The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (131 page)

“Nice move, Brennan!” someone shouted.

I just kept going.

Score. I had to score.

Ten yards from the goal. Five. The goalie was watching me like a hawk. Still, I had figured out her weakness. Too short. No wingspan. If I could kick it into the upper corner above her head, glory would be mine. I could see the shot in my mind. Could see the ball sailing past her outstretched fingers. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Noelle. She was open on the other side of the field. Somehow she had evaded her defender, who was now sprinting toward her from behind.

Noelle was a senior. This was her final game. And the timing was perfect. I wanted to score, but an assist would be just as good.

I glanced into the upper corner of the net where I would have kicked the ball. The goalie bought it and scooted to her right. Instead, I sent the ball zooming across to Noelle, who lobbed it easily into the net behind the goalie’s back. The girl reacted, but it was far too late. By the time she dove, the ball was already hitting rope.

“Yes!” Noelle cheered

We all sprinted over to pile on her as the whistle blew. Game over. An Easton win. Noelle had gotten to score the winning goal in the final game of her prep school career. Thanks to me.

“Nice pass,” she said as I clasped her hand. She gave me a knowing look, and I knew she realized what I had done for her.

“Nice goal,” I replied.

As we made our way over to the stands with the rest of the team, slapping backs and smiling, I noticed for the first time that there
was something off about the crowd. There were more parents in attendance than usual, there to cheer on their graduating daughters, but the rest of the crowd was made up of guys. Almost exclusively. On both sides. Not only had the Easton men come out in droves, but the Barton men were also well represented. Normally the stands were almost empty for our games, and certainly guys had never been a big contingent. What was the deal?

“Nice moves, Brennan!” one of the senior guys shouted as we all made for the water jug.

“I like a team player!” another called out to me.

At that, a couple dozen guys applauded and whistled and hooted, all directing their attention at me. Even the Barton guys were clapping for me. I caught Jason Darlington hooting in my direction with a knowing smile, as if we were sharing some private thought, though what that would be I had no idea. My skin was already red from exertion, but now an embarrassed blush fueled it further.

“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked Sabine as she handed me a cup of water. Sabine had gone out for soccer at the beginning of the year, but Coach Lisick had decided that her talents were more suited for the position of team assistant. She got into the game every once in a while—it was an Easton rule that everyone got some playing time—but only when we were winning hugely or losing hugely.

“They’re all here for you,” she whispered to me. “They’ve been talking about you throughout the game.”

“Seriously?” I asked, glancing around at the dozens of faces, some familiar, some not.

“That’s what happens when the hottest girl at Easton suddenly hits the market,” Noelle said, resting her forearm on my shoulder and leaning into me as she checked them out. “Salivating boys come from all over.”

I’d had no idea it was possible to be so mortified and so flattered all at once. As I looked around, I saw random guys jostling for a better look at me. Like I was a celebrity or something. Floppy-haired boys, crew-cut boys, tall boys, short boys, cute boys, hot boys, scrawny boys, chubby boys. All of them smiling at me. Checking me out. After a few seconds I had to turn away. It was too bizarre.

“I’m gonna go . . . get some ChapStick before we shake hands,” I mumbled to my friends.

I walked to the far end of the Easton bleachers, hoping to duck out of sight and dig through my soccer bag for a few moments to get a breather. As soon as I came around the side, though, I stopped in my tracks. Astrid was crouched down in the pile of duffel bags and gym bags, pawing through
my
stuff.

For a long moment, I didn’t say anything. My heart all but stopped. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Why was she going through my things?
Was
Astrid the one who had blackballed me? Was she leaving something else in my soccer bag? I thought we were friends.

I opened my mouth to speak, but at that exact moment she finally stood. There was something in her hand, but I couldn’t tell what it was. She turned, saw me standing there, and nearly tripped herself. Snagged.

“You startled me!” she said with a laugh.

“What were you doing in my bag?” I demanded.

Her smile faltered, as if she was confused by my tone. “I guess you caught me,” she said, flashing her palm. “I stole a barrette.”

She held up her palm. One of my plain snap barrettes sat in her hand.

