Ambition Page 17

"They're from Marc," I said happily. "He says good luck and he'll see me tonight." "I think we underestimated Scholarship Boy,"

  London said, earning a pointed glare from Noelle. Was it a good thing or a bad thing that my friends kept forgetting that I was on

  scholarship? "White roses. A smart choice," Vienna mused. "Red would be too pushy, pink would be too babyish, but white... white

  is..." "Elegant. Refined," Noelle said, taking the vase from my hands and placing it in the center of the mantel. "The kid's good." I

  smiled, glad they were coming around. Even if I didn't intend to seriously date the guy, it was nice to know my friends had some

  depth. "We should get out of here. We have to beat the traffic," I said, hustling the stragglers out. Everyone rushed ahead into the cold

  as I paused to close the door behind us. The two chauffeurs were just gathering up the last of our things and I was about to thank them

  when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Ivy. Speed-walking away from Billings toward Pemberly. My heart stopped

  at the sight of her. What had she been doing over here? And why was she in such a rush? She was moving so quickly and was so

  oblivious to her surroundings that she practically mowed over Amberly Carmichael and her group of followers, who had paused for a

  chat on one of the paths.

  "See you tonight, Reed! We can't wait!" Amberly called out to me, waving a mittened hand. I took a deep breath and told myself to

  forget about Ivy. Right now I had to get through tonight and declare a Billings victory. Then I could deal with her. "See you there!" I

  shouted back. I jogged across the quad to catch up with my friends, past Bradwell to the circle, where the limos idled near the curb.

  Everyone randomly piled into the cars, intent on getting out of the cold. As I settled in and looked around, I found that I had ended up

  with most of the seniors. Noelle, Tiffany, London, Vienna, Rose, Portia, and Shelby. Tiffany reached into a vat of ice built into the

  door and extracted a bottle of champagne. "Let's get this celebration started!" she announced, popping it open.

  Everyone cheered as foam washed over the side of the bottle onto the floor. We squealed and pulled our feet back, out of the line of

  fire. As the car pulled away from the curb, Rose passed around champagne flutes and Tiffany clumsily poured. "I would like to pro-

  pose a toast!" Noelle announced, lifting her glass once everyone had been served. "To Reed!" "To Reed!" everyone chorused, lifting

  their glasses. "No, ladies. I wasn't finished," Noelle admonished with a sly look. Champagne sloshed everywhere as the limo hit the

  speed bump near the bottom of the hill, and we all laughed. "This girl has saved Billings, she's landed herself an adorable boy and has

  half a dozen more pursuing her, and she looks simply fabulous," Noelle continued. I blushed and my friends cracked up laughing.

  "What I'm trying to say is, you clearly chose wisely when you chose our president," Noelle said, looking me in the eye. Everyone

  murmured their agreement. My heart was about to burst. "To Reed." "To Reed!" It was one of the best moments of my life.

  BEST FRIENDS

  I loved that I was sipping champagne in a salon on Park Avenue with a sign on the door that read Closed for Private Event. I loved

  that people kept stopping on the street and peeking in, trying to get a glimpse of what fabulousness might be occurring inside. I loved

  the way it felt to be on the inside looking out, instead of the outside looking in.

  It was one of those moments when I realized absolutely and unequivocally how lucky I was. How the hell did I, Reed Brennan

  from Croton, Pennsylvania, end up here, talking to a U.S. senator about which eye shadow she should go with while Frederica Falk

  lined the lips of a famous morning news anchor, and twin fashion heiresses swapped nightmare customs stories with my friends over

  in the corner? Unreal. "So. This is going well," Noelle said, sidling up to me as the senator politely took her leave. But not before

  pressing a check into my hand. I unfolded the check and my eyes widened at the number. I held it up for Noelle to see. "I'll say."

  She smiled. "That's nothing. Check out the wad that Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber over there handed to Tiffany so they

  could have a closed set during their shoot with Tassos." She turned around, her back to the crowd, and pulled out a rolled-up stack of

  bills that was so thick it could have been used as a paperweight. I laughed and swigged my champagne. "I hate to be vulgar, but

  Cromwell is going to shit." "Can I be there when it happens?" Noelle asked, tucking the money away again. "Absolutely." We both

  smiled, enjoying the warmth of the moment. This was going to workout. The fund-raiser, our friendship, everything. It was all going

  to work out. "There! Perfection!" Frederica announced as she finished with the anchorwoman. All afternoon this had been her signal

  that she was done with a client, and the entire room fell silent at the sound of her pinched, heavily accented voice. Frederica was a

  diminutive German woman with platinum blond hair and tiny horn-rimmed glasses, who--even though she couldn't have been taller

  than five feet--had a commanding presence. When she spoke, people listened.

