Invitation Only

  “Right. What is it?” I asked.

  “It's some huge par­ty in the city or some­thing,” Con­stance said. “It's all very hush-​hush. At least from peo­ple like us.”

  I blinked. “Peo­ple like us?” Oth­er than our both be­ing sopho­mores, Con­stance and I had pret­ty much ze­ro in com­mon.

  “Non-​lega­cies,” Con­stance said. “On­ly peo­ple who come from, like, a long line of pri­vate-​school peo­ple are in­vit­ed. So not peo­ple like us.”

  Now it was my turn to sink in­to my seat. So that was what those girls had meant when they'd said they'd nev­er see me there. “Oh. Re­al­ly? ”

  'Yeah. Sucks, huh?“ Con­stance said. ”It sounds like it's gonna be in­cred­ible. Mis­sy Thurber said that last year ev­ery guy who

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  went got a plat­inum Rolex and ev­ery girl got a lim­it­ed-​edi­tion Har­ry Win­ston neck­lace. I'd kill for a Har­ry Win­ston any­thing. My mom won't let me have any good jew­el­ry un­til I'm eigh­teen. She thinks I'll lose it."

  “Bum­mer,” I said, my hopes of see­ing Thomas slip­ping away be­fore my eyes.

  “But, hey, you're in Billings now, so maybe you'll get to go any­way.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You know. The Billings Girls get ev­ery­thing,” Con­stance said, like it was so ob­vi­ous. “You prob­ably get an au­to­mat­ic in­vite or some­thing.”

  I con­sid­ered this the­ory for a mo­ment. It wasn't a bad one, ac­tu­al­ly. Ev­ery­one at Eas­ton knew that the Billings Girls were nev­er left out of any­thing un­less they chose to leave them­selves out. Maybe this would be my first chance to ex­er­cise my au­to­mat­ic in. And see Thomas. God, I hoped so.

  “Omigod! There he is!” Con­stance said sud­den­ly, grab­bing my arm.

  My heart com­plete­ly stopped. I looked out the win­dow. “Thomas?”

  “No! Walt Whit­tak­er,” Con­stance whis­pered, pulling her desk clos­er to mine. “I heard he was back from his trip.”

  In­stant­ly, ev­ery sin­gle part of me drooped. Nice tease. I turned around and sure enough, stand­ing in the hall­way out­side the class­room talk­ing to our trig teach­er, was none oth­er than Whit

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  him­self. The Twin Cities, Lon­don and Vi­en­na, hov­ered near­by, clutch­ing their books, clear­ly wait­ing for him to fin­ish his con­ver­sa­tion. Ap­par­ent­ly, what­ev­er Lon­don was plan­ning on us­ing Whit for, the cam­paign had be­gun.

  “You know him?” I asked.

  “Know him? Our par­ents are to­tal­ly old friends,” Con­stance said, still grip­ping my arm. “They're the ones who ac­tu­al­ly sug­gest­ed I ap­ply here. Omigod, look at him. He is so hot.”

  In­ter­nal alarm. I sat up a bit straighter. “What?”

  “Wow. He's to­tal­ly lost weight,” Con­stance said, all star­ry- eyed. “He must be work­ing out.”

  Lost weight? Re­al­ly? Huh. What had he been tip­ping the scales at be­fore? Three bills?

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Do you . . . like him?” I asked.

  Con­stance ripped her gaze away from Whit for the first time and looked at me. She might as well have been one of those blissed-​out fans in the front row at some pop con­cert.

  “I've had a crush on him since I was about ten,” she said. “Of course, he bare­ly even knows I ex­ist, but I--”

  “What about Clint?” I asked. She did, af­ter all, have a boyfriend back in New York.

  Con­stance scoffed. “Omigod, if Walt Whit­tak­er showed any in­ter­est in me at all, I would dump Clint like that.” She added a fin­ger snap to show just how quick­ly.

  “Wow. I had no idea,” I said, slid­ing down in my seat again.

  I could hard­ly be­lieve that a guy like Whit could in­spire such

  80

  ar­dor in a girl, but it just went to show there was some­one for ev­ery­one. And it turned out that Con­stance's some­one just hap­pened to be the same some­one who had stuck his tongue down my throat just a cou­ple of nights ago.

  “Oh, no one does. I keep it com­plete­ly on the DL,” Con­stance said, then gasped. “Don't tell any­one, okay?”

  “Don't wor­ry, I won't.”

  Just like I won't be telling you about a cer­tain il­lic­it en­counter with a cer­tain some­one in the woods Sun­day night.

  Just what I need­ed. More se­crets from more peo­ple. Pret­ty soon it was go­ing to get tough keep­ing them all straight.

