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  “Thank you so much for mak­ing me talk to Whit­tak­er the oth­er day,” she gushed. “I nev­er would have gone up to him on my own, but he was so sweet. We talked for so long Mr. Shree­ber was scream­ing at me to get on the bus. I made us late for the meet!”

  “Wow. Glad I could be of ser­vice,” I said.

  “He told me all about his trip to East Asia and asked me about the Cape,” Con­stance said. “He re­mem­bered that my fam­ily goes to the Cape ev­ery sum­mer. Not that he shouldn't. I mean, his fam­ily has vis­it­ed us there a few times. But still, it was nice of him to ask, wasn't it?”

  “Sure,” I said, grin­ning as well. It was near­ly im­pos­si­ble not to in the face of that much gid­di­ness.

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  “Do you think he was flirt­ing?” she asked me, grab­bing my fore­arm, which was wrapped around my books.

  “Of course he wasn't flirt­ing. Why would he flirt with me?” Con­stance said, pulling me aside to let a few stu­dents through to the door. “He's known me since my El­mo ob­ses­sion,” she said, look­ing at the ground.

  'Your El­mo ob­ses­sion?"

  “Oh, I was ob­sessed with El­mo--you know, from Sesame Street?-- for way too long. I car­ried that stupid doll around with me un­til I was, like, nine years old,” Con­stance said. “My old­er broth­er Trey threw it in the ocean one year and Whit dove in to save it.” She sighed. For the first time in my life, I saw first­hand what the ex­pres­sion “stars in her eyes” looked like. Kind of spooky. “I'll nev­er for­get that.”

  “Wow,” I said. “He's a hero.”

  “He is, isn't he?” she asked, scrunch­ing her nose. “Any­way, I think he might ac­tu­al­ly be in­ter­est­ed in me. Walt Whit­tak­er. I can't be­lieve it. He even said we should have din­ner some­time. Just me and him. To catch up on old times!”

  I took a deep breath and tast­ed re­lief. “Con­stance, that's so great. I'm re­al­ly glad it went so well.”

  “Me too!” she said. Then she grabbed me in both arms and hugged me. Hard. Con­stance was bonier than she looked.

  “Come on. Let's go study!” she said.

  As she dragged me through the door and in­to the li­brary, I couldn't help feel­ing I'd fi­nal­ly dodged at least one bul­let. If Whit

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  and Con­stance start­ed spend­ing time to­geth­er, he would have to see that she was ten times more ap­pro­pri­ate for him than I was. And ten times more ea­ger to be with him. And then I wouldn't have to wor­ry about de­flect­ing his ad­vances or try­ing to re­mind him of our agree­ment to be just friends. One less thing to stress about.

  I need­ed this. I need­ed it bad­ly.

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  * * *

  When I ar­rived at the din­ner ta­ble that night, a heat­ed de­bate was tak­ing place. Dash was def­inite­ly on one side, Noelle on the oth­er. It was un­clear as of yet whom the oth­ers had aligned them­selves with. I blushed as I walked by Dash and sat down on his side of the ta­ble, as far from him as I could get, mak­ing it near­ly im­pos­si­ble for me to see him. Ev­er since my il­lic­it dis­cov­ery in Noelle's room, I'd had a hard time be­ing in the same room as Dash with­out con­stant­ly see­ing his nether re­gions in my mind's eye.

  Two sec­onds lat­er, Josh sat down across from me. “Hey,” he said.

  I smiled. “Hey.”

  “I don't un­der­stand,” Dash was say­ing. “One phone call and we could have a limo wait­ing for us any­where in town. Do you want to be un­com­fort­able for two hours?”

  “Dash, you're not get­ting it. This par­ty is all about tra­di­tion,” Noelle replied, ges­tur­ing with her fork. “And part of the tra­di­tion is tak­ing the train.”

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  They were talk­ing about the Lega­cy. They had to be. The Billings Girls had nev­er talked about it right in front of me so open­ly be­fore. Were they fi­nal­ly, fi­nal­ly go­ing to in­vite me?

  “She's right, man,” Gage said, lean­ing back on two chair legs and bal­anc­ing. “The train ride is half the fun.”

  'Yeah. It was re­al­ly fun when you boot­ed all over the win­dow last year on the way home and it dripped down the back of my coat,“ Dash said grumpi­ly. ”That was fun."

  “Look. The Lega­cy has been go­ing on for gen­er­ations,” Noelle said, tak­ing a bite of a ba­by car­rot. “Our fore­fa­thers took the train to the Lega­cy and we will take the train to the Lega­cy.”

  “Since when do you give a crap about our fore­fa­thers?” Dash asked.

  “Since when are you us­ing wax in your hair?” Noelle asked, eye­ing him dis­dain­ful­ly.

