Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (5 page)

“Hey.” She collapses on her bed, out of breath when the song is over. “I have the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Concert version on DVD. Wanna watch?”

“What about your exam?” I ask, but she’s already pawing through the basket of DVDs next to her nightstand. When she finds it, she slips it into her laptop and slides to the floor, gesturing for me to follow. I grab my pillow and make a seat out of it next to her. We watch the first half in silence, passing the gummy worms back and forth between us.

“I would kill to see this on Broadway,” she finally sighs. “You probably already have.”

I nod. We’re both full-on ugly crying by the time Éponine dies in Marius’s arms. When a knock sounds at the door, I scramble to my feet. Isabella sniffles and answers it.

“Hi.” Alexis pokes her head in the door, her voice sugary. “Can you guys lower that music a little? I mean,
I
don’t care, but there are probably people trying to do homework.…”

Isabella gives Alexis a wordless thumbs-up, which she turns into the middle finger once she closes the door.

“Sorry,” Isabella says. “She’s, uh…”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I met her earlier.”

An awkward silence envelops us. I can see that Isabella is struggling with how to approach this: On the surface, Alexis and I both look like the type of girls who would pick on girls like her just because we could.

I want Isabella to know I’m not like that.

“She seems like … a stuck-up bitch,” I say.

Isabella looks at me in surprise and laughs. Then she curls her front lip up to imitate Alexis’s slightly larger-than-normal front teeth, and we’re both laughing.

“So, did you meet any of our other charming classmates today?” she asks.

I pull the elastic off my ponytail and let brown waves fall over the side of my face so I don’t have to look at Isabella. “Um, Brent Conroy.” My voice squeaks a little.

“Oh, man.” She shakes her head as if to say,
Not you, too.

“What?” I ask, a little crankily. “He showed me around. He’s really nice.”

“And
cute,
” Isabella says, like I purposely left that part out.

“Yeah, he’s cute,” I huff, and focus my gaze on the screen. “Anyway.”

Isabella turns her attention back to the screen, a smile creeping across her lips. I feel my cheeks getting hotter by the millisecond. Alexis’s comment about waiting a long time for Brent taunts me. There’s definitely something Isabella’s not telling me about Brent.

But whatever. I have more pressing matters to deal with.

Like starting classes tomorrow.

*   *   *

When I wake up to alarm sounds and a woman’s cries of “DANGER! EVACUATE!” my first thought is that someone is playing a sick joke on me. Because the irony of my dorm building catching fire or flooding or being attacked by terrorists on my first day is just too much.

I throw my comforter off in a panic and look over at the unmoving shape of Isabella’s body. I feel my mouth hang open slightly as I realize the alarm sounds are coming from her bed.

“Isabella.” Nothing. “Isabella!”

She sits up with a start and reaches for the black square-framed glasses on her nightstand. She stares at me for a moment as if she can’t quite remember who I am, then yawns and digs out a phone from under her pillow. The frantic alarm sounds stop.

“What the hell was that?” I ask.

“That … is the only thing loud enough to wake me up in the morning.” She stretches. “Usually.”

Yes. Isabella is certifiably nuts. But she also seems to know everything: like that the second-floor bathroom is always empty in the morning because all the swimmers live on that floor and they shower at the pool, and that you should never order an omelet from the dining-hall worker with the handlebar mustache because he takes forever and will make you late to class.

*   *   *

My plan to fly under everyone’s radar is smashed to pieces when I get to my first class and realize there are only ten students in it.

My teachers pretend to be thrilled to have me, although it’s obvious they’ve never had to deal with a student starting this late in the year. I definitely have to figure out who my father knows at this school, because I see no other reason why they would let me in.

I head back to Amherst after French lit to drop off the ten-pound stack of textbooks I accumulated over the morning. Luckily, Isabella is there, so we walk to the cafeteria together. While she waits on the hot-lunch line, I go for the salad bar. We meet up and choose a round table near the soda fountain.

“Please don’t tell me that’s supposed to be pizza.” I point at the limp-looking pieces of pita bread on Isabella’s plate. They’re covered in red sauce and what looks like dog throw-up.

“Of course it is,” she says. “It’s hamburger pizza. You don’t have hamburger pizza in New York?”

