Vanessa, 1. Mac, 2.
I wondered when Round Two would begin—and what kind of fallout there would be. At the moment I couldn’t see any positives about being Mac’s roommate.
None at all.
AFTER DINNER, Lissa and Gillian came back to my room to talk over the excitement.
“It’s like the Slayer,” Lissa said. “In every generation there can be only one, you know?”
“You are such a dork. What’d you do, watch all your Buffy DVDs over break?” Gillian flopped down on my bed. “But you’re right. I can’t see this going on for very long. One of them is going to kill the other, or get her expelled by the end of the week. And it’s only Tuesday.” She blinked. “Is all this stuff hers?”
“Yep.” I sank into my desk chair, leaving the other end of my bed for Lissa. “I left all my Vuittons at home.” Not.
“Wow. And I thought I had a lot of stuff.”
“I just don’t know where she—”
The door opened and Mac stepped in. “Company?” she inquired pleasantly. “Lovely.”
Turning her back on us, she shrugged off the black sweater and unzipped the dress, tossing it in a corner. She kicked off her shoes and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
“Will—will you be able to do something about the dress?” I asked, hoping I sounded concerned. There was no hope of being friends, of course, but a catastrophe like this deserved some mourning over the body, at least.
She glanced at it. “Oh, I don’t know. Haven’t the faintest idea where to get it seen to. I’ll probably just order another one.”
From Chanel Couture. In Paris. Sure, I’ll take two.
“It’s still a shame. Vanessa is such a—” Gillian stopped herself, then crossed the carpet and held out a hand. “I’m Gillian Chang. Carly says you’re called Mac. Is that short for something?”
Mac ran a glance over her—tennies, jeans, cashmere sweater, face—and shook hands. “Hello. It’s short for MacPhail.”
Lissa got up, too. “I’m Lissa Mansfield. It’s a pleasure to meet anyone with the spine to stand up to Vanessa. What’s your first name?”
She got the same once-over before Mac spoke. “I prefer Mac.”
O-o-kay. I took a tiny bit of comfort from the fact that she was an equal-opportunity snubber.
But unlike me, Lissa didn’t go away quietly. “You know, I could swear we’ve met before. Your face is familiar, for some reason.”
“I don’t see how.” Mac picked up a brush and ran it through her unruly curls. “I’ve never been to California in my life.”
“What about New York? Montreal? Vancouver?”
Mac shook her head, twisting her hair up and securing it with a clip.
“MacPhail. Are you from the U.K.? Scotland?”
“Originally. I go to school in London, of course. We have to do one term of cultural exchange. That’s how I ended up here.” She made it sound like she was researching pygmies in Borneo—against her will.
“What was your first choice?” I meant it as a joke, but she didn’t take it that way.
“New Zealand.”
Oh. Never mind. Was it possible to have thirty seconds of conversation with this girl without being flattened?
“Well, I’m glad you came here,” Gillian said. “Vanessa could use a little humility.”
“Oh? What have you got against her?”
Whoa. Was she switching sides? Did money and European connections stick together, no matter what?
“Me? Nothing. Except that she tried to steal my boyfriend last term. And she set Lissa up—”
“I don’t think Mac would be very interested in that,” Lissa interrupted. “Come on, Gillian. Carly, are you coming to prayer circle? It’s Tuesday.”
“Absolutely. Just let me change my blouse. I got pesto on this one.”
Mac looked from them, waiting by the door, to me, tearing off the babydoll top I had on and reaching for a tailored blouse that made my waist look half an inch smaller. “Prayer circle?” she said, in the same tone some people would say, “Head lice?”
“Sure.” Gillian smiled at her. “Tuesday nights, seven o’clock. Everyone’s welcome.”
“Term always starts on a Wednesday,” Lissa put in. “It kicks it off on a good note, I think.”
“Is that a Christian thing?” Mac asked.
Lissa nodded. I finished buttoning up the blouse and gave it a final tug. Jump right in. “Want to come?”
