The It Girl (6 page)

“Constance Billard? It’s in—”

“New York City. All girls,” Callie interrupted in a breathy voice, sliding a little closer to Jenny in the same way a cat might rub up against your calf. She turned to Brett. “Didn’t Tinsley go to Constance?”

“No. She went to Trinity. Until fifth grade. Then she went somewhere in Switzerland, then here.”

“Yeah, Tinsley definitely didn’t go to an all-girls’ school, now that I think about it.” Callie examined her cuticles. “I remember her saying that she had tons of boyfriends.”

“Well, Tinsley’s beautiful,” Brett added offhandedly, taking T-shirts out of another suitcase.

Jenny bristled. Was Brett saying that she wasn’t beautiful? Who was this Tinsley girl, anyway?

“She could get any guy she wanted,” Brett continued. “Even guys with girlfriends.”

“That’s not true,” Callie snapped, before turning back to Jenny.

Jenny’s eyes darted back and forth between her roommates. What was up with them?

“Tinsley had her eleventh birthday party at Chelsea Piers. Like, she rented out the whole thing and installed a trapeze school in the gym area. Did you go to that?”

Jenny shrugged. “Sorry, no.” But she remembered that party, all right. Back when she was ten, Jenny’s father had ranted for days about an article in the
New York Times
Style section covering a party at the Chelsea Piers Sports Complex for a girl a year older than Jenny. Her dad had mocked it for being indulgent and piggishly bourgeois, but Jenny had thought the girl was the luckiest kid on the planet. And now she’d be sleeping in her bed! This
had
to be a good sign.

Callie looked at Jenny like a Christie’s appraiser might examine a Ming vase and then smiled. “Well, welcome to Waverly. I think you’re going to like it here.”

Jenny hugged herself.
I like it already
.

Instant Message Inbox

TeagueWilliams:
What did you say the 99-cent girl looks like?

HeathFerro:
Brown curly hair, practically a midget, major knockers.

TeagueWilliams:
So lemme guess… . You taking her to the chapel?

HeathFerro:
Hells yeah!

Instant Message Inbox

CelineColista:
So Callie and Brett are pissed at each other.

They’re both going to Marymount’s office to get a room transfer.

BennyCunningham:
All ’cause of Tinsley, huh? Where is she, anyway?

Does anyone even know?

CelineColista:
I heard she’s dating some guy from the Raves and they’re on tour in Europe.

BennyCunningham:
I thought that new girl from the city was dating the Raves… .

CelineColista:
Which one!?

BennyCunningham:
All of them. The whole band.

CelineColista:
Gross. Where’d you hear that?

BennyCunningham:
I have my sources.

“Well, look who’s here!” Jenny stood outside Richards’ lounge, reapplying her translucent pink lip gloss in the large, smoky, café-style hall mirror. She was wearing a scoop-neck, emerald-green
APC
top that was getting a teensy bit stretched out by her cumbersome breasts, and the highest tan leather heels she owned. She whipped her head around to find Heath Ferro, the boy from earlier with the BlackBerry and the great abs, standing in the doorway, an unlit cigarette in his hand. Tiny beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his eyes had a glassy, tipsy look.

“Hey,” she answered brightly, wiping her hands off on the only pair of Seven jeans she owned, which happened to make her legs look slightly longer than tree-stump length. “Is the party in there?”

“Indeed it is,” Heath replied gallantly. He looped his arm around Jenny’s waist.

Jenny smiled. Heath seemed really happy to see her. And she was happy to see him, too. He wore a light blue untucked oxford shirt, army fatigue shorts, and no shoes. She liked his broad shoulders and floppy, I’m-a-prep-school-boy-through-and-through haircut.
Sort of the way Hamlet would look if he were a real person
, Jenny thought. All that princely Danish breeding, plus a flicker of wildness in his eye.

And Jenny liked wildness.

Heath pushed the heavy wooden lounge door open for her. Everyone froze. “It’s cool,” Heath announced, his hand brushing accidentally against Jenny’s boob. “It’s just us.”

