Reckless

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  But if she was having this much trouble not thinking about Callie and Easy and she was the one with him, poor Callie must be really tortured. Or maybe it was better to have had Easy once and then lost him than to never have had him at all. Jenny wasn't so sure. She certainly didn't want to find out.

  AlanStGirard:Just saw Marymount having a pretty intense cup of tea with Miss Rose at CoffeeRoasters—she the babe you caught him banging at the Ritz?

  TinsleyCarmichael:So eloquent you are. But no.

  AlanStGirard:Why won't you tell, gdamn it?

  TinsleyCarmichael:Bcuz secrets are worth more than gossip, dummy. And I have a feeling that info could come in handy sometime.

  AlanStGirard:You got any dirt on me?

  TinsleyCarmichael:Ha. If you only knew … Just stay on my good side, ASG.

  2

  A WAVERLY OWL TAKES ADVANTAGE OF FORTUITOUS EVENTS.

  “Hey, Princess,” Heath Ferro shouted as he flung open the door to the second-floor Richards dorm room he shared with Brandon Buchanan, his navy blue vintage Pumas soaked and squeaking noisily against the previously clean blond oak floor. “Aw,” he cooed when he saw the drawn curtains and Brandon curled up beneath his extremely prissy, peach-colored chenille throw. “Is Sleeping Beauty still sleeping?”

  Asshole, Brandon cursed into his pillow. Maybe a person with a normal degree of self-awareness could walk into a room, notice the closed curtains, the Hammacher Schlemmer Sound Oasis machine tuned to “Summer Night,” the body under the covers and think, Maybe I won't stomp around like a moron. Apparently that was too much to ask of Heath.

  “Fuck off, Ferro,” Brandon growled as he raised his head from his pillow high enough to give Heath a withering glare. The problem with Heath—or one problem with Heath—was that he was too self-absorbed to give a shit whether or not his roommate was sleeping or studying or wallowing in self-pity. Heath came in only one volume: loud.

  “Don't you have practice, dude?” Heath flicked on the light switch, and the darkened lair was flooded with fluorescent light. Brandon pulled the blanket up over his face.

  Practice. Yeah, he had practice. And since he was junior captain of the squash team, he should probably get off his ass and show up. But the thought of smacking a stupid rubber ball around a fifteen-by-fifteen room with another sweaty guy—well, he just wasn't up for it today. Brandon had uncharacteristically skipped his last class of the day—the gray rainy day depressed him and made him want nothing more than to curl up in his cozy bed, take a long nap, and maybe never wake up.

  That was a little morbid, yeah. But he hadn't been feeling himself since the weekend before last, when Callie Vernon had completely humiliated him by ordering him to watch some gay porno in front of everyone at the Ritz-Bradley party. Sure, he'd been acting a little overprotective—but Callie was making a total ass of herself, jumping up on the desk and drunkenly tearing off her clothes to try and keep up with Tinsley. It always made Brandon sick to think about how little self-respect Callie had and how highly she esteemed the quite possibly sociopathic Tinsley. He couldn't help it—it killed him to see her acting like a mindless clone. He had asked her to come back to his room to talk in private. Or maybe do a little more than just talk. But Callie had mocked him, screaming at him to leave her alone.

  Well, if that's the way she wanted it, fine. He was tired of obsessing over Callie. Besides, she was clearly not over artsy-fartsy Easy Walsh. He could tell the sole reason she'd gotten up on that dresser to do her little striptease was she'd caught Easy admiring Tinsley's body and it killed her. He found both Tinsley and Easy loathsome—and of course, Callie idolized both of them. He wasn't about to wait around for her to realize what soulless slimebags they were and come running back to him.

  If only he had something better to do …

  Brandon tossed off his ultra-soft blanket and set his bare feet on the cold wooden floor. He was already dressed for practice in his navy blue Adidas track pants with the orange stripes down the sides and one of the white Lacoste jersey tees that he bought by the dozen—he liked to wear them to practice, but once the armpits got sweat stains, he threw them out. “Don't get your panties in a bunch, Ferro. I was just taking a quick catnap.”

  “You said ‘panties’ and ‘catnap’ in the same sentence!!” Heath laughed maniacally as he pulled off his rain-soaked white Diesel men's T-shirt with the words IN A MORAL PANIC emblazoned across the front, balled it up, and tossed it at Brandon's head. It missed and landed in a soggy heap on Brandon's desk. Nice. It was hard to imagine Heath's morals in a panic—he didn't have any.

