The It Girl (14 page)

U think about the cheer yet?

No
, Callie texted back.

Every year on Black Saturday, the upperclassmen of the varsity girls’ field hockey team performed a cheer. First the whole team would do a really standard and boring cheer. Then it was tradition for the older girls to pick one new younger varsity girl to do another, crazier, sort of embarrassing cheer, having led her to believe that all the girls were doing it together, not just her. Understandably, the girl became completely mortified when she found herself doing the cheer all on her own. Sometimes she wouldn’t talk to the other players for weeks. But as the season went on, she invariably laughed about it later, glad to have bonded with the cool older girls. It was a hazing ritual that had started in the fifties, and as co-captain this year, Callie was responsible for it.

Her phone buzzed again.
I think we should make yr new roomie do it
, Benny texted.

Callie froze, her heart leaping in to her throat. No way. Hazing Jenny might make her mad, and Callie had to keep Jenny happy.
I don’t think so
, she wrote back.
Is she even varsity?

Benny buzzed back quickly.
Yup, the list was posted today. Have u seen her play yet? She’s kind of all over the place but good.

Not her
, Callie quickly replied.

Callie watched as Benny furiously typed into her tiny Nokia.
But aren’t u mad at her b/c of EZ? We can totally embarrass her.

Callie sat back. The whole school was talking about Jenny and Easy and whispering about Callie as they passed her on the stone pathways around campus. She hadn’t told anyone the truth about Easy and Jenny—it was too risky. Embarrassing Jenny was the last thing Callie needed.
I don’t know
, she texted back.

Sage and Celine and I all think she’s the one to do it. What does Brett think?

As if she and Brett had discussed it. Or anything for that matter. She sighed and dropped her phone into her pale yellow Coach saddle bag, indicating that the conversation was over.

The bell finally rang. Callie jumped up to her feet and grabbed her notebook, hoping that her hair didn’t smell like formaldehyde. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. It was Brandon, dressed in neatly pressed olive green Zegna trousers and Prada loafers without socks. His hair was flecked with gold and she wondered if he’d used an at-home highlight-ing kit last night or something. “Hey,” she greeted him.

“So, easy come, easy go, huh?” Brandon’s brown eyes looked cold.

“Pardon?” she asked cautiously.

“How does it feel to have someone steal the one you love out from under you?”

Callie stared at him for a moment and smirked inside.
Good boy, Easy!
He must have already started flirting in public with Jenny. Even before she’d had a chance to tell Jenny about it.

“Well?” Brandon coaxed.

“Yeah, it sucks,” Callie swallowed hard, trying to look heartbroken.

“You don’t believe me.” Brandon shrugged. “But I know something you don’t know,” he singsonged.

“What are we, second graders?” she scoffed, suddenly hating how perfectly plucked Brandon’s eyebrows were. “I have to go.”

Shoving past a gaggle of extremely young-looking freshman girls, Callie stopped on the second-floor landing.

Students streamed past her as she pressed herself up against the brick stairwell wall. Was Brandon
still
hoping to get back together with her? Fat chance. That was about as likely as Easy actually falling for little Jenny Humphrey. As if
that
would ever happen.

Instant Message Inbox

RyanReynolds:
So, you hear anything on where the Black Saturday party’s gonna be? I heard Tinsley’s throwing it… .

CelineColista:
Really? I heard she was having a secret love getaway in Lake Como with that guy from Entourage.

RyanReynolds:
God, I hope not. I’d die for that girl, she’s so hot.

CelineColista:
You and every other boy at this school.

RyanReynolds:
Try planet.

“Hey!” Jeremiah yelled, loping up the long hill from Waverly’s practice fields to the main green. Brett squinted. He wore a faded black T-shirt, scruffy beige corduroys and booger-green Pumas. He was smiling so big that Brett could see his crooked row of bottom teeth. Jeremiah probably looked delicious to every other girl on campus, but to Brett, he looked immature and sloppy.

