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by Nia Stephens

  “Whatever,” Bree shrugged, joining her on the bench. “It’s true. I know it, you know it.”

  “It’s not a bad thing, you know. Sleeping with Jordan was a big mistake.”

  Bree still wasn’t sure she believed that Sutton had actually slept with Jordan Wills. He had been their closest friend in the senior class when they were juniors, and completed the square of Bree, Sutton and Kylian. Bree had never noticed any special chemistry between the two of them. But since last summer, while Bree was in California and before Jordan left for Stanford, Sutton had been mooning over him and their terrible, torrid affair. As curious as Bree was, she saw no reason to needle her friend about it. She wasn’t jealous of Sutton for losing her virginity first, if that was what had actually happened. There was nothing difficult about losing your virginity—in Bree’s experience, the hard thing was keeping it. She just knew that when she slept with someone, she wanted it to be more than a bit of hot fun. She wanted it to mean something.

  Things hadn’t worked out in the end between her parents, but Bree knew that both of them had been crazy in love with each other when they got married. You could see it in their wedding pictures, and in random photos from the early years: they were always touching, and their eyes were always on each other. And though both of them dated (in her dad’s case, a lot), neither of her parents had ever remarried. Both of them had said that they never would, either. Bree wanted to feel that way about someone too, and feel that the man in her arms wanted her for more than her famous family or her pretty face.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s not about the sex, really. It’s about love. I wish I could have a real boyfriend—it doesn’t seem like too much to ask,” Bree responded.

  Sutton was quiet for a long time, then she said, “Do you think it would help if you went out with guys who aren’t actors?”

  “What do you mean?” Unfortunately, Bree suspected that she knew exactly what Sutton meant.

  “Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but actors aren’t the realest people you’ll ever meet.”

  “You think I’m fake?” Bree’s acting experience kept her voice from quivering. How could Sutton think she was fake? They had their differences, but they had been friends forever. No one knew her better, except maybe her mom.

  “No, no, no!” Sutton insisted, putting an arm around Bree’s shoulders. “That’s not what I mean at all. There’s, like, a one hundred percent difference between you on-camera and you just hanging around. You’re you most of the time. But you know how you get all straightened up when teachers are around, and you sound sort of different when you’re on the phone with your LA friends—”

  “That’s still me! That’s just a different part of me!”

  “I get that, Bree. But my point is that you sort of get glammy and twinkly when guys are around. Turning on the charm, I guess, is how Mom would put it. And that’s part of you too, but what you really want is someone who still likes you when you aren’t on, and isn’t on when he’s with you. That’s what you mean by ‘real,’ right?”

  “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but I guess you’re right.” If the boys she dated hadn’t acted like reasonably nice guys for at least a date or two, she wouldn’t have gone out with them at all. She wasn’t an idiot—they were just good actors. Which made sense, since she did meet most of them at auditions. “So where would I meet a real guy?”

  “Not at Rittenhouse.” Sutton’s face clouded in a way that made Bree wonder again what exactly had happened between her and Jordan the previous summer. “I don’t really know. Kylian thinks we should try the Internet.”

  Judging from the way Sutton keeled over, giggling, Bree’s eyes must have bugged out.

  “I’ll admit that I have problems, but I’m not an old maid, Sutton, or a pervert trolling for twelve-year-old girls. Neither are you. Neither is Kylian.”

  “But we’ve got major problems, sweetheart. You are too cute for your own good. I’m not cute enough. And Kylian—”

  “Kylian just needs to come out of the closet. There are plenty of guys at Rittenhouse who would love to go out with him. And you know they’re all clamoring for you.”

  “But you wouldn’t date a Rittenhouser. Why should we?”

  “Because we’re so desperate, we’re talking about online dating?”

  “Never mind,” Sutton said with a sly grin. “I have another idea.”

  Bree raised an eyebrow at her suspiciously. “Does it involve skipping a day of school?” She had not failed to notice bells ringing eight o’clock from a church somewhere across the park.

  “We’re already late, and you were going to leave early for the screen test anyway.”

