Keeping Secrets

by Alyson Noel

  I like to sew. I learned how in my fourth grade Girl Scout troop. It’s probably the most useful skill they taught me besides making s’mores. I mean, since I love clothes and I don’t have much money, I mostly go to thrift stores, buy stuff cheap, then bring it home and tweak it. That way I never look exactly like everyone else because mine is one of a kind. I also find it calming. I like the hum of the machine when I do a really long seam.

  I start thinking about Connor even though I promised myself I wouldn’t. I just can’t figure out why he hasn’t called yet. It seemed like we were having such a great time together. But since I didn’t get his number it’s not like I can call him. Not that I would anyway.

  My mom talks about the giant steps that women have taken since she was my age, but I just don’t see it. I mean, maybe we can vote and stuff but there’s still these really burdensome social rules that just won’t change, like sex. It may seem like everybody in your school is doing it, and most of them probably are, but let’s face it, girls that experiment get labeled as sluts, while the guys get the stud trophy. And that’s why there will be no sweaty high school stuff for me. No getting biblical in the backseat with some icky senior. And as far as calling guys first, I won’t do it. I truly believe they still want to go out and hunt and conquer and drag you home by your ponytail. We may live in the suburbs, but we act like a bunch of cave dwellers.

  When I’m finished hemming the dress I press the new seam with a warm iron and put it back on. It looks pretty good. I have about twenty minutes left so I apply a little makeup (with an outfit like this you don’t want to go overboard), flip my hair a few times, put on some glittery nail polish, and then dance around with my arms in the air until it dries.

  When I hear M’s car pulling into my driveway I jot off a quick note to my mom telling her that I’m spending the night at M’s. I feel bad about lying, but I don’t want her to worry. The truth is, these LA parties usually go on until the next morning.

  M sees me and says, “Cool dress!”

  I pirouette on my driveway then climb into her car. I turn down the vintage David Bowie CD she’s got blasting and say, “Okay, details.”

  She looks at me and smiles. “This could be it, the most important party so far. The one we’ve been working toward.”

  “What?” I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “Okay, get this. Plaid Pants is a film student at USC and his parents are like producers or directors or something in the industry, but apparently they are very conveniently tucked away on vacation or location or whatever in Europe. They’ve got this fully loaded house. You know like pools, a guest house, screening room, the works.”

  “Who’s gonna be there?” I ask, wondering if Connor could possibly show up, but I don’t ask it out loud because I don’t want to jinx it.

  “Probably like tons of rich, young Hollywood types, because of his parents and film school and all. We might even get to see a celebrity or something.”

  “You mean like Richard Branson?” I ask.

  “No. Probably more like that girl who plays Sabrina the Teenage Bitch.”

  I look at her to see if she’s kidding but she’s totally serious and I suddenly start to feel really intimidated and sick to my stomach. It’s not about some minor TV star, it’s just that all that wealth sometimes makes me feel totally inadequate. I remember reading somewhere that no one can make you feel intimidated without your permission. Well, Plaid Pants has got my full consent. I mean, I’m just not so sure I can blend with this crowd. People with that much money always make me feel like an outsider.

  M looks at me, and knows what I’m thinking. “Relax,” she says, “it’s gonna be fun.”

  And I look at her and wonder again, as I often do, just where her endless supply of confidence comes from. Is it the birthright of the wealthy, of having the security of two parents and a team of lawyers who will always be there to clean up your mess?

  Chapter 9

  When we finally get to the house, M drives right past all the cars lining the street, swerves around the Mercedes spooning the Porsche in the driveway, and goes right onto the front lawn where she hits the brake and kills the ignition. She double-checks her lip gloss in the rearview mirror, then smiles and says, “We’re here!”

  There’s a rose bush banging against my window and I think there’s another one under the car, but this is classic M, she always makes it easy for herself, and she always gets away with it. I look at her and say, “Jeez, why didn’t you just drive into the living room and park next to the sofa?”

