Invitation Only

by Kate Brian

  “Def­inite­ly.”

  “Good. You need this,” Noelle said.

  “What?” I asked. I had heard her, but had no idea what she meant.

  'You need this!“ she re­peat­ed, look­ing me in the eye. ”En­joy it!"

  I missed a beat and bumped her hip. She smiled, turned, and shim­mied back to Dash. Was it just me, or did her “en­joy it” have a “while you can” im­plied?

  Oh, God. They were an­gry with me for giv­ing in to Natasha's black­mail. They were go­ing to let me fry. Tonight was some kind of

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  mer­cy mis­sion. Some kind of last hur­rah. They were let­ting me see in­to the very core of their priv­ileged world, in­to the Lega­cy, just so that it would be that much more painful when they snatched it all away.

  I turned around, feel­ing sud­den­ly ill, and looked around for a win­dow, a bal­cony, any place where I might be able to find some air. And that was when I saw him and the en­tire room tilt­ed be­neath me.

  Thomas.

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  DOU­BLE MIND­FREAK

  “Reed! Reed! Where're you go­ing!?” Tay­lor shout­ed af­ter me.

  I didn't re­spond. Couldn't. There was no time. I el­bowed my way through the gy­rat­ing bod­ies on the dance floor, step­ping on toes and earn­ing shoves and curs­es along the way. Strobe lights flashed, arms dis­tort­ed my view, but I kept my eyes trained on him like a sniper on a hos­tile tar­get. He was stand­ing right there, sip­ping a drink, with one hand in his pock­et. If he turned just slight­ly to the left, he would be look­ing right at me.

  If he saw me, would he run? Would he ap­proach? Why wouldn't he look my way?

  “Thomas!” I screamed.

  I was just ar­riv­ing at the edge of the dance floor when he turned, lift­ed one of the dark cur­tains, and dis­ap­peared be­hind it. I grabbed up my skirt and ran, sidestep­ping a cou­ple who was mak­ing out near one of the bars, duck­ing as an ac­ro­bat came dan­ger­ous­ly close to im­pal­ing her­self on one of my bob­by pins. Gasp­ing for breath, I whipped the cur­tain aside and there he was,

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  stand­ing with his back to me. I grabbed his shoul­der and whipped him around.

  “Thomas!” I gasped, bare­ly au­di­ble.

  It wasn't Thomas at all. The guy turned his star­tled brown eyes on me and quick­ly ducked out of the al­cove as if he'd been caught with his hand in the cook­ie jar. He was too tall, his hair too long. He looked noth­ing like Thomas. How could I have ev­er mis­tak­en him?

  My heart pound­ed in my chest. I looked up from the floor--my eyes bleary and con­fused--and in­stant­ly all the air whooshed out of my lungs. For the first time I no­ticed that I was not alone. I no­ticed the rea­son the Thomas look-​alike had bolt­ed so quick­ly in ob­vi­ous guilt.

  There, in the cor­ner, with her leg wrapped over an­oth­er girl's lap, her hands en­tan­gled in an­oth­er girl's blond hair, her tongue search­ing an­oth­er girl's mouth, was none oth­er than Natasha Cren­shaw.

  “Oh, my God,” I said loud­ly.

  Natasha turned around, heav­ing for breath, and for the first time I saw clear­ly the face of the girl be­neath her--the chub­by cheeks, the heavy make­up, the kiss-​bruised lips of Leanne Shore.

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  BLACK­MAIL BOOMERANG

  “Oh, this is just per­fect,” Leanne said sourly.

  Yep. Just as pleas­ant as I re­mem­bered her.

  “I'm so sor­ry,” I said, back­ing away. “I thought I saw some­one come in here and--”

  Natasha swung her legs down and straight­ened her skirt. She pushed her hands in­to her knees, took a deep breath, and stood. Her breasts heaved in her straight-​cut strap­less dress and she yanked it up un­der her arms to cov­er a bit more of her cleav­age.

  “I'll just go,” I said, feel­ing threat­ened.

  “Don't,” Natasha said.

  I froze. There were about a hun­dred thou­sand places I would have rather been just then, but I couldn't move.

  “You can't tell any­one about this, Reed,” Natasha said, a plea in her voice. “Please. I know you pret­ty much hate me, and with good rea­son, but I'm beg­ging you. Don't tell a soul.”

  I swal­lowed hard and looked from her to Leanne, who was avert­ing her eyes, her hands flat­tened on the chaise at her sides.

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  Was Natasha beg­ging me? Had she re­al­ly just ad­mit­ted I had rea­son to hate her? Natasha “Do-​As-​I-​Say-​or-​Die” Cren­shaw?

