Georgetown Academy 1 and 2

by Jessica Etting

  “Of course, no problem,” Evan answered. She just wanted Samantha to get to the point about Taryn so she could get this over with.

  “So I heard something about a student at G.A. and I was hoping you could do a little recon for me.”

  Here it was. Evan braced herself.

  “I heard Congressman Jensen’s son, Luke, is gay.”

  Blood rushed to Evan’s cheeks. This was so much worse than she expected.

  “How did…why would you, um, why would you even care about something like that?” Evan stuttered.

  “Well, I think it would be interesting to report that a congressman who seems to have some pretty polarizing views on gay marriage actually has a gay teen at home. Don’t you?”

  No, Evan did not think it was interesting. In fact, it was as far from interesting as you could get. Horrifying was a much better word to describe how Evan felt about it.

  “So you’ll look into it?” Samantha asked, her eyes boring into Evan.

  “I doubt anyone will talk about it,” Evan said quietly, desperately trying to think of a way to get herself out of this and Luke off the hook.

  “I’m sure you can be resourceful. Just remember, Evan, if New York is all about money and L.A. is all about celebrity, D.C. is all about access.”

  She didn’t need to remind Evan of that.

  ***

  Friday, 10:05pm.

  “’Night, Mom,” Ellie said, poking her head into Marilyn’s office. An aromatherapy candle flickered on her desk, the smell of lemongrass and orange attacking Ellie’s nostrils as soon as she entered the room. Marilyn had been concerned but understanding when she skipped school the day before, and had been trying to remain as calm as possible for Ellie’s sake. Aromatherapy candles were a bit much, though.

  Marilyn looked up from her laptop and gave her a weary smile. She still hadn’t changed out of her work clothes, but at least Jasmine had gone home a few minutes ago.

  “Jasmine left some homemade cupcakes in the fridge if you’re interested,” Marilyn said.

  “When did she…?”

  “Don’t ask,” Marilyn said with a laugh. “But they’re delicious.” Ellie didn’t doubt it.

  Ellie curled up in her usual spot on the leather chair. She looked at her mother and knew that as hard it had been, she’d done the right thing by telling Gabe they couldn’t be together. She’d barely made it to school that morning, her body cringing into a fetal position at the thought of seeing him, but she had forced herself out of bed so she didn’t torpedo her mother into a whole new stage of worry.

  “How are you doing?” Ellie asked her.

  “It’ll blow over,” Marilyn answered, her face not quite matching her confident tone. “Bill assured me I have nothing but support from the White House. He’s already pushing them to make a statement on my behalf.” She was referring to Hunter’s dad and the irony hit Ellie that Gabe’s dad created scandals while Hunter’s dad helped squash them.

  “Hunter told me the same thing.”

  “He’s such a sweetheart, Elle. I’m so glad you have him.”

  Ellie agreed. She should never have risked losing Hunter over something so unstable and reckless as a relationship with Gabe. And if her mom had any idea…it would be the nail in the coffin. She would just have to keep telling herself that tomorrow night when she knew Taryn and Gabe would be on their date.

  “This whole Strippergate thing isn’t going to affect you getting the chairman position, is it?” she asked.

  Her mother forced an optimistic smile. “I think there are enough Democrats on the committee to pull me through, but it would be much better if this blew over quickly. Right about now would be a good time for a congressman to text some naked pictures to an intern,” Marilyn said wryly.

  Ellie laughed. “You could only be so lucky.”

  She gave her mom a kiss and headed up the staircase. She was debating whether to go back down to the kitchen for one of Jasmine’s cupcakes when her phone beeped. A news alert. Another story had come out with Marilyn’s name attached to it.

  Ellie turned the phone around in her hands. She should take Taryn’s advice, not look at it, and just go to sleep.

  The thought barely made it through her mind before she dismissed it. She couldn’t help herself. She clicked on the alert and it quickly linked her to the home page of The Huffington Post.

  She watched in horror as the image slowly filled her phone screen.

  It was a photograph of her and Gabe, mid-hook up in the vodka room at the rookie party.

  END OF BOOK ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Friday, 10:35pm.

