Georgetown Academy, Season One
Page 29
“Hey,” Ellie responded, leaning into him as he sat down on the couch next to her. “Weston, this is my best friend, Brinley.”
“Cool,” he replied, his eyes remaining completely focused on Ellie and barely even grazing Brinley. “Nice to meet you, Bentley.”
Bentley?! Brinley let out an audible huff. Mistake #1. She was Ellie’s best friend. The guy should be working harder to impress her than a candidate on the rope line in a swing state. Instead, he had mispronounced her name, assuming she was one of those people whose parents were tacky enough to name them after a luxury vehicle.
“It’s Brinley,” she informed him, suppressing a second sigh. She wasn’t used to being relegated to side-show status and she couldn’t say she loved it.
“Weston, you remember it’s Brinley’s father that your mom hired to help her clinch the nomination,” Ellie said quickly, aware that the initial best friend meet and greet was not going over well.
“Oh, that’s right. Sorry. I thought it sounded familiar,” he replied, leaning forward in the couch so he could face Brinley and flash her a self-deprecating, laidback smile. She returned a small one, slightly mollified. After all, it probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world that he remained so focused on Ellie.
“Anyway,” he continued, “a few of us were going to get out of here if you guys want to come.”
“You are?” Ellie asked, surprised. Rarely did people venture out this close to the 11 p.m. curfew. Not that it was strictly enforced, but most people didn’t risk it. If you wanted to party after curfew, it made more sense to meet up in each other’s rooms after a chaperone had finished their sweep of your hallway.
“Yeah. There’s a little place in town we were going to hit up. Some of my friends are already there. They said it’s pretty fun.” He playfully tugged on Ellie’s delicate pink sweater, as he maneuvered himself off the deep couch. “Come with us. ”
“I don’t know…” Ellie replied, completely unconvincingly. It was so obvious she wanted to go. She gave a quick look to Brinley, as if asking permission.
“Come on. You only live once,” Weston said, reaching for Ellie’s hand. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”
Ellie let herself be pulled up from the couch by him, then turned to Brinley. “Do you want to come, Brin?”
“I think I’ll pass,” she said. “But you go ahead.”
She didn’t want to be left here by herself, but if Ellie wanted to go, she wouldn’t stop her. It wasn’t like she needed a babysitter.
“See you in the room,” Ellie said, giving her a quick hug good-bye before she dashed off with Weston. Even though he had clearly not done his research into how to impress a best friend, Ellie seemed pretty happy around him…which was enough to make Brinley decide to tolerate him for the time being, too. Ellie had shed more tears than John Boehner the past month, and Weston seemed to at least resurrect the light-hearted side of her, which was a step in the right direction.
Brinley leaned back in the couch, debating her next move. She couldn’t keep sitting there alone in the middle of the packed lobby, though truthfully, that’s exactly what she felt like doing. But Katherine Madison would never approve of the wallflower approach. She needed someone to hang out with. Where were her friends?
She spotted Hunter, one of the most sought-after guys post break-up with Ellie, warming up on one of the oversized chairs by the fire talking closely to Jenny Lim, now one of the most popular girls at Georgetown Academy. Everyone had been clamoring for the two of them to get together since she became a G.A. darling, viewing them as a potential white-hot power couple with his father as Attorney General and her father as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. No one seemed to have figured out Jenny was the one who took the photo of Ellie and Gabe, handing it off to her father who then delivered it to Brinley’s father. For the past two weeks, Brinley had weighed various plots of revenge to exact on Jenny, but she finally conceded it was impossible to do so without exposing her father’s involvement.
She moved her gaze to the left where she found Narc sprawled over one of the ottomans across the way, chatting animatedly to a group. Narc, the son of acclaimed television journalist Paul Nelson, was not only a good friend of Ellie and Brinley’s, but also one of the few people who actually made her laugh with his special brand of self-deprecating humor. As she was about to stand and join him, Narc turned slightly, revealing her ex-boyfriend, Graham Wells, sitting in the leather armchair across from him, stopping Brinley dead in her tracks. Over the last few weeks, she had accumulated pages of witty one-sentence barbs to fling his way, writing each one down in her phone’s notepad as they came to her, but she didn’t have the energy to deliver even one of them properly right now.
