by Meg Cabot
“I’m so sorry,” I said again. I really couldn’t believe it. I mean, I could, because it was so typical of me, of course. But I also couldn’t because—well, because I had just spat Long Island iced tea all over the cutest boy I had ever seen. I mean, I’d been in New York barely an hour, and already, I’d made a complete ass of myself. Tory and her friends had to think I was the worst backwater hick they’d ever met. It wasn’t like none of the kids from school back home ever drank, or got high, or bought drugs.
They just didn’t tend to do it…well, around me.
“I really am sorry,” I said.
Zach grinned at me. I felt a pluck on my heartstrings.
Steady there, Jean.
“No problem, Cousin Jean from Iowa. You want a Coke, or something?” The grin grew broader. “And I do mean the carbonated kind.”
“Sure,” I said, completely dazzled by the smile. “That’d be great.”
Zach rose, but sat down again when Tory barked, “I’ll get it for her,” and abruptly marched out of the gazebo.
“Jesus,” Gretchen said. “What’s with her?”
Robert rolled his eyes in Zach’s direction. “Take a wild guess.”
“What?” Chanelle demanded, defensive on Tory’s account.
“Jesus, are you all blind? The Torster’s onto Rosen,” Robert said, between puffs.
Zach frowned. “What do you mean, Tory’s onto me?”
“The au pair, man.” Robert shook his head. “Why else would a big important junior like yourself hang around with us lowly sophomores? You’re obviously not here to buy, so…”
Zach, rather than denying this, as I half expected him to, just looked thoughtful.
“Hey,” Chanelle said indignantly. “That’s not true. Torrance is into Shawn. She isn’t crushing on Zach.”
“If Tor’s so into Shawn,” Robert wanted to know, “why’s she trying so hard to keep Rosen away from the au pair? Huh?”
“Shut up, Robert,” Chanelle said, giving him a kick under the glass-topped table. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Robert said. “The Torster’s got it so bad for Mr. Four-Point-Oh over here, she can already taste—if you know what I mean.”
“Gross!” Chanelle cried, and even Zach frowned disapprovingly and said, “Not in front of Cousin Jean, please. She’s new here.”
Robert looked over at me. “Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”
And I felt like dying even more than ever. Cousin Jean? It was almost as bad as Jinx.
Almost.
“Hey, it’s all good. Torrance and I,” Shawn said mildly, looking up from his Treo, “have an agreement.”
It was at that exact moment that Tory came back with a can of soda. “Here, Jinx,” she said, shoving the soda at me. “What kind of agreement do we have, Shawn?”
“You know,” Shawn said. His fingers were flying over the keypad of his Treo, his gaze glued to the screen. “Open relationship, and all that crap.”
“Oh,” Tory said, sinking back into her seat. “Right. Friends with benefits. Why are we talking about this?”
“No reason,” Chanelle said quickly, glaring at Robert, who just smirked.
I sat there, trying not to look shocked. Friends with benefits? I tried to picture what my best friend Stacy would do if her boyfriend, Mike, suggested to her that they be friends with benefits, instead of an exclusive couple.
Then I shuddered. Because the resulting bloodshed, I knew, would not be pretty.
“By the way,” Tory said to me, breaking in on my thoughts. “You’re welcome.”
“Oh,” I said, looking down at the soda can that sat, forgotten, in my hand, and feeling myself turning red again. “Thanks.”
“You’ll find many more just like it in the fridge,” Tory said meaningfully. “Did Petra show you the kitchen?”
“Not yet—”
“Well, make sure you get a tour. This is the last time I fetch and carry for you.”
“God, Tor,” Chanelle said. “Be a bitch, why don’t you?” Then, as if embarrassed by Tory’s rudeness, Chanelle turned to me, and asked, “So how long are you visiting New York, Jean?”
The knot in my stomach lurched. I looked back down at my can of Coke.
“I’m transferring to Chapman for the rest of the school year,” I said. “And then spending the summer here, too.”
