Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (3 page)

I don’t know why. Chelsea’s going to find out the fire was my fault eventually. Won’t everyone?

“Um, Chels.” I dig my nails into my throw pillow. “I probably won’t be back in school on Monday. And probably the rest of the year.”

Silence. “Wait, you mean you— Are you messing with me?”

“No.” I sighed. “Just, if anyone asks, tell them it was an accident. And only part of the auditorium burned.”

“Anne, if you’re playing some sort of joke—”

“Chels. I’ve gotta go.” There are footsteps in the hall, accompanied by Dad’s shouting and Mom’s teary responses. “I’ll try to call you tomorrow.”

I hang up and slide the phone under my pillows. I think I just handed my throne over to St. Bernadette’s new Queen Bee.

*   *   *

When I wake up the next morning, I know something is seriously wrong, because I smell bacon. Mom banned bacon from our kitchen after we watched
Babe
one night and she had one of her mini-meltdowns about how nothing in life is fair.

The smell gets closer, then there’s a knock on the door.

“Annie? Can I come in?”

“Sure, Mom.” I sit up in bed, double-checking that my phone is concealed by the mass of pillows.

She opens the door all the way and then just hangs outside. She has a tray balanced on one arm, and it looks like there’s fresh fruit and whole-wheat toast on it as well as the bacon and eggs. “Are you hungry?”

My mother made me breakfast, even though she and Dad wouldn’t talk to me last night. The last time Mom made breakfast for me was when I had chicken pox in elementary school. She made banana chocolate-chip pancakes with a smiley face drawn on them in whipped cream.

I need to know what the catch is here and whether it’s worth bacon as a peace offering. Mom rests the tray on my lap, sits on the edge of the bed, and looks around my room like she’s surprised I no longer have a Hello Kitty poster on my wall.

“How did you sleep?” Mom watches me with bloodshot eyes, but she’s not trying to make me feel guilty. She’s actually concerned.

“Okay. Do you and Daddy hate me?”

“Oh, sweetheart, stop it,” she says. “We’re just … very disappointed.”

I don’t say it, but I think that’s worse, actually. I take an apprehensive bite of the bacon.

“Anne, I have to tell you something.” Mom puts her hand on the comforter over my knee, but she’s leaning away from me at the same time. “Daddy and I talked last night about how to handle this … and we’re not sure going to another school here in the city is the best option for you.”

It’s suddenly hard to swallow. “Then where am I supposed to go?”

“Your father knows someone who was able to get you into a new school.” Mom looks uncomfortable. “You start in a few days. It’s a boarding school.”

I almost gag. “You’ve got to be kidding me.
Boarding school
?”

So my parents are dealing with their embarrassment over the fire by sending me to some boarding school God knows where. What if it’s in Siberia? Or even worse, New Jersey?!

“Annie, the Wheatley School is very prestigious. This will be great for you.”

I perk up a bit. “Wheatley? Is that in England or something?” I see an image of myself wearing Burberry outside Buckingham Palace, just waiting for Prince William to notice me as he takes his morning walk. Some lady at Lord & Taylor did tell me once I look like Princess Kate.

Mom purses her lips. “Not that Wheatley. It’s right outside of Boston.”

I feel like I’ve hit my head.

“Boston?” I wail. “BOSTON?!”

“Oh, come on. You’ve been there before and liked it. Boston has a lot of history.”

I push the breakfast tray aside and flop back onto my back. “Do you know what they call people from Boston, Mom? ‘Massholes.’ They’re assholes, but they think they’re special because they’re from Massachusetts.”

“Don’t be crass, Anne,” Mom snaps. “You don’t have a choice in this. Your father already mailed out the security deposit and booked you a train for Sunday.”

“What?!” My nose gets all prickly and stuffy like I’m about to cry. “You’re just sending me away without letting me make this right?”

Mom’s gray eyes are a little glassy now. “Honey, you’ll thank us later. And I know you’ll love Wheatley.”

I sit up and bury my face on the shoulder of my mother’s cardigan. “All my friends are here. Please don’t make me go.”

Mom decides to deal with my whining and pleading by pointing out Boston’s best features, which, as far as I can tell, are limited to old men dressed in Revolutionary War uniforms roaming the streets and fewer people peeing in the middle of the subway. I want to shrink into a ball and hide in my nightstand drawer.