Mac actually shuddered. “I’m going out. Where do you lot party ’round here?”
We exchanged a look. “You’d have to ask someone like Vanessa about that. She probably knows where the underage clubs are.”
“The what?”
“Underage clubs,” I repeated. “You’re sixteen, right?”
“Do you seriously think I’d waste my time with children?”
“Let me rephrase. You’d have to ask Vanessa about that. She probably knows where you can get a fake I.D.”
“What has that got to do with clubbing? Do you know or not?”
I gave up. “I don’t. Sorry.” I grabbed Lissa and Carly by the arms and hustled them out the door. “Have fun.”
We were halfway to Room 216 before anyone spoke. “I know what I’m praying about tonight,” Lissa said.
“No kidding.” My voice sounded grim, even to me. “And while you’re at it, pray that Tobin finds her another room.”
GILLIAN HADN’T HAD TIME to put up her usual neon-colored prayer-circle posters, so I didn’t expect many people to show. Which, as it turned out, was a good thing. Because ever since I started school here and started hanging around with her and Lissa, it had slowly sunk in that they were different. I mean, I try to be as nice as possible to everyone. I’d rather make a friend than an enemy, you know? Especially at Spencer, where friendships seem to extend to college and beyond, creating this network of alumni that are all wealthy, famous, and connected.
But like I said, there was something . . . more . . . about Gillian and Lissa. Something that I wanted to be a part of with them, even though it scared me. I’d tried to talk with Shani about it last term, but she just got weirded out and changed the subject. So while I’d been in Mexico, I’d had plenty of time on my own to think. To locate the family Bible in my abuelita’s room and dip into it. To realize that, since September, I’d been circling around a choice and I couldn’t see yet what lay beyond it.
And now here we were, heading for the very first prayer circle of the term, where something told me I was going to stop circling and start facing that choice head-on.
Room 216, as usual, had gotten filled up with junk over the break. If everyone goes away, where does the stuff come from? It’s a mystery. Anyway, we spent about ten minutes locating the chairs and piling cardboard boxes out in the hall for the maintenance staff to take away. The unofficial art exhibit had gone from odd sculptures and oils to a collection of graphic art mounted on foam core and tacked up along the wall, above the Edwardian wainscoting.
One of the pictures caught my eye. A lithe female figure was caught in mid-kick, taking out an evil-looking cloud with yellow eyes. Lettered neatly in the bottom left corner was a name: G. Chang.
“Gillian, is this yours?”
My loudmouth friend, who has never backed down from anything, that I know of—well, except during that whole episode with Lucas Hayes last term—actually blushed. “I told them not to put that in here,” she mumbled. “It’s not very good.”
“I think it’s really good. I didn’t even know you could draw. That graphic arts class must really kick.” I glanced at the panel again. “No pun intended.”
“Kaz thinks it’s good,” Lissa put in, moving the chairs into a tight circle. “And he should know. Some New York editor asked for his whole book during break.”
“Wow.” I didn’t know a thing about graphic novels or publishing, but this sounded pretty impressive to me. “Did you guys see a lot of each other when you were down there?”
Personally, I had my own ideas about that. I’d seen the expression on Kaz’s face that night at the Benefactors’ Day Ball, when he’d saved Lissa on the dance floor. I don’t have the biggest pile of ex-files in the world, but even I can tell when a guy is apasionado for a girl. But probably if I said anything, she’d get all uneasy about it, and it would mess up what they had going.
Better to mind my own business.
And what was I doing thinking about art and boys, anyway, when I was supposed to be thinking about prayer circle?
I sat next to Lissa just as the door opened and Shani Hanna came in, with Jeremy right behind her.
“Hey!” Gillian grabbed her in a hug, and hugged Jeremy, too, for good measure. Not that I noticed him complaining. “Did you just get here?”
“Yeah. There was so much traffic coming north from the airport that I thought I’d miss it. How are you guys?” Shani hugged each of us in turn. Today her hair was french-braided in a circle like a crown around her head. It suited her perfectly.
