Jet Set (6 page)

“S
o what high school has a white-tie thing, anyway?” I laughed, flopping on Sofia's bed.

“I know. Can you believe it?” She rolled her eyes, then sat down next to me and rubbed her hands together to hatch her scheme. “So: every formal we have, snotty Victoria wears this diamond charm bracelet her daddy-o gave her between romps with his international mistresses. Each charm represents a different foreign currency: the dollar symbol, the pound, the euro, the yen, the German mark, the Chilean peso, the Indian rupee, the
Macedonian denar, the Belorussian ruble, the Cape Verdean escudo, the Zambian—”

“I get the point,” I interrupted.

She just looked at me.

“Okay,” I said. “What's the Zambian one?”

“The Zambian kwacha.”

“Okay, so…she has all these currency symbols dangling on her wrist? Why is that stylish?” I mused.

“I think it means ‘We have money in all these countries.' But that's not the point. The point is, it is thoroughly obnoxious, and if we can just take it and snap some photographs—”

“Take it? You mean
steal
….” I said skeptically.

“No no no, just
borrow
it. We could take a photo of it, and it would run everywhere! We get one at the ball with it on her wrist—I have a great hidden cam for that—but we have to get a close-up beforehand.”

“But you know there is no taking photographs allowed inside campus buildings,” I protested, having memorized the leather-bound and embossed school handbook on my train ride over.

“But they always go off campus after formals. Everyone goes to Club Platinum in the city and gets tables. It's like an after party that lasts all night—when we have formals, curfew is dawn.”

“Are you serious? They didn't have that in the handbook!”

“Yeah, they bend the rules. Only for formals.”

“
Dawn?
That sounds like a kind of imprecise curfew. How do
they measure that, when the rooster cock-a-doodle-doos?”

“Stop worrying about getting in trouble all the time. You're so military!”

I didn't know quite how to take that, but maybe she was right—after a lifetime of doing exactly what I was told, I had never really gone wild. Maybe a prank was just the fun adventure I needed.

 

After dinner, Iman, Victoria, and Antigone were gathered on the crowded veranda by the fountain. They were standing behind a table that had a huge sign that said
BRING BACK BONO
and were soliciting everyone who walked by to sign their petition. Apparently Bono had delivered a controversial speech at Van Pelt last year about all of the wealth at our school and how it could save a nation in Africa from starvation, and the administration vowed he would never come back to speak. The Diamonds had taken it upon themselves to “bring him back” and were loving being the center of attention. I watched as they shouted out to senior guys to come over and sign up, and even flirted with some of the younger male teachers. They flipped their hair provocatively and lowered their eyes coyly—they were truly masters at seduction. I could never imagine having the confidence to act like them.

Oliver walked by and said something to them in greeting, and I watched as all three of their faces beamed and they tossed their heads back in a perfectly executed combination of giggles slash
hair flips. Tiggy leaned in and whispered something to Oliver, so he bent down and signed the petition. They were so
forward.
As Oliver walked away from their table, he saw me and came by.

“Hey, Luce,” he said, his hand slapping my back as if I were a dude. I wilted under his touch. “Killer court time today.” He smiled and walked off, en route to the library. I could barely muster a “Thanks.” I felt the heat of the Diamonds' gaze upon me as I looked down at my book and the marble table.

Just as Angelina exited the main hall and walked by the tables carrying her textbook for the history of rock and roll, Sofia came up and tapped my arm.

“God, look at them, they make me sick,” she said, snarling in the Diamonds' direction. “They are always first to set up kissing booths for charity or ‘Donate Old Manolos events' to raise money for the Van Pelt fashion magazine. They always want everyone to know who they are and to remain the center of attention. Shameless,” she said.

We watched as some jocks like Morgan Wellington and Moabi LeTroux, the stars of the cricket team, sat near the Diamonds, clearly trying to woo the cutest girls in the school.

“Hello, ladies,” Morgan said salaciously.

“Tiggy. Looking good,” Moabi added. Someone was clearly hoping to get lucky at Jazzmatazz.

“Hey, Angelina!” Victoria said to Angelina as she passed by. “Come join our cause!”

“Oh, thanks, but I have to study.”

“Studying shmudying!” Antigone laughed, flipping her shiny black hair. “Everyone's going down to Caffè VP tonight, you have to come!”

“We'll see,” said Angelina noncommittally as she continued on down the path. Sofia and I glanced up from pretending to read our
Constellations and You
textbook. Angelina looked at her watch and picked up her pace. Probably off to a rendezvous with Oliver. Lucky duck.

“Okay, then!” yelled Victoria after her. “We'll all be there at ten o'clock.”

It was mysterious to me why the Diamonds were so determined to be Angelina's friend when she clearly couldn't care less about them. They were practically drooling after her every time they saw her, and yet she always remained aloof. It seemed like she didn't need anyone. I had the impression she was either the biggest snob in the universe or dumb as a board. But with Oliver around her so often, I kind of understood: Why would she need anyone else?

