“Would you chill? Hold on, I see a guy I know from Odell. Let me see if I can get us in,” Kate said. She strode off toward a short, athletic-looking guy with a head of perfectly styled blond hair. He wore pink shorts and a navy blazer and looked straight off the yacht.
Odell Academy was the fancy boarding school Kate had graduated from. In the few days they’d been here so far, Aubrey had learned more than she imagined possible about the world of East Coast prep schools, whose alums ruled the tables in Eastman Commons. The prep school kids were all beautiful, with clear skin and the right clothes, good hair and boisterous, confident manners. There was an established pecking order. The boarding schools were on top, places like Exeter and St. Paul’s, Andover, and Odell. The list went on; Aubrey didn’t know all the names yet, but she would. Then came the prestige day schools from New York and D.C., Philly and Boston. All the prepster kids knew each other, or at least, they knew of each other. Or maybe it was just that they all seemed to know one another, because they dressed and behaved according to the same mysterious rules, rules Aubrey was only beginning to realize existed. Oh, there were public school kids, too – but they didn’t matter. The kids from Stuyvesant and Bronx Science formed their own pale New York clique that people seemed to leave alone, even be slightly afraid of, but they didn’t get asked to parties. Then there were strivers like Jenny, who had everything figured out for themselves and pretended not to care. But Aubrey knew better, she saw through that pose, and she didn’t put on such airs herself. Kate and her friends represented the true Carlisle, and Aubrey would rather be a desperate tagalong scavenging their crumbs than be left out in the cold.
Kate hugged and kissed the guy in the pink shorts. After a minute, she turned and beckoned Aubrey and Jenny to come over.
“Smile,” Aubrey said, standing up straighter. She’d never met a boy like that one before – rich and preppy and handsome – and she wanted to make a good impression.
“You’re brainwashed,” Jenny said, but she went along eagerly enough.
Kate introduced them to her friend.
“Griffin Rothenberg. Call me Griff,” he said in a smooth baritone, taking Aubrey’s hand and smiling into her eyes. His warm touch gave her a jolt, but then he turned and did the same thing with Jenny. He had nice manners, that was all. Anyway, you only had to look at him to see how dazzled he was by Kate.
With a glance and nod at another frat boy, Griff led them around the velvet rope. Inside, they got caught in a bottleneck at the top of the stairs that led down to the basement, where from the sound of it, the party was in full swing. Aubrey laughed nervously as the crowd crushed against them from behind. There was no air-conditioning, and the air was a hot funk of perfume and sweat and alcohol, with an undertone of vomit. Aubrey grabbed Jenny, feeling unsteady on her feet.
“Crazy,” Jenny said.
The crowd surged forward and suddenly they were at the front. Aubrey saw what the holdup had been. A skinny guy wearing an orange bow tie – Carlisle’s color – sat behind a desk that blocked the stairs down to the basement, wielding an ink pad and stamper. Griff pushed them forward.
“Yo, Rothenberg. You gonna pledge ΣΣΚ? We’d love to have you, dude,” the bow-tied guy said.
“Planning on it.”
“I’m supposedly checking IDs, but you’re good. I know you.”
Bow Tie marked Griff’s hand with a stamp shaped like a beer bottle; then they bumped fists.
“Thanks, bro, and while you’re at it, stamp my girl Kate Eastman from Odell, no ID necessary,” Griff said.
“Kate Eastman. Remember me?” Bow Tie asked, looking star-struck.
“Uh –” Kate said.
“Duncan Treadwell. I roomed with your cousin Trevor at Milton, until he got kicked out. We met at a tailgate your freshman year at Odell.”
“Ri-ight,” Kate said, though it was obvious she didn’t remember.
“Trev, what a wild man. I was sure he’d get into Carlisle, but I guess that little mishap with the DUI nixed it.”
“Dead bodies are never a good thing on a college application,” Kate said drolly. She held out her hand for a stamp, clearly uninterested in continuing the conversation.
“I assume you are of drinking age?” Duncan asked.
“Since I was twelve.”
He laughed, and stamped her hand.
“My friends, too,” she said.
Aubrey and Jenny got their hands stamped, and the foursome made its way slowly down the stairs. The basement was low-ceilinged and dimly lit. Hip-hop music blasted from speakers as people crowded around a keg.
“This way!”
Griff led them through a warren of rooms, all jam-packed with students standing around, or dancing, or making out on the ratty old couches. The floors were slick with spilled beer. The smell of it reminded her of her childhood: her father had been a drinker. Aubrey picked her way carefully to avoid slipping. Finally they reached a room that ran the length of the back of the house with French doors that opened out onto a stone patio. It was packed, too, but the air was less putrid. A card table in the corner held several large bowls of bright orange punch. Griff ladled drinks into plastic cups and handed them to the girls. The punch was sickeningly sweet, but had the virtue of being cold. Aubrey’s raging headache disappeared with the first gulp, and she drained her cup quickly. A guy stepped up and refilled it for her.
“Thanks!” she said, glancing wistfully after Kate and Griff as they moved toward the French doors.
“You a frosh? Or as we prefer to say, fresh meat?”
“Yeah, I live in Whipple,” she shouted. And just like that, she was talking to a cute boy. Not Griff-level cute, but cute enough.
She didn’t quite catch his name – Brian? Ryan? He was a junior, from Tennessee, majoring in business administration, and played lacrosse. He had a nice body, a boyish grin, and reddish-brown hair. They shouted questions back and forth for a while, and by the time she looked up, Aubrey realized that her cozy little group was nowhere in sight.
“I should probably find my friends,” she shouted over the music.
“Forget them.”
“They’ll be worried.”
“They’re too drunk to remember your name.”
“No, really.” The punch on top of the tequila was going to her head. The room had started to spin some time ago, but she was just noticing it.
“Fine, they’re over this way,” Brian/Ryan yelled, and took her hand. She let him pull her along even though she suspected he didn’t actually know where they were, or even which friends she was talking about.
He led her into the darkest of the rooms. The couches and floor and pool table were covered with writhing bodies. Brian/Ryan shoved a couple of people aside and pushed Aubrey down into the corner of a creaky old sofa. Then he straddled her, pinning her to the sofa, and took her face in his hands.
“You’re not half-bad-looking, you know,” he said.
She couldn’t help laughing. “Thanks.”
He leaned down and pushed his tongue into her mouth. Aubrey thought about resisting, but at that same instant she was overcome with a wave of nausea, and had to concentrate completely to stop herself from hurling all over him. Unleashing a stream of vomit onto a frat boy would render her a social pariah from the start of her Carlisle career, so better to not make any sudden moves. The room went momentarily black, and Aubrey’s head lolled back, which Brian/Ryan took as an invitation to yank her tank top aside and squeeze her boobs. The sharp pinch brought her to her senses, and she sat up fast, smashing her forehead into his nose. He yelped in pain. Aubrey seized