CHAPTER 1 #3
Growing up at the country club taught me one thing: everything was about moves and countermoves.
The place ran like a game of chess, with careful strategies and players who smiled sweetly while plotting three moves ahead.
Nothing happened by accident. Every decision had to be thought through.
Analyzed. Risk weighed carefully against reward, because one reckless move could cost you the entire game.
I was the one plotting three moves ahead now. Dad not coming shifted my strategy. Maybe in a way that might even work better in my favor. Introducing myself to Dr. Pembleton—and regretfully explaining that my father wasn’t well enough to attend—might be the checkmate I needed.
Maybe. If I moved my pawns right.
“Alice!” a woman, Ms. Jennings, called to us as soon as we stepped into Alderton-Du Ponte’s foyer.
Since it was warmer out, there was no one at the coat check station to take jackets, but Ms. Jennings still lingered.
She smelled faintly like cigarettes and Chanel no.
5, her blonde hair coming undone from its manicured updo.
“Dear, I’ve been waiting for you! It’s just dreadful in there. No one’s had near enough to drink yet.”
Mom gave a light laugh. “It’s Senior Night. Hopefully, they save the drinking for their own homes so the kids can have their spotlight.”
“Or just until after the ceremony,” I said, to which Ms. Jennings shot me a wink.
She peered around us, as if someone would magically spawn over Jamie’s shoulder. “David didn’t come with you?”
And Mom’s face fell, though she tried to hide it. “Oh. No. He wasn’t feeling well enough.”
A wave of awkwardness washed over our little group. Ms. Jennings was close enough with Mom that she didn’t really buy the lie. She still gave a sympathetic nod.
“The Pembletons,” I said, drawing Ms. Jennings’s eyes back to mine. I schooled my features into something more gossiping, less desperate. “Are they here?”
Ms. Jennings’s eyes brightened. “They are. And they brought their son—he’s actually kind of cute! Thin thing. A little on the nerdy side, but—” She broke off as she glanced at Jamie. “Well. Nerdy is okay, isn’t it?”
Jamie awkwardly tapped his book against his side.
Son. Son? Dr. Pembleton had a son? For a moment, I felt unsteady, as if my heels were suddenly too tall. “How old is he?” Would he aid in my plan or throw a wrench in it?
“Ah, he graduated high school last year, I think?” Ms. Jennings’s expression turned knowing. “Why do you ask, dear?”
Dr. Pembleton had a son close to my age. Which meant another door opened, if I wanted to walk through it. My strategy shifted in real time, anticipation whipping through me.
“Maybe you could introduce me,” I said to Ms. Jennings, even though I wasn’t exactly sure that would be the best idea.
It could go one of two ways. She could be classy about it, praising me without making it seem like I’d asked her to.
Or, with her flair for dramatics, it could be nothing short of disastrous.
But that, too, could play in my favor. Decisions, decisions.
Ms. Jennings caught at my hand, tone turning conspiratorial. “I have heard they’re looking for their eccentric son someone to settle down with.”
C-O-N-S-P-I-R-A-T-O-R-I-A-L, I spelled out in my head.
And then, almost like something just occurred to her as she looked at my throat, Ms. Jennings paled. She dropped my hand, and while still looking at me, she spoke to Mom. “Oh. A-Alice. Eleanor. I did forget to mention—”
“She can’t go in yet!” a new voice called, this time from the direction of the hallway that led to the ballroom. “Not until the twins get the Daisy seal of approval.”
The frantic clatter of heels filled the air, and a petite girl wearing a deep red gown hurried toward us. Immediately, the letters desperate to form a word in my mind scattered, once more turning fallen sand. Daisy Carmichael. My best friend.
The slit in her dress would’ve been scandalous had Daisy not been short.
And I meant short. Five-foot-three with lifts, a questionable five-foot-one without them.
Her vibrant red hair was loosely twisted up and out of her face, with a few pieces escaping.
She didn’t have much on in terms of makeup either, her own freckles shining like beautiful little stars on her skin.
Ms. Jennings began drawing Mom toward the hallway, eyes still shifting. Mom exchanged a look with me—don’t be long—to which I nodded. Got it.
Daisy looked me over thoroughly, eyes starting from my feet and scaling their way up. I held perfectly still, imagining my features as she scanned them. “As expected,” she said with a bob of her head. “The prettiest girl at Alderton-Du Ponte looks her part.”
I wanted to impress everyone else, but when Daisy said it, I couldn’t help but snort. “Shut up,” I said lightly, and she winked.