This is worse than I thought.

“Hey, you’re in my French class, aren’t you?”

I turn around to face a pretty girl with long dark hair. She looks vaguely familiar, and she’s flanked by the J.Crew girls from our hall—April and Kelsey, although I can only tell them apart by Kelsey’s glasses.

“I think so,” I say.

“I’m Remy.” The girl extends a hand and sits down across from Isabella and me. “Can we sit here?”

I look at Isabella, who nods, even though April and Kelsey have already slid into the other empty chairs. “You live on our floor,” they say, almost in unison.

“Your bag is adorable,” Remy says. “Did you get that at the Pru?”

I stare into her wide, blue Bambi eyes, because I have no idea what the Pru is. “Uh, no … I got it back in New York.”

All three of the girls are smiling, a little too eagerly.

“Oh. Yeah. We heard you were from New York,” Remy says with awe.

Is that code for
We heard what you did and we’d like to sit here to absorb some of your street cred
? Isabella pretends to be fascinated with her pizza, but it’s obvious that these girls sitting with her is about as normal as Morgan Freeman sitting with her and narrating her every move. I mean, they haven’t even acknowledged her presence.

As if taking cues from Remy, April and Kelsey proceed to compliment my nail-polish color and necklace. Half-listening, I find myself scanning the cafeteria lines for Brent. My stomach somersaults as I spot him making his way toward the soda fountain, followed by the two crew guys he introduced me to yesterday.

Brent’s face lights up as his gaze falls on me. I run my tongue over my teeth, checking for stray lettuce pieces, as he waves and heads toward our table. I return his grin before I notice Remy waving to him from behind me.

I try not to be too mortified as Brent and his entourage settle in at our table as if they always sit here, although it’s clear the table isn’t made for eight people.

“Afternoon, ladies,” Brent says, grabbing a chair from the table next to us and squeezing between Remy and Cole. “Who got the hamburger pizza?”

Isabella lifts her eyes guiltily and doesn’t say anything as the other girls offer “ew”s and gagging noises.

“So, Anne, how’s your first day going?” Brent asks.

It’s then I notice that it’s not just his eyes on me. Everyone at the table is watching me, waiting for my response.

And it’s not just my table. When I pick my head up and scan the cafeteria, I realize that most of the eyes in the room are on me. No, not on me. On us.

I’ve inadvertently brought the popular table to me.

“Um, not bad. Typical first-day stuff,” I offer.

“You’re in our art-history class, right?” Cole asks.

“Of course she is.” Murali pokes his straw through the top of his soda. “You spent the last five minutes failing to gather the balls to ask her if she needed help finding her next class, remember?”

Murali grins at me while Cole contemplates the fork in his hand as if he wants to stab Murali in the jugular with it. I smile in spite of myself, because they’re both pretty cute. I’m itching to look over at Brent and see if he notices how red Cole’s face is, but I play it cool and act like my salad is the most interesting thing at the table.

Everyone wants to compare afternoon classes with me. As they pass my schedule around the table, alternating between approving and disapproving guttural sounds (Remy and April have modern dance, for the required fitness credit, with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays), I smell bitchiness behind me. It’s a combination of celebrity perfume and the type of strawberry lip balm a nine-year-old would wear.

Isabella and I share a conspiratorial look as Alexis looms over our table, hand on her hip. The arrogant way she carries herself makes a little more sense to me now that I know she’s a senator’s daughter.

“Hey, Lex,” Remy says, with a nervous glance in my direction. “This is Anne.”

“We’ve met.” Alexis’s frosty gray eyes lock on mine. I’ve clearly stepped all over the toes of her Michael Kors flats—which are really cute, as much as I hate to admit it. If anyone notices, they’re not showing it.

“I’m going to the SGA room,” Alexis announces. She pronounces it “
rum,
” and I have to stifle a laugh. “Valentine’s Day rose orders are starting to come in, if anyone wants to help me get a head start.”

No one makes any motion to get up or provides any excuses about not being able to help. Everyone is looking at me guiltily, and I realize I’m the reason they’re staying.

I’m officially the Interesting New Thing, and no one wants to miss out on what I’ll do next. So far, all I’ve done is eat some salad, but who knows when I’ll dish out the real story of how I almost burned St. Bernadette’s down?

