The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth Read online

  “Oh.” His brows knit in a frown. “Did someone else ask you?”

  Meaning did I get a better offer. I couldn’t let him think that. “There isn’t anyone in this school I’d rather go with than you. But… can I be totally honest with you?”

  “I hope so. Being as we pray together and all.” His gaze on mine was so level and grounded that I wished once more my answer could be different. But I was done grasping at people to help me get what I wanted. I could stand on my own two feet.

  Even if it meant standing all by myself.

  “The truth is, there’s more to this than a date to Cotillion. Someone out there really likes you, and if I go with you, I’ll have broken my word to her. See, I told her I wouldn’t.”

  “You did.” He eyed me. “You told some random girl, and you made me wait until now for the same answer?”

  Oh, dear. “Derrik, please don’t be mad. I didn’t know for sure how upset she’d be if I said yes. But I know now. So that’s what my answer has to be.”

  “I don’t get you,” he said gruffly. “Since when do you have to get permission from other people for a date?”

  Obviously the whole “be loyal to your friends” angle was lost on him. Maybe he was one of those guys who wanted the facts, not the truth. So I played that card. “Besides the fact that she’s my friend, I need her help on a project for one of my classes. If I don’t get her help, I won’t pass.”

  “This is really about a grade?” He sounded astonished.

  I let him think so. “The grade is the end result of a long chain of events. And it all starts with you.”

  He thought for a minute; then his scowly expression brightened. “Guess I’m really important to you, then, huh?”

  “Let’s put it this way: I can’t have a positive without you being the negative.”

  “So who’s this certain someone?”

  “I can’t tell you. But if you keep your eyes open, I know you’ll notice her.”

  “So someone likes me so much they’d blackmail you to get me?” He sounded pleased about this. I’d be creeped out, but I guess you have to take your compliments where you find them. Guys. Honestly.

  “Not blackmail. But the possibility of failure is working just as well for me. I really want that grade, and two other people are depending on it, too.”

  “It’s nice to know it’s not me,” he said.

  “It’s definitely not you,” I assured him. “In an alternate universe, I would totally have gone with you.”

  “We can be friends, though, right? That certain someone won’t have a problem with that?”

  “I don’t think so. And we’re more than friends, Derrik. In God’s eyes, you’re my brother.”

  “I hope you don’t mind having one dance with your brother, then.” He slung an arm around my shoulders, surprising me for the second time, and gave me a squeeze. “Who was that girl sitting next to you at the game today? The one who went crazy when I made that big save?”

  I kept a straight face and resisted the urge to punch at the sky and yell Yes! “The blonde? Or the Goth chick chewing on garlic tablets on my other side?”

  “Uh. The blonde.”

  “Oh, that’s Ashley Polk. She’s, like, my right-hand girl for the Cotillion. Very together. Totally smart. Big soccer fan.”

  “Ashley Polk. Huh.” We’d reached the stairs to the dorms. “See you tomorrow, Lissa. And thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Being honest. Not many girls in this school would skip the mind games and just lay it out like that.”

  I just smiled, gave him a wave, and headed toward the front doors. Honest, huh? Well, Derrik didn’t know it, but he’d been my warm-up act in that department.

  Because now it was time to talk to Brett Loyola. Time to set the honesty for stun.

  Chapter 18

  MRS. LOYOLA IS one of the nicest women I know—the kind who makes sure there’s a plate of cookies lying around when her son’s friends come over, or the kind who gives you a bed and some breakfast when you need them (which I know from two personal experiences). She ushered me into what used to be the parlor when this house was first built in Edwardian times, but which was now a TV and Wii room.

  I thought she’d go holler at Brett and tell him he had company, but instead she hesitated as I took her invitation to sit on the squashy leather couch. “Lissa, is it—I mean, do you know what—” She stopped and took a breath. “Is Carly all right?”

  Honesty time.

