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Jared stuck his hands in his pockets, still looking at the picture, like he was trying to decipher it. Then he turned and looked at me the same way. “Want to go out some time?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Would you like to…have coffee, or…bowl, or something?”
“Um,” I said. Wow. I’d never actually been asked out by any boy besides Carter. It was strangely u
“You have a boyfriend.”
“Yes,” I said, relieved that I didn’t have to say it. “Kind of.”
“Let me guess: big man on campus. Captain of the football team? Student Council president? Eagle Scout?”
I shot him an irritated look, but he just laughed.
“Well, if kind of ever turns into kind of not, let me know,” he said. He looked around. “I’d better go make sure my father isn’t telling the story about me riding my tricycle naked to the grocery store.”
“Aren’t you a little old to be doing that?” I asked.
Jared smirked. “Fu
“Dad,” someone said. “She’s right here.”
Bailey was dragging a man over to me. I recognized his face, but couldn’t place it.
“He likes your car picture,” she said. “He wants me to take pictures like that of our cars. But that’s not really my style.”
“Do you work on commission?” The man stuck his hand out, and I shook it. “Stuart Templeton. Nice to meet you.”
And I realized how it was Bailey could afford a dress with such fabulous buttons. Her dad was a gazillionaire software mogul.
Which also explained how a close-up of a brick could make it to the final five.
Don’t mess this up, I told myself. Say something. And then the words were just there.
“I’d definitely be open to an arrangement,” I said. “Depending on the size of the finished prints and how many you wanted.”
He nodded and passed me his business card with a friendly smile. “E-mail my office.”
“We should hang out,” Bailey said to me, fishing the cherry out of her mocktail and sticking it in her mouth. “I’m so bored with the losers at my school.”
But I’m just like the losers at your school, I wanted to protest.
But—people change. Maybe that wasn’t the case anymore.
Bailey and her father wandered away and I was left standing alone, wondering how all of a sudden it had come to pass that I, Alexis Warren, was one of the pretty people.
Well, I thought. Might as well go work the party.
FARRIN STOPPED MOM and me on the way out. At her side was a tall woman in a pantsuit. “Alexis, I’ve been trying to catch you between conversations for an hour! I’d like you to meet a friend of mine—Barbara Draeger.”
The name sounded familiar. “Nice to meet you,” I said.
Mom’s eyes widened, and she brushed nonexistent dust off her blazer. “Senator Draeger!”
Oh, right. That Barbara Draeger.
Mom shook the woman’s hand like it was a water pump. She feels about female senators the way some preteen girls feel about boy bands. “What an honor!”
“Alexis, I really enjoyed looking at your pictures,” the senator said. “You’re very talented.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you know that the top-ranked university photography curriculum in America is in California?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”
“The Skalaski School of Photography at Weatherly College,” Farrin said.
The senator gave Farrin a sparkling smile. “Our alma mater!”
“Alexis would be a great fit for Weatherly,” Farrin said. “She’s just the type.”
Senator Draeger was beaming at me so intensely that I couldn’t look away.
“Can you spare your daughter for one last thing?” Farrin asked. Mom’s enthusiastic nod made her look like a bobble-head doll.
When we were standing off by ourselves, Farrin smiled warmly at me. “It’s such a pleasure to have you in the competition.”
Shiny Happy Party Alexis was fading fast, but I dredged up an appropriate “Thank you.”
“When I said you were welcome to use my darkroom, I really meant it.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “I’m not sure if it’s a realistic option for me, but it’s such a generous offer.”
She frowned. “Not realistic?”
“I don’t have a car,” I said. “And I live twenty miles away.”
“Oh. Can’t you borrow your mother’s car?”
“After she’s home from work. But…that would have to be at night.”
That didn’t faze her in the least. “I can be here at night, if necessary.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s so generous, but…no, I really couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“Alexis,” she said, her hands on my shoulders. “Anything for one of Aralt’s girls.”
It took every single bit of control I had not to stumble backward.
That’s when I saw, on the fourth finger of her right hand, a thin gold ring, covered in a lacy patina of scratches.
She squeezed my hands. “Go on. Your mother’s waiting.”
I nodded and turned around, ru
Another gold ring.
The night of the interview, Farrin wasn’t looking at my bone structure. She was looking at my ring.
I hardly noticed the walk to the car. I don’t even remember opening the door or sitting down or fastening my seat belt. I only snapped out of it when Mom started rejoicing over the night’s events.
“What a night!” she said, pulling the car out onto the road.
“Um, yeah,” I said.
“A Pulitzer prize–wi
I decided not to mention Stuart Templeton. She might actually lose control of the car.
“That woman, Farrin McAllister, said you’re talented.” She sighed happily. “And Senator Draeger said Weatherly is very generous with merit-based scholarships! If she wrote you a recommendation letter—just think …”
Merit-based—or gold-ring-based?
“Weatherly is a small school, but it’s very highly regarded. It’s practically Ivy League. Honey, this could be huge for you. Are you worried that you can’t get in? Because—”
“No, I’m really not worried,” I said. My sparkling facade had melted like a chocolate off a peanut in a hot car. I didn’t want to talk about Farrin or Senator Draeger or Weatherly College. I wanted a ham sandwich, my pajamas, and my bed, in that order. “I’m exhausted. Can we talk about it later?”
She nodded, not taking her eyes off the road. I leaned my forehead against the cool glass and stared at the lights flashing by. My body was tired, but my brain was going a mile a minute.
If Farrin and Senator Draeger knew Aralt, that meant…the oath didn’t kill you. Not for a couple of decades, at least. They were both at least fifty, and neither of them seemed to be worried about dropping dead.
And not only did taking the oath not kill you, but there was a really, really good chance that it made your life totally wonderful.
I might book a photography job from one of the richest men in the world. If he liked the pictures I took of his cars, who’s to say he wouldn’t let me shoot an ad campaign for his company? In his company’s TV commercials he claimed to be big on i
And then I’d go to Weatherly College, on full scholarship, and study photography with real teachers, people who knew what they were talking about. I’d be surrounded by other people—maybe like Jared—who really understood taking pictures.
After graduation, who knew? I could travel the world. See every continent. Photograph famous people and places. Meet my photography idols. Win awards. Have shows in New York galleries.