Brett giggled. “I know I shouldn’t be this happy, but I can’t help it. It’s just … poetic justice, you know. Even if Tinsley is going to kill me.” The thought of sharing a room with Tinsley now made her feel almost physically ill. Hard to believe that last year they were giving each other manicures and gushing about their most recent crushes. “I haven’t seen her since the news broke.”
They giggled as they walked back to the dorm. Inside, the door to Dumbarton 303 was wide open, with “ABC” by the Jackson Five blaring from the Callie’s iPod docking station. “Great,” muttered Brett under her breath as she and Jenny drew near. “They’re having a disco party.”
“Hey, Cal,” Brett greeted Callie as she walked through the doorway.
“Hello.” Callie nodded, pulling on her pajamas. Strands of her strawberry-blond hair stood straight up from the static. She flopped down on her unmade bed.
“Sounds like you’re in a great mood,” Brett said, dropping her antique Prada shopping tote to the floor carelessly.
Callie didn’t respond. She slid the hair band she kept on her wrist around a ponytail and fiddled with the volume on her iPod. The music switched to a moody Belle & Sebastian song.
“I love this song,” Jenny offered. Callie looked up, her hazel eyes focused and cold, and clicked off the music. Suddenly the silence in the room was deafening. Whoa.
“Well, look who it is,” a new voice said, and all three of the girls turned their heads to see Tinsley, in her Egyptian cotton bathrobe, playing with the cap of a bottle of Evian. “Callie and I wanted to talk to you both about something. We just wanted to tell you both that you can’t be in Café Society anymore.”
Jenny’s reddened face turned even redder. She glanced at Brett. Why was Tinsley doing this? It seemed like an open declaration of war.
Brett’s eyebrows scrunched together threateningly. “Oh, yeah?” She picked up her Brine field hockey stick as if she were preparing to whack Tinsley’s head with it. “Is this because of Eric?”
Tinsley leaned her head against the door frame. “Eric?” she asked casually. She pretended to think about it. “Actually, yes, I’m kind of annoyed you got him fired just when we were starting to get close.”
“How can you even say that with a straight face?” Brett demanded. “Who do you think you are?”
“I wouldn’t be asking that question if I were you.” Tinsley strode across the room and dropped the water bottle onto her bed-side table before looking back at Brett. “I know who I am. Do you?”
Jenny, who had been following the rapid exchange with horror, felt completely lost. What was Tinsley hinting at? Whatever it was, it shocked Brett into silence pretty quickly.
Brett turned her back on Tinsley. A Dorothy Parker quote suddenly came to her mind: The woman speaks eighteen languages, and can’t say “No” in any of them. When she turned back, her face was more composed and her lips were steady. “I know I’m not a slut.” She returned Tinsley’s nasty smile. “That’s something.”
“You should think about who you hang out with, then.” Callie spoke up for the first time since Tinsley’s arrival. She was staring straight at Jenny, and her fury suddenly made a lot more sense. Tinsley must have seen her with Easy in New York yesterday.
For a millisecond, Jenny thought maybe she could make things better by promising not to see Easy anymore. Maybe things could go back to the way they were the first night at the pizza parlor. She wanted desperately to get that feeling back—that feeling of belonging, of getting drunk with the cool girls, of having them like her. But the second passed. Who was she kidding? She’d never wanted to be with a boy so badly in her entire life as she wanted to be with Easy. She wouldn’t trade him for all the Tinsley Carmichaels and Callie Vernons in the world.
Brett was about to come to Jenny’s defense when Jenny surprised herself by doing it on her own. “I know why you’re angry with me,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I should have been honest from the beginning.”
Callie had none of Tinsley’s abilities to control her anger elegantly. Instead, her normally picture-perfect skin became red and blotchy and her left eyelid started to twitch. She looked unbalanced. “You’re a liar,” she snarled.
“Don’t you realize what a hypocrite you’re being?” Brett railed at Callie. “You’re mad at Jenny for getting together with Easy after you guys broke up while she”—Brett gestured toward Tinsley with the curved end of her stick—“started chasing down Eric while I was still with him?” She glared at Tinsley. “That’s so … shitty.”
