“Nice to meet you.” Sam stepped into the room Brandon shared with Heath Ferro, his hand stuck out like a politician’s. He wore a black-faded-to-gray Harry Potter T-shirt and khakis with a dorkily neat crease down the front. If he hadn’t looked so earnest, it might have been cool. But it wasn’t.
“Uh, nice to meet you, too.” Brandon swung his Perry Ellis– socked feet to the hardwood floor and leaned forward to shake the kid’s hand.
House smiled hopefully at Brandon. “So, you don’t mind showing him around a little—maybe taking him somewhere other than the squash courts?” He planted his large hands on Sam’s skinny shoulders. “I’ll owe you one.”
Brandon sighed heavily, and House disappeared back down the hall, leaving the tragically nerdy eighth-grader in the middle of Brandon’s room. A pair of brown leather top-siders peeked out from his slightly-too-short khaki pants.
“Nice room,” Sam offered shyly. He turned around in a circle, his eyes lighting up when he spotted Heath’s PSP on his filthy bed. He looked back at Brandon expectantly, the way Elizabeth (the dog—this could get confusing, he realized) did when she wanted him to throw a stick. Brandon wondered if he could command the eighth-grader with “Sit!” or “Stay!” but only assholes like Ferro treated people like that.
“So, uh, why do you want to go to Waverly?” he asked, smoothing out his navy blue plaid Ralph Lauren bedspread. It seemed like the Waverly handbook thing to say.
“Chicks,” Sam answered simply.
Brandon laughed, surprised. “You don’t have girls at your school?”
“Teases.” Sam set down his sleeping bag on the floor and sat on Heath’s unmade bed. He picked up the PSP, flipping it around in his hands and examining it. “All of them.” He ran his thumb lovingly over the power button.
“We’ve got a couple of those at Waverly, too.” Brandon nodded sagely. “You can play that, if you want,” he added. Sam eagerly flipped it on, and the familiar music of Spider-Man 3 filled the room. “Heath won’t mind.” Ha. If Heath knew Brandon had let some gawky amateur touch his prized possession, he’d write profanities on Brandon’s wall with his favorite Molton Brown pomade. He’d already done it once, freshman year.
“They’re everywhere,” Sam agreed, his thumbs already expertly maneuvering the tiny game console. “But I hear they’re hotter here, at least.” He tore his eyes away from the screen and turned to Brandon. “Do you have any other games besides Spider-Man 3? I beat this one already.”
Brandon ran his hand through his hair, blinking his golden brown eyes. What the hell was he going to do with this nerdy whiz kid all weekend? Cheer him on as he played video games? Compare the merits of high school girls with their eighth-grade equivalents? Just then, the door was kicked open with a bang. Heath stood in the doorway, a giant sweat stain ballooning disgustingly on the front of his gray Ridgefield Prep T-shirt.
“What the—?”
“This is Sam, our prospective student.” Brandon wrinkled his nose. Heath smelled like a cross between rotten asparagus and gorgonzola cheese. Didn’t he ever wear deodorant? Brandon had once left a brand-new Speed Stick on Heath’s bedside table, with a sticky note attached to it that read, “Try this.” The next day, the deodorant had disappeared and there was a bottle of Nair sitting on Brandon’s bed, with a sticky that read, “Try this—on your privates.” Brandon had given up on Heath’s hygiene ever since.
“Get off my bed,” Heath panted. He peeled off his shirt and tossed it on the floor.
Sam stood up quickly, moving to Brandon’s side of the room.
“Would it kill you to take a shower before coming in here?” Brandon grunted as he stood and opened the window. “And do your goddamn laundry—it’s growing mold.” He wasn’t usually this aggressive with Heath, but Sam made for an appreciative audience.
“Maybe you can take it in when you bring your dresses to the cleaners.” Heath’s green eyes flashed mischievously, and he flexed his biceps in front of his closet mirror, seeming to appreciate what he saw. “Easy on the starch.” He finally looked at Sam, who kept touching his swollen nose. “What happened to your grill?”
“I got it caught in a beaver trap,” Sam answered defiantly.
Brandon chuckled. This kid had some balls. “Actually, he put his face in front of Atherton’s squash racket.”
