“Which one of you is better at House of the Dead 4?” Sam piped up as the main street of downtown Rhinecliff came into view. It was a warm Tuesday afternoon, and the sidewalks were swarming with students and their corresponding prospectives. The hippie guy some of the kids—Heath included—occasionally bought weed from was manning a table of neatly folded tie-dye shirts in every color imaginable. Brandon highly doubted the students crowded around his table were there to buy T-shirts.
He gave Easy a sideways glance and Easy returned it, cracking a smile. “I’ve never even heard of that game,” Brandon said, scanning the crowd for familiar faces. He thought he spotted Jenny up ahead, looking in the window of the thrift shop. Her hair was loose and fell down her back in lush, dark curls. How could Easy have broken up with her?
“C’mon.” Sam kicked at a loose stone, sending it skittering toward one of the hunter green BMWs parked on the street. They rounded a corner and stood facing the arcade, its flashing lights visible through the windows. Sam’s eyes lit up greedily. “Who wants to play me first?”
“Who’s buying?” Easy asked mischievously, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his paint-splattered jeans. Did he own any articles of clothing that weren’t splattered with paint? Two weeks ago, Brandon would have suspected Easy of intentionally spilling paint on himself in strategic spots—a splotch of red on the knee, three drips of green on the left thigh, a smudge of black on his sleeve—in order to appear as endearingly arty to girls as possible. But over the past week or so, with Easy acting like a decent human being to him, Brandon was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was clearly just a slob.
“You guys got quarters, right?” Sam asked.
Brandon shook out his empty pockets. “Nada.”
Sam’s face fell as Easy shrugged his shoulders. “Guess I’ll have to break a twenty.” Sam sighed.
“I bet you can buy tokens at the arcade,” Easy reasoned. He pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at it, probably to see if he had any messages from Callie.
“Are you kidding me?” Sam responded, sounding horrified. He checked his hair in the giant plate glass window of the Rhinecliff Community Bank, just next door to the arcade. “The rates are terrible. Tokens are for suckers. You have to bring your own quarters.” He stuck his thumb in the direction of the bank. “I’m going in.”
Brandon and Easy waited outside while Sam stood in the long line at the bank for quarters. They shuffled their feet awkwardly on the sidewalk.
“I’m going to run over to the pharmacy and get my pencils,” Easy announced suddenly, clearly as desperate to avoid awkward silences as Brandon was. He stepped off the sidewalk and into the street.
Brandon nodded slowly. The pharmacy was the only place in town to get all kinds of necessities, and they did have a huge aisle of school supplies—but still, he couldn’t help wondering if Easy was really going to stock up on condoms.
“Hey,” Easy said suddenly, patting his hand against the pack of Marlboro Reds half sticking out of his pocket. “Sorry things didn’t work out with Elizabeth. I heard about what happened. Think you did the right thing, though.”
Brandon searched Easy’s face for a smirk, but Easy looked totally sincere. “Thanks,” he said. “It does kind of suck.”
“Maybe she’ll come around.” Easy shrugged. The sun came out from behind a cloud, lighting up the gray afternoon sky. He pulled a pair of brandless black aviators from the collar of his green wool sweater. The sleeves were too short. “You never know.”
“Yeah,” Brandon said, looking down the street for Jenny again, but she was gone. “It was just . . . too impossible.” Impossible was the right word, wasn’t it? Maybe not. It was theoretically possible for Brandon to become one of Elizabeth’s rotating cast of boyfriends, crossing his fingers that he’d be the one to get the call for Friday or Saturday night, sometimes settling for a Wednesday lunch or a Monday movie, but it wasn’t realistic. Maybe that was a good answer when people asked: “It wasn’t realistic.” And it definitely wasn’t what he wanted.
A beat passed and then Brandon added, “Heard you and Callie worked it out, though.” Easy nodded, though Brandon noticed with interest that Easy seemed to nod tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure. As if to avoid looking Brandon in the eye, Easy pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He flicked open a book of matches, stuck a cigarette between his lips, and lit it in one smooth motion. “That’s cool,” Brandon said.