  “Oh, that's rel­evant,” Dash replied.

  God, this was tor­ture. Didn't they re­al­ize that no one had of­fi­cial­ly told me about this thing yet? Didn't they want me to come? Talk about Cin­derel­la. This was what she must have felt like when her an­noy­ing step­sis­ters kept talk­ing about the damn ball.

  Okay. Clear­ly I was go­ing to have to make this op­por­tu­ni­ty for my­self. Some­times a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

  “Um, I have a ques­tion,” I said, lean­ing for­ward.

  Ev­ery­one turned to look at me. Noelle, Ki­ran, Tay­lor, Ar­iana, Gage, Josh, Dash, and Natasha. It was as if they had all for­got­ten that I ex­ist­ed and my speak­ing was, there­fore, a com­plete shock.

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  “What is the Lega­cy?”

  Noelle and Ki­ran ex­changed a look. Gage snort­ed a laugh and dropped his chair back down, reach­ing for a roll on his plate.

  “That's for us to know and you to most like­ly nev­er find out,” Gage said, en­joy­ing him­self a lit­tle too much.

  “Fun­ny,” I replied.

  Josh cleared his throat. “He's fair­ly se­ri­ous,” he said, his ex­pres­sion apolo­get­ic.

  I felt a blush creep­ing on­to my cheeks. “Come on.”

  Dash cleared his throat and leaned on­to the ta­ble to bet­ter see me. I bit the in­side of my cheek to keep from laugh­ing and tried as hard as I could not to see his guy parts su­per­im­posed over his face.

  “Reed, the Lega­cy is an ex­clu­sive par­ty,” he said sage­ly. “On­ly pri­vate school lega­cies are in­vit­ed.”

  My in­sides turned. I had kind of ex­pect­ed some­one to make me an ex­cep­tion, to tell me they would find a way around the rule. Was it pos­si­ble that Con­stance's the­ory had been com­plete­ly off base?

  “Not just lega­cies,” Ki­ran cor­rect­ed. “Mul­ti­ple-​gen­er­ation lega­cies.”

  “Oh,” I said, look­ing down at my food.

  “We came over on the Mayflow­er' lega­cies,” Gage added.

  I get it. I'm not in­vit­ed. Thanks for the ham­mer to the head.

  “The on­ly way to get in if you're not a lega­cy is to be a lega­cy's plus-​one,” Noelle said, look­ing di­rect­ly at Dash un­til he start­ed con­cen­trat­ing very se­ri­ous­ly on his food. "And on­ly a very,

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  very se­lect few even get a plus-​one. Your fam­ily has to go back to prac­ti­cal­ly the dark ages."

  “Now where on Earth would Reed find a lega­cy with a plus- one?” Ki­ran pon­dered aloud.

  I looked around at all of them, wait­ing for the an­swer, un­til Noelle tilt­ed her head to­ward the oth­er side of the room. I turned and fol­lowed her gaze. Whit­tak­er. Whit­tak­er, who was, as he al­ways seemed to be, chat­ting with an adult. This time, Dean Mar­cus.

  Sud­den­ly it hit me like a car­toon pi­ano to the head. This was why Lon­don had want­ed to use him. This was why Vi­en­na had sug­gest­ed that ev­ery girl in school would be af­ter him in the next few weeks. Whit could get one lucky girl in­to the Lega­cy with his cov­et­ed plus-​one. If I had any shot in hell of go­ing, I would have to be Walt Whit­tak­er's date.

  I looked at Noelle again. She arched one eye­brow and lift­ed a shoul­der, like
, Told you so. She had planned this from the start. The things Whit­tak­er could get me that I wouldn't oth­er­wise have. We weren't talk­ing about di­amond ear­rings or oth­er ran­dom lux­ury items. We were talk­ing about en­tre in­to ex­clu­sive par­ties. We were talk­ing about ac­cep­tance among the elite. Just be­ing a Billings Girl wasn't enough. At least not for me. I was a spe­cial case. I need­ed an­oth­er leg up.

  I took a deep breath. What Noelle didn't re­al­ize was that I couldn't be Whit­tak­er's plus-​one. I couldn't lead him on just to get an in­vite to some par­ty, no mat­ter how in­trigu­ing and mys­te­ri­ous and ex­clu­sive. He clear­ly liked me. A lot. Us­ing him would

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  be way too mean. And be­sides, Con­stance was to­tal­ly in love with him. There was no way I was do­ing that to her. Ex­cept...

  “Do you guys re­al­ly think Pear­son is go­ing to be there?” Josh asked.

  Ex­cept for that.

  “Are you kid­ding? Wher­ev­er Pear­son is right now, he'll be at the Lega­cy,” Dash said. “Dude wouldn't miss this par­ty if he was dead.”

