Adored (17 page)

Hellie:
My sister typed that. Bitch.

Brandon quickly typed
LOL
, grateful that he’d paused long enough to stave off humiliation.

Hellie:
Ooh, our faculty monitor is doing rounds. Must run! Kisses!

Kisses, Brandon typed back, just before Hellie logged off.

He lay on his back on his bed, his hands behind his head. Outside darkness began to creep across Waverly. A darkness filled him, too. Hellie had lifted his spirits, but only momentarily. Brandon thought about how far away she was, and that she wasn’t even coming home for Christmas. Dunderdorf had splurged to fly himself and his wife to Switzerland to see their girls and spend the holidays skiing in the Alps, much to Brandon’s disappointment.

He hadn’t thought he’d ever fall in love again after Callie had so brutally broken his heart last year, but this was different. He felt like if Hellie were just here—or he were there—everything in his whole life would fall into place. He wouldn’t give a shit about his lazy, perverted roommate, or the gay rumors swirling around him. It wouldn’t matter at all. Being with Hellie would make everything better.

At least then his Secret Santa would know he wasn’t gay.

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My little devils,

Excellent work with all the Secret Satan prezzies. I had no idea how dirty you all were!

Now, let’s Satanize the Holiday Ball. Marymount’s determined to make the official party boring. Screw that! Let’s have our own party. Let out all your sexual tension at the baddest, most unofficial alterna-party imaginable—the Inferno.

Go to the back of the Faculty Club, and then follow the clues. Everyone: get prepared to reveal yourselves to your Secret Satans!

Formal attire still allowed—it’ll be that much more fun to take it off.

xxx,

S. L. H.

I
n dire need of something to do, Brett anxiously adjusted a strand of sparkly silver tinsel on the twenty-foot Christmas tree that towered over the Prescott Faculty Club. She inhaled the rich pine scent of the needles as she followed the delicate garland around the tree, grateful for the chance to hide her face. The room looked amazing, like a glittering winter wonderland. She had spent the entire day in the elegant, dark mahogany ballroom, decorating with the activities committee. They had draped the room with about ten miles of white, twinkling lights, even fixing them to the ceiling so that it looked like a dark sky filled with stars. All the overhead lights were turned off, and the room was suffused with a soft glow. Dangling aqua and white starburst-shaped lanterns twinkled over the dance floor.

But no one was there.

Not “no one,” technically, since all the activities committee volunteers were there. And all the alums who’d come in especially for the giant gala, crowded off to one side with the faculty. A dozen international students and assorted social outcasts lingered around the room, pointing at the green mistletoe bunches hanging over the archways or stepping nervously across the empty dance floor.

White-clothed round tables were loaded with trays of delicious-looking goodies—that Brett had painstakingly chosen and arranged—from Alistair’s Green House, the gourmet all-organic caterer just outside of Rhinecliff. The food was completely untouched. A few of the volunteers hanging around the edges of the ballroom had snatched a portobello mushroom canapé or a bacon-wrapped scallop, but for the most part, the trays were as full as when the caterers delivered them. The crystal bowl of fruit punch was still filled nearly to the brim.

In a high-necked plum-colored silk charmeuse bubble dress by Laundry, her silver Stuart Weitzman pumps, and carrying the Stella McCartney clutch her sister had given her, Brett knew she looked fabulous, but her stomach was a knot of anxiety. She checked her dangling watch. It was after nine, and the party had officially started at eight. The only people actually dancing were Yvonne Stidder and her new boyfriend, Mukesh Patel, a scrawny senior whose father had been a major investor in Google before it took off. They were staring deeply into each other’s eyes, the wide, empty dance floor stretching out around them like the smooth, untouched surface of a lake.

Brett gritted her teeth. Fashionably late was fine, but that didn’t usually apply to the majority of underclassmen who had nothing better to do. Even total slackers like Heath Ferro and Alan St. Girard could be counted on to show up soon after the doors opened in order to, as Heath liked to say, “maximize his options.” What about tonight? It was a cold Saturday in December, and this was the biggest officially sanctioned social event until the spring formal. Where the fuck
was
everyone?

Brett had spent the last half hour chatting up a couple of middle-aged alums, trying desperately to look interested as they waxed nostalgic about their Waverly days—before the insidious inventions of e-mail and cell phones. She adjusted a star-shaped Christmas tree light, took another deep breath of pine-scented air, and peeked at the main entrance to the ballroom. Maybe a rush of students was about to magically appear.

It didn’t.

Brett glanced over her bare shoulder to see Dean Marymount and his surprisingly pretty blond wife chatting up some VIPs in suits. A gaggle of middle-aged women who clearly still wished they were in high school giggled and pointed at pictures in an old yearbook. Yearbooks had been casually planted on all the tables, one from each of the 128 years of Waverly’s existence.

Was it possible that they all hadn’t noticed that apart from the international kids and the total losers, none of the student body was even at this stupid party? Brett steeled herself to go over to the eggnog punch bowl and chat some more with the I-bankers in Armani suits who used to call Waverly home. Her heart froze when an attractive woman in a simple black sheath dress and silver rope necklace poked her head out into the foyer, as if looking for all the missing students. It was Bethany Kephardt, the sophisticated assistant director of admissions at Brown. Brett had pored over the Class of ’94 yearbook, memorizing Bethany’s face and planning out exactly what to say to her.

