The It Girl (2 page)

RyanReynolds:
God, you’re a tease. Hey, did u c Callie’s pic in Atlanta Magazine?

BennyCunningham:
No, but I heard it nearly ruined her mom. She had to do damage control on Good Morning Atlanta!

RyanReynolds:
Yeah, C looks bombed in the pic.

BennyCunningham:
Is she still with EZ? I’m going to jump him if she’s not.

RyanReynolds:
Dunno. Someone told me they saw him dancing with some gorgeous girl with really blue eyes and black dreads in Lexington.

BennyCunningham:
Sorta sounds like Tinsley. Except for the dreads.

RyanReynolds:
I know. Too bad she won’t be at the party tonight.

BennyCunningham:
Seriously.

Callie Vernon set her luggage down in the entranceway to Dumbarton dorm room 303 and looked around. The room was exactly as she, Brett, and Tinsley had left it— except for the lack of empty Diet Coke bottles, Parliament butt-filled ashtrays, and CD cases strewn all over the room. Last fall, because they’d only been sophomores, Callie and her two best friends, Brett Messerschmidt and Tinsley Carmichael, had been assigned a horrible, cramped room with only one window. But then Tinsley had bribed three dorky senior girls to switch with them the first week of school by promising them invites to the best secret parties. They’d wanted this room because it was bigger than most, with casement windows over-looking the Hudson River, and because it was close to the fire escape—ideal for sneaking out after curfew.

Brett hadn’t arrived back at school yet, and Tinsley had been expelled at the end of school last year. They’d been caught on Ecstasy in the middle of the rugby fields at five in the morning by Mr. Purcell, the uptight physics teacher, who liked going running with his three impeccably groomed giant schnauzers before sunrise. It was the first time they’d ever tried E, and it had taken them a moment to stop laughing at the ridiculous-looking dogs before realizing what enormous trouble they were in. The girls had all been called into the head-master’s office separately—first Tinsley, then Callie, then Brett—but the only one to get in any real trouble was Tinsley, who was promptly booted out of Waverly.

Callie caught a glimpse of herself in the just-Windexed mirror over the antique oak bureau and straightened her white Jill Stuart shell top and pleated lemon-yellow Tocca skirt. She’d lost a few pounds over the summer and the side zipper kept sliding around to her belly button. Callie was thin now, maybe a little too thin, and freckly from the summer. Her hair was long and shaggy, and her round, hazel eyes were fanned by thick, blond-tipped eyelashes. She puckered her lips, blew a kiss at the mirror, and felt an anxious flutter in her chest.

All this summer, Callie’s mind had spun, thinking about why Tinsley had been expelled and she and Brett hadn’t been. Had Brett set it up that way? Brett was supersecretive about her life at home—her mom and dad never came to Parents’ Day, and Brett never invited anybody to her house in East Hampton for long weekends. Tinsley had once dropped a hint that Brett had some family issues she didn’t want anybody to know about. Could Brett really have orchestrated Tinsley’s expulsion so she wouldn’t expose her secrets? It sounded totally soap-operaish, but Brett was so melodramatic sometimes that Callie wouldn’t put it past her.

Callie nestled into her desk chair, actually glad to be back at school. Beyond not talking to her two best friends—she hadn’t heard a peep from either of them—her summer had been a disaster. First, there’d been the
Atlanta Magazine
photo of Callie at Club Compound, dancing on a table with a vanilla martini in her hand. The caption read,
Overserved and underage: Is this appropriate behavior for a governor’s daughter?
Needless to say, that hadn’t gone over well with her mother’s conservative Georgian voters. Oops.

After that nightmare, Callie had flown to her family’s chalet in Barcelona—Mr. Vernon was part Spanish and spent his summers working on real estate deals in Europe. She had hoped that Barcelona would be the perfect backdrop for a romantic ren-dezvous with her boyfriend, Easy Walsh. But that visit had been anything but romantic. Try freaky.

“Hey,” came a gravelly voice behind her.

Callie wheeled around. Easy. There he was, all rumpled, sexy six feet of him, standing in her doorway, looking more gorgeous than ever.

