Getting In (Amanda's Trilogy) (2 page)

My mom turns to me, smiling, and says in that annoyingly sing-songy voice of hers, “A lot of cute boys here, Amanda.”

“I guess.”

She shoots me another concerned look, so I catch up and grab her arm as we walk together. “Why are you looking at cute boys? Aren’t you a little too old for that? What would Daddy say?”

“You can never be too old to appreciate beauty.” My mom smiles. It’s her favorite thing to say when we catch her sneaking peeks at a tennis pro or admiring the tight end of a waiter. She’s forty-six and still beautiful. Men hit on her all the time. She loves it … and so does my dad, who’s no slouch in the looks department either, even though he’s let himself go a little bit, due to his crazy work hours running a billion-dollar luxury brand company.

It’s still early spring, so the arboretum isn’t in full bloom. While my mother admires orchids inside one of the greenhouses, I excuse myself, telling her I need to return a couple calls.

I find a bench tucked into one of the side gardens, sit down, and pull out my iPhone and the business card, which I look at a little more closely.
Getting In
and a phone number with an area code I don’t recognize. That’s it. No other name, no address, no e-mail. I slide my finger across the type. How strange that Valerie Gowan insisted I not tell anyone it came from her office. It’s not like it’s some big disgrace that a student needs extra help. I’ve had French tutors since I was four, and half of my friends, some of whom are real brainiacs, practically have their tutors on speed-dial. My mother even knows a family who paid someone $50,000 to work with their kid on college application essays so that he’d get into an Ivy League school. (He did. But not the one his parents wanted.)

On the other hand, it kind of annoys me that this admissions officer, a woman whom I don’t even know, thinks I need some kind of college preparatory counseling before I can enter the hallowed halls of Lexington College. Never mind a candle—it can’t even hold a cheap Bic lighter next to most four-year colleges in the area. (Sorry, Mom. But it’s true.) Who the hell is Valerie Gowan anyway? It’s not like I’m some yokel who’s never spent a night away from the family farmstead back in Kansas. I’ve been in boarding schools since I was twelve, and my younger sister Anne and I regularly fly over to Europe in our family’s jet without our parents chaperoning us. Does this Gowan woman think I’m going to call up Mommy and Daddy the first week of classes, weeping from homesickness and demanding to be brought home like a kid at summer camp? It’s such a ludicrous thought that I laugh out loud.

I seriously think about tossing the card, but I stop. I can’t see any way out of this. The last thing Valerie Gowan said to me as I left her office is that she’d be checking in on my progress and hoped she could offer me “good news” in a few weeks. Meaning I’d better call this
Getting In
place … or I wouldn’t be getting in to Lexington. And my father? My father would kill me if I didn’t get in.

I dial the number, and on the third ring a woman with Asian accent picks up.

Realizing I don’t have a name to ask for, I say, “I was given this number to call. I’m a prospective student at Lexington College …”

“Yes, you are Miss Prescott.”

I shiver. “How … how did you know?”

Her laugh is light, almost bell-like. “It flashed across caller ID.”

I feel like an idiot. Forget college preparatory counseling. How about an IQ test?

Then she says, “Could you come by at eight tomorrow night?”

“Maybe,” I answer cautiously. “Where is your office?”

“We’ll have a driver pick you up at your parents’ New York residence at seven-thirty sharp. You don’t need to bring anything. If you cannot make your appointment, please give us notice by noon tomorrow. Are there any more questions, Miss Prescott?”

I have a
lot
of questions, beginning with how she knows my parents have a residence in New York, but feeling somewhat discombobulated and embarrassed by the whole caller ID thing, I simply answer no, and the woman hangs up. I sit on the cold granite bench for a moment, staring at my phone.

My friends describe me as one cool customer. I rarely get rattled. Nothing gets under my skin, and if it does, I’m good at convincing everyone it didn’t. Like the time one of my boarding school friends threw a party while her parents were out of town, and some townie showed up with cases of booze and baggies of pot. And when the police dropped by, who was down at the security gate, convincing them everything is okay, officers, I’ve got it under control, here’s my dad’s number if you want to check in with him, blah-blah-blah? Yeah, me, cool-headed Amanda, although my big blue eyes and undone buttons on my blouse helped distract them from the insanity going on up at the house. Those cops didn’t so much as offer me a breathalyzer, they were out of there so fast, practically bowing and scraping their apologies. And by the way, I don’t do drugs and only drink on occasion. I don’t like losing control. At all.

