Adored

  That’s better, she thought, though it wasn’t until she was out in the crisp wintry air that she wondered when she’d become such a cranky old lady.

  19

  A WAVERLY OWL KNOWS THAT THERE’S ALWAYS ANOTHER IT GIRL WAITING IN THE WINGS.

  “Beautiful,” Kaitlin Becker whispered on Thursday afternoon, crouching down on one knee. Her camera was pointed upward toward Jenny, who carefully arranged herself in the window seat of her Dumbarton room. Jenny propped one leg up as she leaned out the open window, a lit cigarette—borrowed from Callie’s pack of Marlboro Lights— dangling from her fingertips. She rarely smoked, but after an entire week of one failed photo op after another, she needed something to calm her nerves. She blew a funnel of smoke into the cold afternoon air, trying to keep it out of the room. The sun was starting to set and she hoped the last light framed her nicely for Kaitlin. In her black cowl-neck Banana Republic sweater and faded boot-cut jeans with the holes in her knees and paint splotches everywhere, she hoped she looked cute and sort of artsy—and not just boring.

  Jenny had always imagined that being in the public eye was like a second skin, that after a while you wouldn’t even realize that other people were always looking at you. (How else could you possibly explain all those horrible pictures of celebrities without their underwear on?) But the reverse had been true for the last week, ever since Jenny had agreed to be the subject of the freshman film class documentary: she was acutely aware of the camera’s eye on her at all times. Jenny felt constantly on guard. She’d started planning things to say out in her head before saying them, knowing that they could be recorded for all time. (Or at least until Kaitlin or Claire or Izzy deleted them.) The stress had made her lose about three pounds—so far, the only really good thing to come out of it.

  “Tell us about the Cinephiles party, where the barn burned down,” Claire prodded, leaning her head against the wall.

  Again? Jenny wanted to ask. She swore she’d already told them about it—but her head was spinning. She’d never talked about herself so much in her life and it was starting to make her feel like a complete narcissist. But the girls apparently wanted to hear it, so Jenny did her best to recall the Cinephiles party— which felt like months ago. Was it?

  Across the room, Callie was sitting at her desk in a pink spaghetti-strap Calvin Klein tank top, her iPod earbuds stuffed firmly into her ears. Her blue sparkly fingernails clicked against the keyboard of her laptop as she typed an e-mail. Jenny felt an intense longing to be e-mailing her dad instead of talking to her freshman filmmakers.

  That morning, she’d had to make the three of them pinky swear to erase some embarrassing footage of her talking about how hard it was for her to buy a bra in her size. Izzy had asked her, half-jokingly, what kind of underwear she wore, and before Jenny knew it, she was railing about how hard it was to find cute bras that fit her massive boobs. Only after Claire goaded her into holding up a few of her bras for them did Jenny remember that her classmates might actually watch the film. And that maybe she didn’t want them all to see her thick-strapped, unsexy double-D-cup granny bras.

  Having the film crew trio following her around made Jenny realize how boring her life really was. The girls had filmed her during an art class, but they kept asking her if she could move a little more as she painted, or paint a little faster. “Like this, or something,” Izzy suggested, grabbing the brush from Jenny and making cartoonish sweeping motions with her arm, accidentally adding a dash of red to Jenny’s still life.

  “And then the whole thing went up in flames…” Jenny trailed off, unable to think of anything else to say about the barn. She didn’t want to get into the whole story about Drew, the hot senior who’d lied to her about bribing Mrs. Miller to get Jenny out of trouble for the barn. All the girls wanted to hear about, though, was boys. They kept encouraging her to flirt with guys on camera, and so Jenny found herself striking up conversations with people she didn’t even like—just so they could see, as they called it, an “It girl in action.”

  “But I don’t get it,” Izzy said, running her hands through her short, pixie hair. Its chlorine smell was starting to drive Jenny crazy. “Why did you confess to burning the barn down if you didn’t do it?”

  “I don’t know.” Jenny shrugged her shoulders and glanced out the window longingly. She saw Heath Ferro and Alan St. Girard pelting each other with snowballs. She wished she were out there, actually having fun, instead of sitting here and trying to make her life sound more interesting than it was.

