Invitation Only by Kate Brian

  “God, I could just go to sleep right now,” Josh said, stretch­ing his arms above his head. “I think I ate too many pan­cakes this morn­ing. They put me right out.”

  'Wow. You're gonna be re­al­ly use­ful on the soc­cer field to­day," I teased.

  Josh, like me, played de­fense--on the men's team, of course.

  “I don't know how you can eat those things,” Ki­ran said,

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  cross­ing her arms over her stom­ach as we round­ed a bend un­der a tun­nel of col­or­ful leaves. “That's enough calo­ries for a whole week right there.”

  “Like you've ev­er eat­en enough calo­ries for a whole week. Even in a whole week,” Noelle joked.

  “Hey! I eat! I do! You've seen me eat,” Ki­ran replied, sud­den­ly man­ic. “You've seen me eat, right, Reed?”

  “Uh . . . yeah,” I said. Be­cause I had. Un­til I'd found that psy­cho box I nev­er would have known Ki­ran had is­sues. “Of course you eat. And you look per­fect, by the way.”

  A lit­tle af­fir­ma­tion couldn't hurt, right?

  “See?” Ki­ran said tri­umphant­ly. “Reed's seen me eat.”

  “Okay! Okay! Calm down al­ready be­fore you give your­self the shakes,” Noelle said.

  “I vote for a change of top­ic!” Tay­lor put in, cast­ing Ki­ran a wor­ried look. So maybe she did know what went on in her room­mate's clos­et.

  “Fine. Reed, how's it go­ing with Whit­tak­er?” Noelle asked.

  I glanced war­ily at Josh, who in­stant­ly be­came very in­ter­est­ed in the near­est tree.

  “How's what go­ing?”

  “Has he asked you to go steady yet?” Ki­ran said sar­cas­ti­cal­ly, caus­ing Tay­lor to snort a laugh.

  'Yeah. Did he pin you?" Tay­lor asked.

  “He does sort of seem like he's out of an­oth­er era, doesn't he?” I said. “Like we should all be wear­ing poo­dle skirts and su­per­high pony­tails.”

  “I think it's sweet,” Noelle said. “At least he's a gen­tle­man.”

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  Ki­ran, Tay­lor, Josh, and I all paused. Noelle stopped a few feet ahead and turned with an ex­as­per­at­ed sigh. “Prob­lem?”

  “Uh, yeah. You just com­pli­ment­ed some­one with no trace of sar­casm or mal­ice,” Ki­ran said.

  “Not just some­one. Walt Whit­tak­er,” Tay­lor point­ed out.

  “Are you self-​med­icat­ing again?” Ki­ran asked.

  “Ki­ran, you're a mod­el. Don't try to be fun­ny,” Noelle said, earn­ing a laugh from Josh. “And, news alert, I set Reed up with the guy. That means it's my re­spon­si­bil­ity not to mock him un­til af­ter they've gone hor­izon­tal.”

  Ugh. We all had to groan at that one.

  “We are not go­ing to be . . . you know . . . do­ing that,” I told them in no un­cer­tain terms. “We're just friends.”

  “You're sure about that,” Noelle said, tak­ing a step to­ward me.

  I lift­ed my chin. She could make me vac­uum her room and clean out her hair brush and shine her shoes, but she could not tell me who to date. I had to draw the line some­where. Josh was watch­ing me close­ly.

  “Yes. I'm sure,” I said.

  “Well, you might want to tell him that,” she said, turn­ing me around and point­ing. Whit was com­ing to­ward us down the path, an ea­ger smile on his face as he bore down on me. “Be­cause that is not the face of a per­son who wants to talk to a friend.”

  “Good morn­ing, all,” Whit said, with a slight bow of his head. “How is ev­ery­one this fine day?”

  “We're all just fab­ulous, Whit. Thanks for ask­ing,” Noelle said, sling­ing her arm over Ki­ran's shoul­der. Ki­ran turned and laughed

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  in­to Noelle's jack­et. “We'll leave you two alone, won't we?”

  “Sure. 'Bye, Whit!” Tay­lor said. Then the three of them traipsed off, arm in arm, to­ward the bus­es, leav­ing me seething in Whit's shad­ow.

  “See you guys lat­er,” Josh added be­fore lop­ing away.

  '“Bye!” I said loud­ly. Like some­how that would make him come back and save me.

  “Hel­lo, Reed,” Whit said huski­ly. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” I said. I turned and walked to­ward the end of the path. He, of course, fell in­to step with me. “How are you?”

  “I'm well,” he said, nod­ding. “Thank you for ask­ing.”

