Private 06 - Legacy (2 page)

"Um... no," I lied. "Haven't seen her." "Oh. Well, if you do, tell her Amberly said hi," she told me with a smile. "Our families are very old friends," she added, touching my arm with her fingertips. I was suddenly so hot that I thought the plastic card in my hand might melt and fuse to my skin. So that was why she'd given me the card above anyone else.

She knew I was friends with the ever-powerful Noelle Lange. "Oh. Okay," I replied shiftily. "Again, thanks for this." "My pleasure," she replied, the smile widening. She had a row of perfectly white, square teeth. "I'll see you around." She fluttered her fingers and strode away, hips wagging slightly beneath her plaid skirt. Her friends, who hadn't said a word or changed expression the entire time, scurried off behind her.

"What was that all about? " Missy sniffed the moment Amberly was gone. "I have no idea," I replied. "So have you really not heard from Noelle?" Rose asked me. "Not at all?" "You know what, guys? I'm starving," I said quickly. "Let's just go to breakfast." I turned toward the door and was met by a seriously red-cheeked Gage Coolidge, storming toward me like his pants were on fire. His usually gelled-up hair had been tossed around by the wind, and half of it was plastered to his forehead. He wore trendy jeans, trendier sneakers, and a thick gray sweater that highlighted his wide shoulders and lithe form. Boy would have been hot if his soul wasn't made of tar. "Well, we're screwed," he said, his jaw clenched. Now that he was within sniffing distance, his semisour aftershave overwhelmed me. I had to take a step back to keep breathing. "What's the matter?" Sabine asked, stepping forward. She'd had a crush on Gage since the beginning of the year--something I could neither comprehend nor thwart, no matter how hard I tried. "I just got a text from my friend at Chapin," he said, whipping open his phone as proof.

"Cheyenne's father canceled the Legacy!"

There was a general gasp from those around us, like a bomb had just gone off outside.

"What!?"

Portia Ahronian snapped. She snatched the cell phone from him and gaped at it, raising her other, perfectly manicured hand to her chest, where it rested just below her omnipresent collection of gold necklaces. The gold offset her olive skin and dark hair to perfection, but in my opinion she could have cut back on the multitude of chains by one or two. "Wait. How does Cheyenne's dad get to cancel the Legacy?" I asked. As far as I knew, the Legacy was a yearly party dating back decades. All the East Coast private schools were involved, and last year the party on Park Avenue had been attended by thousands. Only students who could claim to be third-generation private school attendees were invited, and your history had to go back much further than that in order to get a plus one. According to Walt Whittaker, with whom I'd attended the event last fall (since I was the first person in my family ever to set foot in a private school, I'd needed him to get me in), the same family had been hosting it for years.

"The Dreskins finally bailed," Rose explained. "Said they couldn't handle the insurance liability anymore. So Cheyenne begged her father to step in and host. It was her pet project, and Cheyenne's dad never said no to her, so..." "Why didn't she tell us?" Tiffany asked. "She wanted it to be a surprise. She only told me once the plans were set. She just couldn't keep it in anymore," Rose replied. "It was supposed to be at the Litchfield house." Rose and Cheyenne had been roommates the year before, and Rose had been closer to

Cheyenne than anyone else in the house. Their friendship had made it all the more difficult for her to side with me during the whole hazing fiasco, I knew. "And now we're totally screwed," Gage said, wrenching his phone from Portia's grasp. "God. Cheyenne knew her dad was throwing this thing. Couldn't she have at least waited till effing November to off herself?" The sudden angry peel of the electric saw felt as if it were piercing right through my brain. "What did you just say?"

Gage looked at me, his eyes wide with mock innocence. "What? I'm just saying." "You're sick, you know that?" I snapped. "All of you are sick! Cheyenne's dead, for God's sake!

And all you can think about are coffee bars and parties? What's the matter with you?" No one answered me. Tiffany hid behind her camera, taking pictures of the work in progress.

Constance's cheeks turned pink, Portia toyed with her necklaces, Sabine fiddled with the glass buttons on her coat, and Rose appeared close to tears. London and Vienna looked at each other, disturbed, as if I were the one embarrassing them. Well, fine. If I was so humiliating to have around, I would just leave them to their wallowing. I couldn't look at them right now anyway.