  Brandon crossed the room to his dresser, sighing as he stepped over the mucky footprints Heath had left behind, and pulled a pair of neatly rolled white Adidas gym socks from a drawer. His biting response to Heath was cut off indefinitely by the jangling of his black Treo on his oak bedside table.

  Callie? Brandon flipped it open to see his father's number. Suppressing a groan, he answered. “Good afternoon, Father.”

  “You sound sleepy.” Mr. Buchanan's sonorous voice contained a touch of accusation. “I hope I didn't wake you. Though why you would you be napping in the middle of a school day, I can't imagine.”

  Great. He was sounding even more passive-aggressive than normal. Must be his mega-bitch twenty-something gold digger wife rubbing off on him. “I was getting ready for practice. Is something wrong?” Mr. Buchanan was a weary man, older than his years—but Brandon guessed that's what came from starting a new family when you're already a legal senior citizen. Brandon's bratty twin half brothers, Zachary and Luke, were more annoying than Tom Cruise on speed. No wonder his dad worked so much.

  Mr. Buchanan ignored his son's question or didn't hear it. “I'm having dinner with Dean Marymount this Friday. I'd like you to come. Bring Callie.”

  Dean Marymount? Callie? What the fuck was his dad talking about? “You're coming … here?” Brandon asked, confused.

  Mr. Buchanan sighed, and Brandon could hear train noises in the background. He must be on his commute to Greenwich from the city. “Brandon, I hope you pay better attention to your studies than you do to your father. I have trustee meetings at Waverly all weekend. I told you about it months ago.”

  “Trustee Weekend,” Brandon repeated. “Sorry, it slipped my mind,” he added, although he knew his father had never mentioned it. Always better to take blame himself than expect his father to admit fault. But fuck—dinner with Dean Marymount? Did he really deserve that kind of punishment? And Callie? Guess he wasn't the only forgetful one. “Um … maybe it slipped your mind that I broke up with Callie? About a year ago?”

  “You never tell me anything,” Mr. Buchanan grumbled after a pause. “Fine, then. Bring someone else. I don't want it to be just the three of us. That would be … rather dull, don't you agree?”

  You think?

  “Yeah, okay, I'll bring someone.” Parents were such freaks. “Look, Dad, I've got practice.”

  “All right, I hope you win. Make reservations for eight at that place—the French one.” Mr. Buchanan clicked off before Brandon could repeat that it was practice, not a game. You don't win at practice.

  “Did you really say the magic words?” Heath asked the second Brandon tossed his phone into his black nylon squash bag. Heath was grinning like a five-year-old who'd just heard the jingle of the ice cream truck.

  “Huh?”

  “Trustee Weekend,” Heath repeated, the rapturous expression spreading across his face. He still hadn't put on a shirt and was standing in the middle of the room in just a short pair of red Nike soccer shorts covered in grass stains. “You know what that means.”

  “Yeah. A bunch of self-important rich fogies come to town and make their poor, overworked sons eat frogs legs at Le Petit Cock with the fucking dean. It means torture.”

  “No, moron,” Heath interrupted, grabbing a soccer ball and bouncing it expertly on his knee. “It means a bunch of self-important rich fogies come to town, and everyone's so fucking busy falling
over backward to keep them happy that they don't even notice what the fucking smarter-than-they-think students are doing. And that”—Heath grinned—”means paaar-TAY!” He punctuated this by kicking the ball at Brandon's bookshelf and sending the contents of the top shelf sliding to the floor.

  Brandon rolled his eyes. Heath had been kind of impossible since the Boston weekend, when Tinsley's secret society made the brilliant decision to make Heath its next male target. Like his giant ego could get any more inflated. Brandon had left the party early, after Callie had humiliatingly chastised him in front of everyone, but he'd heard rumors about what had happened afterward. Supposedly Callie, Tinsley, and Heath had climbed up to the roof and danced around naked? But no one seemed to know for sure. All they knew was that when they woke up hung over and half dressed on the hotel suite floor in the morning, the three of them were gone. It sounded très suspicious to Brandon, but he and Callie weren't exactly in speaking mode—and the last thing on earth he wanted to hear was that she'd actually done something as stupid as sleep with Heath Ferro.