  We had come to the edge of the park­ing lot. The var­ious teams were gath­ered to­geth­er in clumps as the bus drivers and coach­es tried to sort out which bus was go­ing where. A cou­ple of the guys' teams were off to oth­er schools and ap­par­ent­ly there had been some crossed wires. I paused and let out a sigh. Looked like my hopes of get­ting on the bus and jet­ting off were dashed.

  “Which sport do you play?” he asked.

  “Soc­cer,” I told him.

  “A rough sport,” he said. “You seem too del­icate for such a rough sport.”

  “Well, then you don't know me,” I replied, sound­ing a bit harsh­er than I in­tend­ed.

  Whit, how­ev­er, didn't seem to no­tice. He just smiled at me for a long mo­ment as if I'd said some­thing amus­ing. Long enough to make me squirm. And then, grad­ual­ly, his face fell.

  “What?” I said.

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  'You're not wear­ing the ear­rings," he said.

  He reached out and touched my bare ear­lobe, press­ing it gen­tly be­tween his thumb and fore­fin­ger. I tilt­ed my head and shrugged away.

  This was un­be­liev­able. Couldn't he take a hint? Maybe I should just tell him I had a boyfriend. Ex­cept that I didn't, thanks to Thomas's se­cret breakup note. Not that any­one oth­er than me knew that.

  God, I wished Thomas were there right then. So I could throt­tle him.

  “No . . . they're a lit­tle much for a soc­cer game, don't you think?” I asked.

  “But you haven't worn them since I gave them to you,” he said. “Do you not like them?”

  “No. It's not that,” I said. “It's just...”

  Out of the cor­ner of my eye I saw Con­stance stand­ing with the rest of the cross-​coun­try team. She was watch­ing me--watch­ing us--very close­ly. Sur­rep­ti­tious­ly, I turned my hand, palm out at my side, and crooked my fin­gers, wav­ing her over.

  “It's just, they seem more like spe­cial-​oc­ca­sion ear­rings,” I told him. “They're too nice to wear ev­ery day.”

  Con­stance shook her head very slight­ly and shift­ed her feet. I crooked my fin­gers more in­sis­tent­ly.

  “But the man at the store said they were ev­ery­day ear­rings,” Whit­tak­er told me. “That was why I pur­chased them. So that you could wear them ev­ery day.”

  Some­one be­hind me gig­gled. Damn eaves­drop­pers. I so didn't

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  like where this con­ver­sa­tion was go­ing, and the last thing I need­ed was for any­one else to over­hear it. I did the on­ly thing I could think to do: I sac­ri­ficed a friend.

  “Con­stance!” I said loud­ly, turn­ing my head and widen­ing my eyes. “Hey! I've been look­ing all over for you!”

  No one had per­fect­ed the deer-​in-​head­lights thing like Con­stance. She stood there, frozen, with her eyes as wide as din­ner plates. Then her head twitched and she looked at Whit­tak­er and her face en­tire­ly trans­formed. Charm­ing smile, flir­ta­tious­ly tilt­ed head, rosy cheeks.

  “Hi, Reed,” she said. “Hel­lo, Walt.”

  For a mo­ment, Whit­tak­er seemed of­fend­ed by both the in­ter­rup­tion and the use of his first name. But then his ex­pres­sion cleared and he smiled.

  “Con­stance! Con­stance Tal­bot! My par­ents told me you were ma­tric­ulat­ing here this semester! It's so good to see you!”

  Con­stance made her way over to us. Whit­tak­er leaned in and gave Con­stance a cheek kiss, and I was al­most cer­tain she was go­ing to pee i
n her pants. The glee on her face could have warmed the en­tire stu­dent body.

  “Oh! You two know each oth­er? ” I said, try­ing my best to be the good ac­tress. “How great is that? Two of my fa­vorite peo­ple and they al­ready know each oth­er.”

  Whit looked at me quizzi­cal­ly.

  “We were room­mates at the be­gin­ning of the year,” I ex­plained. “Con­stance is the best,” I said, wrap­ping my arm around her. She grinned at me, pleased. "Did you know she's

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  writ­ing for the Gazette? You should tell him all about that front­page ar­ti­cle you're work­ing on."

  Con­stance flushed. “No. Please. It's no big deal.” She looked up at him with sheer wor­ship in her eyes. “I'd rather hear about your trip. Was it as amaz­ing as it sound­ed?”

  Yes. Go, Con­stance. She'd hit on his fa­vorite top­ic in one shot. This girl was good. Bet­ter than she gave her­self cred­it for.

