Adored (9 page)

He headed into the antiques shop, thinking he could get Mark a classy flask or a cigarette case or something. But everything in the store was either froufrou or way over the official budget. Next he tried the used clothing store, Next-to-New, where Waverly guys bought overpriced, ironic T-shirts. But staring at the racks of clothing, he realized he didn’t know what size this guy was, or anything about him. Impersonal it had to be, then. He headed back out onto the street, wishing Rhine-cliff had a real downtown, with a music store or something.

As he wandered down the street and stared into the lit shop windows, he thought of the annoying annual ritual of buying a Christmas present for his father, who had no outside interests or hobbies to speak of. After years of clichéd gifts like ties and cuff links, last year Brandon had asked his father point blank, “What kind of movies do you like? I’ll buy you some DVDs.” His father’s empty stare as he tried to think of a single movie was terrifying, and Brandon slunk away. A week later, an e-mail came from his father with a list of titles obviously put together by one or more of his assistants. He was sure his father had never seen
Pulp Fiction
or
Amélie
, and couldn’t dissemble the plot of
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
if his life depended on it. Brandon ended up giving him a silk Versace tie instead.

Brandon finally wandered into Illuminations, a small gift shop. The store was empty except for an elderly woman behind the counter, flipping through a copy of
The New Yorker
. Brandon nodded hello as he carefully made his way past a rack of greeting cards with pictures of dogs wearing different kinds of hats. The small aisles of shelves were overstuffed with pre-packaged candles and soap sets giving off enough conflicting girly scents to make him lightheaded. He lifted a small, pretty pink bottle of bubble bath and unscrewed the top. It smelled like strawberries and cream, and for a brief moment, Brandon allowed himself to imagine Hellie in a bubble bath, her long blond hair pulled up in a tangled bun.

“You open it, you buy it,” a cranky voice cried out. Brandon glanced at the old lady, who hadn’t looked up from her magazine. He kept the pink bottle in one hand, thinking he’d send it to Hellie with a sexy note.

Mark Frederickson, however, was more difficult to shop for. As Brandon turned a corner, his coat brushed against a silver Christmas tree, knocking a round blue ornament to the floor. Luckily, it landed on a faded, salt-stained Oriental rug instead of the worn hardwood floor. Brandon quickly replaced the ornament. In front of him was a display of baskets with packaged smoked cheeses and meats. If Heath were here, he’d probably insist on buying the obscene-looking beef stick.

Brandon turned from the beef display in disgust and found himself in an aisle lined with candles of every color and size. What about a candle? That was a nice, innocuous gift, right? Even though they were technically forbidden in the dorms, it was always nice to light a candle if there was a girl in the room—or if you wanted to disguise the smell of a sweaty, unwashed roommate like Heath. Brandon touched a gift basket of mini candles wrapped in blue cellophane—nice, but over the fifteen-dollar budget. Instead, he grabbed a small green candle in a glass jar from the top shelf, scented cedar. He took a sniff and felt like he’d walked into a forest. A nice, impersonal scent.

The bell above the door dinged as another shopper entered and Brandon made his way to the counter, careful not to touch the Christmas tree. He wondered if he should skip dining hall food and eat at Nocturne, the diner up the road. Maybe the baked lasagna. He set the cedar candle and the pink bottle of strawberry bubble bath for Hellie on the counter and the woman rang him up. She expertly wrapped the candle in purple tissue paper and dropped it into a small brown paper bag with purple ribbon handles.

“Do you deliver?” he asked, glancing at the bag. He grabbed the bottle for Hellie and dropped it into his Hermès messenger bag, but he didn’t exactly want to stroll into Nocturne carrying what was obviously a Secret Santa gift—not to mention a daintily wrapped one.

The woman nodded, pushing her glasses further up her nose.

“I’d like to send this to Mark Frederickson, at Waverly,” he said.

“Just fill out a card,” the woman said, tossing a card on the counter.

Brandon searched his pocket for a pen and the woman reluctantly produced the one clipped to the inside of her shirt. As he bent down to write Mark’s name in his neatest handwriting, a flash of light sparked in the corner of his eye, distracting him. He looked out the window, but didn’t see anything. He went back to the card and the flash popped again. This time he traced the source to the other shopper, a girl wrapped in a long dark coat, her camera phone pointed toward Brandon. She snapped another picture and then ducked out the door.

“What
was
that?” Brandon asked, staring out the door.

“Damn kids,” the owner said, grabbing a baseball bat next to her and looking like she was going to hop over the counter and chase the girl down. “Instead of buying things, they take pictures of them.” She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater and shook her head again. “I could murder the guy who invented cell phones.”

Brandon nodded in agreement, worrying about the old woman’s sanity as he finished the card to Mark Frederickson. He handed the woman his American Express platinum card, paying extra for the present to be dropped off that night. He changed his mind about the baked lasagna and headed back to campus instead, happy that he’d satisfied his Secret Satan assignment in such a classy fashion.

Although part of him wished he’d bought the beef stick and stuck it under Heath’s pillow.

Instant Message Inbox

Instant Message Inbox

“I
wanted the spicy tuna rolls to come with the wasabi
separately
. Not everyone wants it wrapped inside,” Brett Messerschmidt snapped into her cell phone as she trudged away from Hopkins Hall late Friday evening, her weary legs leading her in the direction of Dumbarton. She hated wasabi, and she hated even more the arrogant caterer they’d hired for the Holiday Ball. Brett had met with him twice already, and he was a fat old man who thought the only opinions that mattered were his own. “Look, I don’t care how you normally do it. This is the last time I’ve having this conversation. The wasabi comes
separately
or Waverly Academy is never doing business with you again.” She snapped her phone closed, feeling a surge of power.

