The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth Read online

“Welcome to the new regime.” Emily licked the foam mustache off her upper lip.

  “I am not a regime.”

  “You will be.”

  That definitely had Yoda-like echoes, and not in a good way. “I’m not afraid,” Luke Skywalker had said to him. And then look what happened. Gulp.

  Seeing Ashley making her way across the room, arms full of folders and a big white binder, was a relief. Here was something I could touch and see. Something real I could work with. Something concrete and weirdness-free.

  We got our yogurt and fruit and I got a tall glass of watermelon juice, icy cold. I bit into a big boysenberry as Ashley opened her binder. “Here’s what we have so far.”

  Guest lists, ticket sale projections, table arrangements, caterer. So far, so good. Seating chart, yup. Band. “No band yet?”

  “Not yet. The music committee is having a hard time with a booking.”

  “With all the great bands in town? Ashley, there’s only, like, a month to go.”

  With a glance at Carly and Shani, who were keeping their conversation low so they didn’t interrupt us, she leaned closer. “Vanessa was managing that herself. She didn’t share her progress with us and we took it for granted she had it handled.”

  “Oh, boy.” I sighed. “I’ll talk to her and see where she was on it.”

  “Good luck with that.” An unspoken You’ll need it hung in the air between us.

  No point in wasting time. “The committee meeting’s at two, right? In your room?” Ashley nodded. “I’ll find her, get a status, and meet you then.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that? We can just start from scratch, you know. Tinker Davis’s dad owns a record label and a bunch of clubs. She’s already said she can call in some favors.”

  I shook my head. “Vanessa might already have someone booked and is just holding out to make us come to her. I’m not proud. I’ll do it.”

  My yogurt churned uneasily in my stomach as I climbed the stairs a few minutes later, smiling at people and returning greetings. Since when did everyone know my name? And they all said it correctly, too. The days of Melissa seemed to be gone forever. I guess I could be thankful for that.

  Outside the door of Vanessa’s room, I took a breath to settle myself, and knocked.

  Silence.

  Then I heard sounds of someone moving around. The toilet flushed, and then the door opened. Her face as white as an exam sheet, eyes huge and almost bruised-looking, Vanessa swayed in the doorway. The acrid scent of vomit wafted past me. “What?” She bit the end off the word.

  “Are you okay?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Does it look like it?”

  “Do you have the flu?” I took a step back. The smell was awful, but even worse was the vulnerability in her face. It made an uncomfortable contrast with her tone, like she was forcing herself to keep up the usual attitude.

  “What are you, School Nurse Barbie? I’m pregnant, you idiot. It happens.”

  “I thought that went away after the first couple of months.”

  “I’m a special case. What do you want?”

  It took me a minute to remember why I was there, and why it was important. “I came by to check on the status of the band for the Cotillion.”

  She leaned on the doorjamb as if she needed something to hold her up. “There is no band. I stopped caring right about the time they voted you in.”

  “Uh. Okay.” Another step back. “That’s all I needed to know.”

  Without answering, she closed the door in my face, and I heard the sound of retching from inside.

  I retreated down the corridor as fast as I could. Why on earth would anyone put herself through this? I mean, Vanessa and I have never been less than despised enemies, but this was enough to make even me feel sorry for her.

  You’re probably the only one.

  True enough. With Dani gone, she had her room to herself, at least.

  Which means there’s no one to look after her.

  She looked pretty bad. Probably hadn’t been able to eat. And the baby would need food.

  “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.” That’s what Jesus said. He probably didn’t have this exact situation in mind, but His words still applied.

  I glanced at the clock and headed back to the dining room. Fifteen minutes. That should be enough time. I located the kitchen manager and asked her what I would need. She filled a tray and I took it back to the first-floor dorm.

  Vanessa opened up a little faster this time, and instead of the awful smell I dreaded, she smelled minty fresh. She’d just brushed her teeth.

  “You again.” Her gaze dropped to the tray.

  “Consommé,” I said. “Flat ginger ale. Crackers. Small bites at a time, Ms. Guccione says. It will help keep it down.”

  “Bite me.” She began to swing the door shut, but I stuck my foot in the gap and forced my way past her. Since I was carrying a tray with an open bowl of hot broth, this was not easy, but all those years of battling waves have made me stronger than I look.

  “Say what you want, but I’m leaving this here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the baby needs something to eat.”

  “Why do you care?”

  No way would I tell her that she looked fragile enough to break. That it hurt me to feel the sharp edge of her scorn in a way that it never had before. “You should.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do or how to feel.” Eyes narrowed, she looked ready to pick up the bowl and toss its contents in my face.

  I wasn’t taking any chances with her throwing arm. I’d seen her overhand serve on the volleyball team and you didn’t mess with that. I closed the door behind me. And through it I heard, not the crash of cutlery on the back of the door, but the clink of the spoon against china.

  Relief filled me.

  Lissa 1, Vanessa 0.

  “WHAT’S WITH GILLIAN?” I had caught up with Shani and Carly on their way to third-period Life Sciences, and Shani had spotted Gillian marching down the corridor, seemingly unaware we were there. “She seems kind of out of it.”

