Work for Hire (22 page)

“Oh my gosh, no way!” Gemma pushed the book back and rifled through her Fendi school shoulder bag for a nail file. “I’m not going to be a doctor or a scientist or anything, so it’s just another useless school subject I have to pass before I can get on with my
real
future. That’s what Daddy says.” She giggled and got to work on her manicure. “Anyways, you’ll be sorry if you don’t come. The party’s going to be hot. Like,
everyone’s
coming. Well, except for Pam. And, oooh, I almost forgot,” she said as she hopped onto her seat, her nails temporarily abandoned. “
Maman
wanted me to give you this.”

Gemma pulled out a monogrammed Luis Vuitton wallet from her desk drawer.

“It matches your bag and it’s from their upcoming collection,” she explained. “You can’t get it in stores yet.”

I eyed the sleek wallet. A part of me craved to touch it. How could a small square of leather be so pretty? But the other pointed out the obvious timing.

“No, I really shouldn’t.”

Gemma
would
do the work.

Gemma’s face fell.

“Why?
Maman
says it’s a thank you for all your help with … you know. And I really want to say thanks.”

Well, if it was a thank you for those two awful incidents—I guess I could accept. I did go out of my way, after all, doing things that weren’t anywhere in my job description. And wouldn’t Lauren be envious. She couldn’t purchase the wallet for a while. Monique said.

I placed the wallet between us, to look at, and got back to work on the questions. There was no point trying to get Gemma to do the work herself—not that she had a lot of it anyway. It was only one sheet, with ten problems. That school of hers was something else.

“Are your parents going to be at the party?” I asked and focused on a diagram of cell division. Question two required Gemma to replicate the picture, so I rummaged through her desk drawers for colored pencils. I wasn’t much of an artist, but I’d give it my best shot. “And how come Pam’s not coming?”

Gemma, good mood restored, giggled.

“Parents at a party! That’s so lame! And Pam’s not coming ‘cause her parents think I’m a bad influence. As if. Like, we got drunk on
their
liquor.”

I raised a brow.
Well, well, there might be hope for some of these New York City parents yet.

“So who’s supervising the party?”

“No one,” Gemma responded. She put down the nail file, reached for a bottle of red polish from a bookshelf, and rested her left hand against the edge of the desk. With the right, she shook the bottle, positioned it between her thighs for leverage and uncorked the top. “
Maman
says she knows I learned my lesson after the mess at Pam’s. She trusts me now.” Gemma grinned and applied a stroke of lacquer to her nail. She wielded the brush with the precision of a Michelangelo. “And Daddy agrees.”

I gawked. Her parents had to be kidding. Let their fourteen-year-old host a house party for who knows how many other teenagers—with no adult supervision? Did they really think no one would reach for the liquor, or worse? Could they really be
that
stupid?

“And where will your parents be when all this fun is happening?”

Gemma finished the first coat, curled the fingers against her palm and blew air on the painted nails.

“Daddy’s going to some conference in London with Lisa, and
Maman
is flying out to Los Angeles for the weekend. To a spa.” She scrunched her face. “I was supposed to go with her, like for a mother-daughter bonding thing, but then she said I couldn’t ‘cause the editor-in-chief of
Allure
wanted to come along, and
Maman
said it wouldn’t look good if she had her kid with her. Bad for business, or something.” Gemma shrugged. “Whatever. Not like I care. Who wants to go to a stupid spa anyway, just so they can sit in mud and eat seaweed?”

I had a hunch Gemma somehow did.

“So
Maman
said I could have the party instead.”

I stared. Gemma seemed completely absorbed with her nails, indifferent to everything, including her mother’s latest slight. But she had to recognize the gift of the party was yet another payoff.

And I had come to discover that when Gemma recognized she’d been slighted, trouble usually followed.

When I said nothing, just kept on staring, Gemma peeked at me from underneath her lashes.

“So, like,” she beamed, all innocence, “are those questions really hard?”

“
X
ANDER, CAN YOU PLEASE
put the guitar away so we can start?”

But Xander must not have heard me because he lay flat on his bed, staring at the ceiling, strumming his guitar. Today the amplifier was on full blast.

“Xander!” I yelled. “Do you hear me?”