“Yeah.” Easy inhaled a deep breath of smoke, wondering if smoking in public was really the smartest thing for him to be doing right now. Well, fuck it. Marymount was probably too excited about tomorrow morning’s meeting to be doing any shopping downtown. Besides, it felt good to be outside. As soon as he’d left the Staxxx this morning, his uneasy feelings had returned, and he’d spent all afternoon cooped up in his room worrying. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like Callie was plotting something—and he wouldn’t be surprised if Tinsley was behind it all. “Have you, uh, talked to her?”
An elderly woman passed between them and Brandon opened the bank door for her. She smiled kindly at Brandon, then took one glance at Easy’s cigarette and shot him a scowl over her shoulder. “To Callie? No, not recently.”
“Oh.” Easy didn’t know how to bring the whole thing up without sounding like he was ratting Callie out to Brandon. He took another drag of his cigarette, old ladies be damned.
“Why?” Brandon asked curiously. This conversation was getting sort of creepily random. Why was Easy asking him about Callie?
Easy shifted his feet and sighed. “I just wondered if you knew what she was up to.”
“Is she up to something?”
“Well, everyone seems to be pointing fingers at me and her about the fire”—he rushed the phrase together so as not to get into a subject neither of them wanted to discuss—“and I’m worried she’s going to do something drastic to try to, like, save the day.”
Brandon laughed, smoothing out a wrinkle in his dark gray trousers. “Like what? Do something even worse to create a distraction?” He leaned against the brick wall of the bank. “Seduce the dean? That’s not exactly her style.”
Easy smiled despite himself, kicking a foot against the curb. “No, it’s not. I just have this weird feeling that she’s up to something, and that Tinsley’s involved.”
“Those two don’t need any help getting into trouble,” Brandon remarked. A couple of sophomore girls headed toward the ATM machine giggled shyly as they passed by.
Easy glanced through the giant, freshly Windexed bank window, trying to gauge Sam’s progress in the line and how much time they had left. “I’m worried it’s a scheme against Jenny,” he blurted out. He’d come to that conclusion this afternoon. If Callie was convinced Jenny had started the fire and was going to be sent home, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that she’d help speed the process along. And if there was a scheme in the works at Waverly, you could bet that Tinsley Carmichael was the mastermind. It would explain everything: Callie’s hushed conversation with Tinsley in the stables the other day, Callie and Tinsley’s reestablished friendship, Callie’s confidence that they wouldn’t be the ones to go home.
Brandon put his hands in his pockets and looked him straight in the eye. He raised a golden-brown eyebrow. “Jenny?”
“Yeah, I know it’s crazy, but I keep coming back to that same idea. I . . .” Easy’s voice trailed off. His dry throat felt like it would crack if he kept talking, but he wanted to confess to someone. “I feel like I screwed Jenny over. And I don’t want this on top of it.” As happy as Easy was to be back together with Callie, the girl he loved, he still felt terrible about how he’d dumped Jenny to get back with Callie.
“If you think you screwed her over,” Brandon said slowly, in a tone that sounded like he was trying very hard not to be judgmental, “then why don’t you just say you’re sorry?” At five feet eight inches and standing on the sidewalk, with Easy still on the street, Bra
ndon was about the same height as Easy, and their eyes were exactly level.
“Maybe I will,” Easy conceded, mulling it over. It sounded so simple. But apologies were never simple. Two years of dating Callie had taught him that. “Thanks. I owe you one,” he added.
“Get my back tomorrow,” Brandon joked.
Easy nodded gravely, stepping up onto the sidewalk beside Brandon. “Deal.”
They shook hands again and Easy headed off toward the pharmacy, a little bounce in his step. Maybe things would turn out all right in the end. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Callie and Tinsley couldn’t seriously be trying to pin the fire on Jenny. Callie would never go that far. Would she?
Because that would mean the girl he loved with all his heart was, well, not the kind of person he wanted to be in love with.
JennyHumphrey: You going to the Goodbye US party?
BrettMessershmidt: Yup. Just getting out of the shower. You?
