“But I’m apologizing,” she pointed out.
He folded the paper noisily and turned the full force of his disapproving stare on her. “I don’t understand, Carina. I think I’ve been a pretty decent parent to you. Even a good parent. I’ve denied you nothing, for starters. I give you anything you want. And this is how you act?”
“Dad—” she attempted.
He threw the paper down on his empty plate. “Don’t I send you to the best school in the city? Don’t I pay your credit card bills? Don’t I send you on every mountain climbing trip under the sun?”
“Yeah, but…” Her mind whirled around, struggling to come up with an argument. “Is that all that being a father means to you? Paying for stuff?”
She knew as soon as she said it that it had been a mistake. The Jurg didn’t blink but his right eyebrow twitched, the way it always did when he was about to really get furious.
Ding-dong.
Both turned their heads toward the front door. The doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it,” she said, thrilled at the chance to leave the room. It was probably another overeager room service waiter, checking to see whether they were done with breakfast.
She ran out to the foyer and threw open the heavy front door. Instead of a room service waiter it was a short, slim woman sporting a black suit, fuchsia lipstick, and tightly curled black hair. In her right hand she held a shiny caramel leather attaché case with aged clasps, the kind that held ticking bombs and spy secrets in the movies.
“I’m Erica Straker,” the woman said abruptly, thrusting out her hand. “Carina, right?”
Carina shook her hand loosely. She wasn’t used to adults addressing her by name. “Uh, yes,” she said.
“I’m with the law firm of Cantwell and Schrum, here in Century City,” she said briskly. “Is your father here?”
“Can I help you?” said the Jurg. He’d come to stand behind Carina.
“Erica Straker. We’ve met before,” she said brusquely. This time she didn’t offer her hand. “I represent your ex-wife.”
The Jurg didn’t move, and without waiting for an invitation Erica Straker stepped right into the room.
“What’s this about, Ms. Straker?” the Jurg asked, straining to sound polite.
“My client’s been notified about your plan to send Carina away to boarding school,” she said matter-of-factly as she lifted her attaché case and placed it on a glass credenza by the door. “And the custody agreement you and my client signed says you are not to change your daughter’s living arrangements without my client’s permission.” She popped the case and took out a thick, stapled document that seemed to be hundreds of pages. She hefted it out of the case and handed it to the Jurg. “Maybe you forgot that clause?” she asked, cocking her head, as if she didn’t already know the answer.
The Jurg swiped the document out of her hands. “These plans came up very quickly,” he muttered. “And as you probably know, she’s not the easiest person to reach.”
Ms. Straker smiled, showing her coffee-stained teeth. “Well, my client understands that you may have forgotten the agreement, so she wanted me to come by and remind you. Of course she’d like Carina to stay in New York. And if you do choose to disregard her wishes,” she went on, “she’ll have ample grounds to sue you for custody. And she knows how much you’d hate that.”
Carina looked down at the gold and crimson Persian rug, aware that her eyes were bugging out of her head. Lizzie, she thought. This was why she’d sent her that text saying that everything was going to be fine. Lizzie and Hudson had told her mom. They’d saved her.
The Jurg cleared his throat. “All right then. Tell your client I’m impressed by her quick response. I didn’t think she’d have the time. What with her tight yoga schedule and her meditation commitments and all.”
With the smugness of someone who knows they’ve just beaten their opponent—badly—Erica clicked her attaché case shut and pulled it off the table. “Have a nice trip back east, Mr. Jurgensen. And you take care, Carina,” she said, winking. Then she walked out the door.
As soon as the door shut, the Jurg tossed the agreement into the trash. “I suppose you had nothing to do with this,” he said. His cheeks had turned a dark shade of pink. Karl Jurgensen was not used to being foiled in his plans, much less in front of his daughter.
“I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t even call her—”
“Don’t think for a minute I’m going to forget about this,” he interrupted. “Now get your things. We’re leaving.”
“Ten minutes?” she asked sarcastically. She couldn’t help it.
The Jurg turned around and glared at her. “Now,” he said.
