“Yeah, really.” Jenny smiled up at him, even though her stomach was still in knots. Even though she already missed running her hands through his shaggy curls, or kissing his crooked lips, she just felt so relieved that she wasn’t doing anything wrong anymore.
“Look . . . ,” she trailed off, not having any idea what to say. She stared up at the brilliant blue sky and saw a fat brown owl zip between two trees. It made her think back to her first day at Waverly, when she’d practically been attacked by one. She kicked the toe of her red Dansko Mary Jane into the grass and wondered if things at Waverly always happened so fast. “I like you, Easy. That’s not going to change, just because things are going to be . . . different.”
“Yeah.” He shook his head slowly, still looking surprised. Over his shoulder, Jenny spotted Tinsley striding along in a black minidress, her Fendi sunglasses perched coolly on the tip of her nose.
Easy bit his slightly chapped lips. “Seriously, you are probably the coolest girl I’ve ever met.” He pushed up the cuffs of his gray, expensive-looking sweater, now covered with charcoal stains.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Jenny tilted her head toward Dumbarton. “Look, I’m going to go.” She was feeling a little dizzy and wanted to talk to Brett. Maybe cry a little. And then go to practice, run around the field until her legs started to shake, and hit the field hockey ball really hard a few times. And then maybe tonight she and Brett and Callie and Kara could watch a movie in the lounge upstairs, something mindless and distracting, and eat burnt popcorn.
Easy paused and opened his mouth slightly, like he wanted to say something else, but no words came out. Jenny just gave him a little wave and stepped away. As her Mary Janes took her farther and farther away from the boy she’d thought she loved, she wasn’t even tempted to turn back.
JennyHumphrey: It’s offi cial. Easy and I are over for good. He did the dirty work.
CallieVernon: Really? Wow. How are you feeling?
JennyHumphrey: I dunno. Sad. But relieved.
CallieVernon: Relieved?
JennyHumphrey: Yeah. I’m glad I can put our friendship fi rst, fi nally.
CallieVernon: Want some cheering up? Margaritas tonight?
JennyHumphrey: That sounds poi-fect.
13
A WAVERLY OWL DOES NOT PASS NOTES IN CLASS—THAT’S WHAT TEXT MESSAGING IS FOR.
Brett stared at the blackboard in calculus late Wednesday morning, unable for the life of her to understand what all the graphs and figures meant. Dr. Goldstein, the absolutely ancient math teacher with a PhD from MIT, normally managed to slow down enough for her students to follow the complicated math processes she scratched across the board, but today Brett was completely lost. Maybe because she and some of the other girls had stayed up late last night in the downstairs common room, gossiping about boys and sex instead of studying. Something about the Women of Waverly meeting had really loosened everyone up, and as they sat around drinking Diet Cokes and eating Pirate’s Booty, it had felt really, really good. Normally, all the Waverly girls seemed to be unconsciously—or consciously—competing with one another, always looking to see who had the newest bag or the sexiest shoes or the hottest boyfriend. But last night had been a release of so much tension, Brett felt like her life at Waverly had suddenly taken a turn for the better, regardless of the fact that this year, her love life had taken a dramatic turn—more like a nosedive—for the worse.
She simply could not get over the fact that Jeremiah had slept with someone else. If he had kissed his stupid crunchy chick, that would have been something she could understand. Kisses just happened. But sex? Sex was not something that just happened. There were a hell of a lot of steps to it—and a hell of a lot of chances for him to pause, and maybe, just maybe, you know, not.
Brett felt something poke her in the back through her thin, gray cowl-neck sweater. A beefy senior football player behind her held out a piece of notebook paper that had been folded a billion times into a tiny triangle. She raised her eyebrows at him, wondering why he was sending her a note when they’d never exchanged two words to each other. He twitched his head to his left, indicating, across the aisle, the figure of Heath Ferro, leaning back in his seat as if it were an armchair. He winked at Brett.
Great. She turned around and slowly unfolded the note beneath her desk, careful to keep the crinkling noise to a minimum. What was Heath doing passing notes? That was so junior high. In his surprisingly neat cursive, the note read, I’ve seen a lot of kisses in my day, and there was DEFINITELY something to your kiss with Kara. Right?
