The It Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar Read Free Book Online

everyone flocks around.”
    “Flocks around?” Jenny’s heart sped up.
    “You know, the ones always giving parties, always with the cutest boys …” Yvonne giggled and turned to Jenny. “Not to say there aren’t cute boys in the jazz ensemble. Do you play any instruments? The jazz ensemble is looking for some people.”
    “Um, no, sorry. But about Callie and Brett—they’re, like, really popular?”
    “Yeah.” Yvonne nodded, sidestepping a maroon pinnie that someone had left on the field. “There’s this little crowd of kids that everyone on campus watches.”
    Oh, really?
Jenny thought excitedly. She touched the preppy little alligator on her shirt, pleased that she’d dressed so nicely to meet her supercool new roomies. Then she noticed a tall, brunette boy with matted hair, as if he’d just taken off a hat, walking across the green. He carried a big wooden easel over his shoulder, and his jeans were spattered with paint. Jenny’s breath caught in her throat.
    “Who is that?” She pointed.
    “Him?” Yvonne muttered. “That’s Easy Walsh.”
    “Easy. What a great name,” Jenny mused. “Is he an artist or something?”
    “I don’t know him very well, except that he’s always getting into trouble.” Yvonne crinkled her nose. “Smoking,” she whispered. For a girl who didn’t like to gossip, she certainly knew a lot.
    The boy entered the double doors of the library. Jenny suddenly wished she could ditch her bags—and Yvonne—and follow him.
    Instead, she followed Yvonne into the Dumbarton dorm. It was a quaint, two-story brick building that had its name inscribed in brownstone above a large, white, wooden farm-house door. They ducked through a narrow passage and up a set of granite stairs. One of the steps was inscribed 1832, RHINECLIFF , NY. The dorm was even older than Jenny’s family’s crumbling rent-stabilized apartment building on the Upper West Side.
    All around her, girls were moving their things in. Rooney blared out of one room, No Doubt out of another. She saw a short Asian girl with pigtails unrolling a giant poster of Jennifer Garner as Elektra, kicking someone’s ass.
    They approached door 303, which was slightly ajar.
    “... and I’m licking you all over, and—wait. No. Jesus, Jeremiah, you don’t have your pants off yet. Stay with me here!”
    “Uh, hello?” Yvonne said, pushing the door open a little.
    A striking-looking older girl with blazing red hair sprang up from one of the room’s twin beds. “I have to go,” she blurted into her phone and flipped it shut. She glanced for a second at Yvonne and then fixed her piercing eyes on Jenny.
    “Ermm, this is Jenny Humphrey,” Yvonne explained. “She’s your new roommate. She’s from … where was it?”
    “Constance Billard,” Jenny answered, sticking out her hand. “In New York City.”
    “Oh. Cool. Brett Messerschmidt.” The girl wore a starched, short-sleeved tailored white blouse that Jenny had seen in the windows of the Soho Scoop store all summer and those knee-length pegged shorts only the hippest kids in Williamsburg were wearing.
    Jenny walked into the room, which was bigger and somehow plainer than she’d imagined. The windows were huge and beautiful, overlooking the river, while the beds and furniture were just … old. She studied her new roommate out of the corner of her eye. Her blazing red hair was cut in a severe bob that ended right at her chin. One ear had about seven tiny gold hoop earrings, and she wore a gold diamond Cartier tank watch on her left wrist. She was sexy and sophisticated, and very … familiar. Then Jenny remembered: there was a picture of Brett on Waverly’s Web site. She was the Girl Hovering Over Her Books Looking Studious. Or at least that’s what Jenny had called her.
    “What about Callie?” Yvonne looked around the room. “Is she here yet?”
    “Shower,” Brett muttered.
    Yvonne blinked furiously, then mumbled something about a flute lesson and fled the