Infamous (4 page)

“Top Ten Things I’d Rather Do Tonight Than Go to Yvonne Stidder’s.” Tinsley leaned back in her seat and smiled wickedly. “Number ten: eat a live turkey, feathers and all.”

Callie giggled and pulled a tube of Stila Lip Glaze in Guava from her bag and smeared it on her lips. “Number nine: spend Thanksgiving with Dean Marymount. Playing Twister. Naked.”

Jenny laughed. “You or him?”

Tinsley opened her mouth to reply when her Nokia cheeped from her coat pocket. “Voice mail—someone must have called when we were in the tunnel.” She flipped open the screen and listened, a slight frown crossing her face. “It’s my mom.” Halfway into the message her jaw dropped, and Jenny and Callie exchanged worried glances, bracing themselves for Tinsley Carmichael on a rampage. “Unbelievable,” Tinsley barked as she snapped the phone shut.

“What?” Callie asked cautiously. “No tofurkey this year?”

“The goddamn
floors
in the goddamn
apartment
need another coat of
polyurethane
or some shit.” Tinsley shook her head in astonishment, looking more lost than Jenny had ever seen her. “So they decided to go to goddamn St. Barts. For Thanksgiving!”

The three of them went silent for a moment, Jenny wondering what kind of parents could go to St. Barts and only tell their child at the last moment. “Look, I’m sure we can get another flight to Atlanta,” Callie offered, only half-joking. “Having you there would make the state dinner much more bearable.”

Tinsley’s lips formed a delicate pout. “Thanks, but I didn’t pack my debutante dress.”

Callie frowned. “Can you stay in the apartment, or is it, like, quarantined?”

“They want me to stay at a hotel,” Tinsley sighed, rolling her eyes. Her face quickly composed itself into its typical, slightly bored expression, but Jenny could tell she was bothered by the whole thing. “Something tells me Daddy’s AmEx card will be buying the most expensive Thanksgiving dinner the Soho Grand has ever served.”

As fun as it would be to spend a weekend at a luxury hotel, Jenny couldn’t imagine spending
Thanksgiving
there. Alone. “Come to my house,” she said impulsively, leaning forward and putting a hand on Tinsley’s knee. “It’s just me and my dad, and we could totally use someone else to talk to.”

Tinsley palmed her phone, flipping it over and over, considering. She twitched her lips. “It wouldn’t be an imposition?”

“Please. Rufus loves my tall, charming friends!” Jenny smiled. “You really shouldn’t be alone on Thanksgiving.” She cringed at the thought of her father dancing around tomorrow morning in his Hawaiian print bathrobe, singing Beach Boys songs as he burnt his toast. Either Tinsley would find it incredibly endearing—or beyond annoying. She had a sinking feeling it might be the latter.

Callie dug through her bag, tuning out Jenny and Tinsley, suddenly panicking that she’d forgotten her plane ticket. It was weird that Tinsley and Jenny would be spending Thanksgiving together—Callie couldn’t help feeling a bit jealous. Two months ago, Tinsley would have suffocated Jenny with a pillow while she slept, and now they’d be having pillow fights and giggling over late-night popcorn in Jenny’s apartment.

It didn’t
really
bother her. All she really wanted was Easy. People were already tired of her moping around, but what could she do? She noticed the glazed-over looks in Jenny and Tinsley and Brett’s eyes when she started talking about how much she missed him, and she couldn’t really blame them. She was bored with it, too, but she didn’t know how to make it stop, short of hiring a private investigator to track Easy down wherever the hell he was, and maybe spring him free, if private investigators could even do that. Maybe if you paid them extra?

She turned everything in her bag over, a desperate panic overcoming her as she searched.
Where was her plane ticket?
She’d looked at it when it arrived via FedEx from her mom and then shoved it in the top drawer of her dresser so she’d remember to pack it. But the top drawer was where she kept what her mother might call her “lady’s finery,” and she hadn’t packed any of her silk things for Thanksgiving, with no one to appreciate them.

The corner of a white envelope stuck out from under her folded jeans and she yanked it free. Aha! Callie flipped the envelope over, looking for the opening. It was sealed. She didn’t remember sealing it. She definitely didn’t remember sealing it. And she definitely hadn’t written the letter
C
in a heart on the front. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest as she flicked a recently manicured nail along the top of the stubborn envelope, finally revealing a creased piece of lined paper torn out of a notebook. She recognized Easy’s handwriting immediately, and tears sprang to her eyes just because she missed seeing it so much.

