Notorious

by Cecily von Ziegesar

From: CallieVernon@waverly.edu

  Date: Thursday, September 12, 3:25 p.m.

  Subject: URGENT

  Hello ladies,

  It’s a beautiful day—waaaaay too gorgeous to go to practice. Better idea: let’s spend the afternoon at the Waverly Inn bar sipping G & Ts and not mentioning a certain boy whose name starts with that cursed letter E and who S-U-C-K-S.

  Bring your fake ID and look sophisticated. The bartender’s ancient, so put on your best perverted smile and we’ll be safe.

  And what’s with the midnight sneak-ins? I know you too well, Brett Lenore Messerschmidt, and I’m calling your bluff. Forced BFF threesome bonding will commence at 4 p.m. C u there …

  Xoxo,

  C

  To: JennyHumphrey@Waverly.edu

  From: EasyWalsh@Waverly.edu

  Date: Thursday, September 12, 4:16 p.m.

  Subject: Sunday?

  Hey,

  Thanks for letting me paint you today. I had a genuinely, seriously excellent time.

  Maybe you’d want to come meet Credo on Sunday?

  Hope so …

  Easy

  12

  A WAVERLY OWL KNOWS TO LOOK AS MATURE AS SHE ACTS. AND VICE VERSA.

  The Waverly Inn was a short hike from campus, and Brett regretted wearing her green snakeskin Kate Spade pointy-toed pumps that looked sexy and sophisticated but pinched her feet. In her brand-new Marc by Marc Jacobs black satin pencil skirt and ultra-feminine Catherine Malandrino shell-pink bell-sleeved blouse, Brett felt surprisingly glad to be on her way to a “forced threesome BFF bonding” no matter how fucked up it sounded. In her mind, she vowed to be nicer to Tinsley. After all, Tinsley had saved their asses by taking the blame for the E incident and had spent the whole summer thinking she was expelled—even if she probably hung out with hot South African guys the whole time—and she’d been totally displaced by Jenny. But Brett hadn’t heard any rumblings about her being a giant Jersey girl liar, so maybe she should cut Tinsley a break.

  She stepped into the Waverly Inn lobby, headed past the dusty grand piano and straight into the bar. The hotel was the closest one to campus, where parents most often stayed, and its look of shabby opulence seemed befitting to the school. The bar had clearly passed its golden age and settled into a period of slow, decadent decline. It was nearly empty except for Tinsley and Callie, already seated at a wooden booth in the corner with three drinks in front of them.

  “Your amaretto sour,” Tinsley greeted Brett, indicating the one drink that wasn’t half empty.

  Brett slid in next to Callie, looking like a film producer or gallery owner in her emerald silk shell and a cropped Theory cardigan with a single mother-of-pearl button directly beneath her breasts, her wavy blond hair held back from her face by a pair of vintage gold barrettes. She would have looked very pretty, but her face seemed a little haggard, like she hadn’t been getting her requisite ten hours of beauty sleep.

  “You guys are awesome.” Brett grabbed the glass and took a small sip. Strong, just the way she liked it, but it still made her wince as she swallowed. Tinsley was wearing a plain short-sleeve black T-shirt and jeans, but with her red lips (Guerlain KissKiss lipstick, as always), she had the air of a movie star sneaking out for a quick drink under the paparazzi’s radar.

  Brett leaned back against the wooden bench and looked at the framed nineteenth-century Currier-and-Ives-type ink drawings of the Waverly campus. “It’s been too long since we’ve been here. I kind of missed it.”

  “It doesn’t look like they’ve dusted since we were last here either.” Callie sniffed the musty air. “But beggars can’t be choosers.” She took another big sip of her drink, and Brett noticed that her glass was already empty. Wow. She was taking the breakup with Easy pretty hard.

  “How was your day, Callie?” Brett asked awkwardly, and Callie stiffened, like she could tell Brett was feeling sorry for her.

  “It was fine. You know, I’m going to survive. But I just … don’t want to talk about Easy for a while, okay?” Callie looked plaintively at her friends and twirled a blond lock around her finger. “Let’s talk about other things.”

  “Other boys, you mean?” Tinsley chimed in, polishing off her drink. “You get started without me. I’ll get another round.” She slid out of the booth.