Carina rushed back into her room and grabbed her iPhone. Now she knew exactly what to say to her friends.
I’M COMING HOME!! she tapped out as the California sun slowly lit up the sky.
chapter 3
“You can pull over here!” Carina yelled from the backseat. “Thanks, Max!”
Max dutifully pulled the black Range Rover over to the curb as Carina unclicked her seat belt. Up the block she could see Lizzie and Hudson turn into the doors of the Chadwick School. She’d gotten home too late from California to call them the night before, and now she couldn’t wait to see them.
“Oh my God, stop,” she said as Max opened his car door. “My dad can make you drive me to school, but he can’t make you open the door for me.”
“Have a good day, C,” Max said, smiling at her in the rearview mirror. “Glad you’re back.”
“So am I,” she said before she slammed the door. She took off in a wild run up the block, bounded through the doors, and attacked her best friends in the lobby with a bear hug that practically knocked them down. “Hey guys!” she yelled.
“Oh my God, hi!!!” Lizzie yelled back, squeezing Carina so hard that she almost couldn’t breathe. At nearly six feet tall, with huge hazel eyes, full lips, and red curls, Lizzie was the most unique-looking girl Carina had ever seen. But Lizzie had always been uncomfortable with her unruly and unusual looks, especially because her mom was Katia Summers, the supermodel. Over the past couple months Lizzie had been “discovered”—first by a photographer and then by the whole fashion world—and been dubbed the “new face of beauty.” Carina hadn’t been the least bit surprised. Whenever Lizzie walked into a room, people always noticed her—and Carina often wished that she had the same effect on people.
“Yay! You made it!” Hudson cried, her sea green eyes lighting up as she threw her arms around Carina. Hudson was just a little bit taller than Carina but tinier and more delicate, with wavy, shoulder-length black hair and flawless French toast–colored skin. Most of the time Carina felt like a mess just standing next to Hudson, who was always wearing something from either the most avant-garde boutiques in TriBeCa or the coolest vintage stores in the East Village. Her look was bohemian, which meant lots of floaty tunic dresses in metallic fabrics, futuristic necklaces, huge hoop earrings, and floppy hats. Carina loved accessories, too, but generally stuck to gold and silver earrings and bracelets. Hudson’s ability to mix beads, gold, and gun metal was completely beyond her.
“Oh my God, you guys saved my life,” Carina gushed. “You should have seen my dad’s face when that lawyer showed up. It was the first time in his life he’d heard the word no. I almost wanted to record it on my iPhone.”
“It was Hudson’s idea,” Lizzie said proudly, using her long legs to take the steps to the Upper School two at a time. “She remembered that time when we were talking about boarding school, and you said your mom would need to sign off on it.”
“But Lizzie was the one who actually called your mom,” Hudson said, pulling off her gloves. “She talked to her for, like, an hour.”
“You did?” Carina asked. “How’d you get her on the phone?”
“I don’t know, she just picked up,” Lizzie said, shrugging. “And get this: she’d seen my picture in Rayon. She knew about the whole modeling
thing. I couldn’t believe it. I’d forgotten how cool she was.”
“Yeah,” Carina said wistfully. Mimi Jurgensen was really cool. Much cooler than the man she’d married. It was never quite clear to Carina what had drawn her parents together. The Jurg was a tense workaholic who cared only about making money, and her mom was a free-spirited Sarah Lawrence grad who couldn’t have cared less about belonging to the Maidstone Club or driving a vintage Jaguar. “So… was she really upset when you told her what was happening?” Carina asked.
“Oh yeah,” said Lizzie. “Completely. How’d she sound when you talked to her?”
“I didn’t, I mean, I haven’t yet,” Carina replied, feeling a little uncomfortable. When she’d gotten off the plane in New York, she’d thought there’d be a voice mail from her mom on her phone, but there was only a text.
Glad to hear things worked out. I miss you! Love, Mom.
Her mom now ran a yoga studio in Maui. From what she could tell, that’s all people really did there, besides surf.