  “I don’t know where you think we’re going to meet nice, normal guys in the middle of the day.”

  “Don’t you worry. I have a plan.” Sutton hobbled to her feet. Whatever she had done to her ankle was painful, but she was not going to let that stop her.

  “That’s exactly what worries me,” Bree said, helping Sutton make her slow way down the path, back toward home.

  Chapter 2

  Where the Boys Are

  The next part was tricky. It involved getting into their apartment building without attracting attention from the doorman, Bill, who might rat them out, and from Lawrence, the elevator operator, who definitely would. But Sutton was in no shape to take the stairs.

  “Service elevator,” the girls said at once, as soon as Central Park West was visible through the trees.

  Because Sutton was limping, her head drooped, and her sweat-darkened blond hair hid her face, they managed to scuttle past Bill, who was busy helping some other resident get into a cab. Sutton draped her arm across Bree’s shoulder, as if she needed a lot more help than she actually did, blocking Bree from view. She stepped away from Bree, hobbling a little faster when they reached the alley beside their building.

  “Think they’ve changed the code?” she asked once they got to the huge double doors through which service men brought grand pianos, antique canopy beds, and other objects too large to fit inside the hand-carved front doors of the Edwardian.

  “Not a chance.” It had been 5-7-C-P-W—an abbreviation of the address, 57 Central Park West—since Bree and Sutton were first old enough to sneak out.

  Once inside, the only risk was running into a member of the building’s staff on the elevator. The staff were notorious for turning in anyone they caught doing something illegal, even if it was just truancy. Unlike the Dakota down the street, which was infamous because John Lennon was murdered in front of it, or 55 Central Park West, because it was “spook central” in Ghostbusters, the Edwardian was not infamous at all. It was famous, though, for being a “family friendly” building. There were no rock stars there, nor the kind of movie stars who trashed hotel rooms. Most residents in the Edwardian were surgeons, lawyers, and real estate millionaires, or old-money socialites who spent all their time planning charity events. When Bree’s mother moved in, she was a retired model who raised money for various African charities, and the management had been giving her funny looks ever since she started appearing on runways again. But since Bree’s mother never threw coked-up parties for her supermodel friends, there was no threat of losing her lease. The management had a close eye on her though, and an even closer eye on Bree. But every teenager in the Edwardian had the same sense of being scrutinized. Bree and Sutton kept their hoods up and their heads down as they shuffled into the elevator, hoping whoever was in the security office was watching The Today Show, not the security cameras.

  “Phew!” Sutton said, dramatically wiping imaginary sweat from her forehead as they stepped off the elevator on the twenty-fourth floor.

  “Too early for deliveries, I guess,” Bree said, fumbling at her neck for the long thin gold chain she wore when running. On it was a copy of her house key and a gold dog tag that had her full name, her parents’ cell phone numbers, and a warning that she was allergic to penicillin. It was a gift from her father, and she had promised
him she would always wear it when she was jogging at the park. But Bree had always secretly believed that if she was hit by a car or had some sort of medical emergency while running, any gold around her neck would disappear long before she arrived in an emergency room.

  “So where’s Ameera this week?” Sutton asked as Bree let them into her apartment. It was shaped exactly like Sutton’s, three floors below: a tiny, marble-floored foyer opened into a huge living room with an art deco fireplace. Three archways in the living room led to the kitchen and dining room in the center, Bree’s bedroom and bathroom on the left, and her mother’s rooms to the right. Both of the bedrooms had a small room attached on the far side of the bathroom, meant for a nanny, or for use as a dressing room. Bree had turned hers into a small private living room, which her friends called the lounge. Bree’s mother used hers as a home office, from which she ran Women of the Earth, a nonprofit organization that raised money for women’s causes in Africa, especially in the Sudan. Bree’s mother had lost her entire family in the war that had been going on there since the early seventies and showed no signs of ending any time soon.

  “I think she’s in Milan,” Bree said, leading the way to her rooms.

  “Wasn’t Milan last week?”

