Epic Fail

  As we left her behind on the sidewalk—cheerfully waving—the five of us sank down on the soft leather benches that ran both lengths of the elongated car body. Chase and Jules were next to each other, of course. I was on Juliana’s other side, which put me opposite Derek Edwards, whose long legs took up all the available in-between space. I had to curl my own legs sideways or risk rubbing knees.

  Chelsea was glued to Derek’s side, which didn’t surprise me since I was convinced she had the world’s biggest crush on him. I wasn’t as sure about his feelings toward her. He seemed comfortable having her around, but I wasn’t seeing a ton of romantic interest there.

  On the other hand, the guy was impossible to read in almost every way. For all I knew, he was madly head over heels in love with Chelsea Baldwin, but was so repressed and weird you couldn’t tell. For all I knew, he was gay.

  I was still wearing the sweater I’d put on over my tank top to make it past my mother, and which completely ruined the look I was going for. I started to pull it off, but it got stuck halfway down my arms. I was twisting around awkwardly, trying to wriggle free, when I felt a hand tug the sleeves down and off of me. I looked up. Derek Edwards had leaned forward to help me. “Thanks,” I said.

  The sound of a cell phone vibrating broke the awkward silence. Derek swiftly extracted a phone from his right hip pocket and squinted down at the screen. He read something before texting back a response, skillfully dancing his thumbs on the touchscreen.

  Meanwhile, Chelsea had snuggled closer to his side and was craning her neck over his shoulder in an effort to read what he was writing. “Who’re you texting?”

  “My sister.”

  “Oh my God! Georgia! I haven’t heard from her in ages! I miss hanging out with her so much. Tell her I miss hanging out with her, will you?”

  “Tell her yourself.”

  “She’s so lucky to be out of here!”

  Why did that cause such a miserable expression to cross Derek’s face? I could see it clearly from where I was sitting. But Chelsea was oblivious. She went blithely on. “Will she come home for Thanksgiving?”

  “Probably.”

  “Make sure she saves lots of time for me. I miss her so much.”

  “Really?” He finished texting and leaned sideways so he could stick the phone back in his pocket. “I didn’t think you guys were that close. You’re not even in the same grade.”

  “Brothers never notice anything.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister,” I said to Derek. “She doesn’t go to Coral Tree?”

  “She did, but this year she switched to boarding school.”

  “Any special reason?”

  Derek’s eyes flitted across my face, and then he looked down at his hands and said tonelessly, “Coral Tree’s a mediocre school academically. My parents thought she needed a place that was more challenging.” It sounded like something he had memorized.

  “And it’s getting worse by the hour,” Chelsea said. “No offense to your mother,” she added, just to make sure I got the point that she was being offensive to my mother.

  I ignored her. “What about you?” I asked Derek. “Why didn’t your parents take you out of Coral Tree?”

  He shrugged. “I’m a mediocre student. Coral Tree’s fine for me.”

  “Don’t believe it!” Chelsea said. “Derek’s, like, the smartest kid in his class.”

  “How would you know?” he asked. “This is the first time we’ve ever had a class together.”

  “Everyone says so.”

  “Well, I’m not. Not even close.”

  “But why a boarding school?” I pursued, genuinely curious. “There are other college prep schools here in L.A. Some really good ones. So why—”

  He shifted on the bench and pointed out the window. “Look, the Getty Museum monorail.”

  Chelsea obediently gazed out the window. But I was more curious than ever. Derek Edwards was not the kind of guy who went around pointing enthusiastically at trains. He just didn’t want to answer my questions.

  Chelsea split from the rest of us as soon as we entered the loud, noisy, crowded party house.

  No, wait—I take that back. It wasn’t right away, because first she tugged on Derek’s arm and said, “Want to dance?” and he said, “You know I don’t dance,” and then she said, “Help me find the bar,” and he said, “It’s over there,” and then she said, “Come get a drink with me?” and he said, “I’m not thirsty,” and then she said, “Let’s go see the indoor pool,” and he said, “I’ve seen it,” and then she gave up and headed toward a group of her friends, although not without one last overly loud and enthusiastic, “Bye, Derek! Come find me later!” which was clearly intended for her friends’ ears, so they’d all think she and Derek had come together, I assumed. Which they had—but not in that way.

  “Should we get something to drink?” Chase asked right after she’d gone.

  “Yeah, I’d kill for a Coke,” Derek said, and led the way toward the bar he had pointed out a second earlier to Chelsea.

  Okay, so he definitely wasn’t interested in her romantically.

  The bar was the real thing, an ornately carved wooden counter with a built-in sink and (locked) wine storage unit behind it. I had never seen one in a house in real life, only in TV shows and movies.

  Then again, the whole house was like nothing I’d seen before. Chelsea had made several deprecating comments in the car about how annoying it was that we had to trek all the way to the “sucky Valley,” so I had expected to end up at some nasty little tract house, not at an enormous gated estate.

  I was relieved to see nothing alcoholic on the bar—no need to lie to my mother, who always warned us to leave any party immediately if we saw anyone drinking. I wondered sometimes if she was deliberately naive about this stuff. I mean, she’d been in high school administration for more than a decade. She had to have some sense of reality, right?