  “I won't,” I said. “I swear.”

  Natasha sighed and looked at the floor.

  “Are you two ... go­ing out?” I asked.

  Natasha and Leanne ex­changed a long glance. Fi­nal­ly Natasha sat back down next to Leanne, her crino­line rustling. They stared in­to each oth­er's eyes. Out­side the mu­sic con­tin­ued to pound.

  “Go ahead,” Leanne said fi­nal­ly, de­flat­ing. She leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms over her stom­ach. “Go ahead and tell her. She should know what they're re­al­ly about.”

  Why did I have a feel­ing that this was go­ing to make a lit­tle more sense than I need­ed it to?

  Natasha lift­ed Leanne's hand and laced their fin­gers to­geth­er. She looked up at me and nod­ded. “Yes. We're a cou­ple,” she said flat­ly. “We've been to­geth­er since sopho­more year.”

  “That's why you made me sneak around,” I said, sit­ting on a bench across from them. “That's why you want­ed Leanne back so bad­ly.”

  Natasha tipped her head for­ward and sighed. “Reed, the black­mail was all a set­up. I wasn't re­al­ly black­mail­ing you. Noelle was black­mail­ing me.”

  I shook my head slight­ly as this piece of in­for­ma­tion at­tempt­ed to pen­etrate. “Ex­cuse me. I think I just got whiplash,” I said. “What?”

  “They told me to take those pic­tures, Reed,” Natasha said, lean­ing for­ward. “They told me to black­mail you.”

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  I felt like one of the ac­ro­bats had just swooped in, tossed my feet over my head, and dropped me back down to the floor. I stared at the wall be­tween Natasha and Leanne and tried to suck in a breath. Tiny black dots marred my vi­sion and I closed my eyes against a wave of swirling nau­sea.

  “Are you okay?” Natasha asked.

  I placed my cool and clam­my hand against my hot-​as-​fire fore­head. “Why? Why? Wh--” It was the on­ly word I could form. I opened my eyes and at­tempt­ed to fo­cus on Natasha. “Why would you do this to me?”

  “Be­cause they threat­ened to tell ev­ery­one about us,” Natasha said, glanc­ing at Leanne.

  “So . . . what? You were afraid of be­ing dis­owned by your Re­pub­li­can par­ents? Is that it?” I asked.

  “No! It wasn't for me,” Natasha said. “My par­ents know I'm a les­bian. I've been out with them since I was thir­teen. They think it's cool. Like it gives them edge or some­thing.”

  “So why?” I asked. “I don't un­der­stand.”

  “She did it for me, okay?” Leanne shout­ed. “God, how thick can you be? If my par­ents found out about us, I would be out on the street like that,” she said, snap­ping her fin­gers. “They would not on­ly dis­own me, they would de­stroy me. I would be lucky to get a job at the freakin' Gap, okay? She did it for me.”

  I felt my mouth hang­ing open. I stared as Natasha leaned back and touched Leanne's face gen­tly with the back of her hand. Leanne drew in a shaky breath and quick­ly wiped back a tear.

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  Then they kissed. Slow­ly, ten­der­ly, com­fort­ing­ly. When they pulled away, Natasha touched her fore­head to Leanne's and they both breathed.

  This was not just a cou­ple. This was a cou­ple in love.

  And as I re­al­ized this, I com­plete­ly for­gave Natasha. She had done it all for love, just as I had kept Thomas's note a se­cret, just as I had kept alive the hope that I would see him her
e tonight. Plus she had done it un­der threat from Noelle, and if there was one thing all three of us knew, it was that Noelle made good on her threats. Natasha, like me, had been giv­en no choice.

  I took a deep breath and tried to lock on to one co­her­ent thought, tried to fig­ure out what I had to do next, what I might need to know in or­der to do what I had to do next. There was one ob­vi­ous ques­tion to be asked.

  “Why would they do this?” I asked, grip­ping the soft cush­ion at my sides. “Why would they black­mail you to get me to sneak around their rooms? They had to know I would be screwed if I got kicked out. They had to know I would do it. I mean, you should have seen some of the em­bar­rass­ing crap I found. Weren't they wor­ried about that at all?”

  “Maybe you should ask them,” Leanne said flat­ly.

  “She's right. You'll have an eas­ier time be­liev­ing it if it comes di­rect­ly from them,” Natasha said.

  I nod­ded, still sem­icata­ton­ic from the shock. Hear it from them. Right. They did have a lot of ex­plain­ing to do.