But Brett didn’t dare to approach her now. All her planning was worthless now that the party—
her
party—was gradually turning into a total flop. Brett’s stomach fell and she felt the room start to spin, perhaps due to the mere thought of eggnog, which had always grossed her out. (Why would anyone want to drink eggs?) She’d felt isolated since her outburst in the dining hall, noticing how everyone would give her a wide berth on the walkways as she made her way to class and back to Dumbarton. But she hadn’t thought everyone would hold it against her and blow off the party.

A rising anger toward Mr. Wilde for dumping this stupid responsibility on her shoulders could only be subdued by chain-smoking Parliaments, which was all she wanted to do right now. The Disciplinary Committee had seemed like a good résumé booster, but it had brought her nothing but isolation. It was clear the students were off somewhere else, having the good time they were
supposed
to be having at the Holiday Ball. The realization that everyone had successfully kept her out of the loop caused her to shake involuntarily. Did they all collectively decide to blow off the Holiday Ball? Jenny couldn’t tell her? Or Kara? Had she so alienated everyone around her that she’d ostracized herself from her friends?

The faculty and alumni mumbled silently as Brett ladled herself a glass of fruit punch from the crystal bowl, needing to do something besides stand there with a stupid smile on her face. She glanced up and saw Mr. Wilde, the DC adviser, and Mrs. Horniman, her faculty adviser, leaning against the stage that lined the far end of the room. Dozens of strands of Christmas lights hung straight down from the ceiling to the edge of the stage, creating a beautiful, glowing curtain that Brett had intended to walk through when she welcomed everyone to this year’s Holiday Ball.

They were talking, and then she saw them turn to look directly at her. The DJ in the corner, who had a confused look on his face and kept glancing around like he was doing a head count, dropped the needle on a jazzy version of “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Brett felt her stomach heave. Bethany Kephardt approached Mr. Wilde and touched him on the arm. She whispered something as he nodded his head in agreement, a slight grimace on his face.

Bethany Kephardt was unimpressed with Brett Messer-schmidt. It was like the assistant director of admissions was Nero, flashing a violent thumbs-down to the gladiators.

Brett quickly spun around and walked to a different part of the room, sidestepping the half-dozen couples who were scattered across the giant dance floor. Should she bring Bethany a glass of eggnog? Offer to explain why the party sucked so much?

She blinked her eyes rapidly and glanced up, only to notice how forlorn the tiny bunches of mistletoe she’d hung beneath all the doorways looked without cute couples kissing beneath them. She closed her eyes and tried hard to suppress thoughts of her humiliation, how it would stand for years and decades, the story of the Holiday Ball No One Attended being passed down from alum to alum, making the rounds as a rumor among all incoming freshmen for eternity. Brett would have to skip every alumni function at Waverly for fear of someone asking her about it.

She pressed her fingertips to her temples, wishing the floor would just open up and swallow her whole. The DJ segued into a remake of “Jingle Bells.”

This was the lamest party. Ever.

“G
et the footprints in the snow,” Izzy hissed, and Kaitlin swung the camera across the marked snow. Jenny glanced around, shivering in the hunter green wellies she’d thrown on over her silky black nylons. They didn’t exactly go with the red sleeveless belted minidress she’d borrowed from Kara Whalen—a sample from Kara’s designer mom’s spring line—but she wasn’t about to stomp all over the snow-covered campus in heels.

“I don’t know if I can,” Kaitlin said, lifting the camera from her face. She pursed her lips into a pout. “There’s not enough moonlight.”

The three freshmen had spent the last hour in Jenny’s dorm room, filming her getting ready for the mysterious Inferno party. Jenny had tried her best to make it look interesting. She’d made sure to toss the outfits she decided against onto her bed carelessly, as Callie or Tinsley might have done, but her knockoffs just looked sloppy piled up on her bed, instead of elegant or Marie Antoinette decadent. Claire wanted to film her putting on her makeup, but Jenny got so flustered with the camera in her face that she’d bumped her mascara wand against her nose, leaving an enormous coal-black splotch. She’d had to wash her face and start all over again.

The four of them had followed the trail of people in the direction of the Prescott Faculty Club, where a few of the nerdier students had headed up the steps into the official Holiday Ball. Had they not been invited to the Inferno? Jenny wondered. She felt a stab of guilt about blowing off the official holiday party; after all, Brett had spent the last two weeks planning it. Jenny had felt guilty when she got the e-mail from Satan’s Little Helper that morning inviting her to the alterna-party. But the Inferno was clearly going to be the cool party, and Jenny felt obligated to go for her film crew. Besides, there were definitely
some
people going to the Holiday Ball, so maybe Brett wouldn’t even notice her absence?

The rest of the people, however, turned and headed down the path that led behind the building. “How do they know where to go?” Claire whispered, glancing around them. There was nothing but footprints leading down the walkway, into the darkness. Excited whispers echoed through the sharp night air.

“There!” Jenny said, giggling and pointing a pink-mittened hand down the pathway. Poking out of the snow at the corner of the path was a stick—with an unrolled yellow condom on top of it. On the top of the condom, a tiny Santa’s hat was perched. “And there’s another one up ahead.”

“Good eye, Jenny,” Izzy exclaimed, wiping her nose again with a tissue. Her cold was back, and Jenny had been trying to keep her distance. They followed the winding path, the Santa-hatted condoms leading the way past several of the science buildings and toward the southern edge of campus, near the sports fields.

“We’d better not be going to the soccer field, because I think I already have frostbite.” Claire wobbled on her too-high black heels. “Jenny, it was sooo smart of you to wear boots.” Ever since the Raves had agreed to come play the party, the girls were back to fawning all over Jenny. They’d even thought it was cute when she’d mascaraed her nose.