Notable (Smith High) (4 page)

The trip hadn’t even begun and someone was already turning to me.

Score one for the high school girl.

Too bad the scoreboard didn’t remain that way for long. In fact, it lasted only until airport security demanded to go through my bag and started disposing of the large bottles of lotion and hand sanitizer I had impulsively stuffed into it before heading to the airport. Houston scowled in annoyance, Ben’s smile was one of wry amusement as he waited for his turn to go through security, Liz tapped her foot impatiently, and Amy kept glancing down at her watch as if she expected it to start berating her for being late. I struggled to keep my own face neutral as airport security confiscated the kitchen scissors I had completely forgotten about packing.

I knew exactly what everyone was thinking:
This
is what you get for taking a high-maintenance high school girl with more lip balm than brains to Cambodia.

Only Neal kept assuring me that little mistakes like this happen to everyone. He hefted my tote-bag and insisted on carrying it himself until we reached our boarding gate, even though I kept telling him I was perfectly capable of handling it myself. He merely chuckled and said that he wanted to personally ensure that my trip started off on the right foot.

I nodded politely, but I kept my mouth firmly shut. There was no need to tell Neal that the others were probably discussing ways to vote me off the trip. And telling him that I secretly wanted them to succeed in whatever plan they created to get me out of there wouldn’t do me any good either.

Even before boarding the freaking plane, I knew I was only going to crash and burn.

I just had no way of stopping it.

“I
know all about you.”

Not exactly a normal thing to say to the girl in an adjacent seat on a long flight to London, especially if you’ve only just met her and couldn’t bring yourself to exchange more than two complete sentences back on solid ground. But it appeared the geek had been biding his time, waiting for the right moment to go on the offensive. I couldn’t help being slightly impressed with the way he timed it. The minuscule airplane seats definitely added a level of difficulty to any escape I might have otherwise attempted.

I turned to Houston and wished that I had trusted my gut instinct to trade places with Amy. Even sitting next to our overly enthusiastic teacher had to be better than chatting with the one person who appeared to have it in for me. If my parents hadn’t signed me up to spend
months
with him in Cam-freaking-bodia, I already would have told him exactly where he could go shove his condescending glances.

I batted my lashes instead. “Houston, do we have a problem?”

“Cute.”

“Always.”

“You can save the effort. That might have worked in high school, but it’s not going to help you here. Especially since I already know the way you operate.”

I did a pointed once-over, not exactly an easy task considering that I was squashed between Houston and some stranger who was snoring heavily and taking up more than his share of the armrest.

“I’ve known you for all of fifteen minutes. So I seriously doubt you know anything about the way I operate.” I reached down to grab my tote, which was resting where my leg space would’ve been if the guy in front of me hadn’t pushed his seat all the way back. It was probably going to take over an hour of ballet before my cramped body would loosen up again.

“I know that your dad asked me to find a program for you because he couldn’t have you around right now.”

I didn’t flinch even though this latest parental betrayal stung like hell. Any sign of weakness is a fatal mistake when you’re playing poker with a shark.

“You?”
I said skeptically. “My
dad
confided in
you?
Again, I doubt it.”

“Paul said you needed to get out of Portland so you wouldn’t trash your life. You know, when most kids tank their grades they get
summer school,
not a free trip to Cambodia. I bet you have no idea how freaking lucky you are either.”

The geek probably thought that being on a first-name basis with my dad would impress me.

Not so much.

“Yeah? Well, I guess that means you’re just as clueless as my dad. Congratulations. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

Houston shot me a piercing look. “Given what I’ve heard in his office, I’d say he knows plenty.”

“Spend a lot of time pressing your ear to the door, do you?”

“I’m his TA.”

“That stands for ‘Terrible Ass-kisser,’ right?”

He smiled grimly. “Let’s get one thing straight,
princess:
Your dad’s a good guy who doesn’t deserve to be saddled with a stuck-up snob for a daughter. So you can keep trying to play your pathetic little games with airport security or you can accept that I’m going to be keeping an eye on you for him. Either way, your troublemaking days are over.”

I brushed back a few strands of hair that had escaped from my ballet bun and leaned in close so that he could look right into my eyes.

“Well, Houston, it looks like you really do have a problem. Because I’m not going to waste my time listening to some geek who owns more plaid than common sense.”

Then I popped in my headphones and blasted the Ben Fold’s song “You Don’t Know Me” loudly enough to drown out both Houston and the armrest thief on my other side.

Damn straight, Houston didn’t know me.

