“Thanks.” I turned slowly, trying not to make any noise, and silently turned the knob. “One, two, three,” I whispered. Then I flung the door open. Wide open. And braced myself for some kind of attack. I didn’t even realize I had closed my eyes until Missy shoved me aside from behind and I was startled into looking around.
“There’s no one in here,” she said, flicking on the light.
She was right. The room was deserted.
“No, but it’s freezing,” Lorna added. She dropped the blankets onto my bed and walked across to my window, which was wide open. The wind coming through the ever-present screen sent the curtains billowing into the room.
The curtains. That must have been what I had seen. The curtains moving.
As Lorna slammed and locked the window, my face burned with embarrassment. I was turning into a paranoid freak. And Missy Thurber and Lorna Gross had been there to witness it.
“There’s no one in the bathroom, either,” Lorna said, checking it.
I turned and checked both closets, now almost hoping I’d find some psycho lurking about. Anything to make me look like less of a paranoid delusional nutcase. But there was nothing.
“You don’t get enough attention around here?” Missy said with a smirk. “Now you have to create fake stalkers? Poor, poor President Reed. Always such a victim.”
“You know, you’re even uglier on the inside than you are on the outside,” I snapped.
Missy’s jaw dropped. For a split second I actually thought she was going to cry, and I didn’t even care. I was too pent up, frustrated, and embarrassed to care. And besides, why did she always have to be so rude? She had no idea what was going on in my life. No clue. And did she care? No. She just lived to attack me.
“You are such a bitch,” she said through her teeth. “You may have everyone else around here snowed, but I know the nice-girl thing is all an act, and sooner or later you’re going to get yours, Reed. Just wait.”
She stomped out of my room with her blankets, leaving Lorna
hovering behind. Was that a threat? Had Missy just threatened me? And why had she used the word
stalker
? I hadn’t said anything about a stalker. Just that I thought someone was in my room. Did she know I had a stalker because she
was
the stalker?
Fab. Now my brain was starting to hurt.
“Are you okay?” Lorna asked me quietly.
“Yeah,” I said, catching my breath. “I’m fine. I’m just going to . . . get ready for bed.”
“Okay.” Lorna picked up her blankets and went after Missy.
I closed the door and rechecked everything, just to be safe. The bathroom, the closets, under the beds. Nothing seemed amiss. I took a deep breath and tossed my coat on the hook behind the door. Then I turned to my dresser for my pajamas and froze.
No. Couldn’t go in there. No drawers.
Rationally, I knew that all I had seen were the moving curtains, but I was irrationally scared anyway. I pulled my sweater off over my head and glanced at the closet.
No. Couldn’t go in there either.
Feeling childish, I folded my sweater and placed it atop my closed laptop. Suddenly, I felt exhausted. Beaten down by my own paranoia. I didn’t want to wash my face or brush my teeth or check my e-mail or do anything. My bag for tomorrow was already packed, sitting on the floor at the end of my bed. If I went to sleep, I could wake up and go to New York. Get out of here and not see this room for two whole days. Two whole days in a place that didn’t know me. Two whole days in a
town where Cheyenne’s memory couldn’t haunt me. Two whole days where whoever was messing with me couldn’t reach me.
New York.
The words were like a promise. I would feel less crazy there. I knew I would.
Jeans and T-shirt still on, I crawled under the covers and, leaving the overhead light blazing, attempted to get some sleep.
The lobby of the exclusive Gramercy Park Hotel was like something out of a modern-goth
Alice in Wonderland
, with its checkerboard floors, abstract art, ornate chandeliers, and dark stone walls. Yet it was somehow cozy. Comfortable. Welcoming.
In two words it was this:
Not Billings.
I felt myself start to breathe easier as we stepped further inside. There was a couple at the front desk surrounded by piles of buttery leather luggage, a tiny dog peeking out from the woman’s handbag. A group of men in tailored suits strode by us in heated conversation, clearly on their way to some high-powered brunch, and they all stopped talking to check us out as they went by. One even surreptitiously snapped our picture with his phone, which London and Vienna automatically posed for. This was not the kind of clientele one might find at the Super 8 in Croton. This place oozed glamour.