  She pulls the key from the ignition and shrugs. “I’m not about to walk all the way down the block in these boots.”

  She holds her foot up for inspection and I can’t say I blame her. She’s wearing her wicked witch boots, the sleek, knee-high, black, pointy-toed ones, with heels so high it must be like walking on stilts.

  We walk the three steps to the front door and when we open it we are confronted with a wall of bodies. I mean, there’s like, hundreds of people here, and we just stand in the entryway trying to get a handle on the scene, but I don’t see any celebrities, just a lot of people who want to be celebrities. There’s a group of tall, blond, tan girls wearing bikinis and Ugg boots, they look like quintuplets, and another group wearing low-cut jeans and newsboy caps, total Britney clones.

  There’s even some guy walking around in a silk robe, but it’s not Hugh Hefner. And even though I can kind of make fun of them in my head, the truth is, that everyone here looks like they belong, and I start to feel kind of stupid in my old dress and tiara. I mean, I might have looked okay in Orange County, but here, around all these hip, rich people, I feel like a dork.

  I reach up and touch my stupid rhinestone barrette and contemplate yanking it out when, M looks at me and goes, “Don’t. Leave it. You look great.”

  And I stop, and I leave it, because she’s right. I have to be comfortable just being me.

  “Come on,” she says, “let’s grab a drink and find the screening room.”

  We grab some champagne from a passing waiter then follow the scent of popcorn down a long hallway. We enter a dark room with a big screen and plop into some vacant seats. They have the same seats as the good movie theaters, you know, the plushy kind that rocks back and forth, with cup holders. I place my drink in the little hole and lean all the way back and look at the high, vaulted ceilings. It must be so cool to have a room like this. I mean, at my house it’s just an old TV with a broken remote and no cable. It’s amazing how other people get to live.

  There’s like, six guys and one girl in here, and they’re all watching some really violent movie. M gets up to get popcorn but I’m ready to leave. I hate gratuitous violence. I mean, isn’t there enough of the real thing out there? Like in Afghanistan, and Africa, and that school in Colorado, and the house next door?

  I follow her and go, “M, are you gonna watch this?”

  She whispers, “Yeah, at least until I finish this popcorn, why?”

  “Well, I think I’m gonna leave and walk around some more.”

  “Okay,” she says between bites. “Listen, if we lose each other, meet me by the front door at midnight.”

  I squint my eyes to adjust to the light of the hallway and wander down it, unsure of my destination. I figure I’ll just walk around until something interesting happens. At a party like this, it shouldn’t take long.

  I’m just walking along, looking at the art on the walls, when all of a sudden a door right in front of me opens and I’m face to face with Connor. My heart skips, my stomach drops, and I stop dead in my tracks. I just stand there staring at him like a major dweeb when he looks up and goes, “Alex!”

  “Oh. Connor. Hi.” I’m trying to pretend that I didn’t see him first, but it’s not very convincing.

  “It’s brilliant to find you here.” He’s hugging me now and he smells so good, and even though I dreamed of this every night since we met, now that it’s happening I can’t remember any of my
lines.

  So I’m just standing there staring at him, trying to think of something to say when this really pretty girl who looks just like Ray of Light Madonna comes out of the same room he just vacated and goes, “Connor, there you are!”

  When I watch her slither up next to him and put her hand possessively on his shoulder, I start to feel sick and nervous and I don’t know what to do, so I just continue to stand there like a big retard and then I smile at her. Only she doesn’t smile back.

  Then Connor goes, “Sam this is Alex. Alex, Sam.” And since nobody got a title like, My Girlfriend Sam, or, The-Best-Thing-That-Ever-Happened-to-Me Alex, it’s hard to tell how either of us rates.

  I just stand there and say, “Hi.” Giving another go at a smile.

  But she just presses her lips together in a failed attempt at a pleasant expression and says, “So how do you know Trevor?”

  “Um, who’s Trevor?” I ask, looking from Sam to Connor and wondering if I should have just faked like I knew him.

