Adored

I was adored once, too.

—William Shakespeare,
Twelfth Night

J
enny Humphrey leaned against a dark oak window frame in Dumbarton 303 on the Tuesday evening after Thanksgiving break. She stared out at the Waverly campus, blanketed in snow and bathed in the yellowy orange glow of the gaslit lamps that lined the walkways. Clumps of students bundled in cashmere scarves and long wool coats trundled across the quad to the dining hall, occasionally pausing to pack a few snowballs. A lone figure was rolling a snowman out in the middle of the smooth, white lawn.

“Are you guys ready for dinner yet?” Jenny asked over her shoulder. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she’d skipped lunch to finish her paper on
The Portrait of a Lady
and was now completely famished.

Unfortunately, her roommate, Callie Vernon, was still in the process of unpacking the overstuffed Louis Vuitton suitcase that had been flung across their spare bed since she’d returned from her shopping-filled Thanksgiving break in Atlanta. The process was taking twice as long as it should have, since Callie insisted upon holding up each new garment for the admiration of Jenny and Tinsley Carmichael.

“... and this is from this tiny boutique in downtown Atlanta.” Callie waved a flimsy red Milly silk tank dress with the tags still on it in front of Tinsley’s half-closed eyes, ignoring Jenny’s dinner plea.

Tinsley lay on her back on Callie’s unmade bed, her dark, almost black hair tumbling off the edge. She raised her violet-colored eyes from the well-thumbed copy of Italian
Vogue
she was flipping through. “A little racy for the governor’s taste.”

Callie tossed her wavy strawberry blond hair over her shoulder and grabbed a hanger from her closet. “She felt so terrible about the whole
Maine incident
that she didn’t say no to anything.”

Jenny giggled and drew a small heart in the condensation that covered the windowpane. Callie’s mother, the governor of Georgia, had been under the mistaken impression that Callie had some sort of drug problem, and the month before had sent her off to a boot-camp rehab facility in the middle of nowhere, where she’d almost frozen to death in the snow. Until, that is, her boyfriend, Easy Walsh, came to rescue her—and then subsequently got expelled by Dean Marymount for leaving campus and violating his probation.

It was still shocking to Jenny that Callie had broken up with Easy over Thanksgiving break. This was after he’d managed to escape from the West Virginia military school where his father had sent him post-expulsion, and waited for her atop the Empire State Building. It was so romantic, and with such a sad ending, that it broke Jenny’s heart. She knew it was painful for Callie, who, despite exuding an aura of self-assured sophistication, had an almost childlike need for constant affection from her boyfriend. Easy’s banishment to military school, where he wasn’t allowed phone calls or e-mail, had been too much for Callie. Even though it had only been a few weeks, Callie couldn’t handle the long distance, the lack of communication, the uncertainty.

Jenny’s stomach let out a giant gurgle. She pressed her hands to her belly, pretending to straighten her black cotton Gap turtleneck. Next to Callie and Tinsley in their expensive designer clothes, it was hard not to feel like a reject from the Filene’s Basement bargain bin. “Guys, I’ve got to get to dinner before I pass out.”

“Can you just wait like three minutes?” Callie stared at Jenny through her blondish eyelashes, which she usually covered with mascara. She had on a baby blue ruffle-front Juicy Couture blouse and a flowered Robert Rodriguez high-waisted skirt that cost more than a first-class plane ticket. “I’m almost done.”

Tinsley stuffed a hand in the pocket of her black, slim-fitting Earl jeans and pulled out a crushed packet of Trident. “Here, have some gum.” She tossed the pack lazily in Jenny’s direction.

“Fine.” Jenny popped a piece of spearmint gum in her mouth and straightened the framed poster of van Gogh’s
Sunflowers
hanging over her desk. “But really… three minutes. I missed lunch.”

