The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth Page 10

  Chapter 12

  PARSONS?” DERRIK REPEATED. “Is that in SoCal? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s a design school in New York City,” Gillian told him. “Carly, did you get accepted there?”

  She nodded, then looked at Brett. “But don’t worry. I’m not going.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “That’s good. You can’t go that far away. Berkeley’s a great school. You’ll like it.”

  “Um, actually, I’m not going there, either.”

  Brett’s hand jerked so that the remaining juice in his jumbo glass sloshed halfway up the sides. “What?”

  “Can we not talk about this here?”

  “Why not? I mean, when were you planning to tell me? Where are you going?” Then his face cleared. “Oh, I get it. You got accepted at Stanford, too. That’s even better!”

  She pulled away from his hug. “No. I picked a school that’s not even in the Bay Area.”

  From where I sat, all the way across the table, I could see the color drain out of his face. “What?”

  “I’m going to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles,” Carly said quietly. “They only accept a few people every year, so it was a huge deal to get in.” She held his gaze with hers, her expression soft. “Be happy for me. It’s my dream come true.”

  “Your dream? What about us? What about that dream?”

  “Um, guys?” Jeremy looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “Maybe you should talk about this in private.”

  “Too late now,” Shani muttered. “What goes on in prayer circle isn’t staying in prayer circle.”

  “I want to know now,” Brett said. “Los Angeles? Why?”

  “If I’m going to have a career as a costume designer, I need to be close to the movie industry,” Carly said. Her eyes had begun to glitter, probably from distress at having to have this conversation in front of all of us. “And FIDM is the tightest thing there is as far as costuming and design on this coast. I’ll still be in California.” Her voice took on a pleading tone. “We can see each other at breaks and long weekends.”

  “But that’s not what we planned.”

  “We?” she asked. “You knew I applied at schools away from here.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think you’d walk away from me for a bunch of clothes.” Brett stood up. “I gotta go.”

  “Brett, wait. No one’s walking away.” Except him.

  He held up both hands as if to ward her off. “I can’t deal with this right now. You talk it over with your friends. They know more than I do about everything in your life, anyway.”

  “I’ll come with you, man.” Derrik got up and the two of them pushed their way through the tables and out the door.

  “Brett!”

  Shani grabbed Carly by the arm as she started to run after him. “Give the guy some space, girl,” she said. “You can text him later when he’s calmed down.”

  “But—”

  “Listen to her,” Jeremy said. “Brett’s got a temper on him. Let him get past it or you’ll just make things worse.”

  Carly’s lips trembled as she grabbed her bag. Her face was white as she looked at me. “Did you have to say that in prayer circle?”

  “I didn’t know you hadn’t talked about it with him,” I wailed. “It was a happy thing. It just came out.”

  “It’s not a happy thing now.” She shoved her bag under her arm and walked to the door.

  “I’ll go keep her company and make sure she doesn’t run after him.” Shani picked up her two-seasons-old Prada clutch and followed her.

  Gillian gazed at me from one end of our now-empty table. Another customer swiped Brett’s chair and pulled it over to where a new group was forming. “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  “I feel like it is.” A lump formed in my throat and my voice wobbled. “Prayers are supposed to be good things. They’re not supposed to hurt people.”

  “They are good things,” Jeremy told me. His nice brown eyes were so sympathetic. “How could you know they hadn’t talked about it?” He put an arm around Gillian’s shoulders. “I’m glad that’s one discussion we’ve already had.”

  “What, colleges?”

  Gillian’s dark eyes skewered me, as if to stop any more words from coming out of my mouth.

  Jeremy nodded, looking as happy and innocent as if…

  … as if Gillian hadn’t given him the breakup speech. Yet.

  Well, I wouldn’t be taking that down to Room 216 and praying about it. I learn from my mistakes. I make a lot of them, but I do learn.

  Eventually.

  To: lmansfield@spenceracad.edu, vtalbot@spenceracad.edu

  From: shanna@spenceracad.edu

  Date: May 19, 2010

  Re: PS idea

  I’ve got an idea for how we can get V in on this Public Speaking project. Meet me on the slope behind the music rooms after school.

  How are your community service credits looking? This will solve that, too. I tell you, I’m brilliant!

  Shani

  NOTHING EXCEPT DETENTION would have kept me away from the meeting place after school. Since Art is my last class of the day on Mondays and Wednesdays, I didn’t have far to go—just down the stairs at the end of the corridor and out the door.

  Shani arrived a few minutes later, and Vanessa arrived fifteen minutes after that. Like we expected anything less than complete consideration for our valuable time. Not.

  “So, what’s so brilliant?” she asked, folding herself onto the lawn next to me.

  “Oh, we already had the meeting. See you.” Shani pretended to get up.

  For a second, Vanessa actually fell for it. Then she seemed to realize this was Shani’s way of letting her know she didn’t appreciate the late arrival. I sighed and braced myself for a snarkfest.

  Vanessa settled back. “Sorry I was late. I popped my head in to ask Dr. Vallejo something. We got talking and I lost track of time.”