Mom leaves me with the now-cold eggs. I know my begging is futile for now; my parents are so embarrassed about the fire that they’re sending me somewhere where people will forget about me. I really have no choice but to go to Massachusetts.

Staying there is another story.

CHAPTER

THREE

My father can’t come with me and Mom to Boston, because he has to be in court Monday morning. His client is facing life in prison, and apparently that’s more important than being there to send his only daughter off to Massachusetts for the next five months.

Five months. It’s plenty of time for me to lay low, get good grades, and prove to my parents that I’m responsible enough to come back to New York next year. By then, the fire will be old news, and maybe Bailey will let me come back. This is nothing an Edible Arrangement and some A’s can’t fix. It has to work, because there’s no way I’m spending my senior year at the Wheatley School.

I checked out their Web site. Not only are their uniforms an atrocious shade of
cranberry,
but all of the girls featured on the home page were wearing headbands.
Headbands.
The only place a headband belongs is on a second-grader. Or in a landfill.

The headbands aren’t the worst part, though. What really sucks is that the Wheatley School is really,
really
frickin’ small.

St. Bernadette’s is sixth to twelfth grades, with about three hundred kids per grade. The Wheatley School only offers ninth to twelfth grades, and get this:
They only accept fifty kids each year.
That’s practically
incestuous.
As if being the private-school expellee from New York wasn’t bad enough (because let’s face it, I’m not fooling anyone by starting at one of the most elite academies on the East Coast in the middle of January), I have to deal with a gaggle of headband-wearing girls who have been in every class together since freshman year.

It takes Mom and me almost fifteen minutes to find a cab from the train station. We’re both quiet on the drive to Wheatley, and although I’ve convinced myself I don’t care enough to be nervous, my stomach is producing acid at an alarming rate. A green road sign informs me that we’re a mile away from the Wheatley School, and soon enough, I’m stepping into my customized, headband-wearing version of hell.

Hell is actually really pretty. The redbrick buildings circling a courtyard look like my father’s pictures of his alma mater, which I guess makes sense, since Harvard has a partnership with the Wheatley School. I even read that some seniors are allowed to take classes there.

So the campus is kind of nice. I guess. The charm wears off when Mom and I find the student center, which has obviously been renovated recently. The lobby has high ceilings and a fish tank.

A directory leads us to a room labeled
STUDENT SERVICES
, where an older woman named Barbara is waiting for me with my ID card and schedule and all other sorts of important information. Honestly, I tune out the second she tells me my ID card is also my room key, but I’ll need to find out the door access code from my roommate.

Roommate.

How did I not see that one coming? At all the boarding schools I’ve seen on TV, the kids had their own rooms and mini-coffeemakers. I even brought one. Now I’m supposed to share my room with someone who may or may not be a sociopath?

Mom’s hand is on my shoulder. “Anne, honey, I’ve got to catch a cab.”

“Oh. Right.” My head hurts, like I’ve gone a couple of minutes without breathing. Mom is really leaving, and in three days, she and my father will be in Paris for their anniversary. And I won’t be home, in our apartment, planning out enough shenanigans for the two weeks they’ll be gone.

“We’ll take great care of her.” Barbara beams at my mother, who looks really, really sad. I’d like to think it’s because she’s leaving her only daughter five hours away from her, but something tells me it’s also because I’m a humongous screwup.

Mom hugs me and tells me she loves me and reminds me to call once I get settled in. I squeeze her back, and then she’s gone, leaving me with Barbara, who has this shit-eating grin on her face that says, “Aren’t you so excited to be at this
important
school with all your
important
new classmates?”

Barbara tells me that I was supposed to meet someone named Dean Watts now, but she’s busy having her baby early or whatever, so some kid named Brent Conroy is coming to give me a tour instead. I immediately picture some nasally Student Council president with khakis worn up to his belly button, because those are the types of boys I saw on the school’s Web site. It takes every ounce of energy I have left not to sigh.

“I think you’ll find the Wheatley School very welcoming,” Barbara says with a smile, as if she can detect my growing sense of dread.