“So how are things with your dad now?” Hudson asked, unknotting her cashmere scarf. “Is he still totally furious?”
“I have no idea. We’ve managed to not speak to each other since the whole lawyer standoff. Which I’m totally fine with, by the way.”
Lizzie opened the swinging door that led to the Upper School and they joined the streams of people walking up and down the halls.
“He got the story taken down from the site and put out a press release saying it was a lie and everything,” Carina added, breaking into a smile as she waved at people. “So I think it’s totally over. Thank God.”
“You sure about that?” Lizzie asked skeptically.
“Well, he did say he wasn’t going to forget about it or something like that, but I apologized,” Carina said. “And it wasn’t like I said he was definitely stealing.”
Lizzie and Hudson both gave Carina a look.
“What?” she asked them.
“You basically said that your dad was a thief,” Lizzie pointed out. “That’s libel. People go to jail for that.”
“But he didn’t do it. And have you guys forgotten what he did to me?” Carina asked hotly. “If I didn’t do something now, he’d have had me working for him full-time in two years. I probably wouldn’t have even graduated!” Carina pulled her blond hair back into a ponytail, which always calmed her down. “Look, if he’s got some huge horrible punishment coming my way, then fine. I know I screwed up. But I had to do something. And I really did think that he was doing something wrong.”
“I want to know how he caught you,” Hudson put in. “Did you ever find out?”
“Oh, this is the best: Creepy Manservant.”
“No way!” Hudson shrieked.
“Are you sure it was him?” Lizzie asked.
“Totally. He was in the apartment when it all went down. And he gave me this really smug smile when my dad was yelling at me. But don’t worry. I’m getting him back. I have a plan for revenge.”
“Oh no, not more revenge,” Lizzie groaned.
“No, this is awesome.” Carina took a page out of her book bag. “Look at this.” She handed the page to Lizzie and Hudson.
“ ‘If I never feel you in my arms again,’ ” Lizzie read out loud. “ ‘If I never feel your tender kiss again, if I never hear “I love you” now and then…’ ” Lizzie stopped and looked up with a confused squint. “Isn’t this a song?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Carina said. “Look at the bottom.”
Lizzie and Hudson both glanced down at the words scrawled in huge letters at the bottom of the page.
I WANT YOU.
“I don’t get it,” Hudson said.
“I’m gonna make him think he has a secret admirer!” Carina cried.
“That’s revenge?” Lizzie asked.
“Come on, he’s the saddest, grossest, unsexiest guy on the face of the earth, and he’s probably never had a girl be into him, ever,” Carina said. She tossed the letter back into her bag. “When he realizes it’s a joke, he’ll be totally humiliated. It’s the least I can do.”
“Well, good luck with that,” Lizzie said, patting Carina’s shoulder.
They were just about to walk into homeroom when Carina heard the unmistakable clip-clop of kitten heels coming down the hall behind her. She instantly knew who it was.
“Oh no,” Lizzie said under her breath. “Incoming.”
“Oh please, God, no,” Hudson whispered. “No.”
“Hey guys!” a familiar voice called out.
The three of them turned around.
Ava Elting was walking straight toward them in short, determined steps, wearing a newly whitened smile and the largest distressed-leather Kooba bag that Carina had ever seen.
“Hold up!” she called out, waving a perfectly manicured hand. “I need you guys!”
“She needs us?” Carina said out of the side of her mouth.
“I’m sure,” Hudson griped.
Five days after her notorious breakup with Todd Piedmont, the reigning queen of Chadwick’s social elite looked more perfectly groomed than ever. Her auburn curls were pulled back from her face with the usual jeweled barrette, and the diamond A on her necklace glinted in the hollow of her collarbone. Her oxford—Ava never wore turtlenecks, not even in November—was unbuttoned just low enough to show off a hint of lace-trimmed camisole against her artificially tanned skin. There was no indication that she’d been a crying, lying wreck just a few days ago, when Todd Piedmont had finally come to his senses and broken up with her. Afterward, to save face, Ava spread a ridiculous story about him cheating on her. Only Ava Elting can do that, Carina thought, and waltz into school a few days later like it never happened.
