The limousine drew up outside the venue shortly after eight. Brooke's eyes opened like twin moons as she stepped onto the sidewalk. "The Carlton, I've wanted to come here forever!" The club's exterior glistened white like frosting, where it wasn't illumined in fluorescent green or mauve.
"Surprise!" Stacey's eyes were alive with delight at her friend's reaction.
"But will we get in? Isn't there—like—a list we need to be on?"
"Sweetie," Kimber said as she led their group of four down the wine-coloured carpet to the front entrance, "stick with me and you'll always be on the list."
Brooke exchanged a look with Stacey. "Is it me?" she'd asked her best friend not an hour earlier, "or is Kimber playing the society diva more and more these days?"
"It's so not you," Stacey reassured. "Her family has all sorts of connections, including in uptown Manhattan. Ignore her. You know what she's like."
As security nodded to Kimber and ushered them through The Carlton's porticoed entrance, it was easy to forgive the haughty blonde her posturing. Kimber glanced back as she clicked over the marble floor, a triumphant smile on her lips. "Beats the usual college dives, right?" She and Leandra high-fived smartly, the shorter girl basking in her friend's social confidence. "Hey Brooke, bet you wish you'd dressed for the occasion now."
The words stung. If Brooke had known where they were going to begin with ...
She'd dressed to do a certain kind of impressing, certainly, and was sure that she could carry off borderline-slutty in a place like this if she assumed enough self-assurance. But in truth Kimber's look showed her up. The taller girl looked every inch the killer blonde, white dress swathing her lissom frame to demure effect.
Strolling into the mirrored splendour of the main bar, Brooke shrugged off Kimber's cattiness. She let the buzz of conversation wash over her, picking up on snatches of wit as patrons relaxed over martinis and prim summer cocktails. Quite a departure from chest-thumping jocks and their beer bongs. Her eyes made a return flick to one particularly dark and well-made man ordering a drink and her gaze lingered on him a second. His solid frame was exquisitely coutured; he was the emblem of all she would expect in this class of bar.
She smiled at the thought and strolled further in. Acid jazz was filtering down from the upper-level dance floor. The bar-front recalled that Renoir print she had beside her bed. Now here was a place worthy of a landmark birthday.
"Loving it already?" Stacey squeezed Brooke's arm and grinned.
"God yes, I was born to this. Kim and I were swapped at birth." She burst into giggles with her friend. They ensconced themselves at a table and deconstructed the whole place—nouveau art-works, shimmering lights and svelte patrons—while their sorority comrades went for drinks. Kimber would make out she was used to such up-market swank and Brooke was sure she should relax into it too, like The Carlton was her natural habitat. But her gaze continued to wander covetously.
"So many delicious men here," Stacey remarked.
"Yeah, a lot of them hooked up."
"Not all. And the unhooked ones are all looking our way. Especially
your
way, but hey, I'll bathe in your reflected glory." Her slender fair-haired friend grinned.
Stacey's trademark reserve was thawing, Brooke observed, and it was understandable with all the careful grooming and tailored Italian silk on view. Her eyes instinctively searched for the dark stranger she had noted on entering and observed with an accompanying flash of irritation that Kimber was leaning into him to pass comment en route from the bar. Leandra was grinning in support at whatever her blonde friend had said.
"I'm not here for a hook-up. I'm here to celebrate with my friends," Brooke said vaguely, then realized that her gaze was belying the sentiment. Stacey appeared as amused as she was unconvinced. "No, Stacey, I'm sorry. I mean it! I'm not going to bail on you, whoever the guy is."
"So there's no suave stranger who could spirit you away from the rest of us?" the returning Kimber inquired, picking up on the conversation. She and Leandra passed drinks. "That's very sisterly of you."
"Hey, I'm a team player." Brooke sipped on her mint julep and eyed the slinky blonde as they all settled around the table's smoked-glass surface. "Unlike certain 'sisters' I could mention."
"Sweetie, I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"I mean whoever you were chatting with at the other end of the bar—if he'd offered to whisk you off in his Lamborghini you'd have turned him down because you were with the girls? I mean seriously, Kim ..."
"Well for all you know he
did
offer and perhaps I shot him right down." Kimber looked to Leandra who backed her up with a cute smile.
"You could take him or leave him, or maybe you could pass him on to me," her sidekick said.
"There are other nights for picking up rich men. Tonight, Brooke darling, it's all about you." Kimber chinked her French Cosmopolitan against Brooke's julep.