“Yo!” Xander strummed the Gibson one last time, hopped off the bed, rested the guitar against the bed’s edge and switched the amp off. The silence had my ears ringing. “What’s up?” He ambled toward the desk, and me, but instead of sitting in his own chair, he reached for a deck of cards. “You wanna see a new trick I learned today?”

“Xander!” I tapped my fingers on the desk.

“No, seriously.” Xander shuffled the deck. “This trick’s mad cool. Here.” He shoved the deck under my nose. The cards were bent and greasy, like they had spent considerable time on a lunch tray. I could make out jelly stains, and peanut butter. “Pick a card and I’ll guess what it is.”

I pushed the deck back. “Homework first. Then cards.”

“No!” Xander shoved it back. “Nothing’s due tomorrow. We just have this English thing for next week. But first you pick a card, then I’ll tell you about the English.”

“Xander … ”

“Pick a card first,” he pouted. “Don’t be like
Maman
. She never wants to see my tricks.”

“Fine,” I snarled. I would
not
be compared to Monique. I reached for a card. The eight of hearts.

“Now,” Xander practically glowed, “look at the card—but don’t tell me what it is—and put it back in the deck, face down.”

I did as instructed.

Xander shuffled the deck, cut the cards and flipped half of them over. The queen of spades winked at us from her top spot.

“Was this your card?” Xander asked triumphantly.

“No.”

His face crumpled.

“What do you mean, no?” He stared at the queen, then shoved a hand into his mop of overgrown hair and pulled at its ends. “It has to be the queen. I did the trick right. I saw you pull the queen. I put a mark on its back.”

I shrugged. How he could find any mark on the dirty, scratched up cards was beyond me. “Well, it wasn’t. It was the eight of hearts.
Now
can we please talk about the English?”

“No, wait.” Xander shuffled the cards again. “I know what I did wrong. I picked the card
after
the eight. They must’ve got stuck together. Pick another card. It will work this time, you’ll see.” He fanned the cards out in front of me.

“Xander,” I warned, eyeing the deck. “English first.
Then
I’ll pull as many cards as you want.”

Xander didn’t budge. Neither did I.

Finally, he threw the cards on the desk, and slumped into his chair.

“The English?” I prompted.

Xander tapped my stool with his foot, and kept on tap-tap-tapping.

“Xander!” I kicked his chair back.

He glared before he grumbled, “We have to come up with a topic for our creative writing project. A short story.” He said the last three words as if they were foul. “Mr. Dandridge has all the freshmen write one, then he picks his favorites. Those get published in
Horizons
, the school’s literary magazine.”

Xander reached for a card, from the deck now scattered all over the desk, and bent it beyond recognition. “It’s a big deal in the class ‘cause
Horizons
is like huge. Everyone wants their stuff published there.” He shoved the crumpled card in his pocket and picked another one. It met the same fate. “I guess it looks good when you apply to college. And everyone wants to be a
Horizons
editor their senior year, ‘cause that looks even better. But you can’t be an editor if you don’t get something published every year of high school, and the only way you can get published as a freshman is through Mr. Dandridge’s English class. So everyone’s flipping out about writing the next great thing Mr. Dandridge will love. But, like, whatever.” Xander rolled his eyes. “I don’t care. Who wants to work on a ‘literary magazine’ anyway? Like, everyone knows books are dead. The future is in the movies. And music.”

Xander sat up in his chair, removed the two cards from his pocket, laid them out on the desk, face down, and ironed them straight with his palm—or as straight as they could get—then threw them back on the pile with the others.

“Except,” he continued, “Dad really wants me to get my story published ‘cause he was a
Horizons
editor when he went to Harding, and he says I need to follow in his footsteps. So he says we better come up with a great story. And he wants to read it before I hand it in. In two weeks. But the topic is due on Monday.”

My head spun.

Xander had a short story due in two weeks—the same time as my brief—and Mr. Lamont wanted to personally approve it first. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to guess he expected me to write it too. Hell, I couldn’t possibly get Xander to write his own decent story in that amount of time, leastways not at his current pace: It’d take us a month just for the first paragraph. But I didn’t really have the time to do it for him either, even if I was willing—which I wasn’t. I had to get my own writing in on time. The brief
had
to take priority. And what about the
Law Review
?