  81

  FRIENDS WITH BEN­EFITS

  An­oth­er night passed. Then an­oth­er. There was no word of Thomas. Ev­ery hour of ev­ery day was oc­cu­pied with ei­ther chores, class, or avoid­ing Natasha, which wasn't easy, con­sid­er­ing we shared a room. I hadn't searched Noelle's room or any­one else's. Hadn't so much as opened a draw­er. The longer Natasha went with­out men­tion­ing it, the more I hoped she might just for­get about it.

  A girl could dream.

  Still, all the work and wor­ry and stealth ma­neu­ver­ing to avoid her took their toll. I couldn't sleep, could hard­ly eat, and was still wait­ing for the po­lice to come talk to me. By the end of the week, I felt like a shad­ow of my for­mer self.

  On Fri­day at lunch I placed my over­load­ed tray at the end of the Billings ta­ble and hand­ed out the food I had been told to pro­cure. Then I dropped down in­to one of two emp­ty seats and pulled out my trig text with a sigh. I had a quiz that af­ter­noon. I couldn't even re­mem­ber what chap­ter it was sup­posed to cov­er.

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  List­less­ly, I flipped through the pages, notic­ing my raw, ir­ri­tat­ed fin­ger­tips, red from clean­ing prod­ucts and chapped from too much wash­ing. My knuck­les were cracked as well and there were lit­tle nicks and cuts all over my hands. I was tru­ly be­com­ing a hard la­bor­er.

  A shad­ow fell over my book just as I de­cid­ed on a chap­ter to read through. Or more like­ly, one sen­tence to read through over and over and over again with­out ab­sorb­ing a thing. Some­one cleared his throat. Fi­nal­ly I looked up.

  Whit hov­ered over me, his hands be­hind his back, a mis­chievous smile on his face. He wore a green sweater with a tiny hound's-​tooth pat­tern that on him looked like way too many hound's teeth.

  “Hel­lo, Reed,” he said, near gid­dy.

  “Hi...?”

  I looked around at the oth­ers. A few of them watched with in­ter­est. Lon­don, who sat at the next ta­ble just be­hind Noelle, seemed es­pe­cial­ly in­trigued. She ac­tu­al­ly stopped groom­ing and turned around.

  “What's up?” I said.

  “I have some­thing for you,” Whit told me. “Noth­ing big. Don't wor­ry. I just... I saw them and I thought of you.”

  Big gulp.

  “Them?” I said.

  Whit­tak­er pro­duced a small box from be­hind his back. It was gray and shiny and had gold let­ter­ing. I stared at it.

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  What­ev­er was in that box, I had a feel­ing it was not “just friends” ap­pro­pri­ate. In fact, no ran­dom gift on a ran­dom day would be “just friends” ap­pro­pri­ate. This was not good.

  I glanced around. A few peo­ple at ad­ja­cent ta­bles were start­ing to take no­tice. Lon­don glared at me with ob­vi­ous en­vy and Vi­en­na looked, in a word, stunned. I glimpsed Con­stance just en­ter­ing the lunch line at the back of the room. Ap­par­ent­ly she hadn't seen.

  “Go ahead. Open it,” Whit­tak­er said.

  If I made a big stink about this, we would on­ly draw more at­ten­tion. And right now, the one per­son who re­al­ly didn't need to see this was hid­den from view.

  “God, Reed, what's the hes­ita­tion?” Ki­ran asked. “It's jew­el­ry.”

  'You're giv­ing her jew­el­ry?" Josh asked, look­ing an­noyed.

  “It's not a big deal,” Whit­tak­er said. “Just open it, Reed.”

  I sm
iled at Whit­tak­er, em­bar­rassed for both of us, and took the box. I quick­ly lift­ed the lid and re­moved the small black vel­vet box in­side. My hands trem­bled as I strug­gled to crack it open. Fi­nal­ly it popped wide with a creak, startling me. The whole thing al­most slipped out of my fin­gers, but I caught it just in time.

  “Holy crap,” I blurt­ed.

  Ev­ery­one laughed. Sit­ting against the black satin were two large, square di­amonds. Ear­rings. More ex­pen­sive than any­thing I had ev­er owned, or would ev­er own, in my life­time prob­ably. Tay­lor and Ki­ran both stood on their toes to see in­to the box. Lon­don and Vi­en­na both knelt on their chairs and turned around, near­ly knock­ing each oth­er over to get a look.

  84

  “What the hell?” Lon­don blurt­ed, earn­ing an ad­mon­ish­ing whack from Vi­en­na. Lon­don dropped back in­to her chair and sulked.

  “Wow. Nice choice, Whit,” Ki­ran said. “You have a good eye.”