  “Even more so, ac­tu­al­ly,” he said. “Chi­na was ab­so­lute­ly awe- in­spir­ing. When you're stand­ing there, un­der the Great Wall, you re­al­ly un­der­stand for the first time the ca­pac­ity man has for--”

  “I'm gonna let you two catch up,” I said, in­ter­rupt­ing be­fore I got stuck. Be­hind Con­stance, I saw Noelle and some oth­er girls from the soc­cer team fi­nal­ly board­ing a bus. “Looks like they've got us sort­ed out.”

  Whit­tak­er's brow knit­ted as he looked at me. “But I--”

  “See ya!” I said, then turned and jogged off.

  I climbed on­to the bus, sat down in the first seat, and hun­kered down to peek through the bot­tom of the win­dow. Whit­tak­er was still talk­ing, ges­tur­ing huge­ly as he spoke, and Con­stance was rapt with at­ten­tion. Stand­ing out there in the sun, her in her Eas­ton sweats and him in his trench, they looked like the per­fect fresh-​faced, over­priv­ileged, prep school cou­ple.

  All I could hope was that very soon Whit­tak­er would start see­ing that too.

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  TRUNK SHOW

  Noelle Lange had sick amounts of stuff. Hun­dred of CDs stuffed in­to leather crates in her clos­et. A half-​dozen silk box­es filled with tan­gled neck­laces, bracelets, and ear­rings, most of which looked far too ex­pen­sive to be treat­ed with such care­less­ness. Draw­ers full of pho­tographs and post­cards and in­vi­ta­tions to char­ity events and fash­ion shows. Tick­et stubs from Lon­don the­aters, shot glass­es from ex­ot­ic lo­cales, three iPods of var­ious sizes and col­ors, crys­tal-​stud­ded make­up cas­es, leather wristlets, gold and leather key chains, scent­ed can­dles, dig­ital cam­eras, lace thongs, man­icure kits, cell phone cas­es. It nev­er end­ed. How I would ev­er sort out some­thing that mat­tered from all this swag that clear­ly didn't, I had no idea.

  I stood up af­ter clos­ing her bot­tom desk draw­er and blew my hair out of my face. I was al­most afraid to try un­der the bed. What did she keep un­der there? Her il­le­gal furs and bars of gold and sil­ver?

  At least I had time on my side. Noelle and Ar­iana were sup­posed to be at the li­brary all night study­ing for some mas­sive

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  En­glish ex­am. Or, more like­ly, gos­sip­ing all night and trust­ing that their gold­en streak of luck and blessed­ness would, as al­ways, get them through.

  That gold­en streak was the rea­son I was here. All I want­ed in life was to have their kind of luck. Too bad I was go­ing to have to take them down to get it. But I couldn't think about that now. I had work to do.

  Down on my hands and knees, I was about to lift Noelle's duponi com­forter when I saw some­thing out of the cor­ner of my eye. On the floor, stick­ing out from be­hind her dress­er, was a sliv­er of some­thing red. Cu­ri­ous, I crawled over and in­spect­ed. It looked like the end of a patent leather bag. Sud­den­ly my pulse went in­to over­drive. This looked like it could be some­thing.

  Brac­ing one hand on the front of the dress­er, I reached around and yanked the bag free. It was long and slim, a plain red clutch. I leaned back against the foot of her bed and slow­ly un­zipped it. In­side were about ten four-​by-​six pho­tographs.

  I pulled the first one out and al­most gagged. It was Dash, and he was naked. Com­plete­ly stark naked. And very... well... ex­cit­ed.

  Bark­ing a laugh, I slapped the pho­to face­down in­to my lap.

  Oh. My. God. Was this for re­al? Slow­ly, I lift­ed the cor­ner of the pho­to again and peeked. Yep. Still there. He was ly­ing on his side on a dou­ble bed, his head propped up on his hand, his hair­less chest cut as could be, and his pe­nis com­plete­ly erect.

  Damn, was he ev­er en­dowed. This guy could to­tal­ly be in porn.

  Quick­ly, I pulled out the rest of the pic­tures. Dash, naked,

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  sit­ting on the edge of the bed. Dash, naked, stand­ing with a smirk on his face. Dash, naked. Dash, naked. Dash, naked. And the piece de re­sis­tance: Dash, naked, hug­ging a ted­dy bear. Talk about black­mail. If I ev­er felt like tak­ing Dash Mc­Caf­fer­ty down, I had just found the moth­er­lode.

  Shak­ing my head, I stuffed the pho­tos back in their case and shoved them be­hind the dress­er again, this time mak­ing sure no part of it was vis­ible. No one else need­ed to find that. It was my good deed for the day.

