Notorious (7 page)

Instant Message Inbox

RyanReynolds:
U hear that? Sounds like Walsh won’t be getting any anymore.

TeagueWilliams:
Callie’s pissed he’s getting
TOO
MUCH
from the new chick with the boobs.

RyanReynolds:
Oh yeah? Word.

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EmilyJenkins:
Just saw C walking across the quad with her makeup streaking down her face. What’s up?

AlisonQuentin:
EZ broke up with her.

EmilyJenkins:
No way …

AlisonQuentin:
Yup. For Jenny.

EmilyJenkins:
Hello awkwardness in room 303!

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HeathFerro:
Hey hot stuff, hear the latest juice?

TinsleyCarmichael:
I already heard about ur nickname, Pony.

HeathFerro:
No, funny girl. Easy just told Callie they’re through. Got pretty nasty.

TinsieyCarmichael:
Fuck-a-doodle-doo. She OK?

HeathFerro:
U know Walsh ain’t nothing special. I hear he’s not that great anyway, though maybe u know the answer to that?

HeathFerro:
Hello?

HeathFerro:
Hellllllooooooo?

Callie crossed the quad in a haze, knowing that she looked like something from a horror movie with her makeup running all over the place, but she was too distraught to care. She felt like her heart had been thrown out a two-hundredth-floor window to splat on the pavement below, so it seemed appropriate that she should look comparable. Even her perfect Façonnable wool skirt now seemed ridiculously short, and her Chloe kitten-heel riding boots, bought with the hope that they’d inspire Easy into some sort of sexy riding instructor fantasy, looked unbearably slutty.

She could feel everyone’s eyes on her, but contrary to popular belief, she was not comfortable in the spotlight. One of Callie’s mother’s oft-repeated maxims was
Never let them see you cry
. Callie had been grateful to be sent to boarding school in the sixth grade, three years before her mother was even elected governor, if only to escape being reminded daily of the importance of proper posture and enunciation. Basically, Callie’s parents had missed her entire adolescence, but she was probably better off because of it. She hated being home now, if that was what you called the thirty-plus-room Greek Revival mansion decorated entirely with museum-quality Federal period furnishings and lots of stuff that belonged to the state of Georgia and not them.

When Callie opened the door to room 303, Tinsley was sitting at her desk, her white iBook open and her fingers typing furiously, a pair of black plastic reading glasses bought in Milan perched on her perfect nose. “What’s wrong? Is it Easy?” she demanded. She was barefoot, wearing black Parameter tuxedo pants and a cropped black Juicy Couture tee that showed off a slice of her concave stomach, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid. She looked like a girl who would never in a million years get dumped—something Callie could no longer claim.

Callie burst into tears again. “He
dumped
me!” she wailed, still incredulous but already resigned to it.
I was dumped. I was dumped by Easy Walsh,
she repeated in her head, as if repetition could make it more comprehensible.

Callie could see from Tinsley’s face that she was already prepared for disaster. Of course people were gossiping already. Easy probably had an underground fan club just waiting to spread the word the second he became single again.

“Why? Why would he do that?” Tinsley grabbed the box of tissues from her bedside and brought them to Callie. With Brett so caught up in her own life and her fancy love affair with Mr. Dalton, Tinsley was the only real friend Callie had.

“Because he doesn’t like me anymore.” Callie grabbed a tissue and blotted her face. “I don’t know. Because he thinks I’m repulsive?”

“You
know
you’re being ridiculous.” Tinsley squeezed her shoulder with her French-manicured hand. “He could not find anyone more gorgeous than you if he spent the next fifty years searching. I can’t
imagine
what he’s thinking. He must be insane.” She shook her head in disbelief, as if Easy breaking up with Callie was as incomprehensible to her as the latest practice
SAT
they’d all been assigned. It made Callie feel a teeny bit better.

“You’re right,” Callie agreed, mimicking Tinsley’s sense of indignation. “What an asshole.” It felt a little better to be angry instead of crushed. Screw Easy. Screw midget Jenny. Screw whatever the fuck was going on between them. She sat down on her bed and tugged off her heavy boots. They made her legs look too skinny anyway.

“We should make him pay for this,” Tinsley said wickedly. Her violet eyes flashed as if she herself had been dumped. She’d always been one for plans, projects, and schemes, and the thought of plotting to avenge her brokenhearted friend made her tingle with excitement. Her parents had been madly, adorably in love for over twenty years, so she had an idea of what love should be, and she didn’t like to see people abuse it.

“Right,” Callie answered, hoping maybe Tinsley knew some sort of hex they could put on Easy to render him completely unattractive to women. Something that would make his dark curly hair start to grow all over his body until he looked like King Kong.

“You were way too good for him anyway. He smells like horses.”

Callie groaned, and her hazel eyes filled with tears once again. She loved the way Easy smelled. It reminded her of when she was a kid and used to ride.

Tinsley lit a cigarette and handed it to her. “You need to take your mind off him. Think about other things.”

“Easier said than done.” She sucked smoke into her lungs. Tinsley sat on the bed behind Callie, Indian style. She did yoga daily and was the most flexible person Callie had ever met. Without even asking, she grabbed Callie’s hairbrush from beside her bed and started to brush Callie’s long, strawberry blond hair, something she’d always done last year. Tinsley was gentle, holding Callie’s head in place with one hand while combing through her locks with the other. It was a sweet gesture, and Callie almost started to cry again.
Sweet
was not a word most people associated with Tinsley, but she could be incredibly tender when she wanted to be.

“I saw the guys coming out of the woods yesterday, all secrety-secrety about something.” Tinsley changed the subject, working at a snarl at the back of Callie’s neck.