But this whole college prep thing has me unnerved. I even find myself wishing that I’d studied a little harder and partied a little less at Miss Porter’s so that I could tell Valerie Gowan to suck it: I have lots of college options to consider.

But I don’t. And she knows it.

I’m not in control. This stupid little card in my hand has the power.

CHAPTER THREE

The Town Car pulls up to the curb as our doorman opens the door for me.

“Nice night for some fun,” George says with a wink. He’s been our doorman for ages, and over the years, he’s gotten me out of some sticky situations. Really embarrassing stuff, and he’s totally covered my ass afterwards. He glances over at the black vehicle idling in front of our apartment building. “For you, Miss Amanda?”

“For me,” I reply cheerfully, although inside I’m feeling a bit apprehensive. I keep thinking, though, there’s no way a college admissions officer would send me somewhere dangerous, as much as Valerie Gowan would probably love to send me to the den of a crazed Colombian coke dealer with a blonde fetish. I assure myself that this chick is probably getting kickbacks from referring rich kids to this counseling outfit, and that’s why she wants me to keep my mouth shut. Tonight they’ll ask me for an outrageous deposit, which I can make on my Platinum Card, blah-blah-blah. It’s such a racket, ripping off the wealthy of the world, it’s not even funny. Not that I expect you to feel sorry for me.

George opens the car door for me, and I slide in across the leather seat. George tells me to have fun, closes the door, and indicates to the driver it’s safe to pull away by thumping the trunk a few times with his hand.

“Miss Prescott?” a deep male voice asks from the front seat. His hair is silver gray, neatly cut above the collar of his white shirt.

“Yes, I’m, uh, she. Or her. Or whatever.”

He chuckles at my grammar stumble as he pulls away from the curb, and we start off down my tree-lined street.

“Miss Prescott, you’ll notice a small bag on the seat next to you.”

It’s less of a question and more of an order. I glance down. A black bag cinched with gold cord seems to have magically appeared, although I know it’s just something I didn’t notice because of how dark these cars can be inside. I pick the bag up.

“Inside you’ll find an eye mask. Would you kindly slip that on before we go any farther?”

The driver is stopped at the end of my quiet street, and though there’s a green light, he doesn’t move. Luckily for him, nobody’s behind us hammering on their horn. I pull the black eye mask out of the bag and dangle it from my fingers as if it’s contaminated.

“Why on earth do I need to wear a
mask
?” I snap. “Am I booked on the red-eye to Hell tonight?”

The driver looks back at me in his rear-view mirror. For the first time I see his eyes, a piercing blue. Cold. But his voice is smooth, almost warm as he responds. “My employers like their privacy. Their clients are mostly students, and sometimes students can get … too dependent. The eye mask is a precautionary measure.”

“A precautionary measure, is it?” I toss the mask on the seat beside me. “It’s stupid. I’ve never heard of something so idiotic.”

“No, I suppose you haven’t.” I can see by the way his eyes crinkle that he’s amused. It pisses me off.

“I’m out of here.” I grab the handle of the door, but just as I do, I hear the
thunk
of electronic locks engaging. “Hey, let me out.
Now
.”

The driver turns in his seat to look at me. His eyes, which a few moments ago looked hard and cold in the mirror, suddenly seem sympathetic, almost kind.

“Miss Prescott, I assure you there’s nothing nefarious going on here. My employers work from their apartment in the city. Students tend to get such excellent results, they’re tempted to share the program with other students without my employers’ permission, and that’s not how the business works. Their program is exclusive. They don’t want a bunch of college kids—or worse, their parents—banging on their front door, begging for admittance. Everything’s done through recommendations from trusted associates.”

Like greasy-palmed admissions officers
.

“I locked the doors so you wouldn’t dart out in front of a cab and get yourself killed. But if you’re sure you’d like to return home, I will drive around the block and return you to your apartment building.”

The driver watches me intently. Common sense urges me to go home. It’s still early. I have dozens of friends I could call and in a few hours we could be up to no good, as my father would say.

But then there’s that word
exclusive
. Exclusive is my world. I’ve been bred for exclusive. When I know an object is rare or an experience is one few others get, it sets off a Pavlovian reaction in my limbic system I can’t control. I want it. I want it
now
. I want it before anyone else grabs it.