  “Would you mind leav­ing us alone now?” Leanne asked,

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  hold­ing Natasha's hand in her lap. “We don't get to see each oth­er much any­more.”

  She said this with a hint of blame. As if it was my fault. But I sup­pose, in a way, it was.

  'Yeah. Sor­ry,“ I said, ris­ing shak­ily on my three-​and-​a-​half- inch heels. I paused in front of the cur­tain and looked over my shoul­der at Natasha. ”And don't wor­ry. Your se­cret's safe."

  Natasha smiled. The first gen­uine smile she had ev­er graced me with. “Thanks, Reed.”

  I lift­ed the cur­tain and ducked out.

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  THE PAWN

  Why? Why would they do this? Why, why, why?

  I paused for a mo­ment out­side the al­cove to catch my breath, the bon­ing in the bodice of my gown cut­ting in­to my raw, hot skin. My brain searched for an an­swer, but could find none. What would the Billings Girls pos­si­bly have to gain from mak­ing me snoop through their rooms? Had they want­ed me to find all their sick, se­cret stash­es? Had they want­ed me to find the proof of what they had done to Leanne? And if so, I was back to ques­tion one:

  Why?

  It was all just some big, twist­ed game. It had to be. And Natasha and Leanne and I were the pawns. Play­ing with us amused them. See­ing how far we might go gave them a hap­py lit­tle thrill. It was the on­ly ex­pla­na­tion. Ear­li­er that day when I had gone in and con­fessed and hand­ed back the disk, they had known what I had done. They had known all along. They had en­gi­neered the whole thing.

  They must have been laugh­ing at me be­hind my back for days. Look what Reed's do­ing. Look how stupid she is. Look how much pow­er we have over her.

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  The more I thought about it, the more I want­ed to tear some­one's hair out.

  I stood up straight, took a deep breath, and homed in on the dance floor. This was not go­ing to be pret­ty.

  Cling­ing to my livid adrenaline rush, I stormed through the crowd, tak­ing an el­bow here, a hip knock there, and found Noelle, Ar­iana, Tay­lor, and Ki­ran just where I had left them, in the cen­ter of the dance floor. I stepped in front of Noelle, seething for breath. She stopped danc­ing.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “Reed, re­lax,” she drawled, rest­ing her wrists on my shoul­ders. “It's a par­ty! That's what you're sup­posed to do. Or don't they have par­ties in Bum­ble-​fuck, Penn­syl­va­nia?”

  I grabbed her wrists, flung one away, and grasped the oth­er with my fin­gers. Tight­ly. In­stant­ly I felt Ar­iana, Ki­ran, and Tay­lor gath­er around me. I was sur­round­ed, caged in, but I didn't care.

  “We need to talk,” I said again, this time through my teeth.

  Noelle's eyes widened. “Reed, you're mak­ing a scene.”

  “I can make a much big­ger, much loud­er one,” I told her. “But I re­al­ly don't think you want all these peo­ple to hear the things I have to say.”

  Noelle stared at me for a long mo­ment, gaug­ing whether or not I was bluff­ing. I was. To­tal­ly. If I start­ed rant­ing and rav­ing, then I would not on­ly ex­pose Leanne and Natasha's se­crets, but I would ex­pose my­self as a to­tal naive weak­ling. Not some­thing I was quite ready to do.

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  I nar­rowed my eyes. The longer we stood there, the more I re­al­ized I was win­ning. I could see her start to cave. Maybe two could play at this game.

  “Fine,” she said, rip­ping her hand from my grasp. “No need to get vi­olent.” She looked over my shoul­der at the oth­ers. “Ladies. Let's find our­selves a room.”

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  NO MORE SE­CRETS

  “Well, Reed, we're all here,” Noelle said, low­er­ing her­self on­to a large vel­vet chair in one of the al­coves. She kicked off her shoes and drew her feet up un­der her full skirt, as if she were set­tling in for a cup of tea and a long, pleas­ant chat. The oth­ers gath­ered around her on foot­stools and chais­es.

  It was all per­fect­ly calm and civ­ilized. A tableau of beau­ti­ful, poised, priv­ileged wom­en. Mean­while, my in­sides were boil­ing.

  “I know what you did,” I said, stand­ing in front of them. “I know you black­mailed Natasha in­to black­mail­ing me.”

  Noelle stared at me. “So what do you want, a medal?”

  My fin­gers curled at my sides. “I want to know why,” I said. “Why would you do that to me? What could you pos­si­bly have to gain?”

  Noelle took a deep breath and sighed, look­ing off to her left like she was just that bored.