Cheyenne's memorial service was scheduled for Saturday. Her father had called Rose and

given her the info, which she had scribbled on a piece of yellow stationery and left on the table in the parlor. It was propped up against the vase of fresh flowers the cleaning staff replaced every week, and there it stayed, staring out at us like a message of doom. Now not only were we avoiding the end of the hall where Cheyenne's room was located, we

were avoiding the parlor as well. Result? The Billings Girls were spending a lot more time

in the library than we usually did this time of year. Suddenly I couldn't wait for Coffee Carma to open. At least then we'd have somewhere else to congregate. "Why must we study

calculus?" Sabine whispered on Wednesday evening, dropping back in her seat. All fifteen of us were gathered around the long table that took up most of the aisle between philosophy and religion. The head of the table had been left open. Cheyenne's chair. I couldn't stop staring at it. "It shouldn't be a required subject. It means nothing unless you want to go to med school."

"I love calculus," I replied, happy for a distraction from the empty seat. I took a deep breath of that library air, letting the musty book smell fill my senses. Somehow, I always found that scent soothing. Portia dropped her hand, her gold watch smacking against the wooden table. "You are so F.O.S," she said, lifting her thick hair over her shoulder. "No one likes calculus."

"F.O.S.?" I asked, looking at Rose. Portia hated it when anyone asked her to decipher her strange abbreviations. Maybe if she issued us all our own Ahronian-to-English dictionaries, we could keep up. "Full of... you know," Rose whispered, her cheeks turning pink. "Ah." Rose never cursed unless she absolutely had to. "Anyway, Cheyenne liked calculus," Rose said. "She liked math in general. Something about it being unsubjective." Lately, Cheyenne's name was the ultimate conversation killer. Everyone stopped talking--everyone except London and Vienna, who were sitting across from each other at the far end of the table. In the fresh silence their voices carried like shouts over open water.

"I know, I know! Your gown is perfection. It so sucks that you're not going to get to wear it," Vienna said. "I mean, why did we even go to Milan this summer if the Legacy was gonna get canceled?" London whined, crossing her arms over her chest. "Two weeks couture-hopping in that ridiculous heat, and for what? " "Well, you did get to meet Fabrizio," Vienna reminded her, lifting her perfect brows. "Ah... Fabrizio," they both said wistfully, looking off into the stacks. "What is the matter with you two?" I demanded, my eyes darting again to Cheyenne's empty seat. Kiki Thorpe tugged her ever-present earbuds out of her ears and sat up straight, her heavy black boots slamming into the floor. Her blue eyes darted hungrily back and forth between the Twin Cities and me as she popped her gum, sensing impending conflict. "Catfight?" she asked with interest.

"No," I replied. "No catfight." Kiki sighed in disappointment and sat back again. She tugged her pink bangs up until they stood straight out from her head, her eyes practically crossing as she looked up at them. "It's just...this is really what you're talking about?

"Sabine asked the Twin Cities, backing me up. London and Vienna looked at us with a mild sense of distaste. Vienna rolled her eyes and turned to face us. "Don't make us out to be the villains here, okay?" she said, pressing her finger and its perfectly shaped nail into her open-but-ignored notebook. "You know you all wish the Legacy was happening even though Cheyenne's... gone. We're just the only ones who are woman enough to say it." Everyone at the table looked at everyone else. Aside from Sabine and Constance, they all guiltily agreed with their eyes--even Rose, who had seemed more broken up about Cheyenne's death than anyone. "Maybe if we talked to Mr. Martin about it. Maybe if he saw how much it meant to Cheyenne's friends, he'd change his mind," Vienna suggested.

"I don't think so," I replied. I could just picture it: Cheyenne's dad sitting alone in his study, trying to pick out a coffin for his child. Suddenly the phone rings, and there's Vienna, pleading for him to throw a party for us, because Cheyenne would have wanted it that way. Man would probably drive out to Easton and strangle the girl himself. His daughter had taken her own life. Every time I thought about it, my heart swelled painfully, and tears prickled at the corners of my eyes. I couldn't imagine what he was feeling. "Why not? It's worth a try," Portia replied. "I had the whole weekend planned with Hamilton, and now he's talking about saving his frees."

"Frees?" I asked. "Frequent flyer miles," Tiffany explained. She placed her camera aside and pulled out her leather portfolio, filled with her latest prints.