“Hey,” she called, noting the undeniable shakiness in her voice. Jeremiah broke into a run, his floppy red hair flying behind him. He smacked into her and wrapped his strong arms around her waist.

“Babe,” he murmured aggressively. “It seems like a million
yee-ahs
since I saw you. I feel like we’re so
faahhh
from each other.”

_Ugh. _”Well, that’s silly,” Brett blushed, taking his hand. “I just talked to you yesterday.”

“You okay?” Jeremiah squeezed her. “You seem really … I don’t know. Nervous.”

“Oh, no.” Brett tried to smile. “I’m just giddy.”

Yeah, she was giddy. But not about Jeremiah. About her mind-blowing, absolutely magical lunch with Mr. Dalton. Before she left his office, he’d touched her shoulder and invited her to go to dinner sometime. His nervous, twitching lips when he’d asked, his shining eyes when she’d said yes. Dinner, dinner, dinner with Eric! And they were going
tonight
!

“We’re going to the gazebo, right?”

Brett snapped back to attention. “Yeah,” she squeaked. The old white gazebo was nestled into some weeping willow trees and sat right on the bank of the Hudson. It was a famed Waverly make-out spot—in fact, it was so popular that last spring the students had passed around a gazebo sign-out sheet so nobody would interrupt another couple’s business. It had a worn-in, comfy swinging bench for two. There was a cutout hole at the top of the gazebo, so at night, you could look up at the stars. “But we can’t stay too long, ’cause I have to get ready for dinner in a little.”

“That’s cool.”

They walked along the stone path, hand in hand, acres of green lawn and ancient redbrick buildings with bright white trim on either side of them. The sky was getting cloudy, and Brett wasn’t sure if it was the humidity or her nerves, but she was definitely sweating a little. Jeremiah suddenly stopped and grabbed her by both hands. Students were walking around campus, heading to the dorms for visiting hours before dinner, all checking out Brett and her hot, floppy-haired boyfriend.

“I really missed you.” He kissed her forehead. “I wish our schools were closer, you know?”

“They’re only about ten miles away from each other,” Brett sputtered, looking around frantically. They were standing right in the middle of the green, in plain view of Stansfield Hall. If Eric looked out his office window right then, he would see them. “It’s really not that far.”

“Well, that seems to far to me.”

“Let’s go to the gazebo.” She grabbed his arm quickly. “We can talk there.”

“Okay.” Jeremiah put his big, snuggly arm around her. “So, how is it here? You got any freaky new teachers?”

“Um …”

“I heard you guys got somebody new. That really rich dude?”

“I don’t know… .” Brett sort of figured all teachers were either really rich and didn’t need high-paying jobs or else really poor and desperate.

“Eric Dalton. Have you met him?”

Her heart froze. She glanced at Jeremiah’s face.
Was he on to her?

“Uh …”

“You’d know him if you met him. He’s a Dalton.”

“What do you mean, he’s a
Dalton
?”

Jeremiah looked at her like worms were growing out of her nose. “Is this just a Massachusetts thing? You know. A Dalton. His grandfather was Reginald Dalton. There’s … there’s like, a giant complex named after him in Boston? The one that always has the big Christmas tree?”

At the Messerschmidts’ house in Rumson, there was a picture of four-year-old Brett, wearing a red velvet dress, holding a stuffed Chihuahua, and standing under the Dalton Christmas tree. Duh!
My grandfather was into railroads. My family has a place in Newport
. Eric’s words came back to her. She’d never even considered that he was a
Dalton
Dalton.

Brett had watched specials about them on TV, from historical biopics on
PBS
to scandalous they’re-worse-than-the-Kennedys tell-alls on E! She’d learned that the grandfather, Reginald Dalton, was an heir to a railroad fortune. His family owned Lindisfarne, the
largest
mansion in Newport, and had for a hundred years. The father, Morris Dalton, owned an interna-tional publishing company that made gazillions of dollars and published only the classiest books and magazines. And yes, she knew there was a son, but he was press-shy and didn’t like to be in the spotlight. Brett had assumed he was either ugly or a social misfit or both and that the family’s PR secretary wanted to keep him private. How wrong she’d been!

