Infamous (7 page)

Now, all she wanted to do was take a long, hot shower in her private bathroom, slip on her raggedy fuzzy pink pig slippers, and catch up with Bree. It was hard to really talk to her sister through e-mails and intermittent phone calls, and Brett looked forward to some Cherry Garcia and girl talk. She slipped out of her Manolo ankle boots and tossed her coat into the giant hall closet.

“Hello?” she called out, her voice echoing through the foyer. She was a little surprised not to have been greeted by her mother’s teacup Chihuahuas, who usually came scampering across the marble floor at the slightest hint of movement near the front door.

“We’re in the parlor, sweetie,” she heard her mom call. She followed her mother’s voice past their giant sunken living room—her mother had finally given in to her complaining and gotten those terrible zebra-print armchairs reupholstered? Weird—and into the formal parlor at the back of the house that they hadn’t used in like…Well, they never used it. Maybe once, after her Uncle Chuck’s funeral, and once for her prospective interview with a Waverly rep, but that was it. It was a high-ceilinged room that looked through a wall of French doors out onto their backyard, with its beautiful view of the bay. But it was filled with stiff Louis
XIV
furniture that her mother had bought at an estate sale, hoping to lend their brand-new McMansion an air of respectability.

Her mother and sister were all perched around the circular table with three strangers, who Brett guessed had to be the Coopers. When Bree had said they were coming for Thanksgiving, Brett had thought she meant Thanksgiving
dinner
, not, like, Thanksgiving weekend.

“Oh.” Brett smiled weakly at the strangers. “Hi, everyone.” Awkward. Mr. Cooper held himself erect in the uncomfortable wooden chairs, studying a hand of cards he held under his nose. His hair was colorless and thinning, but he had a ruddy, just-went-golfing in Palm Beach kind of glow to him, making him look thin and distinguished in a button-down shirt and crew-neck sweater.

Mrs. Cooper sat next to him, looking up as Brett entered. Her pale blond hair showed wisps of gray too, and was cut into a sophisticated bob that framed her chin. She looked exactly like Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom. A pair of small pearl studs—heirlooms, Brett guessed—sparkled subtly from her ears as she put her cards facedown on the table. “Put your cards down,” she said to Willy, and he did as his mother instructed.

“We wondered what happened to you.” Brett’s mother, Becki Messerschmidt, laid her cards down, too. “We were expecting you over an hour ago.” Her words were slow and calm, which creeped Brett out. Had she doubled her dose of Zoloft or something? Normally her mother would bound into the foyer and wrap her up in an Obsession by Calvin Klein-scented hug, her giant pink diamond rings flashing, and pepper her with a million questions about Waverly, her friends, boys. Instead, her mother walked toward her like a zombie—in a pair of tapered-leg khaki pants and a navy blue Polo turtleneck, and not a single pink rock on her fingers. She’d never seen her mother, who favored loud prints, preferably animal, and daring necklines, look so
soccer mom
.

“I told you.” Brett gave her mom a quick hug and peck on the cheek. Her mom’s normally wild Julia-Roberts-in-
Pretty-Woman
curls had been straightened into limp, loose waves. “I got a ride home with a friend.” Her mom didn’t even
smell
like her mom. Brett took a step backward, almost toppling over the end table. This was totally creepy. Normally, Brett would have demanded to know what the hell was up, but with the Coopers looming over them, she fell quiet instead.

“A
boy
friend?” Bree finally spoke up from her spot at the table, raising her eyebrows. Her shoulder-length reddish-brown hair was pulled back into two tortoiseshell barrettes. And as she held her arms out for a hug, Brett noticed she was dressed a little tamely, too. Or boringly. Brett was used to Brianna, an editorial assistant at
Elle
magazine, looking a little more cutting-edge than she did in her knee-length navy skirt and a white boatneck. She looked like she was attending a tea party at a yacht club. “I’m glad you’re here. I want you to meet the Coopers.”

“We’re going to have to redeal,” Mr. Cooper said under his breath to Mrs. Cooper, throwing his cards into the middle of the table. “The rules say you have to redeal if someone gets up from the table, for any reason.” Mrs. Cooper ignored her husband, though Brett detected a slight nod of agreement.

“
This
is William Cooper the third.” Bree walked over and put her hands on Willy’s shoulders, giving them a tender squeeze.