  “That’s why I’m here. Brett won’t let her talk to him, so I came to see if I could help.”

  A long breath rushed from her. “You girls. I’m so glad she has friends like you. Brett hasn’t been himself and I know he’s miserable, but he won’t talk to me, either. It’s so frustrating because since he met Carly, our relationship has been much better. It’s like going back to square one from a year ago.”

  She gazed at me as though one little conversation would solve all her problems. That was a pretty heavy burden for me to carry.

  “He might not talk to me, either, Mrs. L.”

  “Tell you what. He doesn’t know you’re here, because he and Tate DeLeon had World War Three going in his room. Tate left a few minutes ago, so he’s not expecting anyone. Why don’t you go up and surprise him? If I try to get him to come down here, he’ll refuse and probably duck out the back.”

  “Deal. If I don’t come out in half an hour, send in re-inforcements.”

  I climbed the stairs to his third-floor room. The door shook in its frame from the force of the video-game explosions on the other side, amped up to truly belligerent proportions by a massive sound system.

  Boys. Good grief. I was never complaining about Gillian’s iPod again.

  I opened the door and stepped inside, bracing myself to be blown against the wall by the sheer decibels. Brett had his back to me as he worked the joystick with his gaze on the huge plasma screen, sending a tank careening over a hill straight toward some kind of mud-brick building in a trackless desert. The partner joystick lay where Tate had left it on the floor behind him. Quietly, I picked it up so that when the bad guys lifted off in a helicopter from behind the building and blasted his tank, my tank raced over the hill and took it out with one well-placed tracer missile.

  Brett whirled, his face a slack study in shock. “Where did you come from?”

  “This is the thanks I get for saving your life?” The tanks trundled aimlessly, waiting for instructions, while the chopper burned in the sand.

  “I thought Tate came back.” He paused the game and silence fell, beating against my eardrums in a sudden withdrawal of sound.

  “Nope, just me.” I put a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the desk. “Your mom sent these up.”

  “No, thanks.”

  I took one and bit into it. Yum. Then I pulled a chair out and parked myself next to him. “They’re great. You should try one.”

  “I know what my mom’s cookies taste like. What are you doing here?”

  I glanced at the DVD case. “Playing End of Days?”

  “Funny. Carly sent you, didn’t she?”

  “No. I’m here on my own.”

  “Well, make sure you take another cookie for the road.” He turned back to the screen and reached for the joystick.

  I put a hand on his arm. “Brett. I have one thing to say, and if you don’t listen to me say it, I’ll start unplugging things from the walls, and then it’ll get ugly.”

  “Touch my setup and your life is garbage.”

  “Can’t be worse than your life right now.” I took another cookie. They really were good. “I find it hard to believe that you like holding this grudge against her.”

  “I’m not holding a grudge. She made a choice. I accepted it. Now she has to live with it. Too bad if she doesn’t like it.”

  “Nobody said it was an either/or choice. A binary decision. Black and white. You stay, I go.”

  “How do you figure that? She’s going. I’m
staying. You’re going. Good-bye.” Even though half his face was in shadow, I could hear the hurt etching his voice. He hunched, as if he thought I was going to attack him, and kept his arms in close. No quarter given.

  I made myself more comfortable in the gaming chair, slouching a little and opening my arms in a direct contradiction to his body’s argument. “It’s a lucky thing I can empathize with how much you’re hurting. Because the real Brett doesn’t talk like this.” I indicated him with the cookie to emphasize my point. “The real Brett, the one I’m friends with, respects Carly for standing up for what she believes is right for her. For not letting anyone redirect her life.”

  I let that sink in for a second and went on. “It’s kind of like how she’s rethinking her relationship with her mom. You know she’s making a wedding dress for her?”

  Brett shrugged and gave the screen, which had gone to sleep, a longing glance.

