Invitation Only

  64

  “Why . . . why are you show­ing these to me?” I asked, as the slideshow start­ed up all over again. I turned my face away, from her, from the screen, from the truth of what I'd done.

  “Be­cause I want you to un­der­stand how very se­ri­ous I am about what I am about to pro­pose,” Natasha said. She grabbed the chair and spun it around on its wheels so that I had to face her. Brac­ing her hands on its arms, she leaned for­ward and looked me dead in the eye. “You do know what these pic­tures mean, right? You do re­al­ize that if I choose to do so, I can get you boot­ed out of here so fast your head will spin.”

  Tears prick­led at the cor­ners of my eyes. She was right, of course. She had pho­to­graph­ic ev­idence of me break­ing some very se­ri­ous school rules. Even worse, it looked as if Whit­tak­er and I had done it all alone. Even though there had been close to a dozen oth­er peo­ple in the woods that night, not a sin­gle one of them ap­peared in these pic­tures.

  “Why are you do­ing this?”

  What was wrong with me? I had be­lieved her when she told me she want­ed to be my friend. When had I be­come so gullible?

  “Be­cause there's some­thing I need you to do for me,” she said, stand­ing up straight.

  “What?” I was al­ready her in­den­tured ser­vant. Did we need twist­ed es­pi­onage in our re­la­tion­ship?

  “Noelle Lange and her friends are re­spon­si­ble for get­ting Leanne kicked out of school,” Natasha said. “They set her up.”

  Her ac­cu­sa­tion did not sur­prise me. On the day that Natasha's

  65

  room­mate, Leanne Shore, had been es­cort­ed from school grounds af­ter be­ing found guilty of break­ing the Eas­ton hon­or code by cheat­ing, Natasha had ac­cused Noelle of hav­ing had some­thing to do with it. I had been there, in the quad, when she had got­ten right up in Noelle's face. But I had thought Natasha was ba­si­cal­ly in­sane.

  “How .. . how do you know?” I asked.

  “I just know,” Natasha said. “The prob­lem is, I have no proof. That's where you come in.”

  Oh, God, no. No, no, no. Please tell me she isn't go­ing to make me--

  “Now that you're our new scrub girl, you have un­lim­it­ed ac­cess to their rooms,” Natasha said. “I want you to find the ev­idence I need. I want you to go through ev­ery­thing they own. They have to have kept some­thing. They're big on tro­phies. Find me what I need to nail their ass­es to the wall.”

  I stared up at her, my hair drip­ping cold as ice down my neck. “I... I can't do that,” I said.

  I would lose ev­ery­thing. They would find out and they would kick me out of Billings. They would nev­er speak to me again. Ev­ery­thing I had worked for would be gone in an in­stant.

  Plus Noelle would kill me. There was al­ways that.

  “Oh, but you can,” she said with a smirk. “Un­less you want that e-​mailed to the dean and the board and ev­ery sin­gle stu­dent and teach­er at this school.”

  I glanced up at the screen again. Whit­tak­er's tongue was down

  66

  my throat. I tast­ed bile. I tried to swal­low but couldn't. Tears stung my eyes all over again. These pic­tures rep­re­sent­ed the end of me. The end of my life, my fu­ture. Didn't she see that?

  “I thought we were friends,” I said blankly. Maybe guilt would work. I was grasp­ing at straws.

  “Aw! That's so sweet!” Natasha trilled. “So, do we have an un­der­stand­ing? ”

  I stared at her, hard. There wasn't a trace of re­gret or un­cer­tain­ty in her eyes. This was so wrong. Natasha was sup­posed to be the moral cen­ter of Eas­ton. At least, that was what Noelle had once called her, and Natasha had seemed proud of the moniker. Now here she was tak­ing se­cret soft-​core porn shots of her sup­posed friends and black­mail­ing peo­ple with them. Where was the moral­ity in that?

  Of course, she was al­so pres­ident of the Young Re­pub­li­cans club. From ev­ery­thing I'd read and heard my en­tire life, this was a ma­neu­ver of which any politi­cian would be proud.

  “Reed? I asked you a ques­tion.”

  My hands were trem­bling. I couldn't do this. Not af­ter ev­ery­thing Noelle had done for me. Not with ev­ery­thing she could take away.

  But Natasha could take away more. And I was look­ing at the proof of that.

  The sit­ua­tion was a per­fect lose-​lose.

  'Yeah. We have an un­der­stand­ing," I said.

  “Good. Now get to bed,” Natasha told me, mer­ci­ful­ly shut­ting down the slide show. 'You've got a lot of work ahead of you."

