Invitation Only

  “Yes,” I told her in my new croaky voice. “Fluff the pil­lows. No wrin­kles.”

  25

  She turned to­ward me and took a deep breath. How any­one breathed deeply in the per­fumed air of this place was be­yond me. “Ex­act­ly. I told the girls you'd be good at this,” she said, pluck­ing at the cuffs on her pressed Ralph Lau­ren shirt. “You have that blue-​col­lar air about you.”

  I stopped short, my hands grip­ping one of her pil­lows. I was so stunned, I couldn't even for­mu­late a co­her­ent thought. All I could think was . . . Kill. Kill. Kill.

  “Cheyenne,” Rose scold­ed, lift­ing her large leather bag from her desk chair. Rose was a tiny, su­per­skin­ny girl with chin-​length red hair and an or­angey tan that was just now start­ing to fade. I had no idea how that big bag of hers didn't just pull her right down. “Don't lis­ten to her,” she told me.

  I forced my­self to smile at Rose, then melt­ed Cheyenne's fourth lay­er of Es­tee Laud­er base with my eyes.

  “What? I was just pay­ing her a com­pli­ment!” Cheyenne said. “You knew that, right, Glass-​lick­er?”

  “Sure,” I said with a tight smile. “I'd rather have a blue col­lar than a sil­ver spoon up my ass,” I whis­pered un­der my breath.

  Cheyenne's face cloud­ed over, but she quick­ly re­cov­ered. “Some­one has an at­ti­tude,” she said smooth­ly. “What­ev­er shall we do to teach her her place?”

  She picked up a big pot of pink blush beads and turned them over on the white-​and-​green flow­ered area rug in the cen­ter of the hard­wood floor. “Oh! Oops!”

  “Cheyenne!” Rose cried.

  She re­spond­ed by lift­ing her heel and grind­ing the lit­tle pel­lets

  26

  in­to the thick weave. Part of me want­ed to grab her by her per­fect hair and grind her face in there as well. But of course I did not.

  “You can clean that up when you're done, Glass-​lick­er,” Cheyenne said. “Un­less you want me to tell Noelle how clever you are.”

  She turned and walked out. Rose sighed and hes­itat­ed by the door.

  “You don't have to wor­ry about that now. There's al­ways tonight,” she said. “And don't take too much time on my bed. Just throw the cov­ers over it in case Noelle checks.”

  “She checks?” I asked.

  Rose looked at me pity­ing­ly. Clear­ly I was too naive for words. “Good luck.”

  She closed the door qui­et­ly be­hind her, and I lis­tened as her foot­steps dis­ap­peared down the hall. The dorm was silent as night now. I glanced at the clock. Half an hour to vac­uum, show­er, get dressed, and get to break­fast. Not that break­fast ap­pealed, but I had to make an ap­pear­ance or Noelle might put me on toi­let du­ty lat­er. I would have to for­go some­thing to fin­ish in time. Prob­ably the show­er.

  With a sigh, I moved to Rose's bed. She'd been nice, so I'd do bet­ter than just flip­ping the cov­ers up. I straight­ened the sheets and com­forter and then lift­ed the pil­lows. There was some­thing jammed be­tween the cor­ner of the bed and the wall. I placed my knee in the cen­ter of the mat­tress and took a clos­er look. What­ev­er it was was kind of crum­ply and green and--“Oh, my God.”

  27

  My hand flew over my mouth. It was a piece of a muf­fin. An old, moldy corn muf­fin and its wrap­per that Rose had ob­vi­ous­ly stuffed there af­ter snack­ing on it one night. One night in ear­ly Septem­ber from the looks of it. Ap­par­ent­ly even the creme de la creme could be slobs. I turned around, stum­bled in­to their bath­room, and slammed my kneecaps against the linoleum as I dou­bled over.

  Noth­ing like a nice, long dry heave in­to the bowl to get the day start­ed just right.

  28

  * * *

  By the time I ar­rived at the sun-​drenched cafe­te­ria, those girls who dared to risk their per­fect fig­ures were ready for sec­onds and it was my job to fill their or­ders. Al­though the last thing I want­ed to do was look at food, I found my­self pil­ing two trays high with toast, dough­nuts, fruit, and drinks.

  “Eggs?” the man be­hind the counter of­fered, lift­ing a spoon­ful of yel­low scram­bled goo.

  I winced. “No, thanks.”

  I grabbed my­self a bagel and added it to the grow­ing pile, hop­ing I might be able to choke some of it down. Up ahead, a pair of fresh­man boys was chat­ting up a pret­ty fresh­man girl with dark, curly hair. She gig­gled and preened and I sneered. Oh, to be that care­free and awake. And clean.