Although, apparently, that hadn’t stopped him from helping my parents ship me off to
Cambodia
before ordering me to behave. And then he had the audacity to call me a stuck-up snob . . . based on what, exactly? Even if my dad had mentioned I was the most popular girl at school, that was still one hell of an assumption. I almost snarled at Houston that well-developed social skills aren’t synonymous with snobbery, although I could easily understand why he wouldn’t see the difference. The guy was definitely plagued by residual nerd envy from his own days in high school and was now trying to overcompensate by pretending that being an International Affairs major made him cool.

Well, I refused to feel guilty about my talent for getting my own way. Maybe, if given the choice, I might be tempted to pick Jane’s skill with standardized test taking over my ability to manipulate and maneuver. Then again . . . maybe not. Either way, it’s not like I ever actually had the option of exchanging my skill set for another. The only practical thing for me to do was to work with what I was given—and I wasn’t going to tolerate
anyone
shaming me for it.

So if some brown-nosing twit planned on ordering me around, he was going to have to get used to receiving the middle finger for his efforts. Hopefully, that would be enough to make him rethink his bizarre loyalty to my dad, or at the very least prevent him from stalking me for the next four months in Southeast Asia. I briefly considered emailing my dad—demanding that he call off his watchdog—but I doubted it would make a difference.

My dad didn’t
actually
care about how I was feeling. Oh sure, he talked a good game, but if he had really been as worried about my reaction to the divorce as Houston claimed, he would’ve assured me that I’d always have a home with him.

But he hadn’t.

So I had no trouble believing that my dad would probably just assure me I had nothing to worry about with a serious, academically oriented college boy like Houston . . . with a stick up his butt.

Okay, so maybe that last part was more my opinion than my dad’s.

It was still true.

And if I was really going to escape from the program, I had a feeling Houston posed a more significant threat to my freedom than our perpetually upbeat teacher. Although I had absolutely nothing to lose by trying to irritate him into keeping his distance. I started out by stealing his armrest and squealing my way through three relatively unfunny chick flicks before I bumped up the plan into high gear. All it took was one quick tug and my long blond hair tumbled around my face. That’s when I began tossing my head every few minutes as if I were auditioning for a shampoo commercial. And if I
happened
to whip his face in the process . . . well, accidents happen.

By the time the flight attendant asked everyone to return their tray tables to their full, upright position in preparation for landing, Houston sat contorted as far away from me as humanly possible given his six-foot-tall frame. If he were anybody else, I might have enjoyed the way our relative height discrepancy made me feel delicate and feminine. Instead, I was too distracted by his stupid disdainful glances to feel anything more than annoyance. That’s when I decided I might as well embrace the role of pain-in-the-ass teacher’s kid and show Houston just how well I could play the part.

Our three-hour layover at Heathrow Airport gave me the perfect opportunity to stage a little demonstration. I lied easily about picking up some new hand lotion and strolled right into the duty-free where it took only a few minutes of flirting with the guy handing out liquor samples to down three of them like a champ.

If I was going to be labeled the party girl, I wanted to deserve the reputation.

“I’m not even twenty-one, which means there is no way in hell you’re old enough to drink,” Houston growled as he dragged me away from the store and herded me toward the Starbucks where everyone else had gathered. I smirked up at him.

“The drinking age is eighteen here.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re not that either.”

“What are you going to do, Texas? Rat me out to my dad?”

Before he could respond, I shoved his hand off my arm and headed straight for the bathroom so that he couldn’t follow me. The last thing I needed was yet another lecture about my behavior. Unfortunately, from my hiding place in the handicapped stall, I couldn’t help overhearing Amy and Liz as they began talking freely about me.

“Chelsea seems . . . decent,” Amy said in what could only be described as a halfhearted endorsement. “I bet she just needs some time to warm up to people.”

“She certainly didn’t waste any time warming up to Ben.”

“Well, Ben’s a friendly guy. Maybe—”

Liz cut her off. “Did you see her drinking in the duty-free? I thought Houston would have a coronary when he dragged her out of there. I mean, does she
want
to be plastered this entire trip?”

That idea actually held a certain amount of appeal for me. At least that way I would be able to temporarily forget that this trip was already turning out even worse than I’d imagined.

“Maybe she’s a nervous flier?”

“Yeah, she sure looked nervous when she boarded the plane in Portland,” Liz scoffed. “Oh, wait. No, she didn’t.”

“Well, maybe she’s just sad. Houston mentioned something about her parents splitting. Just because she’s acting like a spoiled party girl doesn’t mean she can’t be hurt.”

My body stiffened as I soaked in that bit of new information. Apparently, the geek wasn’t content just narcing me out to my dad and making snap judgments about my life; oh no, he had probably told everyone that I was nothing more than an airhead party girl with terrible grades and an even worse personality.

Well, I had already heard enough.

The Chelsea Halloway who ruled Smith High School would
never
stoop to cowering in bathroom stalls. It was time for me to end this bullshit once and for all by going on the offensive.

