Bad Reputation

by Jessa James

  “Fat chance.” I slide out of the booth, ready to go.

  Forest talks about needing to order some more cases of whiskey while we walk out of the restaurant, but I’m not really paying attention.

  Because of course Forest is right. Way more right than he knows. I really ripped out Emma’s heart and trampled over it, because I knew Asher would find out.

  And I couldn’t risk losing my best friend.

  But if Asher were suddenly erased, just gone? I would be on my knees, pleading with Emma to take me back.

  I sigh and follow Forest out into the bright light of midday.

  6

  Emma

  I touch up my lipstick in the mirror of my bedroom at my parents’ house, staring at my reflection. I’m wearing a gorgeous baby pink minidress, accented with a diamond necklace and earrings. My hair is in a braided updo, with a couple of pieces of hair strategically left hanging down in the front.

  All that I’d need to add is a tiara, and I would be a perfect princess…

  I sigh. My parents would love it if I dated someone who was royalty. They would rub it in the faces of their society friends at every opportunity.

  That’s the way the Alderisis were. They had raised me and Asher to be their prize jewels, and they were not above using pressure if they really needed us to shine.

  Of course, Asher stopped accepting their money and their weird rich people guilt trips a long time ago. If only I could do the same… but I can’t, at least until law school is over.

  If Asher were here, he would make a joke about how dressed up I was. He’d make me laugh, at least.

  Too bad Asher is kind of on my list of least favorite humans right now. Well, that and there’s the fact that he wouldn’t be caught dead celebrating my parents tonight.

  There’s a knock on my door, and my mom opens it. The sound of voices and piano music reach my ears; the party must have started.

  “Are you ready, Emmaline?”

  I turn and look at my mother, who is wearing a silver sequined gown. She’s also absolutely dripping with diamonds. I force a smile at her and grab my clutch.

  “I am. Happy anniversary, by the way.”

  My mother bows her head for a moment, her version of accepting the compliment. “Come, your father is waiting.”

  I leave behind my bedroom, still as pink and pristine as ever, and walk down the hall with my mother. The sounds of talking and the clattering of glassware grow louder as we approach the main staircase.

  I let my mother go first, placing my left hand on the bannister, my heels clicking against the marble underfoot. We smoothly descend the stairs in perfectly synchronized movements, a lifetime of practice in plain view for everyone to see.

  As we reach the bottom of the stairs, they open up into a sort of rotunda, which feeds into what my mother calls the entertaining floor. A game room, a huge dining room, a living room type area with big verandah doors thrown wide open. There is even a kitchen tucked away in the back, to prepare food for parties like this one.

  The fact that my parents even have a floor just for entertaining guests is beyond snooty. I repress a sigh, preparing myself for a whole night of talking to people who take my parents’ wealth in stride.

  “Leslie, there you are!” a woman in a red evening dress says. “Oh, you had little Emma come home from college! That’s wonderful.”

  “Karen,” my mother says, greeting her with a nod.

  I slip on my mask, smiling benevolently. My mother greets Karen, and Karen gives me a quick peck on the cheek.

  “Karen, I have to settle my daughter in for moment.” My mother’s gaze flicks to me. “She’s hardly ever at home. Isn’t that right, Emmaline?”

  I smile. “It is.”

  “Come find me after that,” Karen says. She leans in conspiratorially. “You won’t believe what I heard about Megan Denning. D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

  My mother inclines her head and leads me onward. We walk down a walkway that divides the game room and dining room, and head into the living room. There are tons of brown leather couches artfully arranged here and there, with cream shag rugs and a small library against one wall.

  My father is there, leaning on the library ladder, a beautiful leather-bound volume in one hand. He’s taller than most of the men who are circled around him, listening to him… well, he’s orating, if I were to be honest.

  Standing in a circle in their tuxes, they resemble nothing so much as a bunch of confused penguins. I stifle a grin.

