“You’re right,” Callie agreed, mimicking Tinsley’s sense of indignation. “What an asshole.” It felt a little better to be angry instead of crushed. Screw Easy. Screw midget Jenny. Screw whatever the fuck was going on between them. She sat down on her bed and tugged off her heavy boots. They made her legs look too skinny anyway.
“We should make him pay for this,” Tinsley said wickedly. Her violet eyes flashed as if she herself had been dumped. She’d always been one for plans, projects, and schemes, and the thought of plotting to avenge her brokenhearted friend made her tingle with excitement. Her parents had been madly, adorably in love for over twenty years, so she had an idea of what love should be, and she didn’t like to see people abuse it.
“Right,” Callie answered, hoping maybe Tinsley knew some sort of hex they could put on Easy to render him completely unattractive to women. Something that would make his dark curly hair start to grow all over his body until he looked like King Kong.
“You were way too good for him anyway. He smells like horses.”
Callie groaned, and her hazel eyes filled with tears once again. She loved the way Easy smelled. It reminded her of when she was a kid and used to ride.
Tinsley lit a cigarette and handed it to her. “You need to take your mind off him. Think about other things.”
“Easier said than done.” She sucked smoke into her lungs. Tinsley sat on the bed behind Callie, Indian style. She did yoga daily and was the most flexible person Callie had ever met. Without even asking, she grabbed Callie’s hairbrush from beside her bed and started to brush Callie’s long, strawberry blond hair, something she’d always done last year. Tinsley was gentle, holding Callie’s head in place with one hand while combing through her locks with the other. It was a sweet gesture, and Callie almost started to cry again. Sweet was not a word most people associated with Tinsley, but she could be incredibly tender when she wanted to be.
“I saw the guys coming out of the woods yesterday, all secrety-secrety about something.” Tinsley changed the subject, working at a snarl at the back of Callie’s neck.
Callie leaned her head back, loving the feel of someone else brushing her hair. It was so soothing, like getting a pedicure. “Like some sort of male-bonding thing?” she asked dreamily.
“Yeah, where they beat their chests and pretend they’re animals and don’t have calc homework to do.” Tinsley was still a little bitter about being excluded from anything, and hanging out with the boys was always fun. Now she would just have to make her own fun. “Let’s show them. Let’s start our own club. Except ours will be smarter and sexier.” You could hear the excitement in her voice, and it was contagious. “We could have, like, a secret society.”
“None of those jackasses allowed,” Callie said firmly. It would be fun to get away from slimy boys for a while. “And no boyfriends allowed either. You know, I haven’t been single in a long time—before Easy, it was Brandon. And before Brandon, it was …”
“Ethan Lasser!” Tinsley said in a nasal voice, mocking Ethan’s Long Island accent. “Didn’t he have to transfer to Deerfield when you broke up with him, he was so heartbroken?”
Callie laughed again and took another drag on her cigarette. She had to admit how great it was to have Tinsley back. Even if she looked like a fucking model, she knew how to make you laugh. “Well, I don’t know if that’s why he left. But I did break his heart.”
“You know what you are? A serial dater. You only have long-term relationships, and you go from one to another without stopping to look around.” Tinsley tossed the brush on the bed and patted Callie’s head affectionately before lying down on her side. “You need to take a break. Get less serious for a while.”
Easy for her to say. Tinsley grew bored with a guy after twenty consecutive minutes in his company. She didn’t mean to—she was just a victim of little bursts of infatuation that ended as quickly as they began. But maybe she was right. Maybe it would be good for Callie to have a few one-night flings instead of long-term boyfriends. “Boyfriend,” Callie said slowly, as if trying to figure out the Latin root of the word. “Boyfriend. What a strange, ugly, totally un-fun word!”
“See? Boyfriends are such downers.” Tinsley rolled onto her back, her dark hair spreading around her head like a black halo. “You’re always worrying about where they are, who they’re with, what they’re doing, blah blah blah!”
“Exactly!” Callie laughed, then sighed heavily. In fact, right now all she wanted to know was where jerk-face Easy Walsh was, and, more important, who he was with. “You’re right.”