“Honey.” Tinsley gave Brett a pitying look. “You were never with him.”
“Fuck you!” Brett whirled back to Callie. “And fuck you too. You can have your stupid, self-absorbed Cafe Society and your stupid, fucked-up games.” Brett shook her head. Her fiery red hair looked wild but regal. “I have better things to do.” With that, she stalked out of the room, leaving silence in her wake.
Jenny glanced at Callie. Tinsley was an enormous bitch, but she still felt like she owed Callie something. She’d lied to her, after all. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Maybe one day you’ll forgive me?”
Callie’s eye twitched. Not bloody likely.
30
A CLEVER OWL KNOWS A KISS IS NEVER JUST A KISS.
Thank God it was Friday. Jenny had looked for Easy all day on Thursday but hadn’t been able to find him. She’d wanted to talk to him about Callie and getting kicked out of Café Society, but given how pissed off Callie was, she hadn’t wanted to just run around campus asking everyone if they’d seen him. Easy was probably just spending his time with Credo, enjoying the glorious blue skies before they turned cold and gloomy. But it was a little strange that he was MIA. They’d had such an amazing time in New York, and they’d flirted all through class on Wednesday afternoon. Didn’t he miss her?
Now it was Friday, which meant art class again. She slipped through the door and saw Easy pulling his pastels and pad of thick pastel paper from his supply shelf. She came up behind him and ran her hand across his shoulders. “Hey.”
Easy raised his head. His enormous blue eyes looked stressed but happy to see her. “Oh … hi.” He gave a distracted smile.
“Are you all right?” Jenny glanced around for Mrs. Silver, who was going around the room, checking in with students.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Easy raised his eyes. “What’s up?”
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Jenny smiled at Alison, who was just now pulling her sketchpad from her shelf next to Jenny’s. She raised one of her sleek eyebrows toward Easy and nodded her dark, pigtailed head. Jenny felt a twinge of regret that she wouldn’t get to hang out with her anymore, now that she’d been unceremoniously kicked out of Café Society. But did that have to mean her social life at Waverly was over?
“Here?” Easy looked dubious.
Jenny grabbed his arm, feeling another little thrill of excitement at touching him. “No, let’s go to the kiln room.”
Easy raised his eyebrows. “That sounds kind of sassy.” Jenny giggled.
Jenny pulled him into the small room around the corner from the supply shelves. It was a dark room with a single window looking out over the Hudson. Two large kilns and three small ones took up most of the space, and the room smelled like clay and dust. Shelves of pottery in varying degrees of completion lined both walls. It was a romantic place, and it reminded Jenny of the sexy scene in Ghost where Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore get all wild with the clay on the potter’s wheel. Mmmm. Jenny stepped close to Easy and looked up at him with longing.
Easy smiled down at her. “Is this what you wanted to talk about?”
That brought Jenny back to reality. “Um, no. I just wanted to say that I’ve been kicked out of Café Society.” The words sounded so silly. “I guess I’m not going to Boston.”
Easy didn’t look very surprised. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jenny stared down at her black-and-white-plaid ballet fl
ats. “So,” she said nervously, “are you still going to go?”
Easy let out his breath, and Jenny looked up at him in alarm. For the first time, she began to think that maybe something was seriously wrong. Her palms started to sweat. Maybe he hadn’t had fun in the city after all? “I’m not sure yet,” he admitted.
“Did I … did I do something? To make you mad at me?” Jenny bit her lip nervously.
“I don’t know.” He turned away from her for a minute and played with a clay pot on the top shelf. He was being an asshole; he knew it. But his mind had latched onto that awful thing Tinsley had told him in the city—that Jenny was making out with another guy—and Heath’s IM. He had to find out if it was true, and he hoped Jenny would forgive him if he was wrong. But he had to know. “Any chance you were making out with another guy? Like … Monday night?”
