Birthday Vicious (16 page)

Lili pelted down the broad staircase, past the stained-glass window on the landing, almost tripping on one of the brass carpet rods. Her mother was standing by the front door, dressed in her usual daytime-casual look of Chanel pencil skirt, Inhabit cashmere sweater, black pearls, and black-and-cream Chanel slingbacks.

Next to her, on the carved Korean hope chest, was a small but exquisite display of flowers. No wonder her mother was mad. Not only was the display really small—much too small for their grand dining table—but some
of the flowers were white, which her mother hated. She said white flowers were for funerals. Personally, Lili thought the white snowdrops were pretty, but she knew her mother had a strict design aesthetic. Maybe she was using a new florist who didn't know her tastes?

“I thought this was the dining-room centerpiece,” her mother said, looking angrily at Lili.

Whoa! It wasn't as though Lili had made it from stuff she found in the garden. Why was her mother so annoyed with
her
? “But instead I discover that these flowers are for you.”

“For me?” Lili exclaimed. How cool! She'd never received flowers before. Her mother looked less than delighted. She held up a small white envelope.

“And do you know what the card says?” Nancy's voice was icy cold. “I'll read it to you, shall I? ‘To Lili—Sorry you got busted. See you Saturday—Max.' ”

Uh-oh. Lili wasn't sure where to look. Part of her wanted to smile: Max had sent her flowers! Her boyfriend had sent her flowers! She couldn't wait to tell the other Ashleys!

But the rest of her knew better than to smile. After the big no-boyfriends speech on Sunday, her parents were not going to take kindly to a boy sending her
flowers and talking about getting together that weekend. If she'd been in big trouble before, she was in a gigantic vat of crap now.

“It appears that even though I expressly told you not to have any contact with this boy, you defied me. We clearly can't trust you. Where is your phone?”

“In my desk drawer,” Lili mumbled, shifting from one foot to the other and feeling unjustly punished. Max sent the flowers—she had nothing to do with it!

“Quintilla!” Nancy called to a young uniformed maid, who was trying to scuttle by unnoticed. “Please go up to Miss Lili's room and bring me her phone, her Android, and her laptop. You are forbidden to call or contact this boy in any way. I'm taking your phone and asking all the staff to make sure you don't use any of the house phones or computers. Until you earn our trust again, you're cut off.”

E-grounded! This was the worst thing imaginable. It couldn't possibly get worse. Could it?

“And don't even think about going to school tomorrow to use your friends' phones to send messages. I'm taking you out of school for the rest of the week. I'll ask the principal to send work home for you. You are not leaving this house until we say so, understand?” Her
mother had never looked so ferocious. Her Genghis side was totally showing.

Lili nodded mutely, trying to control her quivering lower lip. This was it. She had no way of getting in touch with Max. And she almost certainly wasn't going to be allowed to attend Ashley's Super-Sweet Thirteen.

There was absolutely nothing to live for. She might as well be stuck in Siberia.

ASHLEY DIDN'T FEEL LIKE GOING
straight home after school on Wednesday, and when Ashley didn't want to do something, she
wasn't
doing it. She called her mother and told her not to bother coming to Miss Gamble's at three: the Ashleys were having an after-school summit at Mel's Diner, the 1950s-style soda fountain just down the street from school.

The big house overlooking the bay was too crazy at the moment. This afternoon, the first of Mona Mazur's trucks was scheduled to pull in, so Mona could begin her total transformation of the mansion's ground floor into a circus big top.

Normally, this was the kind of thing Ashley would
want to oversee and control in some way, but she had complete faith in Mona. She also didn't want to be around in case her mother, who was still suffering from morning sickness pretty much all day long, suddenly changed her mind and decided to cancel everything.

Matilda would only pull a stunt like that if Ashley were around, because she was a little afraid of Mona Mazur. So was Ashley, for that matter. So Ashley would rather steer clear until Mona had supervised the raising of the tent roof and the installation of the trapeze, by which time it would all be too complicated and too expensive to rip out.