  “I heard that last year all the fresh­man girls who went came back with tat­toos,” one of the boys said. “The vir­gins got Vs and the non-​vir­gins got lip prints. Right on their left cheeks,” he said, check­ing out the girl's butt in her pleat­ed mi­ni.

  29

  “I thought no one came back from the Lega­cy a vir­gin,” she said, dip­ping her spoon in­to her yo­gurt then suck­ing on it teas­ing­ly as the line edged for­ward.

  In­stant­ly my ears perked up. The Lega­cy. Hadn't Dash and those guys men­tioned that last night? My mem­ory of the pre­vi­ous evening was hazy, but I did re­mem­ber them say­ing some­thing about how Thomas would nev­er miss it. How he'd be there no mat­ter what. How did these kids know about it?

  “Not that you have to wor­ry about that, right, Gwen?” the oth­er boy said, prac­ti­cal­ly lick­ing his lips.

  “Maybe,” she said, lift­ing her tray and turn­ing to­ward them. “Maybe not.”

  She traipsed off, leav­ing the boys gap­ing be­hind her. “Dude, I am so gonna hit that at the Lega­cy. Just wait,” one of them said.

  “I will,” the oth­er said grumpi­ly.

  “Oh! That's right! You won't be there, will you, Mills!?” the first kid taunt­ed. “Poor, poor frosh. Maybe your grand­kids will get to go.”

  With that, the kid laughed and saun­tered to­ward his ta­ble, head thrown back all the way.

  So the Lega­cy was an ex­clu­sive par­ty. One that Gwen and Boy Toy #1 could go to but Boy Toy #2 could not. I would have to file this in­for­ma­tion away for lat­er and try to pro­cess it when my brain was ac­tu­al­ly func­tion­ing again.

  I took a deep breath and smelled the scent of fresh paint be­hind me an in­stant be­fore I felt the warmth of a body. I turned around to find a bright-​eyed Josh Hol­lis smil­ing down at me.

  30

  In­stant­ly my shoul­der mus­cles coiled with ten­sion. I couldn't look at Josh with­out think­ing of Thomas and won­der­ing whether or not Josh had heard from him.

  “Ouch. You look like crudge,” Josh said.

  “Crudge?”

  “I make up words when no ex­ist­ing terms seem fit to rise to the oc­ca­sion,” Josh said. “There­fore, crudge.”

  “Well, I'm hon­ored to have in­spired a new word,” I lied. Not that I could blame him. My dirty-​ass hair was back in a slick from-​grease pony­tail and I was sure there was a nice, green un­der­tone to my waxy skin.

  “Are you okay?” Josh asked as we moved for­ward in line. “I was a lit­tle wor­ried about you last night.”

  The dim mem­ory of a stone-​faced Josh flit­ted through my mind. One more thing I had for­got­ten about un­til now. Come to think of it, though, why would Josh be wor­ried about me? We bare­ly knew each oth­er. A hope­ful thought oc­curred to me in a rush.

  “Did Thomas ask you to look out for me or some­thing?” I asked.

  Josh blinked. “No. Thomas didn't say any­thing to me be­fore he left, ac­tu­al­ly.”

  “Oh. So you re­al­ly have no idea where he is?” I asked.

  “No. You?”

  “No.”

  I moved ahead, my heart pound­ing woe­ful­ly.

  “Typ­ical Thomas,” Josh said un­der his breath.

  “What?” I asked.

  31

  “Noth­ing. It's just . . . you'd think he'd at least let you know where he's go­ing,” he said with ma­j
or em­pha­sis on the you. So he did know what Thomas and I had done. Or he sus­pect­ed. Or maybe not. Maybe he just knew I meant a lot to Thomas. At least, I thought I did.

  How was it that our re­la­tion­ship was even more con­fus­ing with­out him here than it was when he was around?

  “But I should have known,” Josh con­tin­ued. “He's nev­er been one for think­ing of oth­er peo­ple.”

  I swal­lowed hard. This morn­ing had al­ready been too much for me to han­dle. I didn't need to add “pick­ing apart my miss­ing boyfriend” to the list. “Let's talk about some­thing else,” I said.

  “Right. Sor­ry,” he told me with an apolo­get­ic smile. “I'm sure he'll call you. Even­tu­al­ly.”

  Feel­ing warm and con­spic­uous, I glanced around for a new top­ic.

  “So what's all that?” I asked, ges­tur­ing at his tray. It was piled even high­er than my own two. “Bulk­ing up for win­ter?”

  “Nah. Some of the guys were still hun­gry, so ...” He shrugged.

  “I don't get it,” I said.

  “Get what?” he asked, lift­ing a choco­late-​chip muf­fin on­to the tray.

  “Why are you al­ways do­ing stuff for them? ” I said. “It's not like you have to.”

