The It Girl (16 page)

She snuck a peek at Eric’s profile—his slightly upturned nose and perfect, just-stubbly-enough jaw—and then stared down at the platinum-engraved gate-link bracelet he wore on his right wrist. It seemed like something a girl might have given him.

“It’s my great-great grandfather’s,” he explained, noticing her stare. He jiggled the bracelet around his wrist. “Like it?”

“Yes,” she answered breathlessly. The bracelet was practically an American treasure. “It’s beautiful.”

They drove out of Waverly territory and into town, essentially one main street with quaint little wrought-iron street lamps, an art store, a florist, a barbershop with the swirly pole, and a few brick Federal-style houses. Brett figured they were going to Le Petit Coq. It was the place that your family always dragged you to during Parents’ Weekend because it was haughty and French and the only place for miles that served foie gras. But the Jag breezed right by without slowing down. It sped by the strip mall just outside of town, past McDonald’s and the cineplex, too.

“I guess I should’ve asked.” Eric turned to Brett. “How late did you sign out for?”

“Midnight,” Brett said. It was six o’clock now.

Eric smiled. “That gives us six hours.”

He pulled into a spacious parking lot, drove through an alley, and then swung around a large, concrete squat building. It was the Waverly airport, the place she’d flown into on her parents’ small plane a couple of days ago. On the runway sat a perky little Piper Cub. A man in a green bomber jacket and a Boston Red Sox ball cap stood chewing on an unlit cigar on the runway beside the plane. He waved and Eric waved back.

“Where are we going?” Brett demanded. Her heart beat quickly. She didn’t know what to expect, but she knew enough to be excited. If this outing involved an airplane—she couldn’t imagine where they might go. Holy fucking shit!

Eric shut off the car’s engine. “I was thinking maybe we could get something better than the early bird special at the Little Rooster.”

“Going to Lindisfarne?” the guy in the bomber called.

“That’s right,” Eric called back.

Of course.
They were going to his family’s estate in Newport. Brett could hardly contain herself. This was like that cheesy movie,
The Princess Diaries.
Except she was way cooler than that mousy Anne Hathaway, and he was a Dalton!

Brett had only seen Lindisfarne on the
E! True Hollywood
special, so when the Piper Cub touched down on the property’s runway, a glittery, unreal feeling washed over her. The oceanfront mansion was an ivy-covered stone castle, with turrets and a moat and everything. She even remembered from the E! special that rare trumpeter swans swam in the moat surrounding the mansion instead of alligators, although Brett didn’t see swans now. Maybe they were sleeping. And as she stepped off the plane onto the spongy, perfectly manicured lawn, even the salty ocean air felt regal. It took Brett and Eric nearly ten minutes to walk from the landing strip to the manor. They were greeted by the groundskeeper’s friendly, rotund yellow lab, Mouse, before he was called off by his owner in the distance, who waved at Eric.

First Eric showed her around the property, taking her into the house through one of the heavy dark oak front doors and into the French room, which was round, with a high rotunda and white scalloped detailing. Brett could barely breathe. Everything in her life that might come after this moment—say, getting into any Ivy League school or moving into a Tribeca loft or meeting the president of France—would pale in comparison to standing in the stately blue French room, admiring the large, blurry Monets on the walls.

Brett was so overwhelmed, she could barely focus as he led her from room to room. Then he guided her back outside to the guest house, a weathered green cottage with a huge back deck and wooden stairs to the ocean. Most guest houses consisted of a bedroom and a small living space. The Lindsfarne guest house was nearly the size of Brett’s parents’ not-at-all-small house. Inside, Brett sat in an oversized chintz sofa, gazing the white, Warhol-covered walls as Eric fussed around in the kitchen. If the Daltons had staff—and she was sure they had many—they certainly knew when to leave the members of the family alone.

Eric expertly poured 1980 L’Evangile Bordeaux into both of their oversized Riedel glasses. He didn’t seem to care that Brett was blatantly underage. “This is where I live, mostly, when I’m here,” he explained, swirling the wine in his glass as they stepped outside onto the wraparound wooden deck.

Only a few feet away, waves crashed against the rocks. Brett took a big gulp of wine. What a life.

“So,” Eric began. “Brett Messerschmidt. What are you all about?”