They all drank and gave themselves up to frivolity and further cocktails. Brooke laid aside the concerns of imminent post-college life and love and relaxed into the glittering moment. It had been quite a ride for them all, these past three years. Tonight was for enjoying her college companions and to hell with all else.
"So what's with those stars?" Leandra asked, looking up from her endless texting. They'd all traipsed a good way down the road to alcoholic merriment by that stage.
"Yeah and why stars?" Kimber added with a familiar taunting edge to her voice.
Brooke rubbed her bared shoulder instinctively; her flesh was still tender from the tattooist's gun. "White Rabbit parlour in the East Village," she said, forcing nonchalance.
"And it's stars because she's still her Daddy's little star," Leandra said with a giggle.
"The stars," Brooke explained, mustering dignity, "are the Libran constellation, my sign. It doesn't mean anything, I just liked it."
"It looks really cool and pretty," Stacey said, beaming reassurance.
"And a little bit slutty," Kimber put in. "I don't mean that in a bad way," she added, when Brooke's eyes widened in response. "I figured it was what you were going for, the fish-nets, and all that mascara to set off those big baby-blues. Like right now, the way you're staring at me all offended." She smirked. "Hey, go for it girl, if it makes you feel grown up."
"Thanks, I feel plenty 'grown up'." Brooke hadn't expected anything less than a bit of light sparring with Kimber on her birthday. Leandra was smirking at the exchange, Stacey's eyes flicking back and forth warily. "I wanted to do something for me, that's all," she said. "Something unexpected. You should try it."
"Well good for you." Kimber smiled. "The jocks will love it. You might be able to pick up the final few members of the athletics squad, the ones who haven't noticed you waggling your well-formed tush around on the track-side."
"I've dated one or two boyfriends from the athletics squad, true."
"And flirted with the rest."
"I'm sorry Kim, was there someone you had your eye on? You should have said. I never meant to step on your toes."
"Not at all, sweetie, I was occupied elsewhere. You play with all the college boys you like."
"Hey, Brooke's very selective who she dates," Stacey said, loyal to a fault.
"I agree," Kimber responded, clearly on a roll, "and I admire selective sluttiness, especially for a sheltered suburbanite like Brooke here. It's been good for her to experiment with her sexual allure. What's the good in being passably pretty if you don't flaunt it a little? Wear the sporty types on your arm, tease study tips out of the geeks ..."
"That was
once
." Brooke had cut in before that story could go any further. She kept her cool, but Kimber's remarks tonight were calibrated to create maximum irritation. The blonde eyed her slyly, gratified to have drawn a flash of fire. "The economics course was a bitch," Brooke said, with as throwaway a tone as she could manage, "and he volunteered to help me. He's a sweet guy. What happened ... happened."
"Of course it did, sweetie. I'm sure you had no game-plan in mind."
Brooke squirmed under Kimber's smiling scrutiny. James McFerrin had received several late-night treats after suggesting he couldn't afford any more time with his study partner and Brooke had known exactly what game she was playing. How damnable that Kimber walked in on one of those treats—James palming her breasts in wonder as she rode him on her bed. It had brought her a sense of power and pleasure to rock that lanky boy's world.
She recalled the gratitude in his face as she punched out the boundaries of his experience ... and the crestfallen look when she discontinued their sessions having aced the paper. She had tried to let him down easily, but it wasn't her finest moment and the memory rattled her conscience still. She didn't need to have such college laundry strung out by someone whose moral high-ground was based purely on a greater degree of discretion regarding her own promiscuity. Dating her more eligible professors and screwing the coach at her exclusive tennis club, while stringing along an aspiring young local politician who she'd met at some society function—such were the ways of Kimber Jensen.
"If I did have one I'm sure you'd recognise it," Brooke answered coolly. "Game-plans are your speciality after all, Kim."
"Oh I'm not criticising you for indulging in a little give and take with James," Kimber proceeded blithely. "Or having fun with the jocks. You've had your college escapades and I respect that. But if you don't mind me saying so, I think it's time you stopped playing little-girl games with little boys."
"And who's to say I don't play with the ... the 'big-boys'?"
"Oh now Brooke, how long have we been friends? Name me one actual
man
you've dated."
"I dated Kenny Radford last fall a few times. He's ..."
"He's a post-graduate research assistant earning peanuts, sweetie. I mean a proper man living in the real world and
making
something of himself."
"I've been doing something called 'studying'," Brooke said, her calm properly ruffled now. "I've hardly been surrounded by that kind of guy."
