The It Girl (18 page)

Callie was tempted to confess that the cheer was a not-veryfunny joke, but a few years ago, when Tasha Templeton, then the captain of the team, had told the new girl, Kelly Bryers, she was about to be punk’d, the whole team had unleashed on her. They’d cut holes in her bras, right where the nipples were. And no one had spoken to her for months. Her boyfriend had broken up with her, and she’d lost all her power. Callie didn’t dare.

Suddenly, Callie looked down at Jenny’s skinny arms and noticed the letters peeking out from underneath her right sleeve. It looked like Jenny had scrubbed at her arm for a while to get the marker off, but Callie could still make out the familiar boyish, messy script, and that stupid spiky-toothed face that Easy always drew. Immediately, a knot formed in her stomach, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise.
What was Easy doing writing on this bitch’s arm?
But then she stopped herself.
Chill. You asked him to do this
.

“So how’s Easy?” she inquired instead, swallowing her worry.

“Oh,” Jenny squeaked.

“You getting along all right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Good.” With any luck, the teachers would think so too. But why was Easy writing stuff on Jenny’s arm? That wasn’t really necessary. Especially that snaggletoothed character of his. That was her character: they’d made it up that time they snuck down to Brooklyn and spent the whole day in Williamsburg, shopping for vintage clothes and avant-garde art. They’d gone to Schiller’s Liquor Bar on the Lower East Side after that, and he’d drawn the silly face right onto the back of the menu. Then they’d snuck into the tiny bathroom and kissed, annoying all the impatient French tourists.

All Callie had wanted was a little flirting, and, as usual, Easy had gone overboard. But
whatever
. If it meant Jenny would take the fall for her at DC, then Jenny could have the snaggle-toothed dude.

“Come on.” She squeezed Jenny’s arm, trying her hardest not to appear jealous. “Smail’s giving us the evil eye.”

Email Inbox

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Date:
Friday, September 6, 4:15 P.M.

Subject:
Miss you!

Hi Sweetheart,

I miss you! Please meet me at the library steps at 5 P.M. today. Sharp!

xoxoxoxxox,

C

P.S. How’s Jenny?

Email Inbox

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Date:
Friday, September 6, 4:23 P.M.

Subject:
Spa treatment

Dear Jenny Humphrey,

Callie Vernon has sent you a gift certificate for a relaxing spa treatment at our facilities. You’re all signed up for a shiatsu massage and an oxygen-blast facial. Please call or e-mail to schedule your appointment.

Regards,

Bethany Bristol

Rhinecliff Woods Spa Manager

“Ican’t see,” Easy mumbled, as Callie led him blindfolded up the smooth marble stairs of the library.

“That’s the point. I want to surprise you.”

She pushed through the unmarked, heavy oak door. Beyond it were walls and walls of books, glass cases of scrolls, leather smoking chairs, and a tiny, Mondrian-patterned stained glass window.
So
romantic. She pulled her hands away from his eyes.

“The library?” He looked around, confused.

“Not just the library.” She folded up the red satin eye mask she’d gotten from flying first class on Iberia. “Don’t you remember? It’s the rare-book room! It’s where we first …” She trailed off, pushing a lock of blond hair behind her shoulder. What to say? Where they first consummated their love? They hadn’t consummated anything. They’d made out. She’d put her hand on the outside of his pants. She’d cheated on her then-boyfriend, Brandon.

“Yeah, I realize that,” Easy replied, walking around the room, running his hands over a row of rare, dusty books. There were first-edition Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Hemingway novels in a large glass case, thanks to a certain J. L. Walsh and an R. Dalton. There were four large Rothkos on the wall, all of them studies in different-size black and red squares.

Callie sat down on one of the leather chairs. It was cold against the backs of her legs, and she immediately got goose-bumps. “Maybe we could reenact that night?” she said softly, pulling at Easy’s pale gray T-shirt. “Here, why don’t you get comfortable?”

She stood and gently pushed Easy into a brown leather club chair. She sat in his lap and started kissing his neck. Easy slid his hand under her paper-thin
TSE
white T-shirt and fingered her white de la Renta bra.