  The girls stared at Jenny blankly a minute before Kaitlin lowered the camera. She nodded her head, her orangey red curls bouncing, toward Callie, who’d abandoned her laptop and was fumbling around her closet floor. “Wasn’t Callie at the Cinephiles party too?”

  Izzy’s blue eyes lit up and Jenny stubbed out her cigarette in an empty Diet Coke can. “Weren’t she and Easy Walsh actually in the barn when it started to burn?” Izzy whispered loudly.

  “I can hear you, you know,” Callie muttered, fumbling through the shoes on the floor of her cluttered closet. “And I don’t have time to be interviewed, thank you very much.”

  “Where are you going?” Claire asked, and Kaitlin spun the camera toward Callie. Jenny felt like she’d been slapped in the face. Their movie was supposed to be about her. Jenny knew that Callie Vernon was a way more interesting subject, but they weren’t supposed to know that.

  Callie certainly looked glamorous in her skin-toned corseted camisole and her tight-fitting black pencil skirt. She held one open-toed crimson Manolo in her hand. Her strawberry blond hair was freshly blow-dried, and she looked like a half-dressed model backstage at a runway show. “I can’t find this goddamn…” She trailed off, throwing expensive designer shoe after expensive designer shoe into the middle of the room. Claire hopped out of the way of a deadly stiletto. “Aha!” Callie finally cried triumphantly, holding the matching Manolo up over her head.

  Kaitlin, Izzy, and Claire giggled. A wave of panic crashed over Jenny and she crawled out of the window seat. “Where are you going tonight, Callie?” Claire asked, and Jenny saw Kaitlin press the zoom button as she scanned the pile of shoes on the floor that Callie carelessly kicked out of her way. It was like Callie was a full-size Barbie doll.

  “Huh?” Callie glanced at the girls as if she were seeing them for the first time, although Jenny had introduced them about three times now. “Out,” she said, stepping into the Manolo pumps and stalking over to her dresser. She spritzed her wrists with her almost empty bottle of perfume and rubbed them behind her earlobes.

  “With who?” Izzy asked shyly. She was sitting cross-legged on Jenny’s bed, and Jenny resisted the urge to tell her to put her feet on the floor.

  Callie turned toward the girls, eyeing them up and down, oblivious to the camera. A slow smile crept over her face, and she turned back to the mirror. She grabbed a silver tube of her Givenchy lipstick and ran it across her lips.

  “What color lipstick is that?” Claire asked eagerly.

  “Illicit Raspberry,” Callie answered, popping the top back on it and tossing it casually aside. Jenny’s heart thumped in her chest at the sound of the girls cooing with interest—that was what they were supposed to do when she did or said something interesting.

  At that moment, a Raves song started playing through Jenny’s iPod docking station.

  Izzy nodded her head. “Great song.”

  “I saw them in concert when I was in Madrid once,” Callie said offhandedly, mascara wand in hand. Jenny’s jaw dropped. The Raves were her claim to fame. Through a miraculous stroke of luck, Jenny’s poet brother, Dan, had temporarily joined the New York–based band as its singer/songwriter. Jenny had tagged along with them to shows, and they’d been totally sweet and charming to her.

  “Really?” Claire asked excitedly.

  Kaitlin zoomed in on Callie as she chattered on about the double encore and how she’d managed to get backstage with her Spanish model friend, who was a friend of a fr
iend of the lead singer, Damian Polk.

  “That’s so cool,” Izzy gushed. “I would die if I met him.”

  “He was hot,” Callie admitted, affixing her earrings. “He smelled like chocolate. I always think of him when I drink hot chocolate.” Callie giggled like a schoolgirl and the camera ate it up, as did Claire and Izzy and Kaitlin.

  A rising panic seized Jenny, and her mind raced for a way to bring the attention back around to her. She was the star of this show, after all. “That’s so funny. Didn’t I ever tell you about the time I spent with the Raves?” she blurted out, trying to sound blasé about it. “At the Plaza Hotel? And Damian’s West Village town house?”

