Unforgettable (2 page)

“I don’t know,” Kara admitted. “Lots of male illustrators, I guess.” “Typical.” Brett was still completely bitter about what had happened with Jeremiah. They had been broken up for all of a week and he had managed to actually
sleep
with someone else. To be fair, she was the one who’d broken up with him. But at least she had managed to keep
her
pants on—more or less—and that was more than she could say for
him
. “Guys. All they care about is boobs, boobs, boobs.” She’d already told Jeremiah that it was over for good. A few pleading e-mails had appeared in her inbox, begging her to talk, but she’d deleted them without so much as opening them. If he wanted to stay with her, well, he’d have to find some way to reverse time and undo his hookup with that hippie chick, Elizabeth. Maybe he could look into
that
superpower.

“You should let some of that Jeremiah bitterness out,” Kara advised, as if she could read Brett’s mind. She wound a lock of stick-straight honey brown hair around her index finger. “Or it’s going to eat away at you.” Brett looked up at her in surprise, once again astonished that five days ago she hadn’t even known Kara’s name. She’d just been the Girl in Black who lived in the room next to the broom closet and was in a couple of her classes. Then, after Tin-sley had shown up to Saturday night’s party wearing a sexy outfit from Kara’s closetful of clothes by her designer mother, Kara had gone from quiet nobody to the cool girl. Cool girl who threw a Waverly mug of warm beer in sleazy Heath Ferro’s face, Brett reminded herself. And now here they were: Kara lying on Brett’s bed next to her, wearing a flouncy black-and-white polka-dotted skirt and a fitted white button-down, listening to cheesy ’80s music and examining bodies of superheroines. What a difference a few days made.

“I can’t help it,” Brett admitted, twisting her rose-gold stackable rings around her fingers. “I’m just so … angry at him.” “You know, when you think about him, your face turns practically the same color as your hair.” Kara laughed as she turned over on her back. The corners of her wide-set greenish-brown eyes were accentuated with a teeny touch of Brett’s Urban Decay Twice Baked eye shadow. She looked pretty—like she wasn’t afraid of people actually noticing her anymore.

“Speaking of which …” Brett pulled a lock of her glossy hair in front of her eyes and examined it. It was practically the same shade as her Bourjois Code Red freshly manicured nails. “My roots are showing—I’m way overdue for a coloring. I’m thinking I might go less red this time.” When Jacques, her colorist, had first made the mistake and used a blue red instead of a yellow red on her, Brett had been horrified, worried that everyone would start calling her Crayola or Muppet or something. But now she’d gotten used to her somewhat punk-rock coloring, even if it did make her stand out among all her natural-blond and pedigreed-brunette classmates.

“Definitely not.” Kara tilted her honey-streaked head, shaking it slowly. “No one at Waverly has hair like you. You look like Jean Grey.” She flicked through one of the
X-Men
comics, searching for a picture, and then held it up for Brett to see.

“Oh. When you put it
that
way …” Brett laughed. It did make her feel good to think that something made her unique. Not freak-show or trashy-Jersey-girl unique, but rather the-cool-girl-with-the-one-of-a-kind-red-hair unique. She ran her hand over her scalp, tousling her hair to hide the darker roots. “You know, we had a DC meeting over lunch today, and there was this case involving members of the—get this—Competitive Eating club.” “What?” Kara sat up, tossing her head so that her hair fell neatly behind her shoulders. Tiny blondish wisps framed the edges of her face. “What the hell is that?” “You know. Like, they see how many hot dogs they can eat in ten minutes.” Brett sat up too and turned toward Kara. “These two freshmen guys—probably the
only
two members—got caught stealing
four pounds
of raw hot dogs from the dining hall freezer after dinner last week.” Kara raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “They defended themselves to the DC by saying they were ‘gathering materials for club activities,’” Brett made air quotes with her long fingers, “and that they’d had to resort to covert methods because they hadn’t received any funding.” She rolled her eyes. “Does the entire male sex suffer from a complete inability to see beyond their carnal impulses?”