  I was always honest about my own behavior—I never drank alcohol. But if I told my parents the entire truth—that almost everyone else drank beer at parties—they wouldn’t let me or my sisters go anywhere ever again.

  Mom and Dad loved to say, “We trust you to behave appropriately,” and then not trust us at all. I didn’t want to deceive my parents. But they didn’t leave me much choice.

  Chase saw me studying the contents of the bar. “It’s all soda,” he confirmed. “Jason has this deal with his parents: he can throw as many parties as he likes so long as he doesn’t serve alcohol.” He added in a low voice, “He doesn’t necessarily stop people from bringing it, of course. So, if you guys want something like that, I can ask around. . . .”

  “No, thanks,” Juliana said quickly. “I’m happy with Diet Coke.”

  “Me too,” I said. “It’s the Official Drink of Girls.”

  “Boys too. I love the stuff.” Chase seemed relieved that we’d turned down his offer, which made me like him even more.

  Derek pulled the tab on a can of regular Coke.

  Then Chase said to Juliana with über-casualness, “Want to see the rest of this place? They have an amazing aquarium in one of the back rooms.”

  I almost giggled. Talk about a line.

  Jules glanced at me uncertainly. “Elise?”

  “You go ahead. I’m fine here.” I wasn’t really—I didn’t know anyone else—but the sooner Chase got some time alone with her, the sooner we could leave. I hoped.

  “You can come with us,” she offered.

  I shot her a Give the guy a break look. Out loud, I said, “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  “Sounds good,” Chase said, and hustled her away. I watched them as they made their way through the crowd, their heads bent close together, his hand lingering on her arm.

  “So,” Derek said from right next to me. I jumped. I had forgotten about him. “Want to—” He stopped. He seemed uncertain how to finish the sentence.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to babysit me.”
/>
  “You probably don’t know that many people here.”

  “That’s what parties are for, right? To get to know people?”

  “I don’t know what they’re for, to be honest. I’m not a fan of them.” He did look pretty uncomfortable as he clutched his Coke to his chest, his eyes darting warily around the room.

  The irony was, of course, that almost anyone there would happily have hung with him. The girls all would have danced with him, and the boys would have dragged him off to do . . . whatever boys do at parties. But he pretty much made himself unapproachable: he avoided eye contact and barely acknowledged anyone who tried to greet him.

  “Why’d you come tonight?” I asked abruptly.

  “Chase wanted to.”

  “You always do whatever he wants?”

  “Pretty much. He’s more like a brother than a friend at this point.”

  “I know what you mean. Juliana’s just like a sister to me.”

  “Now that’s a little weird,” he said, with that brief shadow of a smile I’d seen once or twice before. There was a short pause. “You play Ping-Pong?” he asked.

  “Not well. But I like it.”

  “Perfect.” He put his drink down on the bar. “I’ll beat you. I like winning.”

  I put mine down, too. “Where to?”

  “Downstairs. They have a rec room in the basement.”

  We threaded a path through the crowd in the living room and then through another much darker room, where loud music throbbed while couples ground their bodies together. It was suffocatingly hot, and I was glad I had left my sweater in the car . . . uh, limo.

  One girl was dancing all by herself, swaying to what must have been a beat inside her own head, because her movements in no way matched the one we could hear. Her eyes were closed—the better to hear that internal tune, I guess—and as we tried to slip by, she suddenly bobbed right in front of me, forcing me to step back so quickly that I backed into someone behind me. My rebound from that sent me tripping over a foot, and I almost hit the floor, but Derek quickly grabbed my arm and steadied me before I could fall.

  Then, without saying anything, he slid his hand down to clasp my wrist, which he continued to hold as he navigated our way through the crowd. There was nothing romantic about it—he was just leading me through the press of people and probably figured (with undeniable justification) that I’d hurt myself if he didn’t keep a grip on me. But I was very aware of his warm fingers against my skin and ducked my head, relieved no one could see me blush in the darkened room.

  We emerged from the dance room into a back hallway that was quieter but even darker. “This way,” Derek said, and steered me toward the top of a stairway. He suddenly pulled me against his side, and it took me a moment to realize he had once again saved me—this time from falling over the extended legs of a kid who was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, a girl curled up on his lap, her lips plastered against his, his hands snaking down her jeans. I felt a jolt of embarrassment as we crept around them and headed down the stairs—for them because they were doing stuff in public no one should do in public, and also for us because we could see them doing it. Not that they noticed us.

  Derek released my hand without a word as we entered the most enormous room I’d ever seen in a private home. Only the words airplane hangar could do it justice. It was carpeted and lined with floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains, probably to muffle the noise currently being generated by the use of a pool table, a Ping-Pong table, and, at the far end of the room, a wall-sized entertainment console containing a gigantic flat-screen TV and several video game systems.

  This was clearly where all the guys who didn’t have dates had ended up—and, given how many of them were passionately watching or playing video games, I don’t think there was any huge mystery to their stag status.

  Derek headed toward the Ping-Pong table, which two guys were already using.