  I blew out a sigh and de­cid­ed to try Ar­iana's side of the room. This time I went for the clos­et first and straight for the top shelf, since that was where I had un­cov­ered Ki­ran's big se­cret. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Ar­iana's shelves con­tained noth­ing scan­dalous, aside from a pink cro­cheted sweater that I had nev­er seen her wear and hope­ful­ly nev­er would. Def­inite­ly one of those gifts giv­en by a grand­ma that one just couldn't man­age to throw away. I jumped down off the desk chair and dropped to the floor.

  Tucked back to­ward the rear wall was an old-​fash­ioned trunk. Huh. That def­inite­ly looked like some­thing that might hold some­thing scan­dalous. I pulled it to­ward me and opened the lid. In­side were piles and piles of note­books, copies of the Eas­ton lit­er­ary mag­azine, var­ious edi­tions of Po­et­ry mag­azine and Writ­er's Week­ly, and box­es of pens and pen­cils. I lift­ed out a stack of mag­azines and dug through the mem­ora­bil­ia, look­ing for any­thing that seemed as if it didn't be­long. There were ran­dom pages and scraps cov­ered

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  in Ar­iana's hand­writ­ing, drafts of po­ems and lines of ideas. If I'd had more time and a free pass from Ar­iana, I might have stopped to read some of it, but that wasn't what I was here for. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it looked as if I'd hit an­oth­er dead end.

  I was about to re­place the mag­azines when I saw a tiny piece of brown rib­bon that seemed to be lodged be­tween the bot­tom of the trunk and the side. How had that got­ten wedged in there? I reached in and tugged at it and my breath caught in my throat. Had the bot­tom of the trunk just moved?

  I glanced at the out­side of the trunk. Sure enough, the “floor” of the in­side was about four inch­es high­er than the bot­tom on the out­side.

  The trunk had a false bot­tom.

  Heart pound­ing a mile a minute now, I dove in and took ev­ery­thing out. I knew this was dan­ger­ous. There was a ton of crap here and it would take me a while to re­place it all. But I had to see what was in the bot­tom of this trunk. If Ar­iana was hid­ing some­thing, she had done a much bet­ter job of hid­ing it than her friends had.

  Once the trunk was clear, I grabbed the rib­bon and pulled. The en­tire floor of the trunk pulled free. Sit­ting un­der­neath it was a sleek black lap­top com­put­er.

  I turned and looked over my shoul­der. Ar­iana had a Mac all set up on her desk. What did a high school stu­dent need with a sec­ond, se­cret com­put­er?

  I took the com­put­er out and rest­ed it in my lap. I popped the

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  top and hit the pow­er but­ton, just pray­ing no one would walk
in. It took the com­put­er a few ag­oniz­ing sec­onds to pow­er up. What was on this thing? Was it the proof Natasha was look­ing for? Had Ar­iana and the oth­ers ac­tu­al­ly plot­ted to get Leanne thrown out of school? It was clear that Ar­iana, at least, had some­thing worth hid­ing. These were pret­ty elab­orate mea­sures for sim­ply stash­ing a lap­top to keep it from get­ting stolen. Es­pe­cial­ly when ev­ery­one at this school could buy one of these things four thou­sand times over.

  “Come on,” I whis­pered. “Come on, come on. . . .”

  Fi­nal­ly, a black screen ap­peared with a prompt win­dow in the cen­ter.

  “Wel­come, Ar­iana,” it read. “Pass­word?”

  And there was that white box un­der­neath with a flash­ing cur­sor, mock­ing me. There would be no get­ting past this with­out a pass­word.

  Shit.

  Down­stairs, the front door of Billings opened and slammed. I was on my feet in an in­stant, care­ful­ly re­plac­ing the com­put­er and the false bot­tom and all the con­tents of the trunk. I shoved it back in­to the clos­et, slipped out the door, and ran to the stair­well, jog­ging down to my own floor. It wasn't un­til I was back in my room that I al­lowed my­self to breathe. I leaned back against my door and heaved, my hand over my stom­ach.

  I was on­to some­thing. I knew I was. I had to get the pass­word

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  to that com­put­er, but how? I couldn't fig­ure out what Ar­iana meant half the time when she was speak­ing di­rect­ly to me, so how was I sup­posed to de­duce her se­cret pass­word?

  Didn't mat­ter how. I had to do it. Be­cause if there was any­thing to be found, it was on that com­put­er. I was sure of it.

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  PER­FECT COU­PLE

  “Reed! Reed! Wait up!”

  I paused on the steps to the li­brary as Con­stance jogged to catch up with me. Her face was flushed and her eyes were bright with ex­cite­ment. She placed her hand over her heart as she stopped in front of me to catch her breath. Just look­ing at her made me think of mead­ows in spring­time and flow­ers bloom­ing.