Invitation Only by Kate Brian

  Invitation Only ((Private))

  by Kate Brian

  In­vi­ta­tion On­ly ((Pri­vate))

  In­vi­ta­tion On­ly ((Pri­vate))

  In­vi­ta­tion On­ly (Pri­vate #2)

  Kate Bri­an

  K.B. would like to thank the fol­low­ing mem­bers of the cir­cle for their sup­port. ..

  At A.E.: L.W., J.B., L.M., B.S., M.F., R.D.

  At S.P.(et al): E.M., A.B., S.W., J.Z., C.B.

  And, as al­ways: M.V.

  WHIT­TAK­ER

  It was a cold night. Cold and ex­treme­ly dark, with no stars and no moon and a wind that ripped a del­uge of leaves from the trees when­ev­er it blew--leaves that were still wet from a morn­ing driz­zle. They felt slimy and foul when they hap­pened to fall on ex­posed skin, so as an­oth­er gust whipped through the hills, we all ducked and cov­ered. I felt my­self be­gin to shiv­er.

  “Augh! There's one on my neck!” Tay­lor Bell cried, dou­bling over with her shoul­ders to her ears. She clutched the bot­tle of vod­ka she'd been swig­ging from all night in one hand and slapped in­ef­fec­tive­ly at her back with the oth­er. The large yel­low maple leaf had sucked it­self al­most all the way around her neck, mat­ting down the blond curls that had es­caped from the back of her pony­tail. “Get it off!”

  Nor­mal­ly, Tay­lor was not the biggest drinker, but tonight she had been pound­ing straight al­co­hol like it was the nec­tar of the gods, per­haps be­cause she, like many oth­ers, felt the need to ex­punge par­ents week­end--which had end­ed just hours ago with a

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  cer­emo­ny in the Eas­ton Acade­my chapel--from her mem­ory. Tay­lor's par­ents had seemed like nice peo­ple, though, and she had ap­peared to be at least com­fort­able in their pres­ence. I won­dered if some­thing else could be both­er­ing her.

  “Get it off!” she whim­pered again. “Guys!”

  “Don't look at me,” Ki­ran Hayes said, tak­ing a la­dy­like swig from her sil­ver flask. She pulled her long cash­mere coat around her knees and held it there. “I just had a paraf­fin wrap.”

  Ki­ran, the first ac­tu­al mod­el I had ev­er known and one of the more gor­geous girls I had ev­er seen in re­al life, had al­ways just had some­thing done. High­lights, low­lights, der­mabra­sion, sea­weed thigh wrap, eye­brow thread­ing. Most of it sound­ed like tor­ture, but ap­par­ent­ly it all worked.

  Noelle Lange rolled her eyes and plucked the large wet leaf from Tay­lor's skin. “Pri­ma don­nas,” she said de­ri­sive­ly. She whipped the leaf at the ground, and it land­ed right in front of the long, flat rock on which Ar­iana Os­good sat. Ar­iana looked down at the leaf for a mo­ment, study­ing it as if it held the mean­ing of life. A lighter breeze lift­ed her long, al­most white-​blond hair from her shoul­ders and she looked up in­to it, then closed her eyes in plea­sure.

  I pulled my third beer from the cool­er across the clear­ing and watched this tableau un­fold like I was an an­thro­pol­ogist study­ing some pre­vi­ous­ly un­clas­si­fied sub­set of hu­man. I had been fas­ci­nat­ed with the Billings Girls from the mo­ment I had first seen them a month ago through the win­dow of my sopho­more dorm at

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  Eas­ton Acade­my--fas­ci­nat­ed from afar, that is, with seem­ing­ly no hope of ev­er gain­ing up-​close ac­cess. But that hadn't been the case for long. The Billings Girls were now my friends. My dorm mates. The peo­ple with whom I par­tied il­le­gal­ly in the woods on the out­skirts of cam­pus on a reg­ular ba­sis.

  If you could call “twice” a reg­ular ba­sis.

  I was one of them now. I had as­cend­ed to great­ness at Eas­ton. Though if some­one asked me to sit down and tell them how I had done it, I would be ren­dered speech­less. Last I checked, I had pissed them all off by con­tin­uing to talk to my boyfriend, Thomas Pear­son, of whom none of them ap­proved. I thought I had lost them for­ev­er by go­ing be­hind their backs and of­fer­ing to stick with him and help him through his is­sues. In­stead, I had ap­par­ent­ly im­pressed them.

  Some­how. And thank God I had, be­cause with their help I might ac­tu­al­ly have a shot of leav­ing my past be­hind. Of not be­ing one of the many Cro­ton, PA, proge­ny who re­turn to the home­town af­ter two years of com­mu­ni­ty col­lege to take as­sis­tant man­age­ment po­si­tions at Cost­co. With the Billings Girls be­hind me, I ac­tu­al­ly had a shot at a life. A fu­ture. A shot at be­ing part of a world I had on­ly ev­er dreamed of--a world of suc­cess. Of priv­ilege. Of free­dom.

