Invitation Only by Kate Brian

  Josh pushed back a bit and crossed his arms over his chest. “Wow. Called a naive hyp­ocrite be­fore I even get to morn­ing ser­vices. That's a first.”

  'Well, it's true,“ Whit­tak­er said. 'You sit there talk­ing about how peo­ple in the wrong should be called on their ac­tions, but did you ev­er do any­thing about the fact that your room­mate was a drug deal­er?”

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  I felt as if the en­tire room had just been hit by a cold north wind. Goose bumps ev­ery­where. Josh's face went ashen.

  “That's none of your busi­ness,” he said.

  “It is when you're fill­ing my friend's head with emp­ty moral­ity,” Whit­tak­er told him.

  Then, sat­is­fied that he'd ren­dered Josh speech­less, Whit­tak­er turned and looked me dead in the eye.

  'You do not want to os­tra­cize your­self from the wom­en of Billings, Reed,“ he said. ”Trust me. Not if you want to have a life af­ter you grad­uate this place. That's re­al­ity."

  I swal­lowed hard and looked at Josh. He rolled his eyes, but said noth­ing. I re­al­ized that Whit­tak­er had just hit up­on the very rea­son Josh's ide­al­ism had made me squirm. Ev­er since my first day at Eas­ton, all I had heard was that the Billings Girls had the bright­est fu­tures of any­one at this school. It was all about con­nec­tions. The con­nec­tions got you ev­ery­where. If I turned in Noelle and the oth­ers, would all my Billings con­nec­tions be sev­ered for life? Would ev­ery­thing I had gained by get­ting in there be au­to­mat­ical­ly oblit­er­at­ed?

  “You know I'm right,” Whit­tak­er said haugh­ti­ly. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Ex­cuse me,” Josh said, shov­ing away from the ta­ble. “I'm feel­ing a lit­tle nau­seous all of a sud­den.”

  He grabbed one of the re­main­ing dough­nuts and stormed out. Whit­tak­er took a deep breath and shook his head. “He'll learn,” he said. “Even­tu­al­ly.”

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  I watched Whit­tak­er shov­el eggs in­to his mouth and was sud­den­ly dis­gust­ed by the very sight of him. Even if he was right on some lev­el, some­thing about his all-​know­ing tone com­plete­ly turned me off. Who had died and made him the fourth wise man?

  “Now that we're alone . . ,” he said, lift­ing him­self out of his chair and tak­ing Josh's, so that he was sit­ting di­rect­ly across from me. “I want­ed to let you know that all the ar­range­ments are in place for Fri­day night. I'll pick you up on the cir­cle at six o'clock. That should give us plen­ty of time to get to Boston for our reser­va­tion. I am so look­ing for­ward to this, Reed.”

  The way he was look­ing at me made me feel al­most fever­ish with re­vul­sion. There was de­sire in his eyes, plain and sim­ple and ob­vi­ous. He thought that this date was go­ing to end the same way that night in the woods had.

  Well, he was prob­ably hop­ing to avoid the vom­it.

  “Are you ex­cit­ed?” he asked.

  It's for Thomas. It's so that you can go to the Lega­cy and see Thomas.

  “Sure,” I said weak­ly.

  Then he reached out and took my hand. He cov­ered it with both his big, clum­sy, oafish ones. Star­ing at them, I had sud­den flash­es of an­oth­er pair of hands. Thin but strong. Self-​as­sured and ten­der. Hands that had caused me to flush with plea­sure ev­ery time they touched me.

  I glanced to the left and saw sev­er­al ju­nior girls from one of the oth­er dorms eye­ing me with en­vy. Ev­ery­one knew what

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  Whit­tak­er's ges­ture meant. It meant I was one step clos­er to be­ing his plus-​one. And they were one step clos­er to sit­ting at home on Hal­loween night.

  “Maybe af­ter din­ner we can stop some­where,” Whit­tak­er said, col­or­ing slight­ly. “Some­where we can be alone.”

  His thumb pressed in­to my palm. My stom­ach turned and I pulled my hand away. There was no way I could do this. No way I could sit in a car with this guy for hours each way won­der­ing when he was go­ing to make his move, dread­ing the thought of his lips on mine. He was a sweet guy--an awk­ward, hope­ful, sweet guy who was just try­ing. I could see that. But he was try­ing on the wrong girl.

  “Is some­thing wrong?” he asked, his eyes wide.

  “No. I'm fine,” I said, stand­ing. “I just re­mem­bered that I left my his­to­ry text in my room and I... I need that for class. I bet­ter go.”

  “Okay, then. I'll . . . see you lat­er?” he asked, lift­ing him­self out of his chair, ev­er the gen­tle­man.

  “Sure. Yes. Def­inite­ly,” I said.