Finally, she heard a familiar voice behind her. “Brinley, there you are!” She looked up to see Sarah Corliss, a sophomore at Sidwell, one of her good friends ever since they had been enrolled in sailing camp together years ago, standing with a blond guy with squinty-eyes who looked vaguely familiar.
“How are you?” Sarah asked, in her trademark raspy voice. Sarah was one of those girls who wasn’t naturally pretty, but who had used every weapon in her arsenal to make herself almost pretty, from make-up to flat irons to eyebrow waxing to a perfectly culled wardrobe. And she was massively connected, even by Brinley’s standards. Not only was her mother besties with FLOTUS, but Sarah’s older brother had dated one of the Bush twins for years, even getting invited out to the Kennebunkport house over multiple summer vacations.
“I’m good,” Brinley said, aware of how the lethargy in her voice completely contradicted her words. She plastered on a smile. “Really good.”
Sarah moved to the dark wood coffee table across from her, sitting down on top of it as if it were a chair, and motioning to the blond guy to join them. As Brinley took in his dimpled chin and tan tennis-playing physique, it hit her. It was Kyle Price. One of the guys from her mother’s binder.
Almost as if Katherine Madison was playing puppet-master from five hundred miles away, Sarah asked, “Have you two met before? Kyle, this is Brinley Madison.” She accentuated the last name and Kyle perked up instantly in recognition and respect.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, offering up a soft, manicured hand. As Brinley gave him an appraising look, she admitted she could at least appreciate his outfit selection. A black Gucci quilted vest over a black thermal with dark jeans and black Après ski boots.
“I think our parents are friends,” he said, amiably. “Didn’t they host that McCain fundraiser together years ago?”
“That’s right,” Brinley said, as if she didn’t know his entire life story from his birth at Sibley to the MVP award he had picked up on the St. Alban’s lacrosse team to the beach compound in Turks and Caicos his family owned. She reached through her brain for something else to add, but came up empty. All her socializing earlier that night seemed to have sapped her of any reserve energy.
She instinctively looked up, scanning the room for Nathan Wright, a junior at G.A. and her former dealer, wondering if he’d brought his stash of his pharmaceuticals on the trip. If she could sneak away to the bathroom, pop an Adderall and come back, with her adrenaline buzzing and her wit crackling, everything would be so much easier…
But suddenly she heard a voice in her head. A whispering voice that clearly belonged to Dr. Faucher. This was what she would have called a trigger situation. And when Brinley found herself in a trigger situation, she was supposed to immediately take herself out of it.
Yes, her mother would be upset if she knew she had willingly left a conversation with Kyle Price for an early bedtime, but she reasoned her mother would be even angrier if Brinley relapsed within the first forty-eight hours of being back. So, in a way, her mother should be proud of this decision. Anyway, she could always find Kyle Price tomorrow when she was feeling better and re-assess.
“You know what, I think I’m going to head up,” she said in an apologetic voice before she could change her mind.
“I’m just a little tired,” Brinley said. She paused. Obviously the “mono” she was recovering from was the perfect follow-up excuse, but she didn’t want Kyle associating her with that rank illness. “I always get extra tired and dehydrated when I fly coach,” she added quickly.
Kyle nodded, an understanding look now appearing in his squinty eyes. “Me, too.”
“Talk to you later, Brin,” Sarah said, but Brinley was already halfway to the elevator bank. She could barely count the seconds until she was in that bed.