“Oh!” She felt her palms get slick with sweat.

“How are you?” he asked, pulling at the worn hem of his polo shirt. His glossy almost-black hair curled around his neck and ears.

“Confused” would have been a reasonable answer. The last time she’d seen Easy was when she’d dropped him off at the Barcelona airport. They hadn’t kissed goodbye, and they’d barely even spoken the whole last day of his visit.

“Fine,” she replied cautiously. “How did you get in here? Did Angelica see you?” Her dorm mistress, Angelica Pardee, was really strict about allowing boys in the all-girls’ dorm except during “visitation,” which was only for an hour between sports practice and dinner.

“You look too skinny,” Easy said softly, ignoring Callie’s questions.

Callie frowned. “Do you want to get in trouble on the first day of school?”

“Your boobs are going away,” he continued.

“God,” she muttered in annoyance. The truth was, she hadn’t been hungry all summer—not even for Barcelona-style paella, her favorite. She was too nervous to eat, or to do much of anything, really. The last few weeks in Spain she’d spent on the couch, looking like an unstructured slob, wearing her slightly ragged, white Dior string bikini and some old ripped batik sarong she’d picked up for next to nothing in a Barcelona out-door market, watching hours and hours of
The Surreal Life
in Spanish. And she didn’t even speak much Spanish. “What are you doing back so soon?”

Easy was usually fashionably late to Waverly check-in— another no-no—because he arrived in a tractor-trailer with his Thoroughbred, Credo, who he kept on campus.

“Credo’s coming next week, so there was no reason for me to be late.”

He looked at Callie. They’d been together since last fall, but he’d had a hard time getting psyched to see her back at school after his parents had received an angry note from Dean Marymount over the summer saying he’d be watching Easy carefully this year. Apparently there were rules to uphold, and just because Easy was a legacy—his grandfather, father, and three older brothers had all attended Waverly—didn’t mean he could bend those rules. So instead of heading up to school a week late with Credo, Easy had flown alone on a chartered plane from Kentucky to New York with leather reclining seats and unlimited champagne. Sounds great, right? Except it wasn’t exactly what Easy had had in mind.

Easy regularly fantasized about getting kicked out of Waverly Academy—until he remembered his father’s bargain. If Easy graduated from Waverly, he could take a postgraduate year in Paris. His father even had a big apartment in the Latin Quarter all ready for Easy’s year abroad. Paris—how cool would that be? He’d drink absinthe, paint street scenes from his bedroom window, and ride along the Seine on an ancient, rickety Peugeot bike, a Gauloise hanging from his mouth. He could smoke his brains out and nobody would give him shit for it!

“You going to the party at Richards’ lounge tonight?” Callie asked.

Easy shrugged. “Not sure.” He stood just inside the door frame.

Callie pulled a foot out of her pointy-toed Burberry loafer and rolled her ballerina-pink painted toes against the floor. A horrible feeling of dread washed over her.
Why
wouldn’t Easy want to go to the first party of the year?
Everybody
went to the first party of the year. Was he seeing someone else? Someone he wanted to be alone with on the first night of school?

“Well, I’m going,” she said quickly, crossing her arms.

Neither one had made a move toward the other. But with his mussed hair, broad shoulders, and golden-brown forearms, Easy looked so irresistible, Callie was dying to lick him from head to toe.

“Did you have a good summer after Spain?” she squeaked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible.

“I guess. Lexington was ass-boring as usual.” He pulled a toothpick from behind his ear and placed it between his slightly chapped lips.

Callie leaned against her antique white-painted wood bed frame. His visit to Spain had been tainted from the start. Easy had had to fly coach class, and when he’d arrived, he’d been terse and gruff and had headed straight to the bar—not one of those cute little outdoor cafés straight out of
The Sun Also Rises
, but simply the closest bar possible, at the airport. Then he’d passed out on the Vernons’ couch, which was a real problem since Callie’s dad
needed
to sit on that couch to watch the international feed of
CNN
every single minute he wasn’t working.