“Too bad then. I like your thinking, though.” Heath put his arm around Sam and squeezed him to his bare, sweaty chest. Even though it was mid-October, Heath still had a Caribbean-looking tan. For all his teasing about Brandon’s love of products, Brandon had a feeling Heath himself lived by the bottle—of self-tanner. A glow like that took work to maintain. “Waverly chicks love prospectives. I had the best experience when I first visited,” Heath continued, finally letting go of Sam.
Brandon groaned and threw himself back on his plaid comforter. He carefully pushed his John Varvatos loafers under the bed so Heath or the prospective wouldn’t step on them. “Christ, not the Juliet van Pelt story again,” he moaned.
“Don’t be bitter—it could happen to anyone. Anyone who tries hard enough and really gives it their all.” A familiar wistful look had already overtaken Heath as he sat down on his bed, ready to launch into the famed sordid tale.
“It was one of the hottest falls on record here in Rhinecliff,” he began, lying back and putting his hands behind his head. He sniffed his armpit, as if to remind himself of his manliness, and continued. “I was young, not much older than you are. I was still paying college kids in 7-Eleven parking lots to buy me Penthouse and Playboy.”
Brandon rolled his eyes, but Heath didn’t notice. He gazed wistfully up at the crown molding where the white ceiling met the off-white wall.
“She was the first girl I laid eyes on. And after that, I couldn’t look anywhere else. She was playing Frisbee with her friends in this tiny yellow bikini, leaping in the air like a sexy gazelle with the nicest tits I’ve ever seen. She was like the girls in my magazine dreams, but real. Juliet van Pelt.” Heath shook his head of dirty-blond hair, as if the sound of her name alone was descriptive of the experience.
Sam took a seat on the bare floor, leaning back against Brandon’s bed and watching Heath in awe. Brandon got up and went to the closet to grab his Dunlop squash racket. He might need to smack Heath with it if things got really out of hand.
“I knew exactly what I had to do. Time stopped as the Frisbee flew in the air. I intercepted it and walked straight up to her. I showed no fear. I told her that if she wanted her Frisbee back, she’d need to give me something in return.” Heath sat up on his bed, his face gravely serious. He locked eyes with Sam. “And she did. She made a man out of me that night. I’ll never forget her.”
“Are you for real?” Sam’s nerdy face lit up with admiration. He looked like an orphan who’d discovered he had a father after all.
“Yes.” Heath rubbed his stubbly chin and nodded wisely, as if he were a Buddhist monk and Sam had trekked halfway across the world to consult him. “You’re going to get some this weekend. It’ll change your life.” His eyes took on that faraway look again. “I’m the man I am today because of that one wonderful night.”
It was almost like a bad teen movie. If only it were true. Brandon didn’t believe for half a second that thirteen-year-old Heath had somehow managed to walk straight up to a hot senior and convince her to sleep with him within moments of arriving at Waverly.
“You down?” Heath asked, kicking off one of his muddy Adidas sneakers so that it landed right in Sam’s lap. He didn’t seem to mind.
“I’m down,” Sam answered so excitedly it looked like he might wet himself.
Girlish giggling erupted on the sidewalk below, and Heath jumped up and stuck his head out the window. “Love for sale!” he sang at the top of his lungs. “Dirty, nasty love for sale!” The freshmen shrieked in delight and scurried away. Brandon leaned back against his Tempur-Pedic pillow and tried to ignore the disaster-waiting-to-happen playing out before his very eyes. Heat
h? Coaching a prospective student? In anything?
Heath pulled Sam to his feet and over to the window. “Whatever you do, don’t settle on a freshman. They don’t know anything,” he counseled his protégé. “That’s more like it.” He pointed at someone else down below, but Brandon couldn’t see. “Hey, ladies,” Heath called out.
“They’re giving you the bird,” Sam whispered, nudging Heath’s bare ribs with his elbow.
“It’s all part of the elaborate mating ritual,” Heath whispered back. “It’s not about me, ladies,” he yelled down to the poor girls. “Sam here is looking for love and he’s come to the master.”
“You mean masturbator,” a feminine voice called up, loud enough for everyone to hear. Brandon couldn’t help cracking up. He laid his squash racket over his face, chuckling.