He looked at her not in that way adults do when they think you’re a silly teenager who may grow up and be somebody serious. Instead, he looked at her intensely, as if she really
mattered
. Brett took a sip of wine, desperately trying to think of a brilliant but succinct answer. Who was Brett Messerschmidt?

“Well, I like Dorothy Parker,” she replied, and then wanted to smack herself for sounding like a stuck-up, lame, immature
student
.

“Really?” he asked, biting his lip as if to say,
That really wasn’t what I wanted to know
. “What else? Tell me something about your family.”

“My family?” she gulped, the words seizing up in her throat. It was probably the worst question Eric could ask. She felt her cheeks turning red. “I don’t really like to talk about them.”

“Why?” He took a sip of wine. “Can I venture a guess?”

She shrugged. “Go for it.” She hoped she seemed unruffled, even though she was freaking out inside.

“Your parents treat you like a princess. You’re spoiled rotten.”

Brett took another big sip of wine. “I suppose,” she said warily. “Aren’t you?”

Eric smiled. “I suppose.”

“But yes, to answer your question, yes, I was spoiled,” Brett began. Her fake family story about living on an organic farm in East Hampton and throwing benefits for endangered birds sat on tip of her tongue, ready, but she stopped. Something about the way Eric was looking at her made her feel like maybe she could tell him the truth, as embarrassing as it was. She was filled with a sense of calm. “My parents’ house … my mother modeled it after Versailles,” she began slowly. “Except it’s in … well, Rumson, New Jersey.”

“I know Rumson,” Eric cut in. “I sailed by there a couple of times. It looks like a nice place to grow up.”

Brett eyed him carefully. He didn’t seem to be making fun of her. She took another sip of wine and then a big breath.

“You’ve probably seen my parents’ house, then,” she went on. “It’s the biggest one on the shore. My parents are kind of like the
Sopranos
. You know how they’re all dripping with money but just use it in really stupid ways? That’s them. Except they’re legal. And have less taste, if that’s possible.”

“So your mother’s favorite pattern is leopard print?” Eric goaded.

“Oh, much worse. Zebra. On everything. Stretch pants. Socks. Bar stools. It’s gross. My sister—she’s a fashion editor— has threatened many times to secede from our family.”

Eric chuckled. “My mother likes paisleys. They look like little sperms.”

“Ew!” Brett squealed.

She felt dizzy, although she’d had less than a glass of wine. Talking about her parents with Eric didn’t feel weird at all. She wondered why she’d thought, all these years, that things would be better if she had a normal-size grey-shingled Cape Cod and a couple of Toyotas instead of twin gold Hummers with matching zebra-print leather interiors and big gold
M
‘s (for Messerschmidt) embroidered on the headrests. Opening up this much was infectious. She wanted to keep going.

“My mother wears pink diamonds and eats only Lindt truffles and Zoloft, and has seven teensy, tiny Teacup Chihuahuas with matching zebra collars. She carries them everywhere. And my dad, he’s a plastic surgeon.” It all came rushing out of Brett. She couldn’t believe the things she was telling Eric.

“Really.” Eric rested his chin on the heel of his hand. “Tell me more.”

“Okay,” she continued eagerly. “Sometimes at dinner Dad has these famous clients over, and they talk about really disgusting things. Like what their boobs looked like before the surgery. And what happens to all of the fat that they suck out of people.” She felt liberated. It was like skinny-dipping.

Eric leaned forward. “So what
do
they do with it?”

“They use cells from it,” she whispered. “You know, for research.”

“From
fat
?” he whispered back, sounding sort of appalled.

She nodded. “Well, um, yeah, but sometimes they just throw it away.”

He leaned back and looked at her carefully with a bemused grin on his face. “God, that’s refreshing.”

“Refreshing?”

He shifted in his seat and stared out at the water. A small, graceful white sailboat bobbed out in front of the guest house, maybe 500 feet from the shore. “Everyone’s always trying to talk themselves up—even the kids at Waverly, who are a lot more privileged than most. I mean, nobody is just honest about who they are and who their family is. Who cares if your dad won the Nobel Prize or if he sucked fat out of some Jersey woman’s ass? What does that have to do with you?”