  Kaitlin swung the camera around instinctively.

  “No fucking way!” Claire squealed, immediately stopping in mid–dance step. “How did you score that?” The admiration was back in her voice, and Jenny felt relief flood through her body.

  “Long story… but I actually ended up recording a song with them.” The girls crowded around Jenny, begging her to tell them the whole story. She was so excited to have something interesting to talk about again that she didn’t even notice Callie rolling her eyes in the background, having heard the story more than once.

  Before she knew what she was doing, Jenny reached for her Razr. She found Damian Polk’s number in her address book— she couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually talked to him, but he’d insisted she could call him at any time—and let it ring, staring straight into the camera as the phone rang in her ear. The freshmen were drawing small, shallow collective breaths and even Callie stopped what she was doing to watch.

  “’Ello, ’ello, ’ello,” Damian answered. He sounded like he was in a long tunnel.

  “Damian?” Jenny asked louder than she needed to. She’d totally expected his voice mail to pick up and hadn’t planned on actually talking to him. She just needed to prove she had his number. She dug her bare toes into her shaggy pink rug and prayed.

  “Who is this?” Damian asked.

  “It’s little Jenny Humphrey, silly,” she said, as if they talked on the phone every day. Her brain reeled, trying to come up with some believable excuse for calling him. Telling him she wanted to impress some freshmen girls making a movie wouldn’t cut it.

  After the briefest of pauses, Damian replied, his voice warm and surprised. “Hey, cutie. What’re you up to? Aren’t you… at school somewhere?”

  Jenny said a silent prayer of thanks that Damian remembered at least that much about her. “I’m up here at boarding school in Rhinecliff.” Then her eyes landed on the embossed silver invitation thumbtacked smack-dab in the middle of her bulletin board. “And everyone wants the Raves to play the Christmas ball!”

  “Oh yeah?” Damian asked, chuckling. “When is it?”

  “This Saturday.” Jenny somehow managed to wink at the camera even though she felt like her insides were melting with panic. “Don’t say you can’t come,” she teased, amazed at her own forwardness. “We’re all, like, dying up here without any good music.”

  A loud static burst in her ear and she worried that the connection was lost. But Damian’s voice came through the static. “We have a show that evening, babe. Sorry.”

  “We’ll be out really late, though. Can’t you come when you’re done?” Jenny closed her eyes. “Please, please, please?”

  Damian laughed. “I guess we can come after our show.”

  “I knew you’d come through!” Jenny squealed, and Izzy, Claire, and Kaitlin all gasped collectively. Even Callie raised her eyebrows as if impressed. “You guys rock!”

  The static buzzed again and this time the line went dead. But Jenny casually closed her phone. “It’s on,” she said into the camera. “They’ll do it.” She smiled smugly as the freshmen jumped up and down.

  “A Raves exclusive!” Claire exclaimed, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead as if she was about to faint. “The coolest.”

  “Does he even know where the school is?” Callie asked skeptically, pulling a translucent pink top on over her camisole.

  Jenny narrowed her eyes. “Ever heard of GPS?” she answered back. The girls tittered, and Jenny leaned back against the window and lit up another one of Callie’s cigarettes—this time in triumph.

  20

  A WISE OWL KNOWS THAT THE FIRST TIME’S NOT ALWAYS THE CHARM.

  “Looks like someone got another Secret Satan prezzie!” Benny Cunningham trilled as she and Tinsley paused in front of Tinsley’s first-floor dorm room. A tiny package wrapped in pink construction paper sat in front of her door, a giant T. C. written in black marker on one corner.

  “Whatever. I’m already tired of this.” Tinsley kicked it with her toe. She was simply not in the mood for any more shit. A DVD of some D-list movie called Virgin Territory had been shipped to her from Amazon the day before, and she’d thrown it into the lost-and-found box in the mailroom.

  “Not all of us have hot young freshmen to keep us entertained.” Benny wrinkled her nose and tossed the hot pink boa she’d taken to wearing—a gift from her Secret Satan—over her shoulder. At least she wasn’t carrying around the fucking rat she’d been given. She’d decided the weather was too icy today and Thumper the ferret needed to stay home.

