by Kate Brian
I tipped my face toward the sun and sighed, feeling completely relaxed. I had put Vienna and London in charge of dealing with any last-minute planning issues that might arise for this weekend’s events, so my phone had remained relatively silent for the last couple of hours. Not having to hear that incessant beeping and ringing was like a mini-vacation.
“You know, I’ve been all over the world, but this is still one of my favorite spots,” Kiran added, turning around and pushing her dark sunglasses up into her hair. “I don’t know why I ever left.”
I glanced over at Taylor, who sat on one of the cushioned benches at the rear of the boat, and Noelle, who was laid out on a blue-and-white striped Ralph Lauren towel in her shorts and sweater, her face tipped toward the sun. Each of us tensed just slightly, not so much that anyone outside our circle would have noticed, but we all sensed it and knew why. Kiran had a good reason for leaving. She, Noelle, and Taylor had all been expelled from Easton after Thomas Pearson was murdered. They, along with Ariana Osgood, had brought him out to the woods that night and left him there to fend for himself. Ariana had been the one to go back and kill him, so she had gone to some cushy millionaire’s prison called the Brenda T. Trumball Correctional Facility for Women, while Noelle, Kiran, and Taylor had received probation, community service, and the aforementioned expulsions.
Of course, there was now the possibility that Ariana had somehow busted out and was stalking me all over campus.
I looked out across the stern, my heart pounding suddenly from all these Ariana-related thoughts. Part of me wanted to tell my friends about the strange, elusive blond-girl sightings I’d had over the past few days, but I bit down on my tongue. They’d just tell me I was crazy.
“So you’ve just spaced on the multimillion-dollar modeling contract?” Taylor joked, reaching for a flute of champagne. There was quite a spread on the low table at the center of the stern—champagne, strawberries and cream, a huge variety of chocolates—all the Billings Girls’ favorite things.
“Oh yeah, that. For a second there I almost forgot what a huge, honking success story I am,” Kiran joked. She dropped onto a cushion on the floor next to the table, folding her long, perfect legs under her, and plucked a strawberry from the bowl.
“Actually, I think we’ve all done pretty well, considering,” Taylor said pragmatically. “I’m off to Oxford in the fall, Noelle will be ruling Yale, and Reed here has become a businesswoman and developer at the ridiculously advanced age of seventeen.”
Kiran and I each lifted a glass. “Go us!” I said.
Noelle pushed herself up on her elbows. “I’ll take one of those.”
I handed her a glass and she sucked down half its contents.
“So tell me all about last night, Noelle. Was our little Glass-Licker as amazing as everyone’s saying?” Kiran asked, leaning forward.
My stomach and heart switched places as I waited for Noelle’s reaction.
“Actually, I wouldn’t know,” Noelle said, looking out across the ocean. “I couldn’t make it.”
“Are you kidding?” Taylor asked. She slid off the bench and onto the floor, pulling her bag onto her lap. “Oh my God, then you have to see it.”
“What do you mean, see it?” I asked.
Taylor extricated her laptop, popped it open, and toggled to YouTube. “Someone posted it last night,” she said, her fingers flying over the keys. “Here. Check it out.”
She turned the screen around, adjusted the contrast to fight the sun glare, and there I was, standing alongside Carolina, making my case. Noelle sat up and Kiran scooted around the table to hover over our shoulders. When I saw how self-righteous I looked, giving my little speech, I hid my face behind my hands. My voice sounded nasal through the speakers and I just wanted to cringe.
“Honestly? I think we’d all be fools to let an opportunity like this one pass us by,” I heard myself say.
“Nice!” Kiran cheered, kneading my shoulders. “Damn, girl. Very diva.”
The video ended and I peeked through my fingers. Noelle smirked and took a swig of champagne. “Wow. And you say you’re not a Lange.” She looked me up and down quickly. “Daddy would have been very proud.”