  I notice that the men he has chosen to surround himself with are much younger, the sons of oil executives and foreign shipping barons. My eyes narrow; Alan Alderisi normally wouldn’t have anything to do with a bunch of young guys like this.

  Before I can put two and two together, my mother calls to my father. “Alan, dear, look who has finally come down!”

  Eight sets of eyes turn to me. Suddenly, I’m in a spotlight of my parents’ creation. I want to turn and run, but my mother’s hand lands on my forearm. Her grip is as firm as steel.

  “Emma,” my father says, urging me to step forward. “I was just telling some of your contemporaries here a story about when I was their age. Come, come meet the gentlemen…”

  I have never felt like such a piece of meat as I do now, with seven strange men staring at me, expectation evident in their eyes. I move forward into the opening of the circle, trying to keep a smile on my face. I am red as a beet, I’m sure of it.

  “Hi,” I say, folding my hands together. “Nice to meet you all, I’m sure.”

  They introduce themselves, their names going right over my head. The final guy is a tall, lanky blond in an expensive-looking tuxedo. He elbows aside the suitors on either side of himself, eager to make an impression. I look at him, all swagger and no actual grit, and I instantly dislike him.

  He grabs my hand, pressing it in his clammy grip. “Emma, I’m Rich. May I just say how beautiful you are?”

  I want to rip my hand back, but I don’t. Instead I just give him a vague smile and incline my head. It’s a page straight out of my mother’s playbook.

  Rich seems unaware of how weird it is. Not that I really want to talk to any of them, but what about the six guys left staring at me? He pulls my hand into the crook of his arm, turning his back on the whole group. “I think we should take a walk.”

  I turn too, in an effort not to let him crush my hand. I throw an alarmed look over my shoulder to my father, but he’s already wandered off.

  “If you don’t mind—” I start.

  “Come on, let’s go outside,” Rich says, undeterred. I’m honestly not sure whether my reaction even registers with him. “Your father says you’re in law school. That must be difficult.”

  “Uhhh… yes?” is all I can come up with.

  He steers me out of the living room, past the broad terrace doors, and down the brick steps toward the expansive gardens. The sun is still out, which is the only reason why I’m even letting this happen.

  When the sun goes down, I had damn well better be back inside. I scowl, but Rich is so self-involved that he doesn’t even notice.

  “I thought about going to law school, but I decided to get my MBA instead. I went to Wharton, of course. And Harvard before that…”

  He launches into his entire life history, really taking the time to explain his pedigree to me. His story is long, winding, and dead boring. I lose interest in it pretty quickly. I focus on the flowers in bloom as we walk along the garden path.

  As we walk, Rich gesticulates to emphasize what he is saying. His hand catches my eye, and I realize that he has a manicure. And not a subtle one, either… he actually has a coat of clear polish on his nails.

  While I try not to judge, that detail emphasizes to me how ridiculous letting my parents set me up is. Asher and Jameson would hate Rich for being so foppish, that’s for sure.

  If I’m honest, this is all starting to feel very much like a long lost plot arc of Pride and Prejudice. I imagine myself dresse
d in period costume, walking in the gardens with one of my many suitors. Yeah, it’s a little too much like real life for my tastes.

  “So what about you?” Rich asks.

  Oh, he’s asking me a question. I flush, because I have not been paying enough attention to answer.

  “Er… what do you mean?” I ask.

  He looks down his nose at me, squeezing my arm pityingly. “I mean, you’re a dazzling girl. But I want to know all of your schools, your history, etc. You can’t hope to just get a husband by merit of your parents name, I would think.”

  I arch my brows. “I wasn’t aware that I was trying to get a husband.”

  He rolls his eyes at me. “We’re all looking to partner up. I just want to make the best possible match for myself, which is why I ask about your background.”

  Stopping short, I pull my arm from his grip. I raise my hand, shading my eyes from the sun. “I’m not really worried about your wants and needs, honestly. I’m here because my parents want me to be at their party.”