  “Uh, your host?” she says, and rolls her eyes, and shakes her head, and looks at Connor like, “Who is this loser girl you found in the hall?”

  But Connor just smiles and says, “He’s the guy I was looking for at the gallery the other night. I think M met him there.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize that was his name,” I say. But I don’t mention that up until now we’ve been calling him Plaid Pants.

  “You know I was wondering if you’d be here.”

  “Really?” I’m trying to not sound too excited by that.

  “Yeah.” He smiles and his eyes travel over me, coming to rest on my chest. “Where’s M?”

  “Watching something violent in the screening room,” I tell him. Then I look over at Sam but she’s busy inspecting her wavy, long blond hair, looking for split ends or something, and not at all trying to hide the fact that she’s bored, and mad, and everything else.

  “Uh, Connor, excuse me,” she says tugging on his sleeve, “Are you coming back in, or what?”

  I just stand there and look from her to him but he just shakes his head, and goes, “No, I’m taking Alex on a field trip. I’ll catch up with you later.” Then he looks down at me and smiles and I feel like I’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool.

  Connor puts his arm around my shoulders and walks me down the hall, and I look up at him and say, “I have to warn you, M has given me a twelve o’clock curfew.”

  “Great. That leaves us with . . .” He stops and looks at his wrist but he’s not wearing a watch, “Well, lots of time, I hope.”

  Then he leads me through some French doors out to this beautiful garden. It’s one of those wild, untamed, English-style gardens that make you feel like you’re in Wuthering Heights or something. He points out all the different varieties of flowers, then stops to pick a really beautiful pink peony. When he hands it to me I wonder how he knew that’s my favorite.

  We walk by the pool but there’s some people splashing around in it, so instead we go inside this really cool cabana. The walls are a dark, smudgy, salmon color and it’s stuffed with pillows and hammocks and mosquito nets and lanterns and loads of colorful mosaic tiles, and it looks just like a movie set version of Morocco. I sit on this woven mat and lean back against these giant, overstuffed pillows, and watch Connor light a few candles and look through the fridge for something to drink.

  “Is this a guest house?” I ask, rubbing my fingers over a sequined pillow.

  “No, it’s just a cabana, the guest house is farther down,” he says.

  I watch him walk toward me carrying a bottle of champagne and place it on a low tiled table. The way he just answered me so casually makes me wonder if he grew up like this too. I mean, it’s hard to be that blase about homes like this unless you’re used to it.

  “You don’t think they’ll mind?” I ask, eyeing the bottle of champagne with the label I can’t pronounce even after four years of high school French.

  “Mind what?”

  “If we drink their champagne?”

  “Not only will they not mind, they won’t even notice.”

  I watch Connor expertly pop the cork, refill my glass, and grab a pillow and lie next to me with his head propped on his elbow. He’s looking at me intently and the fact that he’s a total babe, along with the fact that we’re completely alone is making me incredibly nervous. Also, the silence is growing thicker and it’s making me feel like I’ve got to say something interesting right exactly now but I can’t think of anything. Then I remember this article I read in Cosmopolitan that said you should just let them go on and on about themselves. Not that I’m used to following that kind of advice, but right now, when I’m feeling this shy and nervous, it does come in handy. So I go, “How do you know Trevor?”

  “I’ve known him since we were kids. We were schoolmates in London, until his parent’s packed it up and moved out here.

  “When was that?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, fifteen? Sixteen?”

  He looks at me and smiles and I nod my head and take a sip of champagne as I desperately grasp for something to say next. “So, tell me about your record company? How’d you get started?” I ask. Oh god, I sound like Oprah.

  “Well, it started with piano lessons.”

  “You’re kidding,” I say.

  “No really, didn’t you take piano lessons?”

  I shake my head. “No, that’s kind of like a rich person’s sport. I did stuff that was free, you know, community soccer, Girl Scouts, stuff like that.”