I wondered what our suite would be like. Imagined a sumptuous bed I could sink into and sleep in for real. For hours and hours and hours without dreams. I shook my head. I had a long day ahead of me in the most exciting city in the world, and suddenly, all I wanted to do was go to bed.
“Miss Simmons, Miss Clarke, good to see you again,” the bellboy—who was way too cute to be a bellboy—greeted them as he loaded our bags onto a cart. “I’ll take this up to your suite. Is there anything else I can get for you?”
London looked at the rest of us expectantly. “Should we lunch out, or have them bring something to our room?”
“Lunch? It’s ten-thirty in the morning,” I pointed out. “And we have appointments to keep.”
“So we’ll do brunch,” Vienna said, sinking into a red velvet chaise. She leaned back and kicked her heels off. “God, it’s so good to be home.”
“Home? But you don’t live here.” Sabine said it like a question, glancing around almost warily. Apparently, she didn’t feel as comfortable here as I did.
London and Vienna laughed. So did the bellboy. “Practically,” they said in unison.
“You can take our things up,” Noelle told the bellboy, handing him a few crisp bills from her Louis Vuitton wallet. “We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
As the bellboy silently disappeared, Noelle sat down on the chaise
near Vienna’s feet and slid her arms out of her coat. “I say we head up to Sarabeth’s for brunch, then hit Bloomingdale’s and Dylan’s. I’m definitely going to need chocolate later.”
“Omigod, totally!” London squealed, perching on the edge of a round-backed love seat. “And Sarabeth’s has that French toast with the—”
“You guys, we can’t go out for brunch right now,” I said, hovering with Sabine as the three of them got comfy. “We have an appointment to see the Regent in half an hour, then another at the studio at eleven-fifteen. I blocked out time for lunch at twelve-thirty.”
“What are you, auditioning to be a cruise director?” Vienna joked, checking out a sunglassed couple as they walked by to see if they were anyone worth seeing.
“Yeah, Reed, why don’t you just relax?” Noelle suggested. “This is a vacation. And besides, I went to a wedding at the Regent last year, and they tried to pass off this crap caviar from Maine or some godawful place as something decadent. People were spitting it out into their napkins all night.”
She, London, and Vienna all snickered like they were in on some inside joke, which just made me feel uncomfortable. Sabine as well, if I was reading her closed-off body language correctly. There was no way I was going to let Noelle completely hijack this weekend. I needed her input, definitely, but she wasn’t going to tell me how to run this whole thing
“You guys, this is
not
a vacation,” I said pointedly. “We’re here to
plan a fund-raiser to save Billings, remember? And I don’t care about the caviar, because I wasn’t planning on serving any anyway. So get your butts in gear. We’ve got appointments to keep.”
Vienna and London looked at each other, and Vienna pushed herself up in her chaise, rolling her eyes. “God, Reed. You sound like my mother,” she said. But she grabbed her black cashmere coat and stood.
“As long as we get to Dylan’s at some point today, I’m happy,” London said with a shrug. “Now that you brought it up, I can’t stop thinking about their cappuccino gelato. Dee-
vine.
”
Noelle eyed me as the Twin Cities buttoned their coats and smoothed their hair. I knew she couldn’t believe she’d just been unceremoniously snubbed, and I felt a quick rush of triumph. I was in charge now. She was just going to have to get used to it.
With a heavy sigh, Noelle finally arose and picked up her coat. “All right, then. We’ll go. But it is an utter waste of time.”
“We’ll call up the car!” London announced, grabbing Vienna’s arm as they traipsed off toward the front desk.
Noelle slowly belted her black coat and looked at me with narrow-eyed interest. “You really are enjoying this power trip you’re on, aren’t you, Glass-Licker?”
“Just doing my job,” I said with a forced smile.
She smirked and strolled off after the Twin Cities, leaving me alone for the moment with Sabine. Her brows knit as she adjusted her new, very trendy white cloche hat.
“Why does she call you Glass-Licker?” she asked.
I paused, letting the memory of my first-ever conversation with Noelle wash over me for a moment. Letting myself relish the fact that even though she couldn’t give up the nickname, our positions in life had completely changed. So much so that the insulting moniker was starting to feel like a joke. An homage to times gone by. A term of endearment. Somehow, it didn’t hold the same power it used to.