“Do you have any ideas for a topic?” I asked as my voice faltered.
We needed to start somewhere. Fast.

“No.” Xander scowled.

Great.

“Well,” I persisted, “is there anything that you would really like to write about, something that has action and drama?”

Really, he needed to at least come up with his own topic. How hard could that be?

“No.” Xander scowled some more. But then his face cleared and a smirk replaced the frown. He looked like a villain hatching an evil plot. “I can always wait until Saturday, after Gemma’s stupid party. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of action and drama there.”

I paused.

“Are you going to the party?” I finally asked and, as soon as the words left my mouth, wanted to hit myself. Stupid question. He was fourteen too. His house was going to be teeming with other teenagers. Besides, where else would he go, even if he wanted to?
Of course
he was going.

“Sure.” Xander’s smirk got wider. He leaned back in his chair and deposited his feet—ankles crossed—on the desk, a Boss Tweed about to close on an illicit but profitable deal. All that was missing was the cigar. “
Maman
insists I stay during the whole party, to supervise.”

Oh my God. Xander supervising Gemma? How much more ridiculous could Monique get? Words failed me.

Xander misunderstood my silence.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he patted my arm. “I’m just playing with you.” I almost sighed with relief. Almost. “I actually have thought about a topic for the short story. I thought it would be cool to write about Coco and Dior, about, you know, living in this house from a dog’s perspective. Kinda like a social satire. We just read one in class, and Mr. Dandridge will be impressed if we come up with a good one. What do you think?”

I nodded.
Xander was to supervise Gemma’s party. This could not possibly end well.

“So, like, we’re done discussing English, right?”

I watched as Xander practically jumped in his chair, and I nodded again.

“Cool.” He gathered the discarded cards, arranged them in a neat pile and pushed the pile toward me. “So, like, pick a card, any card.”

“W
HOA! SLOW DOWN THERE
. The door won’t run away.”

I stopped in the Lamont hallway.

Julian.

“They were that bad, huh?” he chuckled, leaning his elbow against the doorframe and crossing his arms. His dimples winked. His muscles bulged. He looked like a model in a toothpaste ad. “I got you a treat, to make you feel better.” He pushed himself away from the door, disappeared into the house and came back seconds later, a steaming Styrofoam cup in his hands. “It’s not Starbucks. It’s better. And I asked them to add peppermint.”

“Thanks.” I reached for the coffee quickly. I needed it. “You’re back in New York?” was all I could think to say.

Hearing my witty banter, I could barely hold back a groan.
You’re back in New York.
How lame. Apparently, intelligent, flirtatious conversation with Julian was beyond my meager social capabilities.

“Yeah.” Julian smiled, flashing his pearly whites again. “Monique has a weekend networking powwow with magazine editors in Los Angeles. Women only. No boys allowed.”

I nodded. Obviously little girls weren’t permitted either.

“So my whole weekend’s free. Speaking of which,” Julian purred as he leaned towards me, “I was hoping I could cash in on my rain check.” I shivered. “That you’d let me redeem myself.” He looked eager at the possibility. “There’s this great exhibit at the Morgan Library I thought you’d be interested in seeing. Irving Penn’s portraiture. It’s the first time the Morgan has exhibited photography. That’s huge because it means photography has really arrived as a recognized art form, even with the conservatives. And his work is more along the lines of what I’m interested in shooting. I’d really like you to see it with me. We’ll make a day of it, on Saturday. I’ll pick you up; we’ll see the show, and then go to an early dinner. What do you say?”

What I
should
have said was, “Thanks, that sounds great, but not this weekend—maybe in two weeks, if you’re still free.” ‘Cause I had to focus on the brief. And then there was the
Law Review
article, and Xander’s short story. Nope, for the next couple of weeks, I didn’t have a free minute to spare. Sure, going out with Julian would be really nice, but he didn’t prioritize me ahead of his professional responsibilities, so why should I place spending time with him ahead of mine? Nope, I was
definitely
not going. I took a sip of coffee. I would tell Julian exactly that: thanks, but I couldn’t—schoolwork and all that, you understand. But, somehow,
those
words never materialized.