The other reason Ashley wanted some quality time away from Chez Spencer was to discuss the Cooper situation with the other Ashleys. There were not enough hours in the day at school right now, especially with the stupid mock prep-school exams everyone was forced to study for this week. As if Ashley needed to ace a test to get into the best prep schools in the country, when one call from her dad would get the job done more efficiently.

Everyone's personal dramas were so inconvenient. Why was it all the Ashleys were moaning about boys instead of doing what they did best—helping Ashley get
her way? A. A. was awash with guilt over how Hunter took their breakup, Lili'd been snatched out of school because of that stupid camping adventure, and Lauren was moping because one of her two boyfriends had dropped her. As if she didn't have another!

And if Lauren thought Ashley hadn't noticed she was secretly hanging out with Sadie Graham, Lauren had seriously underestimated the gossip grapevine. Not that Ashley was going to bring any of that up; she'd decided to keep it to herself for now and act on the information later, if needed. In the meantime, Lauren was still in the Ashleys. But Ashley relished knowing that that could change on her whim at any moment.

At Mel's Diner, her friends—minus Lili, because even a soy mocha milkshake with her gal pals was strictly verboten this week—took over the corner booth, squeezing along its red-glitter vinyl seats and drumming their French-polished nails on the silver-swirled Formica tabletop.

“This is such a cute place,” said Lauren, gazing around at the individual jukeboxes on each table and the central lighting fixture, a dangling mobile made from old vinyl records. “Alex is meeting us here. He
said he might bring Tri along, since they'll both be coming back from some boys' Academic Decathlon together. Is that okay?”

“Sure.” Ashley shrugged, scanning her menu for nut-free organic options. Normally she would be outraged if an Ashleys summit was infiltrated, but today she thought a little male advice might come in handy. Maybe Alex and Tri knew Cooper.

“Don't the guys have some crew meet later?” A. A. scowled. She viciously twisted one of her pigtails and stuck the end in her mouth.

“Senior team only,” said Lauren, who was the expert, apparently.

“Shame,” mumbled A. A. through a mouthful of hair.

Ashley stared down at her laminated menu with its polka-dot ribbon trim, making sure she didn't catch A. A.'s eye. She still felt a twinge of guilt whenever A. A. mentioned Tri.

By the time Ashley and Lauren had ordered their soy milkshakes, and A. A.—who never cared about calories—had decided on a double-chocolate malt, the boys were slouching in, both in their uniforms—shirts hanging out, ties loosened, and shoes scuffed.

Ugh! Why were boys so lazy? Before the guys
arrived, the Ashleys had been checking themselves out in compact mirrors, making sure their lip gloss was fresh and their teeth were stain and food free.

Tri and Alex both ordered towering ice-cream sundaes, which was just as well—eating gave the boys something to do. Neither Lauren nor A. A. were acting very friendly toward them. A. A. was sucking down her malt and glaring at Tri, as though she was offended by his presence.

Lauren, who was supposed to be going out with Alex, seemed uncomfortable around him, as though she wished he wasn't there, though she was, at least, asking him a few bored questions about what had happened at school that day. Ashley decided to get the conversation back on track. She kicked Tri under the table, which made him spit out a chunk of banana.

“I have something to ask you,” she told him, ignoring the fact that he was picking the soggy banana slice off the table and putting it back in his mouth. Ew. How could she ever have liked him? “Do you know a guy at Gregory Hall named Cooper?”

Tri thought for a moment and then shook his head.

“Nope,” he said. “What grade is he in?”

“Eighth, maybe?”

“Nope. There's no one named Cooper in seventh or eighth grade. Maybe he goes to Saint A's?”

Ashley didn't think Cooper was a Saint Aloysius boy—everyone there had to keep their hair short, above their collars, and Cooper's dark hair was longish and curled beneath his ears. “Alex, do you know anyone named Cooper at Saint A's?”

Alex, his mouth full of ice cream, screwed up his face and rolled out his white-streaked bottom lip.

“I think that means no.” Lauren sighed, tapping her cheek with a long spoon.

This was weird. Why wouldn't they know him? Ashley described what he looked like in detail—maybe too much detail—and both Tri and Alex smirked. They couldn't think of anyone at all who looked like that and was known as Cooper.