Callie leaned her head back, loving the feel of someone else brushing her hair. It was so soothing, like getting a pedicure. “Like some sort of male-bonding thing?” she asked dreamily.

“Yeah, where they beat their chests and pretend they’re animals and don’t have calc homework to do.” Tinsley was still a little bitter about being excluded from anything, and hanging out with the boys was always fun. Now she would just have to make her own fun. “Let’s show them. Let’s start our own club. Except ours will be smarter and sexier.” You could hear the excitement in her voice, and it was contagious. “We could have, like, a secret society.”

“None of those jackasses allowed,” Callie said firmly. It would be fun to get away from slimy boys for a while. “And no boyfriends allowed either. You know, I haven’t been single in a long time—before Easy, it was Brandon. And before Brandon, it was …”

“Ethan Lasser!” Tinsley said in a nasal voice, mocking Ethan’s Long Island accent. “Didn’t he have to transfer to Deerfield when you broke up with him, he was so heartbroken?”

Callie laughed again and took another drag on her cigarette. She had to admit how great it was to have Tinsley back. Even if she looked like a fucking model, she knew how to make you laugh. “Well, I don’t know if that’s why he left. But I
did
break his heart.”

“You know what you are? A serial dater. You
only
have long-term relationships, and you go from one to another without stopping to look around.” Tinsley tossed the brush on the bed and patted Callie’s head affectionately before lying down on her side. “You need to take a break. Get less serious for a while.”

Easy for
her
to say. Tinsley grew bored with a guy after twenty consecutive minutes in his company. She didn’t mean to—she was just a victim of little bursts of infatuation that ended as quickly as they began. But maybe she was right. Maybe it would be good for Callie to have a few one-night flings instead of long-term boyfriends.
“Boyfriend,”
Callie said slowly, as if trying to figure out the Latin root of the word. “
Boyfriend
. What a strange, ugly, totally un-fun word!”

“See? Boyfriends are such downers.” Tinsley rolled onto her back, her dark hair spreading around her head like a black halo. “You’re always worrying about where they are, who they’re with, what they’re doing, blah blah blah!”

“Exactly!” Callie laughed, then sighed heavily. In fact, right now all she wanted to know was where jerk-face Easy Walsh was, and, more important, who he was with. “You’re right.”

“Good thing Brett’s already shaken Jeremiah loose.”

Callie hesitated for a minute, wondering if it would be wrong to mention Eric Dalton. She felt bad keeping something from Tinsley in the middle of all this sisterly camaraderie. “Well, she is sort of seeing someone. She hasn’t mentioned it to you?”

“No.” Tinsley was a little disappointed that Brett hadn’t told her anything, but she didn’t want to show it. “We haven’t really had a chance to catch up yet.” She pulled a tube of Guerlain KissKiss gloss in Rouge Passion from her pocket and applied it to her lips. “Who’s she seeing?”

Callie let Tinsley suffer for a moment before answering in her Georgia drawl, slowly and dramatically, “Eric.
Dalton
.”

“You mean that’s for
real
?” Tinsley jumped off the bed. So the rumors
were
true. Brett had snagged a teacher? A totally deliciously hot teacher. She would have imagined that
she’d
be the first one to hook up with a teacher, not Brett. Though to be fair, Brett was sort of the type a teacher would go for. With her radical red bob and multiple-pierced ear, Brett looked way more worldly and jaded than she was. Total overcompensation for being a completely innocent
V-I-R-G-I-N
. Brett claimed to have lost it in Sweden or Switzerland or something, but Tinsley saw right through that lie. “Are they
sleeping
together?”

“Nah.” Callie thought briefly about how she had been ready to sleep with Easy, how she had been practically begging him for it and he just wasn’t interested. But Brett hadn’t come home last night and didn’t explain herself, so she must have been with Mr. Dalton. Callie was sure she would have said something if they’d had sex, though. How could you keep quiet about
that
? “I don’t think they’ve done it yet.”

“Well, it looks like I’ll get to check out her boyfriend up close tomorrow.” Tinsley leaned back on her pillow, looking extremely pleased with herself. “He’s my adviser.”

“Lucky you.” Callie could tell something was brewing inside Tinsley’s mind. It was kind of a relief that Tinsley was on her side. At least for now.

Instant Message Inbox

EmilyJenkins:
B, you in ur room?

BrettMesserschmidt:
Nope. Hiding out in library. What’s up?

EmilyJenkins:
U like your roomie Jenny right?

BrettMesserschmidt:
Yeah, she’s cool.

EmilyJenkins:
So then u want her to stay alive?

BrettMesserschmidt:
What are you talking about now?

EmilyJenkins:
Well … EZ just broke up with C and everyone heard her screaming about J.

BrettMesserschmidt:
Where’s Callie now?

EmilyJenkins:
Back at Dumbarton I think.

BrettMesserschmidt:
I should tell Jenny, huh?

EmilyJenkins:
That’s what I was getting at. ...

BrettMesserschmidt:
Fuck.

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BrettMesserschmidt:
Hey J, where are you?

JennyHumphrey:
Checking email in the lab. How r u? How was last night …?

BretMesserschimdt:
Good. Listen … Easy broke up with Callie.

JennyHumphrey:
Um …

BrettMesserschmidt:
Everyone’s saying it was for u. Callie thinks so too.

JennyHumphrey:
Jeepers.

BrettMesserschmidt:
Yeah. So you might want to, like, sneak in after curfew …

JennyHumphrey:
Thanks for telling me. You avoiding the room too?

BrettMesserschmidt:
U could say that.