  “Are you all right over there, Reed?” Noelle asked, lift­ing her long, dark hair over her shoul­der. “If you don't want an­oth­er beer I'm sure Ki­ran would be hap­py to mix up a Hayes Spe­cial for you.”

  Her eyes danced with mis­chief and I knew she had no­ticed my

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  state of con­tem­pla­tion. I didn't want to ap­pear un­grate­ful for hav­ing been in­vit­ed here, for ev­ery­thing they had done for me. For the fact that I was get­ting a beer for my­self, rather than run­ning er­rands for them, as I had been do­ing pret­ty much non­stop since the first week of school. So I waved her off.

  “That's okay. I'm good with this,” I said, lift­ing the bot­tle. I used the rust­ed bot­tle open­er to pop the cap off and took a long drink, know­ing she was still watch­ing me. Ear­li­er tonight I had my first beer ev­er. Now I was on my third one, which was go­ing down more smooth­ly. The key, it seemed, was to take long drinks and not let it stay in my mouth long enough to touch my tongue. Yeah. Re­fresh­ing. I took a deep breath and let it out in­to an­oth­er cold breeze, pulling my sweater clos­er to my goose- bumped skin. I was about to re­join the girls, when a sud­den con­ver­sa­tion shift near the fire stopped me.

  “I'll tell you one thing,” Dash Mc­Caf­fer­ry said. “This is go­ing to go down as one of the great dis­ap­pear­ing acts of all time.”

  “Maybe he's at his grand­moth­er's in Boston,” Josh Hol­lis sug­gest­ed.

  Dash shrugged. “Eh, I'm sure they al­ready raid­ed the old bat's place.”

  Thomas. They were talk­ing about Thomas. I couldn't be­lieve that the last time I was here, he was here as well. It had been ap­prox­imate­ly forty-​eight hours since any­one had seen Thomas Pear­son. He had dis­ap­peared from Eas­ton with­out leav­ing so much as a note be­hind. And, ac­cord­ing to his room­mate Josh

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  Hol­lis--who stood near the fire with the oth­er guys just then, star­ing in­to the flames--Thomas had gone with­out pack­ing one stitch of cloth­ing, not even his fa­vorite black T-​shirt. On Fri­day morn­ing Thomas had told me he loved me, had made me promise I would be there for him no mat­ter what, and had then pro­ceed­ed to van­ish.

  I won­dered how much Josh knew--about me, about what Thomas and I had done to­geth­er. Had Thomas told Josh what we had done in their dorm room? I wasn't sure. I hadn't known him long enough to find out. But now, ev­ery time I saw Josh, I won­dered if he knew what I'd done and the thought made me squirm. I didn't need half the school know­ing I had lost my vir­gin­ity to a guy who maybe meant well but was clear­ly too trou­bled to be in a healthy re­la­tion­ship. Lost my vir­gin­ity to a guy who I now knew (even be­fore he van­ished) I prob­ably should not be with, but who I still felt ir­re­sistably at­tached to any­way. Lost my vir­gin­ity to Thomas Pear­son, the most pop­ular guy at Eas­ton and al­so, as I'd re­cent­ly dis­cov­ered, the cam­pus's fore­most drug sup­pli­er. I still couldn't be­lieve it.

  Josh took a swig of his pre­vi­ous­ly un­touched beer. He had such a ba­by face that he looked out of place hold­ing the green glass bot­tle. His blond curls danced in the breeze and he wore a l
ong, striped scarf over a wrinkly, rust-​col­ored T-​shirt and brown cor­duroy jack­et. He had that art­sy, earnest, cre­ative thing go­ing. I liked that about him. I al­so liked the fact that he had a loud voice--loud enough for me to eaves­drop with­out let­ting on.

  “What about their place in Vail?” he of­fered.

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  “Dude, Pear­son is not hol­ing-​up any­where ob­vi­ous. Be­lieve me,” Dash said with an elab­orate snarfle of phlegm. For an ex­traor­di­nar­ily good-​look­ing guy--chis­eled, blond, Aber­crom­bie-​es­que--he had some se­ri­ous hy­giene flaws. He spat in­to the fire and took a swig of his beer.

  “Very at­trac­tive, Dash,” Noelle called across the clear­ing.

  “Thanks, babe,” he replied, and then got back to the top­ic at hand. “I just can't be­lieve they called the lo­cal po­lice in. It's such a waste. If Pear­son is crash­ing any­where, he's crash­ing in New York.”