  "And now, for the organizer of our event," Frederica said. She marched over to me, all bones and black turtleneck and slicked-back

  hair, and grabbed my shoulders. "I must do you!" "What? Me? No," I protested. "This event is for our donors--" "Nonsense! None of

  them would be here if not for you!" she said, forcibly turning me toward her chair. "And I must work on this flawless face," she

  added, tapping my cheeks with her cold hands from behind as we looked in the mirror. 'You cannot say no." "She's right, Reed,"

  Noelle said, taking my champagne glass from me. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing to have Frederica work her magic."

  My friends and their guests and all the alumni in the salon were either eyeing me enviously for being singled out, or encouraging

  me to seize the opportunity. "Sit," Fredericka ordered, forcibly pushing me into the chair. She was stronger than her scrawny body let

  on. "We do this now." "All right, then," I said, looking in the mirror at the waiting clientele, the women getting their blowouts and the

  others in black smocks, still waiting their turns. "If no one else minds." No one said a word. Apparently, in a room full of luminaries

  and debutantes and zillionaires, I was the one person allowed to cut the line. "I'll go refill your champagne," Noelle said, squeezing

  my shoulder before disappearing into the crowd. I smiled and settled back in the chair. All day Noelle had been by my side and not

  once had she hit me with a derisive comment or a sneer or even a slightly condescending look. And now she was running off to get me

  champagne like it was no big deal. Like she didn't covet the position I was in. Like she didn't mind doing things for me at all. Maybe

  we really were best friends.

  * * *

  I had been inside a few Manhattan dwellings in the past two years. The first two--Thomas Pearson's apartment and the Legacy lo-

  cale from last October--I didn't remember much about. I had been dizzy with grief and confusion when I'd visited the Pearson home,

  and it wasn't as if his parents had given everyone the grand tour during their son's wake. All I recalled was that it seemed large and

  cold and overly furnished. The Legacy penthouse was even more of a blur, considering how drunk I'd gotten and how dark it had been.

  I remembered thinking it was huge, and that the view of Central Park was amazing. The third, Josh Hollis's downtown brownstone,

  was nice. Cozy. Tricked out with all the modern ame
nities, but with a feeling like a real family home. And I didn't want to think about

  it any further than that. Noelle's house, however, was astonishing. It was like a full-blown mansion nestled in the middle of an other-

  wise unassuming block.

  From the outside it looked like a posh apartment building with its grand staircase and big, red door complete with a gold knocker. It

  looked large enough to be divided into eight or ten units. But it wasn't. It was one unit. One, huge, gorgeous, pristine, divine unit.

  Sabine and I must have looked like awed tourists at Versailles as Noelle led us through the foyer toward the back of the house and

  the elevator. We all shed our coats as we went, and handed them to one of three waiting maids, who followed after us silently. I almost

  tripped peeking into the rooms that lined the long entryway--a library with more books than the Croton library could ever hope to

  own, a conservatory with a grand piano, a sitting room like something out of an Austen novel. This place was sick.

  But no one else seemed to notice. Not even Constance. Which made me wonder what their houses were like. Noelle's room, where

  we would all be staying that night, was situated on the fourth of five floors. In fact, her room was the fourth floor. It was more of a

  suite, with an enormous bedroom, a sitting room with a TV the size of a movie screen, a walk-in closet with rows and rows of clothes,

  and a pink-marble bathroom I could have gotten lost in. It also had a mini kitchen stocked with snacks and a state-of-the art espresso

  machine, and its own outdoor patio overlooking the park. My whole family could have lived in Noelle's suite comfortably.

  "All right, make yourselves pretty!" Noelle announced, tossing her bag and dress on her four-poster bed. "Use whatever you need.

  Except the stuff in my special cosmetics cabinet. Oh, but I had a lock put on that anyway. Since I don't trust any of you," she joked.

