Lucky

  Mrs. Silver suddenly loomed over Jenny’s shoulder, her round, friendly Mrs. Claus–like face screwed up in a question mark. Today she wore a purple-sea-horse-batiked minidress with sparkly silver leggings and dark brown Ugg boots.

  “Trouble getting started?” she asked, plopping a doughy hand down on Jenny’s shoulder. Jenny nodded slowly.

  “Put the pencil down,” Mrs. Silver instructed her. Jenny slipped the charcoal pencil back in the tray, in its correct spot between 2B and 4B. When had she become so anal? “Now. Take a deep breath.” She inhaled and exhaled quietly, hoping no one around her would think she was about to have a seizure or something.

  “No, no, no,” Mrs. Silver clucked. Her frizzy gray hair was pulled back into two messy buns near the back of her head, but new wisps escaped each time she moved. The sea horses on her minidress danced. “That wasn’t deep enough. Try again.”

  Jenny glanced around, feeling self-conscious as she inhaled deeply, filling up every single inch of her lungs with turpentine-fumed air. She felt her chest expand—not something she really needed—but soon she felt little tingles of life start to spring into her arms and hands and then her whole body. She exhaled loudly, not caring if anyone was watching.

  “Much, much better.” Mrs. Silver giggled happily and clamped her hands on her full hips, lowering her voice so that Jenny had to lean toward her to hear the words. “I want you to communicate with your subconscious. The purpose of this exercise is to let go, to just draw without constraint.” Her hands flitted about, making phantom drawings in the air. “Don’t worry about what it’s going to be—maybe when you’re done, it won’t look like anything. I just want you to put pencil to paper and see what happens.”

  Jenny nodded again. She was having trouble reining in her thoughts, which were mostly preoccupied with Dean Mary-mount’s veiled threat at the welcome dinner last night. And then there was the upcoming Usual Suspects party. At first, Jenny hadn’t been going to go. Watching Callie and Easy celebrate their possible last night together didn’t exactly make her want to party. But ever since the dean’s e-mail had circulated, Jenny had been feeling isolated. She wondered if the other Usual Suspects sensed the same disturbing quiet whenever they entered a room. And why didn’t Julian sit with her at the prospectives’ dinner last night? She’d been so disappointed when she spotted him clear across the room, with some of the squash guys. But maybe he just hadn’t seen her sitting there, and then hadn’t been able to move once Marymount began his speech.

  “Okay, you’re still not relaxed. Let’s try something else. Close your eyes.” Mrs. Silver put one freshly lotioned hand over Jenny’s eyes for effect. “Good. Now pick up the pencil and just start drawing. Don’t think about it. Just move the pencil over the canvas.”

  Jenny was sure everyone was staring at her, but she went along with the exercise. The scent of Mrs. Silver’s rose-hip lotion filled her nose. Her arm moved rapidly, like a lie detector needle in a movie when the suspect is telling wild lies. Soon her wrist was getting in on the action, adding a detail here and there while Jenny studied the inside of her eyelids. Mrs. Silver removed her hand and Jenny kept her eyes closed. The light passing through her eyelids made her see nothing but red.

  “Good,” Mrs. Silver urged. “You’ve got it now. Think of it as taking your brain out of the equation—just let your subconscious speak directly through your pencil. Keep doing it—keep your eyes closed if you need to.”

  Jenny heard Mrs. Silver walk away to talk to another student at the front of the room. She opened her eyes again, but instead of looking at what was on the paper, she stared out the enormous plate glass windows of the art studio, watching the heavy wind whip through the bright red leaves of the birch trees directly outside. Rain droplets started to fall, splattering against the windows along with a few stray leaves.

  After what seemed like a very long time had passed, Jenny pulled herself from her trance, hearing Alison, a couple of desks away, snap her supply bin closed with a bang. Jenny’s eyes rested on her own drawing. She paused. Had she actually drawn this? The sketch pad in front of her was filled with messy dark lines, but the scene itself was clear. A thinly sketched building, the entire top of which was consumed in dancing, leaping flames, while on the ground dark figures ran in all directions. Jenny focused on two figures that seemed to remain stationary, oblivious to the fire, locked in a squiggly embrace amid the chaos. The figures were recognizable only to Jenny.