“Good thing Brett’s already shaken Jeremiah loose.”
Callie hesitated for a minute, wondering if it would be wrong to mention Eric Dalton. She felt bad keeping something from Tinsley in the middle of all this sisterly camaraderie. “Well, she is sort of seeing someone. She hasn’t mentioned it to you?”
“No.” Tinsley was a little disappointed that Brett hadn’t told her anything, but she didn’t want to show it. “We haven’t really had a chance to catch up yet.” She pulled a tube of Guerlain KissKiss gloss in Rouge Passion from her pocket and applied it to her lips. “Who’s she seeing?”
Callie let Tinsley suffer for a moment before answering in her Georgia drawl, slowly and dramatically, “Eric. Dalton.”
“You mean that’s for real?” Tinsley jumped off the bed. So the rumors were true. Brett had snagged a teacher? A totally deliciously hot teacher. She would have imagined that she’d be the first one to hook up with a teacher, not Brett. Though to be fair, Brett was sort of the type a teacher would go for. With her radical red bob and multiple-pierced ear, Brett looked way more worldly and jaded than she was. Total overcompensation for being a completely innocent V-I-R-G-I-N. Brett claimed to have lost it in Sweden or Switzerland or something, but Tinsley saw right through that lie. “Are they sleeping together?”
“Nah.” Callie thought briefly about how she had been ready to sleep with Easy, how she had been practically begging him for it and he just wasn’t interested. But Brett hadn’t come home last night and didn’t explain herself, so she must have been with Mr. Dalton. Callie was sure she would have said something if they’d had sex, though. How could you keep quiet about that? “I don’t think they’ve done it yet.”
“Well, it looks like I’ll get to check out her boyfriend up close tomorrow.” Tinsley leaned back on her pillow, looking extremely pleased with herself. “He’s my adviser.”
“Lucky you.” Callie could tell something was brewing inside Tinsley’s mind. It was kind of a relief that Tinsley was on her side. At least for now.
EmilyJenkins: B, you in ur room?
BrettMesserschmidt: Nope. Hiding out in library. What’s up?
EmilyJenkins: U like your roomie Jenny right?
BrettMesserschmidt: Yeah, she’s cool.
EmilyJenkins: So then u want her to stay alive?
BrettMesserschmidt: What are you talking about now?
EmilyJenkins: Well … EZ just broke up with C and everyone heard her screaming about J.
BrettMesserschmidt: Where’s Callie now?
EmilyJenkins: Back at Dumbarton I think.
BrettMesserschmidt: I should tell Jenny, huh?
EmilyJenkins: That’s what I was getting at. …
BrettMesserschmidt: Fuck.
BrettMesserschmidt: Hey J, where are you?
JennyHumphrey: Checking email in the lab. How r u? How was last night …?
BretMesserschimdt: Good. Listen … Easy broke up with Callie.
JennyHumphrey: Um …
BrettMesserschmidt: Everyone’s saying it was for u. Callie thinks so too.
JennyHumphrey: Jeepers.
BrettMesserschmidt: Yeah. So you might want to, like, sneak in after curfew …
JennyHumphrey: Thanks for telling me. You avoiding the room too?
BrettMesserschmidt: U could say that.
10
WAVERLY OWLS SHOULD FIND COMMON GROUND WITH THEIR ADVISERS.
/> Thursday morning, Tinsley took her time walking to Stansfield Hall for her first meeting with her new adviser, the infamous Mr. Dalton. She hadn’t taken any special care getting dressed this morning—it was easy to appear effortless when half your clothes are made specifically for you—and had unconsciously chosen a fairly chaste outfit. Her forties-style flutter-sleeved, white georgette blouse and chocolate Tocca pencil skirt with embroidered daisies seemed, at first glance, quite proper. Until you noticed the slit that showed off most of her perfectly slender thigh and the distracting way the lines of her red Blumarine bra could be seen through the delicate chiffon whenever she shifted a certain way, which she could be counted on to do. Even her purple suede peep-toe Miu Miu wedges implied repressed sexiness, which Tinsley knew was far more seductive than blatant sexiness.
