Invitation Only by Kate Brian

  Whit­tak­er walked me over to the car and opened the door for me with a slight bow. I dropped in­to the buck­et seat, tuck­ing my jack­et un­der my legs. When I looked out at Mrs. Lat­timer again, she closed her eyes and shook her head.

  Ap­par­ent­ly there was a more grace­ful way to do that. At least Whit­tak­er didn't seem to no­tice. He closed the door and turned to say a few words to Lat­timer. I went to put the ros­es at my feet, but there was no room. They would have stuck up be­tween my legs. I tried the back­seat, but there was none. Fi­nal­ly I just laid them in my lap and buck­led my seat belt be­neath them.

  I took a deep breath, in­hal­ing the new-​leather-​and-​ros­es scent, and sat back, at­tempt­ing to keep this gray cloud that had been fol­low­ing me around all night at bay. Try­ing to keep from giv­ing it a name. I ran my hand over the chrome dash­board and tried to be ex­cit­ed. This was amaz­ing, re­al­ly. This car, the dress, the flow­ers. Be­ing whisked off cam­pus to some swank restau­rant while the rest of the school was back in the cafe­te­ria eat­ing Fri­day night pot roast. I was lucky. I re­al­ly was.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  Too bad I was with the wrong guy.

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  The gray cloud en­veloped me. Thomas was its name. This ro­man­tic evening should have been planned by him. I should have been with him. But in­stead he was out there who knew where, and I was here on a date with an­oth­er guy.

  The driv­er's-​side door opened and Whit­tak­er fold­ed him­self in be­hind the wheel. “I'm hon­ored that you de­cid­ed to come with me tonight, Reed,” he said.

  I took a deep breath and made my­self smile. This was a means to an end. That was all it was. And if all went well here tonight, I'd be see­ing Thomas soon enough.

  “I'm hon­ored you asked me.”

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  BIRTH­DAY BOY

  On our ap­proach to Boston I spot­ted the huge neon Cit­go sign near the wa­ter and mark­ers di­rect­ing traf­fic to Fen­way and Har­vard. I stared out the win­dows at all the his­toric build­ings, the domes and spires lit by the soft glow of strate­gi­cal­ly placed lights. On the wa­ter dozens of beau­ti­ful, pris­tine sail­boats bobbed, tied up to docks, the wa­ter lap­ping at their bows. Tall apart­ment build­ings hov­ered over them, af­ford­ing what must have been amaz­ing views of the har­bor and killer sun­ris­es each and ev­ery morn­ing.

  I had al­ways won­dered what it would be like to live near the wa­ter. Grow­ing up in cen­tral Penn­syl­va­nia, I had nev­er even been to the ocean. Now, see­ing the At­lantic for the first time--even if it was just a tame in­let--I was hooked. It was all so peace­ful and beau­ti­ful and serene.

  “You look star struck,” Whit­tak­er said to me as he turned the car and put the har­bor in the rearview mir­ror.

  “It's just re­al­ly nice,” I said. “Thanks for bring­ing me.”

  Whit­tak­er smiled. “Any­time.”

  We zipped along the wa­ter past huge ho­tels and the state-​of-

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  the art aquar­ium and I strug­gled to keep my mouth closed. I was ac­tu­al­ly in Boston. Home to Boston Col­lege and MIT, the Boston Bean and Boston cream pie, site of the in­fa­mous Tea Par­ty and a mil­lion oth­er his­tor­ical events. Whit­tak­er could re­al­ly take me places.

  The restau­rant was tucked in­to a quaint neigh­bor­hood on the north side of the city, where brown­stone build­ings abound­ed and old-​fash­ioned street lamps flick­ered over stone-​cov­ered streets. A tuxe­doed valet took the keys to Whit­tak­er's car and he of­fered his arm again as he led me through the door. A crum­bling cor­ner­stone near the side­walk read 1787.

  Once we were in­side, an­oth­er valet slipped my coat from my arms and a third led us to a ta­ble in the back cor­ner, close enough to a roar­ing fire that we could en­joy its warmth, but far enough away that we wouldn't get over­heat­ed. The con­ver­sa­tion in the room was hushed, ac­com­pa­nied by the sounds of tin­kling chi­na and sil­ver­ware. As I sat in the cush­ioned chair, I tried not to stare at the di­amonds that dripped from ev­ery fe­male neck and wrist in the room. Nev­er in my life had I been in a restau­rant so el­egant, sur­round­ed by peo­ple for whom mon­ey was no ob­ject. If my par­ents could see me now.

  “Mr. Whit­tak­er. A plea­sure to see you,” a tall, mus­tached man greet­ed us. “Would you like to see the wine list?”

