Classic (16 page)

Brett lit the Le Labo vintage candle they kept on the
windowsill in its battered little tin container. It was supposed to smell like St. Barts. Much more soothing than their stuffy
dorm room.

“I’m more than ready,” Brett said, straightening and tossing the lighter onto the cracked mahogany windowsill next to the
candle.

She felt a little bit guilty about not telling Sebastian what she was doing—but this was important. All she had to do was
recall the way Isla flirted with Sebastian, and any doubts she might have had disappeared. Isla was perfectly comfortable
throwing coy looks at Sebastian when Brett was
sitting right there.
Imagine what the girl got up to when she and Sebastian were somewhere alone!

Brett settled herself on Tinsley’s never-made bed. She straightened her Nanette Lepore sweater dress, making sure the batik-patterned
sleeves and V-neck sat perfectly, so she would make a good impression. She ran her hands along the smooth sides of her bright
red bob as Tinsley pulled up Skype on her computer. The revving sound made Brett’s stomach twist a little bit in anticipation.

They’d found Xander Coffey on Facebook late last night, after some trial and error and a totally pervy encounter with some
gross thirty-year-old guy from Alexandria, Virginia. But they had no idea what this ex-boyfriend of Isla’s was really like.
He’d had a picture of Jon Hamm from
Mad Men
as his profile picture, which gave them nothing to go on, really, except that he thought he was smooth.

“What kind of asshole do you think this Xander is going to
be?” Tinsley asked. Brett smiled as she considered. He had to be a total jackass. After all, he’d dated Isla and had practically
jumped at the chance to talk about her with two girls he’d never even heard of.

“Oh, you know,” Brett said, scrunching up her nose while she thought about it. She kind of thought he’d be a Heath Ferro type,
but Tinsley had been remarkably touchy about Heath lately, so she decided not to use him as her example. “Probably one of
those over-the-top, obviously hot guys. You know? Definitely not sweet and clean-cut like Brandon or anything. More like Drew
Gately.
Too
hot,
too
rich,
too
in love with himself. Blah blah blah.” She waved a hand in the air.

“Your basic prep-school douche,” Tinsley said happily. She tapped her fingers against the side of her laptop, bouncing slightly
on the bed with excitement. “Luckily, we know exactly how to deal with that kind of guy.”

“You could say we’re experts,” Brett agreed, tucking her legs beneath her and concentrating on the screen. “Can you believe
they have matching tattoos? And now they’re broken up and he has her
name
or something tattooed on his body? Serves him right.” She shook her head. “I want to hear about every single threesome and
every
hint
of drug use.” The plan was to gather dirt on Isla and use it against her when she least expected it.

“Believe me,” Tinsley purred, “he’ll tell us what we want to know. Guys like Xander live to brag about their exploits, right?
All we have to do is pout a little bit.” She immediately
demonstrated, giving her best sex-kitten look. Tinsley eyed Brett. “You should do that cute little giggling thing you do.
He’ll love it.”

Brett couldn’t help herself—she giggled. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Check it out,” Tinsley said suddenly, sitting up and expertly tousling her long, black hair so that it tumbled sexily around
her shoulders. “Here he comes.”

Brett quickly slicked her Creamy Gold Dior Crème de Gloss over her lips and then gazed at the screen expectantly.

Tinsley felt her mouth drop open as the screen filled with the image of a guy about their age. She took in his thick, unfashionable
glasses,
WHAT THE FRAK?
T-shirt, bushy and unkempt red hair, and shy, nervous smile.
This
was Isla’s Xander? She’d been expecting Spencer Pratt… and she’d gotten Jonah Hill.

“Um, hi,” Brett said, when it became clear Tinsley wasn’t going to speak. She cleared her throat. “You’re Xander Coffey? The
one who, um, dated Isla Dresden?”

“That’s me,” the guy said. His eyes lit up—or maybe that was just the reflection from his thick lenses. “You guys are friends
of hers? Isn’t she
terrific
?” He said the last word like it was part of a prayer.

Tinsley couldn’t look at Brett. This was just too good. Too delicious for words. Isla Dresden, Waverly’s resident bad girl,
had dated the biggest dork in the world. Things were looking up.