So I slowly push myself back into my seat, sigh, pull the eye mask over my face, and cross my arms against my chest.

“This is silly,” I say, then I heave out an even bigger sigh to punctuate my irritation.

I hear the rustle of the driver turning back to the steering wheel.

“Just sit back, Miss Prescott, and enjoy the ride.”

CHAPTER FOUR

After what feels like hundreds of right turns and left dodges, the car stops and I hear the driver’s door open and close. The rear door opens, and as I start to lift the eye mask away from my face, I feel a hand firmly slide it back into place.

“Please keep that on, Miss Prescott. I’ll walk you inside. You’re safe.”

I fumble for the gold chain attached to the small Chanel bag on the seat next to me, and then take the driver’s arm, thinking about how ridiculous this will look to anyone walking down the street. Although in New York City, a blindfolded blonde being led into a building is pretty mild stuff compared to the other shit you see on a daily basis.

The driver warns me that we’ll be heading down some steps. What I don’t tell him is that I can see my feet because the eye mask doesn’t completely block my vision when I look down. Still, I pretend I’m helpless, and he carefully guides me into a stairwell and I hear him ring a buzzer. In seconds, a buzzer rings back, there’s a squeal of a door opening, and he says, “I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up.”

It’s weird, but I almost feel like throwing my arms around him and begging him not to leave me here alone, but then I hear the Asian woman’s voice.

“Miss Prescott, this way.”

The driver and the Asian woman make a smooth passenger transfer. I hear the thud of steel behind me, and the driver’s footsteps grow fainter as he moves up and away from of the stairwell.

“You may remove the mask now,” the woman says.

I flip it off over my forehead, and blink—not from the light, which is actually dim, but from the release of pressure on my eyelids. I shake out my hair and look down at the woman, who is, indeed, Japanese. She could be twenty-five or she could be fifty. Her dark hair is pulled back in a severe chignon, and her blood-red lips gash across her porcelain complexion. A black peplum blazer and pencil skirt hug her slender figure, but she appears oddly unfeminine. She offers me her bird-like hand and a cool, limp shake.

“I am Naoko,” she says with a slight bow of her head. “Before I bring you in to meet the mistress, may I request that you remove your street shoes?” She sweeps her hand to indicate a sisal mat set against the dark paneled wall with an assortment of white slippers carefully lined up on it. I notice no street shoes on the rug. Tonight I must be the only appointment.

I slip off my orange Tod’s, walk barefoot over to the mat, and choose a pair of slippers that look like they’ll fit my size nine feet. I notice that Naoko follows behind me and removes my shoes from the mat where I’ve tossed them.

“I will take care of these, Miss Prescott,” she says. “The mistress doesn’t like anything out of harmony.”

My mouth opens to tell Naoko to keep her mitts off my moccasins, but I glance around the wood-paneled room and see there is a certain order to it, a symmetry that seems practiced and rigorously followed. I’ve been to Japan many times and I know how much the Japanese value their order, so I let Naoko dart away with my shoes to place them behind a small security counter next to the door I’ve entered, sleek and crafted of expensive walnut. Definitely too upscale for rent-a-cops.
 

Naoko is back at my side, and this time she’s urging me to the end of the room, bowing again, her outstretched hand pointing me to what I can now see is a door, cleverly concealed in the wood paneling.

“This way,” she says. “The mistress is waiting.”

Mistress. An odd way to refer to your boss, but I chalk it up to a cultural difference.

Naoko pushes the panel and the door swings open silently. She guides me into a large room, but unlike the austere entryway we’ve passed through, this room is decorated … Well, the best I can come up with is decorated like the boudoir of one of Louis XIV’s mistresses, but without a bed. I sink into the pale blue carpet underfoot, noticing that the matching side chairs and sofas around the room look tortured under the weight of their gilt. I glance up at the portraits on the walls, dozens of them, looking like they were looted from Versailles. Tarty eighteenth-century courtesans with massive pompadours, red lips, and cherry-stained cheeks stare down at me with their secretive, nasty smiles. A massive chandelier presides over an equally massive marble-and-gilt desk and casts a harsh, crystalline glare over the room. Instead of feeling rich and luxurious, the space feels … cheap. Cheesy. It looks like the room of poor schmuck with zero taste who just won the Powerball and hired Dollywood to decorate.