  Tinsley unlocked her door and soccer-kicked the box inside. She dropped her bag and sat on the edge of her bed, her muscles twitching. She kept hoping she’d stumble onto her Secret Santa leaving her one of the mean-spirited presents, but no luck. It had to be a guy—no girl would be bitchy enough to tease Tinsley about her virginity. She couldn’t wait until the Holiday Ball, when everyone outed themselves to their Secret Santas— and she murdered hers.

  She hoisted the package into her lap and tore into it. The pink cover of a book peeked out at her. She flipped it over and saw the title in big black letters: The Everything But Guide: For Girls Who Won’t Go All the Way but Want to Do Everything But. On the cover was a photo of a girl who looked disturbingly like Tinsley, grabbing at her clothes as if to ward off some sort of sexual attacker.

  She threw the book against the wall, where it crashed into her framed photo of Plaza San Marco in Venice and fell to the floor. Enough was enough. She was sick of being worked up about the stupid virgin gifts. Why the hell did she care so much? It was stupid to let this bother her… but maybe it was even stupider to let herself be vulnerable to this sort of torture.

  There’s an easy solution to that, she thought to herself, grabbing up her coat and marching out the door. She tromped off to Julian’s room, the idea of sleeping with Julian picking up steam. Why the hell not? She’d wanted to for so long—maybe this was just the push she needed to take the plunge. Besides, they were going to do it eventually. Why not do it now and get it over with?

  Tinsley pushed into Julian’s room without knocking. He jumped up from his bed, where he’d clearly been napping. “Oh, hey!” His face lit up at the sight of her. “You scared the shit out of me.” A copy of The Remains of the Day, required reading in freshman English, lay facedown on his pillow.

  “Where’s Kevin?” Tinsley asked breathlessly, unzipping her down-filled Juicy Couture army jacket.

  “His parents took him to dinner,” Julian answered, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. His Grateful Dead shirt rose up, revealing a strip of toned stomach.

  “Good.” Tinsley reached over and locked the door, then leaned her back against it, enjoying the look of surprise on Julian’s face.

  Julian took a step toward her. “And to what do I owe the honor of your presence?” His slow, crooked smile spread across his face, deepening the dimple beneath the left corner of his lips. Tinsley’s knees went weak.

  “Let’s just call it your lucky day,” she said softly. She slid her arms out of her jacket first, letting it fall to the floor, then pulled her L.A.M.B. multicolored turtleneck up over her head. She shook the static out of her silky hair, her long locks tumbling across her bare skin.

  Julian’s soft brown eyes widened as
they ran across her pale pink lace-trimmed Cosabella bra. “I must be dreaming,” he said softly.

  “It’s real.” Tinsley stepped toward him and pressed her half-naked body against his. She kissed him fiercely. She had to have him—they had to do this, now. She had to stop thinking about how Julian had lost his virginity to Jenny Humphrey and start thinking about something else. Like losing her own.

  “But…” Julian’s voice trailed off as Tinsley’s lips moved to his throat, kissing him right below his ear, which always drove him crazy. He groaned, and then, as if it was taking every ounce of willpower, pulled back away from Tinsley and stared into her eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked, touching his hand gently to her hair.

  “You.” She tugged his worn-out T-shirt over his head and the faint smell of Julian’s deodorant permeated the room. A spark shot through her body and her hands tugged at the button on his faded dark Rock & Republic jeans. Tinsley felt like a conductor, all the parts of the orchestra moving at her command as she pushed him back down on his bed. It was crazy. She couldn’t believe it was going to finally happen.

  “Are you sure about this?” Julian asked, his eyes wide with surprise. “I mean, really sure? Did Ryan Reynolds spray you with some of that tribal aphrodisiac shit?”

  “You don’t even need to ask.” She’d never been more sure of anything in her life.

  They both kicked off the rest of their clothes and tumbled together under Julian’s comforter. She never imagined it would be so easy and laughed at herself for being all worked up about the various mechanics, and trying to plan the thing, down to the kind of music that would be playing in the background. How stupid. She didn’t care what music was playing.