I swung open the door and sauntered to the sink, ignoring the way Amy’s eyes bugged out and her dark bob swayed as she glanced over at a speechless Liz for support.

“You know, everyone says high school is completely different from college, but I just don’t buy it.”

The two older girls continued staring at me in silence.

“The classes might be harder and the parties might be better, but honestly, it sounds like high school two point oh.”

“Uh—” Amy began, but I cut her off.

“Now if we were all back in high school and I overheard someone spouting off shit about me in the bathroom, I would threaten to make their lives a living hell. But since you’re both in
college
, I guess I’ll have to take a slightly different approach.”

I glanced at the reflections of both girls in the mirror, as if I couldn’t be bothered to turn around to face them directly.

“You mess with me and I
will
take you down. And nobody will notice two extra bodies in Cambodia. We clear on that?”

They nodded.

“Excellent.” I flashed one of my blinding smiles. “Enjoy the bathroom, ladies. You might want to close your mouths. It’s not a good look.”

Maybe not the best way to bond with my fellow group members.

Then again, friendship is overrated.

I
t was too quiet.

All the usual airport noises were present and accounted for: the announcements about various gates and flight delays, snippets of strangers’ conversations, and the ever-present wail of an unhappy baby; but among the Lewis & Clark group I was practically in solitary confinement. Apparently, word had already spread about my little bathroom speech, and everyone thought it was in their best interests to give me a wide berth. Everyone except professor “Just Call Me Neal” Hamilton, who kept trying to distract me from the fact that I was about as popular as avian flu by asking me all about my ballet dancing. I guess it never occurred to him that it might be a sensitive subject since this stupid program was responsible for interrupting my training with Mrs. P.

I couldn’t even appreciate how hard he was trying to make me feel at home with the group, because that would involve actually caring about something, and the helplessness of my situation was effectively placing a damper on my emotions. I couldn’t seem to feel much of anything anymore. Even when Neal awkwardly mentioned that my drinking violated school policy and asked if there was anything I needed to discuss, I did little more than shrug. There was nothing left for me to say.

Certainly nothing that Neal would want to hear.

The initial buzz from the alcohol at the duty-free hadn’t lasted, probably because I’d been careful to remain hydrated on the plane—not that anyone in the group would believe that I was cautious when it comes to stuff like drinking. My reputation had already been sealed the second I lifted that first vodka sample. Still, I held my head high while I waited along with everybody else for my passport to be stamped. The only physical giveaway of discomfort I couldn’t control was the restless way my feet shifted from first position into third.

My mom always hated it when I practiced ballet in supermarket lines, but I ignored her voice in my head telling me to
Stand still, for god’s sake!
Instead I focused on relieving my cramped muscles by making small movements to match the beat of my music. And then I visualized each move I would make if I were back in Mrs. P’s dance studio and I had the place to myself.

I could see it all in such detail. The dull shine of the wooden floors, the dents and scratches in the barre, even the blurry patches on the mirror that no amount of Windex managed to clear. I could see myself too. Hair bundled in a tight bun, black leotard, tan tights, and my favorite pair of toe shoes in place. I nodded my head to the beat of my music while I calculated just how long I would hold each movement that I mentally choreographed.

Fast. Slow. One and two, three, four.

“Hey,
princess,
you’re slowing down the line.”

Houston let irritation and condescension drip from his every word. So much for all that crap my parents said about “making a fresh start.” Yeah, right. I looked over at the Cambodian man grumbling something that probably translated to
stupid American tourists,
while he signaled for me to approach his desk.

Somehow I had managed to piss off the Americans
and
the Cambodians in under fifteen minutes. That required some skills.

“Shut up, Dallas,” I said easily before sauntering over to the desk.

In a matter of minutes the rest of the group had passed with us through security, but I didn’t expect Amy to sidle up to me and whisper, “It’s Houston. You know . . . his name? Not Dallas.”

“Really?” I feigned ignorance while I made sure that everyone could hear my words. “Are you
sure
it’s not Austin?”

Amy nodded earnestly. “It’s Houston.”

“Not San Antonio?”

Ben laughed, releasing a rich chuckle as he draped an arm across my shoulder. “You’re a hellcat, aren’t you?”

I batted my lashes up at him. “I have no idea what you mean. Unlike Texas over there, I’m perfectly nice to everybody.”

“That’s a state, not a city,” Houston pointed out crisply.

“And Houston is a city, not a name.”

“Uh, let’s huddle up, everyone!” Neal called out enthusiastically. “We’re going to take a taxi to the hotel and break into rooms of two or three.”

“Um, Neal?” Amy raised her hand as if she were sitting in a classroom. “When are Jeffrey and Micah going to get here?”

Neal cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Uh, well, they’re not coming.”