  They both looked at me. “No idea. This whole college thing is really bugging her.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Carly said. “Is everything okay with her and Jeremy?”

  “Just because a girl’s got stuff on her mind doesn’t mean it’s boy related,” I said.

  “Ninety percent of the time it does,” Shani told me with the maddening certainty of someone who had a boyfriend talking to someone who didn’t.

  “You guys would know,” I said as if it totally didn’t bother me. “But with Gillian, it’s probably related to classes in one way or another.”

  “Speaking of boys,” Shani said, “I got an answer from Rashid on a certain question.”

  Carly raised her eyebrows. “And the answer was?”

  “No. He says their relationship wasn’t like that.”

  I snorted. “According to Vanessa, they were Edward and Bella, part two.”

  “Edward and Bella never had sex before they were married,” Carly reminded me. “So maybe she was right.”

  “I am so not having that picture in my head,” Shani said firmly. “See you later, Lissa.”

  We parted ways in the corridor, Carly heading to Fashion Design, where she was a teaching assistant, Shani to Organizational Systems (or Telling People What to Do 101), and me to Cordon Bleu Cookery.

  I know. But Org.Sys. was full when I got around to signing up, and cooking was the only choice left. Fortunately, it was kind of fun. I made a chocolate soufflé last week, and before it fell completely flat, it had a brief shining moment as a thing of beauty. While the chef told us about the project of the day—Eggplant Vindaloo—I tried to get past what Shani had said.

  Yes, of course I’d try to find out what was on Gillian’s mind, and we’d all help. But did Shani have to bring everything around to boys? Did she have to point out that the “most popular girl in schoo
l”—note my finger quotes here—didn’t have a boyfriend?

  I measured out yellow turmeric, trying to keep it off my uniform because it stains like crazy, while one partner chopped the slender Japanese eggplant into diagonals and the other two worked on the onions and red peppers.

  It had taken me months to get over being publicly humiliated and dumped flat by Callum McCloud, who was—thankfully—taking his last term in Europe, like Dani Lavigne. Sure, I liked to look at the guys as they played soccer or pulled the oars in unison, rocketing the Spencer rowing team to a national championship. Again. But looking was all I ever did.

  I wondered if the committee would expect me to come up with a big-name date for the Cotillion now that I was senior consultant and the all-too-visible person who would be emceeing the gig. Not that it would change my mind. I had Kaz, and no matter what anyone said, he was going with me. When he put his mind to it, Kaz cleaned up as nicely as anyone—and a lot nicer than some.

  Eggplant Vindaloo was an odd choice for a midmorning snack, but hey, we’d made it ourselves, so we ate it. The instructor tasted a helping from a dish presented by each quartet of students and pronounced ours A-worthy. Which was kind of amazing, considering how distracted I’d been.

  I was still living in my head when it was time for Phys.Ed…. not a safe place to be when the rest of your body is on the volleyball court.

  “Ow!” Vanessa spiked the ball straight into my face. If I hadn’t ducked at the last millisecond, it would have broken my nose rather than bouncing painfully off my shoulder and into the back row, where Christine Powell dove for it and missed. “Watch it!”

  “Pay attention, Mansfield,” the ref called. I glared at Vanessa through the net, where we were both playing the front row.

  “You heard what she said, Barbie. Or were there too many syllables for you?”

  “You didn’t have to—”

  “Fourteen serving five,” the ref called. “Game point.”

  I already had a bruise on my arm from diving fruitlessly after another of Vanessa’s spikes. Clearly, once morning sickness was over for the day, it didn’t get in the way of her game—or her bad attitude.

  Call me naïve, but part of me thinks that when you do something for someone, that person will thank you for it. Or at least not call you names for doing it. I didn’t expect Vanessa to throw aside her animosity and declare undying friendship in return for a bowl of consommé, but it seemed possible she might at least call a halt to the hostilities.

  I cradled my arm in the other hand as we lost the game and trailed into the dressing room.

  Evidently not.

  Chapter 8

  ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, the committee meeting that afternoon went well. It took me a little while to convince Ashley and the others that they could have ideas of their own and that every word I said was not martial law. But once I got them deprogrammed, I could see that we were going to work well together and make this the best Cotillion ever.

  At four I went back to my room to change and found Gillian already there. But for once, she wasn’t surrounded by textbooks, hunched behind her laptop like a warrior in a tower. She lay flat on her back on the bed, still in her uniform. At first I thought she was sleeping, so I tiptoed around, putting my stuff away and opening the fridge door as quietly as possible as I got a bottle of water. But then she sighed and I realized her eyes were open.

  “Did I wake you up?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t asleep.”

  I don’t think I’d seen Gillian lying in one spot doing absolutely nothing in all the time I’d known her. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me where it hurts.”

  I thought she’d laugh, but instead, she fisted one hand and thumped it gently over her heart.

  “Aw, Gillian.” I sat on her bed next to her feet and rubbed her ankle in sympathy. “What happened? Did you get bad news from home?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing like that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “The same old thing that’s been on my heart for weeks.”

  If Shani was right, there was only one thing that could be. My hand stopped the comforting motions. “Jeremy?”