“Hey, that’s sex with someone I love,” Sam shouted back. He turned to Heath. “That’s from Annie Hall. It’s my dad’s favorite movie. I’ve seen it like nine times.”
“No, no, no, no.” Heath grabbed Sam by his Harry Potter shirt and pulled him away from the window. “You can’t do movie lines with girls,” Heath warned. “They never catch them, so it’s just a waste of time.” He strode over to his closet and glanced back over his shoulder at Sam, who looked like he wished he had a notebook in which to write it all down. “You’ve got lots to learn, and we haven’t much time.”
He grabbed a fresh shirt and led Sam down the hall, launching into a lecture about how it was important to be funny and articulate, but not too articulate, hence the genius of one-liners.
Brandon lay back down on the bed with a sigh, glad to have the room all to himself again. He was tired of smelly, loud Heath Ferro, his far-out stories of sexual conquests, and his romantic tutelage. But then again, he wasn’t having much success on his own. Maybe he could use some lessons, from a girl who knew a little more about the birds and the bees than he did. The campus was full of them. He just had to find the right one.
AlisonQuentin: It’s eleven o’clock on Saturday night—do you know where your children are?
AlanStGirard: Things are creepy-quiet on campus, huh?
AlisonQuentin: Guess everyone’s laying low b/c of last night?
AlanStGirard: I wouldn’t mind laying low on your pillow. . . .
AlisonQuentin: Ur bad.
AlanStGirard: Is that a yes?
AlisonQuentin: Obviously.
6
A WAVERLY OWL KNOWS FRIENDSHIP MEANS OCCASIONALLY HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY.
Sunday afternoon, Callie strode briskly across the freshly mowed quad, wishing she could outwalk the pesky prospective student who had been attached to her hip since brunch. Her black Lanvin pumps were sinking into the grass, but taking the gravel path would only prolong the walk to Dumbarton, and she wanted to get rid of Chloe as soon as possible. She spotted another young-looking girl reading a book under a tree and thought about shoving Chloe in that direction and telling her to go make a friend.
“So,” Chloe panted, clearly struggling to keep up with Callie’s long strides. The ivy-covered campus was in full autumn bloom, the normally green vines climbing the distinguished brick buildings now tinged with red. The girls’ legs kicked up fallen leaves as they walked. “What’s going to happen to whoever they catch?”
Callie pulled a tissue from her dove gray Helmut Lang jacket and pretended to blow her nose. Alison was the one who had volunteered to show this kid around Waverly, but she had abruptly stood up in the middle of brunch, told everyone she was off to “study” with Alan, and shoved her prospective on Benny and Sage. When they’d announced they were going to do shots in their room, Chloe had asked timidly where she should go. In a moment of weakness, Callie had offered to take her around for a little while.
That didn’t mean she had to keep her forever, though, did it?
“I don’t know.” Callie stuffed the tissue back into her pocket. Her white Elie Tahari miniskirt was creeping up a little on her thighs as she walked, and she wanted to change, but she didn’t want to take Chloe back to her room unless it was absolutely necessary. She wasn’t exactly dressed appropriately for mid-October weather, but it was her first appearance in the dining hall since the fire—and her and Easy’s half-naked emergence from the barn—and she’d wanted to look her clothed best. “They’ll probably get expelled, or arrested . . . or both.”
Callie was feeling tired today. She and Easy had spent all day and into the night yesterday in various Waverly hookup spots. To avoid talking about Jenny or the fire, Callie had adopted an all-sex, no-talk policy with Easy, at least for the time being. Not that it was too much of a hardship. But the fact that they couldn’t just hang out in their dorm rooms made it a bit exhausting. She’d signed up for a boyfriend, not Outward Bound.
“Would they go to prison?” Chloe asked, almost jogging to keep up as Callie strode in between two sophomore guys playing catch. She wore a hunter green turtleneck sweater, and Callie had to fight the urge to take the extra fabric at the neck and pull it over the prospective’s head so she’d shut up already.
“I don’t know.” She flashed a smile at the cuter of the two boys as they obediently held their Nerf football until she and Chloe had passed, and she felt their eyes watch her walk away. Nothing like a gorgeous boyfriend to do wonders for a girl’s confidence.
“Or maybe just do community service?”