  Brett was still nursing her first drink and already feeling a little light-headed.

  “How’s the D-man?” Callie suddenly asked.

  “The D-man?” Brett repeated. “Come on, that makes him sound like a bad DJ or a pervert who only likes large-breasted women.”

  “Does he?” Callie put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Only like large-breasted women?”

  “Apparently not.” Brett stuck out her own barely B-size chest. “He seems to think these are all right.”

  “How well has he gotten to know them?” Callie giggled, then sucked at her skinny cocktail straw, making the ice cubes rattle around her empty glass.

  “They’re acquaintances, I’d say.” Brett toyed with her gold earrings. The first half of her drink had gone straight to her head, and she was starting to feel a little more vocal than usual. This is how you get yourself into trouble, she thought. For some reason she was reminded of the night freshman year when she and Callie and Tinsley had bought graham crackers and Hershey’s chocolates and marshmallows and sneaked over to the field house. Behind it was a giant charcoal grill that was used sometimes at pep rallies and Waverly picnics. Somehow they had managed to fire it up, and the three of them had toasted marshmallows and made gooey s’mores and drunk a bottle of red wine. Everything tasted so much better because the rest of campus was asleep.

  Brett felt a burst of warmth toward Callie and was about to say something more about Eric when Tinsley reappeared with the grandfatherly bartender in tow, carrying a tray with three champagne flutes and a bottle of Moët & Chandon.

  “What’s this for?” Callie squealed with delight. She loved champagne. It was the only thing that made weddings and debutante balls bearable.

  After the bartender left, Tinsley said, “My treat. I thought we could toast to our first all-girl outing and to the advent of the secret society!” Callie felt the men at the bar staring at them, trying to hear what they were saying. But instead of creeping her out, it made her feel sexy and bold. She could use some male attention right now, even from leering middle-aged alcoholics. “Cheers!” Callie raised her glass and clinked it against Brett’s. Take that, Easy, she thought as she took her first sip. Then she downed it in order to stop talking to him in her head.

  “So,” Brett said with a giggle in her voice, the champagne clearly having the desired effect. “What does a secret society do, exactly?”

  “I just think it’s a good idea for girls to get together and talk and do things that make us feel sexy and bad,” Tinsley offered.

  “Like some kind of girl power thing?” Callie asked skeptically. “Will we have to burn our bras? Because I don’t really need mine anyway.” She giggled, indicating her almost-flat chest.

  “I get what Tinsley means,” Brett said, surprising Callie. Despite her suggestion they return to normal BFF behavior, she’d thought the tension between the two of them was there to stay. “Brianna says that whenever she breaks up with a guy, she has such a strong support system from her friends that it almost doesn’t matter.” Brianna was Brett’s cool older sister, the one who worked for Elle magazine and whom Callie was always trying to suck up to, just in case one day Brianna needed to get rid of all the incredible designer clothes in the magazine’s fashion closet. It could happen.

  “What about calling it Café Society?” Callie asked. “Doesn’t that make it sound like a bunch of girls sitting around drinking and sharing sexcapade stories and advice and complaining together? But, like, in Paris, in the twenties?”

  Tinsley and Brett grinned drunkenly at each other, and Callie definitely felt the ice between them melting. See how great this girl power thing is? she thought, her head beginn
ing to feel quite pleasant and only a little fuzzy.

  “I like it,” Tinsley said. “We could dress the part—and come here or have mini-salons in our room! Without any of the guys around to bug us.” She tossed her hair and grinned contagiously.

  “Funny how just talking about sex makes you feel sexier, doesn’t it?” Brett said.

  “Tell us about your sexcapades this summer, Tinsley. You must have exciting news to report.” Callie shifted toward Tinsley. She’d been dying to hear about Tinsley’s conquests since the moment she reappeared out of nowhere. “Where’d you get the shark tooth?”

  “Oh, Chiedo,” Tinsley responded dreamily. “He was our guide in South Africa.” She leaned back in the booth and closed her eyes, looking very dramatic. “You wouldn’t believe how sexy he was. He was all muscle, and every time he touched me or even just looked at me, I felt like I was going to explode. He just made me feel so … wild and unrepressed.” She shivered, as if just the memory of him gave her chills. “He was the second one.” She opened one lovely violet eye to gauge their reaction.

