JulianMcCafferty:
Totally. You’re too beautiful to be a suspect.
JennyHumphrey:
I’m blushing. At least we’re in it together.
JulianMcCafferty:
That’s the spirit.
JennyHumphrey:
So what are you up to?
JulianMcCafferty:
Actually, I was just thinking about you… .
JennyHumphrey:
Good things, I hope.
JulianMcCafferty:
Nope. Bad … very bad things.
JennyHumphrey:
No wonder we’re in trouble. =)
Email Inbox
From:
[email protected]
To:
Heath’s list of cool people
Date:
Monday, October 14, 2:32 P.M.
Subject:
Last Chance for US
Goodbye, Brandon, Tinsley, Benny, Sage, Jenny, Julian, Brett, Alison, Callie, Easy, Kara—we’ll miss you! (Hell, we’ll miss me, too.)
Just in case one of us/some of us/all of us US’s (i.e., Usual Suspects) gets handed a one-way ticket away from Waverly on Wednesday morning, I thought we should have a fittingly appropriate going-away party on Tuesday night at the crater. Who knows, it may be our last chance to misbehave here at good ol’ Waverly!
Those on Dean M’s favorite list—be sure to pick up your hot-off-the-presses US T-shirts at the entry to the party.
Btw, plebes—you’re all welcome to the party, to help give US a fond farewell, but whenever you come across one of US, you have to do exactly what that person says, as it could be his or her last night of freedom.
Don’t mess with US!!
Peace out,
Heath
Instant Message Inbox
HeathFerro:
You in for the US party?
TinsleyCarmichael:
I’m there. But I promise you, I won’t be leaving the next day.
HeathFerro:
That’s the fighting spirit.
TinsleyCarmichael:
Um, you texted me—why?
HeathFerro:
I know you like your guys young … but how young?
TinsleyCarmichael:
Listen, Heath. These annoying IMs? I’m starting to hope
YOU
don’t return.
10HeathFerro:
Ouch!
Callie hunched over her chipped yellow cappuccino mug, her bare elbows sticking to the corner booth table at the Waverly Inn in downtown Rhinecliff. It seemed like a million years ago since she and Tinsley and Brett had congregated at this very table over amaretto sours and champagne, in an effort to help her drown out any memory of Easy. The Waverly Inn had seemed like the perfect set for a movie, with its dark wood bar, crusty bartender, and ancient, absurdly proper New England-y style. Today, in the late-morning light, the hotel bar looked more like a cafeteria in an old folks’ home. The only patrons were senior citizens, all of whom looked like they’d seen better days. The table was sticky and looked like it needed a good scrub-down, and the chips in the coffee mugs were clear in the light of day.
Class that morning had been out of the question. On Friday, Mr. Gaston had promised them a “surprise” for Monday, which Callie was pretty sure meant a quiz and not a five- hundred- dollar gift certificate to Barneys. No way could she be expected to identify Latin vocab after Dean Marymount’s e-mail. When she first saw the message in her inbox, so quickly after his last one, she’d hoped that the dean had ferreted out the guilty party--i.e., Jenny Humphrey--kicked her out, and closed the case. She’d already mentally planned taking over Jenny’s side of the room. But when she found out that
she
was a possible suspect in the fire, her fantasies about moving all her shoes into Jenny’s closet were replaced by nightmares of living at home and being forced to go to Atlanta public school with a bunch of kooky rednecks.
“Thanks for meeting me. You know CoffeeRoasters and Maxwell’s were far too public.” Tinsley took a sip of her cappuccino. Her thick black hair was swept up in a sloppy bun and secured by a pair of turquoise lacquered chopsticks, and she wore a navy Wayne sailor minidress that hugged her in all the right places. On anyone else, the outfit would have looked like a slutty Halloween costume, but Tinsley looked beautiful, as always.
What was amazing was how unthreatened Callie felt about her perfect-looking best friend these days. Despite the pimple threatening to break out above her left eye, and the two pounds she’d certainly put on over the weekend, drinking beer and eating anything Easy offered her, she felt more secure and confident than ever. She and Easy were in love again, even more so than before, and they had actually done it. It was incredible. She felt so … adult.
Take that, Carmichael
.
