The Aristobrats (16 page)

Parker walked first down the hallway toward the Doris Duke Ballroom on the top floor of the school—Kiki second, Plum third, and Ikea last. Now that the Lylas were back together (had they ever really been apart?) she didn't care who would be laughing at them at the dance. When you had the Lylas you could get through anything.

Even tonight.

The images of the night sky surrounded the Lylas as they walked, making it feel like they were making their way down a starlit road to a fancy party. The four of them had spent so much time in La Cachette that Fall Sosh was already in full swing. The music piped through the halls. They were almost an hour late.
Maybe,
just maybe, Parker hoped, they could sneak in and head for the back, without anyone really noticing.

Parker felt her heart beating hard beneath her dress. The heat of her skin made her mother's perfume seem like a bouquet of gardenias surrounding her face. She didn't feel nervous to face Tribb or Courtney or Cricket or even Ms. Hotchkiss, she felt,
what was the word…
strong.

The Lylas joined hands as Parker pushed the door open to the Doris Duke Ballroom.

The music was loud enough that Parker could feel the vibration through her shoes. She had to use her Upper Case Voice to be heard by the rest of them. “LET'S HEAD TO THE BACK!” she shouted. She added the universal symbol for “head to the back” (finger roll, finger roll, point, head nod) and they all followed.

Curtains billowed down in front of the tall windows and landed in satiny puddles on the floor. Gold tassels the size of pillows held them into place. The glass doors that led to the balcony outside were flung open and heaters over the exits kept the room from getting cold. Thousands of lanterns hung over their heads, or maybe it was just the illusion of lanterns. In this school, it was impossible to tell.

The Doris Duke Ballroom was packed with Wallys. Most were dancing and the rest were standing tightly against the walls kind of wiggling—like they wanted to dance but the centrifugal force of the room was too great to release them.

“There's Divya!” Plum said as she spotted Ikea's friend dancing with Duncan Middlestat, now a full-fledged upper tier Wally.

“She cut her hair!” Ikea yelled as the four of them tried to cram into the furthest away corner. “It's all layer-y!”

“Kenneth and I updated her profile,” Kiki explained.

“Chic City!” Plum declared.

“We're loving it!” Ikea said.

Parker saw James out of the corner of her eye. He was alone in the AV booth. He hadn't dressed up for Fall Sosh the way most people might dress up (for example…Kiki), but he had brushed his hair and he wore a fitted cashmere sweater, instead of his usual baggy sweatshirt, over his black jeans. He looked nice, Parker thought. Should she say hello? She could see James turn his head toward her. Parker put her hand up to wave even though she knew it was too dark for him to see her.

“Danger, Danger, ex-EGB, nine o'clock.” Kiki pointed to Tribb. He was wearing a white tuxedo jacket and dancing in between Courtney and Cricket (also wearing two of Kiki's “need-need” rejects). The three of them were violating at least one of the rules in the Wallingford Handbook:
Students of the opposite sex must stay at least eight inches away from each other at all school-sponsored galas,
and at least one of the Lylas's:
Never do the Sandwich-Dance. Not even as a joke.

“He's not really my ex-EGB,” Parker clarified over the music. “He's just hangin' right now. Doing his own thang.” She smiled with conviction despite the raised eyebrows from the group. “He is
…
”
The “he
is…
” came out not only unconvincing but also embarrassingly loud because the music had suddenly stopped.

Hotchkiss was standing on the stage in front of the microphone. She'd whipped up the lights just a notch with her pen. She was wearing what you'd expect the Terminator to wear to an event like this: a suspiciously normal black dress, a beady string of pearls, and chic but sensible high heels.

“We've been waiting for you ladies.” Hotchkiss's voice boomed into the microphone. Her words echoed loudly in the giant ballroom.

“
Us?
” Plum whispered to Parker.

Every Wally had stopped dancing and turned around to the Lylas. Their whispers were like bees buzzing around them. Parker saw Cricket and Courtney giggling. Tribb bent his head down to Courtney, smiled and nodded. Kiki fluffed out the layers of crinoline under her dress (staying true to the new Rule that going down in flames should be done in style).

“Yes
you
, Miss Petrovsky!” Hotchkiss answered from all the way up on the stage (proving her super-stealth auditory powers yet again). “…And Miss Allen, Miss Bell, and Miss Bentley.” She smiled a Grinchy smile.