Willy—could she really call him that? It made her think of
Free Willy
, that Disney movie about the fish that gets caught in the plumbing. He was cute—with light brown hair and deep hazel eyes—but in a total WASPy, Brooks Brothers sort of way, his crisp white button-down tucked neatly into a pair of navy chinos. Was everyone in the room wearing navy blue?

“Willy, please.” Willy stood up and shook Brett’s hand formally. “That’s the only William in our house.” He laughed, nodding at his father.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Brett said automatically, wondering what everyone was playing. Her parents never played cards, except Uno. Brett glanced at her mother, whose dark red hair was pulled back in clips similar to Bree’s. Had she just stepped into
The Stepford Wives
? “Where are the teacups?” As much as she rolled her eyes at the collection of purse-size pups her mother had amassed over the years, they were pretty sweet.

A look of horror passed from her sister’s face to her mother’s.

“Your dad’s coming in with the tea right now, sweetness!” her mother exclaimed with relief at the sight of her father in the doorway, carrying a tray full of flowered china she didn’t even know they owned. Her mother shot her a look that told her to be quiet.

“Brett, darling!” Stuart Messerschmidt set down the tray and gave her a quick hug. Brett stepped back, stunned. He was wearing a
sweater vest
. “So glad you’re home.” He gave Brett a smile, but instead of smiling back, Brett shot him a glance that said,
What is going on?

“Sit down, sweetheart.” Brett’s mom pulled up another stiff wooden chair to the table. “Relax.”

Brett sat down, taking a deep breath. Okay, fine. She would play along with all this for about twenty minutes, and then she’d hibernate in her room for the rest of the weekend, watching E! by herself. “I hope you’re not playing poker,” Brett joked, resting her elbows on the card table and trying to crack the façade on this new bizarre world living inside her house. She smiled at Willy. “Bree cheats.”

A look of confusion came over the Coopers. “Who does?” Mrs. Cooper asked, looking at Brett as if she’d been talking about an imaginary friend.

“
Bree
.” Brett pointed at her sister. “She’s a notorious card cheat. She once—”

Her sister cut her off. “Everyone calls me Anna now, honey.” She looked at the Coopers. “She used to call me Bree when we were kids.”

When they were
kids
?
What, about two months ago?
Brett opened her mouth to protest, but drew in a large breath instead, trying to imitate the breathing she’d learned in yoga. Anna?
Ah
-na?
What?
Her sister was acting like a virgin priss, and she’d somehow brainwashed their parents into acting like robots. Her mother hadn’t replaced the zebra-print chairs because of
Brett
‘s constant complaining, but because she’d wanted to impress the Coopers, and that just felt…wrong. She felt a gurgling in her stomach that wasn’t from the milkshake she’d had from the McDonald’s drive-thru outside of Newark.

“Anna was telling us you go to Waverly.” Mrs. Cooper turned her pale blue eyes on Brett, and Brett felt them pause slightly on the five gold earrings she wore near the top of her left ear.

“Yes, ma’am,” Brett answered, sticking her chin out defensively. She leaned back in her chair. “I do.”

“How do you like it?” Mrs. Cooper asked. She folded her hands under her chin, her elbows on the new linen tablecloth.

“It’s fine.” Brett shrugged, suppressing the urge to say something like, “The drugs are okay, but the sex is lousy.” But she didn’t want her suddenly nunlike sister to have a heart attack before Brett got a chance to pump her for information.

She glanced at her parents, who stared back at her helplessly. A flush of shame washed over Brett—whatever she had or hadn’t said about her parents to her friends at Waverly, she’d never really wished they were anybody but who they were. (Maybe just that they, well, wore a little less safari-print and talked less about rhinoplasty.) She only hoped that Bree—sorry,
Anna
—hadn’t made her mother give the Chihuahuas up for adoption. Or worse.

After a painful discussion about the differences between boarding schools today and those in Mr. Cooper’s day, Brett managed to excuse herself on the pretense of dressing for dinner. As she pulled a can of Diet Coke from their stainless steel refrigerator, she wondered where all her dad’s bottles of Bud Light were when she needed one.

Email Inbox

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Date:
Wednesday, November 27, 8:45 P.M.