  “That won't be nec­es­sary, John,” Whit said. “We'll have a bot­tle of the Baro­lo '73 we had for my par­ents' an­niver­sary.”

  I blinked. Wasn't there still a le­gal drink­ing age in this coun­try?

  “A fine choice, sir. Beth will be right over with your menu.” He ex­ecut­ed a slight bow and moved sound­less­ly away.

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  “No card­ing?” I asked.

  Whit­tak­er chuck­led. “Reed, please.”

  All righty, then. I crossed my legs un­der the ta­ble, bonk­ing the un­der­side with my knee and caus­ing all the dish­es to jump.

  “Oops. Sor­ry,” I said.

  “It's okay,” Whit­tak­er said in a qui­et, sooth­ing voice, the one that sent pleas­ant re­ver­ber­ations right through me. “Just re­lax.”

  “Right. Re­lax.”

  I rest­ed my el­bows on the ta­ble, then quick­ly yanked them away. Was the el­der­ly wom­an at the next ta­ble glar­ing at me, or was that just the nat­ural state of her face? Un­der the white table­cloth, I fid­dled with the chunky gold bracelet Ki­ran had lent me. Luck­ily, Whit­tak­er didn't seem to no­tice my con­tin­ued fid­get­ing. He leaned back and smiled as a slim man in a black vest poured ice wa­ter in­to our glass­es. For the first time, I no­ticed there were three stems of var­ious sizes be­hind my plate. Ap­par­ent­ly we were to do a lot of drink­ing. That led me to the or­nate sil­ver­ware, of which there was far too much. Two spoons, three forks, two knives. What could they pos­si­bly be used for?

  “Would madam like a bit of bread?”

  Sud­den­ly an­oth­er man was hov­er­ing over me, prof­fer­ing a bas­ket full of rolls. They smelled in­cred­ible and I could feel their warmth on my face.

  “Uh . . . sure,” I said, reach­ing for a brown bun.

  The man cleared his throat and I froze. “If madam would like to se­lect one, I would be hap­py to serve her,” he said.

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  “Oh.” My face flushed and I glanced at the old wom­an. Now I was sure she was glar­ing.

  “I'll have the brown one, please,” I said, ut­ter­ly de­feat­ed.

  “The pumper­nick­el? A fine choice,” he said with a tight smile. Then he pro­duced a pair of sil­ver tongs from be­hind his back, plucked the roll from the bas­ket, and placed it on my bread plate. No fair hid­ing the tongs. If I had seen them, I might have known.

  “For you, sir?” he said, turn­ing to Whit­tak­er.

  Once Whit had made his se­lec­tion, the bread guy slid over to the wall, where he stood next to the wa­ter guy, just wait­ing to be sum­moned at any mo­ment. I couldn't be­lieve these were ac­tu­al jobs. What did these men put on their re­sumes? Ex­pert Starch Dis­trib­utor? Pro­fes­sion­al Thirst Quencher?

  As soon as the bread guy was free and clear, a pret­ty blonde stepped up and hand­ed Whit­tak­er a leather-​bound menu.

  “Wel­come to Triv­iat­ta,” she said. “My name is Beth. Please feel free to ask any ques­tions.”

  “Thank you, Beth,” Whit­tak­er said, look­ing over the menu.

  She turned and start­ed off.

  “Uh, Beth?” I said, stop­ping her in her tracks. “I have a ques­tion.”

  Sev­er­al peo­ple turned to stare. Per­haps I had spo­ken too loud­ly.

  'Yes, miss?" she asked, ut­ter­ly con­fused.

  “Can I have a menu?” I asked in a whis­per. Both she and Whit­tak­er just stared. The bread guy laughed and the wa­ter guy

 
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  whacked the bread guy's leg. My face burned. “Oh. Sor­ry. Can I have a menu, please?”

  Beth looked at Whit­tak­er for di­rec­tion. He smiled in­dul­gent­ly and nod­ded.

  “One mo­ment,” Beth said.

  She smiled tight­ly, eye­ing me as if I was a dog off the street, beg­ging for a free meal. When she fi­nal­ly walked off again, I leaned in to­ward Whit­tak­er.

  “Did I do some­thing wrong?”

  “Oh, no,” Whit­tak­er said. “I like that you're so ... in­de­pen­dent.”

  “Be­cause I want my own menu?” I asked, my shoul­der mus­cles coil­ing slight­ly.

  “It's just, this place is old school,” Whit­tak­er told me. “Usu­al­ly the man or­ders for the wom­an.”

  “Well, that's ar­cha­ic.”

  “No. It's tra­di­tion,” Whit­tak­er cor­rect­ed.

