Secret Society Read Free Page B

system. Sometimes Nick didn’tknow what he would do without his friend.
    Nick turned around quickly, his blood pumping, ready to troubleshoot the next problem. Amir and Costa had a reputation for romancing their female clientele as the evening wore on, which meant that their attention often wandered. Nick wanted to make sure that his party went down well, that it wasn’t one of those lame club nights that sucked because the bar ran out of ice or a speaker blew out. As he turned around, he bumped into someone, a slightly awkward girl in jeans and a white blouse. Tall, pretty, long straight reddish-brown hair, looking a bit frazzled as they collided. He remembered her, vaguely, from handing her a flyer earlier that day at school.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” she said quickly, even though it was clearly his fault.
    â€œNew here, right?”
    She smiled. “Yeah.”
    â€œWell, welcome to my party. It’s part of the official Chadwick School welcome kit.”
    â€œReally?” She looked serious.
    â€œI’m kidding. It’s totally not. Please.”
    â€œOh.” She relaxed a bit. “I’m sorry, I feel so clueless here. I just moved to the city. God, that sounds incredibly lame.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it. You want a drink ticket?”
    â€œSure, thanks.”
    Nick reached in his pocket, only to realize that he didn’t have any. “Dammit. I’m sorry. They didn’t give me any yet.Wanna follow me to the bar?”
    The girl nodded. Nick was about to ask her name and tell her his when a foursome of Chadwick girls, all seniors, came up to him, squealing his name.
    â€œNicky Bell!” one of them exclaimed, using his childhood appellation, in a flutter of perfume and manicured nails. “Your party is so cute! We had no idea—I mean, we came down here to stop by after dinner, but this is just darling, really. So raw . So real . Did you have them do up the place like this? I mean, the silver walls, the—” She lowered her voice. “— cheap-looking seating. It’s way cool. So downtown!”
    â€œNo, it’s sort of—” Nick faltered. “Yeah, sure, we made it work.” Let them think whatever they want, right? “Do you know…” He turned around to look for the girl he was supposed to go to the bar with, but she had gotten caught up with the crowd. It was the part of throwing parties that he hated: You never really got to talk to anyone, and sometimes, if you weren’t quick enough, you didn’t even catch their names. Everyone always thought of Nick as a party boy, but it wasn’t how he thought of himself. The parties were just something to do, something to pass the time. They weren’t what he wanted to do with his life. Part of it was to tick off his parents. His mother and father had made it very clear that throwing downtown parties was not an appropriate vocation for someone of his, in his mother’s words, “social class.” He was supposed to be teaching sailing or working on his tennis game or studyingan extra foreign language.
    The four girls ran off. Nick was relieved to be rid of their patronizing comments. Even he found senior girls intimidating, although he had known those girls most of his life. But now, he realized, he had started to find them downright annoying.
    Looking around, he saw that the girl with the reddish-brown hair had disappeared.

CHAPTER FOUR
    L auren had arrived fashionably late to the party. She saw a few girls she knew, but did the nod and “I’ll catch up with you later” wave and then headed for the bar. There wasn’t anything she had to do the next day, a Saturday. Her mother was headed to East Hampton for a fall luncheon hosted by a family friend, so Lauren would have the apartment to herself. Her little sister, Allison, was a freshman at a boarding school in Connecticut, and she had moved back there a week ago. Lauren felt a