  “Yeah, but—” he starts to explain.

  “Yeah, no,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m going back to the house now.”

  I turn and start to walk back. He catches up to my in two long strides.

  “Wait, wait,” he says. “This isn’t going how I planned at all.”

  “Oh?” I keep walking, refusing to slow down.

  “I just… I think you’re very beautiful—”

  “That is not a good reason to try to date someone,” I say.

  “Well, you’re also smart, and you come from the right sort of family—”

  I stop short again, whirling to face him. He sees the irate look on my face, and backs up a couple of inches.

  “You don’t know anything about me, other than who my father is. You’re jumping ahead to whether or not you and I fit into your compatibility matrix before you even know anything about me!”

  “I’m just being practical,” Rich defends. “I don’t want to waste my time, or yours.”

  “This is why I don’t let my parents set me up,” I say, throwing my hands up. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go for a walk. Alone.”

  He looks nonplussed, but I don’t really care. I’m pissed at my parents, pissed at this whole elite little world that they’ve created for me. It’s enraging, being stuck in the hamster wheel that they invented.

  I veer off the path, heading toward the guest house. I need to cool down a little bit, without being bombarded by my mother or any of the would-be suitors.

  The path grows more lush as I continue on, verdant trees cropping up as I reach the edge of our property. Though I’m headed for the guest house, I slow as I approach my favorite spot in the gardens.

  A little clearing leads up to the oldest oak tree on the property. It’s massive, its branches spanning out at least ten feet on each side. In front of the trees, there is a little concrete bench. Nothing fancy, just a good spot for contemplation.

  I walk to the bench and sit down with a sigh. This bench has seen a lot, and the tree has seen even more in its life.

  I start thinking of Asher and Jameson, of how long their friendship has been. It’s almost noble, Jameson giving up whatever could have been between us to avoid hurting Asher. I mean, it still sucks, but it’s almost understandable.

  I lapse into daydreaming, the party a mere echo in the far distance.

  7

  Emma

  Six Years Earlier

  “I promise you, you’re going to meet so many cute guys tonight,” my friend Candace whispers in my ear. “Plus I heard that there are going to be older guys there. Like they’ve already graduated and they have jobs and stuff. Can you believe it?”

  She says it like we’ve won some kind of prize. I giggle as she pulls me down the sidewalk in a neighborhood near Stanford. We’re dressed to the nines and already a little tipsy.

  I hear the party raging before we even see the house that it’s at. The house is modest at best, a little grey shack that’s barely big enough to hold two bedrooms. Loud music is pumping full-blast out of a pair of giant speakers in the yard; there are tons of people standing and talking over the obnoxiously loud music, and a few girls are dancing.

  “See? What’d I tell you?” Candace says, squeezing my arm hard. “The real party is inside, though.”

  I take her hand as we head up the driveway and squeeze between people to get to the front door. Inside is even more packed, with people having conversations while other people shimmy around them, heading for the front or back door.

  “Tammy!!” Candace screams.

  A pretty blonde head turns around. Tammy’s eyes widen, and she squeals with excitement. “Girls! You’re here!!”

  We work our way over to where Tammy is, Candace throwing a couple of elbows here and there. I notice that Tammy is standing by a plastic table, which is a sort of makeshift bar. At least, there are twenty different bottles of cheap liquor on it, and another half dozen bottles of soft drinks.

  When we get to Tammy, she already has shots lined up for us in red solo cups.

  “Here, bitches!” she shouts, handing us each a solo cup.

  I look at the purplish liquid in the bottom of the cup a little suspiciously. “What is it?”

  “Don’t ask questions, silly!” Tammy says. “Just cheers!”

  She and Candace toast, so I do too. Then we drink. I wince at the sugariness of it; I think that it is literally vodka with Kool-Aid mix and a ton of sugar.

  “Amazing!” Candace says. “You’re the best bartender, Tammy.”