“Maybe I should’ve worn my Ella Moss wrap dress—you know that one that always looks like it’s going to unwrap? It worked on Dalton.” Tinsley leaned back in the booth and smiled fondly at the ancient tin ceiling. “Actually, it works on everyone. I still can’t believe Marymount didn’t believe me.”
Callie sipped her cappuccino slowly.
“Anyway.” Tinsley leaned in. “I’m not too worried about it.” She waved her hand as if swatting away an annoying fly. Her silver Anaconda ring sparkled in the morning light. “It isn’t going to be
us
that gets sent home, that much I can guarantee you.”
The thought of moving back into her bedroom at home in Atlanta, in the enormous stone governor’s mansion on Paces Ferry Road, with its pale pink rug and creepy canopy bed, gave Callie the shivers. So did the thought of having breakfast every morning with her overly coiffed mother. “How can you be sure?” Callie asked worriedly. She pressed her palms against the sides of her cup, enjoying the feel of heat seeping through her skin. “Marymount must have something on all of us if he’s calling us suspects.”
“Could be a bluff,” Tinsley suggested confidently, smoothing a stray wisp of hair behind her left ear. “I’ve seen it a million times before.”
Callie tried not to roll her hazel eyes. Just because Tinsley’s passport had been stamped by just about every country in the world, she acted like she was so much more worldly and wise than everyone else. Callie had a feeling that was why Tinsley hadn’t pressed her for details about what was going on with Easy—she didn’t really want to know. It had recently come to light in a game of I Never that Tinsley was a virgin, and Callie was sure she couldn’t stand the idea that Callie had done something that she hadn’t. “Oh, yeah? Like, where?”
Tinsley narrowed her violet-colored eyes at her friend, her lips twitching at Callie’s challenge. “The movies.”
Callie snickered, licked her pointer finger, and stuck it in the lumpy raw sugar granules she’d spilled on her saucer.
Tinsley watched her. “That’s really gross, you know.” She removed the chopsticks from her dark hair and shook it out so it fell in waves over her shoulders. She raised her perfectly plucked left eyebrow, waiting for Callie to stop.
“But this isn’t a movie.” Callie felt the hint of a whine starting to creep into her voice. If Tinsley got kicked out of school, what would happen? Nothing. She’d go to South fucking Africa with her dad and make an award-winning documentary and get to meet George Clooney and Brad Pitt and all the other do-gooder A-listers at Cannes and Sundance. Oh, wait. She’d pretty much already done that. Only Tinsley could get kicked out of Waverly for doing E and come back smelling like roses. “You know my mother will sentence me to death if I get kicked out, right?” She wasn’t even sure if Georgia had the death penalty, but even if it didn’t, her mom would sign it into law.
Tinsley stared over Callie’s shoulder at the picture of downtown Rhinecliff from the 1920s—it looked about as exciting as it did today. “If it
was
a movie, who would play you?”
“Grace Kelly,” Callie answered immediately, holding her head up in what she probably thought was a princess-of- Monaco-worthy pose. She straightened the neck on her Joie silk ruffle top and looked out the window, staring out at the clear blue sky. Her eyes were distant. “The thing is, the list seems so
random
. Why is someone like Brandon Buchanan on it and not a freaking pothead like Alan St. Girard?”
Tinsley gulped her cooling cappuccino. She knew why Callie was on the list, and Easy—because she herself had blurted to the dean that they were in the barn. Not that she’d told Callie as much. She knew why Jenny and Julian were on the list, too. And of course, she knew why
she
was on the list. She was still mad at herself for fumbling her meeting with the dean.
“I wish I had come with you to Dean Marymount’s office,” Callie sighed, as if reading her mind. She twirled one of her strawberry blond locks nervously with the same finger she’d been sticking in the sugar. She was probably getting grains of sugar in her hair. Maybe Easy would like that.
“I wish you had, too.” Tinsley narrowed her eyes. She hoped she had achieved the right degree of chastisement in her tone. It served Callie right for ditching her. The disastrous scene in the dean’s office replayed in her head. Maybe if she hadn’t been so focused on Marymount’s gross unibrow, or her bizarre image of him as a hawk eating his students, or his sad family picture …
“Oh my God.” She sat up straighter in the booth. Callie looked at her in confusion, and Tinsley grinned, feeling positively gleeful. “I’ve got it!”
