The It Girl (21 page)

Jenny looked at him questioningly a few moments more, and Brandon realized he was kind of being a jackass. So Callie was screwing with his emotions. So Jenny didn’t like him. So what? She was still sweet and caring. And right now, she seemed so
happy
. “Seriously,” he ordered. “Go.”

As Jenny skipped over to the girls’ couch, a tall, cocksure senior girl named Chandler grabbed her arm. “Cool cheer.”

“Thank you!”

Another blond girl standing next to Chandler who wore a slinky silver top and pegged pink and gray pinstriped pants, squinted at Jenny. “Did you ever model? You look so familiar.”

“I think she looks like Tinsley,” Chandler added.

“Actually, I modeled for a Les Best ad? But it was only once.” Jenny beamed.

“No, that’s it!” the girl cried. “I love that ad. You look so cute in it, all crazy on the beach. Who was your stylist?”

“
Jenny!
” Celine called from the couch again.

“I gotta go,” Jenny explained to Chandler and the other girl. “Nice meeting you!” As she was walking toward the couch again, it suddenly hit her. She didn’t feel compelled to make up some crazy story about a seminaked fashion show or a debauched night out with the Raves. Nope. Jenny—not Old Jenny or New Jenny, but this Jenny—was good enough for these girls just as she was.
I love Waverly!
she thought, with a momentary shiver of pleasure. God, she just couldn’t get kicked out. Not now!

She joined the others on the couch. Celine immediately handed her a Grey-Goose-and-Red-Bull martini.

“So you’re not pissed at us?” Celine asked. “About the cheer?”

“Yeah.” Callie shook her head. “I wanted to tell you… .”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jenny assured them. Even though it had been kind of mean, she felt like she was a part of something now—a real,
exclusive
Waverly tradition. How awesome was that?

“That cheer was amazing, though,” Celine commented. She was sucking on a Dunhill Ultra Light and a pastel candy necklace at the same time.

Jenny moved over to Brett, who was sitting on the far end of the couch and looked like she’d been up for 96 hours. “You disappeared after the game. You all right?”

“I don’t know,” Brett replied mechanically.

“Is it—?” Jenny started.

Brett put her finger to her lips but nodded miserably.

“What happened?”

Brett shook her head. “Can’t talk about it,” she whispered between gulps.

“Okay.”

Callie grabbed Brett’s arm. “I saw Jeremiah when I was coming in. He’s looking for you.”

Brett’s eyes widened in fear. “Did you tell him I was here?”

“Uh, yeah. Why, is there a reason I wouldn’t?” she asked, obviously feigning obliviousness.

“Shit,” Brett muttered.

“What’s the big deal? It’s not like you’re seeing anyone else, is it?”

Brett shook her head feverishly. “You shouldn’t have told him I was here.”

“Well, sorry! How was I supposed to know that?” Callie demanded. “It’s not like you tell me anything anymore.”

“You just … shouldn’t have.”

The other girls’ heads swiveled from Callie to Brett, as if watching the final match at Wimbledon. Jenny wondered if Callie knew about Brett and Mr. Dalton. Callie put her cigarette out with the heel of her blue croc mule. “So why don’t you want to see Jeremiah, anyway?”

“I just … don’t. Just because.”

“Is he not cool enough for you? Are
we
not cool enough for you?” Callie demanded, rolling her tongue against her cheek.

“Come on,” Brett retorted. “I didn’t say—”

“You looking for some
older
people to hang out with?”

Jenny froze.

Brett scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Callie tilted her head. “Did you find your cell phone?”

“Yeah.” Brett lit a cigarette. “So?”

“So … nothing. I found it. Just making sure you got it.”

“Did you go through my messages?” Brett’s voice rose sharply.

“No!” Callie sounded hurt. “I wouldn’t do that!”

“Like hell you wouldn’t. Whatever. I have to get the fuck out of here.”

“What’s she talking about?” Celine asked as Brett stormed away.

Callie stared fumingly at Brett’s receding figure and didn’t answer.

“Sounds like she’s having boy problems—she didn’t even want to see Jeremiah!” Celine added. “And he’s so hot!”

“Oh, it’s not Jeremiah she’s having the problems with,” Callie whispered. “It’s, you know—
Mr. Dalton
.”