Jenny glanced around the room. Her first Waverly party! She could have been stuck back in the dorm playing checkers with Yvonne, but instead she was breaking the rules on her very first night at boarding school! She could immediately tell that it had a different feel than the parties she’d gone to back in New York—no one was fooling around in the guest bed-room and they didn’t have to worry about parents arriving back early from Paris. Someone had dimmed the lights and lit a bunch of candles. Everyone looked like they’d just stepped out of a J.Crew catalog—they were all so
pretty
, with perfect, glowing skin and healthy, athletic bodies that came from mandatory year-round sports. Each person was more beautiful than the last. Everyone was holding large insulated coffee mugs, which was a little puzzling, until Jenny realized that the mugs contained alcohol.

Across the room, Brett sat on the scratched leather couch with Callie, their friend Benny Cunningham, and Sage Francis, who had been regaling them with tales of the fabulous African safari she’d gone on this summer. It didn’t sound so great to Brett. Flies, malaria, and smelly wild animals.
Fun!
She gazed toward the doorway, saw her new roommate waltz in on Heath Ferro’s arm, and immediately elbowed Benny hard in the ribs.

Benny was from Main Line Philadelphia, stood to inherit $200 million, and was pretty in a horsey way: tall and lithe, with long, thick brown hair and enormous brown eyes. She was a prude and always blamed it on where she grew up, as if Philly were a different planet where the girls drank whole milk and saved themselves for marriage. Benny always quoted a Diane Keaton line from an old Woody Allen movie,
Manhattan
: “I’m from Philadelphia, and we don’t do things like that
there
.” She didn’t quite realize that the line was meant to be a joke. Despite her prudishness, she was also a major gossip who read
Page Six
religiously but acted like she knew it all first-hand.

“Looks like Heath’s gone in for the kill,” Benny’s best friend, Sage Francis, laughed, pointing. “Guess he knew where he could get some.”

Brett shrugged. She couldn’t imagine her naïve new room-mate being a slut, but there
was
something seemingly sparkly and fresh about Jenny that might make her irresistible to, say, an entire indie rock band, which was the rumor going around campus. And she did have some kind of air of mystery about her, which reminded Brett of someone. Tinsley, perhaps?

“So are you guys really applying for room transfers?” Sage whispered, touching Brett on her bare shoulder.

“Room transfers?”

Sage fluttered her heavily glittered eyelids. She always overused eye glitter, because a hot French guy she’d met in St. Barts during spring break the year before had told her that it made her eyes look huge and sexy. “I thought you and Callie were ready to scratch each other’s eyes out.”

“Well …” Brett trailed off. “I wasn’t planning on transfer-ring… .” She looked at her roommate. Callie was across the room talking intensely to Celine Colista, the other field hockey captain. They’d all played field hockey together since arriving at Waverly freshman year, but Brett had never taken it as seriously as the rest of the girls. Would Callie really transfer rooms behind Brett’s back? Had it come to that? She turned back to her new roommate, who was standing in the doorway and gazing starry-eyed, as if she’d never been to a party before in her life.

Jenny was kind of overwhelmed—but in a good way. Heath returned, weaving a strong-smelling Waverly travel mug in front of her face. “For you.”

“What’s in it?” she asked, taking the mug with both hands.

“Does it matter?” He grinned and clumsily tipped the contents of his own mug down his throat.

Jenny put the mug to her lips. The strong, sour liquid tasted like beer mixed with rum. It gurgled down her windpipe, bringing tears to her eyes.

“Hey, there’s Brandon!” she managed to gasp. Brandon stood by one of the giant windows, surrounded by three tiny girls with matching white-blond ponytails. When he saw Jenny across the room, his face brightened and he waved. She raised her hand to wave back, but Heath grabbed it and pulled her to his side.

“It’s time for the new girl to do our little initiation ritual,” he said, smiling devilishly.

“What?” Jenny frowned. “I haven’t heard of any initiation rituals.”

“Then you haven’t been talking to the right people.” Heath took another long drink from his mug, then set it on the ancient silver radiator. “Come with me.” He led her to the door.

On the way out, a couple of guys gave him high fives. “Where you goin’, Pony?” one of them asked. Heath just raised his eyebrows. The guys started laughing and making whooping, whinnying noises.