Her father was a globe-trotting businessman, always involved in dozens of multinational ventures and investing in companies that drew him to places like Cape Town and Beijing and Oslo. Tinsley’s mother was a photojournalist and former model, half Portuguese, half Danish, an ethnic combination that happened to be one of the world’s most aesthetically pleasing and to which Tinsley’s owed her unbelievable violet eyes. Her parents had treated her like an adult since she began to speak, so she’d always felt comfortable with an older crowd—they talked fast and moved faster, and that’s how she liked to feel like she was living, at the fastest speed possible. Chiedo, their translator and guide over the summer, must have been twenty-five, though it never occurred to her to ask him. Eric Dalton, if he had just graduated from Brown, couldn’t be much older than twenty-two. That was nothing.
After all, when she met him at Chapel, he had practically been drooling. Tinsley might have felt guilty if Brett had actually told her what was going on between them, but if Brett thought she didn’t know and had no plans to tell her, Tinsley had every right to flirt with Mr. Dalton as much as she wanted to. So there.
She heard a Billie Holiday song playing from behind his closed office door. The very thought of you and I forget to do … those ordinary things. … She pictured him flipping through his CDs, trying to decide what would make the best sound track for their first official meeting. Billie Holiday was a bold choice—because she was such a jazz classic, it couldn’t be construed as inappropriate in any way, yet her throaty, dramatic voice was so blatantly sexy, it had to reveal something about the inner workings of Mr. Dalton’s brain. She hadn’t even met him yet and she’d already read his mind.
Mr. Dalton opened the door and Tinsley was startled again by how beautiful he was. His hair was damp, which instantly conjured up images of him stepping out of the shower and reaching for a very small towel. He smelled like Polo aftershave, and Tinsley found herself longing to touch his smooth, freshly shaven cheek.
“Tinsley Carmichael. Very nice to see you again.” His voice was deep and very professional, but this was quite clearly the highlight of his day. Where did he go from here? Trying to teach bored freshmen to care about Thucydides and Herodotus and all those other impossibly ancient historians? An intimate meeting with his gorgeous advisee was clearly the perfect way to start off his day.
“Hey, Mr. Dalton.” She stepped inside his cluttered office, loving everything about it and him.
He groaned in mock anguish. “Eric, please.” He indicated the leather chair in front of his desk, and Tinsley took a seat, smoothing her skirt and crossing her legs in one unified, elegant gesture. Eric pretended not to notice the slit in her skirt and sat down behind his desk. He shuffled through a stack of folders before pulling one out and opening it. “I’ve always felt like students should be able to call teachers by their first names. It makes them seem more human. And it makes me feel less ancient.”
Tinsley had no trouble thinking of Eric as anything but human—a very healthy, red-blooded man human. Maybe she would have taken a greater interest in ancient history if Eric had been her teacher.
He smiled across the desk at her. “So, how have things been going for you since your return to Waverly?”
Vague question, she thought. What things? Classes? Boys? Annoying roommates? “Fine. It’s nice to be back.” As exciting as it was to travel the world with her parents, there was something reassuring about being back on Waverly turf, back where she knew how to spin teachers and toss off A papers on Nathaniel Hawthorne in under an hour and where the food wasn’t so exotic it bordered on inedible.
He leaned toward her. “You know, as your adviser, I’m supposed to keep an eye on you, make sure things like the Ecstasy incident don’t happen again.” Eric looked stern for a moment, and Tinsley could tell he was getting a kick out of pretending to intimidate her.
She nodded humbly, trying to look repentant. “It won’t.”
“Good,” Eric said, looking satisfied. “It’s part of my job to make sure you stay on the right track.”
“The right track?” Tinsley asked. “It seems like there should be more than one.”
“For you, I’m sure there are,” Eric said with a smile, revealing a toothpaste-white grin that reminded Tinsley of when she was eleven and used to practice kissing on an eight-by-ten photo of Ashton Kutcher. “What about colleges? Any thoughts?”
“Well, I’m looking into Columbia right now,” Tinsley lied, hating to even think about college. When pressed, she said Columbia, but really, Columbia and Princeton and Amherst and Williams all seemed like bigger versions of Waverly—filled with jaded spoiled kids exactly like her.