Finally.

“She’s an amazing girl,” Tinsley drawled, and smiled at Xander like they were BFFs.

“Truly one of a kind,” Brett agreed dryly with a smile of her own. Tinsley snuck her hand over to pinch Brett beneath the
camera’s reach, where Xander couldn’t see. Brett’s smile got a little bit wider, and Tinsley could tell she was trying hard
not to laugh.

“So what can I do for you guys?” Xander asked, his face open and trusting. “You said it was a surprise for Isla? I’ll do whatever
I can to help.”

“That would be great,” Tinsley purred. “Here at Waverly we make a really big deal out of Valentine’s Day. We have a big slideshow,
and everyone submits their favorite pictures of each other. But we realized that Isla’s so new that no one has any pictures
of her, and we don’t want her to feel left out.” She batted her lashes for emphasis.

“The slideshow plays at the Valentine’s Day Ball,” Brett jumped in, keeping her eyes wide and guileless. She pinched Tinsley
back beneath the computer. “We really want to make sure Isla feels like she’s part of the community here.”

“That’s a great idea!” Xander said, grinning. “She’ll love that.” He looked down, and there were sounds of his mouse clicking
and tapping against his keyboard. “I have a bunch of photos right here. Where should I send them?”

Tinsley rattled off her e-mail address, and then she and Brett exchanged a long look, laced with excitement. Surely some of
Xander’s photos with Isla would feature
him
. Nothing could be more priceless than Isla, decked out in her usual
skank gear, holding hands with her
Battlestar Galactica
–loving boyfriend.

Tinsley’s e-mail beeped, and Xander grinned into the camera. “There you go,” he said. “That’s only, like, twenty of my favorites.
If you need more, feel free to e-mail. I have a ton of other pictures, too.”

Tinsley clicked open her e-mail and scrolled through, looking over her shoulder and widening her eyes at Brett. She nearly
gasped when she realized what she was staring at. There was a shot of a person only recognizable as Isla thanks to the green
eyes. The rest of her was a poufy, frizzy-haired mess, in maryjanes and tapered jeans. There was another shot of Isla and
Xander dressed as space cowboys on Halloween. And yet another one of Isla in a victory pose, brandishing a debate-team trophy
overhead with a huge smile on her face. Tinsley had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from shrieking with laughter.

Clearly, Isla’s “big secret” was that she’d undergone a massive makeover before coming to Waverly.
She’d die if anyone found out
—if anyone found out that in a past life, she’d moonlighted as a giant nerd. Her bitchy thing was just an act. A clever, well-executed
act.

It was actually impressive, Tinsley was forced to admit, however grudgingly, that Isla had taken such upsetting raw material
and managed to turn it into such an intriguing, badass package. Even Tinsley had been taken in initially.

But no more.

“Thank you so much,” she said, smiling at Xander. “I will
personally make sure that every single one of these makes it into the slideshow.”

“Like I said, I’m happy to help,” Xander said, his cheeks coloring slightly. “We miss her around here.”

“Well,” Tinsley said, her smile widening, victory completely and utterly assured, “I can see why.”

C
allie paced the floor of her dorm room for approximately the eighteen millionth time. She put her hands on her hips and pivoted,
slowly, unsure of what to do with herself. She had already changed her clothes six times. She looked at the piles of discarded
outfits that covered the floor in front of her closet and picked at the hem of the ruby L.A.M.B. cardigan she’d finally thrown
over a pair of chocolate brown Citizens of Humanity cords, still not satisfied.

But she knew it wasn’t the clothes. She hadn’t woken up to discover that she suddenly hated her entire wardrobe. It was her
skin she couldn’t seem to feel comfortable in. Like it was three sizes too small, and she was straining at the seams.

Callie scraped her hair back, piling the blown-out strawberry blond locks on top of her head, and then let it all fall, letting
out a heavy sigh.

It had been a day.
An entire day.
More than twenty-four whole hours, and so far absolutely nothing had happened.
Nothing.

Neither Easy nor Brandon had responded to her e-mail. Neither one of them had texted or called her to discuss what she’d done.
Neither of them had showed up at Dumbarton to prove his love to her as anticipated, and she hadn’t so much as glimpsed either
one of them around campus.