  I felt like a five-​year-​old. In­stant­ly, re­sent­ment took over. I didn't want to be here. I didn't have to be here. He had some gall, talk­ing down to me that way. Beth re­turned with my menu and I opened it with­out thank­ing her. I scanned the list of meals quick­ly and ruled most of them out be­cause they ei­ther 1) con­tained seafood, to which I was al­ler­gic, or 2) were un­pro­nounce­able. I closed the menu and placed it on the ta­ble.

  “De­cid­ed al­ready?” Whit­tak­er said, lift­ing his eye­brows.

  “Yes.” My foot bounced up and down un­der the ta­ble.

  “What would you like?” he asked.

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  'You re­al­ly need to know?" I snapped.

  He blinked. “If I'm go­ing to or­der for us, I do.”

  “I can or­der for my­self, thanks,” I said.

  Whit­tak­er let out an im­pa­tient sigh that curled my toes. He slow­ly low­ered his menu and looked at me al­most stern­ly over the flick­er­ing can­dles.

  “Reed, at least let me or­der for you,” he said. “That's the way it's done here.”

  I stared at him. What kind of guy was he? This was the way he want­ed to spend his eigh­teenth birth­day? At a restau­rant so old school my grand­fa­ther would have felt out of place? I couldn't be­lieve that this was his idea of a good time.

  “Whit­tak­er, can I ask you a ques­tion?” I said, lean­ing for­ward.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Why are we here? Why aren't you out par­ty­ing with Dash and Gage and those guys?” I said. “I'm sure they could have fig­ured out some­thing de­bauch­er­ous for you to do tonight. I mean, isn't that what friends do on their friends' birth­days?”

  Whit­tak­er flinched ev­er so slight­ly and looked back down at his menu. He cleared his throat and made a big show of scan­ning the op­tions. “Dash and Gage have . . . oth­er things go­ing on tonight,” he said. “And be­sides, I told you, you're the on­ly per­son I want to spend my birth­day with.”

  In that mo­ment it all be­came clear. It was a lie. All of it. It wasn't that he didn't want to hang out with Dash and Gage and Josh, but that they hadn't shown any in­ter­est in hang­ing out with him. For

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  all their blus­ter over how much they loved Whit, it was just that-- blus­ter. They found him amus­ing, but they weren't re­al­ly his friends. If they were, he would have been with them tonight.

  I knew what that was like. I had spent plen­ty of birth­days with no par­ty, no friends, no one around but my broth­er and my fa­ther, who had to be there, my moth­er an ev­er-​omi­nous pres­ence. There was noth­ing worse, in my ex­pe­ri­ence, than a mis­er­able birth­day.

  With a deep breath, I made a de­ci­sion. Old-​fash­ioned or not, con­de­scend­ing or not, Whit­tak­er was ba­si­cal­ly a good guy. And he de­served a good birth­day. As of now, it was my job to make that hap­pen.

  “I'll have the filet mignon, medi­um,” I told him.

  Whit­tak­er smiled and sat up a bit straighter. “Good choice. Ap­pe­tiz­ers? Dessert?”

  “It's your birth­day,” I said. “Your night, your choice.”

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  HEART­BREAK­ER

  'Yes! An­oth­er win­ner!" I cheered, rais­ing my fists in the air as Whit­tak­er pulled his car through the se­cu­ri­ty gate at Eas­ton. It was pitch-​dark out­side and the se­cu­ri­ty guard waved us through with­out even look­ing up from his mi­ni tele­vi­sion. For the first time all evening I re­al­ized that I was re­luc­tant for the night to end. Once I had re­laxed and de­cid­ed to treat the whole thing as a night out with a friend who just want­ed a good birth­day, I had ac­tu­al­ly start­ed to have a good time.

  “How much?” Whit­tak­er asked glee­ful­ly.

  “Two dol­lars and fifty cents,” I said, hold­ing up the scratch-​off card. “Told you this was a good in­vest­ment.”

  The en­tire car was lit­tered with scratch-​off lot­tery tick­ets. On the floor at my feet were dozens of use­less cards, while stacked on my lap were the few win­ners. Five dol­lars here, twen­ty dol­lars there--it was all adding up.

  “You may even make your mon­ey back,” I told Whit­tak­er, pick­ing up the last card. He'd dropped a hun­dred dol­lars at the

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  con­ve­nience store on the high­way. The guy be­hind the counter had looked at us like we were nuts, but had pa­tient­ly count­ed off one hun­dred of the tiny game cards.

  “Lot­tery tick­ets. I nev­er would have even thought of that,” Whit­tak­er said, down­shift­ing as we climbed the wind­ing hill.