Jenny’s mouth fell open. She could feel her cheeks turn crimson when she remembered the stupid pizza boy kiss. “Oh my God … there was this stupid thing that happened.” She stared at her shoes again. “It was an initiation rite for Tinsley’s society. We all sort of kissed this …”
“Wait a sec.” Easy ran his hands through his hair. “How do you ‘sort of kiss’ someone?” His eyes were blazing. “Either you kiss someone or you don’t.”
“Easy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Jenny’s enormous brown eyes—the ones he’d trusted—brimmed with tears, but Easy was too angry to be moved. “I kissed him, but I didn’t mean to. It was just a … a dumb thing. Like a game … I had to. And I … I didn’t know if we were exactly together yet. …”
“You didn’t mean to? Your lips just accidentally found their way onto some dude’s mouth?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe this.” Easy picked up an ugly, lopsided bowl and clutched his fingers around it. He had the urge to hurl it against the wall and watch it break into a million pieces. He reached for the doorknob.
“Where are you going?” Jenny cried. Her hands were fumbling with a loose thread at the bottom of her light pink sweater.
She looked so sweet and distraught that Easy almost changed his mind. His heart was so full of the feeling that he might be making a huge mistake, ending something that felt this big and this right before it even had a chance to really begin. But then he pictured some asshole’s lips mashed against hers and her kissing back. He opened the door. “I have to get to class. I’m on probation, remember?”
Jenny nodded miserably. “But please, you have to understand. Can’t we talk about …”
“I think we should probably not talk for a while.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, hesitated one more time, then walked away.
To:
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Date: Friday, September 20, 8:09 p.m.
Subject: Puttin’ on the Ritz
My darlings,
Tomorrow evening begins with cocktails at 6 sharp, suite 605, at the Boston Ritz. To feel at home in our elegant surroundings, the dress code is glam glam glam.
Don’t forget a toothbrush and sexy jammies, if you plan on wearing any at all.
Our next victim: he talks about himself a lot, yes, but there’s no one on earth more ready to have a good time than Mr. Heath Ferro. I expect us all to make out with him at least once throughout the night. Let’s make him earn that “pony” reputation.
Conspiratorially yours,
T
CallieVernon: Ohmigod, Heath? Are you kidding? He’s been around the block so many times he even smells dirty.
TinsleyCarmichael: Tsk, tsk. You know he’s the sexiest guy left on campus … unless you think Easy would be interested in being the society’s next project??
CallieVernon: Don’t even start with me.
HeathFerro: What train u taking to Boostoon?
EasyWalsh: I’m riding up with Jeremiah from Lucius. 2 seater.
HeathFerro: Seat this mofo: the girls are gonna give it to me 2nite.
EasyWalsh: Congrats.
HeathFerro: Jealous much?
EasyWalsh: Dude, could you be any more of a girl?
HeathFerro: I could. But then I’d have to go screw myself.
EasyWalsh: U do that.
31
A GOOD OWL KNOWS HOW TO PARTY.
By six o’clock, presidential suite 605 was party central. The girls had turned the polished mahogany dining room table into the bar, with bottles of wine ordered from room service and several bottles of vodka and tonic water. Enormous trays of foreign cheeses and crackers and other unidentifiable yet elegant hors d’oeuvres crowded the table. Tinsley’s iPod and Bose SoundDock were perched on an end table near the television cabinet, and the TV was tuned to Turner Classic Movies and muted. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall bantered silently across the black-and-white screen.
Callie, wearing a red ABS empire waist chiffon dress with a crinkled, tiered skirt, freshly purchased from one of those tiny, overpriced upstairs boutiques on Newbury Street, had collapsed miserably into a maize-colored brushed suede armchair. The suite itself was stunning—the kind of hotel room that would have impressed even Callie’s picky mother—but Callie couldn’t enjoy it. She missed Brett, who was probably smoking cigarettes with that traitor Jenny right now and giggling about how they got out of coming to this silly party in Boston. Grrr. The thought of Jenny—and Jenny with Easy, her Easy—made her reach for her glass of chardonnay.