Callie tilted her hips forward and chewed on her freshly manicured thumbnail. “Well, that’s nice,” she responded finally. She wished she could just wrap her arms around him and kiss him everywhere, but she couldn’t exactly do that when he hadn’t even tried to hug her hello.

Then she spied a familiar figure behind Easy and her heart started racing.

“Mr. Walsh!” crowed Angelica Pardee, Dumbarton’s dorm mistress. Angelica wasn’t even thirty, but she seemed to be in a hurry to enter middle age. Today she was wearing a thin, shapeless tan cardigan, a straight, knee-length black skirt, and sensible black Easy Spirits. Her calves were a little veiny and way too bluish-white, and she wore no makeup. “Do I have to report you already?”

Easy jumped. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, dazedly pressing his hand to his head, as if he had amnesia. “I haven’t been here in so long, and, like, I forgot which dorm I was in.” He looked across the room, directly into Callie’s eyes, and she felt her arms goose-bump.

“See you later?” she finally mouthed.

He nodded ever so slightly.

“Stables?” she whispered.

“Tomorrow?” he mouthed back.

“Why not tonight?” Callie wanted to ask. But she didn’t.

“Mr.
Walsh
!” Angelica practically spat, gripping the cuff of his shirt. Her face was an abnormal red.

“Okay!” Easy yelped. “I
said
I was leaving.”

Angelica shook her head and ushered Easy down the hall.

Callie turned and stared out the window. The abandoned stables were where they used to go last year to fool around. Only a few students kept horses at school, so several of the stalls were always empty. She hated that she had had to suggest they meet there, and not the other way around.

Droves of freshmen lumbered up Dumbarton’s steps, carrying way too much luggage. Callie noticed how overwhelmed the girls seemed. She could relate. There were so many things about boarding school that you couldn’t plan for. They’d soon discover that they didn’t need half their shit and that they had forgotten the really important stuff—like empty shampoo bottles to hide vodka in. She watched the throng of freshman girls part as Easy strolled down the Dumbarton steps, nodding to the new, innocent faces. God, it was hard dating such a flirt.

She put her head in her hands. It was so obvious what had gone wrong in Spain. The last night they’d spent together, she’d admitted something to Easy that was so big and so
scary
for her to say. And what had been his answer? Nothing. Silence.

Callie sighed. They’d have to talk about it tomorrow, although she hoped they’d be doing a lot more than just talking.

Instant Message Inbox

BennyCunningham:
My brother’s friend at Exeter told me there’s a new girl at Waverly who’s a stripper from
NYC
.

HeathFerro:
?!?

BennyCunningham:
Yep. Some club named … Hen Party? Chicken Hut? Horse Stable? I think in Brooklyn? I had my cousin who lives in the Village look it up—it’s the kind of place where u take it all off. Thong included.

HeathFerro:
When can I meet her?

BennyCunningham:
Heath, you’re nasty.

HeathFerro:
Don’t you know it, baby!

“Right here is fine,” Jenny told the cabdriver as soon as she spied the discreet maroon sign reading
WAVERLY
ACADEMY
hanging from a tree next to a tiny, one-story brick building. Waverly wasn’t far from the train station, but Jenny hadn’t been able to get here fast enough.

“You sure?” The cabdriver turned around, revealing a thin beaky nose and a faded light blue Yankees cap. “Because the front office is—”

“I’m a student here,” Jenny interrupted, feeling a thrill ripple through her chest as she spoke. “I know where the front office is.”

The cabdriver threw up his hands in defeat. “You’re the boss.” Jenny handed him a twenty, stepped out of the cab, and looked around.

She was
here
. Waverly. The grass seemed greener, the trees taller, and the sky cleaner and bluer than anywhere she’d ever been before. There were lush evergreens on all sides, and on her right was a wide, cobblestone path snaking up a hill. A green field spread out to her left, and in the distance a few boys in Abercrombie fatigue shorts were kicking around a soccer ball. The whole place
smelled
of boarding school. Like the deep woods, which she’d only been in a few times, before she knew better than to accompany her dad and his kooky anarchist buddies on camping trips in southern Vermont.