Jenny’s mouth dropped open. Oh. My. God. Some friend Callie was.

“Dalton?” Celine echoed. The girls stared at her in stunned silence.

“Totally. They’re really—” Callie began smugly, but she was interrupted by Heath Ferro. He wore a fake wooden Viking helmet, à la Flava Flav, on his head and had taken his shirt off to reveal a temporary Celtic symbol tattoo on his chest.

“Hey, girls.” He slung his arms around Jenny and Callie.
I guess he likes me again
, Jenny thought wryly. Not that she cared. “I’m horny.” He pointed to the horns.

Celine giggled. “Ew!”

“’Course you are, Pony,” cried Benny, who’d come up behind them.

“That’s right. So you want to play I Never?” Heath grabbed a bottle of Cuervo from a nearby table.

“Definitely,” Callie agreed quickly, wrenching her eyes away from Brett, who’d paused at the tent’s door, her whole body quivering.

“Okay, but new rules: if you’ve never done it you have to take a shot and kiss someone,” Heath announced, fondling one of the horns on his helmet.

“You’re unbelievable.” Benny laughed.

“Fine,” Callie sighed. “Just no tongue.”

Jenny, Heath, Sage, Teague Williams, and Benny arranged themselves on the dewy grass just outside the tent. The air was cool and wet, but Jenny felt warm from her belly out. Her Red Bull martini was making her feel a little weird.

“Who wants to go first?” Heath asked, taking a long chug of Heineken.

“I will.” Jenny shot her hand up. She poured out shots into small plastic cups. “Okay. So. Um … I’ve never made out in a field.”

Callie, Celine, and Benny all shrugged. Jenny, Heath, and Teague each did a shot.

“C’mere, Jenny,” Heath beckoned, crawling across the circle toward her. “Let’s see if we can remember how to do this.”

Ew, ew, ew
. Jenny tipsily pecked Heath’s mouth and then smacked him playfully in the stomach.

“Jeepers!” she squealed. And instead of laughing at her, everyone cheered and did another shot, just for fun.

Easy inhaled deeply on the joint and handed it to Alan St. Girard. They were sitting in a little alcove that separated them from the rest of the tent with those door beads that a grandmother might have in her pool house. “This party’s lame,” Easy managed to grumble, while trying to hold the pot smoke in his lungs. “Aren’t they always, though?” Alan replied.

They talked for a few minutes about which party had been the best, and decided that it was the one Tinsley Carmichael had thrown at her parents’ huge log cabin in Alaska a year and a half ago. It had been over spring break, and most kids had been with their parents in Park City or Monte Carlo, so not that many of them had gone to Alaska. The house was on the edge of an ice lake, next to a giant, purple mountain. They’d all drunk so much red wine, they’d been completely uninhibited. It was before Easy and Callie got together, and he’d coaxed Tinsley into getting naked with him and sitting in her outdoor birch hot tub, where they’d talked all night. It had been the kind of party where everything is serene and perfect—nobody had gotten mad at anybody, and everybody had stayed on that fun, wild side of drunk without crossing over and vomiting all over the teak floors.

The beads parted, and Brett burst through. She was wearing all black and looked craggy and grumpy, like that wicked old witch with the apple in
Snow White
. “What’s up?” Easy asked, as she plopped down next to him.

“Can I hide out in here with you?” She took the joint, which had burned down to a little knobby roach. She took a long drag on it and blew the smoke out her nose.

“Sure.”

“You guys make no sense,” she finally said after a long pause, running her hands through her insanely red hair.

“What, me and Alan?”

“No.” Brett turned to Easy, and Easy remembered why he liked her so much. She had a wide-jawed, wide-eyed, beautiful face, a little like Mandy Moore’s. “I meant … why is it that when you guys want something, and when you get it, when we
give
it to you, you freak out?”

Alan took a hit and leaned back, running his hand along his very short brown crew cut. “That’s way too deep for me, man.”

Brett pulled out her cigarettes and lit one. “Never mind,” she scoffed, standing up again. She squinted at Easy. “Are you still with Callie?”

“I don’t know.”

She smirked. “That’s what I thought. I’m outta here. Have a good party, boys.”

“She’s so strange,” Alan muttered. “You know what I just heard? I heard she’s fucking one of the teachers. That new guy.”