  Because she wouldn't have, right?

  Heath grabbed his BlackBerry and pressed a button on his speed dial. “Trying to find a date for the weekend already?” Brandon quipped, pulling on his bright yellow waterproof windbreaker. Actually, he was the one who needed a date. Who the hell was he going to ask to come to dinner with his dad and Dean Marymount?

  “As if,” Heath scoffed. “I'm calling my buddy at Rhinecliff Liquors. What's a party without refreshments?”

  SageFrancis:Has Smail called off practice yet?

  BennyCunningham:Just checked my email … we're meeting at Lasell instead, 4 sharp.

  SageFrancis:Dibs on the Stairmaster with the best view of the soccer hotties stretching!

  BennyCunningham:I don't know how the sweaty narsty gym can turn you on….

  SageFrancis:That's because you've never made out in a shower stall in the boys' locker room.

  BennyCunningham:Oh, yeah? w/who?

  SageFrancis:Guess you're going to have to wait for another game of T or D to find out.

  3

  A WAVERLY OWL DOES NOT RUMMAGE IN HER ROOMMATE'S BELONGINGS—SHE MIGHT FIND SOMETHING.

  Rainy days always made Callie Vernon unbearably drowsy, and she could barely keep her eyes open during AP American History, something Mr. Wilde, the bookish thirty-something professor, seemed not to notice. Normally, his deep baritone voice and always slightly crooked smile were enough to keep Callie's attention, but not when 2 P.M. looked like 9 P.M.—it was a fucking monsoon out there. Field hockey practice had been canceled, which sounded nice but wasn't actually a treat in any sense of the word. Canceled practice meant everyone had to report to Lasell, the out-of-date fitness center, and spend an hour on the cardio machines, which Callie loathed. No matter how skinny she wanted to be, she couldn't bear walking in place while everyone cooed at the boys jogging in the gym through the glass. Besides, Lasell smelled like feet.

  And on a rainy day like this, all the other teams would have canceled practice too, and the gym would be full of hot, sweaty, stinky boys.

  Mr. Wilde dismissed the class. Callie, rapidly blinking to shake the sleep out of herself, passed him in the doorway; he smiled his crooked smile. “Looks like you could use a nap.” That counted as teacher permission to skip practice, didn't it? Or at least show up late?

  And so, an hour later, when Callie woke up from her after noon siesta, a word her mother had taught her to use instead of nap (as the latter brought with it a lazy connotation), she yawned and hopped out of bed, wearing only her Calvin Klein French-cut black underwear and matching stretchy camisole. She could walk around naked if she wanted since she practically had a single now. Ever since Tinsley and Brett had moved out, she barely saw Jenny anymore. Callie woke up every morning to an empty room and crawled into bed after her nightly Pilates routine, the whole day having often gone by without her seeing her busty little roomie. And that's exactly the way she wanted it.

  She might have been suspicious that Jenny was sleeping somewhere else—a thought that would have driven her mad with jealousy, as if little Jenny Humphrey could manage to sneak into the boys' dorm every night and have wild, passionate, illicit sex with Easy Walsh. But thankfully, every morning the ginseng-honey scent of Jenny's Frederic Fekkai Curl Enhancing Lotion hung in the air assured Callie that her little pest of a boyfriend-stealing roommate was actually sleeping in her own bed. Or maybe she was just a super-early riser.

  Jenny really seemed to be afraid of her. As well she should be.

  Not that Callie's life wasn't better without Easy Walsh. Since they'd broken up (she'd convinced herself that it was mutual and that she had not actually been dumped on her skinny ass), Callie had managed to snag an A on her last bio test, score six goals in the last two field hockey games, and flirt with just about every single cute guy on campus. Last Thursday, she had received special permission to take the train into Manhattan for a “medical emergency” and had spent the afternoon at Bergdorf-Goodman followed by six sample sales in the Garment District. Walking off the train at Rhinecliff station, arms loaded with bags of Theory clothes (trunk show!), wearing new Christian Louboutin platform espadrilles with sexy ankle ties and adorable butterflies embroidered on the toes, her newly cut, fresh-from-the-Red-Door-Salon-smelling blond locks six inches shorter and swooshing against her shoulders, she felt … lighter. And free! Although she'd feel a whole lot lighter if Easy wasn't dating her roommate. Or better yet, if he wasn't dating anyone at all.