Brinley navigated the maze of narrow hallways to the room she and Ellie had been assigned, her irritation growing. She was utterly exhausted, but of course, she had been assigned to the room at the very end of the last corridor, the absolute farthest from the elevator bank. She finally reached the door, already imagining how good it would feel to pull the clean, cool sheets over her body as she slid the electronic key in the slot. Red light. The door remained locked. She sighed and tried again, slower this time. Red light.
By the time she had retraced her steps to the elevator, Brinley was ready to strangle whichever moronic employee had mis-programmed her key, her anger pulsating and re-energizing her as she rode it back down to the lobby. She hadn’t even wanted to come on this stupid trip and now she had to deal with this when all she really wanted was to go to bed?
When the doors opened, Brinley indignantly stomped her way past the hundreds of students still hanging out, beelining for the front desk and ready to give someone a piece of her mind.
Of course, the desk was empty. Brinley rolled her eyes. This would never fly at the Ritz. She rang the bell several times loudly.
“Coming,” drawled a male voice from the back office. She tapped the bell once more for good measure, and the door finally opened, revealing a young guy with dark, spiky hair and the bluest eyes she had ever seen. He gave her an apologetic smile, which she found herself returning against her will. Get a hold of yourself. He’s probably a townie whose biggest accomplishment is spending six straight hours in the hot tub after a long day of snowmobiling.
“How can I help you?” he asked. She finally caught sight of the nametag clipped to his chest. Shane.
“Well, Shane, I walked all the way to my room, only to find my key wasn’t programmed correctly. Clearly, some incompetent employee entered the wrong code and—”
“Did you have it in your wallet?”
“Yes,” she replied snippily. Shane was a little less cute now that he wasn’t letting her even finish a sentence. “Right here.” She opened up her Louis Vuitton wallet to illustrate.
“That’s the problem. They get demagnetized if you put them next to your credit cards. We explained it when we handed these out to you all.”
Brinley vaguely remembered this now—she had been too busy making sure all the girls in her immediate vicinity had noticed her Prada fur-lined jacket to listen to the check-in instructions—and immediately felt sheepish, though she covered with a dramatic sigh.
“Well, you guys need to figure out a new key system then.”
“Or maybe you should just listen when they tell you where to stow your key.”
Annoyance flared through her. How dare he tell her what to do?
“Do you have a manager?” It was a favorite refrain of Brinley’s. One she used whenever she didn’t get her way.
“He’s not here,” Shane replied, completely unruffled. “I guess you’re out of luck.” He handed her a new packet of keys. “Here you go.”
“How do you know they’re going to work this time? I’m not walking all the way back up there just to have to come back down.”
“Why don’t I come with you?” It wasn’t the response she was expecting — but then, what was she expecting him to say?
“Um, okay,” she replied, slightly off-guard. “That would be helpful.”
“You’re with the big group from D.C.?” Shane asked her, as they stepped off the elevator.
“Yes,” Brinley said. They walked down the hallway in awkward silence for a moment, so Brinley added, “You’re from here, right?” The slight New England accent was unmistakable.
“Born and raised. Now I go to community college up in Morristown. First year.” So he was eighteen. Only a few years older than her. What do you care? Her inner-voice chastised her, though it wasn’t enough to stop her from continuing the conversation. Oddly, the exhaustion that had hampered her exchange with Kyle moments ago wasn’t interfering with her ability to talk to Shane.
“What are you studying there?”
“Just getting my G.E.’s out of the way. I eventually want to transfer.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“What? Did you assume I wanted to stay here for the rest of my life running the ski school?” That was exactly what Brinley had assumed, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
“No,” she replied, grateful they had finally reached the room.
She took out the key.
“Moment of truth,” he said. Brinley slid it in and the door instantly unlocked.
Shane held it open for her to pass through and suddenly, an awkward thought entered her head. She wasn’t supposed to tip him, was she? Her father and Brooks were usually the ones who took care of that when they traveled.
But before she could ponder it further, he was stepping into the room, surveying the plethora of suitcases at the foot of her bed.
