THE WRONG IN­VI­TA­TION

The days had been grow­ing rapid­ly short­er. Now when I left the li­brary af­ter a post­din­ner study ses­sion, the torch lights along the path­ways were al­ready aglow to light my way back to Billings. With the dark came the in­ten­si­fied cold. Af­ter days of re­sist­ing and com­ing home with my teeth chat­ter­ing, I had fi­nal­ly caved and bro­ken out my crap­py gray wool coat with the em­bar­rass­ing­ly short sleeves and the uniden­ti­fi­able stain along the hem. Al­ready I'd caught a few dis­gust­ed stares from the fe­male pop­ula­tion. I was over­due for a phone call to Dad any­way. Looked as if the next one would in­clude me beg­ging him to put in an or­der with Lands End.

Yes, Lands End. While my class­mates walked around in their Pra­da and Coach and Miu Miu, Lands End was the best I could hope for.

I ig­nored a pair of girls com­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion who stared in­to my semi­fa­mous face, then start­ed twit­ter­ing and talk­ing the mo­ment I was past them. I bare­ly even no­ticed this stuff any­more. If I ev­er did hit it big, this semester was go­ing to be per­fect prep for han­dling celebri­ty.

139

I turned up the path to Billings, al­ready men­tal­ly pep-?talk­ing my­self for what­ev­er chore list my “sis­ters” had de­vised for me, when I saw a dark fig­ure lurk­ing in front of the door. For the splittest of sec­onds I thought of Thomas and my heart caught. But then I re­al­ized that a fig­ure of that size could be­long to on­ly one per­son.

“Reed,” he said, step­ping out of the shad­ows.

“Whit,” I replied, mim­ick­ing his se­ri­ous tone.

“How was the li­brary?” he asked with a small, know­ing smile.

I de­cid­ed not to ask how he knew I'd been at the li­brary. I'd save him the plea­sure of shar­ing, and me the pain of hear­ing, how he pre­dict­ed my ev­ery move.

“Fine. What's up?” I asked.

“Well, I have a ques­tion to ask you,” he said, slip­ping his hands in­to the pock­ets of his over­coat. “An in­vi­ta­tion to of­fer, ac­tu­al­ly.”

The Lega­cy. My con­science and my de­sire had been at war ev­er since din­ner the night be­fore and nei­ther one had yet waved the white flag. I was not pre­pared for this. What was I go­ing to say? What was I go­ing to do? Some­where in one of the rooms above, some­one was prac­tic­ing the vi­olin. Some­thing fast and man­ic. It didn't help with the think­ing.

“I was won­der­ing if you would do me the hon­or of be­ing my din­ner guest on Fri­day night,” he said.

Wait. His what? Where was my plus-?one in­vite? And, hold on, he'd al­ready asked Con­stance to sit with him at din­ner. What was he do­ing, throw­ing out these in­vites like they were bath wa­ter?

“Whit, we al­ready sit to­geth­er at din­ner ev­ery night,” I point­ed

140

out. A stiff breeze blew past us, fill­ing my nos­trils to burst­ing with the pun­gen­cy of his ev­er­green-?scent­ed af­ter­shave. I held my breath and tried not to cough.

Whit­tak­er chuck­led. “No, no, no. Not here. Off cam­pus,” he said. “You see, Fri­day is my eigh­teenth birth­day. I've been grant­ed per­mis­sion to dine off cam­pus, and I'd like you to be my guest.”

There were so many things wrong with this pro­pos­al that I didn't know where to be­gin.

“How did you get per­mis­sion?” I said fi­nal­ly.

“My grand­moth­er. She's on the board of di­rec­tors and she's not above oc­ca­sion­al­ly pulling the odd string,” he said with pride. “She's grant­ed you a pass as well. We don't need to bring a chap­er­one.”

The word chap­er­one made me shud­der.

“But, Whit, what about ev­ery­one else?” I said. “I mean, it's your eigh­teenth birth­day. You don't want to spend it with just me.”

His ex­pres­sion told me that this was ex­act­ly what he want­ed. This was very not good. Clear­ly Whit­tak­er was even more se­ri­ous about me than I had es­ti­mat­ed. He could be here, on cam­pus, ring­ing in his eigh­teenth year with a drunk­en par­ty in the woods with Dash and Gage and the oth­ers, but in­stead he want­ed to whisk me to some off-?cam­pus restau­rant.

“Say yes, Reed. We'll get dressed up; we'll go for a drive. I know this in­cred­ible lit­tle Ital­ian place in Boston--”

“Boston?” I croaked. I had nev­er been to Boston. I had nev­er

141

been to any city oth­er than Philadel­phia, and that was just for one day on my eighth-?grade field trip.

“Of course. You didn't ex­pect me to cel­ebrate my eigh­teenth at one of the three de­cent restau­rants here in Eas­ton,” he said with an in­cred­ulous ex­hale. He reached out and caught my hand in both of his, look­ing me deep in the eye. “Say you'll come.”

Tags: Kate Brian Private
Source: readsnovelonline.net