  “The thing is, Alicia is doing what she believes is right for Alicia. And nobody can blame her for that. Who wouldn’t want to marry a guy who adores her, even if he looks like Simon Le Bon? So there’s Carly, accepting that, forgiving her mom for the past, and moving on, to the point where she’s taking that dress on a commercial flight, SFO to ABQ, Thursday after school.”

  Brett shrugged with so little reaction that I realized he must already know her travel arrangements. Yet he did not speak. Hmm.

  “So once she understands her mom, you can hardly blame Carly for doing what she thinks is right for Carly. Her dreams all begin and end in the Hollywood costuming industry. She’ll do what she has to do to get there.” My voice softened. “How can you punish her for that?”

  “I’m not punishing her.” Brett’s tone had lost its combative edge, and the pain surging underneath began to leak through. “I knew we were going to different schools. I just thought we’d be close enough to see each other. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

  “Nothing,” I said. “You guys are going to care about each other no matter where you go to school. What difference does it make where the schools are?”

  “I need to see her,” he said miserably. “Holidays aren’t enough. She’ll get busy on extra projects and meet new people and before you know it, a year will go by and she’ll forget where I am.”

  “If you really think that, you don’t know her very well,” I told him. “She loves you.”

  The corners of his mouth turned down. “If she did, she wouldn’t go tripping off to the other end of the state.”

  “Love doesn’t depend on geography.”

  “What are you, a Hallmark card?”

  “No. I’m her friend. One of several who hate to see the two of you so unhappy when you’re meant to be together.”

  “I want to be together, too—right here. Too bad she doesn’t.”

  “Does it have to be here?”

  He frowned at me. “Um, yeah.”

  “Why? Didn’t you get accepted at UCLA as well?”

  “So? It’s not Stanford.”

  “Does it have to be? Does your life depend on going to Stanford?”

  “My family has gone there since it was founded. My great-great-whatever-granddad was friends with Leland Stanford back in the day.”

  “And you have to do what your family has always done? No choice? No hope? Just yes sir, no sir, off I go, sir?”

  “No.” He was beginning to sound nettled. Good. That meant I was bugging him, rocking his little world, and my work here was nearly done.

  “Just asking.” I snagged another cookie and got up. “By the way, I talked to Vanessa over the weekend. Did you know she’s going to give her baby up for adoption?”

  He nodded. “She says you’re the only one in the school who will tell her the truth. Not that she likes it much.”

  That’s me. Official truth-telling mascot for Spencer Academy. “If she brings it up, see if you can convince her to tell the father. Talk about giving a person a chance to do the right thing.”

  His gaze practically pushed me out the door. “You were leaving?”

  “’Bye.”

  I closed it behind me, and immediately the sound levels inside came back up. Blam-a-ram! The panels and even the old-fashioned door handle trembled.

  I had a feeling my tank had just been blasted to smith-ereens.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Date: May 28, 2010

  Re: Cotillion

  So, Jumping Loon, now that you’re a single woman, what are you doing about this Cotillion gig? As a single man, I just wondered. I told Lissa I wouldn’t go with her on a “just friends” basis. She’s probably dazed and confused, but I just can’t handle being taken for granted anymore.

  I know I’ve bent your ear on that subject incessantly and I won’t bore you any more, but I’ve been giving your green-eyed monster idea a lot of thought. Maybe I will come up with Danyel and see if it’ll work. Something has to change the way she sees me, and you might be right. This could be it.

  At the very least, we could herd together. Safety in numbers and all that. We can do like the musk oxen do and form a tight circle, facing out, while we dance.

  What do you say?

  Kaz

  NOW THAT BART ran all the way out to the airport, seeing Carly off was just a matter of juggling luggage and buying a ticket from the dispenser in the train station.

  “Are you sure your dad will meet you in Albuquerque?” Shani snapped the handle of Carly’s carry-on roller out to its full length. Carly carefully bent the garment bag containing the dress over her arm while Gillian and I trailed her off the train platform and down to the walkway that would take us through the international terminal and over to the domestic terminal’s ticket counter.

