Page 17 of Invitation Only

  “I'm fine with what I have,” I said, lift­ing the gold mask from my lap by its gold han­dle. I had changed in­to my gown in the tiny square of a bath­room the mo­ment I board­ed the train and I wasn't tak­ing it off for any­thing. Nev­er in my life had I even imag­ined wear­ing any­thing this di­vine.

  “Good. I'm fine with it, too,” he said. I smiled and felt my­self blush. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  I was all too hap­py to have Josh sit with me. It would pre­vent Whit­tak­er from tak­ing the seat when he was done de­bat­ing the lat­est Supreme Court de­ba­cle with the oth­er guys from his floor. The ones who had ei­ther seen all the naked girls they need­ed to see or who didn't swing that way.

  “So, you don't get a plus-​one?” I asked as he set­tled in.

  “Nope. I'm lucky I'm even here,” he said with a shrug. “I'm third gen­er­ation. Just made the cut.”

  “Ah.”

  “But look at you! You bagged one of the few plus-​ones in the en­tire school. You must be so proud,” he teased. “Not that I'm sur­prised.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, not sure if I should be of­fend­ed.

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  “Just that of all the girls in school I'm not sur­prised Whit­tak­er picked you,” he said.

  I flushed with plea­sure. So not of­fend­ed.

  “I don't even know if I'd bring some­one if I had a plus-​one,” Josh said. “Un­less I found some­one tru­ly wor­thy, I'd still go stag. That's just how I roll.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “The girls at school would eat you alive.”

  “So be it,” he said. “So, how are you, Reed Bren­nan?”

  I took a deep breath. “Fine. I'm fine.”

  “Con­vinc­ing,” he said with a face­tious nod. “Keep say­ing that and even you might start to be­lieve it.”

  I smiled sad­ly, snagged. “Do you re­al­ly think Thomas is go­ing to be at this thing?”

  Josh faced for­ward and blew out a sigh, puff­ing his cheeks out mo­men­tar­ily. He picked at a slit in the back of the seat in front of him. “I hope so. So I can kick his ass.”

  I looked at him quizzi­cal­ly.

  “You know, for mak­ing us wor­ry,” he said.

  “Ah. Right. That tiny of­fense.”

  We looked at each oth­er for a mo­ment and I found my­self star­ing di­rect­ly in­to his green eyes--his kind, hon­est, noth­ing-​to- hide green eyes. Slow­ly, Josh smiled, and I found my­self smil­ing too. Then his gaze trav­eled down and set­tled, for the briefest of sec­onds, on my lips.

  And just like that, my heart flipped.

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  Flipped. For Josh Hol­lis.

  I looked away quick­ly, sud­den­ly warm. Josh in­stant­ly did the same. Thomas. I was go­ing to this par­ty to see Thomas. Of course, Whit­tak­er chose that very mo­ment to fi­nal­ly ar­rive.

  My head was spin­ning.

  “Evening, Josh,” he said con­ge­nial­ly. “It seems you're in my seat.”

  My stom­ach clenched with nerves as Josh looked at me. I shrugged with my eyes. “See you lat­er?” Josh said as he stood, Whit­tak­er back­ing up to make room.

  “Yeah.”

  Whit­tak­er sat down next to me and slung his heavy arm around my shoul­der. “This is go­ing to be an in­cred­ible night.”

  'Yeah,“ I replied, toy­ing with my mas­quer­ade mask as I stared at Josh over the top of the seat. He was talk­ing to Gage and Dash now, laugh­ing as if noth­ing was weird. 'Yeah, it def­inite­ly is.”

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  WALK OF FAME

  By the time we stepped off the train in Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion in New York, al­most ev­ery­one was suf­fi­cient­ly wast­ed, so I wasn't that sur­prised when Ki­ran and Tay­lor came up be­hind me, hooked their arms through mine, and dragged me through the main lob­by, laugh­ing and whis­per­ing, drunk with ab­so­lute free­dom. Our voic­es echoed off the in­cred­ible domed ceil­ing high above as we scur­ried along, try­ing not to trip over our gowns. I couldn't be­lieve I was in New York City, cen­ter of the known uni­verse. But even more shock­ing? I was there with these peo­ple, in an exquisite ball gown, earn­ing the cu­ri­ous and awed stares of ev­ery­one around us.

  I felt like a debu­tante, a celebri­ty, some­one who was cer­tain­ly not me.

  “Where are we go­ing?” I asked the mo­ment we emerged clum­si­ly on­to the side­walk, a six-​legged princess in too-​high heels.