“Great, now that you’re here.” I grinned at her. “Are you sure you don’t keep a personal stylist in your closet?”
“No kidding,” Lissa said. “No human female can be this good with her own hair. You have a different ’do every time I look at you.”
“Ease up,” Shani said, pretending to hide behind her hands. “I told Gillian when I was at her place. I spent, like, thousands of hours on my own when I was a kid. The housemaids used to hang out with me, and we had this mini-salon going in my bedroom. We’d spend hours learning how to do hair and makeup and reading Essence and Cosmo by the inch.”
I thought of the way our place had been when I was a kid. Noisy, flamboyant, with relatives coming and going all the time. My dad had bought his parents a house down the street from us with his first million, and their place was the same as ours. No relative was allowed to come through the San Jose airport without at least staying overnight. And since my grandparents each had half a dozen siblings, that made for a lot of houseguests.
Now we’re down to three bedrooms and two baths in the condo, and my grandparents are gone and the houses sold. Even so, when Dad is in town, we have a lot of company. Poor Shani. From what she’d told me, growing up in that big mansion in Chicago must have been like growing up in a walk-in freezer. She did pretty well for being brought up by housemaids moonlighting as nannies, if you ask me. On top of a great sense of style and genius with her hair, she’s sassy, smart, and has a comeback for everything.
She and Gillian are just the way I’d like to be. Fearless.
Again with the monkey brain. I needed to settle my thoughts. What was wrong with me? It was like my mind was doing total God avoidance. Not that I was really trying to avoid Him. But you know how it is with big decisions. You put them off until they either go away, solve themselves . . . or become Really Big Issues. I seemed to have arrived at door number three while I was aiming at doors one and two. Which happens a lot with me.
“It’s seven, you guys,” Gillian said. “Let’s get started. I guess we don’t have to do intros this time, do we?”
We joined hands and Gillian started us off. As she prayed, I felt myself squeezing Lissa’s and Jeremy’s hands tighter and tighter. Shani passed. After her came Jeremy. I only had a few minutes to make up my mind—to walk up to that choice and face it head-on. To say yes—or no.
Poor Jeremy. As he finished praying, he gently tried to take his hand out of mine. I’d squeezed so hard it had turned red.
I closed my eyes and opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
Ten seconds went by. I tried again. Nada.
“Carly?” Gillian asked softly. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I managed. “Just give me a minute.”
They did. Lissa’s hand squeezed mine with reassurance. “Father,” her voice came strong and sure, “please reach out and put Your hands around Carly. She needs You.”
And suddenly I knew that was the answer. As simple as that—I needed God. And He, for some reason, needed me, too. And wasn’t that the coolest thing?
“Father,” I said, my voice getting stronger with every word, “thank You for wanting me. Thank You for my friends, who show me every day that needing You is a good thing. I want that, too.” Happiness began to warm me, deep inside. “I want to be Your child for good.”
And you know what?
It wasn’t such a hard choice to make, after all.
EOverton Major news flash!
VTalbot If it’s one more thing about that Brit I’m not interested.
EOverton OK.
VTalbot Well?
EOverton But you said—
VTalbot E, just spit it out.
EOverton You know Lainey who helps in the admin office?
VTalbot Chunky, bad cut, mom on the SFMOMA board?
EOverton She’s not that chunky.
VTalbot The point, E.
EOverton She just filed Mac’s paperwork and you’re not going to believe this.
VTalbot She was expelled from West Heath. Big deal. So was my mom.
EOverton Bigger than that. But the right country.
VTalbot I don’t have time for 20 Questions. I’m going over to Callum’s.
EOverton I found out her real name.
VTalbot Don’t tell me. She’s Kathy Hilton’s secret daughter.
EOverton No. She’s the Earl of Strathcairn’s daughter. Full name Lady Lindsay Margaret Eithne MacPhail.
VTalbot Lady???
EOverton Who would call herself a stupid name like Mac when she’s got a title?