  Something pregnancy-related? Neither of us had the nerve to ask.

  To her credit, Shani merely nodded and matched her practical tone. “No problem. So, here’s my idea. What if we turned the video of the Cotillion into a short feature?”

  “Like, a movie?” I asked.

  “More like a documentary. In fact, I was thinking that if you started right away filming the preparations for it—like a couple of committee meetings, and the run-up stuff to the actual event, Vanessa could act as the narrator. Then the classes that come after us would have a how-to guide for putting a Cotillion together.”

  “They wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel every year,” Vanessa said. “What a great idea.”

  Shani looked surprised. I bet she’d expected to get shot down in derision and flames. I know I had.

  “You really are brilliant,” I told her. “The stuff that happens right before the night is really important—you know, our teams working with the companies we’ve hired. If we filmed it, it would be exciting and a huge information resource as well. I mean, not everyone knows how to get ahold of lighting guys and riggers.” I hadn’t worked as a production assistant for my dad for nothing.

  “How do the community service credits come in?” Vanessa asked. “Not that I need them. I wrapped mine up in junior year.”

  Of course she did.

  “You’ll have to decide whether you want to do this or not, Lissa,” Shani said, “but what if we made the Cotillion a charity event as well? Say, add ten bucks to the ticket price and donate the money to the Share Literacy program or a summer camp for creative kids?”

  “And the video could incorporate that,” Vanessa said. “I could do the segment on the charity and how the money will be used. I’ve worked with Share Literacy before. With a phone call I could get it all set up.”

  Literacy program? Underprivileged kids? Vanessa?

  It took me a second or two to line up this new dimension with the person I thought I knew. But then, what did I know about how she spent her free time? Sure, some of
it was partying and shopping, but obviously a portion of it had been spent tutoring kids in reading. Now there was a visual for you. Vanessa Talbot sitting on the floor with a kid, pronouncing letters and taking time to listen to halting words. Wow.

  “Perfect,” I said at last. “Let’s do it. We only have a month to go, so there’s no time to lose. Who’s going to hit up the Media and Communications teacher?”

  “Um, hello? Ashley?” Vanessa said.

  “Huh?”

  “Use your team, Lissa. Ashley Polk practically lives in the Media/Comm lab. Only you’ll have to leave me out of it or she’ll never agree to add this to what her film crew is already doing on the night.”

  “We can film your segments ourselves and do the voice-overs later,” Shani said. “I mean, how hard can it be? Mac puts little movies together on her computer all the time.”

  I prevented myself from commenting on that one. It had been one of Mac’s “little movies” that had gotten Shani into horrendous trouble involving angry royalty and black helicopters last Christmas.

  “Settled,” I said. “I’ll ask Ashley, and Shani, can you run this by Mr. Jones and make sure he agrees that Vanessa’s doing this for the school is the same as public speaking in front of live people?”

  “Got it.” She climbed to her feet and grabbed her messenger bag. “I bet he’s still there. I’ll go ask him now.”

  “Thanks, Shani,” I called after her. “You really are brilliant.”

  “I know.” She laughed and vanished around the corner of the building.

  “I’m meeting with the committee on Friday,” I told Vanessa, gathering up my tote. “I’ll run the charity angle past them and get Ashley’s buy-in then.”

  “Do you have to go right away?” she asked.

  I stalled. “Uh…”

  “Or do you just not want to be seen with me in public?”

  “Of course not. What are you talking about?”

  “People could decide they don’t want to be friends with you anymore if they see us out here talking.”

  “Then I’d be left with the friends I started with, which are the only ones that matter to me,” I retorted. “I don’t care if people see us talking. What, do they think pregnancy is contagious?”

  “People’s opinions are,” she said. “I’m just giving you the option.”

  “If popularity depends on who I’m seen talking to, I don’t need it.”

  Her laugh held the mocking note I was used to. Not as much, but it was still there. “You are the most politically inept person I’ve ever met.”

  “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. What did you want to talk about?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She stretched her bare legs in their Santana sandals down the gentle slope and leaned back on her hands. The pose exposed the growing bulge of her belly, which was putting severe strain on the seams of her plaid uniform skirt. It was almost like she was making a statement: I’m not afraid to show you the truth about myself. Because it was a fact that everywhere else—in the corridors, in the dining room, in class—she wore her cardie or her school blazer to cover up as much as possible.

  “Okay, then, maybe you can tell me something.”

  She glanced at me, her dark eyes made up with a faultless hand. “What?”

  “What are you going to do when the baby comes?”

  For a split second I expected her to (a) get up and leave, (b) throw something at me, or (c) spit in my eye. But she didn’t. The look in those eyes changed, though, to something more penetrating and dangerous.

  “How is that any of your business?”

  “It’s not. I’m asking as a friend.”

  “A friend.” She looked away. “A friend who will blab it far and wide, with pictures at eleven.”

  “No. I might be convinced to offer a little moral support, though.”

  “Moral.” She snorted. “Right. I so need that.”

  “Bit late now,” I quipped.