I didn’t miss the glances Gretchen and Lindsey exchanged. Not that I blamed them. Who transfers into a new school with only one month left in the semester?
A freak like me, that’s who.
“Right,” Tory said airily. “I forgot to tell you guys. Jinx here’ll be finishing out the semester with us.”
“Why?” Chanelle wanted to know.
On the one hand, I was relieved Tory apparently hadn’t told them about me. Now I could tell them whatever I wanted about why I was here.
On the other hand, I was also kind of hurt. Which was ridiculous, of course.
But you would think she might have mentioned to her friends that her cousin was coming to live with her. Unless, of course, it simply wasn’t that important to her.
“Oh,” I said, swallowing. “I just kind of needed a change.”
Tory rolled her eyes. “God, Jinx,” she said. “Could you maybe think of something lamer to say when people ask you that? They’re going to, you know. A lot.”
Wow. So much for my being able to tell them whatever I wanted about why I was here.
I felt myself blush. Again.
“Well,” I said. The knot in my stomach was turning into less of a knot, and more of a fist. “It’s kind of…personal.”
“For God’s sake,” Tory said, snatching the joint from Shawn and taking a long pull on it. “Just tell them. Jinx is being stalked, okay?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Great. Just great.
I will admit it, I should have known better. I should have had an answer to Chanelle’s very natural question all prepped and ready.
Only I didn’t. Of course.
So I guess I deserved what Tory had just given me.
But at the same time, it was a shock to hear her say it like that, so matter-of-factly.
Especially since that was only the half of it. The other half, of course, was known only to me.
Thank God. Because I wouldn’t have put it past Tory to blurt that part out, too, if she’d only known about it.
Especially since she seemed to be loving the reaction she was getting—my mortified silence, and Gretchen’s and Lindsey’s gasps.
Shawn said, “No shit?” and even Zach, I noticed, turned his green-eyed gaze on me in a manner that made me feel even more uncomfortable than I did already.
Chanelle’s eyes were wide. “Really?” she said. “Stalked? That must be scary.”
“You’re so lucky!” Lindsey squealed, giggling. “I’ve never been stalked. What’s it like?”
“God.” Tory stamped the joint out into an ashtray on the glass table. “There’s nothing exciting about it, Lindsey, you idiot. I hear the guy’s a complete psycho. He’ll probably come here and murder us all in our beds. I can’t believe my parents even agreed to this.”
“Hey,” Robert said, outraged. “That joint was still good!”
I couldn’t believe it, either. Not about the joint. But that Tory could have just…ANNOUNCED it that way, so casually. Especially considering the fact that I’d had to leave home, and all my friends, and the school in which, I’ll admit, I’d been pretty popular. I mean, I’m a nice girl. People like nice girls. These kinds of things don’t happen to nice girls. Nice girls don’t get stalked…
…unless, of course, they happen to bring it on themselves.
But Tory didn’t know that part of it.
So for her to just blurt out the part she did know like that…
And in front of Zach, too, who was making my heartstrings twang practically every time I looked at him.
I wanted to
die again. Or throw up. It was hard to decide which.
“He’s not a stalker,” I said, choosing my words with care. And also realizing, from the startled looks people threw me, that maybe I’d said it a little too loudly. I lowered my voice. “He’s not psycho, either. He’s just a guy I went out with, who got a little too serious, too fast.”
There, how did that sound? Would they believe it? Please let them believe it….
“He probably wanted to hold hands,” Tory said, straight-faced, and Shawn snorted with laughter.
Okay. Well, that was mean.
But they believed it. Tory believed it, anyway.
And that was all that mattered.
When I shot her a dirty look for the holding hands remark—because I felt like that’s what a girl like me would do—Tory said, “Well, come on, Jinx. Your mom IS a minister.”
Chanelle flung me a startled look. “No way! You’re a PREACHER’s daughter?”
Of course she said it like it was a bad thing. People always do.
“I’m also a computer consultant’s daughter,” I said. “My dad works with computers.”