  “Crap, you’re right. There was that panettone in the kitchen on Saturday morning.” Bree’s mother was not one of those models who claimed she never dieted and ate whatever she liked. But Ameera would make an exception for panettone, a cakey bread, or bready cake, full of candied orange peel and raisins, that came from Milan. Years ago when she arrived in Italy, newly escaped from the fighting in Darfur, she was too thin even for modeling. The agent who caught sight of her on the street walking to the Catholic Charities office recognized her potential, but also saw that she needed fattening up. Panettone had been her tool of choice, and Ameera still had a taste for it.

  “So where is your mom?” Sutton asked Bree, just as Ameera’s bedroom door swung open. Ameera emerged, looking as unearthly as ever in a long, plain black dress similar to the robes Ameera wore growing up, but this one was designed by Jil Sander and cost more than many Sudanese people would make in their entire lives.

  Fortunately, Ameera was on the phone, speaking rapid-fire Arabic. It was her mother’s second language, but Bree had never picked it up. Her mother was so concerned with her phone conversation that she didn’t see the two girls tucked into the shadows. They both had complained at times about the apartment’s odd layout, and how there were no windows in any of the hallways, but Bree appreciated it now.

  Halfway to the front door, Ameera stopped dead and went silent.

  Oh no, Bree thought. I’m toast. Ameera and her ex-husband, Rashid, worried more about Bree’s academic career than her future in acting. Neither of them had had a chance to go to college. Rashid grew up poor in Detroit instead of poor in Africa, but higher education had seemed just as inaccessible. Since he spent most of high school DJing parties and selling crack to buy better sound equipment and old Sugar Hill Gang vinyl, he was intent on sending Bree to the best college in America. In his opinion, that was Harvard. Where he grew up, Yale was a lock company and Columbia was where drugs came from, but he knew exactly what Harvard stood for. Ameera, on the other hand, hoped Bree would choose Columbia so that she could live at home during college—as if that were a possibility. And Bree herself was banking on Yale—not too far from the comforts of the Edwardian, but not close enough for her mother to drop in unexpectedly, and they had that famous drama department. But, wherever she wound up applying, her parents were obsessed with her getting into one of the best colleges in America. They would flip out completely if they knew that she skipped school once in a while.

  Bree held her breath as her mother stood silently near the archway that marked the end of the living room. After a moment, Ameera said something in Arabic and strode out of the apartment, locking it behind her. Once in her room, Bree collapsed with relief on her soft, comfy, but annoyingly small twin bed. Sutton squeezed in, exhausted, beside her. She could have chosen one of two cozy blue velvet armchairs or the equally soft white rug, but the white silk bedspread was pleasantly cool against their trembling muscles.

  “I have officially had enough excitement for one day,” Bree said. “I’m going back to bed.”

  “I thought we were going to meet nice, normal boys.”

  “And I thought you were injured,” Bree retorted.

  “Like I’m going to let a sore ankle keep me from finding true love?” Sutton snorted.

  “I still don’t know where you think we’re going to find these guys. Normal guys our age are in school right now.”

  “Who said anything about guys our age?”

  Somehow Bree found the energy to sit up and give Sutton a look.

  “Argh! Stop that!” Sutton squealed, covering her eyes. “I always feel like I haven’t done my homework or something when you look at me like that.”

  “Honey, we are still technically jail bait. What geriatric gentlemen did you have in mind?”

  “Not geriatric, darling—college guys. They’re perfect: more mature than the guys we know, more responsible—”

  “I know . . . more likely to have their own apartments,” Bree finished. “Yeah, I can imagine the benefits of dating college guys, but where are we supposed to find them? We probably go to more plays at Columbia than Columbia students, but we never meet anybody there.”

  “No one ever meets anybody at plays because you just sit there in the dark.”

  “You don’t mean a coffee shop, do you? Because the only people who talk to strangers in coffee shops are the baristas.”

  Sutton rolled her eyes, as if this was the most ridiculous suggestion ever, though all the magazines Bree read waiting around at auditions picked coffee shops and bookstores as the best places to meet guys.

