Be Strong & Curvaceous (7 page)

“I ordered this for you.” He actually looked hurt, and my heart melted. I’d only just gotten him to see me. It was a little too much to expect that he’d listen to me as well.

“Thank you. But I don’t drink.”

“Oh, come on, Carmen. Grow up.”

“My name is Carly.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. You’re in my chem class.”

And you’ve borrowed my notes a hundred times
. “Yes.”

“You look different.” Again that smile, deep and dark. “Nice.”

“Th-thanks,” I managed, blinking in the warmth of those eyes. Who cared about drinks? Was this really happening?
Breathe. Take a breath
.

The table was tiny and he sat close enough that I could smell his cologne. Spice and a hint of musk and lemon. I had no idea what it was called, but I was going to haunt the men’s counter at Nordstrom until I found out.

His gaze panned sideways. “So. Mac. What brings you to our town?”

“I’m an exchange student.” Did she have to lock eyes with him like that? Couldn’t she just make small talk like a normal person? “I’m here for the term, and then I’m going to the back of beyond for the summer. Maybe. ”

“The back of where?” Callum asked.

“Someplace called Alberta. Apparently the Prince of Wales owned a ranch there in the thirties and they want me to work with the horses. Take people on riding tours. That sort of thing.”

“Sounds wonderful,” I said. How did people find jobs like this? I’d been doing searches daily on Craigslist and hadn’t turned up anything I could do outside of class time.

“I don’t know,” she said, dabbing her orange slice into her Cosmo. “My father set it up. I may just bag it and volunteer on the
Lady Washington
for a couple of months. Or go to Provence and do
plein air
watercolors. It’s impossible to make a decision.”

“I dunno, working on a ranch sounds cool.” Brett’s eyes were filled with interest. “What do you know about horses?”

She shrugged. “I have a couple at home in Scotland.”

“There you go. Horses instead of Provence or the sailing ship. Easy choice.”

“I’d go to Paris,” I heard myself say. “I’d intern at Dior, picking up fabric scraps just to work in haute couture.”

“Oat couture?” Callum pretended to look puzzled. “What’s that? Food for high-class horses?”

Mac rolled her eyes while I hung onto my opportunity to speak. “I’m into design, and Paris and New York would be my top two choices. That, or trying to get into one of the studios in L.A. Movie costuming would be really cool.”

“So what do you think of Spencer so far?” Brett asked Mac.

I felt the animation fade from my face as I realized he was more interested in hearing about Mac than me. Okay. Fine. Clearly I needed to find a topic that would catch a guy’s attention. What had I been thinking? Of course clothes and fabrics weren’t going to do that.

“It’s all right,” Mac answered. “Different.”

“Different how?” Brett wanted to know.

She shrugged. “Chemistry is all right. But I had some of the maths last year. And I suppose English is English wherever you go.”

“What’s your best subject?” I asked. If they wanted to make small talk, I could do that.

“None of them.” The boys laughed as if that was funny.

I felt like shrinking away. Why couldn’t I be like Gillian, who could gather an audience just by opening her mouth? Or like Shani, who said whatever she wanted to and couldn’t care less what people thought? She’d make short work of this crowd, that was for sure. “You people need to get a
life
,” she’d say. Something I’d never have the guts to do, even if it was the truth.

“Everyone enjoying themselves?” I looked up as Vanessa hooked an empty stool with her high-heeled foot and slid it over. The girl who’d been sitting there was going to have to fend for herself when she got back from the bathroom.

“Sure.” Callum hitched his own stool to the right a couple inches so she could join us.

“Lovely,” Mac agreed. “I now have a new favorite drink.” She toasted Vanessa with her Cosmo and took a sip.

“Whose is this?” Vanessa tapped the second one with a fingernail.

“Hers, but she doesn’t want it,” Brett said with a glance at me.

“What’s the matter with it?”

I couldn’t remember Vanessa ever looking at me directly before. It’s not the kind of thing you want to encourage. I shrugged. “I don’t drink.”

“Poor you.” Vanessa waved at the waiter and handed it to him. “I’ll have one of these, please. So, Lad—er, Mac, I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“Yes, I’m sure we’re going to be the best of friends.”

