The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (8 page)

Someone grabbed the door just before it closed behind Natasha and my heart caught, hoping to spot Thomas. All I saw were a bunch of guys from yesterday’s classes. I sat back in my seat and glanced instinctively at Ariana. Sure enough, she had lowered her book and was studying me openly.

“What?” I said, flushing slightly.

“Dash, is Thomas coming to breakfast?” Ariana asked.

My heart practically stopped. What was she, a mind reader? She looked at me meaningfully and I knew for certain that she had asked the question on my behalf.

“Oh God, Ariana. You’re not going
there,
are you?” Noelle asked.

“Why? What’s wrong with Pearson?” Dash asked.

“I think the more appropriate question is what’s
not
wrong with Pearson,” Noelle said.

“I was just asking a question,” Ariana said coolly. “So, is he coming?”

Dash laughed as he shoveled down a forkful of eggs. “Does he ever?” He glanced at me. “Pearson is
not
a morning person. Ask Josh.”

I had no idea why he had directed this comment at me. Had
Thomas said something about me? Or had Dash read my mind and realized who I was looking for as well?

“I’m his roommate. I can attest,” Josh said, raising a hand. “Man likes his sleep.”

Ariana placed her book aside and picked a piece of toast up from her plate, crunching into it. She smiled at me as she chewed and I smiled back through my embarrassment, silently thanking her for asking the question I never would have had the guts to ask.

“Ugh!” Kiran groaned, snapping her Sidekick closed and tossing it on the table.

She hooked her arm over the back of her chair and looked away from the rest of us for a moment, never once losing her arched posture. Her profile was perfectly angular, her cheekbones sharp and defined. I noticed she also had some kind of shimmer above her eyes, but it was so subtle you could only see it when the light hit her in a certain way.

“Did your technology anger you?” Gage asked.

“Never date a guy from Barcelona,” Kiran said, shaking her head slightly as she turned forward again. Every gesture this girl made was elegant and graceful. She picked up an apple wedge, holding it delicately between the tips of her fingers, and took a nibble. “They’re gorgeous, yes, but just
so
self-absorbed.” Her stunning brown and gold eyes fell on me and she blinked. “Where did
you
come from?”

There was a moment of silence and then everyone else cracked up.

“What? It was just a question,” Kiran said.

“She lives in her own little world,” Ariana explained.

“Look who’s talking,” Kiran grumbled at Ariana. She looked me over and leaned back in her chair, placing her apple wedge down on her plate. “You know, this apple is a little sour. I’d like a new one,” she said, looking directly into my eyes.

There was a moment of silence and I realized that everyone was looking at me. Expectantly.

“What?”

“She said she’d like a new apple,” Noelle said. “And while you’re up you can get me a coffee, too.”

“And one of those chocolate donuts,” Kiran said. “The ones with the sprinkles. I’m celebrating the end of swimsuit season.”

“Oooh. I’ll have one too,” Taylor added.

I looked around at them, my cheeks burning. Were they serious? They were really ordering me to go up and get them food. Dash popped a piece of bagel in his mouth and snickered as he eyed me with amusement.

“Did you get all that or do you need a pad and pen?” Noelle said.

I looked at Ariana. She took a deep breath and continued to read. I was alone here. And I had the distinct feeling that I had no choice.

“All right. I guess I’m going up there, then,” I said.

“Good decision,” Noelle said.

I rose on shaky legs.

“Aren’t you going to ask Ariana if she wants anything?” Kiran said innocently.

Die, die, die.

I paused. “Ariana? Did you want anything?” I asked, making myself sound as pleasant as possible.

“No, thank you, Reed,” Ariana said, her tone blithe. Never once did she look up from those pages.

So she was in on it. She didn’t actually ask me to sit here so she and her friends could get to know me. They just wanted some new girl they could order around. Well, fine. If that’s what it took, that’s what I would do.

I turned and walked toward the lunch line, feeling conspicuous and chagrined and humiliated as they all watched me do as they said. But more than anything, I was hoping I wouldn’t mess it up. I repeated the order over and over in my mind. Coffee, two donuts, apple.