“You brought all of that for a two-day trip?” he asked incredulously. “I think that’s more clothes than I’ve owned in the last five years.” I’m sure it is, she thought snobbily to herself, though a hint of remorse crept through her immediately after when she and Shane caught eyes. There was something…sweet about him that made putting him down, even in her own head, feel unpleasant.
“You planning on skiing tomorrow?”
“Probably not,” she replied truthfully. “I…haven’t been feeling great lately. I think skiing might be too much for me. Though god knows what else I’ll do.”
“There’s other things to do in Stowe besides skiing.”
“Please. All you’ve got is a mountain and a street masquerading as a ‘town’ with a few hillbilly bars, a clothing boutique that’s still hawking the same tacky sweaters it was back in 2005 and a movie theatre with god-knows-what embedded in the faux-velvet seats.” Brinley was almost out of breath from her tirade, but it felt good. Almost like when she took an Adderall. Somehow her previous anger and exhaustion had morphed into adrenaline. Is this what people meant when they talked about a natural high?
“Why don’t you let me prove it to you?” he asked, his blue eyes boring into hers. Maybe it wasn’t adrenaline after all. Maybe her intense proximity to Shane had woken her up.
“What?” She was sure she’d heard him wrong. “You mean…like hang out? Tomorrow?”
He nodded. “I’ll take you to my favorite spot in Stowe tomorrow night. I bet you’ve never been.”
Brinley paused. What she really needed to be doing tomorrow was finagling a dinner plan with Kyle Price, not spending time with someone whose favorite dress shirt was probably made of denim. But as she opened her mouth to decline Shane’s invitation, she found herself saying, “Okay.”
“Okay,” he replied. As he flashed that sweet smile at her once again, she felt a quiver of excitement deep in her stomach. Of course, her mother would never approve…but she was going to ignore that little fact for the moment.
After all, what Katherine Madison didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
***
Ellie strolled down Mountain Road next to Weston, her short black wedge booties crunching on the light dusting of snow beneath her feet. She was disappointed he and Brinley hadn’t exactly hit it off, but there was a part of her that wasn’t surprised. With Weston’s breezy attitude from school politics to actual politics, he and Brinley were complete opposites.
The sidewalk was crowded, but most of the D.C. students hustling by them were headed back to the hotel to make the mandatory eleven o’clock curfew. A flurry of nerves whipped through her at blatantly disregarding the rule, but she wasn’t going to turn back now. It’s not like the chaperones actually checked the rooms to make sure the students were in their beds. It was more of an honor system thing and luckily, she didn’t have to worry about running into any of them at the place she and Weston were headed.
“Have you been to this club before?” she asked. “Are you sure we can get in?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, Weston Morris can’t. But Brad Phillips shouldn’t have a problem.”
The realization of what he meant landed with a thud and she abruptly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “I can’t go. I don’t have a fake I.D.”
“So what? We’ll do a pass-back.” She looked at him blankly, and he explained, “I’ll find a girl in there who looks like you, get her I.D. and bring it out. The pass-back move works like a charm.”
Ellie bit her lip. She didn’t want to seem lame, but that sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.
Weston instantly picked up on her unease. “Don’t worry. I’ve done it a million times. The bouncers never look at the names or the pictures, just the DOB’s. Trust me.”
Not a trace of concern colored his striking features. Maybe he was right. He had done this before. And going to a club with Weston sounded much more fun than going back to the stuffy lodge and doing the same thing she had done every year on the ski retreat. She could use a little excitement.
“Okay. We can try it.”
“Good. Because my other option involved you scaling a wall and climbing through the bathroom window. I didn’t think that was going to fly.” He gave her a playful nudge.
She grinned and they started walking again, the club’s bright lights looming ahead. Weston stopped just short of it so they were out of the line of sight of the buff bouncer guarding the front. The loud bass from the band thumped from inside and a large group of twenty-something girls flashed their I.D.’s and happily bounded through the doorway, chattering loudly about their cocktail options.