Did this girl ever shut up? “I don’t know.” Not that it would be the worst thing in the world to have Jenny locked away in prison in one of those bright orange jumpsuits that would look terrible with her complexion. Tinsley had reported back to Callie that her meeting with the dean had been a failure, but that hadn’t seemed to deter her. In the meantime, they were both supposed to be coming up with a plan B. Distracted by Easy, Callie hadn’t exactly been focusing on their mission. She knew Tinsley would be disappointed in her total lack of guile.
“Yo, C.V.!” Callie turned to see Tinsley standing behind her. Speak of the devil. She looked perky in a short Nike tennis dress, the body-hugging fabric startlingly white against her perfect tan. Her black, Pantene Pro-V commercial-shiny hair was pulled into a tight ponytail at the crown of her head. “Who’s this?” Tinsley pointed her Wilson tennis racket accusingly at Chloe, who shrank into herself as if she were at knifepoint. But Callie couldn’t help but notice that Chloe was gazing admiringly at Tinsley. Callie rolled her eyes. Was there anyone, guy or girl, who didn’t worship Tinsley—even as they stood in fear of her?
“Prospective,” Callie replied evenly. “Chloe, meet Tinsley.”
Tinsley squinted her violet eyes, sizing up the girl. “You look really familiar,” she said. “Have you visited Waverly before?”
Chloe shook her pale blond head quietly, seemingly shell-shocked that the great Tinsley Carmichael was actually talking to her. Whatever.
“Tins, I’ll see you later,” Callie said, eager to get to Dumbarton and foist Chloe on the first person she saw.
“Later.” Tinsley saluted the girls with her tennis racket and headed in the direction of the courts. Callie pounded up the front steps to Dumbarton and threw open the door, looking around for her unlucky victim.
Except . . . the lobby was mysteriously empty, even for a Sunday. With its buttery leather couches and ground-floor windows, the common room was usually filled with girls eating burned popcorn and watching movies, or pretending to hold study groups as they gossiped over their open textbooks. It was never this quiet. It was like those eerie scenes in horror movies where everyone else is already dead and the killer is just waiting for the right time to launch his final attack.
But then Callie spotted a pair of pink ladybug-covered socks hanging off the side of the plush leather couch. Brett was listening to her iPod, her pointy nose wedged in her tattered paperback copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Brett sometimes picked up the book and started reading it in the middle, or at the end. Brett called Callie “Stradlater,” Holden Caulfield’s pain-in-theass roommate. Or she used t
o anyway. These days they hardly talked.
Callie was about to tug on Brett’s socked foot, but the memory of drunkenly spilling the beans about Brett and Kara to the entire Waverly campus flooded her brain. Looking at Brett in her silly socks, reading her favorite book, she felt awful. Did Brett know it was Callie’s fault?
Brett turned the page and jumped at the sight of Callie. She pulled out an earbud, and Callie could hear Nine Inch Nails spilling out.
“Hey,” Brett said coolly, her green eyes flashing. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Come to tell more of my deepest, darkest secrets to the whole school?”
Well, that answered that. “Hey.” Callie didn’t know what else to say.
Brett’s lips were a glossy red, making her alabaster skin look even paler. She was really getting shit on this year, Callie thought, between the Mr. Dalton disaster, Jeremiah sleeping with someone else, and then the whole everyone-talking-about-her-being-a-lesbian thing.
Callie tried to apologize with her eyes. “I . . . was . . . wondering if you’d mind taking Chloe.” Callie hoped it came out like a request and not a demand.
“Who’s Chloe?” Brett asked, confused. She sat up on the couch, tugging at the bottom of her frayed white C&C V-neck.
Callie spun around. Chloe was gone. “She was just here. . . .”
“New roommate?” Brett arched her eyebrows.
Callie laughed. After the Jenny disaster, they didn’t need any new roommates. “No, she’s a prospective. I got her from Sage and Benny. Maybe she went to the bathroom,” she added with a shrug. Brett fidgeted with her iPod while Callie loomed over the couch. Finally, she plopped down on the overstuffed easy chair across from Brett. She played with the zipper of her jacket, tugging it up and down, and took a deep breath. “Look, I wanted to apologize about Friday night. I was drunk, which I know is no excuse, but you know I would normally never, like, tell a secret like that.”