Parker stiffened.

Mr. Bentley had just snuck in the back door to the ballroom. Plum and Kiki had seen him too, but Ikea's eyes never left the stage. No way were any of them going to point him out.

“Or more
specifically
,” Hotchkiss enunciated, “we have a
special guest
who's been waiting for you.” She nodded to James in the AV room.

Bad sign: Hotchkiss nodding to James could never lead to anything good.

Parker gulped as the lights dimmed again and what looked like a long sprinkler head descended from the center of the ballroom.

Death by sprinkler. It was possible. She'd seen the movie.

A tiny burst of electricity sprinkled out from the spigot like bright fireworks. Almost everyone in the room OMGasped. But the long electrostatic fingers spread out and around like a globe and joined the floor below. It was then that a holographic image of Fitz Orion appeared in the center of the room. He was smiling, wearing a red kimono and sitting on the floor of a Japanese-style room. A woman was kneeling beside him and serving him a small bowl of frothy green tea.

If he hadn't been projected about ten times larger than a real person, Fitz would have looked like he was right there. Parker remembered the customers in the Orion store desperately reaching out for scoops of him to put in their pockets. She wondered if this was live or prerecorded like it had been in the store.

“
Ohayou gozaimasu!”
The image spoke. “Good morning, Wallingford Academy!” The image laughed. “…At least it's morning here.” This wasn't prerecorded—this was happening right now, right here, somewhere else in the world. The infamous Fitz Orion was in the room.

Hotchkiss giggled. She hid her face behind her hand. The Wallys stood frozen in their fancy party clothes, stunned that the mega-billionaire was sitting there right in front of them (well, an enormous holographic likeness of the mega-billionaire anyway). Parker didn't know what was more shocking: Hotchkiss's sudden girlish transformation or the spectacular apparition before her.

“That's Fitz Orion!” Ikea grabbed Parker's arm. It's what everyone in the ballroom was saying.

Fitz sipped his bowl of tea and grinned. He was either about to say something monumental or take another sip of tea; it was impossible to guess.

“I'm going to tell you something you don't know,” Fitz proclaimed. “Something I wouldn't have believed in a
million
years when I was your age.” He brought his face nose-close in to his camera and whispered, “
Life. Is. Short
, my friends,” he said. “It's gone in the blink of an eye. And in the grand scheme of things, in this vast cosmos that surrounds us, our puny little lives mean nothing.” Fitz laughed so hard he had to put his tea down to keep from spilling it.

It didn't seem so incredibly funny to Parker but maybe there was some billionaire inside joke she was missing.

“So this past summer,” Fitz continued, “Ms. Hotchkiss and I got to talking.” Hotchkiss nodded as he spoke. Parker got the feeling she would have nodded at anything Fitz Orion had to say. “And we said: ‘Why do we all have to be so terrified all the time?' Isn't that right, Ms. Hotchkiss?”

“Terrified. Yes. That's what we said.” Hotchkiss responded although it wasn't clear that Fitz could hear her.

“…We're
terrified
of what people think of us,” Fitz continued. “What our
friends
think of us. What our
parents
think of us. What
people
we don't even know
think of us!” he said. “We spend so much time being terrified of everyone and everything that we hardly have a voice in this world.” He took a steaming towel from the woman and pressed it to his face.

Every Wally in the room stayed silent until Fitz peeled the warm towel away and was ready to speak again.

“So we thought that
Wallingford Academy Today
could be that voice!” He opened his arms as wide as they would go. “Projected out into the cosmos! Not mine…not Ms. Hotchkiss's.
Your
voice!” His finger pointed so far outward Parker instinctively jumped back. “And…” He searched for something on the table in front of him. “As of about three minutes ago…” He found what he was looking for, a strange hand-held device—it looked like the one Parker had seen at the store: the Orion holoPod.

Fitz turned on the device. The
Wallingford Academy Today
website homepage began whirling around in front of him until it settled in a spot that everyone could see. “
Wallingford Academy Today
has nine-thousand, three-hundred and ninety-nine subscribers!” He read the numbers at the bottom of the page. “Heck, Kiki and Kenneth got over six-thousand responses to ‘Who Wore It Better'!” Fitz leaned in to the camera again. “It was
Eliza
,” he said. “Pretty obvy.” He winked.