JennyHumphrey: On my way over. Get here quick! I can’t face this alone.
BrettMesserschmidt: Ditto. But don’t worry—that’s what booze is for.
19
A WAVERLY OWL GRACIOUSLY FORGIVES, EVEN IF SHE CAN’T FORGET.
As Jenny approached the Crater, the venue of choice for the Goodbye US party, she couldn’t help but compare parties at Waverly to those in Manhattan. Back home, they sipped cocktails at bars in the Meatpacking District or attended galas at the Met. Well, at least some people did—Jenny was only occasionally invited. At Waverly, the parties were more of the outdoor-adventure variety. The Crater was a grassy depression a couple of hundred feet into the woods, just south of campus. The site was close enough to skip class and grab a smoke, but far enough away to not get busted. Over the years, enterprising Waverly students had arranged logs into benches that lined the Crater, so that the whole thing looked like some kind of medieval holy meeting ground. Attending a party there was a bit like going to a party at Stonehenge.
Tonight, Heath had really outdone himself. There were heated tents along the rim of the Crater, so that it looked like a classy version of the Depression-era shantytowns Jenny had learned about in American history. The whole place was overrun with students in red, orange, and yellow clothing, as if everyone had had the same idea. A small bonfire crackled at the center of the Crater, casting flickering shadows on everyone’s faces so that it was hard to make out who was who. It was sort of a romantic setting actually, and Jenny couldn’t wait until Julian showed up so they could be a cheesy couple and stare into each other’s eyes as they kissed by the fire.
She skirted the bonfire in her favorite faded black Seven jeans and the long-sleeved black Marc by Marc Jacobs scoop-neck she’d found scouring the clearance racks at Barneys. It was a pretty top, made from the softest cotton imaginable, with a lace-trimmed neckline. Unfortunately it was entirely hidden by the silly orange Usual Suspects T-shirt she’d pulled tight over the top. She felt ridiculous, but everyone else on the dean’s suspect list was wearing the shirt, and she didn’t want anyone to think she thought she was above suspicion.
She kept one eye on her roommate at all times, rotating around the crater as Callie made her way through the crowd, in order to not run into her. They’d been avoiding each other in their room, too, which was relatively easy now that Callie spent all her free time with Easy. Jenny filled a plastic cup from the newly refreshed tub of Jungle Juice. She pressed her fingers into her alabaster skin, rubbing her arms to ward off a chill brought on by the dropping temperature and by the ice-cold cup in her hand.
“Cold?”
Jenny whipped around, catching a tendril of curly brown hair in her eye. She’d hoped to find Julian standing next to her. Instead, it was Easy Walsh, who hadn’t said a word to her since he’d broken up with her last week. She’d seen him around since then, of course, but it was fairly clear that he’d been avoiding her. She took a sip from her plastic cup and held it to her lips longer than necessary, waiting for him to state his business or walk away.
“Heath’s outdone himself again, huh?” Easy’s dark blue eyes scanned her face nervously. It was nice to see him nervous. She’d never had the upper hand in anything, and she was determined not to give in to Easy Walsh the way everyone else did. Even though he did look kind of adorable in his orange US shirt, which was already grass-stained. From what? Rolling around in the woods with Callie?
“The bonfire was a bold touch, I’ll give him that,” Jenny answered, scanning the crowd for people she actually wanted to talk to. Brandon was over by the fire, but his head was turned toward Sage Francis and they seemed to be deep in conversation. Brett hadn’t arrived yet, and Kara was lying on the ground, staring up at the stars through the opening in the treetops—with Heath. That was a little random. Alison was kneeling in front of the fire with Alan right behind her, toasting a marshmallow on a long stick. It looked like Julian hadn’t arrived, either. There, Jenny thought, that was the extent of the people she wanted to talk to. Six weeks at Waverly and she could count her friends on one hand. And she’d thought she was doing so well.
“I was hoping I’d see you here,” Easy said, his voice sounding a bit strange.
Jenny couldn’t help but wonder what he meant by that. Why, so you can humiliate me again? So you can pretend to like me until your ex-girlfriend comes back? So you can blame me for the fire?
