The It Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar Page A

going?”
    “Bathroom.” Callie flung the door open, and the room grew bright with fluorescent hallway light. Jenny buried herself deeper under the covers, mortified.
She’s leaving us
alone? she wondered, horrified.
    She heard Easy sit up, crack his neck, then sniff. “So, is Jenny short for Jennifer?”
    “Well, yeah,” Jenny croaked, still huddled under the covers.
    “Didn’t mean to make you so uncomfortable, Jenny,” he continued.
    “Not a problem,” she murmured into her pillow. It smelled dusty and warm, like her Upper West Side home. She was glad she’d brought it, but it suddenly made her feel so homesick that she nearly burst into tears.
    “You can stop hiding. I’m decent.”
    Jenny peeped over the blanket with one eye. Easy had put his underwear back on, but that was all. His stomach was flat and muscular. And his boxers had a sailboat pattern she remem-bered from the J.Crew catalog. She wrenched her eyes away.
    It was stiflingly hot under the covers. She sat up a bit, hoping that Callie would come back any second and take Easy someplace else so that he wouldn’t have time to take in Jenny’s swollen eyes and bed-head. She couldn’t even imagine what she must look like right now, especially compared to Callie.
    But apparently Easy didn’t mind. He got off the floor and sat down on the edge of Jenny’s bed. If she hadn’t been completely stunned, she might have made room. But instead she stayed still. He was pressed right up against her.
    “I was wondering when I’d get to meet you properly,” he mumbled, so quietly that Jenny could barely hear.
    “What?” Jenny asked, even though she’d heard him fine.
    “Nothing.” Easy looked up. “Oh. The Seven Sisters.”
    “What?”
    “The constellation.” Easy pointed to the crusty old glow-inthe-dark stars someone had stuck to the ceiling years ago. “Although to the naked eye there are only six stars easily visible.”
    “Huh.” Jenny didn’t know how to respond—not only to what Easy had just said but to this situation,
period
. Her dream crush was sitting on her bed. Old Jenny was totally horrified. New Jenny was practically quivering. Blended together, both Jennys were immobile and tongue-tied.
    She looked at the outline of Easy’s long, athletic-looking feet. His second toes were longer than his first. What was that a sign of again? Wait.
Hello
? Was that his hand on her back?
    Okay. This was all wrong. Where was Callie, anyway? This was very wrong. Jenny knew she should swat him away. But she just …
couldn’t
.
    “Uh, do you know a lot about constellations?” she asked instead.
    Easy moved his hand slightly, his thumb rubbing the base of her spine.
Wrong, wrong, wrong
! “There’s not much else to do in Lexington at night.” He sighed. “Unless you want to climb up the water tower or throw shit onto the train tracks.”
    “I’m from New York,” Jenny whispered, biting a tendril of her hair to keep her teeth from rattling with nervousness. “Although you probably know that already.”
    “Huh?”
    “You know,” she shifted, her cheeks growing hot. It was horrifying to think that he’s already heard things—slutty things— about her.
    “Nope. I don’t. Are you famous?”
    “I …” She cleared her throat. How could Yvonne know the gossip about her and not this beautiful boy? “No. I guess not.”
    “Well, that’s too bad.” Easy smiled. “And here I thought I was in the presence of a celebrity.”
    Jenny felt his hand on the small of her back again. It felt warm through the blanket.
    “Jesus Christ!”
    Jenny and Easy turned around quickly.
Mr. Pardee
. The dorm mistress’s husband, who also happened to be Waverly’s most assholish French teacher, had pushed the door open all the way. Jenny saw a note scrawled on their white board:
Studying in Benny’s room
.
-Brett
Mr. Pardee was dressed in a hooded Waverly football sweatshirt and a pair of red plaid pajama pants. His shaggy medium brown hair stood up