Vanessa shot her a glance. Even I couldn’t tell if Mac was being sarcastic or sincere. Some people just have a gift.

“I think so, too. Why don’t you come with us this weekend? I can brief you on the high points then. We’re all going up to Napa to stay at Brett’s winery.”

Brett looked down modestly. “It’s not really mine. It’s the family’s. But it’d be great if you came. It’ll be fun.”

If those puppy-dog eyes had been focused on me, I’d have promised him the moon and anything else he wanted.

But they weren’t.

Mac smiled back. “What do you do there? Tasting?”

Vanessa nodded. “That, and shopping, and the boys take their dirt bikes up into the hills.”

“Really?” For the first time, Mac looked interested. “That sounds like fun.”

“The shopping in Napa isn’t
that
great,” Vanessa began, but Mac cut her off.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant the dirt bikes. What kind do you have?”

“Honda five hundreds.”

“I’ve not ridden anything bigger than a two-fifty.”

“I’ll be happy to show you, then.” Brett’s smile would have melted chocolate.

Mac’s would have made it boil.

I just sat there. I doubted I’d ever be warm again.

Chapter 6

Y
OU’D BETTER WATCH YOURSELF.”

Mac hung the Prada—carefully, I was relieved to note—in her wardrobe. I put away my own dress and hung Gillian’s jacket from the top drawer handle of my dresser, ready to give to her in the morning. We’d made it back just in time for lights-out, and I didn’t want to risk running into Ms. Tobin in the corridor or on the stairs.

“What do you mean?”

She sat on the bed and I could feel her gaze under my skin, seeing right into my mind. “You look at him and it shows all over your face. He doesn’t know, but you can bet Vanessa does.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mumbled as I dashed into the bathroom to hide my burning face.

“All right,” she called equably. “Have it your way.”

“It doesn’t matter anyhow.” The words forced themselves out, despite the fact that they had to contend with a toothbrush and toothpaste. “When he looks at the two of us, all he sees is you.”

“Do you think so?”

She leaned on the bathroom door jamb as I bent over the sink to spit. “I know so. And since you brought it up, so does Vanessa.”

“I thought they’d broken up.”

“They have. But that doesn’t mean she’ll let the competition have him.” I rinsed my mouth. “At least your chances are better than mine.”

“What makes you say that?”

I shrugged. She was the daughter of an earl. I was a scholarship student. She wore Prada. I wore last season’s sale finds or whatever I could borrow. If she couldn’t figure that out, she was a lot slower on the uptake than I’d given her credit for.

“Of the two of us, I’d say you’re more his type,” she mused. “I mean, look at me. Hair like a dynamite explosion. Eyebrows I have to color in every day with an eyebrow pencil. Freckles. Now look at you. Gorgeous hair, a bum that would make Shakira jealous, and skin that behaves. I mean, seriously.”

Heat scalded my face. “That’s the problem. He doesn’t look at me. Or if he does, he sees a disembodied hand holding out chemistry notes and that’s it.” I pushed past her. “I don’t want to talk about it. If he likes you, you’re welcome to him.”

“Thanks so much. But you should do something about that.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. A girl like you should have more self-confidence.”

“A girl like me.” What did that mean? “I have lots of self-confidence.”

“What you have is this uncanny ability to disappear in full view.”

“Huh?” In spite of myself, I came back to stand in the bathroom doorway.

“I saw it.” She got her toothpaste out of her side of the cabinet and began to brush her teeth. “One minute you were there, and the next you weren’t. So Brett and Callum spent the rest of the evening talking to me. You only came back into view when you left. And by the way, no thanks for ditching me. I was forced to walk back with Vanessa and Dani whats-her-name.”

“You guys were having a good time.” I could hardly string the words together, I was so taken aback by what she thought of me. “Besides, Brett would have walked you back, I’m sure.”

She finished brushing and reached for a towel. “Right. Well. He didn’t. He’s a day student, so he went rabbiting off up the hill with Callum, and somehow I wound up with The Talbot and Dani. Goodness, that cousin of hers is tiresome. I’m never buying another album again.”

I had to smile. “I don’t think it’s the cousin who’s tiresome. I think it’s the endless repetition of stories about her that is. Poor Dani. She needs a life so bad.”

