probably be better off without her. That girl could lie her way through anything, and Callie’s nervous fidgeting would only make them seem suspicious.
“I was just thinking . . . about last night.” They’d lost their virginity together, and it had been everything she’d ever hoped it would be, with the one person she’d hoped it would be with. They’d remember it for the rest of their lives. She’d even kept a piece of straw from the barn and put it in her top drawer, so that she’d forever have a memento from their night together. Now that the barn itself was gone, she was glad she’d kept it, and she sort of liked the idea that she had in her possession the only remnant of the place where they’d lost their virginity. She kissed Easy on the cheek and he smiled his half-cocky, half-abashed smile. God, she’d missed that smile. And his smell, like coffee and Marlboro Reds, horses and Ivory soap, and arty paint smells she couldn’t really identify. And his knobby knuckles. It was all back now. And all of it was hers.
“Listen.” Easy reached up and gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind Callie’s ear. He kissed one of the freckles on her neck before leaning back and looking her in the eye. “When I went to the dining hall to get the bagels, I overheard people saying that we might be suspects. Some people think we started the fire.” His forehead was creased with worry.
“It’s Jenny. She’s spreading that rumor everywhere.” Callie’s face flushed with anger when she thought of the way Jenny had gone off on her last night in their room, accusing her not only of being a horrible friend but of being an irresponsible arsonist. Of course Jenny was just furious about Easy dumping her and was dying for a way to get back at Callie. Not only that, she was just sure Jenny herself had started the fire, out of rage and jealousy. She deserved to get kicked out. And then Callie would have a single. She could rig up a rope ladder and sneak Easy in every night.
“Come on.” Easy picked at a brown splotch—paint? something horsey and disgusting?—on his jeans. “That doesn’t really . . . sound like Jenny.” His voice was low and soft, as if he were trying to tiptoe around her.
Callie narrowed her hazel eyes, glowering at him. Of course he was a Jenny expert. He’d hooked up with her for two fucking weeks and now he knew everything about her? Her back stiffened. She didn’t want to have this conversation right now. She didn’t want to spend one second thinking about Easy and Jenny. At least Jenny would be out of the picture soon, if Tinsley’s meeting with the dean went as planned. If it didn’t, there would be plenty of time to remedy the situation, and then she’d never have to think about Jenny again.
“I feel like I owe you a better explanation for what happened with Jenny. Or a better apology. Or something . . .” He trailed off, rubbing his temples with his calloused thumbs. “I mean, there were all these things going on and I just couldn’t—”
Callie planted a long, soft kiss on his chapped lips, hoping that would shut him up.
Easy kissed her back, then pulled away slowly. Callie’s milky white skin had turned a delicate shade of pink, and he knew that no matter how cool she tried to play it, she was still upset about Jenny. Of course it was a sensitive subject for Callie—it had probably killed her to see him with Jenny, and so it was natural that she’d be angry. But still . . . Jenny didn’t deserve to be blamed for the mess he’d made with Callie. “Don’t you think we should, uh, talk about it?” He sat up on the blanket and pulled her up with him, pulling her fluffy white coat out from under his head.
“Shhh.” Callie put her finger over his lips, then replaced it with her own mouth. The sun had crawled high into the sky, and it cast long shadows all over the stable floor. “We’re together now, and that’s all that matters.”
Easy opened his mouth to speak but she silenced him with a long, slow kiss. Callie was right. They were together again, and this time nothing was going to change the way he felt about her.
5
A WAVERLY OWL DOES NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PROSPECTIVE OWLS.
Brandon Buchanan lay on his Ralph Lauren bedspread with his squash-calloused hands folded beneath his head. Mr. Open is closed. He still couldn’t believe that for once in his life, he’d been able to say something that actually sounded like a line from a movie. He was always coming up with good comebacks after the fact, but finally, he’d nailed it. There was something transcendent about the moment. He’d let Elizabeth Jacobs, the hot St. Lucius girl he’d hoped to make his girlfriend, know that if she insisted on keeping her relationships “open”—meaning she still got to flirt and hook up with whoever she wanted, even in front of Brandon—certain Men of Quality wouldn’t be available for her anymore. She’d have to settle for a lifetime of guys like Brian Atherton. Atherton. That fucker.
A soft knock interrupted his self-congratulatory meditation. Maybe it was Elizabeth, there to tell him how sorry she was. That if he wouldn’t take her back, she was going to join a convent and forsake all the Athertons of the world and him, forever, or something equally film-like and romantic.
He coughed and attempted a steady, manly voice. “Come in.”
But instead of Elizabeth’s dirty-blond head, the bearded face of Pierre Hausler, the Canadian dorm supervisor, appeared in the doorway. House, as everyone called him, was one of those Waverly alums who’d arrived as a teenager and then had never left—or, if he had, it had only been long enough to get a college degree. He supervised the dorm, assistant coached the girls’ softball team, and taught freshman earth science and recorder. He also said, “Eh?”
“Bad time, eh?” House asked, pausing in the doorway. Despite his nickname, he was a slim guy and looked a bit like Johnny Knoxville with facial hair. He also happened to be pretty cool, never harassing them too much about lights-out. “Bad time, eh?” was
his signature hello.
“Nah.” Brandon sat up, running a hand through his short, wavy dark gold hair. “What’s up?”
House pushed the door open farther, revealing a skinny kid Brandon had never seen before. He had spiky light brown hair that looked like it had never seen a comb in its life, and he was holding an army green L.L.Bean sleeping bag with the initials SRT embroidered in orange at the top. He wasn’t all that much bigger than Brandon’s half brothers, Zach and Luke, who were eleven and still thought Super Soakers were the coolest things in the world. They especially liked to torture Brandon’s Labrador—who, incidentally, was also named Elizabeth. Brandon briefly wondered if, from now on, every time he called his dog, he’d be reminded of his experience with open-minded women.
House stuck a thumb toward the kid. “This is Sam Tri . . . Trigonis.” House was notoriously bad with names, which was especially problematic for a dorm adviser—he often referred to his advisees by their room numbers. “He’s one of the prospectives visiting this weekend.”
Prospectives. With everything that had happened last week—his short, bittersweet fling with Elizabeth, and the insane burning barn last night—Brandon had forgotten there’d be a bunch of little eighth-graders shadowing people around campus for the next few days.
“He was supposed to be staying with Brian Atherton, but there was an, um, incident at the squash courts this morning,” House continued. Brandon noticed a dark spot under the kid’s eye that stretched to the bridge of his nose. It looked like he’d taken a ball to the face, and hard. House nodded his head of curly dark hair at Brandon. “Sam, this is Brandon Buchanan.”