  “We have to go somewhere where college guys are wandering around without any reading material, desperate for help from any available females.”

  Bree did not have to think about that for long. “We’re going shopping?”

  “We’re going boy shopping,” Sutton giggled.

  Bree shook her head in annoyance. “Where? At Barneys? We spend a lot of time shopping, but we have never picked up a boy along with our Sevens.”

  Sutton was still laughing. “No, we’re not going to Barneys.”

  “Where then? Saks? Bloomingdale’s? It’s got to be a department store, because no normal guy is going to be wandering around a boutique looking for jeans. Not even Kylian.”

  Sutton’s laugh was beginning to sound a bit diabolical. It always did when she was impressed with her own cleverness.

  “We’re going to New Jersey,” Sutton finally gasped between giggles.

  Bree scoffed and said, “Of course. All the real guys are in Jersey. I should have guessed. How are we getting to Princeton?” Bree was hoping that the plan would fall apart there. She had to be back for her screen test at three-thirty, and had no interest in Princeton boys anyway. The preppiest, most uptight kids at Rittenhouse always wanted to go to Princeton—and the Rittenhouse crowd was pretty preppy to begin with.

  “We aren’t going to Princeton.” Sutton was laughing so hard she was almost crying. “We’re going to Elizabeth.”

  “What’s in Elizabeth?”

  “Ikea.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bree said, scratching her head thoughtfully. “I thought you said we were shopping for boys, not furniture.”

  “No, no, you don’t get it. Ikea’s perfect! It’s made for college students and young professional types—not the ones so broke that they have to get their furniture off the street, but not stuck up rich kids like—”

  “Us?” Bree suggested.

  Sutton ignored her. “Think about it. Loads of college guys wandering around, with no idea whatsoever what they’re doing. All you have to do is walk up to them and say, ‘That’s a nice table. It totally matches your eyes.’”

  Now Bree was laughing for real. “‘That t
able matches your eyes’? What have you been smoking?”

  “Oh, whatever. All boys are intimidated by interior decorating. And the last time I went it was full of boys.”

  “When have you ever gone to Ikea? You haven’t redecorated your room since you were twelve.” Twelve-year-old Sutton had just started learning French, and was obsessed with the French Revolution. As a birthday surprise, her parents gave her a bedroom set that could have belonged to Marie Antoinette: everything was cream, gold, or pink, covered in satin or edged in lace. Somehow Mr. and Mrs. Harris had failed to notice that Sutton would have sided with the revolutionaries and led Marie Antoinette to the guillotine herself. But her parents meant well, and she could never quite bring herself to ask for a more modern bedroom.

  “I went with Jordan before he left for school.”

  “Ah,” Bree said thoughtfully. How serious could things have been between Sutton and Jordan if she spent his whole pre-college furniture-shopping trip checking out other guys?

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Hmm?” Bree raised her eyebrows innocently.

  “That ah? What do you mean by ah?”

  “Just, you know—ah.”

  Sutton grumbled a little, but changed the subject to the question of showers. There were two, but what if Ameera came back? And what about their maid, Soledad?

  “She won’t be here until three. We’re her last appointment. And Mom was speaking Arabic. That means she’s on her way to some Darfur meeting.” Bree knew more about the genocide in the Sudanese region of Darfur than most Americans, but even so she didn’t know all that much, beyond the fact that there were lots of groups involved and the peace treaties didn’t seem to work. The war had been going on since the seventies, and that was after two civil wars. The Dinka lived in southern Sudan, far from Darfur, but Bree’s grandmother was a Muslim, from the Arabic-speaking capital, Khartoum. The most Bree could piece together was that the family ended up in Darfur after a dangerous drought in the south, but she didn’t like talking to her mother about the war. Out of a family of nine, only Bree’s mother had survived. She was obsessed with helping other refugees, and she attended half a dozen meetings every week to try to do that. Darfur meetings always took hours, and often kept Ameera busy all day long.