Kiki's Birdie couldn't be contained any longer. Even Kenneth nearly took off.

Parker's head spun. She hadn't checked the stats on the webcast since the beginning of the year when Arthur was the only subscriber.
Nine thousand?
She felt Ikea's fingers meet hers, and Plum's too.

“Subscribers from all over the planet,” Fitz said. “There's even a girl here from Christmas Island!” He laughed. “That adds a
festive
touch.”

“I told you,” Kiki whispered.

“And this is just the beginning! This is
your
voice, Wallingford Academy!” Fitz declared. “So speak loud. Be fearless. The world is listening.” The woman came back into view with a small bowl of rice. “Sayonara for now, my friends.”

Fitz Orion reached forward and flipped a switch. In an instant, he was gone.

For what seemed like minutes, no one blinked or even breathed. Tribb Reese was the first Wally to start cheering. “Yeah!!” Tribb screamed, both arms high in the air. From Tribb it spread outward until everyone was sounding off.

Parker closed her eyes and listened to the applause. She imagined herself being lifted up and up and up. It would have been the most perfect moment of her life except that as she felt herself floating above the room, she realized that nothing was up there but the air and the clouds and the drop crystal pendants of the chandelier in the Doris Duke Ballroom.

There was nothing at all up there.

She felt the arms of her friends wrap around her and together they made their way through the crowd and up to the stage. The cheers continued as James joined them and McDweebs too. She stood there with the Lylas looking out at the audience of cheering Wallys and she felt complete—not because Fitz Orion had given their crazy webcast his blessing or because she had nine-thousand new Friends or even because she was wearing the perfect dress—but because she knew she was just fine without any of those things.

“If you've been wondering why I chose you for the webcast,” Hotchkiss leaned in to Parker. “I didn't.” She nodded toward the center of the room where Fitz had been. “
He
did.”

Parker looked at the space where Fitz Orion had been, the founder of Orion computers, the genius everyone in the world wanted a piece of—and she wondered. Why would Fitz Orion have chosen
her?

It was not a question she'd be able to answer tonight.

Capital O! Capital
M! Capital G!
” Suzanne and Tinsley, Cosima and Emily, Natalie and Laurel, and all of Parker's ex-best friends gathered around her. The only ones noticeably absent were Cricket and Courtney. They were over at the drinks table, Parker could see, reapplying Lipglass.

“We knew you were really onto something!” Natalie said.

“Fabulastic!”

“Way hysterica!”

“Beyond way!”

“And like, we're all famous now…I mean,
the school
is famous
,
which sort of means we all are too by default.”

“Totally.”

“I can't even beli
eee
ve it.”

Parker hugged each of them and took their compliments. It was a funny combination of exciting and silly. It felt like they had all just been laughing at her just minutes before—Parker realized she couldn't take any of it too seriously. She looked over their heads for someone else.

“Those dresses look familiar, Keeks?” Kenneth asked Kiki loudly.

“They look like need-need dresses to me, Kenneth.” Kiki grinned. Even her rejects were ledge.

“And she snaps her fingers in a
Z
formation!” Kenneth congratulated Kiki with their now world famous sign-off. Kiki didn't return the gesture for fear of her zipper splitting. She just kept taking little breaths, hoping enough oxygen would eventually make its way in.

McDweebs walked up to them in a perfectly tailored tuxedo. His hair was freshly cut and styled. Very a la mo. Shocking, really. Parker had to give him his due: He looked more like a secret agent than a dweeb.

“Is that
you
, McDweebs?” Kiki was stupified—she'd know that tux anywhere. Diavolo for Men.

“It is,” he said tugging on his bow tie. Had they not already gotten married in second grade, they could have tonight—they were both dressed for the occasion.

“Are you stalking me again?” Kiki asked.

“Nope,” he said coolly. “I was just saying hello.
Hello
.”

With that, McDweebs slid a hand in his pocket, turned around and began to walk away.

“McDweebs!” Kiki called out. “
Leonard…
or whatever.”

“Yes?” He stopped and looked back.

“You look nice tonight,” she said. “I mean in not too much of a completely dweebish kind of way,” she added.

“Thanks. You too, Kiki.” He smiled. “In fact, you look quite beautiful,” he said as he walked away.