Wait.
Was Kiran’s apple red or yellow or green? I paused and glanced over my shoulder to check. Green. Okay. Somehow I knew that if I got it wrong I would never be invited back to their table. And I had to be invited back. I had to be. I’d get them breakfast every morning, I’d endure this lump of humiliation in my chest every day, if they would just invite me back.

Later that week, I met with Ms. Naylor right before dinner. She wanted to see how my classes were going—if there was anything I felt was too “challenging” for me. All I could think about was the fact that after my one meal with the Billings Girls, I hadn’t been invited to sit with them again. She wanted challenging? Try figuring out how to get back in there. But as important as I knew my social life was, I had a feeling Naylor couldn’t care less. As she gazed at me expectantly, I wondered if Mr. Barber had told her about my first day. I imagined them whispering in the faculty lounge or wherever it was adults hung out at a place like this, making wagers on how long I might last. I gave her a tight-lipped smile, told her everything was fine, and resolved to hit the library right away to start in on that list of books he’d given me.

I was not going down without a fight.

It was a humid day with thick gray clouds crowding the sky, the air so heavy it felt as if the atmosphere was pressing in on me from all sides. As always, I walked with my head down and a rivulet of
sweat wound its way along my neck and into the collar of my T-shirt. I realized then that I was rushing. Not the kind of weather conducive to rushing. I took a deep breath and slowed down as I made my way around Drake House, a dorm for upperclassmen boys that everyone called “Dreck” because apparently all the unsavory males at Easton lived there.

Everything was going to be fine. I just needed to chill. I just needed to remember why I was here and what I was avoiding going back to. I just needed to—

I rounded the corner of Dreck and heard a window opening, then a giggle. I looked up and stopped dead. There, scrambling out of a basement window and into the bushes, with the help of a large hand on her ass, was Kiran Hayes. She scrambled up, laughing, then straightened her skirt and brushed the dirt from her bare knees. Seconds later, a boy emerged, pulling himself up and tackling her into a kiss. Kiran pushed at his shoulders at first, but then let out a slight moan and kissed him back.

Kiran Hayes was making out with a Dreck boy. The Dreck boy’s hands were, in fact, sliding up her tank top toward her breasts.

Right. I didn’t need to see that.

I turned to go, but the flash of movement must have caught Kiran’s eye. A moment later, she barked.

“Wait! Don’t move,” she demanded.

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned back toward her, my pulse racing.

“God! You really are a voyeur, aren’t you?” she said.

“No!” I wrenched one eye open and caught a glimpse of Kiran’s mauler grabbing his book bag and fleeing around the building toward Dreck’s front door. It was the tall, gawky kid I had seen her wink at the other day. What was supermodel Kiran doing with a manga-reading loser like that? And I thought she had a boyfriend in Barcelona. “I was just taking a shortcut to the library,” I told her. “I didn’t see anything.”

Kiran’s hair was a rat’s nest in the back from where it had been pressed up against the rough brick. Her skirt was half turned around and her lipstick was entirely gone, revealing plump, pink lips. I had never seen her look so disheveled, and she was still drop-dead gorgeous.

“Yeah, right,” she said, taking a step toward me. “You’re not going to tell anyone about this, right?”

“No,” I said. “No. Of course not.”

“Because you cannot even comprehend the things I can do to you,” she said.

Wow.
This girl really knew how to cast a threat. Her eyes, so stunningly beautiful on a normal day, were now filled with venom. But even in my intimidated state, I realized that this was a moment I could use to my advantage. I could show Kiran I was trustworthy. I’d been handed another opportunity to prove myself.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

And then, to my surprise, I saw a flicker of relief. She was really scared that people would find out about this. Why? Maybe the kid was kind of a dork, but Kiran was the sort of powerful, popular girl
who could get away with dating whomever she wanted and still rise above the snickers and the rumors. Why was she so concerned about keeping this little affair hush-hush?

“Good,” Kiran said. “Now go.”

No time for questions I’d never have the courage to ask anyway. I turned and got out of there as fast as I could.