  But even as I shoved my way out in­to the sun­shine, I was for­mu­lat­ing a plan. There had to be a way for me to get to the Lega­cy with­out Whit­tak­er. There just had to be.

  175

  PRE-​PAR­TY

  That evening I paused out­side Noelle and Ar­iana's room. I had just heard voic­es com­ing from in­side and had au­to­mat­ical­ly stopped to lis­ten. It was a re­flex. Now that I knew the ex­tent of their se­crets, part of me was dy­ing to un­cov­er more. But I couldn't make out any­thing oth­er than mur­murs and laugh­ter, and then I re­mem­bered I was here to ask a fa­vor. Eaves­drop­ping was prob­ably not the best way to en­dear my­self. I straight­ened up, steeled my­self, and knocked.

  “En­trez!” Noelle an­nounced.

  In­side the lights were dim and can­dles flick­ered on ev­ery avail­able sur­face, fill­ing the air with their musky scents. Noelle, Ar­iana, Ki­ran, and Tay­lor were all gath­ered in a cir­cle in their pa­ja­mas and robes. Tay­lor sat in one of the desk chairs, pulled close to Ar­iana's bed, while the oth­ers were seat­ed on the mat­tress. Ar­iana held up a wine­glass and Ki­ran tipped a bot­tle over it, fill­ing it with deep red liq­uid.

  “Reed! So good to see you!” Noelle trilled. “Come! Have wine! We're play­ing I Nev­er.”

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  I Nev­er. These girls had noth­ing bet­ter to do than play I Nev­er? On a weeknight? Shouldn't they be read­ing or writ­ing pa­pers or per­haps plot­ting to have some­one else boot­ed out of school? Be­hind me, in Ar­iana's clos­et, I could feel the pres­ence of the trunk and the com­put­er as if they had been dipped in ra­dioac­tive waste and were now throb­bing bright­ly like a bea­con, mock­ing me. Re­mind­ing me of what I had done. What I knew.

  “I nev­er . . . got drunk and bribed my fa­ther's pi­lot to fly me to Rome so I could have re­al pas­ta!” Tay­lor an­nounced.

  “Oh!” Noelle cheered.

  Ki­ran clucked her tongue. “No fair get­ting so spe­cif­ic!” she said, then downed half her wine.

  Her fa­ther had a pi­lot. Her fa­ther had a pi­lot who would fly to Rome on a mo­ment's no­tice.

  “Come on, Reed! What have you nev­er done?” Noelle asked mirth­ful­ly.

  “Ac­tu­al­ly, I want­ed to talk to you guys about some­thing,” I said.

  “Not un­til you give us an I nev­er,'” Ar­iana said, her eyes gleam­ing.

  Great. Noth­ing like be­ing put on the spot. I racked my brain for some­thing, any­thing, that wouldn't make me sound to­tal­ly lame.

  “I nev­er . . . had sex in a car,” I said fi­nal­ly.

  Noelle spit out a laugh and drank the rest of her wine, as did Ki­ran and Tay­lor, laugh­ing the whole way. Ar­iana, how­ev­er, just smiled.

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  “Re­al­ly, Ar­iana?” Ki­ran asked, non­plussed. “Not even a limo? They can be very com­fort­able.”

  “I'm gonna start call­ing you Prude,” Noelle put in.

  Ar­iana sim­ply sighed, as if this was all just too pedes­tri­an, and set her glass aside. “What's go­ing on, Reed?”

  “Noth­ing. It's just. . . it's about the Lega­cy.”

  A mu­tu­al look was ex­changed be­tween the four of them. “Pull up a chair,” Ki­ran said, lift­ing the wine bot­tle.

  I crossed over to Noelle's desk chair, cleared about ten c
ash­mere, silk, and an­go­ra sweaters on­to her bed, and car­ried the chair over. As I set­tled in, I had their full at­ten­tion. This was odd.

  “What's the prob­lem?” Noelle asked, cross­ing her legs at the knee and lean­ing for­ward like a con­cerned talk-​show host­ess. Ex­cept no talk-​show host­ess I had ev­er seen ev­er waved a glass of wine around in front of her live stu­dio au­di­ence. “Has Whit­tak­er not asked you yet? ”

  “No. He hasn't. But it's not that,” I said. “I mean, I'm sure he will-”

  “Wow. Look at the ego on this one,” Ki­ran said, tak­ing a sip of her wine. I chose to ig­nore the com­ment.

  “It's just... I don't ex­act­ly want to go with him,” I said. “Can't any of you get me in? I could be your plus-​one,” I said, look­ing at Noelle.

  In­stant­ly, she scoffed. She sat up straight and swung her thick, dark hair over her shoul­der. “You're not get­ting it, Reed. We can't even all get in with­out help.”

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  I had no re­sponse to that ex­cept to stare in­cred­ulous­ly. The Billings Girls couldn't get in with­out help? How was that even pos­si­ble? I had a hard time imag­in­ing them be­ing shut out of any­thing.