“It’s almost time!” Sage Francis announced in a lilting, wine-tinged voice. If she was half drunk already, she’d be passed out on the floor by the time things really heated up, Callie thought bitterly. Sage eagerly approached the connecting door to suite 606, which Tinsley had insisted stay closed until exactly six.
A deep, booming knock came from the other side of the door. Sage jumped back, and the girls giggled.
“Go ahead,” Tinsley agreed. “It’s time.” All the girls wore dresses except Tinsley, who had poured herself into a snug-fitting Theory black satin pantsuit. The tuxedo jacket was sleek and low-cut, and there was no room for anything underneath it. She looked like Angelina Jolie the year she wore a suit to the Oscars. “Don’t forget who’s next on our list, ladies.”
“I bet he’s the first one through the door.” Celine Colista adjusted the fresh flowers in one of the half dozen vases scattered around the room and glared resentfully at Tinsley’s outfit. She looked boring and traditional in her slinky black cocktail dress.
“Ladies, ladies, everywhere!” Heath Ferro boomed as he sauntered into the room, wearing a red silk smoking jacket and looking like Hugh Hefner. “That’s what I like to see.” He proceeded to make his rounds of the room, giving everyone a tasteful peck on the cheek and a chance to feel his silky jacket.
“Told you.” Celine nudged Benny Cunningham in the waist.
“Don’t you look debonair,” Tinsley teased as Heath leaned over Callie and gave her a wet kiss on the cheek.
“Or sleazy.” Callie almost jumped at the sound of the familiar, drawling voice. Easy had walked into the room, wearing his Hives T-shirt and the pair of cuffed gray Ben Sherman trousers that he only wore when he had to look dressy. A black fedora was perched crookedly on his head. Her heart started to beat faster. Since they’d kicked Jenny and Brett out of Café Society, Callie had assumed Easy would stay behind with Jenny this weekend. She pretended to be angry with him, but God, all she wanted was to have him kiss her again like he used to.
Heath draped his arm around Easy’s lean shoulders and planted a wet kiss on his cheek. “Don’t be jealous, brother. There’s plenty of love to go around.” Heath grabbed Easy’s fedora and plunked it down on Tinsley’s head.
So why was Easy here and not snuggling up with Jenny in one of the empty dorm rooms? Was there trouble in paradise already? Callie was sud
denly much more interested in the party. She decided to refill her drink.
“Surprised to see you here.” Callie set her wineglass down on the mahogany table as Easy poured himself a stiff vodka tonic.
“Why’s that?” Easy popped a lime slice into his drink and took a long swig.
“You know.” Callie paused suggestively and waited until he turned to look at her before continuing. “Thought you were on probation.”
“Oh.” Easy scratched behind his left ear, something he always did when he didn’t want to talk about something. Callie had to force herself to calm down. Just because he looked distracted didn’t necessarily mean things were over with Jenny. “Whatever. Now that Dalton’s out of there, I don’t really have to watch my back.”
But still … if he liked her that much, wouldn’t he be with her right now and not two hundred miles away, in a hotel room full of beautifully dressed, drunken girls?
Callie moved a little closer to him. “Funny how that happened, isn’t it? I mean, Dalton just suddenly resigns one day.” Callie flicked her hair over her shoulder, trying to give Easy a good view of her long neck, which used to be one of his favorite parts of her.
Easy smiled down on her, and she felt like she had just swallowed some hot chocolate spiked with kahlua, the way it warmed her body up from the inside. “I know nothing.” He raised his eyebrows mysteriously.
“I’m just glad you’re here.” Callie placed her hand on Easy’s bare forearm, and she felt the tingles surging from her fingertips.
Easy stared at her hand. “What are you doing?”
“What?” Callie snatched her hand away and Easy stalked out to the balcony, where Jeremiah and Benny were smoking.
Callie felt a hand on her waist. “You look like a goddess.” She whirled around, her hair flying into Brandon’s eyes. He didn’t seem to mind. In his Italian wool Theory pinstripe pants and black Hugo Boss French-cuffed button-down, he looked exactly like he always did—sophisticated, attractive, and completely boring. “Like Aphrodite. The goddess of love.”