  Everyone laughed and went about unpacking their things. We didn't have much time before the start of the dinner and silent auction,

  so we dressed quickly, all sixteen of us in the same room--zipping each other's dresses, clasping necklaces, buckling straps on shoes.

  As soon as everyone was clothed, there was a race for the bathroom and dressing rooms with their well-lit mirrors. I stayed behind

  with Noelle. My makeup had already been done by a professional.

  "Noelle, this place is amazing," I said, walking over to the glass sliders that led to the patio. The short hem of my gold dress

  skimmed my thighs and the smooth fabric made me feel decadent. "Not what I would have imagined, though." "No?" she asked, fas-

  tening a sparking sapphire necklace around her neck as she joined me. "Why not?" "Because it's not a huge mess," I replied with a

  smirk. She smiled in return. "I have my own staff, Reed. Believe me, this place did not look like this when last I left." She turned to an

  oak cabinet and slid open the doors. "Music?" Inside was a sleek stereo system surrounded by shelves and shelves of CDs and old-

  school records. An iPod was hooked up to the system, but there was also a CD player and a record player standing by. "Wow. I had no

  idea you were so into music," I said, running my fingers along the spines of the albums. A lot of my dad's favorite classics were repre-

  sented. Everything from the Beatles to the Doors to the Clash to Us and hundreds of bands in between. "It's my obsession," Noelle

  said, shrugging. She selected a CD and popped it in. "Concerts are my anti-drug," she said with a wry smile. As music poured through

  speakers in every corner and Noelle disappeared into her closet for shoes, I realized there was a lot I didn't know about her. Did she

  like to read? If so, what? What did she like to watch on that huge TV screen of hers? And I knew she liked to travel, but where? What

  did she and Dash do together for fun? Maybe we weren't as good friends as I had started to believe we were. But I could remedy that.

  Starting now.

  I reached into my bag for my new perfume and popped off the cap. "So, what was the last concert you saw?" I shouted to be heard

  in the depths of her closet. I spritzed the perfume just as Portia, Rose, Tiffany, and Sabine returned from the bathroom, gabbing away.

  The scent filled my senses and I instantly gagged. Cheyenne. It smelled like Cheyenne. The scent was in my nose, on my clothes, in

  my hair, floating in the air all around me. Cheyenne's scent. Cheyenne's signature sweet, flowery scent. The other girls froze in their

  tracks. "Did you just spray Fleur?" Rose asked, confused. "That's a little weird, Reed. Cheyenne's perfume?" Portia said. "No! I" I

  glanced down at the bottle. It was a small round atomizer with the word Fleur printed across it in smoky white letters. Where had this

  come from? I hadn't packed this. I checked the bag I'd extracted it from to make sure it was mine, and it was. My pajamas, my book,

  my makeup bag.

  "I didn't bring this," I said, feeling dizzy. The scent was in my head now. Making me foggy even as my heartbeat pounded against

  my chest. "I packed the bottle I bought at Barneys last weekend. I swear. It was called Free, remember?" I said, looking to Sabine for

  confirmation. "Well, maybe you picked up this one instead when you were packing," Sabine replied, looking a little concerned. "No. I

  don't own any other perfume," I snapped, feeling like a caged dog. "That was the first bottle I've ever bought." Noelle emerged from

  the closet at that moment and saw everyone staring at me. "Reed? What's wrong?" I took a couple shaky steps back and dropped onto

  the edge of her bed. "This isn't mine. I didn't bring this. I didn't buy it. I would ever... I'd never want to smell like... Somebody must

  have put it in my bag."

  I looked up at all of them, wide-eyed, my pulse visible in my wrists, and they simply stared back, disturbed. Disturbed and con-

  fused and worried. "Reed, why would anyone put Cheyenne's perfume in your bag?" Tiffany asked. "I don't know!" I wailed, shaking

  and on the verge of tears. Her scent was all over me. Choking me. "Why would anyone do any of the things they're doing? Why would

  anyone--" I stopped abruptly, realizing I'd said too much. A few of the other girls had joined us now and everyone was watching me as

  if I were an escaped lunatic. "What things?" Rose asked, hugging herself. I glanced around the room. I couldn't tell them. They were

  going to think I was insane. And maybe I was. Maybe I was losing my mind.