Kara leaned back on one elbow and shrugged her petite shoulders. “Well, they
are
freshmen.” The comic book slid off the edge of the bed, landing with a slap on the hardwood floor next to Brett’s neat piles of notebooks. Brett and Tinsley had moved their beds to opposite sides of Dumbarton 121 when they’d moved in, but that still wasn’t far enough.

“Yes, but more important, they’re
male
—which means they only think about immediate gratification, with no foresight into the future. I mean, come on—what about Easy?” Brett asked suddenly, sitting up to unbunch the bottoms of her Citizens of Humanity cigarette-leg jeans. “He certainly suffers from the same affliction. I still can’t believe he took Callie out to dinner with his dad instead of Jenny.” Kara bit her pink ChapSticked lip. “I saw Jenny last night at the art studio. She just looked so … sad.” She grabbed her Dasani bottle from on top of Brett’s worn oak nightstand and took a long sip. “Do you think she’s going to be totally crushed?” “You mean if Easy and Callie get back together?” Brett shrugged. She honestly didn’t know. It was weird. She’d been so used to Easy and Callie as a couple—they’d been practically inseparable all sophomore year—that it was strange to see him suddenly with someone else. But then, to her surprise, she’d quickly gotten used to it. Easy had always seemed a little too … nice for Callie. Something about Jenny and Easy together had almost seemed more natural, as if two artistic, like-minded souls had found each other. Not that Brett exactly believed in that romantic crap anymore.

Then again, if Easy was about to dump Jenny, maybe he wasn’t as nice as she’d thought.

“Jenny’s tougher than she looks,” Brett finally answered, surprising herself. She reached up and fingered the gold hoops along the top of her left ear. She was always paranoid about her ears being sort of elfin-shaped, and hoped that the earrings would distract people from noticing.

Kara nodded and sucked in her cheeks like a goldfish, making Brett giggle. “Guys really
do
suck, don’t they?” “Seriously. Why didn’t we get the bulletin, like, years ago?” Brett grabbed one of the white goose-down pillows on her bed and started kneading it with her fingers. There wasn’t anything especially profound about Kara’s statement, but it made Brett’s mind start to race. Guys
did
suck,
truly
. Why did she feel like she was the last to know? “If there can be a freaking Waverly club dedicated to the sport of stuffing as much food down the throat as possible, there should be a, like, Guys Suck club—we can let the frosh know before it’s too late.” Kara raised her thin, light brown eyebrows skeptically, running a palm over the ridges on the cap to her water bottle.

“Hey,
I’d
join it.” Brett put the pillow down emphatically, and it landed on the plush comforter without a sound. Then she hopped off the bed, making her way toward the white iBook on her desk. “Just a place for us to get together and talk and support each other …” she went on, the idea taking form in her head. It would be sort of like what Tinsley had originally proposed for her Café Society, although that had immediately dissolved into an excuse to get drunk, do stupid things, and exclude as many people as possible. Brett sat down at her desk. “We could use a little sisterly spirit around here, you know?” Kara nodded from her perch on the bed. “Actually, I think that’s kind of a brilliant idea. Why don’t we put together an invite and send it around?” Brett smiled at her new friend before flipping open her iBook. As much as she hated to admit that she’d do something to spite Tinsley, the idea that she was going to start a club that was more meaningful than Tinsley’s shallow, catty, oversexed Café Society gave her an itty-bitty thrill. She felt her green eyes gleaming wickedly as she hit the power button on her laptop. “Agreed. But before we send anything, we need to choose the guest list.” And she knew one roommate who wouldn’t be on it.

Email Inbox

To:
Undisclosed recipients

From:
[email protected]

Date:
Tuesday, October 8, 3:05 P.M.

Subject:
Women of Waverly

Greetings, esteemed classmates.

A couple of us have decided to establish a Women of Waverly club (WoW!) to bolster the sense of sorority on campus. Don’t want it to be anything too formal or ritualistic or anything like that (no goats, please), but rather a place for Waverly girls to get together and discuss any issues or concerns facing us on campus. Sex, love, drugs, jerks who call themselves men—anything you want to talk about is fair game.