“Well, I’m not a charity. She’ll have to find a life on her own. And we were talking about you.”

“No, we weren’t.” I climbed into bed. “Subject closed. Maybe my friends can say things like that to me”—in fact, they probably would— “but I’m not ready to hear them from anyone else.”

“So I’m not your friend, then.”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I didn’t say anything.

She waited a second, then turned on her iPod, settling into her pillows with her earphones in. She didn’t look at me again.

I climbed into bed and flipped open my laptop, looking for the chapter in Romans I’d been reading the night before. Looking for a little comfort. A little reassurance.

Because something in the silence told me I’d just made a very big mistake.

MAC DIDN’T WASTE a single word on me the next day.

You’d think I’d have been happy about this, but to be honest, it only made the tension in our room ratchet higher. How awkward was it to be sitting at the desk on the other side of the room and hear her make a muffled growl and stab another e-mail into nonexistence, knowing that I should ask, “Everything okay?” knowing at the same time that she’d just snap at me or, worse, ignore me.

Apparently my window of forgiveness had closed. The window between Mac and Vanessa, though, was wide open. Vanessa seemed to be listening to that guy who once said you should keep your friends close but your enemies closer, because she and Mac had become BFFs overnight. I had no idea how Mac could do this without seeing through her the way she saw through me, but there you were. The worst of it came that night.

I was packing my overnight bag before Enrique and the limo arrived to get me at six. The door burst open and Mac and Vanessa came in on a rush of perfume and chatter.

“I have no idea what to wear,” Mac wailed, throwing open the door of her wardrobe. “Look at this. Not one winery-friendly outfit.”

“It’s not like you’re going to be stomping grapes yourself.” Vanessa began to pull things off their hangers. “This is good. And this. Ooh, cute capris. Those, too. And this and this in case we have a party.”

Mac got one of the Vuittons out from under her bed and began stuffing clothes into it. Her trunk and the bigger suitcases had gone into storage downstairs. I assumed there would be someone to press her things when they got to Napa, or maybe Mac just didn’t care.

Vanessa tossed a Hermès scarf around her shoulders and glanced into the mirror on the back of the door to see how it went with her frothy silk BCBG sundress. Then she looked over at me and saw the case on the bed. “Oh, I didn’t realize you were planning to come, too.”

“She’s not.” Makeup rattled against the counter in the bathroom. “At least, I don’t think so.” Mac stuck her head out the bathroom door. “Are you?”

It was the first thing she’d said directly to me since yesterday. That must have been what startled me into replying. “Of course not.”

Vanessa raised an eyebrow at my tone. “Something better to do?”

“My father sends a car every Friday to take me home.”

“But Brett invited you, didn’t he?”

“I think he invited Mac. I hope you have a great time.”

“I’m sure I shall.” Mac came out of the bathroom with her toiletries case and tucked it into the bag, then zipped it shut. “All ready.”

But Vanessa didn’t seem to be in any hurry. “I’m just about positive Brett wanted little Carly here to come. How could you want to go home—wherever that is—instead of spending the weekend with all your friends?”

“She’s made it clear who her friends are, Van.” Mac picked up the bag. “Ready?”

“Has she?” Vanessa hadn’t taken her eyes off me.
Back away from the claws and teeth. Slowly.
Problem was, there was nowhere to go except out the window, and we were three floors up. Then she answered her own question. “Oh, I remember now. You hang out with those so-called Christian people, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said quietly.
Come on, Enrique. Please don’t be late, today of all days
.

“They’re too good for the likes of us,” I thought Mac said, but I couldn’t be sure because she was out in the corridor. What had happened to the girl who tried to encourage me about my looks? And what was this about being too good for her because we were Christians? I’d never once said or done anything to make her feel that way.

Right?

You snubbed her, dummy. Now it’s payback time
.

Vanessa looked into my overnight case. “How old
is
this?” She held up my silk polka-dot dress, which I’d packed in case Papa took us out to dinner. “This is from, what, the spring before last?”

“It’s an old favorite.” I resisted the urge to tear it out of her hand and fling it back into the bag. “It’s comfortable, so I keep it around.”

“Really.” Again that heavy-lidded, penetrating stare. “I’ll bet you got it on sale somewhere recently. For an old favorite, it’s hardly been worn.”