  All Derek said was, “When you’re done, let us know,” and instantly one player, who was skinny and had zit-scarred cheeks, offered up his paddle, saying, “It’s all yours.” He turned. “Let’s go, Jay,” he called to his short and slightly chubby opponent, who obediently surrendered his paddle to Derek in turn. Grinning and nodding, the first kid led his friend over toward the TV. As they moved off, I could hear him whisper, “You know who that is, right?”

  “Does that always happen to you?” I asked Derek as he handed me a paddle.

  “What?” He moved around to the other end of the table.

  “Do people always let you have whatever you want when you want it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “You know. Because your parents are famous. Those guys wouldn’t have stopped playing for anyone else.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “I didn’t ask them to. I can’t control what other people do.” He tossed the ball in the air and caught it. “Are we going to play or not?”

  “I’m really bad at this,” I said. “I’m not sure I was clear enough about that earlier.”

  He cocked his head at me. “Why do I have the feeling I’m being hustled?”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. Then, “Of course, if you want to put a little wager on it . . .”

  “Loser has to sit next to Chelsea on the way home,” he said, and served.

  We played for the next half hour. Derek was much better than me, so it was a totally uneven game, but he didn’t seem to mind. He even came around the table at one point to show me how to hit the ball backhand—I had a bad habit of shifting so I could always use my forehand.

  “Like this,” he said and got behind me and put his arm around mine so he could guide me through the motion. I glanced up at him as he gently glided my hand back and forth. His face was close to mine, and I quickly looked back down again. It was the proximity, I told myself. I wasn’t used to being that close to any guy. The catch in my throat had nothing to do with him specifically.

  But when he went back to the other side and waited for me to serve, my fingers were suddenly clumsy. I dropped the ball and had to squat down ungracefully to grab it from under the table.

  At least I hadn’t worn a miniskirt.

  It got harder and harder to remember that Derek was this screwed-up celebrity brat as our game went on. He was livelier and more relaxed than I’d ever seen him before. He even flashed a real smile now and then, not just the creepy ghost one.

  “You really are bad at this,” he said, after I hit the ball so hard in a downward motion that it bounced straight up, almost to the ceiling, then back down again—still on my side. But his tone was teasing, not critical.

  “Told you.” I tossed the ball to him and he served it gently, right down the middle. I easily hit it back. “Now you’re just patronizing me,” I said.

  “Do you prefer this?” He slammed the ball at me as hard as he could, and I shrieked and curled my body up, hands instinctively rising to protect my face.

  “Patronize me!” I said, peeking through my fingers. “Patronize me, please!”

  “If you say so . . .”

  I retrieved the ball from the floor. “No wonder people play Ping-Pong,” I said as I stood back up. “It’s like doing squats.”

  “Yeah, that’s usually not such a big part of the game.” He served gently, but I still missed the return. “Hey, I have a question for you,” he said when I had retrieved the ball and tossed it back to him.

  “What’s that?”

  He held the ball and raised his paddle but halted in that position. “Do you smoke?”

  “Smoke? Cigarettes, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Never,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just . . . I saw you giving one to your little sister. I’ve been wondering.”

  I suddenly realized what he was talking about. “Oh, you mean in the parking lot the first day of school! That was her pack—it had fallen out of her pocket. And I wasn’t giving it to her; I was reaming her out
for having it in the first place.” I laughed. “You should have seen the expression on your face as you drove by us.”

  “I was a little shocked,” he admitted.

  “Yeah, I can see why. But I swear I was confiscating it.”

  “I believe you. You don’t smell like an ashtray.”

  “Cool,” I said. “I passed the sniff test without even knowing I was taking it.”

  “So Layla smokes? A little young, isn’t she?”

  “She claimed she was holding the pack for a friend.”

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “Exactly.” I turned the paddle around in my hands, gently stroking my fingers over the pebbled surface of its face, and then glanced up at him. “Every big family has to have a problem child, right?”

  “She’s the one in yours?”

  “Well, it’s certainly not Juliana,” I said. “And Kaitlyn’s pretty normal.”

  “I nominate you for the position. You seem like a troublemaker to me.”

  “Me?” I said. “I’m a saint.”

  “Saint Elise, huh?”

  “Yes, and don’t you forget it. Are you ever going to serve, or are you just going to stand there posing?”

  He served, but he continued to go so easy on me that I caught up to him.

  “Okay,” he said when the score was nineteen to nineteen. “I’m facing a bit of a dilemma here. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to let you win. But we’re playing for high stakes. I’m not sure I’m willing to make the sacrifice.”

  “Ah, you see?” I said. “I’ve lulled you into a false sense of security. This is when I put the blitz on and destroy you.”

  “Really?” he said, and slammed the ball hard at me.

  “No!” I said, cowering again. “I can’t blitz! I don’t even know what a blitz is!”

  Five seconds later, he’d beaten me. We met halfway around the table and shook hands. “I’m not trying to get out of the bet or anything,” I said, “but there is a slight logistical problem I should point out.”

  “What’s that?”

  He was still holding my hand. I had to clear my throat. “I’ll try my best to sit next to Chelsea, but we both know she’s going to be trying even harder to sit next to you—and I think her will may be stronger than mine.”