  “Re­al­ly? This is the first thing ev­ery­one at home does on their eigh­teenth,” I said. Of course, I guessed peo­ple like Whit­tak­er nev­er played the lot­tery. I should have been sur­prised that he even knew the lot­tery ex­ist­ed. I scratched off the last square. The sym­bol there didn't match any of the oth­ers. “Noth­ing,” I said, toss­ing it on the floor.

  “So, what's the fi­nal tal­ly?” he asked.

  I reached up and turned on the over­head light so I could see bet­ter. Quick­ly I flipped through our win­ning cards and did the math in my head. “One hun­dred two dol­lars and fifty cents,” I an­nounced. “You made a prof­it.”

  “Wow. Good for me,” he said.

  'You just have to take them to a lot­tery deal­er to cash them in," I said, straight­en­ing the pile in my lap.

  “You keep them,” he said.

  “What? No,” I said. “These are your birth­day tick­ets.”

  “Yes, but it was your idea,” Whit­tak­er said as he pulled the car in­to the cir­cle that front­ed Brad­well and the oth­er un­der­class­men dorms. “I in­sist.”

  An un­pleas­ant warmth spread through my chest. A hun­dred dol­lars. That was a lot of mon­ey. To me. Clear­ly, to him it was

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  chump change. Throw­ing it out the win­dow was no prob­lem for him.

  “Okay,” I said fi­nal­ly. “Thanks.”

  He pulled the car to a stop at the curb and put it in park. In­stant­ly the vibe in the car went from sil­ly and cel­ebra­to­ry to se­ri­ous and load­ed. This was it. The mo­ment of truth. End of the date time. I had al­ready de­cid­ed hours ear­li­er that if he tried to kiss me, I would let him. It was what he want­ed, that much was ob­vi­ous, and it would be a small price to pay for ev­ery­thing he had giv­en me, ev­ery­thing he could give me. But now that the time had come I won­dered if I could go through with it. The more time I spent with Whit, the fonder I was of him, but not in the way he want­ed me to be.

  He was more like a broth­er. The death knell when it came to ro­man­tic pos­si­bil­ities.

  Whit­tak­er cleared his throat. I turned to look at him. Okay. I could do this. It was just a kiss.

  “Reed, I've been won­der­ing,” Whit­tak­er said, rub­bing his flat palm on the leg of his pants.

  If you can kiss me? Sure. Go ahead. Get it over with.

  “Would you do me the hon­or of be­ing my date for th
e Lega­cy to­mor­row night?”

  “What?”

  Just like that. The Gold­en Tick­et. Tossed in my lap. Right at a mo­ment I was dread­ing. I was so hap­py I al­most laughed. But in­stead, I bit my lip.

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  “The Lega­cy. Ev­ery­one's go­ing,” Whit­tak­er said, mis­tak­ing my sur­prise for ac­tu­al con­fu­sion. “I'd like you to be my date.”

  “Sure. Ab­so­lute­ly,” I said. “I'd love to.”

  Whit­tak­er beamed. For a mo­ment we just sat there and smiled and I thought that maybe, just maybe, he was feel­ing the same way I was. That this was just hap­py ca­ma­raderie. We re­al­ly were just friends.

  And then he grabbed my face rough­ly be­tween both hands and kissed me.

  Right. Maybe not.

  I tried to suck in breath through my nose as Whit­tak­er's mouth moved awk­ward­ly over mine. Fi­nal­ly he pulled back, pant­ing, and looked me in the eye. I took in as much oxy­gen as pos­si­ble with­out mak­ing it ob­vi­ous he had al­most smoth­ered me.

  “I've want­ed to do that all night,” he said. “I know I said we could just be friends, but Reed, there's this at­trac­tion be­tween us. We can't ig­nore it any longer.”

  Ri­ii­iight.

  Whit­tak­er stared at me. He was wait­ing for me to say some­thing. To agree with him. But I couldn't. I just couldn't lie to him about some­thing like that. But I couldn't tell him the truth ei­ther-- that I liked him, but not in that way. It would break his heart and I couldn't do that to him. Es­pe­cial­ly not on his birth­day.

  “I'm so glad you're go­ing with me,” he said fi­nal­ly.

  All right. Enough was enough. I had to set this guy straight, even if it might mean los­ing out on this par­ty, on see­ing Thomas. I couldn't do this to him.

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  “Whit, I”

  A sud­den knock on the win­dow caused us both to jump. Whit­tak­er stared past me.

  “It's Mrs. Lat­timer,” he said.

  “Oh, God.” My heart slammed in­to my ribcage. How long had she been there? Had she watched us kiss?

  “Here. Take this,” Whit­tak­er said, press­ing some­thing small and cold in­to my hand.

  It was a neck­lace, a slim gold chain with a small ovu­lar pen­dent. In the cen­ter of the oval was a tiny crown made out of it­sy­bit­sy di­amonds.