  Ellie Walker was frozen in front of the computer screen, as she had been for the last ten minutes, staring at the damning photo of her and Gabe Mills kissing. It was grainy and dark, but there was no mistaking the two of them in the photograph.

  Questions flashed through her brain at rapid speed. Who had taken the photo? Did Gabe have something to do with it? How could she have been so naïve? What would Hunter do when he saw it? And what about her mother…

  That last thought filled her stomach with bile. Her mom was downstairs in her home office at that exact moment. Did she know yet? If she didn’t, she would, no doubt, hear about it in the next two minutes from Jasmine, her chief-of-staff, or even worse, see it herself on one of the millions of websites posting it faster than Ellie could keep track. The thought catapulted Ellie out of her chair. Though she loathed confrontation, she would rather her mother hear it from her than anyone else.

  She nervously twirled her long chestnut hair into a messy bun on the top of her head, her green eyes filling with panicky tears as she practically tripped over her flannel pajamas on the way out of her room. Time to get this over with.

  She padded down the staircase in their cozy colonial-style house, her tall, slender frame taking the steps slowly, and she strained to hear the conversation that was coming from her mother’s office. Better to have an idea of what she was about to walk into.

  “…going to be difficult…control the…constituents…” Ellie couldn’t tell if these snippets of conversation had anything to do with her or if they were part of a run-of-the-mill Senatorial discussion.

  She reached the oak doors and walked through them without knocking. When her mother looked up, her face pale, her usually perfectly blown-out hair askew and her eyes full of hurt, anger, Ellie got her answer.

  “She just walked in, Jasmine,” her mother said into the speakerphone. “I’ll call you back.”

  “I’m on it until then, Senator Walker,” Jasmine’s voice crackled over the line.

  A few balled up tissues lay next to the phone. Had she been crying? Another wave of guilt washed over Ellie and she lowered her head, not willing to meet her mother’s eye again.

  “Ellie, how could you?” her mother said, her voice breaking. “How could you do this?”

  “Mom,” Ellie said softly, barely able to get the words out, “I’m sorry.” And she meant it. When Gabe had come back to town, Ellie had done everything in her power to avoid him, despite their intense connection (and ridiculous attraction). Gabe was the son of Senator Mills, her mother’s biggest political enemy, and therefore, off-limits. Not only had Senator Mills paid a girl to lie about having an adulterous affair with Ellie’s father over two years ago, leading Ellie’s parents to get a divorce, but just this week he had unearthed a scandal involving Marilyn’s assistant campaign manager treating her donors to lap dances. Even though this had been going on behind Marilyn’s back, she was still dealing with the fall-out from “Strippergate,” as the media had annoyingly taken to calling it.

  “How do you think this makes me look?” her mother railed at Ellie, her voice growing louder.

  Ellie hung her head in shame. She knew how it made her mother look. Like an idiot. And even worse, she knew how it made herself look. Like a traitor.

  “Do you know what Jasmine told me the bloggers are already saying?” her mother asked her. �
�That it’s an embarrassment. That it’s like discovering Chelsea Clinton and Kenneth Starr’s son were dating at the height of the impeachment scandal.”

  “I didn’t—” Ellie tried to cut in, but her mother was having nothing of it.

  “There is no excuse! There are a million boys at that school, one of whom was supposed to be your boyfriend.” Ellie didn’t want to think about Hunter. Or school, for that matter. At a place like Georgetown Academy, where most of the students’ parents were involved in government and where juicy political gossip was disseminated faster than the CNN news-ticker, a scandal like this would be explosive.

  “Why do you need to go for the one boy whose father ripped our family apart?” Marilyn continued. “Do you have no loyalty?!” Loyalty was a huge thing for Marilyn—it was instilled in her office staff, and a measure she used to determine who would move up the ranks and who would be let go. For her to be questioning Ellie’s was the equivalent of telling her she was worse than pond scum. Ellie bristled at the put-down, but knew she didn’t have a leg to stand on.

  The phone rang. It was probably Jasmine calling back to report the most recent insult traveling around the blogosphere.