She stared at him. “Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s so true.”

He stared back at her. “You’re different,” he concluded.

Brett met his gaze, and everything inside her felt like it was about to explode. “Will you excuse me?” She cleared her throat. “I have to make a phone call.”

“Sure.” Eric tipped his chair back and, as she stood, he ever so lightly touched her left hip. She paused for a second as her hair dipped into her eyes. His hand lingered there. Then a grandfather clock from some far-off room sounded and he pulled away.

She stepped out onto the dewy grass, lit a cigarette, and teetered up the steps of a wooden gazebo surrounded by lilacs. She breathed in the sweet scent, willing herself not to lose her nerve. She dialed, and after a single ring, Jeremiah’s voice mail picked up. “Yo, I’m not hee-ah. Leave a message, losah!”
Beep
.

“It’s Brett,” she blurted hoarsely, seething at the sound of his thuggish recording. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore. So, um, don’t stay around for the Black Saturday party after the game. I can’t explain right now, but it’s what I want. I’m, um, really sorry. ’Bye.”

Brett stepped back onto the grass. Eric had wandered out of the house and was absentmindedly swirling cognac in a snifter, his dark jeans rolled up to his knees. The vast sky was dark and purple, and tiny lights twinkled out on the water. She could hear waves lapping on the shore and the gentle groan of a far-off foghorn.

“Everything all right?” he asked, grabbing her cigarette to take a drag.

She nodded. Then, wordlessly, he pointed out to the green twinkly light in the middle of the sound.

“That’s my boat. I don’t have class on Fridays, so I was thinking of sailing it up to Waverly.”

“I like the little green light,” Brett mused. “It reminds me of
The Great Gatsby
—you know, when Gatsby would look out to Daisy’s dock for the light to be on?”

“Sure,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have to leave the light on sometimes when I dock at school.”

Brett tried not to smile. “Who do you think will be looking for it?” she asked. But from the look on his face, Brett suspected he meant it for one very special girl from Rumson, New Jersey.

Portraiture class met only twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and Jenny had been eagerly anticipating the first class of the year. Waverly had a stellar art program and a glass-walled riverfront gallery with student-curated public shows. Often student pieces even sold for surprising sums. Normally you had to submit work to be accepted to portraiture class, but since Jenny had been admitted to Waverly on the strength of her art portfolio, she’d been allowed into the class her first semester. Art was her favorite subject and she couldn’t wait to smell the paint and lose herself in the process of making something new.

And yes, seeing Easy Walsh would be pretty exciting too. Especially now that she had permission to flirt with him!

The class was in a building called Jameson House, a rambling country cottage with blue clapboard siding, a stone chimney, and a clothesline outside of tie-dyed American flags from one of last year’s fabric-making projects. Inside, the unfinished floors creaked, and all sorts of random drawings and half-finished color studies were pinned up to the whitewashed wall. The four giant rooms smelled like turpentine, aerosol fixative, wet clay, and the old-fashioned wood-fired kiln. Jenny stood inside, breathing it in.

“Welcome, welcome,” called Mrs. Silver, her art teacher. She was doughy and huggable, with pale, ample arms and gray hair piled on the top of her head in an enormous messy bun. She wore a whole bunch of bangle bracelets on her left wrist, giant oversized green and yellow striped overalls, and an extra-large tie-dyed rainbow T-shirt she’d definitely made herself.

The room had sloping ceilings, slanted art desks, and a wall of cathedral-size windows pouring in light. Mrs. Silver’s desk was a mess of paintbrushes, old leaded glass bottles, little aromatherapy vials, thick coffee-table art books, yoga flash cards, and a two-liter jug of Mountain Dew. Mrs. Silver was messier than Jenny’s father. She bet the two of them would really hit it off.

“Oh, Easy!” Mrs. Silver called. “I’m so happy to see you! Did you have a lovely summer?”

Jenny turned. Easy Walsh strode up to Mrs. Silver and kissed her tenderly on her cheek. Today his Waverly jacket was slung over his arm, and he wore a mustard-yellow T-shirt with frayed edges and medium-gray Levi’s that fit his muscular butt perfectly. His wavy hair was all over the place, and Jenny noticed that a little yellow maple leaf was tucked behind his right ear.