Everyone else stared at Neal as if he had casually announced that water wouldn’t be available for the rest of the trip.

Houston was the first to speak. “What happened?”

“Well, they decided to travel independently before meeting up with us, and Micah got into a motorcycle accident in Thailand yesterday. He’s going to be fine,” Neal rushed to assure us. “But given the circumstances, the two of them are going to fly back to make sure that Micah gets the proper medical help he needs.”

“So this is the whole group.” Houston didn’t look happy about it. His green eyes darkened as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair, mussing it up in the process.

Which, of course, looked downright sexy on him.

Talk about unfair. After the number of hours spent cramped in airplanes, he should at least have had bloodshot eyes and a waxy glaze of exhaustion.

“Yep, this is it!” Neal was trying way too hard to make it sound like that was a good thing. “We’re going to be a tight-knit pack by the time we return.”

Simply scanning my eyes over Houston’s dark good looks, Ben’s golden boy sheen, Liz’s chaotic explosion of color, and Amy’s pale, worried face confirmed my suspicion that
hell no,
we weren’t going to become sitcom-family close. Lewis & Clark might be a college of misfit toys, but that didn’t mean they would accept a packaged Barbie in their midst. Excluding Neal, the only one in our group to make even the slightest effort to be nice to me was Ben. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he was primarily interested in getting into my pants, especially when his eyes lingered on the front of my V-neck shirt.

I was the odd girl out. And I was so fed up with being unwanted, I was tempted to try sprinting back toward the terminals. It wasn’t as if my heart was so exclusively set on Italy that I wouldn’t consider other destinations. London definitely held appeal. I could easily picture myself walking the cobblestone streets in my favorite heels alongside a charming British boy who was distantly related to Lord Something-or-other. The two of us could throw some darts together in seedy pubs before checking out the coolest underground clubs.

My daydream dissolved as my suitcase was loaded into a taxi and Houston gave me a not-so-gentle shove into the car. I glared, but, if anything, his smirk only widened in response. I could practically hear him thinking,
Daddy’s little girl isn’t the center of the universe anymore. Bet she doesn’t like
that!

I pointedly ignored him and stared out at the streets of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Actually, calling them
streets
was overly generous, in my opinion. The paved road leading away from the airport soon became dirt-packed and bumpy. Small dilapidated houses broke up the landscape, but they didn’t look like they had ever seen better days. Instead it was as if the glorified shacks had come into existence looking ramshackle and were fighting just to stay that way. There was no mistaking the poverty around us. All the locals wore ripped jeans that were not distressed by design, yet along the main road were advertisements for Gucci and Prada. Photos of skinny white women clutching purses were everywhere—their big blue eyes staring sightlessly down at the people struggling to carve out a life for their families.

Portland definitely had its share of people living in poverty, but it was never like
this
. Not for me. It was something that I’d been able to ignore. Then again, in Portland I also didn’t see men holding signs asking for donations because
land mines
had blown off part of their legs. That wasn’t something I could easily dismiss.

I felt so uncomfortable.

“Pretty crazy, isn’t it,” Houston murmured, and I knew he was talking to me. “Shows just how safely you were tucked away, right,
princess?
”

There was that disdainful edge in his voice I had come to expect.

“Yeah, it’s
my
fault that I was born into a middle-class family,” I scoffed. “I should donate my entire college fund to charity. Move to Cambodia and . . . what? Play nursemaid to the orphans? Would that be pious enough for you?”

I hissed the last part, wanting to lash out with my fists as well as my words. I was so sick of not being enough. Not smart enough. Not sweet enough. And now, apparently, not generous enough.

Houston shook his head. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have bothered. You just stay in that tower of yours, princess. It looks like you’re pretty comfortable there.”

“Thanks,
cowboy
.”

A weak retort, but I hoped it grated on Houston’s nerves the same way that being called
princess
annoyed me. Hearing it from a snarky college kid just made me wish I had told my dad to knock it off years ago. The endearment sounded so forced and . . . fake. I was nobody’s princess. But telling Houston the truth would be a damn big tip-off that my home life wasn’t the way he thought.

The way my dad had represented it to him.

That part still stung. I wondered what
exactly
my father had let slip. Did Houston know about the month I spent in middle school looking glassy-eyed and lost while I tried to find a way to keep Jake the Mistake from leaving me? Had Houston heard a rumor about the way I had convinced myself that Jake’s cutting little remarks about my looks and my intelligence were his way of helping me grow?

No way.

It just wasn’t possible since I’d never told anyone—not even my dad—about the true extent of my self-destructive mistakes.

Then again, my dad still could’ve speculated aloud . . . with Houston.

I pressed my body even more fully against the door of the cab and farther away from the plaid-wearing jerk.

All I had to do was make it out of Cambodia in one piece.