This was
perfect
. The musty smell of the old books, the sen-sual glow of the Tiffany stained glass lamp in the corner, the stillness of everything. Callie felt like she was being naughty in her father’s reading room, or like she was a frustrated baroness from the 1700s who was getting a little action before they all had high tea. It seemed like something out of a D. H. Lawrence novel.
Women in Love
, maybe.

Then she noticed that Easy’s eyes were open. Wide open.

“What?” she asked, pulling back.

“I think that’s a first-edition of
V
,” he murmured, leaning forward to get a better look. “I didn’t notice it here before… .”

Callie let out a frustrated little squeal and pulled her knees up to her chin, cuffing Easy in the jaw as she did.

“What?” Easy shot back.

“Never mind,” she said quietly, realizing that the hurt in her voice was coming through way more than she wanted it to. She tried not to let the feeling that this perfect moment with Easy had just been ruined settle into her consciousness. Too late. She tried to steady her voice so it wasn’t so shaky. “So I noticed you’ve been flirting with Jenny… .”

Easy backed away from her slightly. “Noticed? What do you mean?”

“Well, you wrote all over her arm.”

He licked his lips. “Oh.”

“So? Is it going okay?”

“I guess.”

“Have any teachers seen you, you know, flirting?”

“Um, just Mrs. Silver, I guess …” Easy stood up and scratched his jaw.

Not good enough. It didn’t matter if Mrs. Silver had seen them—she wasn’t friends with Ms. Emory. “Maybe you guys could flirt near the orchestra practice rooms?” Ms. Emory conducted Waverly’s orchestra, the Fermatas, on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

A long silence followed. Callie could hear the tree branches scrape against the windows.

Finally, Easy spoke. “All you care about is whether or not you get in trouble, don’t you?”

“No!” she squeaked. “Of course not! I just—”

He held up his hand. “This isn’t right. It wasn’t Jenny’s fault. I don’t think we should drag her into this, and I don’t think she should have to take the fall for you.”

“What are you saying?” Callie demanded. “You don’t care if I get kicked out?” She felt tears spring to her eyes and quickly jammed her finger into her mouth. She bit hard, nearly drawing blood.

“No, of course I care, but—”

Callie shook her head. She could feel her pulse in her neck. “No. You obviously don’t. If you cared, you’d do whatever it took to keep me here.”

“Well, why would I want to keep you here if all you do is manipulate me?” Easy retorted loudly, his voice echoing through the silent library.

Callie’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said,” he whispered fiercely.

“Take that back.”

Easy sighed. “Callie … ” He trailed off, looking at her like he had no idea what to do with her.

She wasn’t sure what possessed her to say what she said next, but she said it anyway: “You know, Brandon would do this for me.”

“Brandon?” Easy asked. “Brandon … Buchanan?” he scoffed.

Callie snapped back. “Yeah, Brandon! At least Brandon—”

“At least he what?”

Paid attention to me
, Callie thought.
At least I knew where I stood
. She swallowed hard and turned toward the window. Right outside, two owls huddled together on a tree branch. They looked like they were kissing.

Easy paced around the room. “So, what, you want to break up with me to go out with Brandon again?”

Callie gasped. “I didn’t say that! Do you want to break up?” Her heart began to really pound. Was this it? All of a sudden she felt woozy and nauseated, as if she were about to fall off an endless cliff and was scrambling to hold on to its rocky side.

“Just stop manipulating me,” Easy blurted out sternly. “If you think Brandon—who, by the way, is so gay—would do this for you, maybe you should be going out with him after all.”

“At least he loved me!” she pleaded. “At least Brandon wanted to have sex!”

Her words hung in the air for a moment. Easy’s lips parted, as if he were about to say something. But then a knock sounded at the heavy oak door. They both froze.

“Hello?” called a low voice. It was Mr. Haim, the nasal-voiced, grumpy general librarian. “Problem in there?”

Callie glared at Easy, baring her teeth before answering sweetly, “We’re just studying!”