I nod, but the pit in my stomach grows as I hear the thwacking of shoes behind me. I turn around to see a blond girl in the doorway. She’s pretty, but her face is kind of pinched and her hair colorist went a little nuts with the highlights. I’m surprised she’s wearing a bright pink sweater and jeans and not a uniform, until I remember it’s Sunday. She steps into the room.

“Hi. I’m Alexis Westbrook.” She lingers on the second-to-last syllable, as if I should know who she is or something.

Barbara looks confused but not disappointed to see Alexis. “Where’s Brent?”

“Oh, you know.” Alexis flashes a grin that makes me wonder if she murdered him and stuffed his body into a closet. “If you wait for Brent, you’ll be waiting ’til you’re old and gray.”

I don’t like the singsongy way Alexis says this. And I definitely don’t miss the sideways glance she shoots me.

“I’ll be showing Anne around. Dr. Harrow wants to meet her first, though,” Alexis says to Barbara, as if I’m not standing three feet away from them. She flips her long hair over her shoulder. She’s not wearing a headband, but I still don’t like her.

Alexis leads me outside and into a really old-looking building with refurbished cherrywood floors.

“So, I hear you’re from New York? Which part?” Something in her voice tells me that she knows exactly where I’m from, down to the street address of the prep school I almost burned down.

“Manhattan,” I say.

Alexis lets out a little “
ah
” and twists one of her pearl earrings. She’s so sizing me up right now. Trying to figure out if I’ve got the New York attitude to go along with the black boots and tights.

That’ll depend on whether or not she pulls that
talking about me like I’m not in the room
crap again.

I pretend to be engrossed in the portraits and plaques lining the hall walls so I don’t have to make small talk with Alexis. Already, I see names I recognize on a
NOTABLE ALUMNI
plaque. Conroy. Westbrook. My curiosity gets the best of me.

“Arnold Westbrook. Is that your father?” I ask.

“Grandfather,” Alexis says. “
Steven
Westbrook is my father.”

Evidently, I’m supposed to know who Steven Westbrook is. I shrug. Alexis half-rolls her eyes when she thinks I’m not looking.

Mercifully, she stops in front of a door with
VICE-PRINCIPAL
engraved on a gold nameplate. Alexis raps on it twice and tucks her hair behind her ears. I catch her running her pinky over her two front teeth, too.

I understand why when the door opens. Dr. Harrow is
young.
Well, young-looking for someone old enough to have a PhD. He’s tall with dark hair, a strong jaw, and ice-blue eyes—the type of eyes that could get you to admit to anything.

“Come on in, ladies.” His voice is friendly, and he has sort of a Midwestern accent.

Dr. Harrow extends a strong-looking hand to me. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Dowling. I’m Dr. Harrow. Have a seat.”

I ease into a leather chair facing his desk. Just
pleased to meet you.
Not,
pleased to meet you, we’ve hidden all the matches and restocked the fire extinguishers in preparation for your arrival.
So far, so good.

“The pleasure is mine.” I turn up the charm a little bit. Anything to win over the administration and expedite getting the hell out of here on good behavior.

Dr. Harrow nods at the red folder Barbara gave me.
THE WHEATLEY SCHOOL
is embossed on the front. “I see you’ve already heard about the nuts and bolts of boarding school, but I personally wanted to welcome you. Dean Watts’s replacement hasn’t arrived yet, and Headmaster Goddard had a previous engagement, but they wanted me to tell you they’re happy you’re here, as well.”

Sure they did.

Dr. Harrow is about to say something else when a rap on the door interrupts him. He nods for Alexis, who is standing in the corner, to open it.

“Ah, sorry I’m late.” A boy is standing in the doorway. He doesn’t look sorry at all. But he’s
really
cute, so he has my attention.

“Mr. Conroy.” Dr. Harrow bobs his head. “This is Anne Dowling. The student you were supposed to show around.”

Disappointment surges through me.
Supposed to.
As in, not going to now.

“Brent Conroy.” He shakes my hand and smiles. He’s about my height, with short, wavy brown hair and brown eyes. His smile isn’t perfect, but I can’t look away. He’s on the shorter side, for a guy, but with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, I can tell he’s definitely athletic.