  "I have to get out of this dress," I said, standing and grabbing for the zipper behind my neck. My hands were so slippery with sweat

  they couldn't grasp the zipper. "Get me out of it. Somebody unzip it!" I demanded. Constance rushed forward and undid the zip. Cool

  air rushed all over my skin and I let it fall to the floor, kicking it aside. "I can't wear that. It smells like her," I rambled, standing in

  front of all of them in my one and only set of lacy underwear. Goose bumps covered my bare skin, and I was starting to lose my

  breath. "I can't wear that. I have to wear something else." "Reed, calm down." Noelle broke through my line of horrified onlookers

  and grasped my arm. "You can wear something of mine. It's all good." "Are you okay?" Sabine asked, as Noelle led me back through

  the crowd toward her closet. "Do you need anything?" "Just get rid of that bottle. I don't care what you do with it," I said, gasping for

  air. I glanced at the offending bottle that I'd left on Noelle's bedspread. "Just get rid of it."

  As soon as we were inside the closet, Noelle closed the door and sat me down on a suede bench between racks of clothes. Tears

  stung my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I braced my hands on the bench at my
sides and squirmed, gasping for air. The photo and

  the black marbles and the clothing and the e-mails and now this. It was all too much. "Reed, you have to breathe," Noelle told me,

  kneeling in her black dress in front of me. "You're freaking me out here. Please breathe." I gulped for air, but it stopped at my throat.

  It wouldn't go through to my lungs. "Put your head between your legs." She forced my head down and I saw spots, but the next breath

  hit home. My lungs burned as I sucked in air and coughed, tears of pain now coursing down my face, dropping onto the thick white

  carpet at my feet. "That's it. Breathe," Noelle told me in a soothing voice. "Breathe."

  When I finally started to return to normal, I sat up and took in a nice, long breath of air. I wiped my eyes and came away with black

  streaks. So much for my professional makeover. "Better?" she asked. I managed to nod. "What is going on?" She got up from the

  floor and sat next to me. "What was that all about?" I wanted to tell her, but I couldn't. I had just earned her respect. I couldn't tell her

  that someone at Easton was screwing with me. Or that I was quite possibly losing my mind. I couldn't show her just how vulnerable I

  was. Not now. Suddenly, now that my head was clear, I remembered. Remembered seeing Ivy just before we left Easton, beating a

  hasty retreat away from Billings. All our bags had been stacked outside for at least fifteen minutes. She could have done this. She

  could have switched out my bottle of Free for a bottle of Fleur. After all, she could have easily figured out which bag was mine--my

  initials were embroidered on it. It had to have been her. It was the only explanation that made any sense.

  "Reed?" Noelle prompted. I looked up at my friend, at her concerned face, but I knew I couldn't tell her. Not yet. Not until I was

  sure. So I did something I'd found myself doing a lot lately. I lied. "I don't know. I don't... I don't know how that perfume got in my

  bag, but the second I sprayed it, I guess it just all came rushing back," I replied. "Cheyenne always wore that perfume. I guess it just

  brought it all back so vividly--finding her body, how awful that day was.... I don't know." Noelle pushed my hair behind my shoulder

  and ran her hand down the length of it in a comforting way. "Are you sure that's it? There's nothing else you want to tell me?" "No," I

  said, sniffling. "I just lost it for a second there. I'm sorry." I stood up and squared my shoulders, trying to show her I was okay. "Are

  you sure you don't mind me borrowing a dress?" Noelle stood as well and turned toward the section of her closet where little black

  dresses hung in neat rows. "Take your pick. As long as you're sure you're okay."

  "I'm fine," I lied. "I have to be. I have a fund-raiser to run." Noelle smiled in a proud way. "That's my little--I mean, good for you,"

  she said with a nod, correcting herself. "I'll go tell them you're okay. You just get dressed and clean yourself up." She picked up a

  Charles David shoe box and extracted a small gold key from the toe of a stiletto heel inside. "You can even use the special cosmetics."

  "Thanks." I smiled as she slipped out and closed the door behind her. The moment she was gone, I sat down at the dressing table and

  stared at myself in the mirror. Eyeliner dripped down my face, and the cream blush that had been so carefully applied was all but