  The rest of the crowd brought up the rear, gab­bing loud­ly and con­fi­dent­ly, not car­ing who heard or who stared. The cars on the

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  av­enue raced by, honk­ing and veer­ing and slam­ming their brakes. A hot dog ven­dor pushed his cart along the curb, curs­ing at no one and ev­ery­one. A pack of kids in Spi­der-​Man and Bratz cos­tumes scur­ried af­ter a pair of har­ried-​look­ing moms. Two huge men in black leather jack­ets screamed in­sults at each oth­er as they plowed right through our group, caus­ing Rose and Cheyenne to jump out of their way. Five sec­onds in the city and al­ready I had seen more hus­tle and bus­tle than I had dur­ing a life­time in Cro­ton, Penn­syl­va­nia.

  “You'll see!” Ki­ran trilled, drag­ging me off down the side­walk.

  A pack of col­lege-​aged kids in elab­orate vam­pire robes and white pow­der glid­ed by us, check­ing us all out. A tall guy in a mon­key cos­tume gripped hands with a beau­ti­ful girl dressed up like Nao­mi Watts from King Kong and pulled her across the street. Ghouls and gob­lins shout­ed out taxi win­dows and a limo went by with four guys shoved up through the sun­roof, each dressed in drag with tremen­dous boobs, “Woo-​woo­ing” at the top of their lungs.

  “Love New York on Hal­loween,” Noelle said, tak­ing a drink from a flask. “It's when all the cra­zies come out.”

  We walked a few blocks, mak­ing a few turns, un­til my feet start­ed to throb in Ki­ran's wicked-​high heels and I be­gan to won­der why these ridicu­lous­ly rich kids hadn't hired a limou­sine or at least hailed a cab. But the longer we walked, and the more passers­by stopped in awe, the more I un­der­stood. They want­ed these peo­ple to see and ad­mire them. That was what this walk was all about. It was their walk of fame.

  And it was fine by me, pain or no pain, be­cause I got to see the

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  city. I did my best not to gape as we strolled by swank bou­tiques and canopied restau­rants. Tried so hard not to stare through the bright­ly lit win­dows in­to brown­stone man­sions, some stark­ly dec­orat­ed with white walls and high ceil­ings, oth­ers jam-​packed with over­flow­ing book­cas­es and an­tique ar­ti­facts. Didn't even flinch when we traipsed past a wom­an push­ing a stroller who might or might not have been Sarah Jes­si­ca Park­er and who may or may not have paused to ad­mire my gown. But I did take it all in. I took it all in and filed it away and told my­self over and over that I be­longed here. That I was not go­ing to wake up. That all this was re­al­ly hap­pen­ing. To me.

  We emerged on­to a wide av­enue with is­lands down the cen­ter that were full of trees and bush­es. A mid­dle-​aged cou­ple in evening wear glid­ed by us, the wom­an's silk skirt swish­ing be­hind her as she walked, her hu­mon­gous di­amond-​and-​ru­by ear­rings sparkling un­der the street­lights. I sur­rep­ti­tious­ly glanced at the street sign over my head, try­ing not to seem too bump­kin, and smiled. We were on Park Av­enue. The Park Av­enue. It ac­tu­al­ly ex­ist­ed and I, Reed Bren­nan, was on it.

  “This way!” Dash an­nounced, lead­ing the pack across the street.

  I passed by an idling Rolls-​Royce and tried not to stare at the uni­formed driv­er as Ki­ran, Tay­lor, and I fell in­to a rhythm with our steps. We fol­lowed the oth­ers up the street as I glanced in­to each and ev­ery lob­by, not­ing the elab­orate mar­ble floors, glis­ten­ing chan­de­liers, gor­geous flow­er ar­range­ments. I was com­plete­ly

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  dumb­struck by all the op­ulence, and Ki­ran and Tay­lor were hav­ing fun lis­ten­ing to the clip-​clop of our heels--so much fun that we al­most walked right by the rest of our friends when they stopped, en masse, in front of a wrought-​iron gate. Ap­par­ent­ly we had ar­rived.

  Dash hit a buzzer that was built in­to a gray stone wall, and two sec­onds lat­er an im­pos­ing man in a green door­man's uni­form with gold tas­sels ap­peared. He looked us over with dis­dain, as if we were rab­ble off the street.

  “Can I help you?” he said through his nose.

  Noelle stepped up, near­ly shov­ing Dash aside. The door­man had the hu­man­ity, at least, to ap­pear stunned by the gor­geous­ness that had ap­peared in front of him. His eyes trailed down to the spot just above her cleav­age, where her own Lega­cy pen­dant glim­mered.

  The man's thin lips twist­ed in­to a smile and he bowed his head. “Wel­come.”

  He un­locked the gate, which gave an ages-​old squeal. Dash flashed his sleeves, show­ing off a pair of Lega­cy cuff links--the guys' ver­sion of a pass--and the man bowed to him as well. Whit­tak­er took my hand, de­tach­ing me from my friends, and showed his cuff links as we passed. The door­man glanced at my chest and nod­ded and my skin siz­zled with ex­cite­ment. I was in. My plus-​one had been ren­dered. Now it was time to get to the task at hand.