“Sorry. My bangs are driving me crazy,” she said, flipping her short, sweaty hair back to illustrate how the bangs fell right back into her eyes. “I just wanted something to pin them for the team meeting. Is that okay?”

I glanced at the bag again, trying to decide whether to believe her. It was a simple enough explanation, but my suspicious side was on high alert these days.

“Sure,” I said finally. “No problem.”

Astrid smiled awkwardly and started past me.

As she walked off to join the team, I dropped onto my butt on the ground, pulling my bag into my lap. Quickly but carefully, I removed everything. My sweatshirt, my towel, my water bottle, my extra shin guards. I even opened the smaller nylon pouch where I kept my key, ChapStick, and hair bands. Everything was there except that one barrette. And there was nothing out of the ordinary. When the bag was empty, I turned it upside down and shook it, checking to see if anything would fall out.

Nothing. The bag was clean. I looked up and saw Astrid high-fiving Bernadette Baskin. Sure, Astrid had always been nice to me, a friend. But with everything that had been going on lately, I couldn’t be too careful. It looked like I was just going to have to get used to being suspicious all the time. At least until I figured out who was to blame.

After the soccer game, we got down to business. If we were going to throw this fund-raiser, it was time to get serious. I called a meeting for eight o’clock in the parlor and by seven fifty-five, everyone was seated on the couches and settees. Noelle sat in one of the two wing-backed chairs. I took the other. She and I had already come up with an agenda for the meeting, so I dove right in.

“First things first,” I began. “We know, at the very least, that we want the event to include a dinner, so next weekend, Noelle and I will be going to New York to scout locations. London, Vienna, we’re hoping you’ll come with.”

“Really?” London squealed.

“Road trip!” Vienna added.

They lifted their hands and slapped them together, clasping them for a moment before releasing each other.

“Why do they get to go?” Missy lamented.

Like I’d take you with me instead. I’d rather endure Chinese water torture. I’d rather be forced to watch Josh and Ivy make out for ten minutes.

Okay. Maybe not.

“Because they have the most connections,” Noelle replied coolly.

“Oh, we so do,” Vienna replied, laying her manicured hand out flat. “We can get all kinds of free crap from people.”

“It’s what we do,” London confirmed. “No one can say no to us.”

They looked at each other and giggled, which made all of us wonder what, exactly, they did to make themselves irresistible. But I wasn’t about to ask.

“Okay, so now that that’s settled, we need to make sure this is the event of the season,” I said, popping the top off my pen. “It has to be original. It has to be fabulous. It’s last-minute, so it has to make people want to cancel whatever other plans they might have and make this their first priority.”

My friends were riveted by my speech, each sitting on the edge of her seat, fully alert. There was a palpable energy in the room. We were going to nail this. I could feel it.

“So, any ideas?” I asked, pen at the ready.

No one said a word.

“Anything. Really. We just have to get started and then the ideas will flow,” I urged them.

Skittish glances abounded. It was as if they were afraid to speak. God help us.

“I have an idea!” Lorna said finally, raising her hand. Once chunky and frizzy-haired, Lorna had lost a good deal of weight since last year,
thanks to joining the Easton cross-country team, and had tamed her frizz into a sleek mane. Lately she was looking healthy—almost pretty. And it all resulted in her speaking up more.

“Shoot,” I told her.

“We could do an eighties theme,” she announced happily.

Everyone groaned. “Lorna, this isn’t a public school prom. It’s a fund-raiser. For adults,” Missy said with a sneer.

Lorna sank in on herself. I shot Missy an irritated glance. Maybe eighties was a horrendous idea, but why did Missy always have to be so callous to her so-called best friend?

“What ideas do you have, Missy?” I asked.

Put on the spot, Missy blanched. “Well, we could do a silent auction—”

“I’m so over those,” Portia said, rolling her eyes. “What fun is an auction when you can’t beat down your opposing bidder in front of everyone?”

“Besides, what would we auction?” Tiffany asked. “Ourselves?”

Strained laughter everywhere. I looked around. These were fifteen of the smartest, most accomplished, most well-traveled and well-partied girls in North America. Did they have no thoughts?

