The Anti-Prom (8 page)

Phi Kappas.

As they get closer, Jolene finally takes the hint and dangles her backpack in front of me, blocking whatever view they might have of my hunched, dusty body. Slowly, slowly they saunter past, while I make a mental note to take three showers when I get home.

“You can come out now.” Jolene sounds amused. She doesn’t help me up, just stands back and watches as I crawl out and haul myself to my feet in an undignified scramble.

“Thanks.” I try to dust myself down. It doesn’t look as if there’s too much damage, just a suspicious smear on one leg and, yes, the remainder of some chewing gum squished against my left palm. I screw up my face and wipe it frantically with a wad of scrap paper.

When I look up, Jolene is still staring at me. “Let me guess: you stole one of their boyfriends?”

“Is my name Kaitlin?” I retort.

“Right.” She grins. “I forgot, you’re the virtuous one. So, what was it? I haven’t seen anyone hit the ground so fast since a car backfired outside the Jay-Z show last year.”

I pause. “My cousin,” I explain reluctantly, reaching for my purse and applying a fresh coat of lip gloss to calm myself down. “Well, her sorority sisters, anyway, but I thought she was with them.” They all look alike, those girls, with their manicures and blowouts and five-hundred-dollar purses. The Kappa gloss, Kaitlin and I always joke, even though we’ll pledge in a heartbeat when our turn comes around.

Jolene frowns. “Wait, your cousin goes here? Why didn’t we just ask her for help?”

I shake my head so fast, hair whips against my cheeks. “No way. She
cannot
know I’m here. She’ll tell her mom, and then Aunt Estrella will call my mom, and I’ll be in a world of trouble.” I shudder again, this time at the prospect of Selena smugly reporting back my every misdemeanor. It’s bad enough that my mom and her sister are trapped in some cycle of constant competition, but they can’t help dragging me and Selena into it, too: holding up our achievements like they’re gold stars on a scoreboard. And no matter what I do, Selena always comes out on top.

“So what’s the deal, you’ll get in trouble for sneaking onto campus?” Jolene looks a tiny bit sympathetic.

“For starters, sure,” I reply. “And then my mom will want to know everything about why I’m here, and not at prom, and what I’m doing with you . . .” I trail off, exhausted by the thought of all her questions.

“Right,” Jolene drawls slowly, “because hanging with me is way worse than the stealing and gossiping.”

I tense. “You should talk — your mom posted spies to keep watch on you, remember?”

“Vividly.” Jolene sinks back against the wall as I resume copying duties. “God, what makes them think it’s such wholesome teenage fun we’re having at that thing? I bet kids were getting drunk and giving illicit blow-jobs back in their day, too.”

“Beats me. My mom is way too involved in my social life as it is.”

“Reliving her former glories?”

“More like protecting my precious reputation.” I grimace. “Because we all know it’s the most valuable thing a girl can have.”

“Guess I’m screwed then.”

I fall silent as the copier hums, reproducing every scandalous page until I think it’s all covered. I fold the pages into a wedge. “This is everything, I think. Except the endless angsting and weight-loss charts, I mean.”

“Cool.” Jolene stuffs them in her backpack as we head back toward the study area. “We’re making good time, shouldn’t be much longer.” She looks around with a tight expression, like she can’t wait to be gone.

Meg and the Scott boy are deep in discussion as we approach, tucked away in their fort of books and folders.

“
Firefly
is great, but you should try
Dollhouse.
”

“I did!” Meg protests. “It was nothing but male fantasy crap. I gave up after five episodes.”

Sci-fi shows? They really are geeks. “Did you get the address?” I interrupt hopefully. Meg looks up.

“Oh, yes, Westville dorm.” She holds up a printout with Jason’s photo and scribbled directions.

“Just turn right when you exit the library,” Scott adds. “It’s straight across the way. You can’t miss it.”

“Awesome!” I grin. “Thanks so much.”

Scott nods. “Do you need any other —”

“We’ve got to run.” I cut him off, ushering Meg out of the chair. “But you’ve been a lifesaver, you really have!”