Kiki was left standing there. She watched as McDweebs walked out of the Doris Duke Ballroom.

“Hmm,” she said aloud. Parker arched an eyebrow at her. Kiki just left it at that.

Out of the corner of her eye, Parker spotted Ikea—she'd finally got up the courage to walk up to her father. In her traditional dress, she was as impressive a figure as he was. Parker inched closer to eavesdrop. Not exactly breaking a rule…but she couldn't afford to miss this.

“Are you here on official business or something?” Ikea asked.

“I heard from
someone
that there might be a reason I should stop by.” Mr. Bentley smiled and tried to do something with his hands. “I had to leave for court yesterday before I was able to critique your show…” he said uncomfortably.

“I know,” Ikea said. “I remember.”

“But I just wanted to say…” He cleared his throat. “I thought I'd say…”

“You wanted to say?” Ikea waited.

“I wanted to say that was a fine job!” He put a hand on her shoulder and patted it. “Attaboy!”

Ikea beamed. Parker had to beam, too. “Attaboy” might not have been the perfect way to put it, but it was the best he could do—and it was all Ikea needed.

***

As the congrats continued, Parker finally spotted James outside on the balcony. He'd put on a warm corduroy coat and was standing by himself. She could see the steam rising from his breath.

“The A League!” Tribb Reese startled her. He wrapped his arm around her waist like he might lift her in the air like a ballerina. Tribb raised an eyebrow and sort of
turned
to the side while still looking forward. If Parker wasn't mistaken, it looked like he might have been posing. Maybe he'd even practiced the move in front of the mirror. “So what do you think anyway?”

“About what?” she asked.
About being her EGB? About life? About Virtual Humanities?

“About my future in television!” Tribb said. He was so excited he was out of breath. “Me? It? Us? You think?”

“What?” she asked. “I mean, sure. Completely. Yeah.” Parker wasn't clear about what she was agreeing with but her answer put a smile on his face. He actually
did
lift her up in the air.

“Sweet!” Tribb said as he put her back down safely. He went to pop his collar but then remembered he was wearing the tuxedo jacket. “So me and the guys are going to Towne Centre for gelato after,” he said. “Wanna come along?”

Parker had to stand on her tippy-toes to see if James was still out there.

“U
hh
…” Parker wasn't quite sure how to answer. She looked at Tribb and his cute, happy face and smiled. He was really kind of sweet when he wasn't so busy being Tribb Reese, the soccer star. “I can't,” she said. “Not tonight.”

“That's okay. The limo was pretty full anyway.” Tribb sounded like he didn't care either way. “Maybe some other time.”

“Sure,” Parker said as she walked toward the balcony. “Some other time.”

***

It was cool outside and the moon was clear. No Super-Screen could ever really recreate that. Not even Fitz Orion had that much magic.

James was leaning against the ledge looking out at the sky. He didn't have his camera with him. It was the first time she'd seen him without it.

“Hi,” Parker said.

“Hi.” James said back. “You look really nice tonight,” he said. “That's a pretty dress.” His eyes moved right to left, trying to talk to all of her at once.

“Thanks.” Parker wrapped her arms around herself. Her teeth were chattering but she wasn't really cold. “You too. I really like your sweater.” Complimenting the other person's new thing was a Rule but that's not why she said it. She didn't feel like she needed to follow any rules around James. She just spoke…the truth.

“Pretty crazy about the webcast, right?” Parker asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Pretty crazy.”

It didn't matter what was on Parker's EGB list. Sitting next to James felt right. That was the only thing she needed to know about anything.

“You don't have your camera,” she noted.

He held up his empty hands to her. She liked what they looked like with nothing in them. “Nope,” he said. “Didn't feel like bringing it tonight.”

James settled into his spot and looked up at the sky. She sat next to him and looked up. Her fingers were so close to his that it felt like a jolt of electricity was running between them. She wanted to rest her head on his shoulder or move close enough to him that his coat would fit around her too. But she didn't want to ruin it—she just wanted to breathe and soak it all in.

“Sometimes it's better without the camera,” James told her. “You just close your eyes and remember the stuff you want to.” He reached his hand closer and linked his pinky around hers.

She closed her eyes so she'd remember this exactly the way it was—the moon rising over the trees, the stars filling the sky…