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  THE WEL­COME

  “This place is un­be­liev­able,” I whis­pered to Whit­tak­er as we wove our way through the milling guests. His hand was hot and sweaty and prac­ti­cal­ly crush­ing mine. All I want­ed to do was stop and take a look around, but Whit­tak­er was in a rush to get who knew where.

  “Come on. We have to get a good spot for the wel­come,” he said, hur­ry­ing me along.

  I held my mask up with my trem­bling free hand, strug­gling to see in the can­dle­light. I would have tak­en it down, but ev­ery­one else seemed in­tent on wear­ing theirs, and I didn't want to look like the gawk­er I was.

  “The wel­come?”

  Whit­tak­er didn't re­ply. It was so dark I could bare­ly make out the faces around me, es­pe­cial­ly with my line of sight par­tial­ly im­paired by se­quins. If the light­ing re­mained this way through­out the par­ty, I would nev­er be able to spot Thomas. Es­pe­cial­ly not if he was wear­ing a mask, like ev­ery­one else was. My on­ly hope was that Thomas would choose to be dif­fer­ent. Not a bad bet, ac­tu­al­ly.

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  All around me skirts swished, drinks were sipped, hushed voic­es mur­mured. For the par­ty of the cen­tu­ry, it was quite tame at the mo­ment. I scanned the crowd and saw no one fa­mil­iar, not even the peo­ple I had come with. Ev­ery­one had dis­persed the sec­ond we stepped off the el­eva­tor, dis­ap­pear­ing with­in the sea of hid­den faces.

  Fi­nal­ly Whit­tak­er paused near a wall and I was able to take a breath. He whis­pered some­thing to a tall, skin­ny wait­er, who re­turned mo­men­tar­ily with two drinks on a tray. Whit­tak­er hand­ed me an ex­treme­ly pink bev­er­age in a frost­ed mar­ti­ni glass and took the short, dark snifter for him­self. I at­tempt­ed to hold the glass with one hand and sloshed some of the liq­uid over the side on­to the exquisite mar­ble floor. Ap­par­ent­ly I need­ed some prac­tice.

  De­ci­sion time. Take off the mask or make a com­plete mess? I tucked my mask un­der my arm so I could hold the drink with both hands.

  “Who lives here?” I asked.

  “The Dre­skins,” Whit­tak­er said, un­fazed as he sur­veyed the dozens of cou­tured lega­cies milling about the great room. “Don­ald Dre­skin, Dee Dee Dre­skin, and their par­ents. They're good friends of the fam­ily.”

  “Oh. So you've been here be­fore?” I asked.

  “On oc­ca­sion,” he said. “And ev­ery year for this. The Dre­skins have been host­ing the Lega­cy since be­fore I was born.”

  He was so in­cred­ibly blase about the whole thing. As if ev­ery day he was whisked up to the two-​floor pent­hous­es of Park Av­enue

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  build­ings in pri­vate el­eva­tors that re­quired spe­cial keys to work. As if this apart­ment, which stretched the en­tire span of the build­ing on both floors and was big­ger than my en­tire house times five, was just an­oth­er home. So far all I had seen was the wide-​open foy­er with its sto­ry-​high Pi­cas­sos and its de­co chan­de­lier, fol­lowed by this hu­mon­gous room with its win­dows over­look­ing Cen­tral Park--the Cen­tral Park--and I was ready to faint with awe.

  Sud­den­ly there was a dis­tinct mur­mur through­out the crowd as ev­ery­one turned in our di­rec­tion. I glanced over my shoul­der to see what the fuss was about and saw that the two grand doors be­hind me were open­ing. The floor on that side of the room was raised three steps, cre­at­ing a sort of stage.

  “Ah. Here we are,” Whit­tak­er said ex­pec­tant­ly.

  Through the doors stepped a tall man in a tuxe­do, wear­ing a wood­en mask of a grotesque, leer­ing clown face. He clasped his hands in front of him and ev­ery­one fell silent.

  “Wel­come one, wel­come all,” the man said, his voice on­ly slight­ly muf­fled by the mask. “As the mas­ter of cer­emonies for this year's Lega­cy it is my hon­or, my priv­ilege, to in­vite each and ev­ery one of you in­to the in­ner sanc­tum.” There was a siz­zle of an­tic­ipa­tion felt even by me, al­though I had no idea what was go­ing on. The mas­ter raised one fin­ger in warn­ing. “But re­mem­ber, what you see here . . . what you do here . . . who you touch here . . . who you screw here ...”

  Know­ing laugh­ter all around.