Brett felt her face flush. What? She resisted crumpling up the note into a tiny ball and chucking it back at Heath. Instead, she folded the note neatly back into its triangle and stuffed it into the pocket of her black wide-leg Sevens. She stared at the chalkboard and tried to concentrate on the figures.
Then she felt something vibrating silently next to her, and she slowly pulled her silver Nokia from the pocket of her maroon Waverly blazer hanging on her seat and casually hid it in her lap. It was a text message from Heath.
I M SERIOUS! IT LOOKED TOTALLY HOT. YOU MUST HAVE FELT SOMETHING.
She texted back to him, quickly. UR CRAZY.
Almost immediately her phone buzzed again. Brett glanced around the room and saw that most of the other students weren’t paying attention to her but were either staring, mystified, at the board, or texting under their own desks. So much for cell phones not being allowed on campus—everyone used them during class. She read Heath’s words. I DON’T BUY IT. YOU BOTH LOOKED . . . HOT. I THINK YOU SHOULD TRY IT AGAIN.
He was definitely crazy, Brett was sure. Or just swept away by the power of his fantasy life. He’d probably rushed home from the Women of Waverly meeting and bragged to all the guys that he’d gotten it on with an entire group of horny girls while the rest of them were busy playing Xbox or something. Without glancing back at Heath, she dropped her phone into her red-leather Kate Spade hobo bag, letting him know she was above further response.
After the bell rang, Heath managed to corner Brett right outside the door. “Hey, I’m serious.” He grabbed her by the arm and tugged her aside. “It really looked like you—” “Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Brett pushed him back against the wall and out of the stream of students elated to be done with classes for the morning. No one was paying attention to them, but Brett was still annoyed, though she tried not to look it. “People can hear you, you idiot.” Heath slung his arm across Brett’s shoulder and opened his mouth to say something, but Brett cut him off, glancing around them and leaning in to speak closely to his ear. “I am not a . . . a lesbian.” “I’m not saying you are.” Heath shrugged. “I don’t pretend to understand the mystery that is female sexuality.” The collar of his banana-colored Lacoste polo was half up and half down. “All I’m saying is that you should try kissing K”—Brett silenced him with a look—“her again and see how it feels.” Brett coolly flicked his arm off her shoulder.
Heath followed close behind her as Brett clacked down the marble hallway in her stacked Via Spiga heels. She could smell his aftershave as he leaned over her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “If you won’t try that, you could always just go talk with Ms. Emory.” He chuckled as he shuffled and squeaked his sneakers against the floor. Ms. Emory, the history teacher, was a known lady lover. “Maybe she has some words of wisdom.” Brett’s irritation boiled up inside her, but she quickly remembered where she was once she felt a dozen eyes on her. There was no way she was going to continue a discussion of her sexuality—with Heath Ferro, of all people—in front of the entire school. Brett turned and poked her very red index finger into Heath’s chest, almost flirtatiously. She caught his lazy green eyes with her own sharp ones and held his stare. She leaned in toward him, and his eyes moved to her lips, as if expecting them to kiss him.
“Don’t. Mention. It. Again.” Brett spoke slowly, enunciating each word, and Heath was left looking kind of mesmerized. There, she t
hought, triumphantly, wondering if she were somehow channeling Tinsley. She abruptly spun away from Heath and strode through the heavy front door and out into the bright autumn afternoon.
She tried to collect her thoughts but it felt like they were scattered all over the place—kind of like she’d been feeling all day. What she needed right now was to head to the library, pick up some Dorothy Parker—who was not a lesbian—and think about something other than herself for a while. A quote from her favorite author immediately came to mind, somewhat fore-bodingly: “It’s not the tragedies that kill us, it’s the messes.” She just hoped her life was not turning into one of the messes.
BennyCunningham: I think Brett might be into Heath.
AlisonQuentin: Um . . . and pigs fly.
BennyCunningham: No, I’m serious! They were totally whispering to each other in the hallway today, and standing awfully close.
AlisonQuentin: Maybe Heath just had something really interesting to say?
BennyCunningham: Puhleeze. When was the last time that happened?