“I think they might’ve introduced him at chapel,” she finally mumbled to Jeremiah.

“Oh. Well, at least Black Saturday’s coming up,” Jeremiah changed the subject, breezing ahead. “That’ll be fun, huh? We’ve never really partied together, like, during school.”

“Yeah.” Brett took her hand from his, feigning a need to scratch her arm.

“Hey, so close your eyes.” They approached the gazebo. Jerimiah’s lacrosse-calloused hand covered the top half of her face. “I have a surprise.”

He led her a few paces through the grass, breathing excitedly. With every step, Brett felt a heavier and heavier sense of dread. What she really needed was for Jeremiah to go away so she could sit down and think. Eric was Eric
Dalton
? For real?

“Okay, you can open ’em now.” Jeremiah whisked his hand away from her face. Brett gasped. In the middle of the white wooden gazebo was a huge bouquet of black tulips surrounded by heaps of burgundy rose petals. She’d never seen so many flowers in one place before. There must have been a hundred of them.

“I like the black ones,” she squeaked.
Like?
More like she was obsessed with them.

“You said that once when we passed that flower shop in Manhattan.” He beamed, bouncing up and down excitedly, like a little kid who’d just made his parents breakfast in bed.

“I …” Brett started. This was the type of thing Callie always secretly prayed for Easy to do for her, and he never did.

“And here.” Jeremiah held out a white United Airlines envelope. Brett opened it, and saw that it was a first-class round-trip ticket to San Francisco. She looked up at him questioningly.

“My dad is opening up a restaurant on Newbury Street in Boston, and he’s going to Sonoma on a tasting tour. He said I could bring you. He’ll totally leave us alone, though. It’s over Thanksgiving.”

Brett opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Driving through California wine country sounded amazing, but Jeremiah drank beer. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine them together at a winery. You were supposed to spit out the wine after you tasted it, but Jeremiah was the kind if guy who would rather swallow it and get trashed. He was trying too hard.
Way
too hard. Plus Thanksgiving seemed so far away. What if … what if she was spending Thanksgiving with Eric?

Hello?
They hadn’t even kissed yet. But she could still dream… .

“This is great.” She forced a smile, gazing wondrously at the flowers again.

Jeremiah wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her neck softly. “It was my way of telling you I missed you, baby.”

“Well, it’s definitely …
something
. I don’t know what to say.”

“How about thank you?” Jeremiah’s voice sounded a little edgy all of a sudden, sort of like a scolding mother’s.

Brett laughed nervously. “Okay. Thank you,” she replied, puckering her lips to give him a terse kiss on the cheek.

He turned his head and caught her kiss with his mouth. “You’re most definitely welcome.”

Instant Message Inbox

SageFrancis:
So I just saw Brett and her hot BF from St. Lucius walking toward the gazebo, but she looked. miserable. Benny told me she thinks Brett likes someone else. Do u know who?

CallieVernon:
Um …

SageFrancis:
I heard she’s been doing some snuggling with a guy between classes.

CallieVernon:
A guy from this school? Who?

SageFrancis:
Dunno, but he might be older. Like a senior.

That’s what Benny thinks.

CallieVernon:
Huh.

SageFrancis:
You didn’t know? Are you guys totally fighting or what?

CallieVernon:
Kind of. I guess.

Email Inbox

To:
All New Students

From:
[email protected]

Date:
Thursday, September 5, 5:01 P.M.

Subject:
Welcome!

Dear New Students,

Welcome to Waverly! I hope your first day of classes went well today.

You’re invited to an ice cream social for all freshman and transfer students on Friday evening after dinner. The sundae-making will commence at 8:00 P.M. This is a great opportunity to make new friends!

Remember, this is a mandatory event.

Don’t worry, I’ll bring the sprinkles!

Dean Marymount