  “Come on,” I said fi­nal­ly.

  Noelle and Ar­iana laughed. Ki­ran picked at a cu­ti­cle, her cheeks flush­ing, while Tay­lor sim­ply stared in­to her wine­glass.

  “Did you not hear me the oth­er day?This par­ty is ex­clu­sive. I'm the on­ly per­son in all of Billings who even gets a plus-​one.”

  “Well, you and Cheyenne,” Tay­lor said.

  “Right. Cheyenne. The D.A.R. her­self,” Noelle said. “Why do I al­ways for­get about Cheyenne?”

  The oth­er girls chuck­led as if they all knew ex­act­ly why Cheyenne was so for­get­table. An­oth­er joke I hadn't been let in on. But I had to fo­cus on the aneurysm at hand.

  “You're kid­ding,” I said. 'You guys can't bring dates?"

  “Well, I can,” Noelle said, lean­ing back. “But I'm tak­ing Dash.”

  “Dash can't get in?” I asked. He who'd read me the rules of the night? He who'd act­ed all su­pe­ri­or about the whole thing?

  “Please,” Noelle said. “He's on­ly sec­ond gen­er­ation. His grand­fa­ther went to, like, P.S. 121 in the Bronx or some­thing.”

  “But then he made his first mil­lion by the time he was twen­ty- two,” Ki­ran added. “Re­al es­tate.”

  “It's a re­al come-​from-​noth­ing sto­ry. You should ask him to tell you some­time,” Noelle said sar­don­ical­ly.

  “Who's Cheyenne tak­ing?” I asked, even though I knew there was no way in hell she'd take pity on me.

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  “Her lit­tle Boston boyfriend,” Ki­ran an­swered. “What's his name? Dork? Doof­ball?”

  “Dougray,” Ar­iana an­swered, putting on an im­pe­ri­ous En­glish ac­cent.

  “Well, do we know any­one else who gets a plus-​one?” I asked hope­ful­ly.

  “Just Gage. And he's tak­ing Ki­ran,” Ar­iana said.

  'Yeah. I got­ta be Gage Coolidge's date. So look­ing for­ward to it," Ki­ran said.

  “That's what you get for be­ing a frosh,” Noelle said, sip­ping her drink. Then, off my con­fused look, she placed her hand next to her mouth and loud-​whis­pered, “First gen­er­ation. Oh! But then, I guess you are, too,” she added sweet­ly.

  “Sor­ry, Reed. But there's noth­ing we can do,” Ar­iana told me.

  “That's why we were try­ing to set you up with Whit,” Noelle said. “He's ba­si­cal­ly your on­ly shot.”

  “Wait a minute, Ki­ran. You can't even get in? You're a su­per­mod­el,” I point­ed out.

  Ki­ran's head bobbed as she laughed once, de­ri­sive­ly. “Sweet­ie, Scar­lett Jo­hans­son couldn't get in­to this thing un­less Whit­tak­er brought her.” She drained the rest of her cup and sucked her cheeks to­geth­er slight­ly as she swal­lowed. The look she gave me was all mean­ing. Like, You want to go to this par­ty. Don't fuck it up.

  Noelle stood up and then bent at the waist so that her eyes were mere inch­es from mine. I tried to avert my gaze so I didn't have to stare straight in­to her eyes, but when I did I saw di­rect­ly down her

  180

  silk night shirt and al­most melt­ed from em­bar­rass­ment. Eye con­tact it was.

  “Reed, when are you go­ing to fig­ure out that we do ev­ery­thing for a rea­son?” she said, plac­ing her hand on my shoul­der. “We set you up with Whit­tak­er so that you could go to the Lega­cy. We don't want to go with­out you.”

  Sud­den­ly I felt all warm in­side.

  “We will, but we don't want to,” Ki­ran added with a gig­gle.

  Noelle stood straight again, then she moved over to the win­dow. Star­ing out across the quad, she took a long drink from her glass and then looked at me.

  “So, what's it gonna be?”

  Noelle want­ed me there. Thomas was go­ing to be there. And at this point, I was al­so sali­vat­ing to see what all this hype was about. And a par­ty that even Ki­ran couldn't get in­to just by flash­ing a lit­tle leg had to be in­tense. Se­ri­ous­ly.

  I took a deep breath and turned to Ki­ran. “Can I bor­row some clothes for Fri­day night? I have a date. With Whit­tak­er.”

  181

  MY KNIGHT

  Mrs. Lat­timer walked me across the quad and over to the cir­cle on Fri­day night, her heels click­ing quick­ly even though we were mov­ing at a snail's pace. Ap­par­ent­ly while on cam­pus I need­ed a chap­er­one, but they were go­ing to let me go off cam­pus with Whit­tak­er alone. Maybe Mrs. Lat­timer was sup­posed to make sure that I wasn't, in fact, board­ing some par­ty bus to Mon­tre­al. To make sure I didn't leave cam­pus un­less I did it with Whit.