I don’t waste any more time; hustling the others ahead of me, I head back toward the exit.

“He was nice,” Meg says, faintly wistful. “He’s read all of Neil Gaiman.”

“We won’t hold it against him.” I skip lightly down the staircase, clutching Jason’s address. I glance around when we hit the main floor, but there’s no sign of Selena or her Kappa girls; what they were even doing in the library on a Friday night, I’m not sure, but with my all-clear assured, I sashay toward the exit. Soon, the diary will be in Jason’s hands, Kaitlin and Cam will be public enemies number one and two, and I can get back to the country club to salvage what’s left of my perfect prom.

“Mission accomplished.”

“Not so fast.” I shut Bliss down before she can get carried away on that tide of self-congratulation. “We’ve still got to sneak in the dorms and deliver it to him.”

She laughs, giving me this know-it-all grin, as if I’ve just questioned her ability to apply eyeliner or calculate the optimal flesh-to-dress ratio. “Trust me”— she smirks —“getting three girls into that dorm on a Friday night will be, like, the easiest thing we’ve ever done.”

I almost want us to run into trouble, just to prove her wrong, but when we make it back across the ugly campus to Jason’s dorm building, the front door is propped open with a stack of textbooks, and the pimple-faced security guard doesn’t even look up from his handheld game as we walk in.

“Told you so!” Bliss sings, flouncing ahead.

I take in the gray walls and vending machines and feel a swell of disappointment. God, I hate this place. After everything, I still can’t believe I’m cursed to spend my college years here: a freshman in the crowd of thousands mooching between classes at an institution that doesn’t make any rankings except the lower reaches of the annual “party schools” list. Too close to home, too close to everyone I wanted to leave behind.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

The dorms at Williams are gray stone, set back from the quad and surrounded by trees and leafy pathways, like something from another time. I loved it right away. Sure, we couldn’t afford the trip, but online I saw students strolling happily in the sun, broadening their minds with classes and debate, thousands of miles away from East Midlands and all the bullshit that happens in this town. It was a long shot, even the guidance counselor warned me, but I drilled SAT prep during the quiet shifts at work and polished my essays until they were clearly kick-ass, and even drove out to the city to meet alumni for coffee and talk about how college was a fresh start for me, and that my past mistakes had made me learn and grow as a person. I believed it, too, rereading that precious acceptance letter every night like it was my ticket out, to something better.

And then my failure of a father decides to break the only promise he ever made to me and suddenly it’s good-bye Williams, farewell freedom. Now I’m looking at nothing but four more years commuting to this dump every day from home, working nights and weekends just to scrape tuition, like I was never worth anything more. Like I never will be.

I shake off the flash of anger and disappointment. There’s no time for it now — all that will come soon enough.

“Look.” Meg points to a scribbled sign taped by the elevator with a bunch of
SAFE SEX
stickers.
PARTY
— 3
^RD
FLOOR!!!!
“Jason’s in room 318,” she adds, clutching the downloaded details.

“See?” Bliss beams. A group of girls hustles past, gossiping about last night’s episode of
5
^th
Avenue,
but even though they hold the elevator for us, Bliss takes off in the other direction, toward the stairs.

“More of your sorority girls?” I smirk. She doesn’t reply, pushing the door open and heading downstairs toward the basement.

Stairs? As the late, great Kirsty MacColl would say: not in these shoes. I stand firm. “I get that you want to stay out of their way, but hiding out down there . . . That’s kind of extreme, don’t you think?” Watching her freak out in the library was fun, sure, but avoiding every shiny-haired rich girl in this college might take us a while.

Bliss shakes her head. “Didn’t you notice what they were wearing?”

I blink. “Uh, basic college party ho attire?”

“It’s a pajama party.” Bliss looks at me. “Duh! And you were the one who said we needed to get out of these dresses. Ergo . . .” She points at the sign on the wall pointing down.

LAUNDRY.

Oh.

“Ergo?” I follow her down the concrete stairwell. I don’t check to see if Meg is coming, too — she always does.