“So hey, you guys,” Ava said in an overly friendly tone. “I just wanted to ask you all a really quick question.”
“Go ahead,” Carina mumbled, speaking for the group. Lizzie, Todd’s new girlfriend, was respectfully silent, and Hudson was just being shy, as usual.
“So I think I told you guys that I’m the chair of the Silver Snowflake Ball this year?” Ava said excitedly, letting her voice turn up into a question. “I’m soooo psyched. The charity we’re raising money for is amazing. It’s the Make New York Beautiful Foundation.”
“The what?” Carina asked.
“It gives free cosmetic surgery to the underprivileged. And the dance is shaping up to be an amaaaazing event. So amazing I’m pretty sure it’s gonna make it into the New York Times.”
“Really?” Lizzie asked, trying not to laugh.
“Well, the style section,” Ava clarified, wrinkling her nose. “You know how they mention all the great parties of the week on Sunday? That’s sort of my goal with this.”
“Oh,” Carina said. Reach for the skies, she thought.
“Which reminds me,” Ava went on, flashing another blindingly white smile at Lizzie and Hudson. “I think I asked you guys a few weeks ago if your moms had anything they could donate? To the raffle? Do you guys remember?”
Lizzie and Hudson studied the shiny wood floor.
“I was thinking tickets to your mom’s concert?” Ava said to Hudson. “Or dinner with her after?”
Carina almost laughed out loud. Holla Jones, Hudson’s pop star mom, would rather die than eat dinner with two strangers.
“And maybe your mom has some awesome vintage Alaïa dress,” Ava said to Lizzie. “Or she could donate some lingerie from her line.”
Lizzie turned even paler than usual as she hid behind her massive red curls. Katia had just started her own lingerie line, and Lizzie was still mortified by it. “I can try,” Lizzie hedged, eyeing the wood floor.
“And you,” Ava said to Carina, narrowing her eyes as she played with her diamond A necklace. “I was going to ask if you wanted to be on the Executive Planning Committee.”
“You were?” Carina asked, too surprised to laugh. “What is that?”
“It’s a bunch of people who meet a few times and tal
k about the event,” Ava said. “But it’s mostly having your name on the invitation. Anyway, it’s an honor. We only ask the most socially viable people to be on it.”
Ugh, Carina thought. The only reason Ava thought she was socially viable was because she had money. It didn’t matter that Carina had never once gone to the polo matches out in Bridgehampton, or done cotillion in fifth grade, or been to any other fancy, two-hundred-dollar-a-ticket dance, or anything else that Ava would consider “social.” It was just the Cha-Ching Effect, plain and simple. She was cool in Ava’s opinion simply because her dad was rich.
“No thanks,” Carina said. “It’s not really my thing.”
Ava raised one of her expertly arched brows. “Okay, fine,” she said, sounding a little offended. “And you guys can let me know about that other stuff,” she said to Lizzie and Hudson, raising her voice a little as if they couldn’t hear her. “See ya.”
Once Ava had sauntered away down the hall, Lizzie clapped her hand over her nose. “Oh my God. Is it me or does she shower in Marc Jacobs Daisy?”
“Executive Committee?” Carina cried. “More like the Crazy Committee. Even the Lower School knows how she lied about Todd.”
“And socially viable?” Hudson asked, her green eyes wide with disgust. “What does that even mean?”
“I guess it’s just being able to have your name on an invitation,” Lizzie said, rolling her eyes.
“At least she’s being honest about how lame it is,” Hudson pointed out. “I guess it was nice of her to ask you.”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather have my eyeballs poked out than be involved with her stupid dance,” Carina said as they walked into homeroom.
Carina realized that Lizzie was making a beeline to the back of the room, and then she saw why: Todd sat in the back row next to three empty desks that he’d claimed for them. He looked adorable as usual, with his floppy brown hair and baby-deer-like blue eyes.
“So are you guys officially going out now?” Carina whispered to Lizzie as they approached him. She’d heard about their epic makeout session in Washington Square Park.