  In an instant, the entire ordeal replayed itself in Jenny’s head. Easy and Callie had hooked up behind her back. Callie had betrayed her promise of friendship. And Easy had told her before they even got together that things with Callie had been over for a long time. Another lie.

  “Wow, that’s intense.” Alison leaned in and inspected Jenny’s drawing, her smooth black hair falling forward and tickling Jenny’s bare forearm.

  Jenny snapped back to reality. “Thanks.”

  “I’m not even sure what mine’s supposed to be.” Alison shrugged at her sketch pad, which was filled with a series of dots and squiggly lines floating around a rectangle. “My subconscious is way less interesting than yours.”

  Jenny stared at her drawing, swearing she could hear the crackle of the barn burning down and smell the charred wood. She was thankful she’d “tapped into her subconscious” in portraiture class, the only art class she didn’t share with Easy.

  “So who do you think is going to get the ax?” Alison asked under her breath.

  Jenny trained her eyes on the figures at the center of her drawing, remembering Callie’s bare skin, Easy’s hands traveling the length of Callie’s skinny body. “Callie and Easy were the only ones actually in the barn. And they were smoking.” Jenny shrugged. “That’s what I heard, anyway.”

  “Do you think they’ll both get kicked out?” Alison whispered.

  Jenny was suddenly aware of someone behind her, and had the eerie feeling that she was being watched. She deliberately dropped her pencil and reached down to retrieve it, glancing over her shoulder. But it was only Chloe, looking innocuous in a yellow-striped Ralph Lauren polo dress and doodling with a piece of charcoal. She’d been so silent throughout class that Jenny had forgotten she was there. Mrs. Silver was right—she really needed to relax. She was getting paranoid. “Maybe,” Jenny replied.

  “I just want Marymount’s interrogation meeting to be over with.” Alison sighed. “It’s so stressful. It’s making me totally break out.” She pointed toward her cheek, where an almost invisible pimple lingered below her left eye. It looked like a freckle.

  “Where are we going next?” Chloe suddenly piped up, and Jenny nearly fell out of her seat. She needed to drink some chamomile tea. Or find Julian. He knew how to relax her.

  “Um, I’m supposed to go meet Alan. . . .” Alison glanced at Jenny guiltily and the girls packed up their pencils and headed to the supply shelves.

  “How about I go with Jenny, then?” Chloe asked eagerly, her blond ponytail bobbing as she followed them.

  Jenny began to shake her head no—she didn’t have the energy to squire around a prospective—but then she felt guilty. “Yeah, you can hang out with me.” After all, she knew a little too well what it felt like to be lost at Waverly.

  JennyHumphrey: I’ve got a prospective attached to my hip. Want to help me entertain her?

  JulianMcCafferty: Sure thing.

  JennyHumphrey: Meet us at the coffee bar in Maxwell after class?

  JulianMcCafferty: How ’bout we go off campus instead? Ritoli’s?

  JennyHumphrey: Mmm, pizza. It’s a date.

  BrandonBuchanan: Hey, fellow Usual Suspect. How’s it going?

  SageFrancis: It’s okay. . . . Feeling a little freaked out though . . .

  BrandonBuchanan: Why I got in touch. Hoping to commiserate.

  SageFrancis: Think we should plan our alibis for tomorrow?

  BrandonBuchanan: It’s the most we can do, right?

  SageFrancis: Right. I’ll scratch your
back if you scratch mine.

  BrandonBuchanan: I’d be up for that. Could offer your back a little massage, too. See you at the party tonight?

  SageFrancis: I’ll be there.

  15

  DOORS MUST REMAIN OPEN AT ALL TIMES DURING APPROVED OPPOSITE-SEX DORM VISITATION HOURS.

  Brett rapped her knuckles against Kara’s closed door, her turquoise-and-scarlet beaded bracelets clinking together. Yvonne Stidder had left a note on Kara’s dry-erase message board asking if she wanted to have lunch. It was funny—in all the recent insanity, Brett had almost forgotten that anyone other than Kara and the other Usual Suspects even existed.

  The past few days had reminded Brett of the floor-to-ceiling aquariums in the foyer of her parents’ McMansion. You could always tell when one of the tetras or rainbow fish was sick, because all the other fish would avoid them, as though the scent of death were clinging to them. Brett felt like one of the sick fish. But she wasn’t the only one. Behind closed doors or surrounded by whispers, she was positive the other “suspects” were drawing up alliances, calling on old friendships and favors in order to protect themselves from whatever wrath Dean Marymount was ready to unleash. Which was why she needed Kara now. She’d felt pretty panicked since her chat with Mr. Tomkins yesterday and wanted to get their stories straight.