My hands dropped and I found myself beaming. I knew it must have taken a huge effort for her to say that, and I appreciated it more than I could have ever expressed. Noelle gazed at me for a moment, then stood and walked to the back of the boat. Taylor slapped her laptop closed and the rest of us joined Noelle. My heart felt heavy and excited at the same time. Noelle had one hand curled around the railing and I placed my fingers right next to hers, taking a deep breath.
“Noelle . . . I’m sorry if it seems like I’ve been ignoring your feelings about all this,” I said, as Kiran stepped up next to me and Taylor leaned in next to Noelle. “So if you’re really and truly against this whole thing, I’ll drop it. I’ll call Carolina right now and put the kibosh on. I swear.”
“Wait. You’re against Billings making a comeback?” Kiran blurted. “Are you sure you’re Noelle Lange?”
Noelle ignored her. “Really?” she said, pulling her ponytail over her right shoulder as she turned to look at me. “You’d do that?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I would. You’re more important to me than Billings.”
There was a long, loaded moment of silence. Taylor and Kiran exchanged a nervous look. Water slapped against the sides of the boat and the sound of a yacht’s horn carried over the ocean.
“Okay, fine,” Noelle said finally, rolling her eyes. “You and Billings have my blessing.”
“Are you serious?” I exclaimed.
“How could I stand in the way of your budding career as a real estate tycoon?” she joked, taking a sip of her champagne.
I threw my arms around her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Noelle, you have no idea what this means to me.”
“Oh, I think I do,” she replied, giving me a quick squeeze.
“Well, I say we celebrate!” Kiran announced.
“I’m so confused as to what we’ve been doing up till now. . . .” Taylor teased her, narrowing her eyes.
“Ha-ha. More champagne!” Kiran cried, grabbing the bottle from the silver ice bucket.
She refilled all our glasses and we clinked them together once again. “To the new Billings,” I said.
“To the new Billings,” they echoed.
We sipped our champagne, the afternoon sunlight glinting off our flutes, and I smiled, trying to lock this moment in my mind. Who knew how many chances the four of us would have to be together over the next few years, what with Taylor in the UK and Kiran bopping all over the world?
“So, how long are you guys sticking around?” Noelle asked, grabbing a chocolate from the tray.
“Oh, I’m here through graduation,” Kiran said, waving a hand. “I cancelled all my appearances so I could hang with you girls.”
“Me too,” Taylor said. “I pretty much completed the credits for graduation in December. And I’m dying to go to the Easton graduation party.”
“Do you think it’s as crazy as they say it is?” I asked.
For the last few weeks I’d been hearing rumors about this graduation bash. Rumors that made a rural Pennsylvanian like me blush.
“Crazier,” Noelle said gleefully. “I can’t wait!”
As the three of them started to share stories they’d heard about graduation parties past—tales of mass skinny dipping, near ODs, and random hookups—my phone beeped. I tugged it out of my bag and checked the screen. I had one new text. From an unknown number.
It was MT. I glanced around at my friends to make sure they weren’t watching me, then opened the text. My heart all but stopped when I saw the short message.
U SHLD FIGURE OUT A WAY 2 LOCK UR DOOR.
My knees gave out beneath me. Luckily I was close enough to the bench to fall down on the cushions and make it look like the tipping of the boat had thrown me off balance. My fingers shook as I placed my champagne glass ca
refully on the table.
“You okay, Glass-Licker?” Noelle asked.
“She never could hold her alcohol,” Kiran joked.
“I’m fine. I just need to make a quick call,” I told them.
“Aw! Hollis is that clingy, huh?” Noelle joked.
Kiran and Taylor made kissing noises, cracking themselves up until they saw they weren’t going to get a rise out of me. I was too busy speed-dialing Ivy. She picked up on the second ring.
“Hey, Reed. What’s up?”
“Are you at Pemberly?” I asked under my breath.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Can you go over to my room and check on it?”
“Check on it?” she said, confused. Even so, I could hear her bedsprings creak and her door open. “What do you mean?”
I clenched my eyes closed, trying to be patient. “Just make sure nothing’s out of place or anything.”