Alexis scans the table as if she can’t decide who she hates the most out of all of us. “Fine. Lizzie is meeting me there anyway.”

I feel bad for Lizzie, whoever she is, as Alexis stalks off. And maybe it’s just me, but it feels as if the table breathes a collective sigh of relief when she’s gone.

“Okay, now I need to know what you did to her,” Isabella asks as we leave the cafeteria. “You’ve only been here a day, so I have to admit I’m a little impressed.”

“I really don’t know,” I lie. “Should I be scared?”

Isabella tugs on her scarf to tighten it as a wall of wind assaults us. She glances over her shoulder; at first, I think it’s to shield her face from the incoming cold, but her silence says she’s checking to see if anyone is listening to us.

“Of her? Yeah,” she says. “But don’t you get what just happened in there? That was totally an initiation.”

“Into what?” I snort. “The Headband Club?”

“Exactly.” Isabella turns and smirks at me. “Don’t you get it? They’ve heard all about you. They’re grooming you to be their new leader.”

CHAPTER

FIVE

I don’t know why the popular crowd seeking me out doesn’t make me feel more at home. My parents and teachers always like to talk about my “natural leadership tendencies” (in other words, constantly leading Chelsea or my other friends into trouble), but I feel weird about people wanting to be my friend only because they think I’m some badass from New York.

At St. Bernadette’s, it didn’t matter where your money came from, since everyone’s parents were attorneys or plastic surgeons or famous rock stars; you had to prove yourself to earn your status. The fact that Remy and Company won’t even wait for me to prove myself makes me distrust them. I mean, someone other than Alexis has to have noticed that I don’t exactly fit in here. I didn’t think it was possible to be too preppy for a prep school, but these Boston kids are proving me wrong. All of the guys have the same side-swept-bangs haircut, and the girls dress as if the Jackie Kennedy look were part of the uniform. They all take themselves so seriously.

They’re nothing like my friends at home, who could rock Ray-Ban eyeglasses and wouldn’t think twice about ditching school to grab frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity.

I guess I should be happy I’m not at the bottom of the totem pole here, but by Wednesday night, I tell Isabella she’s going to have to hide all sharp objects from me if I have to go to the dining hall again.

It’s obvious Brent and Remy’s crowd wouldn’t sit with or even talk to Isabella if it weren’t for me. I also can’t figure out who she hung out with before I showed up. She sometimes talks to Molly, a nervous-looking girl on the floor beneath us, but it doesn’t seem like there are any groups missing a member, when I look around the cafeteria.

When we get to the dorm with our sandwiches from the campus Subway, Alexis and her minion, Lizzie, are parked on the two lounge couches, surrounded by stacks of pink and red construction paper and enough glitter to stock a gay rave in New York for a year. As president of the Resident Council, Alexis is in charge of decorating the dorm, as she loudly explained during calculus this afternoon.

“Hi, ladies.” She looks up when she sees us, her coral mouth twisted into a sneer. “Sorry we kind of took over here.”

Obviously what she really means is
Try to sit here with us and I’ll end you,
but I return her syrupy smile. I feel Isabella stiffen beside me.

“No problem,” I say. “We’ll go to the third-floor lounge.”

We have to stop off at the room so I can get my laptop, anyway. The fact I don’t bring it to class completely baffles Isabella, who keeps her MacBook in a vinyl case plastered to her side all day.

There’s a hot-pink Post-it note waiting for us on the door. Or waiting for me, since my name is scrawled in bubbly script at the top.

Anne,

Mini-coffeemakers aren’t allowed. Please get rid of it before Darlene sees.

And at the bottom, there’s a heart drawn in sparkly gel pen.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

It’s the first time I’ve heard Isabella curse. She rips the note off the door and squashes it in one motion. “Welcome to Alexis’s sticky-note club.”

Maybe it’s the thought of not being able to make chai lattes in the morning, or that stupid, mocking heart, but the note
really
pisses me off. Alexis is not only a bitch, but a passive-aggressive, Post-it-note-leaving bitch. She had a million opportunities to tell me about the coffeemaker today, but instead she left me a nasty little note for everyone to see.