  Thomas was go­ing to be at the Lega­cy. His friends seemed fair­ly cer­tain of that fact. That was the whole point of me try­ing to get to this thing, wasn't it? So that I could yell at him for ev­ery­thing he'd put me through. So that he could ex­plain. So that I could see that he was okay.

  Slow­ly, I looked up at Whit­tak­er again. He was laugh­ing hearti­ly at some­thing the dean had said--a nice, big bel­ly laugh. And sure enough, a few ran­dom girls were look­ing on with stars in their eyes, just wait­ing to pounce on him once he was free. Thomas was go­ing to be at this par­ty. The on­ly way for me to get in­to this par­ty was to get Whit­tak­er to in­vite me. If I want­ed to see my maybe - ex, I was go­ing to have to use my maybe-​stalk­er to do it.

  Fate had a re­al­ly messed-​up sense of hu­mor.

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  THE WRONG IN­VI­TA­TION

  The days had been grow­ing rapid­ly short­er. Now when I left the li­brary af­ter a post­din­ner study ses­sion, the torch lights along the path­ways were al­ready aglow to light my way back to Billings. With the dark came the in­ten­si­fied cold. Af­ter days of re­sist­ing and com­ing home with my teeth chat­ter­ing, I had fi­nal­ly caved and bro­ken out my crap­py gray wool coat with the em­bar­rass­ing­ly short sleeves and the uniden­ti­fi­able stain along the hem. Al­ready I'd caught a few dis­gust­ed stares from the fe­male pop­ula­tion. I was over­due for a phone call to Dad any­way. Looked as if the next one would in­clude me beg­ging him to put in an or­der with Lands End.

  Yes, Lands End. While my class­mates walked around in their Pra­da and Coach and Miu Miu, Lands End was the best I could hope for.

  I ig­nored a pair of girls com­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion who stared in­to my semi­fa­mous face, then start­ed twit­ter­ing and talk­ing the mo­ment I was past them. I bare­ly even no­ticed this stuff any­more. If I ev­er did hit it big, this semester was go­ing to be per­fect prep for han­dling celebri­ty.

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  I turned up the path to Billings, al­ready men­tal­ly pep-​talk­ing my­self for what­ev­er chore list my “sis­ters” had de­vised for me, when I saw a dark fig­ure lurk­ing in front of the door. For the splittest of sec­onds I thought of Thomas and my heart caught. But then I re­al­ized that a fig­ure of that size could be­long to on­ly one per­son.

  “Reed,” he said, step­ping out of the shad­ows.

  “Whit,” I replied, mim­ick­ing his se­ri­ous tone.

  “How was the li­brary?” he asked with a small, know­ing smile.

  I de­cid­ed not to ask how he knew I'd been at the li­brary. I'd save him the plea­sure of shar­ing, and me the pain of hear­ing, how he pre­dict­ed my ev­ery move.

  “Fine. What's up?” I asked.

  “Well, I have a ques­tion to ask you,” he said, slip­ping his hands in­to the pock­ets of his over­coat. “An in­vi­ta­tion to of­fer, ac­tu­al­ly.”

  The Lega­cy. My con­science and my de­sire had been at war ev­er since din­ner the night be­fore and nei­ther one had yet waved the white flag. I was not pre­pared for this. What was I go­ing to say? What was I go­ing to do? Some­where in one of the rooms above, some­one was prac­tic­ing the vi­olin. Some­thing fast and man­ic. It didn't help with the think­ing.

  “I was won­der­ing if you would do me the hon­or of be­ing my din­ner guest on Fri­day night,” he said.

  Wait. His what? Where was my plus-​one in­vite? And, hold on, he'd al­ready asked Con­stance to sit with him at din­ner. What was he do­ing, throw­ing out these in­vites like they were bath wa­ter?

  “Whit, we al­ready sit to­geth­er at din­ner ev­ery night,” I point­ed

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  out. A stiff breeze blew past us, fill­ing my nos­trils to burst­ing with the pun­gen­cy of his ev­er­green-​scent­ed af­ter­shave. I held my breath and tried not to cough.

  Whit­tak­er chuck­led. “No, no, no. Not here. Off cam­pus,” he said. “You see, Fri­day is my eigh­teenth birth­day. I've been grant­ed per­mis­sion to dine off cam­pus, and I'd like you to be my guest.”

  There were so many things wrong with this pro­pos­al that I didn't know where to be­gin.

  “How did you get per­mis­sion?” I said fi­nal­ly.

  “My grand­moth­er. She's on the board of di­rec­tors and she's not above oc­ca­sion­al­ly pulling the odd string,” he said with pride. “She's grant­ed you a pass as well. We don't need to bring a chap­er­one.”