  “You’re lucky,” he laughs. “It was torture, mainly for my teacher. Finally Mr. Leonard, that was my piano teacher, finally he told my parents that he just couldn’t take their money anymore.”

  “Were they disappointed?” I kind of slide down on the mat so that we’re level. It felt weird to be looking down at him.

  “Probably, both of them are natural pianists. I guess it skipped a generation. But, the lessons did spark my love of music and they ultimately financed my vinyl buying habits.”

  “You mean albums?” I take a sip of my champagne.

  “Yeah. There’s some great stuff out there that can only be truly appreciated on vinyl. Anyway, when I finished college, they really pushed me to go on to law school. But I had already started this small label with a friend, so we made a deal. I told them that if the company didn’t start going somewhere within a year, I’d go back to school. But if it did start to grow, well, they had to wish me well.”

  “So where are you in all that now?”

  “Two years, growing, and I don’t have to go back to school. What about you, what do you do?”

  I just sit there. I’m not quite prepared for this question.

  “Alex?”

  “What do I do?” This question is like, one for grownups or something and I’m not sure how to answer it. “Well, I’m a student.” I smile brightly and sip my champagne but my glass is empty so I end up swallowing air.

  “Really?” he nods, seemingly intrigued. “Where are you going? What are you studying?”

  Oh shit. He’s staring right at me and I know I have to say something but definitely not the truth, so I go, “I’m just doing general studies, you know.”

  “Where?”

  Shit. He’s waiting for an answer and I’m totally trapped so I take a deep breath and I mention the name of the town that my high school is in. There’s a state college there that goes by that name so I figure I’ll just let him draw his own conclusions.

  He knows something’s up. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me.

  He leans in closer and goes, “How old are you?”

  I’m sweating like a suspect on NYPD Blue. “Um, nineteen,” I mumble.

  “Nineteen? Is that even legal?”

  “Legal for what?” I ask defensively, “Voting?” God, I’m lying by a year and a half as it is! “Well, how old are you?” I ask.

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  We ju
st look at each other and then I start laughing. I do that when I get nervous.

  Then Connor runs his hand down the length of my cheek and says, “Okay, I guess nineteen is a little young, but you happen to be nice and cute and I like hanging out with you. So maybe that cancels out the age difference?”

  He’s looking right at me and I can barely breathe. Then he leans in and starts kissing me and it’s awesome and I just sort of follow his lead. I mean, it’s not that I don’t know how to kiss, I’ve been doing it since sixth grade, but since he’s twenty-three, he’s been doing it longer so I figure I could maybe learn something.

  We kiss for a long time and I don’t remember it ever being like this before. I can feel his fingers sliding inside the straps of my dress and pulling them down my shoulders. I’m not wearing a bra and part of me is thinking that I absolutely have to stop him, but the other part of me doesn’t even try. He kisses me everywhere and I just lie back with my eyes closed, thinking I could do this forever.

  He slides my dress all the way down to my waist and kisses my belly until he gets to my navel ring. He spins it between his fingers and says, “This is sexy.”

  I move my hands all over him. He’s got a great body, muscular, but not too much, but I keep my hands mostly above the belt. It’s not that I’ve never touched a penis before, because I have, but I just don’t want to be the one to start that.

  I’m not sure when, but at some point he has removed my dress and his jeans and now the only thing separating us is two cotton crotches. He starts moving south again and right when he’s about to kiss me even lower, like way past my belly ring, I immediately sit up and shout, “Stop!” And then I feel like a total retard.

  I cover my breasts with my hands and scramble for my dress. I can’t even look at him, I feel so stupid. I’m some kinda nineteen year old.

  He looks at me surprised and asks, “Are you okay?”

  And I go, “I’m sorry but I can’t do that. I’m menstruating.” That’s what I said. Menstruating! I sound like my sixth-grade health teacher. And I don’t know why I said it because it’s not even true. But it’s just too soon for me, and there’s no way I’m gonna tell him I’m a virgin. I pick up my dress from the floor and I’m just waiting for him to say, “Thank-you and good night.”