Nice boyfriend. Is he more interested in you or the free-flowing drugs and sex-capades?

Maybe it was time for a relationship evaluation. A re-eval, to put it in terms Portia might understand. "I really think we should try calling Mr. Martin. Maybe he'd be happy to have something fun to focus on!" London suggested hopefully. "You know, something to take his mind off what happened." "I don't think one little party is going to take his mind off the fact that his only daughter is dead," I said flatly. I mean, really, people. "It's not a little party, Reed. We're talking about the Legacy here," Portia said. "It's, like, bigger than X-mas."

That was how she said it.

Ex-mas.

I had no response to that. "Maybe someone else could throw it. Tiff? What about your dad?

Tassos is always up for a party, isn't he?" London suggested. Tiffany chuckled. "I so love that my father has a rep." Tiffany's dad was the uni-named Tassos, an internationally renowned celebrity photographer who had been paid gazillions of dollars to photograph everyone from the Prince of Wales to Britney Spears's dogs. I had never met him, but he was one of the rare Easton dads who called his daughter at least once a week and chatted with her for hours at a time. Most girls in Billings, whose dads were too busy to recall they'd ever procreated, were jealous not only of Tassos's worldwide fame and Tiffany's many celebrity connections, but of their father-daughter relationship. Of course, I talked to my dad once a week as well, but being that I was from a middle-class family in central Pennsylvania, no one ever seemed surprised by that. Like my family was automatically assumed to be functional. If only they knew. I mean, maybe it was more functional lately, since my mom had cleaned herself up and stopped with the painkillers, but this time last year? The Brennan clan had been on a serious downward spiral.

"Well?" Portia asked. "Sorry, girls, but the town house isn't big enough, the Sag Harbor house is under renovation, and I don't see everyone flying to Miami or Crete," Tiffany replied as she flipped through her portfolio. "I'll fly to Crete!" Vienna announced. A few of the others murmured their assent. "Listen, you guys, the Legacy isn't happening this year, okay? Just get used to it," I said. I picked up my pencil and returned to my assignment, hoping that would put an end to it. "You're just bitter because you wouldn't be able to go anyway," Missy said, her eyes flicking over me in that derisive way of hers. She was, of course, correct about that. I had only been able to attend last year as Walt Whittaker's date--well before he was Constance's boyfriend, of course. Josh didn't qualify for plus-one status, so even if the Legacy did happen, I'd be spending the biggest night of the year watching reruns of The Closer on the plasma in the parlor.

"Wait, so you mean you can go?" I asked Missy. "You didn't go last year." "I had something better to do," Missy said, averting her eyes. "Oh, please. Your mom forbid you from going till you were sixteen," Lorna blurted. We all laughed, and Lorna earned herself a look of death that sent her hiding behind her chemistry text. "This is just unacceptable," Portia said. "Cheyenne was all about tradition, and the Legacy was one of her favorite nights of the year. If the Legacy was canceled because of her, she would hate it. I mean, not having the Legacy is like dishonoring her memory." Honestly? She kind of had a point there. Cheyenne would have hated to know that a tradition as hallowed as the Legacy was compromised because of something she had done. There was a loud laugh from the next aisle over, and suddenly Ivy Slade appeared at the head of the table. With her raven hair pulled back from her angular face, her big silver, straight-drop earrings, and her flowy black baby-doll dress, she looked way too sophisticated for the library. Even the Billings Girls knew to dress down slightly for a study session.

"You people are unbelievable," she said. "Poor little rich girls can't have their party?

Aw. How pathetic. One of your best friends just killed herself, and this is all you can talk about?"

"Shut up, Ivy," Portia snapped. "You didn't even like Cheyenne." Ivy glared at Portia with such venom that I half expected Portia's gold necklaces to turn green and rot. Then Ivy sort of straightened up, a smirk lighting her otherwise pale face. "You're right. I didn't," she said, placing her hands on the back of Cheyenne's empty chair. "So what does it tell you that I seem to care more about the fact that she's dead than you do? Her gaze slid over the table in silent judgment before she turned and strode away. Suddenly I found myself staring at that empty chair again, my heart heavier than a concrete slab. I had pretty much detested Ivy Slade from the first time I spoke to her, but right then I couldn't have agreed with her more.