  “It's not what we have to gain, so much as what you have to gain,” Ar­iana said, repos­ing lan­guid­ly on her chaise. Ev­ery­one watched me ex­pec­tant­ly, as if wait­ing for me to thank them.

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  “What does that mean?” I asked. “I don't un­der­stand what that means.”

  “It means that we were test­ing you, and you passed!” Ki­ran an­nounced grand­ly. She pulled her ev­er-​present flask out of her purse and held it up. “Care to cel­ebrate?”

  I closed my eyes against a new wave of frus­tra­tion. I was even more con­fused now than I'd been when I walked in here.

  “Test­ing me? How? For what?” I asked.

  Ki­ran took a long drink and touched her fin­ger­tips to her lips. Noelle shook her head, fed up. Ar­iana sim­ply stared.

  “To see if we could trust you,” Tay­lor said qui­et­ly, look­ing at the floor. Her feet were turned in at the toes, giv­ing the im­pres­sion of a child wait­ing for her moth­er at the bus stop. “We did it to see if we could trust you.”

  To see if they could trust me. To see if they could trust me?

  “And I passed? How is that pos­si­ble?” I said. “I did go through your rooms. I found all kinds of crazy, per­son­al crap. I to­tal­ly vi­olat­ed your pri­va­cy. How did I pass?”

  Noelle laughed. “You didn't vi­olate any­thing. We plant­ed all that stuff for you to find.”

  “What?” Okay. Now I had to sit. I dropped on­to the near­est vel­vet bench and slumped. The past few weeks of my life passed be­fore me in the blink of an eye. Had any of it been re­al? “Please tell me you're kid­ding.”

  “You re­al­ly think I'm a clos­et binger?” Ki­ran said, snort­ing. “Please. I eat what I want, when I want. It's called good genes.”

  “Yeah. That was all my idea,” Tay­lor said with ob­vi­ous pride.

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  “But Tay­lor's all-​work-​and-​no-​play di­ary was mine,” Ki­ran point­ed out. “That was ge­nius, you have to ad­mit.”

  “It was good,” Tay­lor said. “But I had fin­ger cramps for days.”

  “The pic­tures of Dash were re­al, how­ev­er. Un­re­touched,” Noelle said with a sat­is­fied smile. “I'm a lucky girl, aren't I?”

  I tast­ed bile in the back of my throat. No
t on­ly had they set me up, they had gone to elab­orate lengths to do so. This must have tak­en days to plan and ex­ecute. All along they had been plot­ting and schem­ing be­hind my back. I had thought they were my friends, but they had been mess­ing with me from day one. Was any­thing any of them had ev­er said to me true?

  “I'll nev­er for­get your face that first morn­ing af­ter Natasha showed you the slide show,” Ki­ran said mirth­ful­ly. “On my birth­day? Ev­ery time we hand­ed you an­oth­er gift you looked more and more green.”

  “That was such per­fect tim­ing,” Ar­iana said. 'You re­al­ly laid on the guilt," she added with ob­vi­ous pride.

  “Hon­est­ly, I'm kind of sur­prised you didn't fig­ure it out,” Noelle told me. “We al­most tripped up so many times.”

  “Like, oh my God, that morn­ing I found you in our room? I was so not sup­posed to be there,” Tay­lor said. “I to­tal­ly for­got you would be sneak­ing around, but when I saw you I could tell you'd al­ready been un­der my bed. And then I threw in that thing about my pa­per and you were so sweet. 'Ev­ery­one here says you're the smartest per­son ev­er to go here,'” she said, mim­ick­ing my words. Words I had thought would help her. “That was so nice of you, Reed!”

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  “And then all that crap about pass­words?” Ki­ran said. “We to­tal­ly fed you the in­fo on how to find Ar­iana's key.”

  “But my plan­ner must have driv­en you crazy,” Ar­iana said. “Sor­ry about that.”

  Nev­er in my life had I felt hu­mil­ia­tion so in­tense. They had known the en­tire time. They had been lead­ing me on. That night when Ar­iana had hand­ed me her bag, she had done it on pur­pose. I hadn't been clever or con­niv­ing or stealthy. I had been duped.

  “Any­way, the re­al test was whether or not you would turn us in if you found some­thing in­crim­inat­ing,” Noelle said. “If we threat­ened to take away your en­tire world--i.e., your en­roll­ment at Eas­ton--and you still re­mained loy­al to us, you would pass.”

  “And you did,” Ar­iana said sim­ply. “Now we know we can trust you with any­thing. Ev­ery­thing.”