  “I need to take this. Any other bombs you want to drop on me before I pick up? Because I don’t think I could handle hearing another one from her.”

  Ellie shook her head.

  Her mother gave her an exhausted, sad look that made Ellie feel even worse than the angry ones did. “This is the last thing I needed right now, Ellie.”

  “Right. Sorry to inconvenience you, then,” Ellie replied sarcastically, hating herself as she said it. Her mother had every right in the world to be angry. But that didn’t stop Ellie from feeling like she, herself, was the one who had been put in the unfair situation.

  She whirled around, tears already streaming down her face, and ran back upstairs to her room. She fell onto her bed, covering herself with her soft white comforter. Her whole room was decorated in a simple ocean blue and white motif. Ellie used to find it calming. Not that anything would help right now.

  Her phone beeped once from the nightstand and Ellie picked it up. Four missed calls from Hunter. Seeing his name made her hyperventilate, but she didn’t have the courage to call him back. Six missed calls and voicemails from her best friend, Brinley, who most likely had to be peeled off the ceiling after seeing the photo. She had no idea Ellie and Gabe shared anything but mutual dislike for each other.

  And not a single call or text from Gabe. It only confirmed Ellie’s worst fear. That his father was the one behind this photo leak. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time the senator had manipulated Ellie’s relationship with his son. And as much as Ellie wanted to believe Gabe wouldn’t do something like this, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had been in on it too. If he had been getting close to her just to use her.

  Suddenly, Ellie’s phone buzzed, vibrating the surface of her nightstand. A text from Hunter. Come downstairs now.

  Ellie’s heart began to race. Oh God. He’s here. She wanted to hide out in her room, under the covers, and pretend like she didn’t see the message, but she knew she owed it to Hunter to talk to him face-to-face.

  When Ellie opened the front door, Hunter was standing on the stoop, his deep blue eyes piercing, and a piece of dirty-blond hair falling forward. Ellie was momentarily jolted, as she always was, by his classically perfect look, as if a movie star had jumped off the screen and was standing before her.

  “Tell me it was Photoshopped,” he said, searching her eyes.

  As much as she wanted to, Ellie couldn’t lie. She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Hunter clenched his jaw tightly and Ellie could almost feel his heart beating through his forest green thermal.

  “What about your mom?” It was classic Hunter. Always worried about other people before himself. Always aware of the political implications of every situation. It was one of the things Ellie loved best about him. “You must’ve killed her.”

  His words were like an ice bath.

  “Pretty much,” she mumbled.

  “What about us?” he spat out angrily, and Ellie took a step back. She had never seen Hunter, typically so even-keeled, like this. “What would make you do something like that?”

  “It had nothing to do with you, Hunter,” Ellie replied, her voice wavering under his steely glare. “It was a mistake. I love you.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Really, Ellie? That’s why you were making out with some random guy?”

  He wasn’t exactly a random guy. Gabe and Ellie had shared an intense, but brief, summer romance over two years ago before their parents were political enemies (and before Ellie and Hunter had ever started dating). However, it had been cut short when Ellie and Gabe’s parents began duking it out, and by the time Gabe had moved back to Arizona following his father’s primary election loss, he and Ellie had completely stopped speaking.

  She hadn’t told Hunter because she didn’t want him to needlessly worry when Gabe came back to town. Ellie had never planned on getting together with Gabe, but every time she was near him, it was like consequences momentarily ceased to exist. She pushed the thoughts about Gabe out of her head, focusing on Hunter, who stood before her looking like he was about to punch a hole in the door.

  “Hunter, please. Listen to me. I wish I could take it back. It was a one-time, accidental thing that was practically finished before it was started.” It had actually been a passion-fueled make-out session that Ellie finally put a stop to a full ten minutes after it had started. But Hunter didn’t need to know that. The point was, immediately after, as difficult as it was for her to say it, she had told Gabe that it could never happen again. “The fact that you did it at all is the problem, Ellie.” Hunter’s tone was now more collected and serious, though Ellie could tell it was a struggle for him to keep the fiery anger in his eyes from spilling into his vocal chords. “It’s not okay.”