  “Come in.”

  She pushed open Kara’s door. Heath Ferro was sprawled next to Kara on her bed, his head resting in her cross-legged lap while she braided his dirty blond hair. Um, what?

  Heath’s prospective protégé reclined on the blue vinyl beanbag in the corner, his tiny legs propped up against the window, holding an open Batgirl comic book over his face. Probably trying to imagine what Batgirl looked like without her costume on. A Beastie Boys song played on Kara’s sound dock, and everyone seemed quietly absorbed in what they were doing. Given the serene, domestic-bliss feel of the scene, Brett wouldn’t have been surprised if classical music came on next.

  “Another prayer answered.” Heath’s eyes lit up. He sat up quickly and scooted over, little half braids sticking out all over his head as he made room on the Batgirl comforter between him and Kara.

  Brett sat gingerly on the bed. “So . . .” She looked first at Kara and then at Heath. “What are you guys up to?” Since when did Kara and Heath have hair-braiding sessions?

  “I’m acting as a consultant for the party tonight.” Kara smiled, tucking her legs underneath her. She wore a flouncy polka-dot skirt that splayed out on the comforter like a tutu. “Heath had some very important questions he needed answered,” she added, turning to Heath, who winked back at her. In the Waverly T-shirt he’d been wearing since Marymount sent out the suspect list (a tongue-in-cheek effort to show his school spirit) and his worn-out Citizens of Humanity jeans, Heath looked like the quintessential smug prep-school boy.

  “Don’t you guys think we should be, like, planning our alibis instead of planning a kegger?” Brett stood up. She pulled down on the bottom of her white Reyes button-up and turned to face Kara and Heath on the bed.

  “A party always trumps a trial in my mind,” Heath said with a lazy grin, scratching his stomach through his T-shirt. “Come on, Marymount’s ‘list’ is such bull.” He made air quotes around the word list. “I’m seeing it for what it really is: an excuse to get drunk and miss class.” He reached a hand out for Sam to slap. “Right on, son!”

  Brett just stared at him. Heath and his don’t-give-a-shit attitude. Didn’t he realize how serious this whole thing was? One of them could be gone tomorrow.

  “So you don’t even want to talk about what we were doing at the party?” Brett asked challengingly. She put her hands on the hips of her 7 For All Mankind jeans and locked eyes with Heath, not daring to look at Kara.

  “Sam, buddy.” Heath turned his half-braided head toward his Mini Me. “Grab some hallway, will you? I need some alone time with my girls.”

  Sam popped up from the beanbag, looking like he was about to salute Heath. “The pony express rides again!” he hailed in his surprisingly deep voice. He held out his hand for a high five from Heath, but Heath kicked out his leg instead, directing Sam toward the door.

  “What do you think is going to happen in here?” Brett blocked Sam’s exit, still staring at Heath. “That we’re going to have some sort of orgy?” She had meant it as a joke, but there was a hard edge to her voice that she couldn’t control.

  “Relax, baby,” Heath said, still smiling, his green eyes shining. “You’ve got to loosen up.”

  Kara giggled nervously, like she wasn’t sure what to do. She took off her glasses and looked up at Brett, her head tilted slightly, as if trying to figure out what was going on.

  “I did loosen up.” Brett couldn’t stop herself. “And look what’s happened.” She’d meant the comment for Heath, but Kara blinked several times and looked as if she’d just been slapped. Brett wanted to apologize. But with Heath and his little Mini Me hanging on her every word, all she could do was back out of the room, not bothering to close the door behind her.

  Kara followed her out into the hallway, gently closing the door to her room behind them. “What’s going on?” Her hazel eyes were filled with concern. Now that her eyes were no longer obscured by glasses, Brett noticed her delicate dark lashes, which were long and curly, even though she wore no mascara.