  67

  * * *

  The next morn­ing I me­thod­ical­ly moved through my chores, my mind on ten mil­lion oth­er things. For some rea­son, ev­ery­one was up and out of their rooms ear­ly, and I was able to make the beds with­out hav­ing to en­dure snide com­ments or de­tailed di­rec­tion. The en­tire time I was in Noelle and Ar­iana's room, Natasha's voice played like a skip­ping CD in my mind.

  Nail their ass­es to the wall. . . nail their ass­es to the wall. . . nail their ass­es to the wall. . .

  I stared at Noelle's dress­er. It taunt­ed me, beg­ging me to ri­fle through its draw­ers. No one was around. It would on­ly take a few min­utes. If Natasha made good on her threats, it would mean a one-​way tick­et back to Cro­ton, Penn­syl­va­nia, and my pre­scrip­tion-​drug-​ad­dict moth­er and my de­pressed fa­ther. It would mean the end of ev­ery­thing.

  And yeah, if I found the proof she was look­ing for, not on­ly would Noelle and the oth­ers hate me, but they would al­so get thrown out of school. They would be gone and I would still be here, in Billings. Even with­out them, I would still have a chance, right?

  68

  They might have been the most pow­er­ful of the Billings Girls, but I would still have the Billings name be­hind me. That had to count for some­thing. Didn't it?

  So, re­al­ly, what did I have to lose?

  I start­ed for the dress­er, but the mo­ment I did, a sick­en­ing dread came over me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't look through their pri­vate things. I couldn't help Natasha rat out Noelle and Ar­iana-- the on­ly peo­ple who had shown any re­al con­cern for me since Thomas left. Yeah, they made me do chores, but they were al­so my friends. Sort of. And be­sides, it was just wrong. So I told my­self I didn't have time--that I would deal with it lat­er--and I moved on.

  Af­ter my show­er I pulled my damp hair back in­to a pony­tail, grabbed my books, and rushed out. That was when I heard the par­ty.

  “Omigod! Look at this lug­gage! This is di­vine!”

  “Open the big one! The big one!”

  A cham­pagne bot­tle popped and a bunch of girls squealed. What was go­ing on down­stairs? It sound­ed like a bad episode of The Bach­elor. I slow­ly walked down the car­pet­ed steps and paused. The en­tire en­try room was filled with white he­li­um bal­loons. All the girls of Billings were gath­ered around a pile of elab­orate­ly dec­orat­ed gifts in the cen­ter of the floor, while al­ready-​opened box­es had been flung against the walls. Wrap­ping pa­per lit­tered the room and rib­bons had been strung from the ban­is­ter and the wall hang­ings. I saw Ki­ran slip a silk scarf around her neck and tip a glass of cham­pagne down her throat.

  69

  It was sev­en thir­ty in the morn­ing.

  “What's go­ing on?” I asked, ar­riv­ing at the bot­tom stair.

  “Glass-​lick­er! Just the girl I was look­ing for!” Ki­ran trilled. She grabbed a small box and hand­ed it to me with a flour­ish. "For you!

  It was an iPod. A lim­it­ed-​edi­tion se­quined aqua iPod.

  “What? Why?”

  Ev­ery­one laughed.

  “It's Ki­ran's birth­day!” Tay­lor an­nounced, look­ing more rosy-​cheeked than she had in days. Ev­ery­one whooped and hollered.

  “It is? Hap­py birth­day!” I told her with a s
mile.

  “And on Ki­ran's birth­day, we all get gifts,” Vi­en­na told me, sip­ping her cham­pagne.

  “I don't get it,” I said.

  “Ev­ery year it's the same thing,” Ki­ran said, rolling her eyes. “All these presents roll in from de­sign­ers and pho­tog­ra­phers and mag­azine ed­itors and stylists. So much crap I can't even fit it all in my room.”

  “And there are al­ways tons of du­pli­cates,” Noelle said, fin­ger­ing a Louis Vuit­ton purse.

  “So I give it all away,” Ki­ran said, throw­ing her hands up with a smile. “Or most of it, any­way. I think I'm keep­ing the lug­gage.”

  “Oh,” Rose said, pout­ing. She had clear­ly been cov­et­ing the five-​bag set, hov­er­ing over it ev­er since I ar­rived.

  “So that's for you,” Ki­ran said, ges­tur­ing at me with her cham­pagne glass.

  70

  “Re­al­ly? Even Cin­derel­la gets a gift?” I joked.

  Ki­ran and Noelle looked at each oth­er and laughed. “Even Cin­derel­la,” Noelle said.