  “The second!” Callie heard herself gasp. She hadn’t even managed to hook up with Easy this summer and he was her boyfriend.

  “Before I met Chiedo, I had this little fling with a Dutch college student in Cape Town. He looked kind of like Derek Jeter but younger and with an accent. But he was nothing compared to Chiedo.”

  Brett rubbed her hands together. Even though Tinsley hadn’t exactly said she’d had sex with them, Brett could only assume. She couldn’t help wondering what was with her, taking so long to lose her virginity, when Tinsley could do it with two unbearably hot older guys over the course of one summer. If she couldn’t do it with Eric, who could she do it with?

  “Easy and I never did it. Is that weird?” Callie asked abruptly.

  “No,” Brett said, at the same time Tinsley said, “Yes.” This struck them all as hilarious.

  “What about you, B.? If you’re not with Jeremiah, who are you working on?” Tinsley arched one of her dark eyebrows.

  Brett felt her pale face coloring, and she cleared her throat. “You know, I’m sort of taking time off from boys for a while. It gets to be too distracting.”

  “What, are you into girls now?” Tinsley leaned across the table, her eyes flashing with intensity. “Or men?”

  Brett looked her in the eye. “We’ll have to see, I guess.” She had no doubt that if Tinsley found out about her and Eric, she’d find some cute way to drop the bomb in front of the boys, or the entire dining room, or Dean Marymount. Tinsley was famous for subtly causing the equivalent of a gossip tsunami. “Anyway, I thought Café Society rules said no boyfriends.”

  “Boyfriends are different from men,” Tinsley said with a yawn, arching her back and stretching like a cat. “Men are encouraged.”

  “Why don’t we go get some pizza?” Callie interrupted. “I’m starved.” Something about Callie, whose recent skinniness pointed to a larger problem, saying she was starving immediately placated the two other girls and set them into motion.

  “Of course,” Tinsley said, finishing her glass of champagne and setting it delicately on the slightly sticky table. “Let’s go.”

  “Colonial?” Brett said. “Or Ritoli’s?” She could definitely use something to soak up the liquor in her stomach, and both pizza places were right in town.

  “Ritoli’s has more ambiance,” Tinsley suggested, clearly referring to the Italian boys who worked there. It was a family-run business that had been in downtown Rhinecliff forever and was a favorite with the female population of Waverly. There were at least three young men working at all times, all dark and muscled and adorable.

  “Stupid question,” Brett said, and the three girls giggled and shuffled out of the hotel, leaving a generous tip for the bartender at their table.

  Brett didn’t realize how starved she was until they walked into Ritoli’s and the warm rush of doughy air surrounded them.

  “Mmmm,” Tinsley said, rubbing her stomach. Then she elbowed Brett in the side at the sight of the handsome boy making his way toward them with menus.

  “What do you guys want on it?” Tinsley asked.

  “How about him?” Callie whispered a little too loudly.

  Smooth, Brett thought.

  “You want to look at the menus or you know what you want?” the boy asked, giving them all a knowing grin. He looked about seventeen, with dark eyes and smooth olive skin and the longest lashes Brett had ever seen. He even made her forget about Eric Dalton for a few seconds.

  “Three Diet Cokes,” Tinsley said, giving him her million-watt smile. “But we haven’t decided what else yet.”

  “No problem. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  It was warm inside, and Brett fanned her face with the menu and remembered how last year, after the first big lacrosse game, she and Jeremiah had met Easy and Callie and Tinsley and Heath here for pizza. They had to order another one because the guys devoured the first so quickly. She and Eric would never be able to hang out with her friends like that, she thought a little sadly.

  But they had something different—it didn’t have to be about eating pizza while the boys tried to flick a pepperoni into each other’s spiked drinks. This would be her first real love affair, with much more at stake. Tinsley and Callie chattered on about the rumor that the entire pizza family was extremely well endowed and whether or not they could prove it. Their waiter came back, and Tinsley put in an order for a deep-dish pie with extra cheese and mushrooms on half.

  “Earth to Brett.” Tinsley waved her slender arm in front of Brett’s face. “Anybody home?”