For a while, I had no contact with the Billings Girls, aside from practices with Noelle, at which she mostly ignored my existence. By the third week of school, I was starting to feel hopeless, wondering what I had done wrong. Had Kiran told them to shun me in order to keep me away from them, thereby lessening the chances that I would reveal what I knew? Every time I saw her I wanted to talk to her, to reassure her that I would keep my mouth shut. But every time I saw her, she was with Noelle or Taylor or Ariana and there was no way I could approach them.

Approaching them without an invitation was out of the question.

Meanwhile, it seemed as if the Billings Girls were everywhere. During morning services one particularly hot day, Dean Marcus announced that a very special guest and alumnus of Easton had come to make an announcement, then introduced Lance Hallgren, Oscar-winning superstar and champion, for no apparent reason that I had ever been able to discern, of the U.S. space program. Everyone applauded and murmured as Lance stood before the
podium, all big teeth and slick hair, and told us that he was not the only star there that day. That he had graced us with his presence only to present a National Academic Award for Excellence in Scientific Research by a high school student to Taylor Bell. He brought her up to the front of the chapel to thunderous applause, then handed over a plaque and a check for $5,000. The award also came with an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, where Taylor would present her research during a banquet at the Smithsonian Institution, where she would sit at Lance Hallgren’s table.

The biggest academic award I had ever won got me a stiff blue ribbon and a $25 gift certificate to Outback Steakhouse.

That same day, Kiran received a bouquet of two dozen white lilies right in the middle of lunch hour. She passed the card around, so I assumed they weren’t from her secret Dreck boy, who sat a few tables away, watching miserably. Moments later, the two delivery men returned, wheeling a lime-green Vespa between them, right into the cafeteria. This got everyone’s attention, including the ever-present teachers, who jumped to their feet to interrogate the delivery guys. Instantly everyone was on their feet, theorizing. How did they get that past the gate? Had they paid off security? No one was allowed to have motor vehicles on campus. Would they let her keep it? Like they were going to take anything away from Kiran Hayes. Meanwhile, Kiran had already straddled the Vespa, slipped on the sleek white helmet, and was checking out the features along with Dash, Gage, and Josh, oblivious to all the talk going on around her.

A few days later, one of Ariana’s poems was published in the
Easton newspaper—
The Chronicle
—with an accompanying story proudly noting that it had been accepted to be published in
The New Yorker
, which received thousands of submissions from poets of all ages and stages of accomplishment. Then the ballot came out for that year’s senior class superlatives, and Noelle’s name was all over it. She was nominated for everything from Most Beautiful to Most Likely to Succeed to Class Couple to Best Sense of Humor.

That
I had yet to see evidence of.

I glanced over at the Billings table as Diana, Constance, and I emerged from the lunch line on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Without the sun streaming through the skylight, the cafeteria seemed dim and dank. But still, the Billings girls were the brightest spot in the room.

“Have you picked an artist for your art history project yet?” Diana asked me as we took our seats at the end of our usual table.

“Are you kidding? Our whole room is covered with huge art books she took out of the library,” Constance said, taking a sip of her sparkling water. “All she does is stress over them.”

Did she think I
wanted
her to tell everyone what I did in the privacy of my own room?

“I just don’t want to do someone everyone’s done before,” I said, lifting one shoulder. “I’m going for originality.”

“News flash: Mrs. Treacle is fourteen thousand years old,” Diana said. “You are not going to find someone she’s never seen done before.”

Constance laughed. “I am
so
glad I took journalism,” she said. “Reporting for
The Easton Chronicle
is so much more fun than memorizing a bunch of boring paintings. Plus, my mom knows Mr. Ascher, so I’m definitely going to get a front page story.”

Goody for you.
Every time I started to like Constance, she said something that reminded me how annoying she could be.

I sighed and glanced over at the Billings table, wondering how I was going to take a whole year of eating three meals a day over here when I had already experienced what it was like to be over there. As if sensing me watching, Noelle looked up and caught my eye. She sighed, shook her head, and pushed herself to her feet. Her chair made a sickening scraping sound.