I heard the telltale sound of my door hinges squealing and held my breath. In my mind’s eye I saw my laptop cracked on the floor, all my clothes whipped into twisted piles, posters and photos ripped and smashed. I waited for a stunned gasp, a whispered expletive, but there was nothing.
“Everything looks fine,” she said. “Reed, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.” I let out a relieved sigh. “I just got another text from MT,” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder at the others. “Maybe he was just messing with me.”
“Well, it’s all good,” she said. “In fact, I never noticed this before, but you are obsessively neat.”
“Okay, we’ll talk about my mild OCD later,” I promised her. “Do me a favor and just . . . I don’t know . . . keep an ear out. If you hear anyone in there, call security.”
“I’m on it,” Ivy replied.
“Thanks, Ivy. I gotta go.”
I hung up the phone and rejoined my friends. Kiran turned up the volume on the iPod dock and started to sing along to the music, twirling Taylor under her arm as Noelle swayed to the music, grabbing herself a strawberry. I did my best to get in on the fun, but inside I couldn’t seem to unclench.
And I knew I wouldn’t be able to until I saw my room for myself.
NOT QUITE RIGHT
The four of us spent half the afternoon talking about the plans for the new Billings, and I forced myself to relax, but the second we zoomed through the Easton gates, the tension returned. By the time Noelle swung her Jaguar convertible into a parking space right in front of Pemberly and hit the brakes, I was filled with dread.
“You okay?” Noelle asked, noticing my sudden pallor.
“Yeah.” I unhooked my seatbelt and attempted a smile. “Just remembered I have a ton of work to do.”
“Well, hop to it, Junior,” Noelle said, patting me on top of my head. She twirled her keys around one finger and got out of the car. “I, graduating senior that I am, am going to ignore my work and head over to Coffee Carma for a latte.”
I rolled my eyes at her.
Noelle closed her door, then leaned against it, over the open expanse of the convertible. “Seriously, though, Reed. Thanks for today. I had fun.”
I smiled for real this time. “Me too.”
She headed around the dorm for the quad and I ran for the front door. Noelle may have been trying to rub my nose in her freedom, but I was kind of glad she was going elsewhere. It meant I could sprint inside and take the stairs instead of the elevator and be at my room in half the time.
I threw open the door to my room and stood frozen on the threshold, looking around. At first I felt a slight twinge of relief. Ivy was right. Nothing looked out of place. But as I stepped inside I realized that wasn’t entirely the case. Nothing was out of place, but something was missing. Namely, the Billings blueprints.
Leaving the door open, I lunged to the corner where I’d left the poster roll containing all Carolina’s blueprints for the new design. It was gone. I hit my knees to check under the bed, but there was nothing there aside from the usual under-the-bed storage and a stray pair of shoes. Cursing under my breath, I shoved open my closet and ransacked the floor, just in case I’d tossed them in there and forgotten about it. Which I knew I hadn’t.
There was nothing. The blueprints were gone. I shoved my hands into my hair as I turned around and my eyes fell on my computer. Had I left my laptop open like that?
“Sonofa—”
I leaned over my desk and booted up my computer. The Billings Construction folder was gone from the desktop. I checked the trash. Wiped out. I hadn’t had time to back up the files before I went out this morning, which meant they were just gone. Carolina had some of the information, obviously, and I had everyone’s numbers and e-mails stored in my phone, but all my notes were in that folder. All my ideas and whims and reminders. All of it had been deleted.
“No,” I said under my breath, lowering myself onto the edge of my bed. “No, no, no.”
I drew my knees up under my chin and clung to my shins. Suddenly all the old horrifying feelings came rushing back over me. All the dread and fear and sense of violation I’d felt back when Sabine stalked me last semester. That feeling that nothing was sacred, that nothing was safe, that nothing was mine. Someone had been in my room. Someone had rifled through my things. Someone had walked around this very space—my space—like they were entitled to it.
My heart clenched over and over and over until it felt like it couldn’t take it anymore. What else had they done? What else had they taken? What else had they tarnished?