  Callie glanced at herself in her dresser mirror and shook her head, enjoying the way her new haircut looked in motion. She bet Easy would like it.

  Fuck. It was so hard to turn off feelings that had been alive and pulsing for over a year. Just because Easy suddenly decided he was better off with a silly little pink-cheeked sophomore with stripper-sized breasts, she was supposed to just get over it? It was hard. For twelve months, Easy had been the one in her thoughts as she crawled into bed at night. When she saw a pretty white wedding gown in a magazine, it was Easy she dreamed of wearing it for. She sighed. She would take him back in half a second.

  Callie felt her cheeks heating up. Tinsley was the only one she could still talk to about how hurt she was over the whole breakup. Instead of getting bored with it, Tinsley seemed to enjoy hearing about it. She almost seemed more pissed off at Jenny than Callie was.

  Outside, the rain seemed to have slowed a bit. Callie yawned once again and decided to get her shit together and get on over to the gym. Exercise released endorphins, the only all-natural antidepressants. If she couldn't get her hands on any of her mom's Paxil, she might as well hop on a treadmill. From her overstuffed top dresser drawer (the one dedicated to her gym clothes, field hockey uniforms, and other fugly things), Callie pulled out a pair of stone-colored Adidas by Stella McCartney gym pants and stepped into them.

  Hair band, hair band, Callie thought as she glanced over her dresser top. She was always losing them. Where the fuck did they all go? Guiltily she glanced at Jenny's dresser. It was almost as messy as hers. Maybe if Jenny hadn't turned out to be such a scheming, backstabbing boyfriend stealer, they might have become friends.

  Without hesitation, Callie strode over to Jenny's dresser and reached for her Altoids tin full of hair bands. Her hand paused in midair, however, when she spotted the folded piece of note-book paper with the letter J on it. She touched the letter and it smeared. Charcoal.

  Her heartbeat increased tenfold. She snatched up the piece of paper and examined Easy's familiar, eight-year-old penmanship—only he could make the letter J look practically illegible. She paused for a moment to debate the moral implications of reading someone else's private note before her curiosity got the best of her.

  On the inside of the paper there were no words, just a drawing, in pencil. It was a caricature of a guy with a giant head of dark, unruly hair, wearing beat-up jeans with holes in the knees and a T-shirt with a peace sign on it. It was easy to guess who
he was supposed to be. Easy. He was blowing a kiss.

  Before she knew what she was doing, Callie had crumpled the paper into a tiny, tight ball. She stared at it in her palm for a second before stuffing it into the tiny zip-up pocket in her track pants, meant only for a gym locker key. Her eyes raced around the room, searching for something to break or tear apart or throw against the wall or … She spotted the Altoids tin and grabbed a fist full of Jenny's hair bands and flung them one by one, slingshot style, around the room in every direction. Her incredible fury disappeared as each one went flying through the air and disappeared into the piles of crumpled-up designer clothes heaped on the floor.

  Grabbing her gym bag, Callie stomped out the door and flew down the two flights of wooden stairs to Tinsley and Brett's room—she desperately needed someone, STAT!, to tell her how much prettier she was than munchkin, top-heavy Jenny and how Easy would regret their breakup for the rest of his life.

  But as she sped around the corner, she skidded to a stop. Fuck. Right in front of Tinsley and Brett's door was Jenny, still dressed in slim-fitting ultra-dark jeans trucked into an adorable pair of flowered rain boots and a cute red modish vinyl rain-coat. Her dark curly hair was plastered to her forehead, and her pale, perfect skin was slick with water. She might have looked like hell if her cheeks weren't flushed and a cute, self-satisfied smile wasn't perched on her ruby red lips. Her hand was holding a marker and poised to write something on the plastic wipe board hanging on Tinsley's door.

  “Oh, hi!” Jenny looked up, startled. “I, uh, was just leaving a note for Brett.” Her cheeks colored even more, and Callie just stood there, silent.

  Tinsley must have heard them because half a second later, before Callie even had sufficient time to ignore Jenny, the door opened. Tinsley stood there, in just a pair of black yoga pants and matching sports bra. She took in the scene objectively, first giving Callie a quick grin and then focusing her violet eyes on Jenny, who had taken a startled step back, still holding an open red marker in her hand. Tinsley cocked her head, as if trying to imagine what Jenny could be doing at her door.