She decided against them all, punctuating the silence with a simple, “Oh?”
Easy pawed at the ground with his already-filthy, on-the-verge-of-disintegrating brown Camper bowling shoes. He scratched the back of his neck, the growing bonfire reflected in his dark blue eyes.
“Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about everything.” He bent over and picked up a long stick from the ground, trying to twirl it in his fingers.
Jenny turned to face him for the first time.
“I never, uh, wanted to hurt you.” He dropped the stick abruptly and ran his hand over his face. He lowered his voice so that Jenny had to lean in a little closer to hear him. “And I really didn’t want you to find out about me and Callie . . . like that,” he went on, his face flushing, probably at the memory of the two of them fleeing the burning barn half naked in front of the whole campus. “I’m sure that was really terrible for you. I can’t imagine. . . .” He struggled to complete his sentence, bailing himself out with a swig of Jungle Juice from his red Solo cup.
“Yeah, well.” The apology meant a lot to Jenny, but she couldn’t fully absorb it with the mayhem around them. Ryan Reynolds brushed past, chasing a sophomore girl in a short skirt and shouting, “I’m a suspect, too! They just forgot to get me a shirt!”
“And I know Callie is being a total pain in the ass right now,” Easy added, lowering his voice a little. “With the fire and all.” He coughed, still speaking quietly. “She is totally paranoid that uh, you got us on the list, to uh, cover the fact that you actually started the fire.”
Jenny stood there quietly, smoldering.
“I didn’t realize how stupid that sounded until I said it out loud. I know you’d never do anything like that.” Easy looked at her, and for the first time since they started talking, Jenny met his gaze. She could tell he really did think Callie’s theory was nuts, which made her feel a bit better. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “God, this is all so fucked up.”
Jenny felt the cloud of the last few days lifting. If Easy was on her side, maybe things would turn out all right in the end after all. “Thanks for . . . telling me all this,” she said. It struck her how much she missed talking to him. Easy was the kind of guy you just wanted on your team. “That really means a lot.”
Callie glared at Easy and Jenny from across the bonfire, unsure whether it was the heat from the flames or the sight of them together, speaking so earnestly, that made her face burn. All she could think about was how just a few weeks ago Easy had dumped her for that little slut. There was no doubt at all in her mind: Jenny had to go.
She poured the remain
der of her cup of Jungle Juice out carelessly on the ground, her head already buzzing from the alcohol. Then she scanned the party, looking for the one person whose presence would comfort her. Her eyes finally landed on Tinsley. Her dark-haired friend was standing with Chloe by one of the punch bowls of Jungle Juice, handing the girl an over-flowing cup. Callie smiled and headed in that direction. Tinsley would be happy to know she was back on board, ready to get Jenny kicked out once and for all.
20
A WAVERLY OWL DOES NOT ENGAGE IN UNDERAGE DRINKING.
“Name?”
Brett jumped, not realizing she’d almost stepped on Sam, who stood guard over the scene behind him, holding a clipboard. She noticed a few orange T-shirts emblazoned with us in black letters across the front and usual suspect across the back—she spotted Brandon in one, and Benny. Sam’s was the same color as the others’, but the letters dm were painted on the front. Huh? What did that stand for? Sam turned to harass two sophomores not on the guest list. Brett read the words deflower me on the back. She rolled her eyes.
“Here’s your T-shirt,” he told her flatly, turning back to Brett and handing her a plastic bag with the party T-shirt inside. “You can change in the tent.” He paused. “Or you can just change right here.”
Brett rolled her eyes again as someone she vaguely recognized from first-period Latin stumbled by and handed her a red-and-orange drink. She immediately flashed back to her awful first party at Waverly, which was also at the Crater. That night, she drank three Tequila Sunrises without realizing they were full of tequila, and spent the rest of the night hugging a tree trunk. She sniffed the contents of the plastic cup and a strong odor of vodka filled her nose. She took a sip and tasted the familiar tang of Jungle Juice, one of Heath’s favorite elixirs.