She slid into her desk chair, ignoring the fascinating story behind the acquisition of Callie’s newest pair of Costume National boots, and logged into her e-mail. A message from Casey, the hot college freshman from Union she’d met over break at Yvonne Stidder’s Upper East Side party, sat open in her in-box. He’d written a flirtatious note Sunday night about not being able to sleep from thinking about her. She smiled to herself. It felt good to be wanted by a college guy. She imagined him lying in his dorm’s common room, breathlessly telling his friend he’d fallen head over heels. (Did guys say things like that? Not likely.) After spending the rest of the weekend, post-Casey, eating leftovers from her father’s kooky vegan Thanksgiving feast, she was grateful to be back at Waverly Academy.

A new e-mail appeared in Jenny’s inbox, from a Waverly e-mail address she didn’t recognize. The subject line Popular? intrigued her.

Dear Jenny,

Hi! Sorry to bother you, as I’m sure you’re very busy, but we wanted to ask you a favor. We were talking about our final project for Dr. Jackson’s freshman film class and Claire was like, “We should totally make a documentary of a popular Waverly girl.” Basically, we’d like to follow you around and film all the cool things you do in a normal day with your friends. Sort of like a week in the life of a popular girl?

We’d love to start getting footage right away, so please think about it. (And please say yes, please, please, please.)

—Kaitlin Becker, Claire Goodrich, and Izzy Vanderbeek

“You’re not going to believe this,” Jenny squealed, leaning back in her chair. She stared at her computer screen. Someone wanted to make a movie about
her
? They thought
she
was the most popular girl in school? Not Tinsley or Brett or Callie or any one of the dozens of taller, thinner, more glamorous girls at Waverly?

“What?” Tinsley swung her legs off the bed and pulled her straight, glossy hair into a bun. Her smooth cheeks had spots of pink on them, and there was a cheerful gleam in her eyes. The glow had been there ever since Yvonne Stidder’s Thanksgiving party—ever since Tinsley had made up with Julian McCafferty, the tall, totally adorable freshman. Jenny had never thought that Tinsley was
un
happy until she saw what she looked like
happy
. “Did Zac Efron finally ‘friend’ you?”

Jenny stuck her tongue out. “Nooo,” she said, standing up and nonchalantly smoothing out her dark red
ABS
cords. She grabbed her fuzzy pink and white striped scarf from the hook on the back of the door and casually draped it around her neck. “I have a fan club.”

“And that’s news?” Callie asked dryly, tugging at the waist of her loose-fitting skirt. While Tinsley had been glowing since their return to Waverly, Callie had been cranky. Jenny knew that her breakup with Easy had bummed her out, but she was hoping she’d snap out of it soon enough. “Everyone at Waverly adores you,” she added, kicking her empty suitcase into the bottom of her closet.

“Please.” Jenny’s cheeks flushed, thinking of her not-too-distant encounter with Drew Gately, the senior guy who’d tried to manipulate her into sleeping with him. He didn’t exactly adore her—he just liked the idea of deflowering a naïve sophomore. “You know that’s not true.” Then she remembered that she’d actually won the Halloween costume competition— people had voted for
her
. A burst of confidence surged through her as she shook out her loose brown curls and slipped her arms into her short red peacoat, hoping Callie and Tinsley would take the hint. “A few girls want to make a movie about me for their freshman film class.”

Tinsley flicked off Callie’s Bose iPod player and grabbed her dove gray Michael Kors coat, still wet from the snow, from where she’d dropped it on Jenny’s bed. “I thought you’d given up your porn career.”

Callie snickered, finally grabbing her pale beige wool coat from the back of her chair and throwing it on. “Yeah, I thought Hardbody Humphrey was retired.”

“Ha-ha,” Jenny scoffed back, but the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Why couldn’t Tinsley and Callie ever take her seriously? As much as she liked them, she couldn’t help wondering if they were always going to see her as some kind of less-cool imitation of them, a sweet but too-short tagalong they couldn’t quite shake. “It’s for a documentary, silly. They want to call it
Popular
, or something like that.”

