Before she knew it, she’d arrived at the address Harper had given her. It was a large, Gothic-style brick house with gorgeous leaded-glass windows, manicured bushes, and an American flag protruding from the front porch. Spencer walked up the stone path and rang the front doorbell, which let out a few impressive bongs to the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. There were footsteps, and then the door flung open. Harper appeared, looking fresh-faced in a purple top with dolman sleeves, skinny jeans, and leather ankle boots. A navy cashmere blanket was draped around her shoulders.
“Welcome!” she cried. “You made it!”
She ushered Spencer inside. The foyer was drafty and smelled like a mixture of leather and jasmine perfume. Blond-wood beams crisscrossed the ceiling, and stained-glass windows decorated the walls. Spencer could just picture past Pulitzer Prize winners standing by the roaring fire or sitting in the wing chairs, having important discussions.
“This is amazing,” she gushed.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Harper said nonchalantly. “I have to apologize in advance, though. My bedroom upstairs is really drafty and kind of small.”
“I don’t mind,” Spencer said quickly. She’d sleep in the Ivy broom closet if she had to.
Harper took Spencer’s hand. “Let me introduce you to the others.”
She led Spencer through a long hallway lit by chrome and glass lamps to a larger, more modern room in the back of the house. A wall of windows faced the woods behind the property. Another boasted a flat-screen TV, bookshelves, and a large papier-maché statue of the Princeton tiger mascot. Blanket-swaddled girls lounged on suede couches, tapping their iPads and laptops, reading books, or, in one blond girl’s case, playing an acoustic guitar. Spencer was almost positive the Asian girl fiddling with her phone had won the Golden Orchid a few years ago. The girl in bottle-green jeans by the window was a dead ringer for Jessie Pratt, the girl who’d gotten her memoir about living in Africa with her grandparents published at sixteen.
“Guys, this is Spencer Hastings,” Harper said, and everyone looked up. She pointed at the girls around the room. “Spencer, this is Joanna, Marilyn, Jade, Callie, Willow, Quinn, and Jessie.” So it was Jessie Pratt. Everyone waved happily. “Spencer is an early admit,” Harper went on. “I met her at the dinner I hosted, and I think she’s a natural for us.”
“Nice to meet you.” Quinn set aside her acoustic guitar and shook Spencer’s hand. Her fingernails were painted a preppy pink. “Any friend of Harper’s is a friend of ours.”
“I like your guitar,” Spencer said, nodding at it. “It’s a Martin, right?”
Quinn raised her perfectly plucked blond eyebrows. “You know guitars?”
Spencer shrugged. Her dad was into guitars, and she used to go to some of the vintage expos with him, searching for new ones to add to his collection.
“How do you like that?” Jessie Pratt said, pointing to the book Spencer was carrying. It was a copy of V. by Thomas Pynchon.
“Oh, it’s great,” Spencer said, even though she didn’t really get the gist of the story. The writer barely used any punctuation.
“We’d better get going.” Harper grabbed a sweater from the back of one of the couches.
“Going where?” Spencer asked.
Harper gave her a cryptic smile. “A party at this guy Daniel’s house. You’ll love him.”
“Awesome.” Spencer dropped her duffel by the front door, waited as Harper, Jessie, and Quinn put on their coats and gathered their purses, and followed them into the cold night. They trudged down the snowy sidewalks, careful not to slip on patches of ice. The moon was out, and aside from a few cars swishing down the main avenue, the world was very quiet and still. Spencer eyed a hulking SUV parked at the curb, its motor running, but couldn’t see its driver through the tinted glass.
They turned up the walkway of a big, Dutch-style mansion on the corner. Bass thundered from inside, and shadows passed in front of the brightly lit windows. There were a bunch of cars parked in the driveway, and more kids were making their way up the front lawn. The front door was open, and a handsome guy with thick eyebrows and longish chestnut-colored hair stood in the foyer, the official welcoming committee.
“Greetings, ladies,” he said in a smarmy voice, sipping from a plastic cup.
“Hey, Daniel,” Harper gave him an air kiss. “This is Spencer. She’s going to be a freshman next fall.”
“Ah, new blood.” Daniel looked Spencer up and down. “I approve.”
Spencer followed Harper into the house. The living room was packed, and a 50 Cent track blared loudly. The guys were drinking Scotch; the girls were in dresses and heels and wore diamond studs in their ears. In the corner, people were sitting around a hookah, bluish smoke wafting around their heads.
When someone grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him, Spencer figured it was a hot guy—there were so many of them to choose from. But then she looked at the guy’s droopy eyes, dirty dreadlocks, crooked smile, and tie-dyed Grateful Dead 1986 Tour T-shirt.
“Spencer, right?” The guy’s smile stretched wide. “You missed an amazing time the other night. The Occupy Philly rally rocked.”
Spencer squinted at him. “Excuse me?”
“It’s Reefer.” The guy raised his arms in a ta-da! gesture. “From the Princeton dinner last week. Remember?”