  She paused, and then to my surprise, she laughed. “True. Well, to answer your nosy question, I have so many options I can’t pick one, thanks to our helpful school adminis-tration.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They assigned me a private counselor practically the minute I missed my period. I’m supposed to talk to her once a week, and if I miss the appointment, Ms. Curzon is on the phone five minutes later. At the moment I’m doing what I’m told by Dr. Vallejo. She’s freaking. Keeps telling me she’s not an obstetrician and I should be under the care of someone at Stanford. Then she hands me lists of vegetables and vitamins.”

  “You mean you haven’t been to a proper baby doctor yet?”

  “No.”

  “But how else will you know what to do?”

  She shrugged. “Why bother when I may just get an abortion?”

  My jaw sagged and hung open. Was she saying this to shock me, or did she really mean it?

  “Don’t look like that. There’s still time.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s wrong, that’s why.” On so many levels. “And what do you mean, there’s still time? Nobody would do the procedure when you’re so far along.”

  “You’d be surprised who will do what, given enough incentive.”

  My stomach rolled and I wondered if I was about to throw up.

  “Good grief, Lissa—chill. It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Having an abortion is a huge deal. I can’t even say how huge it is. Please don’t do it. Please.”

  “It’s my decision.”

  “I know, and you must be having a hard time making it or you would have done it three months ago.”

  Her lips, wearing pale pink lipstick, thinned to a grim line. “Mind your own business.”

  “Hey, you wanted to talk.”

  “Talk. Not be told what to do.”

  “Someone has to tell you. If Dr. Vallejo and your counselor aren’t all over you about it, then… what about your family? What do they say?”

  She stared at me. “What do they have to do with it?”

  “Or the baby’s father’s family. Do they even know?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “You didn’t tell the dad?” I asked in amazement.

  She scrambled to her feet. “How dare you talk to me like you know anything about it! I thought you’d be understanding, but you’re just Christian Barbie, all plastic and fake. Push your button and you preach.”

  “Vanessa!” Tears prickled in my throat. How could she think that? “Help me understand. Why won’t you let anyone help you?”

  “Like you’re helping me? Dishing out accusations and making me feel even worse than I already do?” Her cheeks had flushed red and furious tears glittered in her eyes.

  That made two of us.

  “I’m sorry. Please. I hate that I made you feel that way when I didn’t mean to. But…” I gestured at her belly. “That’s a baby in there. I don’t understand how you can talk about flushing him out like a hairball in the drain. He’s a person. He deserves to be taken care of.”

  “Great,” she snapped. “You can adopt him, then.”

  I might have been shaking, but I didn’t back down. We faced each other across a verdant few feet of lawn. “That’s a better option than the flushing. I’m not accusing you, honest. I’m just telling you the truth. It would be wrong to do what you’re thinking. Please don’t kill the little guy. Give him his chance.”

  I couldn’t believe we were even having a discussion about killing anything. I couldn’t even kill a spider—if I found one in our second-floor room, I carried it to the window and encouraged it to go outside.

  Vanessa dragged in breath after breath as if she’d been running. Then her jaw dropped and all the expression fell from her face. Her eyes gazed into the distance—or into the future, I couldn’t tell. She covered her belly with both hands.

  “Hey. Are you okay?”

  “He moved,” she said
in a faraway voice. “Just now. He’s swimming. I can feel him.”

  “Sit down.” I pulled her down next to me. “You’re all right? No water breaking or anything?”

  She slid me a glance and pursed up her mouth. “We have a few months to go before that happens, you goof.”

  Whew. That was normal, at least. What a relief.

  Her hands still lay on her belly. “He stopped. Wow. That was weird.”

  “Is that the first time you’ve felt him?”

  “I woke up a couple of nights ago from a dream about giant goldfish. Maybe that was him.”

  “It could be a her.”

  She shook her head. “It’ll be a boy. I know it.”

  I took comfort from the fact that for the last few seconds, she’d been using the future tense. Like maybe the little guy was going to have one.

  Chapter 13

  ITRACKED DOWN ASHLEY Polk after dinner, before I got started on my horrid chemistry homework. She texted me that she was out at the playing field, so I jogged over there to find her in the bleachers, watching the boys’ soccer practice.

  I filled her in on the revised plan for the Cotillion.

  “Good thing we haven’t sent the tickets to the printer yet,” she said, writing notes on her ever-present PDA with a slender stylus. “Summer Liang can change the price and add a line about the charity. And what a great idea about the video! If I’m elected senior consultant next year, that’ll be the first thing I show the new team of juniors.”

  “If I weren’t graduating, you’d have my vote,” I told her with complete sincerity. “You’re so good at this.” I thought she blushed, but the setting sun was behind her and I couldn’t tell for sure. “If you ever want to intern with a charity organizer, I can put in a word with my mom.”

  “Thanks, Lissa, that’s really nice of you,” she mumbled, slipping the PDA back into her bag. She jumped to her feet to cheer a spectacular save by the goalie, then settled down again.

  “Friend of yours?” I inquired. He looked familiar. I blinked my contacts into place.

  “Derrik Vaughan.” She sighed. “I wish.”