“It’s a long story,” I told Sabine, looping my arm through hers the way London and Vienna were always doing. “A long, stupid story.”
“Oh my God, Vienna! I thought Etienne was going to
die
when he realized you let someone else trim your bangs!” London cried as we stepped out of the Lange family’s chauffeured limo somewhere on West Thirteenth Street. A stiff wind nearly blew me off my feet, and a pair of NYU boys eyed us with interest as they strolled by.
“I think he actually cried. I swear I saw a tear,” I added.
“Well, that’s what he gets for refusing to come up to Easton every week to shape me,” Vienna said blithely, flicking her hair away from her face. “I even offered to pay for his transportation, but no. He simply cannot be away from the city for an entire afternoon,” she added, putting on Etienne’s thick French accent. “It would mean
disastre
!”
We all laughed, slightly high on the triumphs of the morning. Not only had the proprietor at Tassos’s studio of choice practically bent over backward to accommodate us once we’d dropped
the photographer’s name, but Vienna had guilted the owner of her salon into canceling all his appointments for next Saturday afternoon so that we could rent out the entire facility. We’d even had a chance to swing by Dylan’s Candy Bar to load up on sugar. So far I’d consumed almost half a pound of gummy bears and a Wonka Bar. I was having actual fun, and had hardly thought of Josh or Cheyenne or Ivy all day. So far, so perfect.
“He should know better,” Noelle sniffed as she looked up and down the sidewalk, trying to pinpoint our destination. “You and your sister have been his most loyal clients ever since you first sprouted hair.”
“I forgot you had a sister,” Sabine said to Vienna, hugging herself against the cold. “Will we get to meet her at the fund-raiser?”
“Are you kidding? She practically peed in her pants when I told her about Frederica Falk and the photo shoot. She already sent me her donation,” Vienna said.
“What about your sister, Sabine? Did you invite her?” I asked.
“She’s out of the country right now,” Sabine replied, her face brightening at the subject. “But she so wishes she could come. I think she—”
“Where
is
this place?” Noelle asked, interrupting Sabine. Quite rudely, I thought. “I can never remember which entrance . . .”
Suddenly, a plain black door right in front of us opened and out stepped the single most perfect specimen of manhood I had ever laid eyes on outside a movie theater. He was tall, with highlighted blond
hair, golden stubble all along his cut cheekbones, and blue eyes that could cut steel. His suit was black, his shirt a pristine, crisp white that was opened one extra button to show the top of his tanned chest. For a moment none of us breathed.
“Reed Brennan?” he asked with an inquisitive smile.
London had to forcibly shove me forward. “That would be me,” I said to the supermodel.
His smile widened and he opened the door further. “Welcome to Suite 13.”
“I don’t care where we have this thing, we’re hiring this guy as our doorman,” I whispered to my friends.
“I second that!” Vienna offered.
Giggling like girls at a tea party, we hustled inside.
“I’m Lucas, the assistant manager of Suite 13,” Mr. Hot said as he led us down a dimly lit hallway with red-glass lamps hanging from the ceiling. He offered me his hand to shake. It was warm, strong, and very large. “Here at the suite, we pride ourselves on being one of the most versatile spaces in all of Manhattan. With our high ceilings, moveable booths, and huge square footage, we can turn our suite into anything your heart desires.”
We came out onto a balcony with two staircases on either side, descending at a curve to a large, pitlike room. There were huge bars on either side, and round, suede booths in dark jewel tones dotted the room, surrounding a gleaming black dance floor. I could just imagine the place decorated with dark floral centerpieces and
swags of cloth, flashbulbs popping, and champagne flowing. It was incredible.
“Oh, no,” Noelle said under her breath.
“Yeah. I know,” Vienna replied. “Not good.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Is there a problem?” Lucas added, gripping the railing with one hand.
“No. Not at all,” Noelle replied smoothly, tossing her hair over her shoulders. “I just need to confer with my friends for a moment.”
“Take your time,” Lucas replied.
He moved a few feet off and whipped out his Treo. Noelle tugged my arm, leading all four of us into the tiny alcove outside the bathrooms.
“We can’t have it here,” she whispered.