“What’s that all about?” Jenny asked, glancing back at the hooting boys.

“Who the hell knows?” Heath muttered, as he opened the heavy wooden door for Jenny.

“Who’s Pony? You?”

“Shhh,” Heath interrupted. Jenny pursed her lips together, feeling a little uneasy. But this was boarding school. Magical Waverly land. She was safe here, wasn’t she?

Outside, the night was pitch-black and dead quiet except for the sounds of some crickets left over from summer. Heath stopped in front of the Waverly chapel, the building next to Richards. The chapel was squat yet stately, with stained glass windows and a heavy oak door.

“What are we—?” Jenny started. She hadn’t been inside the chapel yet—she would be tomorrow morning, for roll call, announcements, and prayers.

Heath stubbed his cigarette out against one of the front windowpanes. “It’s a tradition for new Waverly students to go into the chapel before school actually starts.”

“You’re not going to lock me in or anything, are you?” Jenny asked in a wavering voice, not caring how Old Jenny she sounded.

“’Course not.” Heath raised his eyebrows. “I’m coming in with you.”

“Oh.” Jenny’s heart was picking up speed. “Okay, then.”

Heath pulled on the enormous oak door until it opened. The chapel’s inside was lit only with a few candles. And it was as quiet as … well … a church.

“It’s really nice in here,” Jenny whispered.

“Sit over here with me.” Heath patted a space on one of the dark wooden benches. In the candlelight, with his hands curled neatly in his lap and his hair slicked back, Jenny wondered if she’d misjudged Heath. Maybe he was actually really spiritual and sensitive.

She slid into the pew next to him. “So this is the ritual, huh?”

“Ritual?” Heath looked at her cluelessly.

“You said that—” Jenny stopped. Of
course
there wasn’t a ritual. It was a trick.

They were silent for a minute, listening to the wind pressing up against the sides of the chapel. Then Heath placed his hand over hers.

“You were so beautiful this morning,” he whispered breathily, mixing up the b and m, so that he said
mootiful
and
borning
. “Especially when my dad gave you a ride up the hill.”

“Oh,” Jenny answered, beaming. He
did
remember! “Well, thanks.”

“You’re from that all-girls school in New York, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” Had she said that this morning? She didn’t think so.

“Did you get kicked out?”

“Not exactly.”

Then Heath lurched toward her. She thought he’d just lost his balance, but his mouth was suddenly all over her face, and his tongue was poking through her lips. Jenny’s first reaction was to push him away, but tingles of pleasure began to run up her spine. Heath was an amazing kisser, maybe better than any-one else she’d ever kissed. She touched the nape of his neck, squeezed her eyes shut, and allowed herself to be swept away. The wooden bench made tiny aching creaks and groans. Their slurpy kissing noises rang against the alcove ceilings. His hand traced the outlines of her fingers but then quickly moved down her wrist to her forearm and finally up to her chest.

Jenny slid away from him, alarmed.

“Whatsa matter?” Heath smirked, his eyes flickering back and forth from one of her breasts to the other. He didn’t look like a spiritual little angel anymore.

“Well … this is a little fast,” Jenny managed. “That’s all.”

“Come on,” Heath urged, his voice getting sleepier. “Jenny from New York. Crazy Jenny.”

“I’m not all that crazy,” Jenny contradicted. She had a creepy feeling that Heath was quoting someone. What had people been saying about her? And where had they gotten their information?

Then suddenly Heath tipped over, laid his head on the bench, and began to quietly snore. Jenny stood up. Heath was wasted. She looked around the empty chapel, his snores echoing off the beamed ceilings.

All this made her feel very Old Jenny. She sighed and looked around at the dimly lit chapel. School didn’t officially start until tomorrow, she resolved. New Jenny was just getting warmed up>.
Email Inbox

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Date:
Wednesday, September 4, 9:50 A.M.

Subject:
Dude …

Ease,

Missed a fucking awesome party. Can’t even remember the end, except for this fresh little sophomore and me were really getting along. I’m still in bed and I think I’m gonna stay here all day. Bet you had a fucking awesome excuse for not being there. Was it Tinsley? You saw her this summer, right?