Callie,

If you’ve gotten this, I’m probably at military school and can’t get word out. But I have a plan—I’m going to sneak away over Thanksgiving weekend and get to New York. I’ll be on top of the Empire State Building at 8 P.M. on Thanksgiving, just like in
An Affair to Remember
, right? (How’s that for romantic?) There’s something else in here too, something I wanted to give you but was waiting for the right moment. I think I missed it, so now will have to do. It’s a promise ring. I promise I’ll see you soon, and I’ll be thinking of you every day until I do.

I love you.

Easy.

Callie rifled through the envelope until a small platinum ring with a pear-shaped amethyst stone dropped into her lap. She shrieked, jolting Jenny and Tinsley. She pinched the ring between her thumb and forefinger and slid it onto her left ring finger. “It’s from Easy!” she cried. “It’s a promise ring.”

Jenny’s doe eyes widened. “Really? That’s pretty serious, right?”

Callie couldn’t help feeling a small surge of triumph—despite Easy’s brief fling with Jenny at the beginning of the semester, he was back with Callie, for good. A vision of herself in a flowing white wedding dress atop the Empire State Building, the air blowing her luscious curls around her like an angel, danced in her head. She could suddenly feel Easy’s strong lips against hers, and the train couldn’t move fast enough.

“He’s coming to New York,” Callie whispered confidentially, looking around for eavesdroppers.

“Too bad you’ll be in Atlanta,” Tinsley reminded her. “And I think you’re only supposed to wear an engagement ring on that hand.”

“I lost my plane ticket,” Callie said matter-of-factly, holding her hand out and staring at the ring. It was kind of like an engagement ring, in a way. A pre-engagement engagement ring, really.

“It’s in your outside pocket.” Tinsley poked at Callie’s waist. “I saw you tuck it in when we left Dumbarton.”

Callie stuck her hand in the side pocket of her camel-hair coat and was chagrined to find the ticket. Suddenly, she realized she was in total control of the situation. “Fuck it. I’m not going.” Just because she had a plane ticket didn’t mean she had to use it. “If she thinks she can stick me in rehab and then call me home for Thanksgiving only to ignore me while she does nothing but work…”

“That’s the spirit. Screw the governor.” Tinsley smiled mischievously. “Then screw Easy.”

Callie focused her hazel eyes on Jenny and blew a loose strawberry blond strand of hair out of her face. “So, how many beds does your apartment have?” Callie asked Jenny softly, using the honey-sweet voice she used for calling in favors.

Tinsley’s slouchy sweater slid off one of her shoulders, revealing her smooth, pale skin and the black strap of her silk camisole. “You’re really blowing off your mom? You sure you want to do that?”

Callie held up her promise ring. “I’m going to New York. And that’s that.” She turned to Jenny, who still hadn’t answered her question.

“Of course you can stay with me!” Jenny exclaimed, feeling kind of excited that Tinsley Carmichael and Callie Vernon would actually be staying in her apartment.

Did she still have that poster from last summer of Shia LaBeouf in
Transformers
thumbtacked above her bed? Or those black-and-white sketches from the Constance Billard hymnal competition? She couldn’t remember, but she hoped the evidence of her childhood dorkiness could be kept to a minimum. “It’ll be like a giant slumber party.”

Tinsley actually laughed. “Thanksgiving Chez Humphrey,” she said, shaking her mane of dark hair. “Who knew?”

Jenny smiled and looked out at the Hudson again. Her dad was always encouraging her to bring her friends home for him to meet—well, now he was in for a double dose of it.

Instant Message Inbox

CelineColista:
Just saw Brandon at the front gate looking like his kitten died. Wtf?

SageFrancis:
Aw…I kinda just dumped him.

CelineColista:
WHAT? Thought he was Mr. Romantic?

SageFrancis:
He is…but if he said one more sweet thing to me, I was gonna barf.

CelineColista:
No more down-and-dirty for you, sister.

SageFrancis:
Ha! Nothing with B is dirty—that’s the prob!