  Like some peo­ple.

  “I have four younger broth­ers and sis­ters and on­ly one old­er broth­er, who was al­ler­gic to help­ing out,” he replied, shov­ing his

  32

  hand in­to the back pock­et of his bag­gy, paint-​stained jeans as he pushed his tray for­ward on the slide rail with the oth­er. “I think do­ing stuff for peo­ple is hard­wired in­to my brain.”

  I picked up a bowl for ce­re­al. “Ah.”

  “Why do you do it?” he asked.

  “Uh, they make me,” I said au­to­mat­ical­ly.

  Josh eyed me du­bi­ous­ly. “Huh?”

  I blinked. He didn't know? He didn't know I was an in­den­tured ser­vant of Billings House? I thought this was pub­lic knowl­edge, this sys­tem­at­ic haz­ing. At least the stuff I'd done be­fore I had moved in had been no­ticed by oth­ers. Dash, in par­tic­ular, had made it clear that he en­joyed my suf­fer­ing. How could Josh not know?

  “Wait. What're they mak­ing you do?” he asked.

  Red alert. Flash­ing lights. Yel­low cau­tion tape. If he didn't know, maybe he wasn't sup­posed to know.

  Fuck.

  “Oh, noth­ing,” I said with a shrug, my heart­beat pound­ing in my tem­ples.

  “Reed--”

  “Josh,” I replied.

  Sud­den­ly, un­der­stand­ing lit his eyes. 'You can't tell me.“ He smirked, try­ing to make light. ”Or you could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me."

  I lift­ed both trays awk­ward­ly from the slide rails and bal­anced them on my palms. “Don't wor­ry about it,” I told him.

  33

  “Well, if it's bad you could al­ways spit in their cof­fee,” he said.

  I looked down at the steam­ing mugs on one of the trays. Damn that would be nice. “Uh, no,” I said.

  “Well, just ... be care­ful,” he said. “I mean, don't let them make you do any­thing, you know--”

  Crazy? Dan­ger­ous? Stupid? Done, done, and done.

  “I won't.” I paused as one of the cof­fee mugs teetered.

  “Here. Let me help you,” Josh of­fered, reach­ing for the heav­ier of the trays.

  “Thanks, but I--”

  I glanced up at our ta­ble and in­stant­ly ev­ery­thing in­side of me dropped. Walt Whit­tak­er, big as a moun­tain on a clear day, sat at the end of the ta­ble. Flash­es hit me like ma­chine-​gun fire to the skull.

  My hands on his chest. Warm brown eyes. A hand­ker­chief. Thick arms. Rough lips. Tongue, tongue, tongue. And--ow. A twinge in my chest.

  Holy crap. Had I let that per­son feel me up?

  “Hey! Watch it!” Josh said.

  He grabbed the tray sec­onds be­fore it went over. One of the dough­nuts slid off the tray and plopped, ic­ing side down, on­to the floor.

  “I got­ta go,” I told him. Then I dropped the sec­ond tray on the near­est ta­ble and was out of there for my sec­ond dry heave of the day.

  34

  JUDG­MENT DAY

  I ar­rived for morn­ing ser­vices sec­onds be­fore the doors closed. All over the chapel, peo­ple were en­gaged in in­tense, hushed, con­ver­sa­tion, and I heard Thomas's name more than once. Dozens of eyes fol­lowed my progress up the aisle and the whis­per­ing in­ten­si­fied in my wake. Ap­par­ent­ly, Thomas's dis­ap­pear­ance had be­come the top­ic of the mo­ment, and since he wasn't here to gawk at, it seemed I had been nom­inat­ed for the job. The girl­friend. The one left be­hind. She who must be watched.

  Sud­den­ly I was glad that I'd had to heave and miss break­fast. If I'd stayed in the cafe­te­ria, I might have been mobbed. At least here, no one could ap­proach me. For the mo­ment, I could re­group.

  Duck­ing my head, I slid in­to a small space at the end of one of the sopho­more pews, next to my least fa­vorite per­son at Eas­ton, Mis­sy Thurber. Hav­ing spent the rest of the break­fast pe­ri­od sit­ting in the in­fir­mary sip­ping ap­ple juice, I was feel­ing just slight­ly more like my­self. Then Mis­sy start­ed sniff­ing elab­orate­ly through her

  35

  tun­nel-​like nos­trils, sam­pling the air. She leaned to­ward me, sniffed again, and groaned.

  “Ugh! Where did you sleep last night?” she asked, pinch­ing her nose. “In the land­sca­per's shed?”

  I flushed scar­let as she got up, stepped over my for­mer room­mate, Con­stance Tal­bot, and forced her to slide over next to me.

