“It’s fine. I didn’t say a word,” Jenny said. “What do you usually rate?”
“Normally I sleep on a cot in the monsters’ room so I’m not in Victoria’s way. I got upgraded to the library because of you two, I guess. The room doesn’t matter. We’ll only be here to sleep,” Kate said.
Kate set about making good on that promise. They changed out of their travel clothes and did their makeup in the hall bathroom, then hailed another cab. When they reached their destination, Jenny was careful to hop out first, and Kate opened her wallet without batting an eye. They cut a long line, and a bouncer looked them up and down and nodded, removing the velvet rope to let them into the nightclub of the moment, not bothering to check their IDs.
“Your new hair got us in!” Kate shouted to Aubrey over the din as they entered the dark club. Jenny thought that was generous. Kate got them in—something in her looks, her outfit, her attitude. Anybody who believed otherwise wasn’t paying attention.
“Blondes have more fun,” Aubrey said, smiling broadly.
They threaded through the packed crowd, looking for the friends Kate had arranged to meet up with. Music pulsated. Young, fabulous-looking people, dressed in the hottest fashions, danced and swayed and made out under flashing colored lights. Everywhere she looked, Jenny saw waiters carrying trays weighed down with lavish cocktails and oversize bottles of champagne.
“How much do the drinks cost?” Jenny worried aloud, but neither of them heard her.
Kate’s friends were already ensconced in a large elevated booth overlooking the dance floor. Kate’s on-again-off-again boyfriend Griff Rothenberg sat next to a glamorous brunette, who leaned toward him and giggled suggestively while he ignored her, his eyes searching the dance floor restlessly. He spotted Kate, and his face lit up with wild desperation.
As the girls mounted the steps to the booth, a security guard stepped in front of them.
Griff sprang to his feet. “She’s with us,” he said.
The guard turned. “Which one?” he asked.
“Oh. All of them,” Griff replied, and Jenny realized he hadn’t even noticed her, or Aubrey either, so preoccupied was he with Kate.
Griff sat down and slid over to make room, and the three girls crammed into the booth, thigh-to-thigh. Kate’s friends were the most uniformly beautiful people Jenny had ever seen, from Griff with his fine profile and head of sun-streaked hair, to the glamorous brunette, to a waif with mile-long eyelashes who looked like Edie Sedgwick and turned out to be the daughter of a famous billionaire. (The bodyguard who’d stopped them belonged to her.) Jenny recognized a few people from Carlisle, from the frat parties Kate took them to, but most were strangers—Kate’s friends from Odell, or kids from her set who went to other schools but hung out whenever they were back in New York at the same time. Every single one of them was thrilled to see Kate, and completely uninterested in Aubrey and Jenny after saying a cold hello when Kate introduced them. Jenny wondered why she was there, and thought about leaving. The music was too loud, plus she was worried they’d get arrested for underage drinking, which would put her scholarship money at risk. She tapped Kate on the shoulder and said she might leave. Kate snorted and handed her a Cosmopolitan—the first of many—which was tart and delicious and extremely strong, then shouted, “Lighten up and come dance!” She pulled Jenny down the steps into the middle of a gyrating mob. Disco lights flickered over them, and the bass line of the music throbbed deep in Jenny’s head. Kate twirled and flipped her hair wildly, then did an Egyptian dance that made Jenny laugh.
Nobody alive could resist Kate in party mode. Why even try?
Jenny swayed to the music and grabbed another drink from a passing tray. As the alcohol hit her bloodstream, she thought, Lucas who? Kate was right: Jenny should lighten up and enjoy life. Jenny was the one who’d broken things off with him, though she’d regretted it terribly the second she did it. She wanted to experience college without the pressure of a—let’s face it—precarious relationship. Well, this was experiencing college. Kate was her entrée into the high life, and she should appreciate that, not get mad at Kate for being Kate, for attracting boys, which was something she couldn’t help doing. Maybe if Jenny stopped sulking and started paying attention, Kate’s magic would rub off on her.
Hours passed in a drunken fog. Kate got into a loud argument with Griff, who left in a huff, though to Jenny’s great relief, not before making a big show of picking up the tab. The sun was rising as the three girls raced back up Park Avenue in a cab, the green lights falling into place one after the other, hypnotically. Kate had passed out, drooling, her head lolling back against the slimy vinyl seat. The world swam around Jenny in a wonderful way. She’d never been so drunk before, and she finally got why people liked it. Letting yourself lose control, allowing yourself to forget painful things and just have some mindless fun—people did that for a reason. Kate did that all the time, and she didn’t suffer for it.
Not everybody was as good at avoiding consequences, however. Jenny’s eyes focused on Aubrey, sitting in the middle looking pale and wasted. The deep purple shadows ringing her roommate’s eyes worried Jenny.
“Hey,” Jenny said, clutching Aubrey’s hand as the taxi hit a bump. “Are you okay?”
“Super drunk, but yeah,” Aubrey said.
“You had fun?” Jenny asked. Her voice was hoarse from all the shouting she’d done in the club. She sounded like Kate, with that throaty-sexy thing that was part of Kate’s mystique.
“Yeah, totally,” Aubrey said with a sloshed-looking grin. “This guy Elliot, who’s a friend of Griff’s from—somewhere? He was into me. He asked me to have sex in the bathroom.”
Jenny laughed. “Was he into you, or did he just want to get laid?”
“No, he was into me. I mean, there were other girls who would’ve done it with him. But even after I said no, he kept talking to me. Kate was right. It’s the blond hair. That and I lost a few pounds.”
“Aubrey, you don’t need to lose weight,” Jenny said, but Aubrey didn’t reply. “I’m glad you didn’t do it with him. Not that I thought you would.”
“I was worried he’d kiss and tell. I don’t want Griff to think I’m a slut.”
“Who cares what Griff thinks?”
“I don’t want to get talked about.”
“Right, that makes sense. You don’t want to get a disease, either.”
“Oh, Elliot’s friends with Griff and Kate, I’m sure he doesn’t have a disease. Anyway, Kate thinks I need to sleep with someone and get the whole virginity thing out of the way, you know? She thinks it’s holding me back.”
“Holding you back how?”
“Like, socially. I see her point, I just haven’t found the right situation yet.”
“I’ll say. Losing your virginity in a nightclub bathroom? You can do better than that. Wait for a guy who treats you right.”