Tinsley and Callie burst into giggles as the three girls shuffled out the door. “Seriously?” Callie asked, towering over Jenny in her high-heeled Badgley Mischka ankle boots. “You’re going to let some freshmen follow you around with a video camera?”

“Are they going to follow you to class?” Tinsley piped up, pulling down a red cashmere cap and patting her pockets for her wallet. “To the gym?”

“To the shower?” Callie snorted, the heels clicking on the damp marble stairway.

“
Popular
,” Tinsley intoned in a movie-phone voice as she pulled on her red leather gloves. “Starring Jennifer ‘Hardbody’ Humphrey.” She started humming some kind of sleazy, porno-sounding music before she and Callie completely dissolved into laughter.

Jenny sighed heavily and buttoned her coat over her ample chest. They could laugh all they wanted, but just wait until they saw her starring in some arty student film.

Outside, the sharp night air made her shiver. In the distance, she could see the glinting lights of the dining hall, and just the thought of the cheesy lasagna on the menu made her mouth water.

Tinsley lit a cigarette. While smoking was forbidden on Waverly grounds, Tinsley had spent enough cold winters in New England to know that from a distance, the smoke looked liked warm breath from warm bodies. “So, Ms. Vernon, what’s it like being a single woman again?”

Callie’s face tightened almost imperceptibly at the reference to her recent breakup. She pulled her powder blue earmuffs from her coat pocket and slipped them onto her ears. “It’s awesome,” she replied after a moment, her voice devoid of enthusiasm. “I love not having to shave my legs. And I can eat whatever I want.”

This time, it was Tinsley and Jenny who exchanged glances. Callie was in no danger of gaining a clothing size anytime soon.

“It was about time.” Tinsley let out a huge breath of smoke. “You guys were getting totally boring.”

Callie knew Tinsley was just trying to make her feel better, but it annoyed her anyway. “Of course, as soon as I’m single, you’re not,” Callie sniffed, feeling suddenly miserable. Tinsley had her little freshman boy toy Julian now. And Jenny had— well, whomever she wanted. No matter how much Callie tried to convince herself it was fun to be on her own, in truth she totally missed Easy. She’d loved him so much, but staying together while he was at military school had just been so
hard
. She couldn’t stand not knowing when—or if—they could be together again. And the promise ring he’d sent her, while incredibly romantic, had been too much. But even though she knew she’d made the right decision, she missed the feeling of knowing someone was thinking about her, or about kissing her….

A coy smile played on Tinsley’s lips. “Chill out, Cal. It’s not like I’m getting
married
.”

Callie rolled her eyes. In New York over the break, after being sent the promise ring by Easy, she’d practically picked out her wedding dress from the Vera Wang window, much to Tinsley’s amusement. “That’s probably a good thing, since Julian is, like, twelve.”

“Maybe it’ll be good for you to be on your own for a while,” Jenny spoke up, her tiny voice cheerful but cautious.

“I know, I know.” Callie shook her head dismissively and rubbed her cold, gloved hands together. “It’s just… I’m used to having a boyfriend,” she confessed, realizing it even as she said it. “Before Easy, there was Brandon.”

“Actually, they kind of overlapped,” Tinsley quipped, flicking her half-finished cigarette into a snowbank. She’d never let Callie forget how she’d hooked up with Easy when she was still dating Brandon. “And when you were a freshman, you and Ethan Lasser were totally inseparable.”

Even the memory of Ethan Lasser—who was always slipping funny little notes into her mailbox—made a lump form in Callie’s throat. She thought of all the fancy dinners Brandon had taken her to at Le Petit Coq on Saturday nights when no parties were going on. And how she and Easy always used to sit in the back row of campus plays and concerts so they could skip out early to make out. Then she thought of having fancy dinners—alone. Going to see horrible student plays or the free Saturday afternoon movies in Berkman-Meier hall—alone. Callie suddenly couldn’t recall a single Waverly social event she’d ever attended on her own, and panic seized her. “I have no idea what it’s like to be single at this school,” she said, a heavy sense of dread settling into the pit of her stomach.