“Brett?” Easy asked, looking after her. “Nah.”

“I don’t know, man. Look at her. She’s a mess.”

Easy grunted and rolled one of the beige marble door beads between his fingers. His pot-addled brain tried to process what had gone down with Callie. Were they still together or not?

He stood up and parted the beads with his hand, feeling totally messed up. He expected love to feel like something stu-pendous, maybe a little painful. Like the sore, used-up way his back and legs felt after riding Credo all day. Or the feeling he got when he was in Paris, standing on the Seine, watching people walk by, and suddenly realized he was
right there
in the moment and not stuck somewhere in the past or the future. But he wasn’t sure if he felt that way about Callie. Where was she, anyway?

And that’s when he saw them.

Heath Ferro kissing Callie all over her face. She’d pulled down Heath’s jeans so low that they’d slid below his hips. He could see a strip of his ass. As usual, Heath was going commando.

Easy turned into the alcove again. Well, there was his answer.

“I feel all loose and wiggly.” Jenny shook her arms around. She’d moved to the surprisingly quiet lawn behind the tent. There was a tiny little Japanese rock garden, a mossy stone bench, and a jade-tile-lined pond. A giant orange goldfish swam slowly in the pond’s circle. After a few rounds of I Never, Brandon had tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if she wanted to get some air.

“You were looking a little green back there,” Brandon said.

“I’m all right. But thanks for getting me out of that. It was getting a little strange.” She wasn’t really keen on seeing Heath Ferro’s butt crack, which kept making major appearances.

“No problem.”

“How come you didn’t play with us? You got something against kissing games?”

“I …” He hesitated. “It’s complicated.”

Jenny rolled her head around on her neck. “Okay,” she replied. She was happy that Brandon felt okay just sitting her with her quietly, not explaining anything. Friends sat quietly together, after all, and even though she was having a blast at this party, something in it seemed empty now that she was drunk. How many of these kids did she actually connect with? Brandon was a real friend, and they could be honest with each other. She leaned her head on his shoulder and stared at their reflection in the pond.

“You never told me you went out with Callie last year.” She glanced at him.

He looked down. “Yeah.”

“Is that why you hate Easy so much?”

He nodded.

“Well. That makes sense.”

“It’s so messed up, though,” Brandon began slowly. “I still really like her. I tried to not like her but … I can’t help it.”

“I totally understand,” she said, thinking of Easy.

Another reflection appeared in the pond. It was of a messy-haired, irresistibly handsome boy who, despite being at a party, still had paint smudges on his neck. Jenny drew in her breath. It was as if she had conjured Easy up by thinking about him.

Or maybe she was just a little tipsy.

“Hey.” He greeted her softly.

Jenny squinted. He wore a black faded
NASHVILLE
MUSIC
FESTIVAL
T-shirt and grubby, paint-stained jeans. His thick, glossy, almost-black hair, badly in need of cutting, curled at the back of his neck.

Brandon creased his face in frustration, then squeezed her hand. “I should be going,” he announced. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Good luck.”

Brandon brushed past Easy without saying hello, then slowly strode away. Easy sat down next to Jenny. “What are you doing out here? There’s all sorts of crazy shit going on in this place.”

“Yeah, I was part of the crazy shit, but I decided to come out and look at the pond.”

“Pretty,” Easy murmured.

“It is, isn’t it?”

“I mean you, not the pond,” he whispered.

Jenny’s words got stuck in her throat. She was too, too drunk. But suddenly she felt too, too sober. Easy lit a cigarette and smoked it silently, letting a thin stream of gray smoke drift over the gardens and make a halo over the origami trees.

“I saw your cheer at the game today.” Easy broke the silence. “That was … something.”

“Oh,” she managed to utter, looking down, embarrassed. The drunker Jenny had gotten, the more she had wondered if she really belonged here. So she’d turned the cheer around today, but what if she couldn’t keep up that kind of quick thinking all the time? She kept trying not to think about it, but heavy thoughts about the Disciplinary Committee hearing kept sneaking up on her. Sure, she was popular tonight, but what did that matter if she was kicked out of Waverly come Monday? Then again, she could tell on Callie, but everyone would definitely hate her if she got Callie kicked out. There was no way to win.