But no one was listening. No one ever does.
“God,” Lindsey said. “That is so romantic. You had to flee the state in order to escape an obsessive lover. I wish I had an obsessive lover.”
“I wouldn’t mind a sober one,” Chanelle said dryly. “Instead, I just have Robert.”
Robert looked up from the joint he was trying to salvage. “What?” he said, when he saw everyone was staring at him.
“See what I mean?” Chanelle asked, with such a twinkle in her dark eyes that I couldn’t resist laughing—
—until Shawn burst out with, “What is this? Freaking Oprah? Enough with the new girl’s love life. I need payment, ladies.” He held out his Treo, so they could read the total on it. “And, no, I do not take personal checks.”
Tory scowled, but reached for her purse. A Prada, the thousand-dollar one from the new spring line my sister Courtney had told our parents was the only thing she wanted for her birthday. Mom and Dad had laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
Tory and Gretchen and Lindsey each counted out a short stack of twenty-dollar bills. Then, shoving the cash toward her boyfriend, Tory asked, “When can we expect delivery?”
“Tomorrow,” Shawn said, gathering up the money and shaking it into a neat little pile before putting it into his wallet. “Monday at the latest.”
“Tomorrow,” Tory said, her eyes narrowing.
“All right, all right.” Shawn shook his head. “Tomorrow.”
“Torrance?” Petra’s voice called from the patio. “Torrance, your mother’s on the phone!”
“Crap,” Tory said. “I’ll be right back.”
This, I knew, was my cue to make a graceful exit. Well, not graceful, knowing me. But an exit, anyway.
“I should go, too,” I said, getting up. “I have a lot of unpacking to do. It was really nice to meet all of you.”
I wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to say to a bunch of jaded New York City teens. But Chanelle said cheerfully, “Nice meeting you, too. See you in school!”
So I guess it was okay.
“And I,” Zach said, also rising, “hear my calculus homework calling. See you guys later.”
“Torrance!” Petra called again.
Tory swore and left the gazebo. Zach followed her, and I followed Zach. While the back view of Zach was every bit as impressive as the front view of him had been, I couldn’t enjoy it. All I wanted to do was go up to my pretty pink room and shut the door and stay there for a while, alone, with my nonworking marble fireplace, and figure out what had just happened—not to mention, what I was going to do.
Because this was not working out quite the way I’d imagined it would. Not at all. Not that I’d thought Tory and I would spend our time together wading in a creek and climbing trees. I just hadn’t exactly expected…
Well, this.
On the patio, Petra handed the phone to Tory, then smiled at me and Zach.
“Hello,” she said. “I see you two have met. Not going over the wall today, Zach?”
Zach held up his hands, which were, I noticed for the first time, covered in faint pink scrapes—not unlike the ones I’d received from the wrought-iron fence I’d grabbed to keep myself from falling down earlier that day.
“Not with those roses growing so out of control back there,” he said. “Those things are going to kill me one day.”
“You should come in through the door like a normal person, anyway,” Petra said, with a grin. “You are too old now to be climbing over walls.” To me, she said, “Jean, if ever you want to see a museum, or go to the opera, or to the theater, Zach is the one to ask. He knows everything there is to know about this city—”
“Hey, come on now,” Zach said, looking slightly embarrassed. Was Robert right? Did Zach have a crush on Petra?
But if he was in love with Petra, you couldn’t tell by looking at him as he interacted with her. He seemed to treat her with as much friendly casualness as he did…
…well, me.
“It’s true,” Petra said, beaming at Zach. “When I first come here, and I knew no one except Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner and the children, Zachary took me everywhere. The Guggenheim, the Frick, the Met. Jazz clubs. Even to the zoo.”
Zach looked even more embarrassed. “I like seals,” he said to me, as if to excuse the apparent oddness of his taking the au pair to the zoo.
Hmmm. Maybe he did have a little crush on her.
“And then,” Petra went on, as we followed her through the French doors, into the den, “when my boyfriend, Willem, came to visit, Zachary, he gave us tickets to…what is it called?”