She turned to Jamie, going through the same scrutinizing path she’d done with me, and her face fell when she reached his neck. “James.”
Jamie didn’t flinch. “Daze.”
“Sometimes I think you do it on purpose,” she grumbled as she stepped up to him.
Even in heels, her head only came up an inch below his shoulders, but that was also partly because Jamie was freakishly tall.
I’d been taller than him for his whole life when we were kids.
During sophomore year, he’d shot up to a wobbly six-four.
He still moved awkwardly sometimes, like he hadn’t quite gotten used to his long limbs.
“Come here. You can’t go in looking like someone tried to strangle you with your necktie. ”
James tried to lean away. “I’m going to take it off after the stage, anyway—”
Daisy grabbed the back of Jamie’s neck, using all her might to keep him. She forced his brown eyes to meet her green ones. “Stay.”
And Jamie, heeling to her command, froze.
Daisy let go of him to undo his tie, tipping her head at me. “Where have y’all been? I thought you were going to miss the ceremony entirely. I brought confetti.”
“Confetti?” Jamie asked, sounding mildly horrified.
“Yep. In my bag.” Daisy smiled up at him. “James Brighton, attending New York University, majoring in Literary Studies. Eleanor Brighton, attending Mullhound College, majoring in Political Science with a focus on pre-law.”
I stared at Jamie, thinking this is the perfect time to tell her about Columbia, but he didn’t hear my mental note. His eyes bounced around Daisy’s face, too chicken to open his mouth.
To Daisy, I said, “Mom had to stop for gas.”
“Where’s your dad?”
I gave her a look.
And she read it immediately. “Right. Well.” Daisy grunted as she tried to tear apart the knot Jamie had tied. “You have to know this isn’t how you tie a tie.”
Jamie looked down at her wordlessly.
“Crouch, Jolly Green. My arms are getting tired.”
Jamie shuffled his feet, spreading his legs, bringing him down several inches to give Daisy better access.
“So, I’ve seen a few guys I don’t recognize here tonight,” Daisy told me. “Guys who could be a potential Mr. ASMR, I’d say. You two didn’t agree on some sort of meeting place?”
We hadn’t. “He said he’d come up to me.”
“You are so dumb,” Jamie muttered under his breath.
I thumped his shoulder. “Profound. I’m surprised you didn’t try to call me stupid in some Shakespearean way.”
“If I had, you wouldn’t have understood it.”
I punched his shoulder harder.
“There’s this blond guy,” Daisy cut in. “Super hot. Lydia was dancing with him.”
“Carter Pembleton?”
She shook her head. “She was dancing with the blond guy before the Pembletons showed up. Then she dropped him like a hot potato.” She shrugged. “I didn’t catch his name. It seemed like they knew each other.”
Instinctively, I reached for my necklace. “I don’t know any blond guys.”
Jamie lowered himself another inch. “Ms. Jennings said Carter’s here looking for a future Mrs. Pembleton.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me, with the way all the girls are acting. You should’ve seen the levels of sabotage Lydia was going to. She spilled her drink on Marliene.”
I gasped. “No.”
“Yep.” Daisy finally freed the tie of the knot and began kneading out the wrinkles it’d created. Only Jamie’s eyes moved, tracing Daisy’s expression as she spoke. “Everyone thought it was an accident, but I saw her. If she tripped over anything, it was Ms. Nancy’s ghost.”
I could imagine the scene in my head. Lydia, tracking her fingers through the condensation on her glass, staring at Marliene. Or glaring at Marliene. Letting the anger boil up. Then over.
The girls at Alderton-Du Ponte didn’t really bow down to one leader—that was sort of impossible, because everyone thought that they should be the queen bee. Almost everyone was not-so-secretly out for each other’s throats, looking for a weak spot to stab.
“That’s the thing about Lydia,” I said to no one in particular. “She doesn’t think things through.”
Lydia didn’t understand the idea of strategy, of moves and countermoves. One of the reasons I was better.
And one of the reasons she would try to copy me in everything I did.
“Carter Pembleton.” Daisy’s voice turned knowing. Calculated. “He shakes up Operation Dr. Pembleton a bit, but could work in your favor if you charm him. Ask him to introduce you, and flatter them all.”
That’d been the path I’d been considering. “I’m sure Lydia’s already tried.”
“You are not Lydia.” Daisy finished Jamie’s tie off and smoothed her hand down his chest, flattening it to his shirt. Her eyes were confident on me. “You’re better at the game of it all.”
I looked at my best friend, feeling her surety wash over me. I was not Lydia. I did not move impulsively. I was better. B-E-T-T-E-R.