  Ah. So that was it. No one else want­ed it, so I got it. Still, I couldn't com­plain. I was im­pressed that they had thought of me at all.

  “Get over here!” Ki­ran said, throw­ing her arm around me and pulling me to­ward the gift pile. “There has to be some more good stuff that hasn't been claimed. Ev­ery­one clear out! Let Glass-​lick­er pick some­thing!”

  There were a few grum­bles, but the girls backed off. I eyed the pile of de­sign­er tags, lit­tle blue box­es with white bows, big black box­es with gold rib­bon. These were Ki­ran's gifts. Ki­ran's things. And she was of­fer­ing to share it all. With me. No strings at­tached.

  “Here! This col­or would look amaz­ing on you, Reed,” Tay­lor said, hold­ing up a silky red dress.

  “Take the suede jack­et. Ev­ery girl needs a lit­tle suede,” Ar­iana said, hand­ing over a box.

  “We'll make a fash­ion­ista out of you yet,” Ki­ran told me, of­fer­ing a cham­pagne flute.

  “Wow. This is in­cred­ible, Ki­ran. Thanks,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, step­ping in front of me and look­ing me in the eye. “What are friends for?”

  My in­sides squeezed with guilt and I took a slug of the cham­pagne. Friends, huh? What would she think if she knew that a few min­utes ago I had been con­sid­er­ing paw­ing through her stuff? And Noelle's and Ar­iana's and Tay­lor's? Would she still call me a friend then? Not like­ly.

  71

  I shook my head and tried to clear the neg­ativ­ity. I hadn't done it. I hadn't be­trayed them. Not yet any­way. But for the first time, as I looked around at their ea­ger, hap­py faces, I sud­den­ly re­al­ized what I had to lose if I went through with Natasha's plan. It was this. If I went through with it, these girls would all be gone from this place, gone from my life.

  I had this to lose.

  72

  PER­FECT GEN­TLE­MAN

  All through­out my morn­ing class­es, I was in a daze. If my art teach­er had called on me dur­ing her lec­ture about French Im­pres­sion­ism, I prob­ably would have mut­tered an an­swer like, “The ra­tio of the height to the hy­potenuse.” I had no idea where I was.

  To spy or not to spy? That was the ques­tion. And when that wasn't the ques­tion, there was al­ways that oth­er in­finites­imal is­sue: When were the po­lice go­ing to come get me? And when they did, was I or was I not go­ing to tell them about Thomas's note?

  I had a few more press­ing things on my mind than whether or not Claude Mon­et could be con­sid­ered a rev­olu­tion­ary.

  When I was fi­nal­ly re­leased from my fourth class of the day, I was the first one out the door. I prac­ti­cal­ly jogged down the hall­way, in des­per­ate need of oxy­gen. I had to clear my head. I had to go some­where and think. I had no idea what any of my teach­ers had said all morn­ing long. If I didn't fig­ure all this out soon, Natasha's black­mail would be a moot point. I would flunk out be­fore she could get me ex­pelled.

  73

  As I shoved open the door of the class­room build­ing and emerged in­to the sun, I took a nice deep breath of the crisp au­tumn air. This was what I need­ed. I would stroll at a leisure­ly pace across cam­pus to the cafe­te­ria. I would take a sec­ond to breathe and re­group. A few min­utes of alone time were just what the shrink or­dered.

  “Hel­lo, Reed.”

  Walt Whit­tak­er was lean­ing up against the stone pil­lar at the bot­tom of the stairs. In­stant­ly Natasha's nasty slide show re­played it­self in my brain. Lips, hands, tongues. Ugh. Ap­par­ent­ly he had fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed it was time to talk to me. The boy of­fi­cial­ly had my nom­ina­tion for the Worst Tim­ing Award.

  “Hi,” I said, walk­ing right by him.

  As al­ways, a few gos­sip­ing girls were watch­ing me and I was hop­ing he would be em­bar­rassed in front of them and take the hint. I phys­ical­ly shud­dered as I passed him. What should have been a quick­ly for­got­ten, de­tail-​fuzzy hookup had now turned in­to a messy en­counter that was per­ma­nent­ly burned in­to my brain.

  “I was hop­ing we could talk.”

  With his long legs, he had caught up to me in two sim­ple strides.

  I took a deep breath and let it out au­di­bly. Okay. This was not his fault. He wasn't the one black­mail­ing me. As far as I knew he didn't even have a clue that those pic­tures ex­ist­ed. And it wasn't as if I could avoid the guy for­ev­er. Might as well get this over with, I thought. At least it would be one less thing to think about. I stepped off the cob­bled path and un­der the shade of a gold­en maple.