“Cirque du Soleil,” Zach said, now looking completely embarrassed. He shrugged good-naturedly, however. “My dad’s always getting tickets for stuff, because of his job.”
I smiled at him. I couldn’t help it. I mean, besides the hotness, there was just something about him that was so…well, likeable. I like seals. I would totally have understood it if what Robert had said was true, about Tory having a little crush on Zach. I had one on him myself, and I’d only just met him.
“Jesus, Mom!” Tory’s voice, from across the patio, was strident. “Are you kidding me? I’ve got stuff to do, you know.”
Petra started to close the French doors. “Jean,” she said quickly, “I have to go and pick up the children at school. Would you like to go with me? The children would like it so much if you did.”
But Petra wasn’t fast enough with the French doors, nor did her gentle voice drown out Tory’s next words: “Because I’ve got better things to do than sit around and babysit my country-bumpkin cousin, that’s why!”
The French doors clicked shut, and Petra leaned quickly against them, a panicked expression on her face. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I’m sure she did not…I’m sure…Sometimes Torrance says things she does not mean, Jean.”
I smiled. What else could I do?
And the truth was, my feelings weren’t even hurt. At least, not that much. I was embarrassed, certainly. Especially since I’d seen Zach sort of wince, and mouth the word Ouch at the term country bumpkin.
But I was coming to grips with the fact that this Tory was not the sweet, fun Tory I remembered from five years earlier. This Tory, cold and sophisticated, was a stranger.
And really, I couldn’t have cared less what some stranger had to say about me.
Honestly.
Well, okay, maybe not completely honestly.
“It’s all right,” I said casually. At least, I hoped it sounded casual. “She probably does have better things to do than babysit me. The thing that sucks is that people evidently think I need babysitting.” I added, in case they hadn’t gotten the message, “I don’t.”
Zach raised his dark eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. I hoped he wasn’t remembering the Long Island iced tea, but he probably was. Petra went on ma
king up excuses for Tory (“She is nervous about midterms.” “She has not been sleeping.”) all the way to the front door. I wondered why. After all, this new Tory hadn’t struck me as a person who would have wanted—much less needed—someone making excuses for her.
But maybe there were things I didn’t know about “Torrance” that needed to be taken into consideration. Maybe, in spite of their beautiful garden and gold-plated bath fixtures, all was not well within the Gardiner household. At least where Tory was concerned.
“Well,” Zach said, when we reached the sidewalk (I was pleased I managed successfully to maneuver the front steps without falling this time). “It was nice meeting you, Cousin Jean from Iowa. I live right next door, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing each other again.”
Well. Now at least I understood the thing about him coming over the wall—his backyard was separated from the Gardiners’ by that stone wall near the gazebo—and also how it was that he, like Tory, had had a chance to change out of his school uniform before any of the others.
“Oh, yes, you will see each other often,” Petra said, her mood seemingly brighter now that we were out of the house—and away from Tory. “Jean will be going to the Chapman School for the rest of the semester.”
“So I heard,” Zach said, with a wink at me. “I’ll see you there, then. So long, Cousin Jean from Iowa.”
The wink caused another heartstring to twang. I knew I better look out.
Fortunately, he turned to go. He lived, I saw, in the townhouse to the left of the Gardiners, also four stories high, this one painted dark blue, with white trim. No flower boxes, but a brightly painted front door, this one as red as the Gardiners’ geraniums.
Red as blood.
Now, why did I think that?
“Come on, Jean,” Petra said, tilting her head in the opposite direction of the one in which Zach was headed. “Teddy and Alice’s school is this way.”
“Just a second,” I said.
Because of course I couldn’t go then, while the going was still good. Oh, no. Not Jinx Honeychurch.
No, I had to stand there, rooted to the spot like the hick Tory evidently thought I was, watching Zach saunter past a car that had just pulled into one of those much-sought-after New York City parking spaces. Someone on the passenger side was opening his door to get out—