  “Hey,” Con­stance whis­pered un­cer­tain­ly. I hadn't seen much of her since I had de­sert­ed her for Billings two days ear­li­er. Her curly red hair was twist­ed in­to two long braids. She al­ready looked young for her age with her freck­les and roundish face. Now she looked twelve. “How's ev­ery­thing?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  Ex­cept my boyfriend is AWOL, I drunk­en­ly sucked face with a stranger, I have a hang­over the size of Yu­goslavia, and I'm about to starve to death.

  “Ev­ery­one's talk­ing about Thomas. Have you heard from him?” she asked. She looked both con­cerned for me and hope­ful that she might be grant­ed an in­side scoop.

  “No,” I said. “How are you?” I asked, most­ly to change the top­ic.

  “Well, I have a sin­gle,” she said with a sad smile. Con­stance was a so­cial be­ing, not the type of per­son who would thrive in a sin­gle, and we both knew it. I want­ed to say some­thing to make her feel bet­ter about my to­tal de­ser­tion, but I could think of noth­ing. It wasn't like I was com­ing back. No mat­ter how many chores the Billings Girls made me do, liv­ing in the most ex­clu­sive dorm on

  36

  cam­pus was still a huge im­prove­ment over liv­ing in Brad­well. All the girls who lived in Billings had per­fect lives--they were pop­ular, suc­cess­ful, straight-​A stu­dents who went on to great things. That was go­ing to be me now. If they didn't work me to death first.

  “Are you okay?” Con­stance asked, study­ing me close­ly.

  “Yeah. Fine. Just a lit­tle tired.”

  At the mi­cro­phone, Dean Mar­cus cleared his throat, sav­ing me from fur­ther ques­tion­ing.

  “Good morn­ing, stu­dents,” he said, grip­ping both sides of the podi­um with his crag­gly fin­gers. “This morn­ing I am go­ing to dis­pense with the pleas­antries, as we have a bit of se­ri­ous busi­ness at hand. No doubt you all know by now that one of our own, Thomas Pear­son, has gone miss­ing from cam­pus.”

  My emp­ty stom­ach turned and con­tract­ed. Mur­murs rose to the rafters of the chapel as this most juicy ru­mor was fi­nal­ly au­thor­ity-​fig­ure con­firmed.

  “Fig­ures they'd wait till af­ter all the par­ents are gone to ac­tu­al­ly bring this lit�
�tle tid­bit up,” some­one said be­hind me.

  “Si­lence, please!” Dean Mar­cus called out, rais­ing one hand.

  And si­lence in­stant­ly fell.

  “This is a not a mat­ter we are tak­ing light­ly,” he con­tin­ued. “As no one has come for­ward with any in­for­ma­tion as to Mr. Pear­son's where­abouts, I have asked the chief of Eas­ton Town­ship po­lice, Chief Sheri­dan, to speak to you. Please give the chief your un­di­vid­ed at­ten­tion.”

  He turned to a gray-​haired gen­tle­man in a stiff blue suit who was seat­ed be­hind him. “Chief Sheri­dan?”

  37

  Pews creaked all over the chapel as ev­ery­one strained for a good look at the chief. He tow­ered over Dean Mar­cus as he ap­proached the mi­cro­phone, his shoul­ders as square as his jaw. When he swal­lowed I could see his large Adam's ap­ple bob, even from rows back.

  “Thank you, Dean Mar­cus,” the chief said, his voice grave. He looked out at all of us with steely blue eyes and I could see the dis­plea­sure he was feel­ing as he ad­dressed us. I won­dered if he re­sent­ed the school for be­ing nes­tled with­in his ju­ris­dic­tion, if Thomas's dis­ap­pear­ance was a headache with which he'd rather not cope. Or if it was on some lev­el ex­cit­ing for him. My guess was that not much hap­pened around this sleepy, up­scale town. Maybe he was ea­ger to solve an ac­tu­al case.

  “I'm sor­ry to have to come here un­der such grave cir­cum­stances,” the chief be­gan. “Now, this is a big school. I'm sure that some of you know Thomas Pear­son, while some of you do not.”

  I felt a warm hand cov­er mine. I looked down to find Con­stance's fin­gers grip­ping my own in a com­fort­ing way. My first in­stinct was to slide my hand away, but I didn't. She was try­ing to be a good friend. I need­ed all the friend­li­ness I could get these days.

  “But this week we will be in­ter­view­ing all of you,” the chief said.

  An­oth­er wave of whis­pers met this an­nounce­ment. The vibe in the room was al­most ex­cit­ed. What was wrong with these peo­ple? Didn't they re­al­ize the im­pli­ca­tions of this? The po­lice thought some­thing bad had hap­pened to Thomas. They thought one of us might have some­thing to do with it. How did that trans­late in­to ex­cite­ment?