The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth (6 page)

I’m sure she knew the news was out. But other people’s opinions had never been important to her before. Why should things be different now?

DeLayne Geary put her plate down on the table in the window, with her back to the sun. Before Vanessa could reach it herself, Christine Powell, Rory Stapleton, and three other people who had been hanging out with that group lately materialized with their trays and sat down. Vanessa walked over, skewered DeLayne with her gaze, and waited.

And waited.

“Excuse me, D. You know that’s my seat.”

DeLayne glanced at Christine as the buzz of chatter at the tables around them dropped a couple of notches. People tuned into the drama as avidly as if it were a reality show. “There’s no room here for skanks.”

The words dropped like a stone and silence spread out in rings of shock and breathless anticipation.

Vanessa didn’t even blink. “In that case, I’ll ask Christine and Rory to move. I know what the two of you were up to in the boys’ shower after soccer practice.”

Ewww. Don’t make me look at that image. As Carly would say, it makes my eyes bleed.

“At least I wasn’t stupid enough to get knocked up,” Christine retorted, her mouth curled with scorn.

“We don’t hang out with stupid people,” DeLayne said. “So you’ll have to find somewhere else to sit.”

“Don’t make me destroy you,” Vanessa said quietly. “You know what I know.”

DeLayne’s jaw hardened and she narrowed her eyes. “What? That there were two people there and one is just as guilty as the other?”

“But one doesn’t have the proof the other does.”

“Maybe one has more cred than the other. Now.” She raked Vanessa from top to bottom with a scornful gaze. “So go ahead, skank. Tell your little story. See who comes out looking the worst.”

For a moment neither one backed down, and animosity crackled in the air between them. But possession is nine-tenths of the law, and DeLayne wasn’t moving her rear from that chair for anything. I had no idea what secret they were holding over each other’s heads, but DeLayne clearly had a handle on the concept of “moral superiority,” and wasn’t afraid to wield it the way Kaz’s avatars use their swords when he plays
World of Warcraft
. Totally without mercy.

“PeeGee,” I heard someone whisper at the next table. “PeeGee Princess!”

The whole table took up the chant. “PeeGee Princess! PeeGee Princess!”

Now the whole dining room got into the beat. “PeeGee Princess!” Some guy used his fork against his tray, the table, and his plate to work out a backbeat. “PeeGee Princess, she’s a skank!”

Vanessa pursed her flawlessly glossed lips and rolled her eyes as if she were surrounded by a room full of unruly kindergarteners. Then she turned lazily on her heel and walked out the door with her plate and her rapidly melting smoothie, leaving the dining room in an uproar of laughter and jeers.

Our table was one of the few that were still quiet. We glanced at each other, unsure of what to say. Brett shook his head and shoveled food into his mouth.

Shani took a bite of her risotto, watching as some fool across the room mimed walking with a pregnant stomach, knees bent and spine arched, repeating “PeeGee Princess” as if he’d just that moment thought of it, and sitting down in a gale of laughter.

“I always wondered if Vanessa started that little rumor about me in the fall,” she said quietly. “That’s what they called me, you know, all those nasties in her group.”

The irony was not lost on any of us.

Gillian leaned back and caught my eye over Jeremy’s shoulder. “How low the mighty are fallen,” she said.

“It’s not over yet,” I told her. “Not even close.”

Most of the time I enjoy being right. But not then.

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Date: May 10, 2010

Re: Question

Hi Rashid,

I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to get up the courage to ask you this. Carly thinks I’m researching a paper, but I can’t think or talk or function until I know, and you’re the only person I can ask.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but a big scandal broke today. Vanessa Talbot is pregnant—about five months along. And now that I’ve said that, I guess I’d better say the rest of it.

Is there any chance the baby could be yours? I know it’s none of my business. You have every right to be angry that I would even ask this. But I hope that once you get over my rudeness, you’ll remember we’re good friends. I want to respect and think the best of my friends.

Love, Shani

M
OST SCHOOL SCANDALS
are a nine-day wonder, gaped at and then forgotten because the person gets expelled. But this… it was more like a nine-month wonder. You couldn’t exactly expel a person for expecting a baby, could you? I mean, technically it’s not a crime.

It’s a whole lot of other things, but not a crime.

That evening at dinner, Vanessa didn’t show up, so DeLayne and Christine and Emily—she must have thought it was safe to come out of the bushes—sat at the table in the window, pretending it had been theirs all along. Emily even came over and invited me to sit with them.