  Brett didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed on the platinum link bracelet on Tinsley’s right wrist. She stared. Was that … Eric’s? It looked exactly like the one she had noticed him wearing when they went to Newport. The one from his great-great-grandfather. How on earth could Tinsley have it?

  “That’s a cool bracelet,” Brett remarked, trying to keep her voice an alto although it sprang up to soprano in panic. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Oh, my crazy aunt Elinore gave it to me the last time I saw her,” Tinsley answered, twisting her wrist to admire the bracelet. “She’s getting a little batty and gives away her shit whenever someone comes into her house. I walked off with this great pearl-drop necklace too.”

  Huh. How likely was it that two incredibly rare and valuable platinum antique bracelets that looked exactly alike would appear in the teeny town of Rhinecliff?

  Pretty unlikely.

  To: EricDalton@waverly.edu

  From: TinsleyCarmichael@waverly.edu

  Date: Thursday, September 12, 9:43 p.m.

  Subject: Flappers and Philosophers

  Eric,

  It was such a pleasure meeting you this morning; consequently, I read the short story you suggested. I have a sinfully thin flapper dress that’s exactly like something a Fitzgerald heroine would wear. … Thought you might enjoy seeing me in it sometime.

  Much as I love being back at good old Waverly, sometimes I ache to feel the city pavement pounding beneath my heels again. Ever get the urge to disappear and hole up in a luxurious hotel suite, lounging in bed all afternoon and ordering Dom 1958 from room service? Thought daydreaming might be another thing we have in common …

  T

  BretMesserschmidt: I just finished a bottle of Meet and you know what? I think we’ve gone slow enough. When do I get to see you next?

  EricDalton: Brett, I’ve been thinking. …

  BrettMesserschmidt: Good things, I hope.

  EricDalton: The thing is, I don’t think this is a good idea anymore—it’s not smart. I’m sorry.

  BretMesserschmidt: Excuse me???

  EricDalton: Maybe we should do this face-to-face?

  EricDalton: Brett, are you still there?

  BrettMesserschmidt: Is there someone else?

  EricDalton: Of course not. But we need to go back to a purely student-teacher relationship, OK?

&n
bsp; EricDalton: Hello?

  EricDalton: Brett?

  BrettMesserschmidt: Yes, sir. I think I understand. Perfectly.

  13

  A CLEVER WAVERLY OWL KNOWS HOW TO TELL FRIEND FROM FOE.

  “I didn’t take the picture, did I? How is this possibly my fault?” Callie screeched into her cell phone, already tired of having to deal with yet another complaint from Nicholson Adams, her mother’s publicist. Apparently a photo taken of Callie at a late-summer pool party had shown up in the Weekend section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with the snide caption Mary-Kate Olsen, Nicole Richie, and Governor Vernon’s Daughter: Starving for Attention? So what if she’d lost some weight in Barcelona, pining over the disaster that was her relationship with Easy? Who the hell’s business was it, anyway? Not the Journal-Constitution’s and certainly not smarmy Nicholson Adams’s.

  Callie stood in the empty room in her camisole and Hanky Panky low-rise boy shorts, the phone having rung when she was about to put on her pajamas. As Nicholson proceeded to lecture her on how an eating disorder would reflect badly on constituents’ views of her mother’s family values, she looked at herself in the mirror. She turned to take in her thin body from a variety of angles, but nowhere did she see anything resembling the pin-thin bodies plastered in all the magazines. She certainly wasn’t anorexic or anything—she’d just scarfed down three pieces of gooey Ritoli’s pizza and half a bottle of champagne.

  “Is my mother concerned that her daughter has an eating disorder or that people think her daughter has an eating disorder? If she’s actually concerned about me, tell her that next time she can call herself.”

  She was about to hang up when he said, “Just try to eat something every once in a while, okay?”

  “Eat this!” she screamed before hanging up. Then Brett walked through the door, looking like she’d witnessed a car crash. She’d gone outside with her cell phone when Nicholson called.

  Callie pulled on her red satin pajama bottoms. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Her voice immediately softened, and she was surprised at how the word “sweetheart” came out of her mouth so effortlessly. In her post-Easy existence, she must be transferring her thwarted affections onto her friends.