  Her face crumpled and she rolled over to face me, all curled up. “I think I have to break up with him.” A tear spilled down her cheek.

  “You think you…” Wait. Start again. “Break up? With Jeremy?”

  “He thinks everything is fine. But I…” She huffed a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to do it.”

  “Then don’t.” I hoped I didn’t sound as mystified as I felt. “You guys care about each other. You’ve been together for a year. Why would you want to break up?”

  “You don’t understand.” Her fingers made a pleat in her quilt, over and over.

  “I guess not. Tell me.”

  “He’s a great guy. I really like him.”

  “We all do.”

  “But he wants more from me than I have to give right now. Oh, not that way,” she assured me. It took me a second to realize she was talking about sex. “It’s like he wants to make sure I remember him when I’m studying, when I’m rehearsing, when I’m eating. And the more I try to concentrate on what I have to get done, the more he texts me and turns up when I don’t expect him. It drives me nuts.”

  “Have you told him you need some space?”

  “He’d think I was giving him the breakup speech.” She glanced at me. “I don’t know what to do except just… give him the speech.”

  “But you don’t really want to.”

  She shook her head. “I really like him. But I just can’t handle it all. My classes, college, my parents, him. It’s too much.”

  “What does Carly say?”

  “I haven’t told her. The fewer people who know, the better. All I need is for someone to say the wrong thing to Jeremy, thinking they’re helping.”

  Since that was exactly what I’d been thinking of doing, I hastily revised what I’d been going to say. “If this is how you feel, though, he obviously knows something isn’t right. It’s better to be honest.”

  “Sometimes honesty can hurt the person dishing it out as much as the person getting it.”

  “Then you pray about it. And you can be loving, too. It doesn’t have to be a verbal amputation or anything like that. Jeremy doesn’t deserve it.”

  “So you think I should do it.”

  “I think just thinking about it is making you miserable. All of us have noticed. You can’t feel any worse than this after it’s done, can you?” What did I know? I’d been the dumpee in both my serious relationships, not the dumper.

  “I guess not.” Gillian sighed. “What are you guys doing tonight?”

  I shrugged. “Taking you out for a post-breakup movie?”

  “So I can cry through the whole thing? Wow. A good time was had by all.”

  “There’s always dessert down at Ghirardelli Square. We haven’t tried Kara’s Cupcakes yet. Or the Crown and Crumpet.”

  She brightened about half a degree. “True. There could be chocolate.”

  See? This is how it was supposed to work. You show your friend you’re concerned about her, you listen, you offer her chocolate. Things become more bearable. And inside, she finds the strength to do what she has to do.

  Too bad Vanessa wasn’t taking notes.

  “Thinking about Vanessa and the way she treats you is a waste of good energy,” Carly told me after I’d confided this to her a little later. Shani had gone down to the library to check out some books she needed, so I stretched out on the second bed until she came back.

  “I know. You’re right. I must be an optimist, huh?”

  “I’m glad you took her breakfast, even if she didn’t appreciate it. We can only control what we do, not how other people take it.” She smiled at me. “Want to come home with me for the weekend? Get your mind off it?”

  “I thought Shani was going with you.”

  “She’s star
ting to panic about her Poli.Sci. midterm. Says she’s going to spend the whole weekend in seclusion, studying.”

  “Hm.” I gave this about five seconds’ thought. “Gillian and I are going to Ghirardelli Square for cupcakes. How about you guys come with us, and your cousin can pick us up there?”

  “We’d have to bring our weekend bags, and our books.”

  “That’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.”

  With a couple of phone calls, we had everything arranged. Then, once we’d all had as much calamari as we could eat in the dining room, we grabbed our bags and headed down to Fisherman’s Wharf on the Powell Street cable car.

  Once we’d snagged a table at Kara’s, it didn’t take Gillian long to spill to the others what she’d already told me. Both Shani and Carly looked heartbroken as they realized they were about to lose a charter member of the Happily Unavailable Club.

  “I can’t believe you’d do that to him.” Shani bit into her Raspberry Dazzle. “How can you break up with a guy for liking you too much?”

  Gillian’s eyes got a little too sparkly, and she blinked several times. “Now you’re making me feel selfish. And mean.”

  Carly swallowed a bite of carrot cupcake before she spoke. “We don’t mean to. It’s just hard for us to understand, that’s all.”

  “I’d give anything if Danyel would turn up unexpectedly a dozen times a day,” Shani said. “This long-distance relationship stuff really blows.”

  “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.” Gillian’s gaze dropped to her plate, or rather our plate. She and I were each eating half of a Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Ganache and a nice light coconut cupcake. So far I’d managed to consume both my halves while hers still sat there. “Maybe I just don’t have the capacity to care as much as you do.”

  I blew a raspberry at that notion. “Maybe it’s just a simple matter of chemistry. Instead of being Pepsi and Mentos, you’re Pepsi and—” I tried to think of an analogy. Chemistry is so not my thing.

  “Water?” Gillian gave me a rueful glance and took her first bite. I pushed the plate closer to her and nodded.

  “Both perfect on their own, but together, they’re just kind of…”