  “Yes,” Carly assured her. “It was just easier for him and Antony to leave from San Jose. Our flights arrive within twenty minutes of each other, so it’s no big deal.”

  “Don’t tell me your dad’s going to the wedding,” Gillian said.

  “Not hardly. He may be ready to move on, but I don’t think he’s ready for that. He has some business meeting set up on Saturday, but in the meantime we’re all staying in a suite at the same hotel.”

  We approached the ticket counter and Carly carefully handed me the garment bag. I was so afraid of crushing its contents that I held it in the air instead of putting it over my arm.

  The ticket agent scanned the barcode on Carly’s e-ticket and frowned at the screen. “You’re traveling this evening, miss?”

  “Yes, flight 638 at five fifty, into Albuquerque at nine thirty-five.”

  “Under this name? Carolina Aragon?”

  “Yes.” Carly’s voice sounded calm, but her face had paled. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m afraid there’s no reservation here for you.”

  “But I have a confirmation number right here.”

  “It’s been cancelled, miss.”

  “How can it be cancelled?”

  “If you have the number, you can go online and cancel.”

  “But I didn’t. I have to get my mother’s wedding dress to her by tomorrow. She’s getting married on Saturday!”

  “Would you like me to see if there’s a standby seat?”

  A cold feeling of horror trickled through me—I couldn’t imagine how Carly felt.

  “I want the reservation I paid for! I even chose the seat closest to the first-class closet so I could keep an eye on my mom’s dress!”

  Gillian reached into her handbag and pulled out the slender Marc Jacobs wallet where her Platinum Visa and Gold AmEx lived. “Carly, don’t panic. I’ll buy the—”

  “Carly?”

  All four of us whirled at the male voice. Brett, dressed in jeans, an open button-down over a T-shirt, and a rumpled suit jacket, rammed his hands into his pockets and hunched his rower’s shoulders in a pose I recognized.

  “What are you doing here?” Carly looked as though his appearance was the last thing she could
deal with right now. “I don’t have time to talk. My flight just got—”

  “I know. I cancelled it.”

  We must have looked like characters in a comedy. All four of our mouths dropped open.

  “You rat!”

  “What—did you hack the airline server?”

  “Brett, that is going too far, even for you.”

  Carly just burst into tears.

  Brett ignored the rest of us and only had eyes for her. “I’m in your family e-mail group, remember? You cc’d me by mistake when you made the reservation, so I had the confirmation number. Because the deal is, we need to talk, and you’re leaving, so my dad lent me the company jet. It’s going through preflight as we speak.”

  Again with the dropped jaws. Maybe we were in a movie. Any minute now the director would step out from behind a pillar and say, “Great shot, talent. You really nailed the goggle-eyed shock, there.”

  Carly hiccupped and I handed the garment bag to Gillian. I fished a tissue out of my bag and gave it to her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said thickly.

  “I’m flying to Albuquerque with you. I’ll spend the whole trip groveling if you want. But after that, I hope you’ll forgive me for being such a butthead and let me escort you to your mom’s wedding.”

  Carly scrubbed at her face. “You cancelled my flight. You scared me to death!”

  “I’m sorry. But I couldn’t let you fly away without having the chance to make it right.” He spoke as if the rest of us—the airport bustle, the requests for people to go to the white courtesy phone—didn’t exist. As if he and Carly were the only two people standing there on the concourse. “You’re so good at doing the right thing. I guess I need some coaching.”

  “You sure do.” But she was softening.

  In his pocket, his phone pinged. “That’s the pilot. They’re ready for us. We still need to go through security, but there’s a separate boarding area for private planes.”

  Without a word, Shani rolled the suitcase over and tilted the pull handle smartly into his hand. Carly held out her arm, and Gillian gently laid the dress over it. “Good luck,” Gillian said. “Send pictures.”