“You have to keep it down,” Mr. Haim whispered. He opened the door and stuck his Brillo-haired head through the crack. “We don’t tolerate noise in this room.”

“Whatever,” Easy yelled, flipping his middle finger up in the air and straightening his shirt. “I’m out of here.” He brushed by Mr. Haim without even looking back at Callie to say goodbye.

“This is a place of peaceful research,” Mr. Haim recited, tightening his Waverly tie almost to the point of asphyxiation. “We don’t tolerate yelling.”

“I said I was sorry!” Callie screamed.

“You’re still yelling.”

She rolled her eyes. What the
hell
had just happened? She clomped down the marble stairs that led into the main lobby of the library. Out a tall, narrow window, she saw the same cuddling owls, this time on a lower tree branch. She stopped and knocked on the pane, causing the owls to ruffle their feathers and flutter to separate trees.

“Get a room!” she yelled.

Email Inbox

To:
Undisclosed list

From:
[email protected]

Time:
Friday, September 6, 9:02 P.M.

Subject:
TOP
SECRET

Dumbarton pre-Black Saturday Party:

Welcome to Agrabah, City of Mystery and Enchantment.

GIRLS
ONLY!

TEN
MINUTES!

MOVE
YOUR
ASS!

Callie was wearing the new fringed Kelly green Prada dress she’d bought at Pimpernel’s, a multicolored Pucci headscarf, and four-inch-high silver Manolos. Her long strawberry-blond hair was swept up into a sexy, Asian-inspired bun, and she’d put thick kohl eyeliner around her eyes. She knew the other girls would be jealous, but that was the point. Sometimes it was more fun to dress up when there
weren’t
boys around.

The pre-Black Saturday party was a tradition for Dumbarton girls. It was incredibly cool because there was a select guest list and there was always a wild theme. Benny Cunningham and Celine Colista had skipped out of field hockey practice early to convert the top-level common room into an Arabian Nights wonderland. They’d closed the giant bay window curtains so the whole room was shadowy and mysterious. Then they added twinkling lights, candles, pillows, incense, Grey Goose vodka, mini joints, pictures of elephants and multiarmed gods on the wall, and carefully placed
Kama Sutras
, which everybody knew were ancient sex manuals from India, and some bizarre, sexy Bhangra music Benny had gotten FedExed from Amazon.com the night before. The room was all set up for a wild orgy, except for the fact that there were no boys.

Callie had arrived early and was drinking quickly and steadily, trying to put the whole Easy-in-the-rare-book-room nightmare out of her mind. She refilled her drink and headed toward the little window seat in the corner and suddenly collided with Brett, who had just arrived.

“Oh!” They eyed one another intensely. Brett still had on what she’d worn to class, boring maroon Katayone Adeli trousers and a white Calvin Klein button-down.
Hello
? It was totally against the rules to wear that kind of thing to the pre-Black Saturday party! “So, how’s Jeremiah?” Callie asked.

“Jeremiah?” Brett gave her a blank look.

“Your boyfriend?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“What, is he not your boyfriend anymore?”

“No, he …” Brett was really squirming. Callie wondered if Sage was wrong—maybe instead of Brett liking a senior boy, she and Jeremiah had had really bad sex. Or, maybe really
good
sex. Earth to Brett, not dishing on any kind of sex to your so-called best friend was so not okay.

Then Brett narrowed her eyes keenly at Callie. “And how’s Easy?”

“Fine.”

They sat awkwardly on the window seat, looking past each other, sipping from their liquor-filled Waverly mugs. Last year, Callie, Brett, and Tinsley had sat around the pre-Black Saturday party in this very same common room, talking about their boyfriends and taking turns refilling one another’s cups. What a difference a year made.

Callie tossed her hair behind her shoulder, eyeing her friend. Was it possible Brett was just waiting for her broach the Tinsley subject so that Brett could apologize for getting Tinsley kicked out? One thing that Brett had never been good at was making herself vulnerable. “I bet Tinsley would’ve been really into this party.”