“Columbia’s a good school. And what about after college?” Eric smoothed his tie against his chest and glanced down at the open folder on his desk. “I see your grades are solid in all subjects—A-minuses or B-pluses. But … I guess I don’t really get a good sense of where your interests lie.” He looked up from his folder and met Tinsley’s gaze for a little longer than appropriate. A chill ran down her spine—it felt like he was trying to peer inside her. “Besides varsity tennis since you were a freshman …” Eric raised his eyes from her folder to give Tinsley an appreciative eyebrow raise, as if to say he’d love to see her on the court sometime. “Your only extracurricular is Cinephiles, the film society.”
“I actually founded the Cinephiles,” Tinsley replied, a bit defensively.
“Well, that’s impressive.”
“It’s not a big deal.” Tinsley was modest now. “But there’s this state-of-the-art screening room in the basement of Hopkins Hall that only gets used when a teacher decides to show her class a film.” Tinsley shook her head. “Have you been down there yet?” The film room was one of the sexiest places on campus, with expensive leather reclining theater chairs, a fourteen-foot-wide screen, high-tech lighting, and surround sound. There were only about twenty seats, so it was intimate, like the kind of private screening room a Hollywood director might have in his Beverly Hills mansion.
“No, I haven’t.” Eric looked intrigued. “I didn’t even know Waverly had something like that—they certainly didn’t in my day.”
“You should definitely check it out.” She thought of how exciting it would be to sit in the dark with Eric, watching something sexy and dramatic like Body Heat on the big screen. Or not watching it. Out in the hall, some band geeks were discussing which songs they needed to perfect for homecoming. Losers.
“You know what I think?” Eric asked, planting his elbows on the desk. She could imagine a few things he must be thinking. She shifted gracefully in her seat and refrained from playing with her hair, a gesture she thought girls overused when trying to get guys’ attention, and instead concentrated on holding his gaze, which was more difficult than she expected. His eyes seemed to bore into her. “I think you are one of those very rare people who have so many talents, they have a hard time deciding on the right ones to use.”
That was cryptic. What did that mean, the right ones? “I’m not sure I know what that means,” she said coolly, tugging her skirt down over her knees.
“Nothing bad,” he quickly assured her, flashing her an intimate smi
le. “Just that you’re smart and good at everything you do. I’m just trying to find out what turns you on.”
Tinsley was suddenly encouraged. Without any prompting, she spent the next ten minutes elaborating on her experience in Cape Town and Johannesburg and the thrill of making a documentary in a country with such a shocking contrast of opulent wealth and desperate poverty living right on top of each other while it was still in the process of defining its post-apartheid identity. The excitement of watching an entire nation try to figure itself out inspired her and made her wish she could make more documentaries, maybe even one about this messed-up country of her own. It had been a high-intensity summer. She could feel her cheeks glow as she spoke, and she felt comfortable and excited. The words just tumbled out of her.
Eric nodded and jotted a few notes down on his pad. She noticed he had a few very faint freckles on the planes of his cheekbones.
Tinsley stopped talking abruptly. “Am I boring you?”
“Not a bit.” Tinsley could imagine the two of them in a café in France, sipping their third espressos and unable to end their conversation. “Have you read the Fitzgerald story ‘The Offshore Pirate’?”
Tinsley shook her head, her black hair gently swishing back and forth against her blouse.
“You remind me of the main character.” His deep gray eyes glimmered, as if there was something else he wanted to say. Tinsley waited, but he didn’t say it.
“Well, I hope that’s a compliment.” She laughed, already planning to head to the library between classes to check out the story. Being compared to a Fitzgerald heroine could be an insult, but she had a pretty good feeling that it wasn’t. “Listen, I hate to leave, but I think I should be getting to class.” She stood reluctantly.
“Anytime you need anything.” Eric looked like he was trying hard to keep his face neutral. “You know where I am.” He stood and moved toward the door, glancing at his Cartier tank watch on his right wrist. Next to it was a platinum-engraved gate-link bracelet. Without thinking, Tinsley reached out to touch it. Dalton seemed a little surprised by her sudden movement, but he didn’t pull away.