  She sensed what he was going to say next. And she couldn’t let it happen. Yes, she had chemistry with Gabe, but she couldn’t trust him. And unlike Gabe, Ellie needed Hunter. Hunter was her sanity. Hunter had been her rock for the past two years. Hunter was the best thing to ever happen to her, a fact that had never been more apparent than now, when she was on the brink of losing him.

  “It didn’t mean anything,” she said, grabbing one of his hands. “You’re the one I want to be with!”

  Hunter shook his head with dismay, as if he had already written her off.

  “Please, Hunter—”

  “It’s over.” He turned away, walking down the front steps, the finality in his voice leaving no room for argument.

  The sun was just starting to meander its way through the clouds early Monday morning when Ellie, tossing and turning in her bed as she had the entire the weekend, heard rustling in her room.

  “Time to get up, Ellie!” instructed a voice she immediately recognized as belonging to her best friend, Brinley Madison.

  Ellie slowly opened her eyes, painfully swollen from an entire weekend’s worth of crying. Once Hunter had left Friday evening, Ellie had returned to her bed and let the tears flood out for hours. Crying about Hunter and how coldly he had looked at her, about how stupid she had been to take him for granted. Crying about Gabe and the way he had totally upended her life. Crying about her mother and secretly wishing she were a regular mom with a regular job so everything wouldn’t always be so utterly complicated.

  And there, in her bed, she had remained for the entire weekend, leaving only for bathroom breaks and to replenish her stash of Saltine crackers, the one food item she could tolerate. Her mother had spent the entire weekend holed up in her office with a few members of her staff, going into what Jasmine referred to as “Deep Damage Control Mode,” and hadn’t checked on her once, at least not while Ellie was awake. By Saturday morning, the photo was on every cable news outlet, the anchors raising judgmental eyebrows as they debated Marilyn’s parenting tactics and whether she could be a good mot
her and a senator. The implication being, given the photo, that she could not.

  Jasmine, who had been nice enough to bring Ellie a cup of chamomile tea Saturday evening, told Ellie she should consider herself lucky the photo came out on a Friday. None of the nightly news shows aired over the weekend, so Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reilly would have to wait until Monday to comment on it. The hope was, by then, some other newsworthy story would bump Ellie’s off their radar.

  Of course, the timing of it all did mean the story was featured on weekend news shows like Meet the Press. Ellie hadn’t intended on watching, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away as two gray-haired men she’d never met debated her stupidity and Marilyn’s humiliation, in between weightier discussions about the national unemployment rate and Iran’s nuclear arms program.

  During one of Ellie’s quick trips to the pantry, she overheard a debate between Marilyn, Jasmine, and several aides about whether Marilyn should make a statement to the press. Jasmine argued it might alleviate the negative P.R. being thrust Marilyn’s way, though she acknowledged it would give more weight to the photo. Marilyn was inclined to ignore the situation completely in the hopes that the scandal might die down. For years she had been working toward attaining the chairman position on the Senatorial Judicial Committee, and it had recently become available. Until the chairmanship was assigned, the less personal drama that surrounded Marilyn, the better, especially while Strippergate was still out there.

  “Ellie, you have to get out of bed,” Brinley intoned from the window where she drew the curtains, allowing the early light to stream into the room.

  “What are you doing here, Brin?” Ellie asked, her voice sounding nasal to her own ears.

  “Proactive P.R.,” Brinley replied as she swished around Ellie’s room, her deep auburn hair pulled half-back. “You’ll thank me later. Get up.”

  Ellie looked to the silver old-fashioned alarm clock she had on her nightstand. 5:45am. Jesus. Her phone lay next to the clock and Ellie instinctively checked it. Last night, in the midst of a crying jag about Hunter, she had revved up her laptop and penned a long email to him, trying to explain again what a huge mistake she had made, detailing all the things she loved most about him and ultimately asking him to forgive her. Though she wasn’t expecting an open-armed reconciliation, she thought maybe he’d at least reply. But as she looked through her phone, there was nothing. Not a single email, call or text. Nor anything from Gabe for that matter, who had not reached out to her that entire weekend, giving even more validation to Ellie’s fears—that he had used her.