“Anyone?” I said.

“Vicars and tarts?” Astrid suggested meekly.

“Oooh! I like that!” London exclaimed.

“You would like anything with ‘tarts’ in the title,” Shelby joked as she checked her messages. I was pretty sure she was addicted to her iPhone at this point.

“What is vicars and tarts?” Sabine asked, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s a British thing,” Astrid replied. “The men dress up as holy men and the women go as streetwalkers. I know it sounds mad, but the geriatrics think it’s hilarious. We do them all the time back home, but it would be exotic here, I think.”

“Maybe.”

I didn’t like it. I mean, I could see how it could be fun on some level, but I wanted the party to be sophisticated, not like a Playboy Mansion thing. Still, I wrote it down. I had to write down something. Plus I didn’t want Astrid to think I was holding the fact that she’d borrowed a barrette from me against her. Which she might actually think, considering how bizarrely I had reacted at the time.

“Anyone else?”

“We could do a beach theme. Or exotic locales,” Sabine suggested, sitting up straight. “Bring summer into winter. We can bring in sand and palm trees and have everyone wear summer dresses and flowers in their hair and—”

“Should we get plastic leis as well?” Shelby joked.

Sabine blushed. “Well, people are always doing Christmas in July. Why can’t we do July in the winter?”

“No one’s going to go for it,” Noelle said, shaking her head. “What if it snows and everyone’s walking around in coconut bras and sandals? We could land everyone in the hospital with pneumonia and end up getting our asses sued. No way.”

Sabine shot me a look like,
I tried,
so I smiled gratefully back at her.

“At least someone’s attempting to think of something,” I said.
Clearly Sabine had spoken up solely to save me from the awkward silence. “Come on, you guys. Anything?”

After another thirty minutes of quiet, broken occasionally by lame ideas, I finally closed out the brainstorming portion of the meeting. It was both exhausting and depressing.

“Let’s talk about some logistical stuff,” I suggested. “What else do we need to do?”

“We need a guest list,” Kiki announced, popping her gum.

“Right. Good. Everyone come up with at least twenty people to invite before we meet next,” I said, happy to be able to assign a task that could actually be accomplished. “What else?”

“We’ll need to get passes from Cromwell for next weekend,” Noelle reminded me.

“Right. He’s not going to like that,” I said.

“Please. Once we remind him there’s a cool five mil involved, he’ll have no problem writing them out,” Noelle replied.

“Good point,” I said. “Okay, until we figure out exactly what this event is going to be, I guess there’s not much else we can do. Everyone think about it and let me know if you have any huge epiphanies.”

The room filled with chatter as everyone stood and gathered their things. Why they couldn’t have been that talkative ten minutes ago, I had no idea. But one thing was certain—someone around here needed to have a flash of brilliance soon, or we were going to be in serious trouble. If Ivy had sat in on this meeting, she would have been happier than Vienna and London at a Calvin Klein sample sale.

Ivy. Right. Noelle was just tucking her iPhone away and getting
up to go when my conversation with the witch crossed my thoughts. Noelle had been here longer than anyone—and always seemed to know what was going on with everyone around her. She had to have some kind of insight on Ivy.

“Noelle, I have a question,” I said, standing.

“And I have an answer,” she replied, pausing with her hand on the back of her chair.

Typical confidence. But then, she usually did have an answer.

“What is up with Ivy Slade and Billings?” I asked.

Noelle blinked. “What do you mean?”

I shoved my notebook in my bag and shouldered it, standing across the way from Noelle. “At the beginning of the year, Portia and Rose wanted to, quote, ‘re-extend’ Ivy’s invite to Billings, but Cheyenne shot the idea down. Was she supposed to be here last year?”

Noelle lifted one shoulder. “Depends on how you look at it. She was extended an invitation at the end of her sophomore year, but she opted to decline. End of story.”

Opted to decline? Who the hell declined Billings?

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Why does she hate us so much if she
decided
not to live here?”

Noelle shrugged again and came around the chair. “Sorry, Reed,” she said as she reached me. “I can’t say I’m intimately aware of the inner workings of Ivy Slade’s brain. Thank God.”