“So, Chloe.” Tinsley swirled her chocolate milk shake with a straw. “How are you enjoying Waverly so far?”
A tray of glasses shattered against the floor and everyone in Nocturne, the newly opened twenty-four-hour diner on the far end of Main Street in Rhinecliff, turned to look. Everyone except Tinsley, whose eyes were locked on the young prospective as though the girl held the key to salvation. Tinsley had picked a good spot for covert business, Callie thought. Nocturne was so new that it wasn’t yet on the faculty’s radar, and she was sure the retro, ’50s-style diner would be filled tonight with Owls eating grilled cheese and curly fries after curfew. Callie watched as the red-faced waitress swept up shards of glass that shone like diamonds against the diner’s black-and-white-checkered floor.
“It’s been okay,” Chloe replied tentatively. She was probably still a little shocked that Tinsley Carmichael had invited her to lunch off campus. Tinsley had lured her here on the premise of “getting to know her,” but as always with Tinsley, there was an ulterior motive. She had figured out where she recognized Chloe from: Dean Marymount’s family picture. The little twerp was his
niece
, and, as Tinsley’s scheming mind quickly discerned, she’d been feeding him information. Most likely, the dean’s list of “suspects” was nothing more than all the people who had been rude to Chloe over the weekend. Not that they were the most innocent people or anything, but still. That didn’t make them
arsonists
.
“The thing to keep in mind is that you’re seeing the school at a very unique time,” Tinsley noted as she stabbed a leaf of her Caesar salad. “We’re all just so
stressed
about the fire.” Tinsley put down her fork, as if the stress had ruined her appetite, and leaned back against the red vinyl cushions of the booth. Her perfect brow was wrinkled in worry.
Callie took a big bite of her burger, not sure if she could keep a straight face as she watched Tinsley’s dramatics. Ever since she and Easy had gotten back together, she’d been ravenous—probably because of all the calories they were burning.
Chloe picked at her tuna melt and Tater Tots. “It’s totally crazy,” she agreed. “But it will all be over soon, won’t it?” She looked back and forth between the two older girls questioningly. Callie narrowed her eyes at the prospective, wondering how much of her apparent innocence was an act. With her shoulder-length pale blond hair and pale skin, and wearing a pale yellow cable-knit sweater, she looked like a giant, undercooked french fry.
“Hopefully,” Callie piped up, setting her burger down. She grabbed a napkin from the chrome holder and wiped her mouth. She fought the urge to ask the waitress for a bib—the last thing she wanted to do was spill on her new ruffly lavender Joie top. “
If
they catch the right person. But from what I can tell, they’re not going to.”
“Really?” Chloe asked, looking up at Callie. She rolled the sleeves up on her sweater. “Why do you say that?”
Tinsley pulled the long silver spoon from her tall glass of frothy milk shake, licked it clean, and pointed it right between Chloe’s eyes. “Because the real culprit is doe-eyed and innocent-looking, just like you,” she replied matter-of-factly. She placed the spoon down on the Formica countertop. “You may have met her, actually. Her name is Jenny Humphrey.”
Callie scanned the restaurant, hoping no one from Waverly was within earshot. Either nobody had wanted to venture off campus for lunch, or Nocturne was even newer than she’d realized, because she didn’t recognize a single face. Besides, the jukebox was playing a selection of cheesy ’50s songs nonstop—”My Boyfriend’s Back” was currently blaring through the speakers—so she doubted anyone at the next booth could even hear them.
Chloe’s baby blue eyes widened. “Jenny? I met her. She goes out with Julian, right? He’s so cute.”
Tinsley flinched. It was bad enough that Heath knew about her and Julian and was sending her snide IMs throwing it in her face. Now she had to listen to this little prospective talk about the freakishly hot freshman and his gigantic-boobed girlfriend. If she heard Jenny and Julian mentioned in the same breath again, she was going to throw her milk shake clear across the diner. And if she ever
saw
them together again, she just might start another fire—this time intentionally. Wednesday’s meeting, and Jenny Humphrey’s expulsion from Waverly, could not come quickly enough.