AlisonQuentin: Ha. It must be love then!
EasyWalsh: Where are you right now?
CallieVernon: Now? I’m crossing the quad on my way to practice. Why?
EasyWalsh: Stay right where you are, I’ll be there in 2 minutes.
CallieVernon: What? Why?
CallieVernon: EZ!
14
A WAVERLY OWL IS NEVER LATE FOR PRACTICE WITHOUT A GOOD FREAKING REASON.
After Easy’s cryptic text, Callie dropped her phone into the pocket of her gray hooded Vassar sweatshirt and paused in the middle of the quad, wondering if she should even bother listening to him. It was chilly out, and the birds flying overhead in their wobbly V formation looked like they were already headed south. Smart birds. Callie was cold, but then she was always cold these days—it was the only drawback to getting skinnier. Not that she felt skinny in her thick fleecy sweatshirt and gray sweatpants.
Callie glanced around at all the bundled-up students, hurrying off to classes and dorms and sports classes, and felt suddenly aware that everyone around her was in motion while she was standing still. She immediately started doing her field hockey warm-up stretches, like it wasn’t at all weird to be doing them in the middle of the quad instead of out on the field. Fuck. Why was Easy always doing this to her? And why was she always letting him? Damn him.
She fumed as she bent over in a V to stretch out her hamstrings, feeling the blood rush to her head. She walked her hands in toward her feet on the grass, and through her open legs saw Easy striding across the quad toward her. Even upside down, he looked completely gorgeous, and she could tell from the way his messenger bag thumped against his hip that he was rushing—to get to her. Callie quickly stood back up, her blood coursing through her veins. She shook out her mane of strawberry blond hair, which probably had grass or bugs or other nasties in it now from hanging upside down. Ew.
“What is it?” She asked brusquely as he approached, trying to sound irritated. She felt a little dizzy—which, she told herself, was from being upside down, not from the sudden appearance of Easy Walsh. He’d changed into a charcoal gray Michael Kors wool sweater, which was very adorably unlike him.
“I wanted to know if you’ll be my model.” His dark blue eyes examined her face in that way he had of seeming to take everything in at once, reading it all. His piercing gaze never missed a thing—he probably noticed the tiniest bits of grass in her hair, or how dry her skin was. And yet he was asking her to be his model? Even after the way she told him off this morning? “For art class,” he clarified. “We have a project.” Callie smiled at the irony. Was this opposite day? For months—for practically a year, ever since they’d started dating—she had fantasized about her artsy boyfriend asking her to come out to the woods so that he could draw her. He could have built a sculpture of her out of clothes hangers and soup cans and she would have been thrilled. The Edie Sedgwick to his Warhol. The Beatrice to his Dante.
But he’d never asked her. Until now. Until now, when they couldn’t possibly be a couple again. Not after all they’d been through, not after what she’d promised Jenny. She’d told Easy they were over and she’d meant it. Hadn’t she?
“What would you need me to do?” she asked slowly, kicking the toe of her black Adidas cleats into the thick green grass of the quad.
Easy shook his head vehemently. “Nothing. Just pose for me.” A smile broke out across his face. “Just be yourself.” Callie giggled. Be herself. Right. As long as she wasn’t wearing sweatpants. “Are you sure you want . . . me?” Easy didn’t even pause to consider her question. “Yes.” His gaze never left her face for a second.
She sighed. She couldn’t stay angry at Easy forever. They were going to have to become friends at some point . . . and maybe that point was now. He needed someone to paint or draw for his class, and she could help him out, the way a friend would. And it wasn’t like he was someone else’s boyfriend, either—he and Jenny were through. So it would be completely platonic. “All right,” she said with a tentative nod, keeping her voice even. So why were her palms sweating?
Easy sucked in his breath. “Awesome.” He glanced up at her through his long dark eyelashes. “Do you have a lot of stuff to do tonight?” “Stuff?” Callie repeated, amused.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “You know, Latin. Calc. Stuff.” Callie was unable to keep a small smile from spreading across her face. Of course, homework, classes—the reasons they were even here at Waverly—fell under Easy’s category of “stuff.” “If you’re asking if I have time tonight, then sure, whatever.” Of course she had piles of homework, but suddenly the thought of sneaking away with Easy for a few hours felt like a breath of fresh air. “It’s not like Ovid’s going to mind if I break our date tonight.” “Wanna meet in the woods during dinner?” Easy pushed the sleeves of his sweater—probably the most expensive thing he owned—up to his elbows, stretching out the delicate cuffs.