“Bingo,” Sofia whispered to me.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Did you hear that? The Diamonds will be at the caffè at ten o'clock. That's when we'll make our move.”

“Um, okay.”

I felt my stomach drop. Was this really a good idea? Could I get arrested?

“Remember what jerks they are. And don't worry, it's harmless
fun,” said Sofia, as if reading my thoughts.

I glanced over at the girls and inadvertently caught Victoria's eye. Of course she didn't ask me to sign her petition but instead gave me a dirty look. Oh yes, I was in.

A
s the three-hundred-year-old grandfather clock in the dorm hallway struck ten, the last of our neighbors scampered out, hair blown dry and glossed, naturally decked out and catwalk ready. Even Rioko, the violinist, put down the frigging fiddle for once to go hang out. It was Thursday, after all, and as every posh jet-setter knows, Thursday is the new Friday. Apparently now Friday was more like a Monday—mellow, resting up for the grand-daddy of nights: Saturday. The new Saturday. Or the old one. Well, as the song goes, “Everybody loves a Saturday night.”

Jazzmatazz was forty-eight hours away, and while Sofia and I were nervously hovering outside Victoria's door, all I could picture was Oliver macking with gorgeous Angelina. Gosh, her life was truly perfect. But her Luxembourg throne didn't hold a candle to the crowning glory of a guy like Oliver.

“The coast is clear,” said Sofia in a dramatic hushed tone, and I suddenly felt all spy movie-ish. I watched her slowly turn the gilded knob to Victoria's suite, and when it creaked ever so slightly I cringed.

“Careful!” I whispered forcefully.

“No one's around,” she said, calming me. The door opened and we bolted in. The only word that came to mind was
magical
. The silk drapes, the upholstered headboard bursting with rosebuds and stripes, the lacquered coffee table piled with books, and not one but two armoires for her clothes—as if the huge walk-in closet in every dorm room wasn't enough. I stood motionless while Sofia got down to bidniss and raided drawers. Finally she found a safe.

She punched in numbers on the digital keypad. Presto! It worked: a tiny bulb lit green, a click sounded, and the door opened before my eyes. I was stunned.

“How did you know that?” I asked, shocked.

“Always the birthday. Yawn! I'm the Golden Key Club gal, remember? Everyone's file has their DOB. Runners-up are their parents' yacht's name, the ancestral estate's name, the favorite racing horse's name—the list goes on,” Sofia said blithely. “But
Victoria's too boring and predictable for anything interesting.” The safe contained about fifty velvet boxes of every shape and color and size. As I approached it, shaking, Sofia casually went through each box, each containing a magnificent piece of fine jewelry that had no business being outside a bank vault, let alone in a school dormitory. Each necklace—rubies, emeralds, and, yes, diamonds—more spectacular than the next. Then Sofia opened a blue suede box, displaying a racket-emblazoned medal for Female First Place in a tennis tournament. I was more interested in that piece than in the glittering assemblage of flickering stones. I ran my fingers over the gilded prize. Aha! No wonder she hated me so much! Her parents or someone were rewarding her court success with jewelry. I doubt they would give her a diamond bracelet for second place. I could see how that would sting. Meanwhile, Sofia opened box after box until finally a small black velvet one on the side revealed the aforementioned charm bracelet, indeed crass and picture-worthy in its obnoxiousness. The symbol for every country's currency was, as described by Sofia, dangling in multikarat glory. Sofia expertly laid it out on one of the bigger boxes to make a plain black background. She then reached down her shirt into her bra and pulled out a tiny, long, skinny camera and began snapping away
Mission: Impossible
style.

“Sofia! You have a camera?” I squealed.

“Shhh!”
she admonished. “Do you want to get us caught? Shush up and stand guard.”

I obediently ran to the door and listened for the
click-clack
of
Manolo Blahnik heels from any stray student who was loserly enough to still be a dorm rat at this peak social hour. Nothing.

Sofia kept snapping and then put the bracelet away and closed the safe. We high-fived and escaped undetected, much to my amazement.

We darted to the Caffè to see everyone in action and walked in to find the Diamonds all carousing with Oliver, and Maxwell, Morgan, and some other guys visually feasting on the girls' décolletage.

“So,” Sofia said, one eyebrow arched slyly, “how easy was that?”

I was truly astonished by the speed and simplicity of it all. “Easy as pie,” I responded.

“Dad's gonna give me a big bonus for this one,” she marveled mischievously. “And don't worry, Lucy, you'll get your cut.”

T
he thrill of victory wore off at about three in the morning when I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart racing. I couldn't believe what Sofia and I had done. Had I really risked everything just to exact revenge for fifteen minutes on a girl I barely knew?

