Dream Life

by Lauren Mechling

  “They’re still huge for some.” I pointed to a little girl who was devouring a sundae at a nearby table. “I think it’s you who’s changed size,” I said, and Becca laughed.

  With the Moon initiation only a few hours away, Becca probably should have been at the Moonery strewing rose petals around Gummy’s skeleton or whatever the mysterious-sounding ceremony required, but she’d agreed to tag along at my Saturday rendezvous.

  I looked back at the door—still no sign of Reagan.

  “Do you think she changed her mind?” I asked.

  “Will you relax?” Becca said. “You came to her with a win-win situation. And on top of that, Serendipity Three is a sugar fiend’s skid row.” She tugged at the green and white shoelace she’d double-wrapped around her wrist. Only Becca could make one of Louis’s tennis doodads look like a fashion accessory worth going on a two-year waiting list for. I smiled at her and brought a spoonful of frozen hot chocolate to my lips.

  A soft rain had been falling ever since the morning, lending the day a fuzzy quality. We settled into a lazy silence and I snapped to attention when Reagan breezed in. She was wearing a short gray trench coat, and her normally straight hair was starting to curl.

  “Sorry I’m late.” She lowered herself into a chair and shimmied out of her coat. “No matter how many times I come here, I always forget how far east it is and tell the cab to let me off a hundred blocks away. I mean, not a hundred, but a lot.”

  She was on edge, and her nervousness was contagious.

  Becca was still furious with her, but had the heart to nod understandingly. “I have weird brain freezes too. It took me until, like, last year to get ahold of left and right. I had to keep going like this.” She made two Ls with her thumbs and index fingers.

  I smiled. It was sweet, the way she was trying to lighten the situation.

  “I saw this thing on the Internet about a guy who got the words ‘left’ and ‘right’ tattooed on his hands, but the tattoo artist did it the wrong way,” Reagan said.

  Now we were all looking around the table, and it was obvious somebody needed to kill the small talk.

  “Is it true what you said about Kiki being able to get me into Columbia?” Reagan asked me.

  “It’s looking good. She and Dean Rabinowitz are like this.” I crossed my middle and index fingers.

  “Wow. This is unbelievable. Oh—I almost forgot. As requested.” Reagan produced an enormous green leather satchel and handed it to me. “You don’t know how much this means to me. Thank you.” She was so emotional her words came out as whispers.

  “And you held up your end of the deal?”

  She nodded tentatively. “Dad thawed out when I told him I’d go to that clinic. He’d heard of it—apparently a lot of Global actors have gone there.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “And speaking of Global Media, anything else to report?”

  “Yeah, of course.” Reagan pulled her frizzing hair back into a ponytail. “Dad and Ian had a little chat about Ian coming on to work as the Toro Boy consultant.”

  “It worked!” I exclaimed, and felt pride flash through me. I glimpsed Becca biting down a smile.

  “Dad promised me your buddy’s opinions will be heard loud and clear, and he seems pretty serious about it,” Reagan assured me. “Of course, Ian’s employment is contingent on my continued welcome at a certain institution of higher learning.” My cheeks went hot and I looked around the room, half expecting her father’s local news team to bear down on us and expose us for the slimy wheel greasers we were. But everybody else in the restaurant was carrying on as if it were just another Saturday afternoon—little kids pigging out on junk food while their guardians smiled vacantly.

  “And you didn’t tell Ian that I was behind any of it, did you?” I asked.

  “Give me some credit.” Her eyes sparkled. “It was funny. Dad got the name of the store wrong and said they knew him from Powder Keg Comics. But Ian didn’t correct him.”

  Becca raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe he didn’t catch the mistake. It’s amazing how far people will go to hear what they want to hear.”

  Becca’s phone rang and at the same time a waiter appeared at our table. “Name your pleasure,” he said to Reagan.

  Talk about hearing what you want to hear.

  “No way!” Becca was saying to someone on the phone, her eyes growing like balloons. “Are you serious? … Actually, she’s right here. … No, you tell her.” She smiled at me in a way that could only mean one thing.

  “Hello?” I said into the phone.

  “What are you doing hanging out with my sister when you could be here with me?” Only Andy’s voice could make my stomach cartwheel. “I have something to tell you.”

  “Is it bad?” My voice croaked.

  “Why would I want to say something bad to you? How fast can you get up to the Columbia gates? One Sixteenth and Broadway.”

  “You mean now?”

  “No, next April. Yes, now.”

  I fought back a grin and glanced around the table. “I’m sort of in the mid—”

  “No you’re not. The meeting’s adjourned.” Becca grabbed the phone back from me. “She’ll be there soon. Just be nice to her or I kill you.”

  Reagan’s lips started to wobble as I rose to my feet.

  “Don’t worry.” I tucked the folder into my bag. “When Kiki says she’s got you covered, she means it. See you around.”

  Reagan smiled. “Yeah, I hope so.”

  When I got out of the cab, Andy was leaning against the black iron gate, holding up an oversized umbrella and talking to a guy and a girl. He waved me over when he saw me.

  “Hey,” I said, careful not to step too close. We’d never hung out on Columbia turf, and I didn’t know how he wanted to play it. Could be embarrassing to have an almost-girlfriend who was only in tenth grade. My Kewpie doll height and flimsy tote bag instead of laptop carrier didn’t exactly help my case.

  But he just gave me that we’re-the-only-two-people-in-the-world look he does so well and pulled me in tight, resting his chin on top of my head.

  “Everyone, this is Claire.” Andy was so close I could feel his chest moving with every syllable. “And Claire, these are my roommates for next year, James and Anna.”

  And that was when it clicked. Andy had aced all his midterms. He was back in at Columbia. And, more important, back in my life.

  “Are you serious?” I craned my neck his way. “You’re all living together?”