  The good news was I looked amaz­ing in the out­fit Ki­ran had lent me. Yes, even I was able to ad­mit it. It was a so­phis­ti­cat­ed Calvin Klein black hal­ter-​style dress that hit just above the knee, with slim straps en­cir­cling my neck and ac­cen­tu­at­ing my shoul­ders--which had been dust­ed with bronz­er for a “sexy glow.” It was topped by a gold bro­cade jack­et--vin­tage Chanel--and the di­amond ear­rings Whit­tak­er had bought me. Ki­ran had in­sist­ed I wear my hair up, and when I'd re­vealed I knew how to do noth­ing oth­er than a pony­tail and a ba­sic braid, she had grum­bled but worked on me for an hour, gath­er­ing my brown locks up in­to a

  182

  so­phis­ti­cat­ed loose-​and-​sexy bun. One pair of strap­py, black Manolo Blah­niks and the look was com­plete. The re­sult? I was run­way-​wor­thy.

  Too bad I felt more like I was walk­ing down a plank.

  “This is a very spe­cial priv­ilege you've been grant­ed tonight, Miss Bren­nan. I hope you re­al­ize that,” Mrs. Lat­timer said as we walked around Brad­well, which front­ed the cir­cle. She held the col­lar of her coat up to her chin to com­bat the chill. “Mrs. Whit­tak­er doesn't do fa­vors like this for just any­one.”

  I glanced at Mrs. Lat­timer out of the cor­ner of my eye. Af­ter what I had read about her on Ar­iana and Noelle's IM, I had a prob­lem tak­ing her se­ri­ous­ly on any lev­el. This wom­an had been bought off with a shop­ping spree. Bought off so that a bunch of over­priv­ileged girls could get an in­no­cent per­son thrown out of school. And I was sup­posed to, what? Look up to her?

  “I know,” I said flat­ly.

  “I may have un­der­es­ti­mat­ed you when we first met,” she said.

  Fab. Now I could die hap­py.

  “Uh, thanks. I guess.”

  “Wal­ter must have some very strong feel­ings for you,” she said, eye­ing me shrewd­ly. Ex­pec­tant­ly. Like I was go­ing to share all the de­tails of my sor­did ro­mance with her.

  “I sup­pose,” I said.

  She nar­rowed her eyes at my blithe at­ti­tude and I had the dis­tinct feel­ing that I had of­fend­ed her. I gues
s mer­it­ing at­ten­tion from the great Whit­tak­er fam­ily was some­thing I should have

  183

  tak­en more se­ri­ous­ly. I should have been flat­tered. All I want­ed was to get this over with.

  “Ah. There he is now. Your knight in shin­ing ar­mor,” Mrs. Lat­timer said as we came around the cor­ner.

  I don't know about the knight part, but there was def­inite­ly shin­ing ar­mor in­volved. Idling at the curb on the cir­cle was a sleek sil­ver sports car that was so slim and com­pact I had no idea how Whit­tak­er might ac­tu­al­ly fit in­to it. The mo­ment he saw us ar­rive, he stepped out from the driv­er's side and closed the door with a qui­et pop. No clang, no bang, no shim­my. It was an ex­pen­sive car's door slam, muf­fled by sol­id con­struc­tion and what looked like a creamy leather in­te­ri­or.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Lat­timer,” Whit­tak­er said, walk­ing over to us. He car­ried a huge bou­quet of red ros­es and wore a black suit with a white shirt and a tie with tiny crests all over it. He ac­tu­al­ly looked quite hand­some. Big and burly and hand­some. The re­vul­sion I had felt the oth­er morn­ing had, mer­ci­ful­ly, passed--or at least put it­self on hold in the face of more im­por­tant things.

  'Wal­ter," Mrs. Lat­timer said with a sober nod.

  “Reed,” he said. 'You're stun­ning."

  “Thanks,” I replied light­ly, try­ing to keep it ca­su­al.

  He hand­ed me the bou­quet of ros­es, which smelled un­be­liev­able. “These are for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said again. Mrs. Lat­timer cleared her throat- some sort of in­di­ca­tion to me. “They're uh . . . love­ly.”

  Whit­tak­er smiled. “Shall we?”

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  He of­fered me his arm, as I had seen done in count­less movies, and I al­most laughed. Mrs. Lat­timer nod­ded to me in a nudg­ing way and I moved the bou­quet to the crook of my left arm and slipped my right hand around his fore­arm. How I man­aged to do this with­out fid­get­ing or drop­ping any­thing, I have no idea. Ap­par­ent­ly, watch­ing all those movies had paid off.