The first official meeting will be tonight at eight o’clock in the Atrium, and it is open to all female members of the Waverly community. Dining services will be providing snacks and beverages.

Estrogen power,

xo

Brett Messerschmidt

Junior Class Prefect

Instant Message Inbox

JulianMcCafferty:
Dude, where exactly in Hopkins Hall would I find the Cinephiles screening room? Never been there before.

HeathFerro:
Curious request. Before I can hand anything over, I’ll need to know why.

JulianMcCafferty:
Nothing juicy, Ferro. Just wanted to join up.

HeathFerro:
It’s in the basement, dipshit.

JulianMcCafferty:
Thanks. You’re a real sweetheart.

HeathFerro:
Kisses.

Tinsley Carmichael lingered in the screening room in the basement of Hopkins Hall after Signor Giraldi dismissed his Advanced Italian class. They’d just watched Fellini’s
La Strada
—much preferable to sitting in a boring old classroom and watching the spit bubble at the corners of Signor Giraldi’s mouth as he conjugated Italian verbs. Something about watching old movies, especially old foreign movies, in the dark, leaning back in the leather reclining seats of the screening room, made Tinsley’s pulse race. Movie theaters were so freaking sexy. She was ready to tear someone apart. A very specific someone, in fact.

“I can close up, signor,” Tinsley purred as the others filed out of the room and Signor Giraldi tried to look like he hadn’t just slept through the two-hour film. “I was planning on doing some work for this week’s Cinephiles meeting, if you don’t mind. I’ll be sure to lock the door behind me.” Signor Giraldi glanced at his watch. Rumor had it that he and his wife, who lived in Thompson Hall, one of the girls’ dorms, had a standing booty date every afternoon at 3:30 sharp—which was fortunate for his Tuesday afternoon students, as he always let them go a little early. “
Grazie,
Signorina Car-michael.” Signor Giraldi smiled absently at her before quickly dashing out the door. Apparently, black-and-white Italian films turned him on too.

The second she was alone, Tinsley dimmed the lights again and propped her Isabella Fiore brown leather stacked-heel boots onto the arm of the chair in front of her. She arranged the hem of her burnt-orange mohair minidress higher on her thigh. With her thick dark hair parted perfectly in the middle and falling in a straight curtain around her face, she felt like an oversexed go-go girl from the ’70s. She closed her eyes and waited for Julian.

The soundproof door creaked open behind her. “Hey.” Tinsley pressed her eyelids together. Her heart thudded eagerly in her chest. It had been three days since they’d been alone. Last night at dinner, the two of them had sat across from each other at a table filled with their friends, and although Tinsley had been able to feel the weight of Julian’s gaze on her face, she’d refused to treat him differently than she did any of the other guys. Which meant that she flirted with him, but only as much as she did with everybody else. The whole situation made her feel like Lily

Bart, the consummate flirt in
The House of Mirth,
a book she’d first picked up when she was thirteen and had read every summer since. She could tell Julian had been a little disappointed, but that was just the way it had to be. She couldn’t very well have the entire campus know she was into a freshman.

Tinsley squirmed in her seat. Ten seconds had passed since the door creaked. Was that
not
him? Her eyes flew open.

“Ack!” she squeaked. Julian was standing two feet in front of her, leaning against the back of the chair in front of her, staring down at her face. “Jesus! You scared the shit out of me.” Shivers ran down her spine. She hated being surprised—almost as much as she liked it.

“Sorry, m’lady.” Julian pulled his left hand from behind his back, revealing a single pink-and-white flower. “For you.” Tinsley politely sniffed at the flower, pretending to be unimpressed. In truth, she loved it when guys brought her things. Last year Bradley Alexander, a senior lacrosse player, had heard about Tinsley’s sweet tooth and had tried to woo her with candy, employing other Dumbarton girls to leave packages of Swedish fish outside her door and putting tiny gold boxes of Godiva chocolates in her mailbox every day. It was fun to be showered with attention, but Tinsley could only eat so much candy before she’d start to bloat.

“Thanks,” she said, taking Julian’s flower and putting it behind her ear.