  Brett shrugged her shoulders and fiddled with the pearly buttons on her shirt. She wanted to tell Kara about what had happened in Dean Marymount’s office yesterday, about how worried she was. She knew that they’d done nothing wrong—they’d had nothing to do with the fire, and kissing another girl was hardly against the rules—but she also knew that once they got into that interrogation room, anything could happen. They really could get kicked out of Waverly, if someone wanted them gone. But she didn’t trust herself to say anything else right then. “I’m gonna go take a nap. I’ll see you at the party later.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come back in?” Kara tilted her head back toward the doorway. An Amy Winehouse song Brett liked was now filtering through the door. “I snagged some peanut butter cookies from the dining hall for you.” She smiled hopefully.

  Brett shook her head. “Nah, seems like you guys were having more fun without me anyway.” She turned on her heel and made her way down the dark hallway, not looking back to see the hurt expression on Kara’s face.

  16

  A WAVERLY OWL TICKLES A FELLOW OWL ONLY AFTER A PROPER INVITATION.

  Brandon let the depressing sounds of Wilco wash over him as he lay on his bed, thinking about the dean’s suspect list. He was going to need a better alibi than “I was too busy telling off my girlfriend of five minutes to start the fire.” Marymount would probably make him reenact the scene with Elizabeth in front of everyone, and for the rest of Brandon’s tenure at Waverly people would whisper, “Mr. Open is closed,” and snicker whenever he walked past. Fuck. At least Sage Francis had seemed receptive to his IMs earlier. It was sort of cowardly to approach a girl via text message, but you couldn’t blame a guy for testing the waters. After all, what if that prospective girl Chloe had heard wrong? He didn’t need another disaster of Elizabethan proportions. This time, his motto was “Slow and cautious.” He’d planted the seed, and tonight at Heath’s alcohol-drenched party, he’d attempt to water it.

  A drumbeat came out of nowhere, trampling the lead vocals of his favorite song. It took him a minute to realize it wasn’t a drum at all, but someone knocking on his door. If it was fucking Sam again, he was going to kill him—but then Sam apparently wasn’t the knocking type. He’d stormed through the door at seven-thirty that morning while Brandon was still toweling off from his shower, asking Brandon snidely what color dress he’d be wearing today. Goddamn little Heath clone.

  The door swung open. Sage Francis was standing in his doorway, wearing a short wool houndstooth Chanel dress, her long pale blond hair clipped out of her face with two tiny dragonfly-shaped yellow sequined barrettes.

 
“Hey,” he said, trying not to betray his surprise. He ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly self-conscious about his plain white Hanes undershirt—was it pit-stained?—and grateful for his still-crisp pair of charcoal gray Theory trousers.

  “Hi.” Sage smiled confidently. Brandon had always thought of Sage as one of Callie’s generic, giggling friends. But on her own, framed in his doorway, she looked . . . different.

  “So, uh . . . how’s it going?” Brandon asked casually. His slow and cautious method was one thing, but he hadn’t been prepared for an ambush. He glanced around the room sheepishly, hoping she wouldn’t notice the pair of Heath’s polka-dotted boxer shorts on the floor near his bed where he’d left them. Or, if she did, he hoped she at least wouldn’t think they were his.

  Sage shrugged her shoulders. “After our chat earlier, I thought I’d drop in.” She nodded at the Latin textbook lying facedown on Brandon’s neatly made bed, on top of his Ralph Lauren down comforter. He quickly smoothed out the wrinkles where he’d been lying and sat up. “Studying?”

  Brandon shook his head no, although he did have a Latin recitation in the morning. Apparently he was going to miss it for Marymount’s US meeting. Not exactly a fair trade. “Thinking about studying.” Sage giggled, and Brandon felt emboldened. “Come on in.” He was grateful when she left the door open—at least some of Heath’s disgusting sweaty gorilla-man odor would vent into the hall.

  “I have a geometry test on Thursday, but it’s a little hard to study for it, knowing I might be expelled before then.” Sage sat down on the edge of Brandon’s unmade bed. There was something about the way she perched on the corner of the bed, his white chenille throw blanket swirling around her tanned legs, that made Brandon suddenly sit up a little straighter.

  “Come on. Why would you be expelled?” Brandon demanded. “You didn’t have anything to do with the fire.” He hoped that didn’t come out as a question. Because he really doubted she did. With her wispy, corn silk blond hair and bright blue eyes, it seemed next to impossible Sage could do something so devious. She was the picture of innocence. He envisioned her with wings on a Hallmark card.