  Tammy grins. “Come on, come to the back yard. They have an ice block set up back there to do shots!”

  “Omigod, really?” Candace shrieks.

  I sigh, tagging along behind them. If I weren’t so petrified to meet guys alone, I would never even be here. But I am here, so I go along with whatever they want to do.

  For the next two hours, I do shots, play beer pong, and try my hand at some card game that everyone seems to know called Kings and Assholes.

  About an hour in, things get a little blurry around the edges. I blearily try to count how many drinks I’ve had, but I can’t. My friends are getting sloppy drunk, and apparently so am I.

  We get friendly with a group of guys that Candace knows from high school. Candace makes out with one of them quite extensively. Then two hours in, Candace runs outside to puke in the bushes. I go with her, trying to clean up, but the guy that she made out with shoos me away.

  “She gets like this sometimes,” he says with a shrug. “I’ll take her home. No funny business, I swear.”

  He half-drags her out of the party. I look around for Tammy, but she’s mysteriously missing.

  God damnit. Now I’m drunk and alone.

  One of the guys that Candace introduced me to, Brad, comes over and puts his arm around me. A red light goes off in my drunk brain. I need to get the hell out of here, now.

  Thumbing through my phone, I slip outside and sit down in the trampled grass. I call Asher first, but his phone just rings until his voicemail picks up.

  After a few tries, I scowl at my phone. “Jerk.”

  I scroll through the other contacts, stopping on Jameson. Figuring that it’s worth a try, I call him. I don’t actually expect him to pick up.

  Except, he does. The phone rings twice, then an out of breath Jameson answers.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh!” I say. “You picked up the phone.”

  There’s a second of hesitation on his part, and the murmur of another voice in the background. I can’t hear what is said, but the timbre says it’s a woman.

  “Hold on.” I hear noise, like the phone is being moved around. “Emma? You okay?”

  “I’m at a party,” I say. Then, unsure if I’m slurring or not, I say, “I think… I think I need a ride. Asher’s not answering his phone.”

  I hiccup, ending the statement there.

  “Shit,” Jameson says. “Uhhh…. alright. Where are
you?”

  “I’m at…” I turn, squinting at the house. “704 Sycamore Drive.”

  “Alright. Are you somewhere safe for now? Can you hang out for ten or fifteen minutes until I can get there?”

  “Yep,” I say, then hiccup again. “I’m great.”

  “Okay. Don’t move. I’ll be right there.”

  I grin as the phone line goes dead. Jameson is coming here, right now. He’s going to pick me up!

  I’m absurdly happy about that. I sit and wait, happily drunk.

  “Hey there,” a strange guy says. He’s only a few feet away, wearing all black. “What are you doing over here by yourself?”

  I squint at him. I’m pretty sure that he is way too old to be at this party.

  “Who are you?” I ask. “You don’t look like you should be here.”

  He chuckles, coming closer. “Don’t worry about that part. What’s your name?”

  I frown at him. “I don’t like you. Go away.”

  He squats down next to me. From this distance, I can smell the sour beer on his breath, taste the heavy cologne he has doused himself with.

  He reaches out his hand, as if to stroke my face. Wincing, I manage to crab walk backwards, avoiding his touch. His smile only grows wider.

  “You’re being very naughty,” he says, tsking. “Someone ought to teach you some manners. Maybe that someone should be me.”

  “Get away from me,” I say, shaken by his words. I try to stand up, failing the first time. “I don’t want you to talk to me.”

  “You’re pretty drunk. Let me help you home,” he says. “We wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  Out of nowhere, Jameson appears in the yard. He takes one look at the situation — me standing shakily, the guy approaching me with a grin — and rushes in between us.

  “Get the fuck away from her,” Jameson growls. Next to Jameson, the other guy seems tiny and unthreatening.

  “Whoa,” the guy says, putting up his hands. “I didn’t realize she was spoken for.”