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about on the weekend?” I asked her in a low voice. “About Vanessa?”

She nodded. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“But you said there was danger. Did you mean to the baby?”

“Sure.” She glanced behind me, as if to make sure Gillian and Carly were out of earshot. “If she gets an abortion.”

My stomach turned over. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” My knowledge on that subject was about the same as my knowledge of astronomy: minimal. But now that it had come up, Vanessa certainly could have taken a step like that the second she’d seen the pink line on the pregnancy test. I am totally against such a step, mind you. Just the thought of it makes me ill. But Vanessa? How could anyone know what was in that girl’s heart?

“Not the way she’s talking.”

That didn’t sound good. “Emily, did you break the story?”

She blinked innocent eyes at me. “It would have broken anyway. It’s not like you can hide something like that. Sure you don’t want to eat with us? I’m saving you a chair.”

“That’s okay. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Whatever.”

I sat next to Carly and exhaled as if I’d been holding my breath. “Weirdness.”

“Of course she broke the story,” Carly said. “Vanessa treats her like last week’s trash. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen a month ago. Or the week we started school.”

“She wasn’t showing then.” Why would Vanessa risk everything by staying pregnant? Did Emily’s hints from before mean she still planned to get an abortion at this late stage? My blood seemed to thicken with cold at the awful thought.

“Can we talk about something else?” Gillian asked around a spoonful of miso soup. “This subject is getting all the air time.”

She was right. We could talk the topic to death, but there was nothing we could do about it. In the end, any decisions were up to Vanessa.

But still…

On Tuesday morning during free period, I tucked my Bible in my tote and instead of working on my Austen/Gaskell paper, headed outside. The marine layer that usually kept things cool in the summer was being held offshore by the wind from inland, which meant it was sunny and warm out on the lawn. Behind the music wing, the ground fell away in a slope of grass down to the street, and on a morning like today, you could catch some rays there.

Sitting at the top of the slope, my legs stretched out, I pulled my Bible out and began to read the poetry of Isaiah to calm my jangled spirit. Vanessa’s life was no deal of mine. She’d made her choices and now she had to live with them, like anyone else. I pushed Emily’s offhand remark about abortion out of my head. Not my choice. Not my business.

Two chapters later, someone walked up beside me, throwing the words of the prophet into shadow. I shaded my eyes with one hand and looked up.

“Hi, Lissa.” Ashley Polk dropped her backpack on the grass. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

I’d worked with her on the Benefactors’ Day Ball when I was a junior and she was the only sophomore on the committee. Other than that, our paths didn’t cross much. I closed the Bible and tucked it into my tote.

“Is that a Bible?”

I nodded. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you always read it out in public like this?”

There had been a time when I would have said no. When the subject would not even have come up, because said book would have been stashed in a drawer in my room, never to see the light of public scrutiny or trigger potentially embarrassing questions about my faith.

After what my friends and I have been through, I’ve learned that faith is something to celebrate and be thankful for, not hide. If somebody can’t handle that, it’s their problem, not mine.

“Not always,” I told her. “Just this morning. What’s up?”

She folded herself onto the grass next to me, stretching out her strong soccer-player’s legs. “I suppose you’ve heard about Vanessa Talbot and her little… problem.”

Was this the conversation starter
du jour
? Did nobody comment on the weather anymore? “Uh-huh.”

“The thing is, her problem is making a problem for us. The Cotillion Committee.”

“Really?”

“Well, obviously.”

I could feel stupid all on my own. I didn’t need other people to help me along. “It may be obvious to you, but it’s not to me.” I reached for my tote. “Excuse me. I wasn’t finished with my chapter.”

“Lissa.” She touched my wrist lightly with her fingers, her big blue eyes pleading. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m just really stressed right now. I—we—the committee delegated me to ask for your help.”

This was the last thing I’d expected. “What?”

“Vanessa is our consulting senior, right? She’s the one who makes all the announcements, tells us what needs to be done, forms the subcommittees, delegates the P.R., all that stuff.” When I nodded, she went on, “So how is it going to look on the night of the Cotillion when she’s up there on that stage, big as a house?”

“Um…”

“The media and all the benefactor bigwigs, not to mention the board of regents and their wives, are all going to be there. What are they going to think if our mistress of ceremonies, the girl who’s supposed to represent the senior class, is standing up there in her maternity dress, pregnant by some Italian gardener?”