“How many guests do you have tonight, Victoria?” Kate demanded. “Let’s count. Your low-class mother and her fat boyfriend who chews with his mouth open. The three bratty cousins from Bedford. Lauren from your tennis club with her fake boobs and her husband who tries to feel me up. Any others? You don’t have any problem spending Dad’s money feeding your people. If I bring a few of mine, I would think you would have the manners not to complain.”
“Don’t talk to me about manners. Not when you stumble in semiconscious at five o’clock in the morning and wake up my children. Honestly, Kate, I think I’ve been pretty indulgent. My life would improve considerably if your father cut you off, and yet, whenever he contemplates doing that, which I can assure you happens more and more often lately, I foolishly talk him out of it.”
“You’re lying.”
“You know I’m not. I overheard your telephone conversation with him the other day. It’s obvious why you brought these girls home. Looking at them, I don’t even believe they’re your friends. You’re using their presence here to avoid your moment of reckoning. Well, it won’t work.”
“Victoria, nothing you say affects me, because I don’t believe a word of it. You see me as a threat to your extremely lucrative relationship with my father, and you’ll do anything to poison his feelings for me. So get out of my face. I have to dress for dinner. Thank you.”
Kate stepped into the library and slammed the door. She looked like she’d been punched in the stomach.
“Is everything all right?” Aubrey asked.
“Should we leave?” Jenny said.
“Screw her. Get dressed,” Kate said. Her face was bright red, and she was obviously trying not to cry.
Jenny rummaged in her suitcase. They pretended to be absorbed in getting dressed, and avoided each other’s eyes. Aubrey pulled off her T-shirt and pulled on the sparkly top she’d worn to the club last night.
“My God, you cannot wear that,” Kate said in horror. “This is a family dinner. It’s completely inappropriate.”
Aubrey blanched. “I’m sorry, I didn’t really think—”
“How much thinking does it take? Only a trashy person would wear that.”
Aubrey was on the verge of tears.
“Stop it,” Jenny said. “Don’t take it out on her.”
“You shut up.”
Jenny grabbed Kate by the shoulders. “Listen to me. Stop being a bitch, and tell us what’s going on, because we’re your friends. Honestly, Kate, we’re the best friends you’ve got. We don’t care about your parents or your apartment or your clothes. We actually care about you. Let us help.”
“I don’t need help,” Kate declared, but her face said differently.
“Yes, you do,” Jenny said. “And we want to help you, which is probably more than you can say for those people at the club last night.”
“Is your dad really going to cut you off?” Aubrey asked, looking shell-shocked.
Kate sat down on the leather couch, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears. Jenny and Aubrey both rushed to comfort her.
“He might,” Kate said, sobbing.
“Your stepmother turned him against you?” Jenny asked.
“It’s not that simple. He’s hated me ever since my mother died. He blames me.”
Kate buried her face in Jenny’s neck, her shoulders heaving with sobs. It was thrilling for Jenny, feeling the hot tears against her skin, realizing that the great Kate Eastman needed her.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Jenny said soothingly.
“It is, you don’t know us,” Kate wailed.
“Your mother died of cancer. It wasn’t your fault, and your father doesn’t blame you. You’re imagining things.”
“No, he’s right. I was a bad daughter.”
“When you were ten?”
“I refused to visit her in the hospital because the tubes scared me. She got really upset, and that made her worse. My dad blamed me. He thinks I’m a terrible person.”
“Hey, listen to me,” Jenny said, pulling away and looking Kate in the eye. “You’re talking crazy, okay? People die of cancer. I know that’s hard to accept when it’s your own mother. Nothing you did as a child made your mother die, and your father doesn’t think that. Do you hear me?”
Kate nodded miserably.
“But it sounds like he’s mad at you now. Do you know why?”
“Ugh, the usual. My bills, the clubbing, the drinking. I mean, what does he expect? It’s college! I haven’t killed anybody, for Christ’s sake.”
“It sounds like your stepmother is making things worse.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you. What can I do? She has her hooks in him.”
“You have to tough it out. We get dressed up, go out there and charm your dad. You said he loves Carlisle, right? Let’s Carlisle him to death. Make him remember how proud he is to have a beautiful daughter at his beloved alma mater, with bright, responsible roommates who’ll keep her on the straight and narrow. We’ll make him forget he’s mad. What do you say?”
Kate swiped her arm across her face. “You think that could work?”
“It’s worth a shot. C’mon, let’s find something for Aubrey to wear. You and I both packed for a week, we can come up with something.”
The living room buzzed with conversation as they arrived for cocktail hour. A uniformed waiter passed hors d’oeuvres on a tray to the well-dressed guests.
“I’ll introduce you to my father,” Kate said, under her breath. “Ignore the others. They’re Victoria’s riffraff.”
Kate went up to her father and kissed his cheek, which he received with notable coolness. Keniston Eastman was very much what Jenny had expected – tall, imposing, scary-looking even. His aquiline nose and heavy black brows reminded her of the grim-faced portrait of President Samuel Eastman hanging in Founders’ Hall. He wore a perfectly tailored jacket and an orange-striped Carlisle rep tie, and peered at Jenny and Aubrey disapprovingly as they approached. As Kate introduced them, Aubrey shrank back. Jenny took Aubrey’s elbow and propelled her forward, so Mr. Eastman could shake both their hands.
“Enjoying the college, are you?” he asked, in a perfunctory manner, grabbing a glass of champagne off a passing tray and taking a sip, as if he needed to fortify himself against them.
Aubrey went pale at his question and seemed unlikely to open her mouth, so Jenny jumped in with a chipper smile.
“We’re very fortunate to be at Carlisle, Mr. Eastman, and we know it. I was elected Whipple rep to the student council last month, and I also work in Provost Meyers’ office, so I have a lot of insight into how things stand at Carlisle at the moment. It’s a wonderful time be a student.”
“The provost’s office? You don’t say. Gloria Meyers is a good friend.” He relaxed to the point that Jenny caught a hint of a smile in his eyes. “Tell me, what are the hot-button issues on campus these days?”
After that, they talked for fifteen minutes straight, Mr. Eastman quizzing Jenny on the latest campaign to clean up Greek life and progress on building the new athletic facility. Kate and Aubrey looked bored, and after a few minutes, wandered away, leaving Mr. Eastman in Jenny’s capable hands. Jenny watched them edge toward the table where a handsome bartender stood mixing drinks. Out of the corner of her eye, Jenny saw Kate flirting with