  “You think?” The hope in Josh's voice gave life to my own.

  “Are you kid­ding?” Gage Goolidge said. Gage was of the skin­ny, tall, met­ro­sex­ual va­ri­ety, with dark hair that stood straight up from his head--he looked like a mem­ber of some British pret­ty-​boy band. “Thomas Pear­son is pulling the biggest punk of all time right now. He's got the en­tire east­ern seaboard look­ing for him and he's off some­where par­ty­ing him­self sick.”

  'Yeah, maybe," Josh said, chew­ing on his in­ner cheek and star­ing at the fire.

  “No maybe,” Dash told him. “Trust me. Hal­loween is in less than a month. And you know what that means.”

  “The Lega­cy,” Josh said.

  “Ex­act­ly.” Dash re­moved one fin­ger from his beer bot­tle and point­ed it at Josh. “Pear­son is not go­ing to miss that. If his ass isn't there, I'll give up the Lo­tus.”

  “That's se­ri­ous, man,” Gage said.

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  “No shit.”

  “It's true,” Josh said, nod­ding. “Pear­son is the Lega­cy.”

  “Dude. If he's there, we should drag his sor­ry ass back up here and col­lect our medals,” Gage said.

  “Aw, yeah,” Dash replied, smack­ing hands with Gage over Josh's head.

  The Lega­cy? What the heck was the Lega­cy? I pushed my­self away from the tree where I had been loung­ing, fig­ur­ing Noelle and the oth­ers could clue me in, but be­fore I could take a step, Natasha Cren­shaw in­ter­cept­ed me.

  “Reed! Where are you go­ing?” she asked, sling­ing her arm around my neck.

  I froze, won­der­ing what the joke was. Natasha Cren­shaw was my new room­mate at Billings House. And the on­ly rea­son she was my new room­mate was be­cause her best friend, Leanne Shore, had got­ten kicked out for cheat­ing in the biggest pub­lic scan­dal Eas­ton had seen all year. Ev­er since I'd start­ed to un­pack my stuff yes­ter­day morn­ing, Natasha had been seething with re­sent­ment. It dripped from her very pores.

  Thus my cur­rent state of con­fu­sion.

  “You okay?” I asked her.

  “I'm fine!” she said, her pearly whites near­ly blind­ing me. Natasha was dark-​skinned, dark-​haired, and Tyra Banks bo­da­cious. I could feel all the soft curves of her body as she pressed it clos­er to mine and it made me blush. As a wom­an of se­ri­ous­ly boy­like pro­por­tions, I had no idea how she walked around with all

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  that stuff. “Lis­ten. I just want­ed to apol­ogize if I've been less than wel­com­ing the last cou­ple of days,” she said, pulling me back away from the guys. “I'm still a lit­tle up­set about Leanne and I think I've been tak­ing it out on you. And that's not cool. Do you for­give me?”

  The oth­er thing about Natasha was that she was al­ways com­ing out with these frank, no-​non­sense state­ments. Un­like ev­ery oth­er girl I had ev­er known, she seemed to have noth­ing to hide. It was a for­eign con­cept.

  “Uh... sure,” I said un­cer­tain­ly.

  “Good! Be­cause I re­al­ly want us to be friends,” Natasha said, grasp­ing my hand. “Good friends.”

  Her ex­pres­sion was so earnest it made me smile, half in amuse­ment, half in gen­uine plea­sure.

  “Okay. I'd like that too,” I said.

  “Good!” Natasha cried. She pro­duced a minis­cule dig­ital cam­era from the pock­et of her black leather jack­et and held it up with one hand, while hug­ging me to her with her oth­er. “Smile!”

  I did as told and the flash went off. I blinked at the float­ing pur­ple spots.

  “An in­stant clas­sic,” Natasha de­clared, check­ing the tiny screen.

  “Cool.” I glanced past her at Josh and the oth­ers, who were now con­fer­enc­ing in low­er voic­es. I won­dered if they were still talk­ing about Thomas, and if they would tell me any­thing if they were. “I'll... be right back.”

  I was halfway across to the fire when sud­den­ly all the guys looked up as one and shout­ed, right at me, “Whit­tak­er!”

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  I near­ly tripped. “What?”

  “Gen­tle­men! Ladies! Ah, it warms my heart to see ev­ery­one gath­ered here, just like old times.”

  Huh?

  Walk­ing up be­hind me was the largest spec­imen of a guy I had ev­er seen out­side a col­lege foot­ball game. He had to be at least six foot four and was well over 250 pounds, but he car­ried all that weight with dig­ni­ty, his shoul­ders back, his stride con­fi­dent. He had rud­dy cheeks, round glass­es, and a much old­er man's hair­cut, the kind that stood up in the front about an inch and was mat­ted down with gel in the back. He strode across the clear­ing, nod­ding to the Billings Girls like some aris­to­crat be­fore reach­ing out a hand to smack palms with Dash, Gage, Josh, and the oth­ers.