“Maybe he goes to Reed?” A. A. asked. She pulled out her voluminous handbag and shook some quarters onto the table for the jukebox.

Ashley shook her head. There was no way her perfect guy went to that stupid Arthur Reed Prep School for the Arts, like Lili's banned boyfriend, Max. He wasn't goth or alterno enough for that place!

“What else did he tell you?” asked Lauren, sliding
some quarters across the table to A. A., who was flicking through the jukebox selections. Ashley wished everyone would focus on
her
problems for a change.

“Nothing, really.” And he really hadn't. They'd talked a lot, but not about stuff like specific schools or specific addresses. Or even last names. “But he has my number—I made sure I gave it to him before I left the marina.”

“Then it's just a waiting game.” Alex gobbled down the last of his sundae. Tri had already finished his. Why did guys always eat as though someone was timing them? “When he gets in touch, you can ask him where he goes to school.”

“Unless he doesn't call you,” said A. A., shooting an evil look at Tri. “Guys do that. They're all over you one minute, and the next they've mysteriously forgotten your number.”

“He'd better not forget mine,” muttered Ashley, just as the jukebox started playing “It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To.”

A. A. wriggled out of the booth, saying something about going to the bathroom, but Ashley was too distracted to do the usual girl thing, which was to go to the bathroom en masse.

Was Cooper going to show on Saturday? Or was A. A. right? If he didn't RSVP, chances were slim. If he didn't show up, her birthday was totally going to suck, no matter how many fire-eaters they hired to line the entrance. And for once in her life, Ashley Spencer was powerless to do anything about it.

A. A. SPENT WAY TOO LONG
in the bathroom, retying her pigtails, curling her eyelashes, staring at the giant framed poster for
Rebel Without a Cause
, and hoping that Tri would be gone by the time she returned to the booth.

But no, she was all out of luck, as usual. Back at the table, a new song was playing—another of her selections, “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem and Rhianna, chosen especially for Tri, so he'd get the message about what a lowlife he really was—and the only person who had left was Ashley.

“She's catching a taxi home,” Lauren told her. “Via the marina to look for Cooper.”

Lauren resumed her conversation with Alex, which seemed to be some tense and serious discussion; A. A. could catch only a little of their mumblings over the blaring music, but Alex seemed to be accusing Lauren of still being into Christian. She couldn't believe that Tri was just sitting there like a bag of flour. Couldn't he tell that Lauren and Alex wanted to be alone?

“I guess I'll be going too,” she said, pulling her handbag onto the table, though nobody seemed to hear. Nobody apart from Tri, that was.

“Don't go yet,” he said quickly. He fidgeted with his tie. “Could we . . . do you want to go sit at the counter for a minute? I've got something I wanted to tell you.”

“Whatever.” A. A. heaved a deep sigh. Just what she needed—more nastiness from Tri. It was bad enough that he hung around in her living room being a pill—his family owned the hotel where she lived, so there wasn't much A. A. could do about that.

But now he was making a nuisance of himself in a public place. She hauled herself up, dragging her bag off the table, and loped to the counter. She really didn't want to hear anything Tri had to say.

Tri asked her if she wanted another milkshake, and A. A. shook her head. He didn't have his usual scowl
today, so maybe he was going to apologize for all his outrageous behavior.

“I heard that you broke up with Hunter,” he told her, swinging his stool back and forth. A. A. rolled her eyes. So that was it! He wanted to gloat, or maybe lecture her about relationships. When was he going to realize that they weren't friends anymore? They were nothing to each other. Seven minutes in a closet with her didn't mean anything to him, and it certainly didn't mean he had some hold over her. Jerk!

“I'm glad you all have nothing better to do at Gregory Hall than spread gossip.” A. A. clutched her bag for moral support. She'd give Tri another thirty seconds, and then she was signing out.

“What I'm trying to say is . . .” Tri looked down at the counter, clutching its rim with his long-fingered, golden-brown hands. “I wanted to tell you that I've broken up with Cecily.”