Come on, Lucy
, I told myself. I'd dealt with girls much worse than Victoria. There was Elsa, the daughter of the doctor on our base in Dubai, who for some reason singled me out for all of her vitriol and rage and made my entire time in the Emirates a nightmare. There was Galt, the bulimic, who was in my class in Texas, who used to go on evil tangents after she threw up in the
bathroom. She would get up and write down the names of everyone she hated that day on the blackboard, and somehow I made it up there every time. I cried every day of sixth grade. Victoria was a jerk, but she wasn't ruining my life. She was just trying to let me know that I should stay out of her way.

I wished there was someone I could call. As we were in the same time zone as Germany, I knew my sister would be asleep. And frankly I wasn't sure I wanted to talk to her after she'd read me the riot act last time. I had a feeling she would do the same this time. I hadn't lived in Germany long enough to have a true best friend, one who I could call in the middle of the night. In fact, I realized I didn't have a true best friend anywhere in the world except Emma, who I'd spent a year in school with but who'd moved back to California. I could email her, sure, but at the moment I wanted the soothing nature of a friend's voice. It was as if all my contacts were scattered around the globe, inaccessible and orbits away. The dangers of moving around too much. I started to feel sorry for myself and really angry at my parents. Why did they drag me around the globe? Why couldn't we live in one place for a long time? If we did, I wouldn't have jetted off to boarding school. I might have been able to be on a normal tennis team at a normal all-American high school. Did I really have not one friend? For a second I thought of Sofia, but she was the last person I wanted to talk to. I don't know—all had been well, but I was starting to get a weird sense about her. Like, when I was with her all was well and fun, but when I
thought about her, I don't know…I had been so happy to bond with her that I strayed from my moral compass. I didn't think I could trust her.

I had plopped on the cashmere-covered window seat and was staring out at the darkness. I could see the mountains in the faint moonlight; it all looked so beautiful and calm. I didn't want to give up this experience. Friends or no friends, this was what my reality was. Then why did I have to go along with Sofia? My heart palpitations got more intense. I scanned the room and noticed my mahogany desk, where the gleaming new computer sat proudly. I hadn't yet dealt with setting up my school email account, and in my loneliness, I felt motivated to reconnect with faraway friends, and have the world at my fingertips.

I logged on to VanPeltWinners.com. It was the school facebook, and everyone had been given a professionally designed web page, which had a small bio and anything else we wanted to post, like movie posters or album covers of our favorite artists. It also had a photograph of each student that was taken over the summer (when they were tan) by a professional fashion photographer who was sent to each student's house with his team, which included a makeup artist, hairstylist, and wardrobe consultant. The result was that every student at the school looked like either Kate Moss or Johnny Depp. I think that was what they were going for. The plan was to have everyone look like they could be models so that the school would seem even more exclusive. My page featured a snapshot my mom took of me on a trip to Bruges—big smile, hair
flying in the breeze, blue eyes happy. I looked so innocent then, just a year ago. The school web designers also added tennis graphics and the fact that I was on the tennis team.

I hadn't really checked my web page since I'd been at the school, assuming that I wouldn't receive any posts, but I logged on anyway and established my account. I was astonished to find that I had two postings. One was from Rioko, the violinist, who asked me if I had the homework assignment for our Greek Mythology class. Oops, it was from four days ago, so I assumed she had it by now. My bad. I quickly wrote her back apologizing, explaining I hadn't signed on until now. The other post was from someone whose user name was Friend. Hmm…interesting. I clicked on the message. It said:

That was nice. I wonder who it was? And I wondered why they didn't sign their name? It wasn't a crime to give compliments. In fact, it totally made me feel better.

I quickly wrote a response:

I pressed Send. Why not? Maybe my friend felt the same way? She was probably down the hall from me right now, feeling left
out and sad. I wished I knew who she was. I wouldn't think she was a dork at all.

I flipped through the pages of the facebook and found Victoria's. It was so pretentious. She had a picture of her family crest, photos of her castle, a list of her favorite things, which included caviar (barf), summers in Saint Tropez, champagne, and “hanging out with Liz Hurley in Knightsbridge.” Gag. She also had a Q&A on there, and to the question “What's your idea of misery?” she answered: “Flying commercial.”

Please!

Suddenly my computer
ding
ed. I had a new message on my facebook page from Friend! I guessed she was up and lonely like moi, hitting the info superhighway in search of like-minded pals.

That was so nice! Wow.

Was it a bad idea to allude to the charm bracelet? No, I was being cryptic. I shouldn't worry. What if it was one of the Diamonds writing me? But I seriously doubted that. I quickly got a response.

As long as I don't profit from it. That was it! I would tell Sofia I couldn't take the money from the heist. She could have it. A silly prank would not get anyone expelled.

I sent along the message and waited.

I went back to bed and slept like a rock.