  74

  I tried not to cringe when I looked at him.

  “How are you?” Whit­tak­er asked me, his brown eyes full of con­cern.

  “Fine,” I told him. “You?”

  “I'm well. Thank you for ask­ing. Lis­ten, about the oth­er night,” he be­gan, caus­ing my in­sides to squirm. “I want­ed to apol­ogize. I was a tad over my lim­it and I think you may have been as well.” He looked at me for con­fir­ma­tion.

  “A tad.”

  Un­der­state­ment of the mil­len­ni­um.

  “Well, I think I may have tak­en ad­van­tage,” he said, look­ing down briefly at his loafers. “And for that I am tru­ly sor­ry.”

  Wow. A guy ap­prox­imate­ly my own age who was ac­tu­al­ly a gen­tle­man. My shoul­der mus­cles un­coiled slight­ly. Clear­ly I had been right about Whit from the be­gin­ning, even though my orig­inal judg­ment had been made in the midst of an al­co­hol blitz. This was a gen­uine­ly nice guy. I couldn't take Natasha's evil­ness out on him.

  “It's okay,” I said.

  “No. It's not. I-”

  “Re­al­ly, Whit­tak­er,” I said. “I was there too. I knew what I was do­ing.” At least I thought I knew. Un­til last night, when I found out what it ac­tu­al­ly looked like. “It's not all on you.”

  Whit­tak­er smiled his thanks. “Still, you are a la­dy. You de­serve to be treat­ed like one.”

  Oh, I am so not a la­dy.

  “Thank you,” I said, try­ing to smile.

  75

  “So,” he said, then laughed. “Now that the awk­ward part is over, shall we agree to be . . . friends?”

  Friends? Yes. Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Good. Friends it is,” Whit­tak­er said. Then he caught my hand in his, lift­ed it, and kissed it light­ly.

  Right. None of my oth­er friends did that, but okay.

  “I have a meet­ing with the dean now, but I'll see you at din­ner?” he asked, rais­ing his eye­brows.

  “See ya then,” I replied.

  As he turned and strolled away, I won­dered if he was telling the truth about this friends thing, but I de­cid­ed not to dwell on it. I had too many oth­er things to dwell on. For now, I'd take the gen­tle­man at his word. And lat
­er, if need be, I'd hold him to it.

  76

  SKELE­TONS

  The more peo­ple the po­lice in­ter­viewed, the more the Eas­ton Acade­my ru­mor mill took on a life of its own. If Leanne's ex­pul­sion had been an eight, then Thomas's dis­ap­pear­ance was a ten- plus. Ev­ery­where I went, ev­ery­one was ask­ing ev­ery­one else what they knew, what they'd heard--and yet, no one seemed to know any­thing. It was all very frus­trat­ing. The longer we all went with­out a clue, the more pan­icked the vibe be­came, un­til I felt as if the ki­net­ic en­er­gy of the stu­dent body might ac­tu­al­ly cause a nu­cle­ar melt­down.

  “So, have you heard any­thing?” Con­stance asked me, slid­ing in­to the seat next to mine in trig class, our last of the day.

  “No. You?” I asked.

  “I heard they kept Dash Mc­Caf­fer­ty in there for over an hour,” Con­stance said breath­less­ly. “And ap­par­ent­ly Tay­lor Bell came out in tears.”

  “What? No,” I said. “Why would Tay­lor be cry­ing?”

  “Who knows?” Con­stance said. “Maybe she has a se­cret crush on Thomas or some­thing.”

  77

  Tay­lor? Not pos­si­ble. Or was it? I had nev­er seen her look twice at Thomas, and that was hard to keep from do­ing. More like­ly she had just got­ten over­wrought by the whole sit­ua­tion. Or some­one had just made this whole cry­ing thing up.

  I re­mem­bered Noelle's the­ory and won­dered if Thomas re­al­ly was out there hav­ing a big laugh at the dra­ma he was caus­ing. Was that the re­al rea­son he hadn't told any­one where he was go­ing? I wished for the ten mil­lionth time that I could just see him, just ask him what the hell he was think­ing. But there was a way. If I could just find out more about this Lega­cy thing and score an in­vite, I might have a chance to fi­nal­ly, fi­nal­ly track him down.

  “Hey, let me ask you a ques­tion. Do you know any­thing about this thing called the Lega­cy?” I asked.

  Con­stance snort­ed de­ri­sive­ly and sank down in her seat. 'Yeah. It's pret­ty much all any­one can talk about. Be­sides you, of course."