VTalbot Why should you care? You want to be friends now?
EOverton Not until she apologizes to you.
VTalbot Glad we got that settled. I’m off.
EOverton Have fun.
VTalbot I always do.
Chapter 3
AFTER PRAYER CIRCLE, we usually walked down the hill to graze in one of the restaurants on Fillmore, or just went to Starbucks for a latte. But tonight I was still in recovery. All I wanted to do was hang out and talk about what I’d decided with my friends. So everyone except Jeremy, who wasn’t allowed in the girls’ dorm, came back to my room with me.
“Oh, good.” Gillian took in the empty room with a glance, and made herself at home on my bed. “We have the place to ourselves.”
Nothing wrong with being glad about that, was there? I tried to imagine talking about choosing God with Mac in the room, lying negligently on her bed with a cynical, maybe even mocking, expression in her eyes. Nuh-uh. Impossible.
“I’m so happy.” Lissa hugged me—for at least the fifth time between Room 216 and here—and flopped at Gillian’s feet. “Now I feel like I can talk with you about anything.”
I rummaged in the cupboard and found a jumbo bag of Ruffles. “You couldn’t before?”
“Mostly. But not about everything. Now I feel . . . free.”
I paused for a second, testing my emotions. “Know what? So do I. Isn’t that weird?”
“Define weird,” Shani said. “Weird was watching your face back there. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “More than okay. I feel peaceful. Like I finally did what God wanted and He’s massively happy about it.”
“But what did you do, exactly?” Shani’s forehead was creased, like she was trying hard to solve a math problem from the senior textbook without having gone over the material first.
“I realized that needing Him was okay.” How simple was that? How simple, and how amazingly complicated. “I’ve been dealing with this for months. As you guys could probably tell.” How to put it so they’d understand? “And it got to the point where I had to do something. Or nothing. But I had to make up my mind. It almost felt like it had to happen now.”
“Okay, that’s weird,” Shani said a little flatly. “Is God going to push you in front of a Mu
ni bus, or what?”
“I saw it in a vision,” I said solemnly. “Tomorrow, while I’m crossing to go to the field house.”
Her face went slack, and I burst out laughing. “Come on, Shani. You know God doesn’t do stuff like that.”
Embarrassment mixed with a little defiance in her expression. “How would I know? You guys all seem to be the experts.”
“Far from it,” Lissa said with a snort. “Just ask Gillian about the first time I met her.”
“She thought I was going to whip out the incense and smoke her out.” Gillian grinned at her. “And I thought she was going to whip out the Humboldt County leaf and smoke me out.”
I had to laugh. Talk about a collision in your expectations. “And you both turned out to be believers.”
“Yeah, putting our absolute worst feet forward,” Gillian said. “It’s not about being perfect or experts. It’s about listening and talking and having a relationship with a God who loves you more than anything.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Shani said, a little wistfully. “But I just can’t wrap my brain around it.”
“It’s not the brain,” I said quietly. “It’s the heart. I felt like mine was going to explode. And not in a cardiac-arrest way.” I waggled my hands, trying to gather up the right words. “A love way.”
“Huh.” Shani tried to take this in, then shook her head and got up. “I’m going to go up and finish unpacking,” she said in a not-very-subtle change of subject. “Last term of junior year already. Everybody got their community service credits in?”
“Lots of stuff going on. I’m being a grunt on the prom committee—excuse me, the Cotillion committee.” Trust Lissa to snag that one. And trust her to let Shani think she was getting away with avoiding the issue. “The seniors are in charge, so it’s one of the few things Vanessa isn’t running. Cotillion sounds so old-fashioned, doesn’t it?”
“This is an old-fashioned kind of place,” Gillian said. “Just don’t make me wear a white gown and pretend to be a deb.”
“I don’t think debs exist in California,” Lissa said. “The species went extinct in the fifties. Anyway, Vanessa’s got her hooks in the really cool thing—the fashion show in June.”
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