Subject:
Back

Lenore—er, Brett,

Thanks for the pleasure of your company on the way home. Next time, have a few drinks and loosen up first, ‘kay? If you need a ride back to Waverly on Sunday, lemme know. I’ll probably kick off at three or so.

Wildwood Rocks!

Seb

“You ready for this?” Heath whispered to Brandon, his fist poised against the half-opened heavy oak door to Mr. Dunderdorf’s office on the second floor of Hopkins Hall. His face was suffused with a sunny glow that came over him whenever he felt especially optimistic about the likelihood of getting laid. Clearly, the promise of the Swiss Misses had put him in overdrive.

“Can’t wait to see how you’re going to pull this one off.” Brandon guessed it would take about ten seconds before the notoriously crusty old man sensed that Heath was just after his daughters and kicked him out on his ass. With a forward thrust of his pelvis for good luck, Heath pounded on the door.

“
Kommen Sie herein
,” a voice called out, and Heath pushed the door open. Mr. Dunderdorf, in a button-down shirt that looked like it had been stepped on and a bow tie, was shuffling through the stacks of paper that threatened to overrun his desk, his snow-white hair fluffed into an Einsteinian Afro. He stuffed a pile into a beat-up leather satchel that looked like it had been through a war or two. The dusty office was eerily quiet in the early evening darkness. “
Was, Jungen
?” The crankiness in Dunderdorf’s voice unnerved Brandon, and the whole plan suddenly seemed like a bad, bad idea.

“Are you looking forward to the long weekend, Mr. Dunderdorf?” Heath asked, fingering the ancient-looking globe set on a wooden stand in the middle of the room with feigned interest.

“
Ja
,
ja
, Mr. Ferro,” Dunderdorf answered, zipping up his bag. “Always nice to have a break.” He stopped packing his briefcase and looked up at Heath and Brandon for the first time. Suspicion clouded his wrinkled face. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

“Nothing, sir.” Brandon stepped backward off the worn Persian rug, trying to signal to Heath with his eyes that they needed to abort their mission—fast. An hour was by no means enough time to search Wikipedia and memorize enough about Germany and Switzerland to gain them access to the Dunder-dorf family Thanksgiving, he was sure. If Dunderdorf’s daughters were as legendary as Heath claimed, wouldn’t he be tired of horny boys trying to get into his house—and his daughters’ panties?

“Brandon and I were just arguing about where the majority of Protestants live in Germany,” Heath said, rubbing his chin, covered in a slight scruff since he’d overslept that morning and hadn’t had time to shave before rushing off to chem lab.

Dunderdorf stared in disbelief, his bushy white eyebrows climbing up his forehead. “Why?” he asked.

“Well…” Heath started pacing the room. “We’re both passionate about world religions, and we got to arguing about Catholics and Protestants, and we were trying to come up with some examples of them living in harmony, and we thought of Germany. Only we couldn’t remember where they lived in harmony.” He took a deep breath.

Brandon, stifling a groan, walked over to a crowded bookshelf, pretending to stare at the fading German texts with interest.

“The Catholics live predominantly in the south.” Dunder-dorf leaned against the corner of his desk. A few sheets of paper slid off the top of a pile and onto the floor. “And in the west. The rest are Protestant.” He squinted at both of them, his beady eyes becoming even beadier. “I didn’t know you were interested in the history of religion.”

“Oh, yes,” Heath replied, a serious expression on his face that Brandon recognized from whenever he’d talk about Super-woman or the superiority of the dining hall’s chicken fingers to those at Denny’s. “But religion takes a backseat to our passion for foreign cultures. For instance, we’re both dying to go to Germany. And to Switzerland. Right?” Heath nudged Brandon when Dunderdorf leaned down to pick up the papers from the floor.

“Absolutely,” Brandon agreed, his voice embarrassingly enthusiastic. His only acting experience to date had been his role as a thug in
Grease
in eighth grade—and that was a nonspeaking part. “We’re thinking about backpacking through Germany and Switzerland this summer.”

“Don’t hitchhike,” Dunderdorf warned them earnestly. “It’s not safe like it used to be.” The phone on Dunderdorf’s desk rang and he answered it. “No,” he said gruffly into the receiver. “Can it wait until after the holiday? Fine. Thanks.” He clanked down the phone and grabbed a frayed plaid scarf from the back of his chair, wrapping it around his thin neck. He grabbed his bag and headed toward the door.