  “Unless there’s something you want to tell me about them. Oh, while you guys are all here, I should warn you that Claire has an uncanny ability to sniff out people’s dirty secrets.”

  Anna eyed me appraisingly “You’re a mind reader?”

  “I’m just good at paying attention,” I said, blushing.

  “Lucky you,” she said. “If I could pay attention long enough to finish my Russian lit essay, I could have a normal weekend.”

  Two bells clanged in the background and James made a fist and knocked it against Andy’s. “I gotta go.”

  “Me too,” Anna said. “And Claire, I look forward to learning about everybody’s dirty secrets.” Her eyes lit up in a way that made me feel safe and I turned to look at Andy.

  “I’ve known them both since we were little kids. They seem pretty okay, right?” Andy checked after the two had started down the path.

  Maybe even more than just okay, I thought.

  I hummed in assent and watched as he removed a letter from his coat pocket. “I wanted to show you—actually, let’s wait until we’re indoors. If the rain smudges it, I’m screwed.”

  “What is it?” I reached out for it and he jumped back.

  “Trust me, it’s worth the wait.” He grabbed my wrist. “There’s a place just around the corner I’ve been meaning to bring you anyway.”

  A couple minutes later we were propped up on two adjoining barstools at the Old Town Saloon. It was middle-of-the-evening crowded, thanks to the lousy weather, a
nd more than a couple of customers were offering beery commentary on the basketball game playing on the television set overhead.

  Andy ordered a seltzer and a grilled chicken sandwich. I asked for a Coke. “You sure you don’t want anything else?” Andy double-checked.

  “I’m good,” I said.

  Just then I noticed the huge framed map of New York City on the wall. It was old and faded, with a rash of age spots eating away at the far end of the Brooklyn Bridge. It made me think of Sink Landon and everything the Moons and I had been through to stop him. And for the first time since finding out about the extent of the Moons’ deal with the city, I felt a pang of warmth, like I was thinking about an old friend.

  “Here’s what I wanted to show you.” Andy plunked the note on City College letterhead in the spot between my two elbows and ran his palm over his fuzzy head while he waited.

  “Three deans’ signatures and four A-minuses,” I said. “Impressive.”

  “I’m back in … completely.” Hearing this gave me such a rush I thought I might hiccup. “So now you and I can be sitting here.”

  “No offense,” I said, watching a potbellied man run up and down the bar giving high-fives to anyone who would let him. “I don’t think they’re that discriminating around these parts.”

  He play-punched me in the arm. “You know what I mean. You and I can be together. And I don’t have to look over my shoulder every other second to make sure that someone I know isn’t going to embarrass me by coming over and blowing my cover.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you I wouldn’t have minded?”

  He smiled. “How many times have I told you I’m a slow learner?”

  My necklace was heating up like a glowworm and I suddenly got the feeling I was about to cry. I had to look away.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I turned to face him, then found the sports enthusiast’s palm within an inch of my face.

  “What are you waiting for, Shorty?” Andy said. “Show him some love.”

  Laughing, I gave the guy his high-five. It actually felt good, coming undone like this, and when I pulled myself back together, I blurted, “What would you say if I told you I wasn’t going to tonight’s initiation?”

  Andy looked confused. “Why not?”

  I tapped at the leg of his stool with the tip of my shoe. “I don’t think it’s for me.”

  He pursed his lips. “But I thought you were having fun hanging out with Becca and all her friends.”

  “I was,” I told him. “A lot of fun.”

  “And I thought you wanted in.”

  “I did.” My cheeks were burning. “So much.”

  “Until?” He paused. “You found out they were a bunch of bloodsucking vampires?”

  I willed a smile and glanced back over at the map. New York looked so vast, and the Moonery barely merited a speck. “It’s just …” My gaze traveled back to him. “Maybe it’s time I find a spot of my own, you know? Something where I don’t always feel like I have my nose pressed up against a window looking into someone else’s world.”

  “That’s not how Becca sees it.”

  “Trust me. It’s the right thing to do.”

  He puckered his lips. “You sure you’ve thought this all the way through?”

  I looked down and tapped my toes together. “Of course not. But I have a strong feeling. And my strong feelings don’t get any less strong.”

  At all.

  He mulled it over for a moment, then cocked his head, a sign of reluctant acceptance. “Does Becca know?”

  I nodded.

  “Did she flip out?”

  “Initially, but she gets it.”

  He made a slow nod. “I’m impressed you were able to calm her down. Say what you will about tenth-grade girls, they’re a force to be reckoned with. Criminally underrated.”

  When I saw the way he was looking at me, I had a hunch he wasn’t just talking about his sister. And then he scooted his stool a little closer, and closer, and closer still.

  No, he definitely wasn’t.

  This book would not have been possible without my unfailingly excellent editor, Krista Marino.

  And futhermore, thanks to the Fall Café Mafia, Christy Fletcher, Ben Greenman, Errol Louis, Barbara Pym, Tim Rostron, Seth Lipsky, Ben Schrank, Eben Shapiro, the 111 State Society, and, most of all, to MHxx.

  LAUREN MECHLTNG is the coauthor of all three 10th-Grade Social Climber books as well as the author of the first book about Claire Voyante, Dream Girl. She is an editor at the Wall Street Journal and lives and writes in New York City. You can visit her at www.laurenmechling.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Lauren Mechling

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mechling, Lauren.

  Dream life / Lauren Mechling. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Claire Voyante’s dreams lead her to investigate the New York secret society that her best friend is being initiated into, while at the same time she tries to keep her own psychic powers a secret.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89382-7

  [1. Secret societies—Fiction. 2. Dreams—Fiction. 3. Psychic ability—Fiction.

  4. Social classes—Fiction. 5. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 7. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M51269Dre 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009012697

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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