Brett slumped down on the cold bench across from the ticket kiosk, tugging up on the collar of her black twill Betsey Johnson coat. The last train to Manhattan had pulled out a few minutes earlier and the Metro-North platform was completely deserted. Wires overhead buzzed with electricity and a few yellow taxicabs lurked in the parking lot, exhaust pouring out of their pipes. Brett was tempted to try and bribe one to take her all the way to Jersey—but did cabs even take AmEx platinum cards?

After rushing out of the library, she’d stupidly decided to stop by the dorm first to pick up her French copy of
The Stranger
by Albert Camus she’d forgotten—she had a translation test next week in Madame Renault’s class. But the trip to the dorm had been a mistake. As she flew up the steps to the platform, dropping a glove in the process, she saw the lights of the last train as it disappeared down the track to New York.

It was all Sebastian’s fault. He’d been completely incapable of focusing today, even more so than usual, peppering Brett with questions about her family and their Thanksgiving traditions like he really cared and wasn’t just trying to get out of working on his Latin. His Jersey accent grated on her nerves, reminded her of all the tacky guys in her junior high who wore bright Tommy Hilfiger clothes and had pinups of girls sprawled out over muscle cars hanging up in their lockers. Tacky, tacky, tacky.

She pulled her silver Nokia out of her pocket and started to dial her parents’ house, but the thought of her mom inevitably saying,
Your sister would never miss her train
, made her hang up, not ready to face the music.

Could she hitchhike? Did people even do that anymore? She could see the headlines already:
Boarding School Girl on Way Home for Thanksgiving Disappears After Stepping Into Psycho’s Car. Severed Limbs Found in Local McDonald’s Parking Lot
. The world had changed since the aging-hippie AP English teacher Doc Henderson had, as he so often put it, “thumbed it” crosscountry back in the groovy sixties.

A horn blasted, jolting Brett up off the bench. A black Mustang idled in the parking lot. The horn sounded again and the window rolled down. Sebastian stuck his head out the window, the cold wind tousling his thick hair. “I thought I might find you here,” he said, flicking the ashes of his Marlboro into the air. “Need a ride?”

Brett crossed her arms over her chest, wearily making her way toward him. “Well, you
are
the reason I’m stuck here in the first place.” But relief had leached all the anxiety from her body, and before she could think twice, she grabbed her bag, casually sauntering down the ramp to his car, careful not to let her pointy-toe Givenchy ankle boots slip on the slick concrete.

“Then I guess it’s the least I could do.” Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Could use the company, as long as you promise not to bring up Latin.” He gunned the Mustang, and she could tell by the look on his face that he’d done it accidentally. As cool as he thought he was, she felt like she’d gotten to him a little.

“Isn’t Rumson out of your way?” she asked suspiciously. She hated it that he knew she was from Jersey—her entire time at Waverly, she’d tried to remain mysterious about where she was from, generally relying on the fact that her parents owned a place in East Hampton to be enough of an answer for anyone. But it was tiring to keep up the charade, and Jenny, Callie, and that bitch Tinsley all knew she was from Jersey now, anyway. Normally, she’d have been embarrassed to have any friends from school pull up in front of her parents’ gaudy faux-French mansion, but it couldn’t be worse than Sebastian’s house. And besides, he wasn’t exactly a friend.

“Don’t worry. It’s all included in the toll.”

“And what’s the toll?”

“Gas, grass, or ass.” He smirked. “Nobody rides for free.”

Brett scowled and Sebastian broke into a wide grin. “Just kidding,” he said. “You don’t even have to kick in for gas. Just the pleasure of your company.”

Brett hesitated. The idea of a long car ride with Sebastian on the heels of their hellish study session was as unappealing as eating food off the dining hall floor, but what choice did she have? “Yeah, sure,” she said, and walked around to the passenger side. Sebastian leaned over to open the door from the inside and a stale breath of cigarette smoke and Drakkar Noir blew into the wind. He wiped the passenger seat repeatedly, though it was perfectly empty.

“Missed your train, huh?” he asked as he gunned the Mustang, this time on purpose.

Brett nodded.

He waited for her to say something. “Well, all right, then.” The Mustang darted out of the parking lot and before Brett realized it they were on the highway, barreling toward New Jersey. She watched the landscape whiz by and thought about calling her parents to tell them she was getting a ride home from a friend from school. She decided she’d wait until they stopped for gas or something, so Sebastian wouldn’t get any ideas about them being friends.