  The word chap­er­one made me shud­der.

  “But, Whit, what about ev­ery­one else?” I said. “I mean, it's your eigh­teenth birth­day. You don't want to spend it with just me.”

  His ex­pres­sion told me that this was ex­act­ly what he want­ed. This was very not good. Clear­ly Whit­tak­er was even more se­ri­ous about me than I had es­ti­mat­ed. He could be here, on cam­pus, ring­ing in his eigh­teenth year with a drunk­en par­ty in the woods with Dash and Gage and the oth­ers, but in­stead he want­ed to whisk me to some off-​cam­pus restau­rant.

  “Say yes, Reed. We'll get dressed up; we'll go for a drive. I know this in­cred­ible lit­tle Ital­ian place in Boston--”

  “Boston?” I croaked. I had nev­er been to Boston. I had nev­er

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  been to any city oth­er than Philadel­phia, and that was just for one day on my eighth-​grade field trip.

  “Of course. You didn't ex­pect me to cel­ebrate my eigh­teenth at one of the three de­cent restau­rants here in Eas­ton,” he said with an in­cred­ulous ex­hale. He reached out and caught my hand in both of his, look­ing me deep in the eye. “Say you'll come.”

  My heart ac­tu­al­ly re­spond­ed to that plea. He sound­ed so sin­cere, how could I not? So there I was. I could say no and crush this sweet guy and al­so oblit­er­ate any chance of be­ing asked to the Lega­cy and see­ing Thomas, or I could say yes, go to some fan­cy restau­rant in Boston, and keep the hope of see­ing Thomas alive.

  In the end, it was no con­test, re­al­ly. My con­science took a dive.

  “Okay,” I said fi­nal­ly, near­ly chok­ing on my dry throat. “I'd love to.”

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  PRES­SURE

  My en­tire life I had al­ways found brush­ing my teeth to be a sooth­ing ac­tiv­ity. It was the per­fect time to pon­der the events of the day in pri­va­cy. To go over the things I might have said or done dif­fer­ent­ly. To pat my­self on the back for the things that had gone well. Un­like the par­ents of ev­ery oth­er kid on the plan­et, my par­ents had of­ten been forced to yell at me to stop brush­ing my teeth. Fif­teen min­utes would pass while I zoned out. Half an hour. It was amaz­ing I had any enam­el left.

  That night I was some­where in­to my sec­ond quar­ter of an hour, my mouth full of foam, when the bath­room door banged open be­h
ind me. I near­ly choked on my own spit.

  “How's it go­ing?” Natasha asked, fold­ing her arms over her siz­able chest and lean­ing against the door­jamb. She glared over my shoul­der at my re­flec­tion in the mir­ror.

  I leaned over the basin and emp­tied my mouth in­to the drain, then slow­ly filled the cup with wa­ter and tipped it in­to my mouth. Af­ter slosh­ing it around for a half a minute, I spit again. Let her wait. She was on­ly wait­ing for noth­ing.

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  “Fine,” I said fi­nal­ly, wip­ing my face with a hand tow­el. “I had a great day, how about you?”

  “You know that's not what I'm ask­ing,” Natasha said. “What have you found?”

  Let's see: a re­fin­ery's worth of sug­ar, ev­idence of se­ri­ous psy­cho­log­ical self-​abuse, and some Ski­na­max-​wor­thy pho­tos. Oh, and a se­cret, hid­den com­put­er with a pass­word-​pro­tect pro­gram.

  I fold­ed the tow­el, hung it on the tow­el ring next to the sink, and turned around, heav­ing an ex­as­per­at­ed sigh. “Noth­ing,” I said. “I've found noth­ing.”

  I might have told her about the com­put­er if I had thought that the in­for­ma­tion would get her off my back, even for a mo­ment, but I had a feel­ing it would have the ex­act op­po­site ef­fect. I had a feel­ing it would on­ly make her turn the screws tighter. And they were plen­ty tight al­ready, thank you.

  'You can't be se­ri­ous,“ she said as I brushed by her in­to the room. 'You re­al­ly ex­pect me to be­lieve that af­ter a week and a half you've found noth­ing?”

  'You can be­lieve what­ev­er you want to be­lieve,“ I told her, sit­ting blithe­ly on my bed. ”This coun­try was found­ed on that prin­ci­ple."

  Natasha clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. She pressed the heels of her hands in­to her fore­head like I was giv­ing her a mi­graine. Good. She de­served mind-​split­ting pain. That'd teach her to black­mail me.

  “What's the prob­lem here, Reed?” she asked me. “Was I not ex­plic­it enough when I told you ex­act­ly what I would do if you didn't help me?”