  “How are we all this fine evening?” he asked in his boom­ing voice. He placed his hands over the fire, rubbed them to­geth­er, and then held them out again.

  Who was this guy? And why did he talk like he'd just stepped out of a Jane Austen nov­el?

  “How was East Asia? Is Chi­nese food re­al­ly bet­ter in Chi­na?” Gage joked, swig­ging his beer.

  I missed Whit­tak­er's re­sponse due to an­oth­er gust of wind, but all the guys laughed at what­ev­er he had to say, gath­er­ing around and look­ing up at him with amused smiles and ex­cit­ed eyes. It was as if San­ta Claus had just walked in­to a room full of kinder­garten­ers. I found my­self grav­itat­ing slow­ly to­ward Noelle and the oth­ers.

  “Reed, I was start­ing to think you'd for­got­ten about us,” Noelle

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  said flat­ly, tak­ing a sip of her beer. She was the on­ly Billings Girl who drank beer, which had been my mo­ti­va­tion in choos­ing it. The rest opt­ed for mixed drinks made from what­ev­er bot­tles Ki­ran and the boys man­aged to pro­cure. “What're you, in love all over again?”

  “Huh?”

  “You can't stop star­ing at Whit­tak­er,” Ki­ran put in, her brown eyes gleam­ing. “In­ter­est­ing choice.”

  “Please. I'm not star­ing,” I said. “I'm just. .. Who is he?”

  “Whit­tak­er?” Noelle said. “He's . . . Whit­tak­er. He is a class un­to him­self.” She looked around at the oth­er Billings Girls and slow­ly smiled. “In fact... you should meet him.”

  She got up, grabbed my wrist, and start­ed pulling me across the clear­ing, all in one mo­tion--all be­fore I could get out a word of protest.

  “Whit! Hey, Whit!” Noelle shout­ed, ges­tur­ing with her bot­tle. “This is the girl I was telling you about.”

  She used her tremen­dous arm strength to prac­ti­cal­ly whip me at Whit­tak­er. The sud­den ve­loc­ity took me by sur­prise and I stum­bled, brac­ing my hands against his large chest to stop my fall. All the guys, of course, cracked up laugh­ing. Whit­tak­er put his hands gen­tly on my el­bows and stead­ied me.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  He had very warm brown eyes.

 
“Fine,” I said, em­bar­rassed.

  Wait a sec­ond. Had Noelle said I was the girl she had told him about? What the hell had she been say­ing?

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  “I'm Walt Whit­tak­er,” he said, of­fer­ing his hand. “But my friends call me Whit­tak­er or Whit. Your pref­er­ence.”

  “Reed Bren­nan,” I said, shak­ing his hand. It was un­be­liev­ably soft and warm.

  “So, Reed. You're new to Eas­ton, I un­der­stand. Wel­come,” he said.

  The tim­bre of his voice made my skin tin­gle in a pleas­ing, hum­ming way. It was com­fort­ing. Fa­mil­iar, some­how.

  “You're not?” I asked.

  Again, ev­ery­one laughed. Even Whit. “No. No. My fam­ily has been a fix­ture here for gen­er­ations,” he said. “I've just been on hol­iday with my par­ents. We did a tour of East Asia. Chi­na, Sin­ga­pore, Hong Kong, the Philip­pines. . . . Do you trav­el, Reed?”

  Not un­less you count all those trips to Her­shey Park back when I still wore pink sneak­ers.

  “Not re­al­ly,” I said.

  He looked at me for a long mo­ment, as if what I had just said did not com­pute. I start­ed to grow warm un­der his scruti­ny,

  “That's a shame,” he said fi­nal­ly. “You can't tru­ly know your­self un­til you've seen the world, you know?”

  I was strug­gling to for­mu­late an an­swer that wouldn't make me sound naive and un­world­ly when Gage slapped his hand down on Whit­tak­er's shoul­der from be­hind.

  “Dude! Get over here! We were just talk­ing about the Lega­cy. You got­ta tell us what you know.”

  Whit­tak­er smirked. “Ah, the Lega­cy. So it be­gins,” he said.

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  What was this Lega­cy thing? I want­ed to ask, but it seemed like one of those things that all of them al­ready knew about, so if I asked about it, I would just be mak­ing it abun­dant­ly clear that I knew noth­ing--there­by re­mind­ing them of what an out­sider I was. I de­cid­ed to keep my mouth shut and hope I'd be able to over­hear all about it in time.

  “Per­haps we can catch up lat­er?” he said to me.

  “Uh . . . sure,” I replied.