It was like Callie had thrown a giant stone into a pond and the surface of the water hadn’t even moved. Like it was blank
and still,
mocking
her.

She blinked. She was obviously going insane. She had to get out of her room immediately, before she wrecked her manicure tearing
her hair out, or found herself curled in the corner dressed in head to toe black, listening to loud emo music.

Callie swept her camel Michael Kors coat up off the back of her desk chair and left the room before it sucked her in. She
ran down the stairs and threw open the heavy emergency door, pushing her way out into the cold evening. It was barely five-thirty,
and yet it was already as pitch-black as if it was the dead of night—which actually suited her mood perfectly.

She hunched into her coat and set out across the quad, ducking her head to avoid the students running to study meetings or
early dinners, not realizing until she reached the front steps of Richards where she was headed. But then, of course, she
knew what she had to do. She marched up to the room Alan shared with Easy and pounded on the door. Maybe Easy would be there.
She could at least see him and try to figure out what he was thinking about the whole thing. But she
was kind of hoping he wouldn’t be there, because she’d much rather see—

“Alan!” she cried when he opened the door. He blinked at her as if the light from the hallway was a blinding searchlight,
rather than one dim fluorescent bulb that the guys on the floor habitually broke on purpose.

“Um, hi,” he said. “Don’t knock like that, Callie. I thought you were a teacher. Jesus. I almost jumped out the window.”

“Sorry,” she said, more to be polite than anything else. “Please tell me you have more of those brownies. I
need
one!” All she wanted to do right now was laugh herself nearly hoarse and feel
relaxed
.

“Yeah, those are totally gone,” Alan said, shaking his head sorrowfully. “The edibles never last long. Want to come in?”

“Sure,” Callie said, trying not to feel disappointed. It wasn’t like pot brownies were a real solution, anyway. She stepped
inside the small dorm room and instantly regretted it. There was too much Easy everywhere. The faint smell of horses, hay,
cigarettes, and sweat hung in the incense-scented air. His side of the room was neater than it had been before—another lingering
effect of military school, maybe—but there were his old Levi’s thrown at the foot of his bed and his art supplies stacked
in an efficient if sloppy pile down on the floor beside it. Callie swallowed and then made herself turn and sit in Alan’s
desk chair as if she couldn’t care less.

“Want to smoke or something?” Alan asked. He eyed her for a moment. “You look stressed.”

He didn’t wait for her answer. He pulled out a joint from
the pocket of his beat-up gray Middlebury Football hoodie and offered it to her.

“No, thanks,” Callie said.

“Seriously.” Alan’s eyebrows rose over his sleepy eyes. “You’re, like, twitching.”

“It’s just that
nothing
has happened!” Callie exclaimed, kind of embarrassed that she was wailing but also not sure she cared. “I mean, I expected
something
. A text message! A
look
from across the dining hall! I don’t know. But there hasn’t been a single peep out of either one of them!”

Alan stared at her for another moment, and then he ran a hand through his shaggy hair and shook his head. He looked longingly
at the unlit joint before shoving it back in his pocket. Without a glance at Callie, he went over to Easy’s bed and reached
underneath it, pulling out a blue shoebox. Without a word, he took off the lid and presented the box to her, as though the
box were on a silver platter.

At first Callie couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. But the red mess eventually separated into plump little plastic
hearts, all with owls stamped into their round bellies. Callie reached over and touched one of the hearts, feeling the hard
plastic with her fingertips.

That stupid scavenger hunt, the one that made everyone laugh because it was so lame and no one ever did it.

She tried to imagine Easy, of all people, going on a scavenger hunt around the Waverly campus. Collecting hearts.

For her.

She looked up at Alan, a grin breaking across her face, while relief and jubilation soared within her.

“You are a genius!” she cried.

“I don’t know about that,” Alan said, but he smiled back.

Callie was so excited that she jumped to her feet and then couldn’t resist giving Alan a quick little peck on his scruffy
cheek.

“I will never be able to thank you,” she whispered, happiness surging through her and seeming to bubble beneath her skin.