The Disciplinary Committee had decided that since Brett had done such an efficient job with the Secret Santa assignments, she should take charge of the whole planning committee for the Holiday Ball—or at least, that’s how they spun it. Rumors were floating around that Emily Strauss had had a mini nervous breakdown and couldn’t do anything except stare at her Yale personal essay on her laptop, leaving the planning committee in the lurch.

And so Brett spent the entire afternoon with the committee, made up mostly of dorky, overachieving sophomores she didn’t even know. Now her head swirled with floral arrangements and table settings. Her mouth was dry from tasting frosted cupcakes and miniature fruit tarts, and if one more florist or caterer tried to tell her she couldn’t have what she wanted, Brett was going to lose it. She felt like she was planning a fucking wedding instead of a high school formal. The pride she’d initially felt about being given such a big responsibility had dissipated—any more days like this and her schoolwork would start to suffer. She would end up needing a tutor… like Sebastian.

Almost the second his name popped into her brain, Brett rounded the path toward Dumbarton and spotted Sebastian himself on the front steps, the cold breeze ruffling his dark, ungelled hair. He was leaning against one of the porch columns, looking incredibly uncomfortable in a slightly too-small navy blue peacoat, open at the neck to reveal a neatly pressed button-down. Brett was sure she was hallucinating, her sugar levels finally skyrocketing after too many cupcake tastings.

She stopped in her tracks at the bottom of the steps, rubbing together her tan leather gloves to warm her hands. “I thought you were all booked up this week. You look like you’re going
yachting
.”

“Yeah, well…” Sebastian nodded politely, tugging at the collar of his shirt. Was he wearing a sweater over it? A sweater-
vest
? “A man’s got to get some air.”

Brett narrowed her eyes at him and stepped carefully up the recently salted steps, her pointy-toed black ankle boots with the three-inch heels not exactly the best cold-weather foot-wear. She pulled up the collar of her Nanette Lepore emerald green jacquard coat. “Don’t tell me you miss our study sessions already?” she asked, curious. What was he
doing
here? Her toes tingled in her boots. Was he here… to see her? Brett had a sudden urge to invite Sebastian in for some microwaved hot cocoa in the common room.

But a strange look Brett couldn’t decipher crossed Sebastian’s face, and he pushed his longish hair out of his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, the front door to Dumbarton flew open, revealing Callie Vernon, buttoning up her Jill Stuart puff-sleeved crimson coat over a silky black dress and her shiny black riding boots with the four-inch heels. “All set.” Callie grinned at Sebastian, touching her hand to his arm.

Brett froze. Sebastian was waiting for…
Callie
? She felt like she was in an elevator that had suddenly dropped fifty floors.

“Brett!” Callie squealed at the sight of her friend. She rushed over to give Brett an air kiss, the scent of her Jean Patou perfume making Brett’s eyes water. “You should have seen the pretty flowers Sebastian brought me!”

“Really,” Brett said, her mouth suddenly feeling like sandpaper. “That’s very sweet of him.”

Callie’s blow-dried hair and pale pink eye shadow made her look positively angelic. “We’re off to dinner now—want me to bring you something back?” she asked, hooking her arm into Sebastian’s. He grinned shyly at Brett.

“I’m good, thanks.” Brett sucked in her cheeks and somehow managed to throw open the door to Dumbarton. In a flash, she remembered the look on Callie’s face the other day when Sebastian walked into the dining hall wearing his new clothes. She remembered how, just last week, over strawberry piña coladas in the upstairs common room, Callie had gone into another one of her fits bemoaning the lack of eligible boys at Waverly. About how she needed someone new.

And of course, Brett remembered her childish bet with Sebastian, who was positive that if he de-greased himself, he could land any girl at Waverly.

Apparently, he was right. Starting, of course, with Brett’s former
BFF
.

“Are you hungry?” Sebastian asked Callie softly.

Callie shrugged and pulled on a pair of cream-colored cashmere gloves. “A little,” she answered.

“I called ahead and got us a table by the window,” he told her, raising his voice a little so that Brett could hear. Where was he taking her? Brett wondered furiously. Le Petit Coq? She pictured the two of them in one of the cozy window nooks, watching the snow fall and sharing wine as a fire crackled in the old stone fireplace.

“Sounds perfect,” Callie said, tugging him a little toward the steps. “We should, uh, get going.” She winked at Brett.

Brett stood on the steps, feeling like a third wheel.
He’s just doing it to be an ass
, she thought to herself.
No, forget that: he
is
an ass
. If Sebastian were Cinderella, she knew he’d turn back into a pumpkin sooner or later, his hair finding its way back into a greasy mess on top of his head, his skin reeking again of Drakkar Noir. Callie might be fooled by Sebastian’s metamorphosis, but Brett knew better. It served Callie right if she was desperate enough to get sucked in.
Better her than me
, Brett thought, though it took her an uncomfortably long time to convince herself of the idea.

“Have fun, kids,” Brett called over her shoulder, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. But she couldn’t help glancing back as she opened the front door. The crisp night air tousled Callie’s hair, and the almost full moon lit up Sebastian’s clean-shaven face as he turned back to give Brett a grin. She let the door slam shut.

To her surprise, Brett’s annoyance morphed into a stabbing jealousy. She marched through Dumbarton and slammed the door of her room, grateful that Tinsley was off somewhere. She unzipped her boots and kicked them into the corner, not caring that they were crusted with snow or that the hardwood floors would be covered with puddles soon. Wasn’t
she
the one who’d spent all that time tutoring Sebastian? Inviting him to her house for Thanksgiving? Listening to Bon Jovi in his car with him? Like
Callie
was ever going to do that.