“Therefore,” Bliss shoots back. “What, you think just because I have a manicure, I have to be brain-dead too?”

“You’d be the only one of your clique who isn’t,” I reply sweetly, pushing past her into the laundry room.

Bliss — showing her usual entitlement and lack of respect for other people’s property — rummages in the dryers for clean laundry, outfitting us in an array of shorty shorts and tank tops before we hit the party. It’s easy to find the right floor: music is pounding through the walls and an, ahem, amorous couple has spilled out into the stairwell, making out against the door in an enthusiastic tangle of hands and tongue.

“Move it,” I bark. They shift out of our way, not missing a beat as they slam back against the wall instead, his hands gripping her ass tightly and both of them emitting a symphony of moans and grunts.

Meg is wide-eyed as we pass, and her expression doesn’t change once we emerge into the main party. It’s the usual college scene, the hallways packed with kids clutching beers and plastic cups — dancing, chatting, hurling themselves around with inflatable pool toys — but from the look on her face, we could have wandered into the middle of an orgy. I quickly scope out the place. Most of the bedroom doors are open and, unsurprisingly, there’s no flannel or long johns in sight, just plenty of bare-chested boys in boxers, and girls wearing shrunken T-shirts, tiny shorts, and — in a few extra-slutty cases — silky nightgowns as they bounce around to the music.

“Someone better stay here and keep watch.” I tug at my shorts. They’re printed with tiny giraffes galloping across my butt. “In case security comes to break things up.”

“Or Phi Kappa shows,” Bliss adds. Taking an abandoned cup from the floor, she pushes it into my hand, finds an almost-empty beer bottle for herself, and then steals a sleep mask from somebody’s door handle to arrange on the top of Meg’s head. In an instant, she’s transformed us from three underage girls in dumb nightwear into a trio of partygoers, perfectly blending into the crowd. I hate to admit, I’m impressed.

“I guess that means you’re up,” I tell Meg. I’d rather a vaguely functional Bliss as my buddy than her.

“But —” Her protest is drowned out by a pack of frattish guys whooping past, naked save a collection of Disney boxers and shaving-cream bow ties. They pile into the room next to us, only to emerge a moment later with one of the lingerie girls slung between them. She squeals and laughs but doesn’t put up a fight.

“We’re on our cells,” I add, already backing away. “Call if you spot Jason!”

We’re quickly swallowed up by the crowd, rowdy from the mix of cheap drinks and skin. Awesome. I can’t shake my bitterness, just imagining how I’m going to deal with this twenty-four seven when school starts in the fall.

“You think she’ll be OK?” Bliss glances back, but Meg is already out of sight. “These parties can get kind of wild.”

I roll my eyes. “Relax. She’s probably got 911 on speed dial. Or her daddy. Now, 318 . . .” I start checking door numbers.

“It’s down here.” Bliss points the way, past a gaggle of girls in matching black lace nightgowns. I guess the pajama dress code is kind of like Halloween: just an excuse to look like a Playboy refugee for the night.

“You’re sure you know where you’re going?” I can’t help but tease. She scowls.

“I haven’t got total amnesia, you know.”

I laugh at her petulant expression. “I’m just kidding. Jesus, now who’s the touchy one?”

She exhales, as if forcing herself not to snap back. “Jason’s the last room on the right,” she says instead, adjusting her football jersey shirt so it reveals one bare shoulder. “You’d better check it out first, in case he’s still there.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I mock-salute, leaving her camouflaged in the line for someone’s keg while I do a casual stroll-by. The door’s lodged half-open, and through the gap I can see a blond boy giving his hair a careful ruffle, peering at his reflection in a handheld mirror. He’s wearing Simpsons boxers and nothing else, and when he’s done mussing the perfect Pattinson look, he flexes a few muscles, just to reassure himself of his own hotness.

“Yo, Jason!” Another guy pushes me out of the way, slamming the door wide open. “Get out here! Eric’s got a bet going we can’t down ten in ten!”