  Whit­tak­er beamed at the praise. “I was in town for din­ner with my grand­moth­er last night and I saw them in a shop win­dow and I just knew you had to have them,” he said. “What do you think? Do you like them?”

  Di­amond ear­rings. My very own di­amond ear­rings. All the oth­er girls at the ta­ble had sim­ilar pairs. When­ev­er they wore them I tried not to stare, not to cov­et. But now I had my own. I had no idea what to say. Ex­cept why, why, why was he giv­ing these to me?

  “They're . . . they're gor­geous,” I told him. Then I screwed up ev­ery ounce of strength in my soul to add, “But I can't ac­cept them.”

  “Sure you can,” Whit­tak­er said, with­out miss­ing a beat.

  “They're too much,” I said.

  “Reed,” Noelle said through her teeth. “Don't be rude.”

  I glanced around at the girls. They were all giv­ing me the same ad­mon­ish­ing look. Was that what I would be do­ing if I didn't take these ear­rings that prob­ably could have paid for my en­tire tu­ition? If I got him back that mon­ey so that he wouldn't be wast­ing it on some­one who was not now, nor would ev­er be, at­tract­ed to him? If I re­fused to lead him on, would that be rude in their world?

  From the death glares I was cur­rent­ly field­ing, ap­par­ent­ly so.

  I looked up at Whit. He looked so hope­ful and hap­py. The last

  85

  thing I want­ed to do was hu­mil­iate him in front of ev­ery­one. And be­sides, Con­stance would be re-​emerg­ing from the lunch line at any sec­ond. I couldn't let her see this. Un­less I want­ed to crush her.

  “Thank you, Whit. This was re­al­ly . . . sweet of you,” I said fi­nal­ly. I closed the box and placed it back in­side the larg­er one.

  “It was my plea­sure,” he said with a self-​sat­is­fied grin.

  Then he glanced over my shoul­der. “Oh! There's Mrs. Sol­er­no. I haven't seen her yet. My grand­moth­er would kill me if I didn't say hel­lo.”

  Who was this grand­moth­er? And how could I get her to stop tak­ing him in­to town and let­ting him blow his wad on ill-​ad­vised gifts?

  “I'll be right back,” he said.

  Then he squeezed my shoul­der and walked off.

  “Wow. I guess Whit re­al­ly likes you,” Ar­iana said the sec­ond he was gone.

  “Good for Whit,” Dash said, like a proud pa­pa.

  “Mov­ing on al­ready, huh, Reed?” Josh asked.

  My cheeks burned and ev­ery­one fell silent for a long mo­ment. Josh's face flushed too, as if he had just re­al­ized how hurt­ful his words were, and he avert­ed his eyes.

  “First of all, Hol­lis, Reed's per­son­al life is none of your busi­ness,” Noelle snapped. “Sec­ond, your lit­tle bud­dy bailed with­out so much as a warn­ing. She has ev­ery right to move on.”

  “Sor­ry,” Josh said. He crum­pled up his nap­kin and threw it down. “I got­ta go.”

  86

  He shoved him­self up from the ta­ble, shot me an apolo­get­ic look, and walked off. For some rea­son, I couldn't swal­low for a sol­id minute. Ev­ery­one watched me and wait­ed.

  “Uh, hate to burst your bub­ble, ev­ery­one,” I said fi­nal­ly, tremu­lous­ly. “But Whit­tak­er and I are just friends.” I quick­ly stashed the ear­rings in the bot­tom of my bag.

  “Shyah, right,” Gage said, suck­ing on his soup spoon. “ 'Cause I buy all my friends five-​thou­sand-​dol­lar ear­rings for no rea­son.”

  My mind spun. Five thou­sand dol­lars. Five thou­sand dol­lars.

  “Come on, new girl. Give the poor guy a shot,” Dash whee­dled, pop­ping a few grapes in­to his mouth. “He de­serves to get a lit­tle.”

  Noelle whacked his arm with the back of her hand and all the guys snick­ered.

  “Ha ha,” I said, pre­tend­ing to fo­cus again on my book. “Sor­ry to dis­ap­point, but we re­al­ly are just friends. It was his idea to be just friends.”

  “Uh-​huh,” Natasha said un­der her breath. Her voice gave me chills. “You just keep telling your­self that.”

  87

  TRUE COL­ORS

  “Reed.”

  I kept walk­ing, duck­ing my head in­to the wind. I couldn't hear her. The wind was too loud. Let her be­lieve that I couldn't hear her.

  “Reed! Reed, I know you can hear me.”

  I stopped walk­ing and turned around to face Natasha. Her curls danced around her head in the wind, giv­ing her a very Medusa look.

  “I know you've been avoid­ing me,” she said, hug­ging a cou­ple of note­books to her chest. “And I've let you be­cause I was giv­ing you time to do your job. So tell me. What have you found?”