  “All will re­main here,” he said. "For this is the Lega­cy, my

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  friends. You are the cho­sen. So make your peace now with whomev­er you wor­ship, and nev­er . . . look . . . back."

  With that, the mas­ter stepped aside and ev­ery­one moved to the doors at once as if an emer­gen­cy evac­ua­tion had been called.

  “What's in there?” I asked Whit­tak­er as he tugged at my hand. Af­ter that speech, I was feel­ing more than a lit­tle wary.

  “You'll see,” Whit­tak­er said with a mis­chievous smile.

  His grip on my hand tight­ened as we neared the dou­ble doors and I won­dered, for the first time, if I might have got­ten my­self in over my head.

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  DANCE, DANCE

  Walk­ing through the doors was like go­ing through the look­ing glass. A tremen­dous ball­room had been draped from ceil­ing to floor with swags of red, black, pink, and pur­ple vel­vet and chif­fon. Ropes of sparkling mir­rors dan­gled ev­ery­where, catch­ing the strobe lights and send­ing prisms over the hun­dreds of masked faces. Ac­ro­bats hung from cloth ropes tied to the ceil­ing, twirling and whirling over our heads, their bare­ly clad bod­ies paint­ed in swirls of col­or. In the cen­ter of the room, most of the par­ty­go­ers were al­ready start­ing to dance to the deaf­en­ing beat be­ing laid down by a DJ in the far cor­ner. On a cir­cu­lar stage next to him, a small or­ches­tra played a fren­zied song, their mu­sic in­ter­twin­ing with the beat to form some se­ri­ous­ly eerie, ex­ot­ic, al­most fran­tic mu­sic. Gor­geous wom­en in elab­orate cos­tumes cir­cu­lat­ed around the room, of­fer­ing drinks and ush­er­ing peo­ple be­hind cur­tained-​off ar­eas.

  My head spun. There was too much go­ing on around me. Too much may­hem, too much ac­tiv­ity. Just too much.

  “Reed!”

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  Ki­ran ap­peared out of nowhere and grabbed my hand. “Come dance!” she shout­ed.

  I looked at Whit­tak­er, who waved me off. “Go!”

  “I'll find you!” I said. At the mo­ment he seemed like the one and on­ly sol­id thing in my life.

  “Or I'll find you,” he promised.

  Then, for the hun­dredth time that night, I let Ki­ran drag me away. We passed by a large open­ing like a coat-​check
room, where a tall wom­an dressed like an an­gel was hand­ing out gifts of var­ious sizes, wrapped in white pa­per. A pack of girls took their gifts and rushed off to an al­cove with them.

  “What are they do­ing?” I asked.

  “The white gift. The Lega­cy's an­swer to fa­vors,” Ki­ran said over her shoul­der. “Noth­ing worth less than a thou­sand.”

  “A thou­sand dol­lars?” I said, gap­ing.

  “Yeah, but you still nev­er get what you want,” Ki­ran shout­ed. “The swap par­ty hap­pens lat­er.”

  Un­be­liev­able. This par­ty was un­be­liev­able. Who knew there was this much wealth in the world?

  Fi­nal­ly, Ki­ran some­how found Noelle, Dash, Ar­iana, Tay­lor, and Gage on the dance floor and dove right in, twirling me around once be­fore let­ting me go and leav­ing me to my own de­vices. I had nev­er been much of a dancer and for a mo­ment I was self- con­scious, un­til I re­al­ly took a look around me and saw how ev­ery­one else was do­ing. Suf­fice it to say, there wasn't re­al­ly any­one to im­press. I closed my eyes, lift­ed my arms, and let my­self go.

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  Cathar­tic. That was the on­ly word to ex­press the feel­ing. The longer I danced, the more all I had been through, all I an­tic­ipat­ed go­ing through, fad­ed in­to the back­ground. The mu­sic was so loud it seemed as if it was com­ing out of my bones, through my pores, re­ver­ber­at­ing from my own body and crowd­ing out ev­ery­thing else.

  This was per­fec­tion. Yes, per­fec­tion. In­su­lat­ed in the cen­ter of the dance floor. In­su­lat­ed from Whit­tak­er and those al­coves and what­ev­er might be go­ing on with­in them. In­su­lat­ed from Natasha and her threats, from Con­stance and her ac­cu­sa­tions, from Thomas and his be­tray­al and the wor­ry that sur­round­ed ev­ery thought of him. This was my com­fort zone. If I could just stay here among my friends for the rest of the night, I would be fine.

  “Hav­ing fun?” Noelle shout­ed, twirling over and throw­ing her arms around my neck. She moved against me, com­plete­ly sure, com­plete­ly un-​self-​con­scious. I did my best to mim­ic her move­ment, her con­fi­dence.