And how had MT known they were here?
Someone passed by the open door of my room and I nearly jumped out of my skin. But it was only Josh. He did a double take, like he was surprised to find me here. My hands clutched the bedspread at my sides as I waited for my pulse to come back from its sprint.
Josh paused and looked down the hall, in the direction from which he’d come. My eyes narrowed automatically as he braced both hands against either side of the doorway and leaned his whole body forward into the room.
“Um, hey,” he said.
Um, hey?
“Hi.” I uncurled my legs and placed my feet carefully on the floor. Part of me didn’t want him to notice my terrified body language—didn’t want him to worry—but part of me was also wondering . . . how could he not notice it? Why hadn’t he immediately asked me what was wrong?
Finally he stepped into the room. “What’s up?” he asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans and looking around the room. Looking everywhere but at me.
My heart gave an extra-hard thump. He was acting really weird. He didn’t . . . he couldn’t . . . there was no way he had something to do with the missing stuff, was there? He wouldn’t try to sabotage Billings. Not when he knew how much it meant to me. Not when he knew how Sabine had tortured me last fall by infiltrating my room. But then why was he so blatantly keeping his distance from me?
“Nothing,” I said flatly.
“So did you have fun with Noelle and them?” he asked, looking me in the eye for the first time.
“Yeah. It was great,” I said. I tried to infuse my words with enthusiasm. “She was so excited when she saw Kiran and Taylor. It was awesome.”
Josh smiled and suddenly, just like that, he was Josh again. He sat down next to me and knocked my shoulder with his. “Told ya so.”
My heart relaxed slightly. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that everyone hates a guy who says ‘I told you so’?”
“Oh, right.” He reached for my hand and held it. “I think I have heard that somewhere.”
I looked down at our fingers, at the sparkling aquamarine promise ring Josh had given me for my birthday, and suddenly felt like a colossal jerk for suspecting him. Josh may have hated Billings in the past, but he would never do anything to hurt me. Someone else had to be behind all this.
Which, of course, made me feel gross and violated and paranoid all over again. I opened my mouth to tell Josh about MT and the thefts, but my throat closed over the words. I didn’t want
to stress him out and make him worry. And maybe just the teeniest, tiniest bit of me didn’t want to see how he’d react, just in case he wasn’t surprised.
I was going to tell him eventually. I would. I just had to sort out a few things first for myself.
“I’m glad it all worked out,” Josh said, giving my hand a squeeze.
“Yeah,” I said distractedly, my eyes scanning the room for more items out of place, trying to discern if anything else might be missing. “Yeah, me too.”
CUTTING THE RIBBON
“And now I’d like to introduce the driving force behind this entire project,” Carolina said into the microphone, leaning toward the podium. “Miss Reed Brennan.”
She threw out her arm in my direction and I stood up shakily from my chair on the stage. The crowd clapped and cheered and I gave them the widest smile I could manage, considering how nervous I was. The sun was blinding, but I could still make out the surprisingly large crowd gathered at the base of the five-foot-high stage. Not only were there dozens of older Billings alumnae represented, but some of my more recently graduated friends were there too. Natasha Crenshaw, my former roommate, stood at the front of the pack with Walt Whittaker and Dash McCafferty, who held hands with Noelle in the sun. Josh stood next to Noelle, along with Ivy and Tiffany, whose camera was at the ready. Several reporters, some with microphones and cameras, others with tape recorders or notepads, were focused on me. Behind me on the stage, all the members of the Billings Board of Directors were seated in their chairs, waiting to hear my speech. I glanced down at Headmaster Hathaway as I passed him by and was almost surprised he didn’t shoot out a leg to trip me.
“Thank you, everyone, for that amazing welcome, and thanks for simply being here. Before I get started I’d like to thank Headmaster Hathaway and the Board of Directors for granting me the distinct honor of rebuilding Billings House.” I looked over at the board, each member more distinguished-looking and proud than the last. “I wouldn’t be here without your support.”