  “Noth­ing,” I replied.

  Her eye­brows shot up. “Noth­ing?”

  I sighed and looked at my feet. “I've kind of had oth­er things on my mind, Natasha,” I said, try­ing to sound an­noyed. An­noyed and un­af­fect­ed and not scared. “You know . . . school, soc­cer, miss­ing boyfriend?”

  Take pity. Come on. You know you want to take pity.

  "Weren't think­ing about the miss­ing boyfriend much when

  88

  you were crawl­ing all over Whit­tak­er, were you?“ she said. ”Thomas is on that e-​mail list, too, you know. Do you want him to come back and find out what you re­al­ly are?"

  My face burned with anger. “And what's that?”

  Natasha took a step clos­er to me. Her eyes were amused. “A cheat­ing, drunk­en slut who's too weak to stand up and take care of her­self. Maybe he'd like to know about those lit­tle baubles in your bag as well. Ac­cept­ing gifts from an­oth­er guy,” she said, cluck­ing her tongue. “Yeah. You sure are the faith­ful, con­cerned girl­friend.”

  I could have hit her. I could have smacked her right then and there. And I might have, if sev­er­al teach­ers and po­lice of­fi­cers hadn't been milling around the quad at that very mo­ment.

  “You don't owe them any­thing, Reed,” Natasha said. “Do what's right. Or you know what I'm go­ing to have to do.”

  She turned and strolled off, care­free, as if we'd been dis­cussing the weath­er. When I turned around, I was face-​to-​face with Josh. My hand flew to my chest. I re­al­ly didn't think I could take much more of this.

  “Sor­ry,” he said, ad­just­ing the strap on his back­pack. “I scared you.”

  “It's fine,” I said, push­ing past him. I didn't have any room for more of his jabs.

  “Reed! Can I just apol­ogize?” he asked.

  I stopped and blew out a breath. Then I turned to face him.

  “What the hell was that?” I de­mand­ed.

  He looked al­most des­per­ate as he stepped to­ward me. “I don't know. I'm sor­ry. It just came out.”

  89

  “Well, Noelle was right. It's re­al­ly none of your busi­ness what I do,” I told him.

  “Reed, come on. Don't say that,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked. r />
  “Be­cause. I was hop­ing we could be ... I don't know . . . friends,” he said, lift­ing his shoul­ders. 'You're one of the on­ly nor­mal peo­ple at this school and I... I like you."

  It was such a sim­ple, sweet state­ment that I felt my ten­sion start to ebb. 'You do?"

  Josh smiled. He had a per­fect, boy­ish smile. “Yeah. I do.”

  “Then why did you say that?” I asked him. “It kind of stung, you know.”

  “I know. I'm sor­ry. I can be judg­men­tal some­times. It's a flaw,” he said. “I will work on it, though. If you'll for­give me.”

  Some­how, I found my­self grin­ning. “Okay, fine. You're for­giv­en.”

  “Re­al­ly? Thank you. I re­al­ly am sor­ry--”

  I held up a hand. “Let's just not talk about it any­more, okay?”

  “Fair enough. Well, bet­ter get to class.”

  Right. Class. Some­how that sup­pos­ed­ly im­por­tant as­pect of be­ing here at Eas­ton had dropped fair­ly low on my pri­or­ity list.

  “See you lat­er?” he asked.

  “Def­inite­ly,” I replied.

  Then I turned and walked off smil­ing to­ward my class build­ing. Un­be­liev­able. In two sec­onds Josh Hol­lis had ac­tu­al­ly al­most made me for­get en­tire­ly about Natasha's threats.

  Al­most.

  90

  AC­CU­SA­TION

  My foot bounced up and down un­der my desk as I sat in trig class be­fore the bell, try­ing to cram in some last-​minute in­for­ma­tion. I shot a pa­thet­ic smile at Con­stance as she dropped in­to the seat next to mine.

  “Ready for the quiz?” I asked.

  'Yeah. So I have a ques­tion.“ Her voice was un­nat­ural­ly high- pitched. She laced her fin­gers to­geth­er on her desk as she turned to me. ”Why is Walt Whit­tak­er giv­ing you gifts?"

  My stom­ach turned. This was not what I need­ed right now.

  'You saw that?" I asked, rub­bing at a sud­den headache that had just sprung up be­tween my eyes.

  “No. Mis­sy and Lor­na did,” she replied. “I don't be­lieve this. Yes­ter­day I'm pour­ing my heart out to you about my feel­ings for him,” she said un­der her breath. “And the whole time you two have a thing go­ing on. I'm such an id­iot.”

  “No, Con­stance. It is so not like that,” I said. “We do not have a thing go­ing on. There is no thing.”