The It Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar Read Free Book Online Page B

other.
    They’re both going to Marymount’s office to get a room transfer.
    BennyCunningham: All ’cause of Tinsley, huh? Where is she, anyway?
    Does anyone even know?
    CelineColista: I heard she’s dating some guy from the Raves and they’re on tour in Europe.
    BennyCunningham: I thought that new girl from the city was dating the Raves… .
    CelineColista: Which one!?
    BennyCunningham: All of them. The whole band.
    CelineColista: Gross. Where’d you hear that?
    BennyCunningham: I have my sources.

7
CHAPEL IS NOT AN APPROPRIATE PLACE
FOR YOUNG OWLS TO SOCIALIZE .

    “Well, look who’s here!” Jenny stood outside Richards’ lounge, reapplying her translucent pink lip gloss in the large, smoky, café-style hall mirror. She was wearing a scoop-neck, emerald-green APC top that was getting a teensy bit stretched out by her cumbersome breasts, and the highest tan leather heels she owned. She whipped her head around to find Heath Ferro, the boy from earlier with the BlackBerry and the great abs, standing in the doorway, an unlit cigarette in his hand. Tiny beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his eyes had a glassy, tipsy look.
    “Hey,” she answered brightly, wiping her hands off on the only pair of Seven jeans she owned, which happened to make her legs look slightly longer than tree-stump length. “Is the party in there?”
    “Indeed it is,” Heath replied gallantly. He looped his arm around Jenny’s waist.
    Jenny smiled. Heath seemed really happy to see her. And she was happy to see him, too. He wore a light blue untucked oxford shirt, army fatigue shorts, and no shoes. She liked his broad shoulders and floppy, I’m-a-prep-school-boy-through-and-through haircut.
Sort of the way Hamlet would look if he were a real person
, Jenny thought. All that princely Danish breeding, plus a flicker of wildness in his eye.
    And Jenny liked wildness.
    Heath pushed the heavy wooden lounge door open for her. Everyone froze. “It’s cool,” Heath announced, his hand brushing accidentally against Jenny’s boob. “It’s just us.”
    Jenny glanced around the room. Her first Waverly party! She could have been stuck back in the dorm playing checkers with Yvonne, but instead she was breaking the rules on her very first night at boarding school! She could immediately tell that it had a different feel than the parties she’d gone to back in New York—no one was fooling around in the guest bed-room and they didn’t have to worry about parents arriving back early from Paris. Someone had dimmed the lights and lit a bunch of candles. Everyone looked like they’d just stepped out of a J.Crew catalog—they were all so
pretty
, with perfect, glowing skin and healthy, athletic bodies that came from mandatory year-round sports. Each person was more beautiful than the last. Everyone was holding large insulated coffee mugs, which was a little puzzling, until Jenny realized that the mugs contained alcohol.
    Across the room, Brett sat on the scratched leather couch with Callie, their friend Benny Cunningham, and Sage Francis, who had been regaling them with tales of the fabulous African safari she’d gone on this summer. It didn’t sound so great to Brett. Flies, malaria, and smelly wild animals.
Fun!
She gazed toward the doorway, saw her new roommate waltz in on Heath Ferro’s arm, and immediately elbowed Benny hard in the ribs.
    Benny was from Main Line Philadelphia, stood to inherit $200 million, and was pretty in a horsey way: tall and lithe, with long, thick brown hair and enormous brown eyes. She was a prude and always blamed it on where she grew up, as if Philly were a different planet where the girls drank whole milk and saved themselves for marriage. Benny always quoted a Diane Keaton line from an old Woody Allen movie,
Manhattan
: “I’m from Philadelphia, and we don’t do things like that
there
.” She didn’t quite realize that the line was meant to be a joke. Despite her prudishness, she was also a major gossip