“’Kay.” She paused. “Snack bar afterward?” she added quietly. Dining services had a system where if you had to miss dinner—because of an away game, or a late practice, or what ever—you could use your dinner points at the Maxwell snack bar any time in the evening. Last year, she and Easy would always meet at the stables after practice and fool around for hours, until the dining hall was closed, and then, starving, head over to the snack bar and eat French fries and hummus wraps.
“I’ll even buy you a strawberry milkshake,” Easy promised, his eyes twinkling.
“Deal.” She nodded her head definitively. Milkshakes were her favorite.
“So you’ll meet me at my spot in the woods? It’s—” Callie cut him off. “I know where it is, Easy.” Right by where the boys had gone hunting for mushrooms. She and Tinsley had walked out that way one day, and as soon as Callie had seen the little enclosed field with all the wildflowers and the funky rocks, she had known that that was Easy’s secret spot. She’d thumbed through his sketchbooks sometimes, looking at his weird but beautiful drawings of trees and leaves and cigarette butts—he managed to make everything look beautiful.
And now he was going to draw her. Callie felt a little chill and heard the tweet of a whistle in the distance. “Shit,” she muttered. “I’ve got to run. I’ll see you later.” She grabbed her lacrosse stick and dashed off toward the fields, knowing that Smail was going to make her do an extra lap around the field for being late.
But it was kind of worth it.
15
A WAVERLY OWL KNOWS THE BEST SURPRISES AREN’T ALL THAT SURPRISING.
Once the yellow taxi pulled away and left Brandon standing alone in front of St. Lucius’s moss-covered front gate, he realized he’d gotten so carried away with his grand romantic gesture that he’d overlooked the most important part of the plan—he didn’t know where to find Elizabeth. He took a few steps toward what looked like dorms, aware that the students milling about were definitely staring at him.
St. Lucius was like bizarro-Waverly—the same re
d brick, ivy, and brilliant oak trees surrounding the enormous quad, and yet not one familiar face. He’d bought a bunch of orchids in downtown Rhinecliff—roses were too conventional, daisies too boring—and now he suddenly felt a little self-conscious. Students were definitely gawking at him as he held the enormous cone of fuchsia and white flowers away from his chest so as not to crush them. He felt like Forrest Gump with his box of chocolates. Well, whatever. Had they never seen a guy bring a girl flowers before?
Two girls in short jean skirts and matching purple regulation St. Lucius blazers approached Brandon on the cobblestone path. Judging from the worn-out look of their blazers, they had to be upperclassmen. “Excuse me . . .” Brandon accosted them, trying to look as inoffensive as possible. “Do you happen to know which one is Elizabeth Jacobs’s dorm?” The girls, both thin, lanky blondes, exchanged glances. The one with a navy velvet headband spoke first in a nasal, Long Island accent. “Are those for her?” she asked, glancing at the flowers.
“Did her goldfish die or something?” the other asked, her unseasonably tan forehead wrinkling in confusion.
Brandon was taken aback. Did they not have manners here? “Uh, yeah, actually. They are.” He raised his eyebrows pointedly, trying to remind the girls of his question. “But, um, no. I think her, uh, goldfish is fine.” “That’s really sweet.” Velvet headband suppressed a giggle. “She’s in my dorm. Emerson.” She pointed toward a white stone building next to a thatch of birch trees with sunflower yellow leaves. “Room 101—right inside, to the left.” “Thank you.” Brandon headed that way, relieved that things were working out. Over his shoulder he heard the second girl trill out, “Good luck!” Brandon made his way down the path, still sort of weirded out by being in a place that looked like Waverly and smelled like Waverly but wasn’t. He paused briefly at the front door of the building to read the quote, presumably from Emerson, inscribed above the doorway: DO NOT GO WHERE THE PATH
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