“Wow,” she said finally.
“Just wait till it’s finished,” he said a little dreamily. They packed up their things slowly. Easy held the branches back for Jenny as they made their way through the woods. Once they emerged, they walked side by side down the path back toward the quad, their legs brushing against each other comfortably as Easy held up the large canvas by its wooden stretcher boards.
That’s when they saw Tinsley crossing the quad in front of them, dressed all in black and carrying a tiny red suede Marni handbag. Jenny immediately took a step away from Easy and felt like she was caught, even though Tinsley didn’t appear to notice them coming from the boathouse path.
“It’s okay,” Easy whispered. “She’s not going to bite. She didn’t even see us.”
But Jenny wasn’t so sure about either of those things.
Instant Message Inbox
From:
[email protected]
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
Instant Message Inbox
From:
[email protected]
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
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 beginning 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.