I strolled into the kitchen where the buffet delivered in the afternoon had been laid out. Mia heaped a large helping on a plate to take it upstairs with her in secret. I saw, to my relief, that it was normal party food and not jellified seaweed patties echoing the colors of the evening. I was ready to believe anything of Florence (and the Boker, who had paid for the catering as a present).
I looked around surreptitiously for Henry. In passing, a good-looking young guy in a blue T-shirt (a cousin of the Spencers?) pressed a glass of champagne into my hand. I passed it straight on to Persephone, who in her turn gave it to her elder sister, Pandora.
“How sensible of you to avoid alcohol,” said Emily, who had come up beside me unnoticed. “I’m sure you can manage to make an exhibition of yourself even stone-cold sober.” She was wearing a plain, high-necked but close-fitting red dress, and I had to admit that she was one of those few people who really looked good in that color.
“Wow,” I said. “You look super, Emily.”
“Am I supposed to feel flattered?” She favored me with a scornful look as she moved on, and I was already regretting my spontaneous compliment. On the other hand, I felt a little sorry for her—over the last week or so it had been obvious that she’d do anything to get Grayson back. But she hadn’t succeeded, even with the backing of Florence and Mrs. Spencer combined.
Well, perhaps she’d do it this evening. In that dress …
I hoped Grayson would stand firm.
Meanwhile the band had begun to play. I heard “Here Comes the Weekend” from the living room, and the singer sounded almost like P!nk. Persephone had found us two glasses of punch and gave me one of them before we made our way into the living room, where the first couples were already dancing. We leaned back against the bookshelves (from which Mom had removed her first editions of Oscar Wilde and Emily Dickinson, to be on the safe side), and Persephone smoothed down her white dress with a happy sigh.
“I bet Jasper is sorry he has to be in France right now,” I shouted against the music, smiling at her.
“Jasper who?” cried Persephone, but then she laughed. “I couldn’t care less about Jasper today. Just for once, life is good.”
In any case, it had certainly been much worse. And there was so much to be grateful for.
For instance, the fact that Grayson hadn’t been arrested for breaking and entering and grievous bodily harm, simply because Arthur hadn’t told anyone about the incident. But I was grateful all the same, because otherwise Grayson might have spent his eighteenth birthday in a police cell, or maybe in the nuthouse.
There was a heartrending story in the Tittle-Tattle blog about Arthur, and how he had tried to rescue a poor little puppy being tormented by four bad characters. In spite of being outnumbered, brave Arthur had finally saved the puppy—but he had suffered a broken nose, two black eyes, and a cut on his eyebrow (Grayson must really have been very angry).
Extraordinarily, everyone at Frognal Academy seemed to believe this sentimental story without reservations. Brave Arthur, the rescuer of little dogs, was the school’s new hero. And the girls in Mia’s class sighed louder than ever when they saw him in the corridors.
However, it would be some time before all traces of the fight had faded, and every time I saw Arthur, it gave me a certain satisfaction to see them still there. Even though I guessed that he was planning cruel revenge for every single bruise.
He had spoken to me only once, when we ran into each other by the chemistry lab, and I was turning to leave immediately when he took hold of my arm and held it firmly. “Don’t rejoice too soon, Liv Silver. I haven’t finished with you yet,” he had said, darting me glances of such hatred that his sighing fan club of girls would surely have lost faith in him. But there was no one else there to see Arthur’s real face.
What he said didn’t surprise me. I was only surprised that it left me cold. “I haven’t finished with you either,” I replied, and I meant it. I would never forgive him for what he’d tried to do to my sister. “And now let go of me, if you don’t want Secrecy to have another accident to report.”
In dreams, Arthur would have grinned viciously and tried turning me to stone, but this was real life, and in real life, I was the one who could do kung fu. Furthermore, a group of students was just coming around the corner. So he let go of me.
“We’ll meet again,” he snapped at me.
“Oh, Arthur?” I called after him. “What happened to that poor little puppy in the end?”